Foreign Concerns Gazette/Year 535 - 536

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Category:Session Summaries
Assassinations, Plagues and Schisms: Adarnum-Leandran Tensions Boil Into Open Conflict in Shantine Empire
Casualty Report: At Time of Reporting, No Certain Figure is Available for Deaths from the Silence or the Celestial Revolution, and Contact Has Been Lost with Our Enclave Reporters. 
Economic Report:
*Cosmic Economy Grows 2.34% led by Republic of Sermaye at 3.02%, G4 Powers Ranging from 2.53% (Shantine pre-trade shock) to 2.59% (Alusia). Independent Republics and Aeldman Commonwealth Continue to See Economic Decline Driven by Mass Outmigration.
International News:
*"They're In the Institutions!" Shockwaves in Celestial Courts as Belief, Some Evidence, Mounts that Veiled Dominion Agents Survive Throughout the Region Operating Essentially Puppet Regimes.
**"We are Aware of the Issue" Aeldman Government Corroborates Claims that VM Agents Have Infiltrated Intelligence and Diplomatic Service of GCC, Utterly Paralyzing the Confederation's Ability to Maintain Foreign Policy or Domestic Security.
**"It Must Be Kolong" King of Aksai Issues Edict for His Majordomos to Collect Information on Likely VM Hideouts, Seeks International Cooperation to Deny Safe Havens to Veiled Agents.
**"Send Snakes to Hunt Rats" Rumors that Perfect Princes Committed Flamboyant Murders of Alleged VM Conspirators and Collaborators in GCC. First-Prince Ismund Makes No Comment, Claims Preoccupation with Centennial Birthday Orgy.
*"Status Quo Ante For Thee, Not For Me" Brass Cities and Great Aksai Issue Demands that GCC Vacate Middle Kingdom and Refrain from Future Intervention, and Cede Its Recent Territorial Acquisitions in Limei and Kolong, to be Administered as "Celestial Protectorates" by BCs and Aksai Respectively.
**"Silence: Snub or Assent?" No Response to Demands from Government of Councilor Liu Xin, Who Disappears During Deliberations. Councilor Ben "Elf" Avenath Assumes Leadership, Accepts Terms of Kolong-Limei Protocol.
**"A New Arrangement" Acting on War Powers for Celestial Theater, Doge LaPaix Activates Aeldman Navy to Invade Grand Celestial Confederation, Secure New Pro-Aeldman Government of Half-Aeldman Councilor Ben "Elf" and Assure Security of GCC Core Territories.
**"What Now?" With Government Institutions in Disarray, Fear of Veiled Agents At Every Level of Bureaucracy, GCC Appears Virtually Ungovernable, Reliant on Aeldrum.
**"No Consultation" Fialta Grand Duke Tulan'Kai Publicly Criticizes Aeldman Celestial Policy, Unilateralism, Echoed by Lord Regent Koraksic of Alusia. Shantine Empress Lapheraz Publicly Defends Aeldman Policy and Need to Stabilize Region.
***"Wedding Bells" Tulan'Kai Announces Betrothal of Daughter to Prince of Keshig. Aeldman Celestial Commissioner Gall Enleth Caught on Hot Mic "Great gods, I almost forgot that these savages still conduct policy by marrying their daughters off to foreign despots."
*"We Want No Involvement" Gur'Dok and Thur'Dok Kingdoms Reject Any Involvement in G4 Efforts to Close Null Tear, Issue Declarations of Condemnation Over Collateral Deaths and "Reckless Imperialism" of G4 Powers.
*"A Common Threat... But Not Much Solidarity" Amidst Silence Plague, Great Powers Seal Borders with Shantine Empire
Military and Disaster News:
*"Unspeakable Silence" Mass Hysteria in Shantine Empire Over Alleged "Silence of Kirva" Afflicting Predominantly Leandran Congregations. Shantine Authorities Identify Pathogenic Source, a Biologically Transmitted "Soul-Virus" That Severs Mortal Connections to the Divine.
**"Not Just Kirvans" Plague Victims Include Pentacle Worshippers – Dalthadis and Valdosians Experience Particularly High Morbidity and Mortality from Withdrawal and Contract Failure.
**"Weaponize It" Radical Secularists in Aeldrum Intentionally Seek Infection to Spread to Religious Communities in Serene Duchy, Spurring Aeldman Parliament to Approve Tough Quarantine Measures After Extensive Deliberation.
**"Closing the Door After the Horses Have Bolted?" Other G4 Powers Seal Off Shantine Empire, But Virus Escapes Shantine Territory Before International News Breaks. Aeldman Government Imposes Strictest Controls on Public Assembly and Movement Since End of CW1 in . Alusia Imposes No New Internal Restrictions, Confident in Efficacy of Standing 10pm Curfews and Assembly Licenses.
