A Clockwork Rainbow
- Thread starter SouthernKing
- Start date
Traveller76
Prince
January 1951
Special Branch Sub-Inspector Minali Misra chewed on a pencil while she thought about the situation. What are the Socialists up to? Earlier this month Constables across the city reporting groups of men working out every morning for an hour performing exercises, playing games, singing patriotic songs and having discussions. All the men were members of the CSP party and the programs occurred as regular as a railway clock, a rare sight in India. News of the displays of patriotism were featured in every local and national paper and angered someone or several people in the higher classes. A week ago she had been called to the Assistant Inspectors officer and issued orders to investigate a possible threat to the state. That however was easier said than done.
Minali tried to remain as neutral as possible unlike some in the Special Branch who undertook 'special cases' for the higher ups. Her family had been policemen for almost a hundred years and while poor had always been able to hold their heads high. Undercover agents reported no threats or promises of violence, no weapon stockpiles or illegal operations, just men working out. What bothered her was the almost para-military style of training with uniforms and focusing on hand to hand combat. Such a group with good competent leadership could be a factor in the next election, or was it for something else? Why would a supposedly peaceful party be training for a battle? Is something coming and where?
Special Branch Sub-Inspector Minali Misra chewed on a pencil while she thought about the situation. What are the Socialists up to? Earlier this month Constables across the city reporting groups of men working out every morning for an hour performing exercises, playing games, singing patriotic songs and having discussions. All the men were members of the CSP party and the programs occurred as regular as a railway clock, a rare sight in India. News of the displays of patriotism were featured in every local and national paper and angered someone or several people in the higher classes. A week ago she had been called to the Assistant Inspectors officer and issued orders to investigate a possible threat to the state. That however was easier said than done.
Minali tried to remain as neutral as possible unlike some in the Special Branch who undertook 'special cases' for the higher ups. Her family had been policemen for almost a hundred years and while poor had always been able to hold their heads high. Undercover agents reported no threats or promises of violence, no weapon stockpiles or illegal operations, just men working out. What bothered her was the almost para-military style of training with uniforms and focusing on hand to hand combat. Such a group with good competent leadership could be a factor in the next election, or was it for something else? Why would a supposedly peaceful party be training for a battle? Is something coming and where?
Traveller76
Prince
Star of India
Do Bigha Zamin ahead of its time says cinema patrons
While many of us are patrons of the cinema people across the country have been surprised by the success of Do Bigha Zamin which came out last year. The film, about a family of farmers displaced by businessmen eager to build a mill and forced to move to the city to pay off a debt, has touched a nerve in many. "It reminds me of my father's journey twenty years ago." said Jayanta, who spoke with us in front of the Eros Cinema. "I was expecting a typical song and dance production but this was something completely different. I watched it twice already and took some of my neighbors to the show", said Roshan. Despite the pro-Socialist message the film has received positive views from critics and fans. According to our resident critic Vasudha Anandi "It is just a good film with a good story. Such a film can reach hundreds of thousands of people and connects with them, they see themselves or family members in the characters. Everyone can relate to them and it does not require literacy or education to take in the message. Just a few rupees to purchase a ticket."
Traveller76
Prince
January 1951
'Two weeks after New Years Kamal Singh came to visit father and to also visit me. He told me that later. During that two weeks I had become a combination of spy and reporter trying to find out all I can about him. I found out he was not married and had no kids and served in the Army. He was the second son and was not expected to run the family business until his brother died in a railway accident, then he came home. His mother immediately started trying to find a wife for him but both his father and he said he would find one himself. He was religious and educated and a cinema fan. Everyone teased me about it but I was determined to find out all I could.
So after about an hour father calls for chai and snacks and I, being the dutiful daughter, brought out the refreshments. After I set out the chai and snacks father and asked me to stay and sit next to him. 'Shri Singh asked for my permission to take you to the cinema. I told him that it was up to you to decide.' Even before he finished I said yes and that weekend we went to see Do Bigha Zamin. Well, it was me, Kamal and mother. Yes I was thirty one but still a woman and at that time it was not 'proper' for a young man and woman to 'date'. All the talk of social equality crashed into tradition when it came to me.
Kamal was fine with it, he wanted to make sure mother liked him, buying her ticket and refreshments. He talked to her and me about everything, the cinema, books, my classes at University, you named it and we talked about it. It was wonderful to not speak about politics for a while. So the next week when Kamal came to take me out he had a small gift for mother, I think it was a book of poetry or fiction. Then all of a sudden with a smile and wink in her eye she tells father she is not feeling well to go out and to let us go out alone. Yes, he was an expert in bribery.'
'Two weeks after New Years Kamal Singh came to visit father and to also visit me. He told me that later. During that two weeks I had become a combination of spy and reporter trying to find out all I can about him. I found out he was not married and had no kids and served in the Army. He was the second son and was not expected to run the family business until his brother died in a railway accident, then he came home. His mother immediately started trying to find a wife for him but both his father and he said he would find one himself. He was religious and educated and a cinema fan. Everyone teased me about it but I was determined to find out all I could.
So after about an hour father calls for chai and snacks and I, being the dutiful daughter, brought out the refreshments. After I set out the chai and snacks father and asked me to stay and sit next to him. 'Shri Singh asked for my permission to take you to the cinema. I told him that it was up to you to decide.' Even before he finished I said yes and that weekend we went to see Do Bigha Zamin. Well, it was me, Kamal and mother. Yes I was thirty one but still a woman and at that time it was not 'proper' for a young man and woman to 'date'. All the talk of social equality crashed into tradition when it came to me.
Kamal was fine with it, he wanted to make sure mother liked him, buying her ticket and refreshments. He talked to her and me about everything, the cinema, books, my classes at University, you named it and we talked about it. It was wonderful to not speak about politics for a while. So the next week when Kamal came to take me out he had a small gift for mother, I think it was a book of poetry or fiction. Then all of a sudden with a smile and wink in her eye she tells father she is not feeling well to go out and to let us go out alone. Yes, he was an expert in bribery.'
Due my lack of activity on CFC I am dropping. Sorry @SouthernKing.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
1950
On the first of May, 1950, a Canadian government-operated science vessel in the North Pacific taking seafloor measurements picked up a sudden and utterly abrupt spike in atmospheric radiation readings. After some initial alarm, the science ship’s crew determined that there was no imminent threat to their vessel, and their measurements were confirmed by several other ships over a wide swathe of the Pacific. The most obvious explanation is that that someone had conducted a nuclear test somewhere in the nearby islands. No one is quite sure whom; no country has claimed responsibility, and fingers have been pointed at seemingly every country with a Pacific seafront, from Japan to Canada to New South Wales to even Nusantara and Chile. The world has been struck with paranoia at the fact that nuclear weapons are now seemingly in completely unknown hands.
In far more benign news, 1950 also saw the landmark Perth Charter, establishing the so-called Dominion Commonwealth. Canada and New South Wales, alongside East India, all former British dominions, tied themselves together in an economic and defensive alliance that has greatly shifted the power dynamic of pan-Pacific geopolitics. In Canada and East India, the voting public seemed generally behind the new alliance. The Canadian public in particular has applauded the Perth Charter as an excellent means of Canada taking a more proactive role in the world. In New South Wales, the Perth Charter was also generally positively received, but the opposition has been lukewarm at best, claiming that the document places Sydney on equal footing with the erstwhile New South Welsh dominion in Bombay.
Oceania
New South Wales joined the Argentines in establishing a permanent presence on the coast of Antarctica in 1950. An expedition to the area of the southern polar continent named Victoria Land resulted in a permanent settlement of, currently, several dozen people. This post, named Camp Queen Mary, has become a scientific and research outpost under the New South Welsh flag. Another much-publicised New South Welsh expedition was made into the New Guinean interior, an area which had previously been largely unexplored and poorly mapped. The result has been a great increase in knowledge of the island’s geology. First contact was also made with a number of peoples; most of these have voluntarily decided to remain isolated from New South Wales, aside from a few individuals who have come to the Australian mainland for educational purposes.
In a somewhat surprising manoeuvre, the so-called Port Moresby Agreement was signed between the Torres Strait-separated nations of New South Wales and Nusantara, lowering trade barriers and expanding and streamlining the ability of movement between the two countries, allowing for a sudden and rapid increase in Nusantaran students going to Australia for university. More nationalist members of the Nusantaran government have stridently opposed Port Moresby, claiming that it is a “selling out” of everything the Nusantaran revolution stood for to a foreign and ostensibly colonial power. However, current Nusantaran leader Rio Haryanto and his own allies have fervently defended the measure; he has stated that it is merely placing Nusantara in a comfortable, secure, and internationally recognised place in the pan-Pacific international order, one which will only make the country’s people better off as the years go by
East Asia
In mid-1950, Canadian and New South Welsh ships began arriving off the lawless eastern coast of Siberia. The New South Welsh quickly established control over the Kamchatka peninsula, while simultaneously, the Canadians established responsibility over the more sparsely populated Chukchi lands further north along the coast. The Canadians have gone one step further and set up a fledgling government consisting primarily of local Chukchi leaders who have welcomed the arrival of the humanitarian aid and political backing that has come with the Canadians. The stated goal of this entire endeavour is to eventually establish a self-sustaining, independent state in the Far East.
Other locals have protested what they see as an incursion, claiming that they were doing a fine job governing on their own without interference from distant governments. But all remains peaceful for now – and the recovery states are an island of stability in an empty Far Eastern sea. Outside the Far East, this international project has attracted reactions both idealistic and critical; many of the latter have sharply criticised the efforts as a pointless money sink. Nonetheless, the Siberian project shows no signs of stopping.
Building upon the Siberian endeavour and the newfound Canadian official friendship with New South Wales, the Canadians followed the example of their Australian cousins and solidified a friendship and economic treaty with Japan, further tying the disparate shores of the Pacific together with friendly ties. In the eyes of the Japanese, the treaty was celebrated for that very reason. The Canadian viewpoint has been slightly more contentious, with many conservatives reacting in shock and horror.
In Korea, the ongoing Cultural Revolution continued in full swing with absolutely no signs of slowing down. Certainly, the new liberal atmosphere at universities and cities with major cultural centres has already begun attracting expatriates from as far as Mexico, France, and Britain. But the shouts for it to end are also growing. Combined with continuing immigration from Bengal, Nusantara, and China, Hanseong seems an increasingly multicultural city by the day. But a socially conservative Social Democrat leader made an impassioned speech mourning the Cultural Revolution’s “murder of Korea,” citing its social disruption and a growing rift in values and living standards between the new liberals in the major cities and a far more conservative countryside that still has not quite seen the fruits of Korea’s postwar economic recovery. It will be up to the coming legislative elections in 1951 to determine whether the popular mandate exists for it to continue. Simultaneously, the United Socialist government greatly expanded social and security spending. The former was received well, especially in the wake of the reports of an urban-rural rift. But the expansion of public security spending has proven somewhat more contentious, as some fear that increased internal security is a reminder of the wartime dictatorship. Nonetheless, the opposition is still too divided to pose any real resistance to the acts.
The Wu People’s Republic went to the polls in the spring of 1950. The results were a relatively foregone conclusion from the beginning, with the united leftist-republican coalition in power spending only the bare minimum of effort campaigning. Several opposition groups campaigned on anti-Japanese platforms, but they were too divided and too weak to make any real headway, and the public were far more concerned about the military situation than any real threat from the Japanese. Following an election with worryingly low turnout, the government was returned with an only slightly reduced supermajority. Some accused the government of booth capturing in some remote constituencies, reports that were still few and far between and which the government fervently denied.
In Xiang, the uneasy political situation finally gave way in May 1950. A minor scandal ensued when it was revealed at a group of students at a technical college in the capital of Changsha had formed a socialist group with the aim of discussing politics. It was by all accounts no more than a simple discussion group, but once its existence was found out, panic ensued, and the matter became vastly blown out of proportion, until fingers were pointed at seemingly half of all members in the legislature as being part of some great anti-government conspiracy. In order to maintain some semblance of order, the military under Field Marshal Yao Xinshe stepped in, appointing Yao as Acting Prime Minister and forming a military government – effectively finalising a military coup. The coup was relatively bloodless, but the aftermath has seen thousands imprisoned on trumped-up charges, as the situation in southern China seems to grow tenser by the minute.
The situation in northern China took an unprecedented detour with the announcement of a deal that had been forged between the governments of Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of China. China would provide Mongolia with developmental aid and investment, in return for Mongolia hosting a referendum in the majority-minority areas in the southeast of its territory. The referendum is scheduled by the Mongolian government to take place before mid-1951. This has created an uproar in Mongolia, with many up in arms at the government so readily giving up what has been seen as a source of national pride. But the Jetsundamba Khutuktu has attempted to calm these fears; he has claimed that this is the path to make Mongolia a truly modern and wealthy nation, and that Mongolia will now have an open path to the riches of Siberia in the north. Meanwhile, in Beijing, it has been seen as nothing short of a major diplomatic advance; and certainly it is an advance that has alarmed Jian, who seems to have begun amassing more and more soldiers near the current line of control.
This was not the only incidence of Beijing China turning its eyes to the north. Once the snows of winter cleared, Chinese planes carrying soldiers arrived in Novosibirsk, and with them came the impetus for a proper government. The so-called Siberian Republic was formed, under the aegis of a provisional government that at present is little more than an impromptu council of exiled intellectuals backed up by a popular militia. The Chinese secured part of the abandoned Trans-Siberian rail line, and have used it to begin running food supply trains as far west as Omsk, which has come under the new government’s control as well by year’s end. Not all has gone overly smoothly; the Siberian Republic’s control over its territories is tenuous at best. However, it has emerged as a beacon of relative hope in a lawless expanse.
(Siberia: -2 Irregular Divisions)
Closer to home, the Beijing government undertook a number of economic measures. The government began generously subsidising companies and enterprises with a focus on exports, in an attempt to build up domestic industry. Primarily, these have begun exporting to neighbouring states within the International People’s Co-prosperity Sphere. Remaining landlords that had held onto their properties began to be bought out in a small but so far effective effort at land reform. The first few months of these new economic programmes have mainly seen the large numbers of unemployed migrants who have congregated in major cities, pushed from their rural homes thanks to recent war and with nowhere to go, now having an opportunity at employment.
The East Turkestan government launched a major offensive aimed at establishing firm government control over the Tarim Basin, first amassing at Bayingol before launching two major prongs along the northern and southern edges of the basin. Progress was swift, if somewhat bloody, both in terms of military and civilian casualties, as the government forces ruthlessly slaughtered those in their way. In any case, the offensive seems to have badly broken the back of the armed resistance, with one group of unfought remnants now concentrated in the east and forming a quasi-buffer between East Turkestan and Jian. Furthermore, the offensive has proved somewhat alarming to neighbouring Turkestan, who are less than thrilled with the rather unfriendly East Turkestani forces firmly in control of Kashgar and now with the ability to launch raids across the border. They are also forced to deal with a number of refugees, who have crossed the western border citing bloody atrocities.
(East Turkestan: -3 Irregular Divisions)
In Lhasa, after over a decade of preparation, the 14th Dalai Lama was formally enthroned as Tibet’s sovereign. However, by choice, he eschewed an elaborate ceremony in favour of having the funds that would normally have been used for that spent on public welfare instead, something that has already been seen as having a not insignificant impact, and something that has greatly improved the image of the Tibetan authorities in the eyes of some of the country’s more remote populations. Further funding was used to establish religious infrastructure in some of those same remote regions. Also, support was provided in an attempt to help modernise certain economic enterprises. The effects of that, however, have been minimal, due to the fact that the economy is still almost wholly agrarian.
(Tibet: +Average Health and Welfare)
South and Southeast Asia
Siam in 1950 began construction of a coastal railway that is intended to connect the country’s major port cities. The government has also invited Myanmar to link with this railway, something which Myanmar has so far wholeheartedly rejected. Some Siamese hope that it will help prove the necessary jump for Siam to become a truly modern economy, and a leader in Southeast Asia in that regard.
With the growing threat of Japanese-aligned and revolutionary forces in the region, Myanmar and the East India Dominion agreed to a defensive treaty, one which also reduced trade barriers between the two countries. This has been a generally popular move in both countries, although in East India, the socialists were loathe to agree with it. Furthermore, Nagpur and Sind both reduced tariff barriers with East India, allowing more East Indian investment, and Nagpur began some tenuous attempts towards modernisation with East Indian military equipment. Closer to home, the East Indian government announced more funding for medical clinics, as well as a landmark introduction of free primary education; both of these have, naturally, proven popular with some of the same people who felt angered at the foreign moves.