*"Making Martyrs" Shantine Empress Narrowly Avoids Assassination as Knights of Adarnum Allege Silence Plague to be Result of Leandran "Heresy," Declare Crusade Against Leandran Cult. Patriarch Arson Kataph, Grandmaster Emmet Kane Murdered.
**"The Saint and the Traitor" Shantine Imperial Government Claims Patriarch Arson Confronted Treacherous Emmet, Slew His Own Father Rather than Betray Lapheraz.
***"It Is Time to Inquire" Knights of Leandra Clamor for Inquisition Against Knights of Adarnum, Violence Between Factions Mounts Amidst Confused Loyalties.
**"Murder Most Foul" Knights of Adarnum Leaders Allege That Knights of Leandra Assassinated Grandmaster Kane and His Son Patriarch Arson to Preserve "Leandran Tyranny"
***"We Saw It!" KoA Witnesses Claim They Came Upon Scene of Carnage, Evidence that Patriarch Arson Heroically Defended a Wounded Kane From Three Leandran "False" Seraphim. Self-Proclaimed Acting Grandmaster Krysler, "It had to be false seraphim, because no ordinary man could slay a true one in hand to hand combat, let alone two."
*"Sealing It Up" G4 Powers Conclude that Malkas Tear Threatens Fabric of Reality, Deploy 100 Null Bombs At Strategic Points to Fold Fabric of Space and Close Tear. Synchronized Detonations Successful, Thousands Die in Resultant "Tsunami" of Etheric Firestorms but Malkas Tear Disappears.
*"Turning Pirate" Mutinies Through Celestial Confederate Navy in Protest of Kolong-Limei Protocol, Hundreds of Ships Find New Masters in Keshig, Volune. Aeldman Military Advisor Pronounces GCC Navy to be in "Full Collapse, and Beyond Peaceful Recovery."
Economic and Technology News:
*"Losing Trade Hurts, But Not Much" Trade Disruptions from Silence Plague and Border Closures Rattle Shantine Merchant Community but Amount to Less Than 2.7% of GDP, Suggesting Greater Robustness of Shantine Economy to International Commerce Shocks than Other G4 Powers.
*"Breaking New Ground" Deutschreich-Semal Etherrail Route Completed, With Sermayan Capital Committed to Complete Route to Orcish Directorate Quarter of Pin Jump Within 2 Years. Chairman of Newly Formed DSSD Etherrail Corporation Hails "A Victory for Public-Private Partnership Among Equal Nations"
*"Throwing Everything We Have At It" Financial Speculation Rampant on Soul Computer Ventures, Draining Venture Capital Supply of Aeldrum and Sermaye. Emiirates Chairman Milt Bontal: "Either the money's right and soul computers are going to be half the stock market in ten years, or this is the biggest bubble since the arms economy in the Alusia-Shantine War"
*"What's In a Doge?" Aeldman Markets Virtually Unmoved by News that Doge LaPaix Entering Treatment for Testicular Cancer. Markets Drop on News that LaPaix Not Resigning, Sink Further on News of Silence Plague, Rise Apparently on Failure of Crispin Aefendt's Speech, "the most anyone in opposition has done for the economy in a century."
*"A Bright Future with SerBov!" Sermayan Bank of Valdos Launches Ambitious Internship Program, Sponsored by President Hayward, to Encourage University Students to Learn and Apply Quantitative Modeling Techniques. Wildly Successful Initial Semester Sees Emergence of Competitive Community of "Exceed" Software Users.
Cultural News:
*"A Chip Off the Old Block" Crispin Aefendt Seeks Political Moment in Opposition to Quarantine Act in Parliament, But Fails to Excite Any Support in Disjointed, Thirty-Three Minute Speech.
*"A Princely and Godly Boy" Young Fialta Emperor Faer'Lun, Popularly Known as Leonus, Receives Extensive Spotlight as "Chosen of the Pentacle," Becomes Poster Child for Fialta Megachurches and Legacy of Late Emperor Leutarus.
*"My Masterpiece" Artist Loln Nerrick Claims 100 Square Yard Canvas Is "Never the Same Painting Twice." Unveiling Exhibit of "Forgotten Gods Have Not Forgotten Us" At Saldan's Palace of Arts Results in Seven Psychiatric Hospitalizations. Nerrick Claims, "I Do Not Know The Names of the Ones I Have Painted... But Someone Who Looks on This Painting Will, And Will Tell Us All."
*"I Just Think They're Nice" Photographer and Documentarian Ken Ashborough Completes Seventeen-Hour Film Series of Birds of the Cosmos. "There is nothing ulterior in beauty."
*"Crisis Exhaustion?" After Eventful Years of Dominions War, Demon Virus Crisis, the Malkas Tear, Public Outlook Polls Resound with One Question: "When Do We Get Back to Normal?"