(Nagpur: +Army Quality)
The East India Dominion also announced, with much fanfare, that both the Arab and Malay States Agencies would begin transitioning towards self-rule. Each agency would have a bicameral legislature in charge of internal affairs, with a popularly elected lower house and an upper house comprised of the local princes and other notables. Bombay would still retain control of foreign affairs and cross-border criminal cases. Both areas already have the requisite administrative infrastructure for such a transition. With that in mind, the date has been set for 1952, giving both agencies time to prepare and hold preliminary elections.
The country formerly known as the Mughal Empire quickly announced to the world that it would no longer accept being called that. Instead, claiming that the name, the country officially renamed itself Hindustan. Media in places like New South Wales have been quick to adapt to the change, while places further afield – such as in Europe – have been rather slower.
Shortly afterwards, elections were held in the country. The opposition Janata Dal was poised to make gains especially in rural constituencies, on popular demand for land reform and more equal economic opportunities. However, Janata Dal found itself facing against the Revolutionary Front in many of its constituencies, with both parties fighting for similar platforms and their respective supporters often clashing. With that, Bharata Dal was able to increase its representation marginally and form a new government. One of the new government’s first actions was to dramatically boost funding for internal security, especially anti-corruption organisations. Such a drastic increase seems to have already had an effect.
(Mughal Empire: +Average Law and Security)
After several years teetering on the brink of disaster, the Nepalese monarchy finally fell to revolution in 1950 when a group of soldiers, whom it seemed had not been paid, staged a coup and seized control of Kathmandu. After some street fighting managed to purge the capital of royalist elements, this army group formed an impromptu alliance with several left-wing rebel groups outside of the capital to attempt to restore control to the entirety of the country and form a new government. This has left the subsequent, so-called People’s Republic of Nepal on some footing, if one that is highly unsteady and threatened by ever-stronger bandit groups. Meanwhile, the Nepalese monarch has disappeared, the fate of him and the royal family completely unknown.
(Nepal: -2 Class II Divisions)
In a surprising and perhaps forward-thinking move, the Sindi government began work on electrifying the major rail line connecting the country’s two major cities, the capital of Hyderabad and the port city of Karachi. This line serves as the backbone of much of the country’s economy, and the Sindi government hopes that modernising it and perhaps opening up the possibility of high-speed rail might prove a major boon. It has also proved surprising for Karachi residents, as it is one of the first cases of the post-Punjabi government beginning to invest in improving anything related to a city that has been neglected and seen a drastic fall in living standards since independence.
In Punjab, violence flared up in Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley. Students at a technical college in the city who had been queuing for hours for food were enraged when the canteen shut down, having run out in an area where supplies remained scarce – a relic of the war – and where rationing was still in effect. Their anger bubbled over into general anger in an area facing economic turmoil and high unemployment, resulting in the college being taken over. In response, a nervous local police chief ordered a harsh crackdown, with police storming the college and killing several dozen students in the process. These events have left the Kashmir Valley in a feeling of trauma and utter shock, and even though the Punjabi national government had little to do with the events, confidence has been greatly eroded.
The political gridlock continued with no end in sight in Pashtunistan. Both sides in the constitutional debate remained intransigent, with the liberals demanding a parliamentary system while the socialists demanded a more presidential system, something they saw necessary to centralise and strengthen the new central government. The army was forced to deal with reactionary tribal uprisings in the east of the country, near the Punjabi border, which proved painful and costly to put down – the city of Ghazni was almost destroyed by fighting. Fears of civil war – or worse – continue to build.
(Pashtunistan: -2 Irregular Divisions)
Middle East and North Africa
A rather significant political scandal erupted in the Sudan when a major Ottoman newspaper ran an expose on how Ottoman developmental aid to the country had vanished in its entirety, apparently lost along the way to a ring of corrupt officials. The uproar in Khartoum has been large and immediate; the officials in question have either been imprisoned or fled the country for Mogadishu, and several figures in the National Republican Party, which at present controls virtually every seat in the Sudanese parliament, have publicly threatened to break away and form a new party. The incident has also increased demands in the Ottoman government to give more care to the developmental aid it gives to other states.
Tensions flared up in Egypt this year with the assassination of a major pro-Ottoman politician by a radical nationalist, setting off a long sequence of retaliations followed by anti-Ottoman riots in the country’s major cities. The situation was worst in Alexandria, where several hundred people were killed by the military in order to retain order. Elections are slated to be held in 1951, but in the current political climate the feasibility of holding them remains more than slightly unknown.
Sub-Saharan Africa
1950 in the ZAR marked a slight shift in the treatment of the country’s Black and Coloured populations. First was the establishment of vocational universities for those segments of the population, separate from the, ostensibly to help increase these population groups’ educational attainment. This has not had the largest of impacts thus far, though it will take several years for the effects to be felt. Furthermore, the ZAR announced significant alternations to its citizenship scheme.
All this was publicly decried by the government of the Cape Republic – and Prime Minister Paul Ashdown in particular – as furthering the existing regime’s system of segregation by explicitly denying Black and Coloured peoples the rights of proper education and citizenship. Observers note how the Cape’s government – which indeed took the bold step of recognising the socialist government of Portugal and therefore not recognising the Latin Africa government – has taken an increasingly hardline stance against colonialism and imperialism in Africa and for fair treatment of Black Africans.
Internally, the Cape Republic announced the establishment of the Cape Housing Authority, with the intention of rehousing the inhabitants of the Republic’s low-income, often multiracial or Black-populated, suburban areas into modern state housing. The programme is expected to take more than a few years to complete. It was drafted largely with support from the coalition partner African Congress, though some opposition members have questioned the wisdom of taking such an effort with the ZAR a growing threat.
Relatively inconsequential – and for many, insignificant – parliamentary elections were held in the neighbouring Republic of Griqualand in 1950. The incumbent People’s Alliance and its charismatic leader Adam Arnot were returned to power with a similarly large supermajority on a militarist platform, capitalising on the current consensus and fears of the “tyrannical and barbaric” ZAR, and alternative options from a divided and extremely weak opposition were few and far between.
In June 1950, a group of African writers, artists, scientists, and other intellectuals, residing in the Argentine city of Montevideo wrote up a list of ninety-five grievances against the Argentine colonial government of the Congo and symbolically attached it to the glass main door of the new UNASUR headquarters building, creating a large stir in Argentina and a public debate on the future of the Congo. Continuing lack of democracy, self-determination, and attention seems to have fuelled the calls for Congolese independence amongst the growing African educated class and even certain members of the Argentine general public. Both in Africa and abroad, these calls are growing, and while they are peaceful for now, how long that will last is another question entirely.
Similarly, in neighbouring Scandinavian East Africa, tensions continued to rise, spiking in September 1950 when a group of armed men staged an attack on the governor-general’s residence in Mogadishu. The governor-general was absent at the time, but nonetheless a half dozen soldiers and two dozen others were killed in the incident before Scandinavian soldiers were able to take back the compound. The colonial authorities blamed the attack on bandits from near the Sudanese border, but no one has taken responsibility, and the only result seems to have been increased tensions between the Scandinavians and the Africans.
On the first of May, 1950, a Canadian government-operated science vessel in the North Pacific taking seafloor measurements picked up a sudden and utterly abrupt spike in atmospheric radiation readings. After some initial alarm, the science ship’s crew determined that there was no imminent threat to their vessel, and their measurements were confirmed by several other ships over a wide swathe of the Pacific. The most obvious explanation is that that someone had conducted a nuclear test somewhere in the nearby islands. No one is quite sure whom; no country has claimed responsibility, and fingers have been pointed at seemingly every country with a Pacific seafront, from Japan to Canada to New South Wales to even Nusantara and Chile. The world has been struck with paranoia at the fact that nuclear weapons are now seemingly in completely unknown hands.
In far more benign news, 1950 also saw the landmark Perth Charter, establishing the so-called Dominion Commonwealth. Canada and New South Wales, alongside East India, all former British dominions, tied themselves together in an economic and defensive alliance that has greatly shifted the power dynamic of pan-Pacific geopolitics. In Canada and East India, the voting public seemed generally behind the new alliance. The Canadian public in particular has applauded the Perth Charter as an excellent means of Canada taking a more proactive role in the world. In New South Wales, the Perth Charter was also generally positively received, but the opposition has been lukewarm at best, claiming that the document places Sydney on equal footing with the erstwhile New South Welsh dominion in Bombay.
Oceania
New South Wales joined the Argentines in establishing a permanent presence on the coast of Antarctica in 1950. An expedition to the area of the southern polar continent named Victoria Land resulted in a permanent settlement of, currently, several dozen people. This post, named Camp Queen Mary, has become a scientific and research outpost under the New South Welsh flag. Another much-publicised New South Welsh expedition was made into the New Guinean interior, an area which had previously been largely unexplored and poorly mapped. The result has been a great increase in knowledge of the island’s geology. First contact was also made with a number of peoples; most of these have voluntarily decided to remain isolated from New South Wales, aside from a few individuals who have come to the Australian mainland for educational purposes.
In a somewhat surprising manoeuvre, the so-called Port Moresby Agreement was signed between the Torres Strait-separated nations of New South Wales and Nusantara, lowering trade barriers and expanding and streamlining the ability of movement between the two countries, allowing for a sudden and rapid increase in Nusantaran students going to Australia for university. More nationalist members of the Nusantaran government have stridently opposed Port Moresby, claiming that it is a “selling out” of everything the Nusantaran revolution stood for to a foreign and ostensibly colonial power. However, current Nusantaran leader Rio Haryanto and his own allies have fervently defended the measure; he has stated that it is merely placing Nusantara in a comfortable, secure, and internationally recognised place in the pan-Pacific international order, one which will only make the country’s people better off as the years go by
East Asia
In mid-1950, Canadian and New South Welsh ships began arriving off the lawless eastern coast of Siberia. The New South Welsh quickly established control over the Kamchatka peninsula, while simultaneously, the Canadians established responsibility over the more sparsely populated Chukchi lands further north along the coast. The Canadians have gone one step further and set up a fledgling government consisting primarily of local Chukchi leaders who have welcomed the arrival of the humanitarian aid and political backing that has come with the Canadians. The stated goal of this entire endeavour is to eventually establish a self-sustaining, independent state in the Far East.
Other locals have protested what they see as an incursion, claiming that they were doing a fine job governing on their own without interference from distant governments. But all remains peaceful for now – and the recovery states are an island of stability in an empty Far Eastern sea. Outside the Far East, this international project has attracted reactions both idealistic and critical; many of the latter have sharply criticised the efforts as a pointless money sink. Nonetheless, the Siberian project shows no signs of stopping.
Building upon the Siberian endeavour and the newfound Canadian official friendship with New South Wales, the Canadians followed the example of their Australian cousins and solidified a friendship and economic treaty with Japan, further tying the disparate shores of the Pacific together with friendly ties. In the eyes of the Japanese, the treaty was celebrated for that very reason. The Canadian viewpoint has been slightly more contentious, with many conservatives reacting in shock and horror.
In Korea, the ongoing Cultural Revolution continued in full swing with absolutely no signs of slowing down. Certainly, the new liberal atmosphere at universities and cities with major cultural centres has already begun attracting expatriates from as far as Mexico, France, and Britain. But the shouts for it to end are also growing. Combined with continuing immigration from Bengal, Nusantara, and China, Hanseong seems an increasingly multicultural city by the day. But a socially conservative Social Democrat leader made an impassioned speech mourning the Cultural Revolution’s “murder of Korea,” citing its social disruption and a growing rift in values and living standards between the new liberals in the major cities and a far more conservative countryside that still has not quite seen the fruits of Korea’s postwar economic recovery. It will be up to the coming legislative elections in 1951 to determine whether the popular mandate exists for it to continue. Simultaneously, the United Socialist government greatly expanded social and security spending. The former was received well, especially in the wake of the reports of an urban-rural rift. But the expansion of public security spending has proven somewhat more contentious, as some fear that increased internal security is a reminder of the wartime dictatorship. Nonetheless, the opposition is still too divided to pose any real resistance to the acts.
The Wu People’s Republic went to the polls in the spring of 1950. The results were a relatively foregone conclusion from the beginning, with the united leftist-republican coalition in power spending only the bare minimum of effort campaigning. Several opposition groups campaigned on anti-Japanese platforms, but they were too divided and too weak to make any real headway, and the public were far more concerned about the military situation than any real threat from the Japanese. Following an election with worryingly low turnout, the government was returned with an only slightly reduced supermajority. Some accused the government of booth capturing in some remote constituencies, reports that were still few and far between and which the government fervently denied.
In Xiang, the uneasy political situation finally gave way in May 1950. A minor scandal ensued when it was revealed at a group of students at a technical college in the capital of Changsha had formed a socialist group with the aim of discussing politics. It was by all accounts no more than a simple discussion group, but once its existence was found out, panic ensued, and the matter became vastly blown out of proportion, until fingers were pointed at seemingly half of all members in the legislature as being part of some great anti-government conspiracy. In order to maintain some semblance of order, the military under Field Marshal Yao Xinshe stepped in, appointing Yao as Acting Prime Minister and forming a military government – effectively finalising a military coup. The coup was relatively bloodless, but the aftermath has seen thousands imprisoned on trumped-up charges, as the situation in southern China seems to grow tenser by the minute.
The situation in northern China took an unprecedented detour with the announcement of a deal that had been forged between the governments of Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of China. China would provide Mongolia with developmental aid and investment, in return for Mongolia hosting a referendum in the majority-minority areas in the southeast of its territory. The referendum is scheduled by the Mongolian government to take place before mid-1951. This has created an uproar in Mongolia, with many up in arms at the government so readily giving up what has been seen as a source of national pride. But the Jetsundamba Khutuktu has attempted to calm these fears; he has claimed that this is the path to make Mongolia a truly modern and wealthy nation, and that Mongolia will now have an open path to the riches of Siberia in the north. Meanwhile, in Beijing, it has been seen as nothing short of a major diplomatic advance; and certainly it is an advance that has alarmed Jian, who seems to have begun amassing more and more soldiers near the current line of control.
This was not the only incidence of Beijing China turning its eyes to the north. Once the snows of winter cleared, Chinese planes carrying soldiers arrived in Novosibirsk, and with them came the impetus for a proper government. The so-called Siberian Republic was formed, under the aegis of a provisional government that at present is little more than an impromptu council of exiled intellectuals backed up by a popular militia. The Chinese secured part of the abandoned Trans-Siberian rail line, and have used it to begin running food supply trains as far west as Omsk, which has come under the new government’s control as well by year’s end. Not all has gone overly smoothly; the Siberian Republic’s control over its territories is tenuous at best. However, it has emerged as a beacon of relative hope in a lawless expanse.
(Siberia: -2 Irregular Divisions)
Closer to home, the Beijing government undertook a number of economic measures. The government began generously subsidising companies and enterprises with a focus on exports, in an attempt to build up domestic industry. Primarily, these have begun exporting to neighbouring states within the International People’s Co-prosperity Sphere. Remaining landlords that had held onto their properties began to be bought out in a small but so far effective effort at land reform. The first few months of these new economic programmes have mainly seen the large numbers of unemployed migrants who have congregated in major cities, pushed from their rural homes thanks to recent war and with nowhere to go, now having an opportunity at employment.
The East Turkestan government launched a major offensive aimed at establishing firm government control over the Tarim Basin, first amassing at Bayingol before launching two major prongs along the northern and southern edges of the basin. Progress was swift, if somewhat bloody, both in terms of military and civilian casualties, as the government forces ruthlessly slaughtered those in their way. In any case, the offensive seems to have badly broken the back of the armed resistance, with one group of unfought remnants now concentrated in the east and forming a quasi-buffer between East Turkestan and Jian. Furthermore, the offensive has proved somewhat alarming to neighbouring Turkestan, who are less than thrilled with the rather unfriendly East Turkestani forces firmly in control of Kashgar and now with the ability to launch raids across the border. They are also forced to deal with a number of refugees, who have crossed the western border citing bloody atrocities.
(East Turkestan: -3 Irregular Divisions)
In Lhasa, after over a decade of preparation, the 14th Dalai Lama was formally enthroned as Tibet’s sovereign. However, by choice, he eschewed an elaborate ceremony in favour of having the funds that would normally have been used for that spent on public welfare instead, something that has already been seen as having a not insignificant impact, and something that has greatly improved the image of the Tibetan authorities in the eyes of some of the country’s more remote populations. Further funding was used to establish religious infrastructure in some of those same remote regions. Also, support was provided in an attempt to help modernise certain economic enterprises. The effects of that, however, have been minimal, due to the fact that the economy is still almost wholly agrarian.
(Tibet: +Average Health and Welfare)
South and Southeast Asia
Siam in 1950 began construction of a coastal railway that is intended to connect the country’s major port cities. The government has also invited Myanmar to link with this railway, something which Myanmar has so far wholeheartedly rejected. Some Siamese hope that it will help prove the necessary jump for Siam to become a truly modern economy, and a leader in Southeast Asia in that regard.
With the growing threat of Japanese-aligned and revolutionary forces in the region, Myanmar and the East India Dominion agreed to a defensive treaty, one which also reduced trade barriers between the two countries. This has been a generally popular move in both countries, although in East India, the socialists were loathe to agree with it. Furthermore, Nagpur and Sind both reduced tariff barriers with East India, allowing more East Indian investment, and Nagpur began some tenuous attempts towards modernisation with East Indian military equipment. Closer to home, the East Indian government announced more funding for medical clinics, as well as a landmark introduction of free primary education; both of these have, naturally, proven popular with some of the same people who felt angered at the foreign moves.
(Nagpur: +Army Quality)
The East India Dominion also announced, with much fanfare, that both the Arab and Malay States Agencies would begin transitioning towards self-rule. Each agency would have a bicameral legislature in charge of internal affairs, with a popularly elected lower house and an upper house comprised of the local princes and other notables. Bombay would still retain control of foreign affairs and cross-border criminal cases. Both areas already have the requisite administrative infrastructure for such a transition. With that in mind, the date has been set for 1952, giving both agencies time to prepare and hold preliminary elections.
The country formerly known as the Mughal Empire quickly announced to the world that it would no longer accept being called that. Instead, claiming that the name, the country officially renamed itself Hindustan. Media in places like New South Wales have been quick to adapt to the change, while places further afield – such as in Europe – have been rather slower.
Shortly afterwards, elections were held in the country. The opposition Janata Dal was poised to make gains especially in rural constituencies, on popular demand for land reform and more equal economic opportunities. However, Janata Dal found itself facing against the Revolutionary Front in many of its constituencies, with both parties fighting for similar platforms and their respective supporters often clashing. With that, Bharata Dal was able to increase its representation marginally and form a new government. One of the new government’s first actions was to dramatically boost funding for internal security, especially anti-corruption organisations. Such a drastic increase seems to have already had an effect.
(Mughal Empire: +Average Law and Security)
After several years teetering on the brink of disaster, the Nepalese monarchy finally fell to revolution in 1950 when a group of soldiers, whom it seemed had not been paid, staged a coup and seized control of Kathmandu. After some street fighting managed to purge the capital of royalist elements, this army group formed an impromptu alliance with several left-wing rebel groups outside of the capital to attempt to restore control to the entirety of the country and form a new government. This has left the subsequent, so-called People’s Republic of Nepal on some footing, if one that is highly unsteady and threatened by ever-stronger bandit groups. Meanwhile, the Nepalese monarch has disappeared, the fate of him and the royal family completely unknown.
(Nepal: -2 Class II Divisions)
In a surprising and perhaps forward-thinking move, the Sindi government began work on electrifying the major rail line connecting the country’s two major cities, the capital of Hyderabad and the port city of Karachi. This line serves as the backbone of much of the country’s economy, and the Sindi government hopes that modernising it and perhaps opening up the possibility of high-speed rail might prove a major boon. It has also proved surprising for Karachi residents, as it is one of the first cases of the post-Punjabi government beginning to invest in improving anything related to a city that has been neglected and seen a drastic fall in living standards since independence.
In Punjab, violence flared up in Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley. Students at a technical college in the city who had been queuing for hours for food were enraged when the canteen shut down, having run out in an area where supplies remained scarce – a relic of the war – and where rationing was still in effect. Their anger bubbled over into general anger in an area facing economic turmoil and high unemployment, resulting in the college being taken over. In response, a nervous local police chief ordered a harsh crackdown, with police storming the college and killing several dozen students in the process. These events have left the Kashmir Valley in a feeling of trauma and utter shock, and even though the Punjabi national government had little to do with the events, confidence has been greatly eroded.
The political gridlock continued with no end in sight in Pashtunistan. Both sides in the constitutional debate remained intransigent, with the liberals demanding a parliamentary system while the socialists demanded a more presidential system, something they saw necessary to centralise and strengthen the new central government. The army was forced to deal with reactionary tribal uprisings in the east of the country, near the Punjabi border, which proved painful and costly to put down – the city of Ghazni was almost destroyed by fighting. Fears of civil war – or worse – continue to build.
(Pashtunistan: -2 Irregular Divisions)
Middle East and North Africa
A rather significant political scandal erupted in the Sudan when a major Ottoman newspaper ran an expose on how Ottoman developmental aid to the country had vanished in its entirety, apparently lost along the way to a ring of corrupt officials. The uproar in Khartoum has been large and immediate; the officials in question have either been imprisoned or fled the country for Mogadishu, and several figures in the National Republican Party, which at present controls virtually every seat in the Sudanese parliament, have publicly threatened to break away and form a new party. The incident has also increased demands in the Ottoman government to give more care to the developmental aid it gives to other states.
Tensions flared up in Egypt this year with the assassination of a major pro-Ottoman politician by a radical nationalist, setting off a long sequence of retaliations followed by anti-Ottoman riots in the country’s major cities. The situation was worst in Alexandria, where several hundred people were killed by the military in order to retain order. Elections are slated to be held in 1951, but in the current political climate the feasibility of holding them remains more than slightly unknown.
Sub-Saharan Africa
1950 in the ZAR marked a slight shift in the treatment of the country’s Black and Coloured populations. First was the establishment of vocational universities for those segments of the population, separate from the, ostensibly to help increase these population groups’ educational attainment. This has not had the largest of impacts thus far, though it will take several years for the effects to be felt. Furthermore, the ZAR announced significant alternations to its citizenship scheme.
All this was publicly decried by the government of the Cape Republic – and Prime Minister Paul Ashdown in particular – as furthering the existing regime’s system of segregation by explicitly denying Black and Coloured peoples the rights of proper education and citizenship. Observers note how the Cape’s government – which indeed took the bold step of recognising the socialist government of Portugal and therefore not recognising the Latin Africa government – has taken an increasingly hardline stance against colonialism and imperialism in Africa and for fair treatment of Black Africans.
Internally, the Cape Republic announced the establishment of the Cape Housing Authority, with the intention of rehousing the inhabitants of the Republic’s low-income, often multiracial or Black-populated, suburban areas into modern state housing. The programme is expected to take more than a few years to complete. It was drafted largely with support from the coalition partner African Congress, though some opposition members have questioned the wisdom of taking such an effort with the ZAR a growing threat.
Relatively inconsequential – and for many, insignificant – parliamentary elections were held in the neighbouring Republic of Griqualand in 1950. The incumbent People’s Alliance and its charismatic leader Adam Arnot were returned to power with a similarly large supermajority on a militarist platform, capitalising on the current consensus and fears of the “tyrannical and barbaric” ZAR, and alternative options from a divided and extremely weak opposition were few and far between.
In June 1950, a group of African writers, artists, scientists, and other intellectuals, residing in the Argentine city of Montevideo wrote up a list of ninety-five grievances against the Argentine colonial government of the Congo and symbolically attached it to the glass main door of the new UNASUR headquarters building, creating a large stir in Argentina and a public debate on the future of the Congo. Continuing lack of democracy, self-determination, and attention seems to have fuelled the calls for Congolese independence amongst the growing African educated class and even certain members of the Argentine general public. Both in Africa and abroad, these calls are growing, and while they are peaceful for now, how long that will last is another question entirely.
Similarly, in neighbouring Scandinavian East Africa, tensions continued to rise, spiking in September 1950 when a group of armed men staged an attack on the governor-general’s residence in Mogadishu. The governor-general was absent at the time, but nonetheless a half dozen soldiers and two dozen others were killed in the incident before Scandinavian soldiers were able to take back the compound. The colonial authorities blamed the attack on bandits from near the Sudanese border, but no one has taken responsibility, and the only result seems to have been increased tensions between the Scandinavians and the Africans.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
Europe
The biggest event in Europe in 1950 was the establishment of the Mediterranean Trade League, an economic and trade pact between the southern EEC members of France and Italy, along with nearby Greece (who would enter a separate trade agreement with the EEC proper, in another, only partly related agreement). This was met with some degree of alarm in the Franco-British Union, wary of the possibility of an alternative axis within the European Economic Community. Most commentators and politicians have remained surprisingly mum on the issue of the Mediterranean Trade League, as this could be a drastic shift in Europe – or it easily could be nothing of the sort.
The second biggest event of the year was the creation of the so-called Ljubljana Group. The governments of Finland, Hungary, and Illyria, all Central European countries with little interest in aligning with either the hegemonic FBU or the feared Intermarium, met in the picturesque Illyrian city of Ljubljana and established a new international organisation with the stated goal of non-alignment. As it turned out, that non-alignment barely lasted a month before the group entered a trade deal with the Intermarium which saw the latter enter as an observer member. In response, the FBU demanded – and was granted – observer status as well. This has called into question the organisation’s entire existence, but, in the words of Illyrian prime minister Josep Krleza, “Ljubljana has helped reduce the polarisation in Europe, has it not?”
Indeed, steps towards détente began to be made. The Intermarium began visibly pulling forces back from the borders with Ljubljana Group countries as well as also non-aligned and neutral Czechia. In a more surprising move, the border with Brandenburg was partly demilitarised as well. Europe seems to be able to breathe a sigh of relief for now – total war seems far less likely than even a year ago – but there is still much work to be done.
The Intermarium, for that matter, stepped up the integration of their own economic sphere, formalising it into the European Economic Agreement. This eliminated tariffs between the Intermarium and its Petrograd, Don-Kuban, and Romanian neighbours, in addition to standardising cross-border weights, measures, transportation, and creating a single currency. Due to the ongoing war, Moscow is yet to join the EEA.
The Franco-British Union began work on a major, multi-year national project to resolve the country’s current war-induced housing shortage. Cities across the Union will be redeveloped on large scales, with slum clearances and changes to street layouts in the city centres and heavy investment in construction of glistening new modern housing in the suburbs, in addition to improvements of existing utilities.
In Greece, the government – capitalising on the ongoing Olympic Games, described below – opened a grand museum atop the Acropolis, which Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis said was a reminder of “the West’s debt to Ancient Greece.” This has served to further Greece’s status as a tourist destination for Western Europe, something its pleasant climate, widely publicised history, and exploding pop culture have all aided. In a perhaps more far-reaching project, the government also began construction of a new, modern port complex at Piraeus, near Athens, which it says aims to make Athens the primary port of Southern Europe, and is expected to be finished sometime by the middle of the decade.
Karamanlis also announced a new, far more open immigration scheme, aimed at drawing in Greeks, Armenians, Copts, and other historically Christian populations from within the Ottoman Empire, to migrate to Greece and therefore encourage economic growth. This move has been relatively well-received, partly as Greece’s rapid economic growth had created a minor labour shortage that this immigration is expected to resolve, but it has nonetheless seen resistance by the opposition, nationalist Greek Rally. Over a hundred thousand immigrants have already taken advantage of the policy.
Finland went to the polls in the summer of 1950, in a contentious election deeply affected by the ongoing events involving the Ljubljana Group. The Agrarian League threw itself behind a nationalist, isolationist, platform, taking a heated stance against the People’s Democrat government on this issue. The left-wing Social Democrats found themselves divided between pro-Ljubljana and anti-Ljubljana factions and thus unable to find a unified voice in the election. In the end, the Agrarian League gained a significant number of seats, but the People’s Democrats were returned with an only slightly reduced majority and Prime Minister Tuomas Holopainen given a solid mandate, vowing to continue his work with the Ljubljana Group for peace and reconciliation in Europe. After the election, the Agrarian League would rename itself the National Party, leapfrogging the Social Democrats and becoming the country’s primary opposition.
Elections were held in Spain, the looming spectre of nearby Portugal all but dominating the campaigning. The incumbent ruling Radical Republicans campaigned on a nationalistic, anti-socialist, anti-Portugal theme, calling for unity and strength and the countering of socialism both at home and abroad. The left-wing socialist groups, spearheaded by the Republican Left, all threw their weight together into a combined Left Alliance, but the political climate made a position in defence of Portugal completely untenable, and the Left Alliance found itself branded as a lot of fifth-columnists. The Democratic Centre was similarly neutered. All this was much to the Radical Republicans’ gain; the ultimate results saw the Radical Republicans gain a significant number of seats and reduce the Left Alliance to an even further lessened if loud minority.
Portugal itself mainly focused on strengthening internally, building new schools for the people and investing funds into the economy in order to stimulate growth. To a limited degree, these have paid off. But despite the façade of peace and renewal, not all is going entirely smoothly. Fighting between government-aligned forces and remnant militias in some rural areas in the south of the country have led to high casualties on both sides. And rumours are spreading of counter-revolutionary conspiracies in the police forces, inciting demands from other ruling party members for the government to take action. Of course, fingers are pointed at Spain also.
(Portugal: -1 Irregular Division)
The Don-Kuban Union, with peace restored in its borders, began a large-scale construction of new housing, establishing the so-called Union Development Authority to facilitate the construction of numerous new towns throughout the country. These will serve the dual purposes of housing refugees from neighbouring lands in Russia and hopefully encouraging economic growth, and in some cases will also be home to new educational institutions and colleges. As the flow of migrants into Don-Kuban shows no signs of stopping, it seems a necessary effort.
Russian Civil War
In Russia, the ongoing civil war, having lulled in late 1949, flared up again with the coming of spring in early 1950. Both sides threw more resources into the fight – the Intermarium finally deciding to throw its full weight into the conflict, while the Free Russians were able to bring far more fresh soldiers to the front lines than anyone had been expecting.
One front saw the Free Russians advance into the eastern fringes of Petrograd. Petrograd, who much like Don-Kuban had been devoting most of its resources into building new housing and clearing destroyed housing, was caught surprised by the attack and initially were placed on the back foot. The Petrograd forces were unable to properly stage a response in the remote east of the country, and the Nenets and Komi peoples were ambivalent at best to the Petrograd government, leaving the area relatively easy pickings for the. Petrograd managed to halt the Free Russians before they could take Archangelsk, but they have lost a sizeable chunk of – albeit sparsely populated – territory.
Towards the west, the Free Russians attempted to counterattack. They made progress, retaking Tsaritsyn and Nizhny Novgorod within weeks, sending the Muscovite government into a panic as they had not expected the Free Russians to be able to field these numbers. However, the Free Russians soon found themselves coming hard up against large numbers of deployed Intermarium soldiers who had arrived in hopes of ending the war. The Intermarium also came with immense air force that did heavy damage to the harvest in Free Russian lands. All this was enough to erase the Free Russian advances and – for the most part – restore the border at the Volga.
In the end, the Intermarium’s quality and air superiority was able to hold an advantage over the Free Russian masses, and the Free Russians are now very much on the defensive as the onset of winter begins to make the fighting peter out. Still, the Free Russians’ guerrilla warfare combined with healthy doses of propaganda have taken a toll on the technocratic forces. Furthermore, through diplomacy and offers of security and food – at least before autumn – several areas to the east declared allegiance to the Russian Republic. And yet, all through this, the Intermarium planes dropped leaflets proclaiming that they would be completely receptive to peace talks – meaning that as 1950 turns into 1951 no one is quite sure what is about to happen.
(Still working on casualties)
South America
Formalising its network of South American allies and partners into a single group, Argentina spearheaded the creation of the Union of South American Nations, or UNASUR, an international organisation committed to protections of democracy as well as military and economic cooperation, including a joint defensive alliance. Bahia, Brazil, Chile, and Peru-Bolivia are the alliance’s other members; the government of Juliana seems to have committed to a course of non-alignment and political neutrality, instead signing a separate agreement – the Porto Alegre Agreement – which economically ties the country with UNASUR. The Argentines erected a shining new headquarters building for the organisation in Montevideo, just across the water; it has been hailed as a stunning example of modernist architecture.
In all the other countries of the organisation, UNASUR has been a popular creation, but it has crystallised anti-Argentine sentiment amongst both nationalist and left-wing elements in the continent, who have come out in opposition to what they see as another tendril of the Argentine abomination. The largest and loudest protests have been in Chile, where the opposition right-wing Popular Action party lead loud and sometimes violent rallies against UNASUR in Santiago and several other major cities, rallies which were even joined by some trade unionists and leftsist. The government has responded with significant police force, which lead to several deaths and fuelled further criticism.
The Peru-Bolivian federal parliament dissolved for elections in January 1950. Democratic League leader and incumbent Prime Minister, Victor Alvarez Rosso, campaigned on a somewhat militarist platform, stressing the need for a stronger state, stronger military, and stronger international ties as a means of protecting democracy and protecting against Mexico in South America. Their Progressive Socialist opposition found itself in a difficult position, left to defend publicly unpopular opinions. In the end, reaction to growing concern over Mexican influence in South America was enough to return the Democratic League with an even larger majority than the last elections in 1945.
1950 in Brazil marked the coronation of a new king, the teenaged Joao IV. The ceremony was broadcast to Brazil and the world not just through radio, but also – albeit to a far more limited audience – via television. Viewers in Juliana and Argentina were treated to a grandiose day’s festivities as the new king and his fiancée, a renowned actress born from Portuguese emigrants in Juliana, paraded through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian government, perhaps inspired by the curiosity of seeing, has begun funding the development of television stations in the country’s major cities, hoping that one day they will see the fruits of this dazzling new technology.
The Bahian government has begun construction on the so-called Pan-Atlantic Highway, a four-lane, limited-access, grade-separated superhighway that will run adjacent to the country’s coastline, ultimately intended to connect the cities of Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, and the capital at Salvador, running well outside the city centres - which are to be connected to the highway through arterial roads – such as to not disrupt urban life. The highway is not expected to see completion until well into the middle of the decade, but at well over a thousand kilometres long it stands as South America’s – and perhaps the world’s – most ambitious infrastructure project to date. Most Bahians see such a project as necessary, as the country’s road infrastructure lags behind much of the rest of South America, something which the government has proclaimed is hampering the Bahian economy.
A new round of violence broke out in some rural areas in Grao-Para, even as the government tried to set about on economic reforms to begin immediately redistributing land formerly owned by Argentine agribusiness. While those land reforms continue to be carried out, it seemed that rumours had spread amongst some Amazonian Indians that the government would soon infringe on their lands, and that a number of them had begun to resist government figures. This threatens to greatly undermine the pillars of Grao-Para’s revolution, but so far the military junta’s leadership, especially as word of incredible corruption in the capital continues spreading.
North America
The polarisation of North America continued in earnest in 1950, with the increasingly visible north-south divide solidifying as both Canada and Mexico spearheaded the formation of international organisations.
Mexico formed the American Organisation of Mutual Defence and Advantage, a defensive military alliance, as well as an organisation to facilitate Mexican foreign aid to the less developed countries within the organisation. Initially, Mexico was joined by its neighbours in Arkansas and Louisiana and its ally in Grao-Para; Colombia declined entrance for the time being. Several months later, Oregon joined the organisation as well.
Alarmed by the solidification of Mexican influence, Canada followed with the Winnipeg Agreement, establishing the North American Democratic, Defence, and Economic Community, or NADDEC, which was formalised shortly after the creation of the American Organisation of Mutual Defence and Advantage. New England, Indiana, and Missouri quickly joined NADDEC. By year’s end, Florida, too, threw its lot in with NADDEC, something which has been applauded by an increasingly Mexico-phobic urban population, but has also been opposed by a significant minority who had been seeking to maintain a course of isolationism.
All this leaves, of all things, the United States as the only truly non-aligned countries on the North American continent, and how long even those can last is incredibly uncertain.
One of the first projects under the auspices of the new NADDEC was an improvement and streamlining of cross-border rail links between Canada and Indiana, in the hopes of increasing economic integration in the future. This rail connection is a joint effort between the two nations, and is expected to be completed sometime by the middle of the decade.
Meanwhile, Canadians went to the polls for elections. The largest issue was not NADDEC, but rather the newly forged Canadian-Japanese friendship treaty. This was enough to make the Conservatives break their alliance with the ruling Liberals. However, using the treaty as a platform, the Liberals were able to cultivate votes amongst left-leaning urbanites and Westerners who would have voted Social Credit, gaining seats and increase their majority, enabling them to form a government. Furthermore, the Social Credit party fell into infighting and all but disappeared as a unified force in Canadian politics. Nonetheless, the era of Liberal-Conservative consensus that had been in effect since the end of the civil war over a decade ago seems to have come to a crashing halt. Incumbent prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King did not contest the elections, instead stepping down and handing the party and country to his successor James Garfield Gardener.
In Arkansas, with the absolute rule of President Elmer B. Morris now secure, he announced a grand vision: Razorback City, a new, modern capital district, with all the technological amenities of modern life and seemingly luxurious residential high-rises, to be built on empty, flat land just to the east of the existing Little Rock. Many within Morris’s own party, especially those who hail from Arkansas’s more rural areas, have resisted the concept, claiming that it is little more than egotistical showboating to front a supposedly modern technocratic state while the rest of the country continues to suffer. But Morris has claimed the ideal of Razorback City is to also create an engine to drive employment and revitalise Arkansas’ broken economy. Indeed, as ground broke in September 1950, thousands, many of whom would have otherwise attempted to leave, began to flow in from across the country, finding steady income. The pomp and circumstance surrounding Razorback City has done little to alleviate the growing rumours of death squads roaming the Arkansian countryside, and the flow of migrants from Arkansas into neighbouring countries seems to have been scarcely affected at all.
That migration issue has flared up again in neighbouring Missouri, where an incident in Omaha occurred when a member of Missouri’s legislature and his wife were shot dead in their car outside their home, in what appeared to be an attempted mugging. The perpetrator, when arrested, turned out to be an economic migrant from Kentucky. The incident has incited calls amongst the general public to do something about the supposedly porous border with the other post-American states.
Culture and Entertainment
After an almost two-decade-long interregnum, it was decided that the international Olympic Games would be restored in 1950. Several cities had bid for the Games, but in the end they were awarded to Athens, commemorating a return to the Games’ roots as a means of starting a new era. For the Greeks’ part, the Games were an international showpiece of the country’s incredible economic and social progress over the first half of the twentieth century. They showcased both traditional Greek culture as well as modern Greek pop culture, which has already begun to become tremendously popular throughout the Mediterranean, even in the Ottoman Empire. Not all went swimmingly; many Asian countries did not bother sending delegations, seeing it as simply too great an expense for an already Western-centric event. Furthermore, thanks to the ZAR’s presence, the Cape Republic quite loudly did not send a team. Still, in sum, most attendees and participants returned home quite impressed and generally considering the 1950 Games as a tremendous success.
However, one question remains: what of the next Games? Numerous cities, but nothing concrete has been made yet and the International Olympic Committee is open to all bids. The ultimate decision will be made in 1951.
New South Wales hosted the first Rugby World Cup, with several Oceanic, Asian, and European nations arriving in Sydney to contest. Ultimately, over a dozen teams from across the world – including teams as far as Florida and Italy – competed, though their respective quality varied wildly, and the tournament ended up being dominated by the traditional powerhouses, namely New South Wales and New Zealand. The New Zealanders edged out the hosts in the final, something that was seen in the New Zealander press as a mild political comeuppance. Still, the tournament was a success, building New South Wales’ image abroad and attracting far more attention in the Asia-Pacific region than the simultaneous Olympics.
The biggest event in Europe in 1950 was the establishment of the Mediterranean Trade League, an economic and trade pact between the southern EEC members of France and Italy, along with nearby Greece (who would enter a separate trade agreement with the EEC proper, in another, only partly related agreement). This was met with some degree of alarm in the Franco-British Union, wary of the possibility of an alternative axis within the European Economic Community. Most commentators and politicians have remained surprisingly mum on the issue of the Mediterranean Trade League, as this could be a drastic shift in Europe – or it easily could be nothing of the sort.
The second biggest event of the year was the creation of the so-called Ljubljana Group. The governments of Finland, Hungary, and Illyria, all Central European countries with little interest in aligning with either the hegemonic FBU or the feared Intermarium, met in the picturesque Illyrian city of Ljubljana and established a new international organisation with the stated goal of non-alignment. As it turned out, that non-alignment barely lasted a month before the group entered a trade deal with the Intermarium which saw the latter enter as an observer member. In response, the FBU demanded – and was granted – observer status as well. This has called into question the organisation’s entire existence, but, in the words of Illyrian prime minister Josep Krleza, “Ljubljana has helped reduce the polarisation in Europe, has it not?”
Indeed, steps towards détente began to be made. The Intermarium began visibly pulling forces back from the borders with Ljubljana Group countries as well as also non-aligned and neutral Czechia. In a more surprising move, the border with Brandenburg was partly demilitarised as well. Europe seems to be able to breathe a sigh of relief for now – total war seems far less likely than even a year ago – but there is still much work to be done.
The Intermarium, for that matter, stepped up the integration of their own economic sphere, formalising it into the European Economic Agreement. This eliminated tariffs between the Intermarium and its Petrograd, Don-Kuban, and Romanian neighbours, in addition to standardising cross-border weights, measures, transportation, and creating a single currency. Due to the ongoing war, Moscow is yet to join the EEA.
The Franco-British Union began work on a major, multi-year national project to resolve the country’s current war-induced housing shortage. Cities across the Union will be redeveloped on large scales, with slum clearances and changes to street layouts in the city centres and heavy investment in construction of glistening new modern housing in the suburbs, in addition to improvements of existing utilities.
In Greece, the government – capitalising on the ongoing Olympic Games, described below – opened a grand museum atop the Acropolis, which Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis said was a reminder of “the West’s debt to Ancient Greece.” This has served to further Greece’s status as a tourist destination for Western Europe, something its pleasant climate, widely publicised history, and exploding pop culture have all aided. In a perhaps more far-reaching project, the government also began construction of a new, modern port complex at Piraeus, near Athens, which it says aims to make Athens the primary port of Southern Europe, and is expected to be finished sometime by the middle of the decade.
Karamanlis also announced a new, far more open immigration scheme, aimed at drawing in Greeks, Armenians, Copts, and other historically Christian populations from within the Ottoman Empire, to migrate to Greece and therefore encourage economic growth. This move has been relatively well-received, partly as Greece’s rapid economic growth had created a minor labour shortage that this immigration is expected to resolve, but it has nonetheless seen resistance by the opposition, nationalist Greek Rally. Over a hundred thousand immigrants have already taken advantage of the policy.
Finland went to the polls in the summer of 1950, in a contentious election deeply affected by the ongoing events involving the Ljubljana Group. The Agrarian League threw itself behind a nationalist, isolationist, platform, taking a heated stance against the People’s Democrat government on this issue. The left-wing Social Democrats found themselves divided between pro-Ljubljana and anti-Ljubljana factions and thus unable to find a unified voice in the election. In the end, the Agrarian League gained a significant number of seats, but the People’s Democrats were returned with an only slightly reduced majority and Prime Minister Tuomas Holopainen given a solid mandate, vowing to continue his work with the Ljubljana Group for peace and reconciliation in Europe. After the election, the Agrarian League would rename itself the National Party, leapfrogging the Social Democrats and becoming the country’s primary opposition.
Elections were held in Spain, the looming spectre of nearby Portugal all but dominating the campaigning. The incumbent ruling Radical Republicans campaigned on a nationalistic, anti-socialist, anti-Portugal theme, calling for unity and strength and the countering of socialism both at home and abroad. The left-wing socialist groups, spearheaded by the Republican Left, all threw their weight together into a combined Left Alliance, but the political climate made a position in defence of Portugal completely untenable, and the Left Alliance found itself branded as a lot of fifth-columnists. The Democratic Centre was similarly neutered. All this was much to the Radical Republicans’ gain; the ultimate results saw the Radical Republicans gain a significant number of seats and reduce the Left Alliance to an even further lessened if loud minority.
Portugal itself mainly focused on strengthening internally, building new schools for the people and investing funds into the economy in order to stimulate growth. To a limited degree, these have paid off. But despite the façade of peace and renewal, not all is going entirely smoothly. Fighting between government-aligned forces and remnant militias in some rural areas in the south of the country have led to high casualties on both sides. And rumours are spreading of counter-revolutionary conspiracies in the police forces, inciting demands from other ruling party members for the government to take action. Of course, fingers are pointed at Spain also.
(Portugal: -1 Irregular Division)
The Don-Kuban Union, with peace restored in its borders, began a large-scale construction of new housing, establishing the so-called Union Development Authority to facilitate the construction of numerous new towns throughout the country. These will serve the dual purposes of housing refugees from neighbouring lands in Russia and hopefully encouraging economic growth, and in some cases will also be home to new educational institutions and colleges. As the flow of migrants into Don-Kuban shows no signs of stopping, it seems a necessary effort.
Russian Civil War
In Russia, the ongoing civil war, having lulled in late 1949, flared up again with the coming of spring in early 1950. Both sides threw more resources into the fight – the Intermarium finally deciding to throw its full weight into the conflict, while the Free Russians were able to bring far more fresh soldiers to the front lines than anyone had been expecting.
One front saw the Free Russians advance into the eastern fringes of Petrograd. Petrograd, who much like Don-Kuban had been devoting most of its resources into building new housing and clearing destroyed housing, was caught surprised by the attack and initially were placed on the back foot. The Petrograd forces were unable to properly stage a response in the remote east of the country, and the Nenets and Komi peoples were ambivalent at best to the Petrograd government, leaving the area relatively easy pickings for the. Petrograd managed to halt the Free Russians before they could take Archangelsk, but they have lost a sizeable chunk of – albeit sparsely populated – territory.
Towards the west, the Free Russians attempted to counterattack. They made progress, retaking Tsaritsyn and Nizhny Novgorod within weeks, sending the Muscovite government into a panic as they had not expected the Free Russians to be able to field these numbers. However, the Free Russians soon found themselves coming hard up against large numbers of deployed Intermarium soldiers who had arrived in hopes of ending the war. The Intermarium also came with immense air force that did heavy damage to the harvest in Free Russian lands. All this was enough to erase the Free Russian advances and – for the most part – restore the border at the Volga.
In the end, the Intermarium’s quality and air superiority was able to hold an advantage over the Free Russian masses, and the Free Russians are now very much on the defensive as the onset of winter begins to make the fighting peter out. Still, the Free Russians’ guerrilla warfare combined with healthy doses of propaganda have taken a toll on the technocratic forces. Furthermore, through diplomacy and offers of security and food – at least before autumn – several areas to the east declared allegiance to the Russian Republic. And yet, all through this, the Intermarium planes dropped leaflets proclaiming that they would be completely receptive to peace talks – meaning that as 1950 turns into 1951 no one is quite sure what is about to happen.
(Still working on casualties)
South America
Formalising its network of South American allies and partners into a single group, Argentina spearheaded the creation of the Union of South American Nations, or UNASUR, an international organisation committed to protections of democracy as well as military and economic cooperation, including a joint defensive alliance. Bahia, Brazil, Chile, and Peru-Bolivia are the alliance’s other members; the government of Juliana seems to have committed to a course of non-alignment and political neutrality, instead signing a separate agreement – the Porto Alegre Agreement – which economically ties the country with UNASUR. The Argentines erected a shining new headquarters building for the organisation in Montevideo, just across the water; it has been hailed as a stunning example of modernist architecture.
In all the other countries of the organisation, UNASUR has been a popular creation, but it has crystallised anti-Argentine sentiment amongst both nationalist and left-wing elements in the continent, who have come out in opposition to what they see as another tendril of the Argentine abomination. The largest and loudest protests have been in Chile, where the opposition right-wing Popular Action party lead loud and sometimes violent rallies against UNASUR in Santiago and several other major cities, rallies which were even joined by some trade unionists and leftsist. The government has responded with significant police force, which lead to several deaths and fuelled further criticism.
The Peru-Bolivian federal parliament dissolved for elections in January 1950. Democratic League leader and incumbent Prime Minister, Victor Alvarez Rosso, campaigned on a somewhat militarist platform, stressing the need for a stronger state, stronger military, and stronger international ties as a means of protecting democracy and protecting against Mexico in South America. Their Progressive Socialist opposition found itself in a difficult position, left to defend publicly unpopular opinions. In the end, reaction to growing concern over Mexican influence in South America was enough to return the Democratic League with an even larger majority than the last elections in 1945.
1950 in Brazil marked the coronation of a new king, the teenaged Joao IV. The ceremony was broadcast to Brazil and the world not just through radio, but also – albeit to a far more limited audience – via television. Viewers in Juliana and Argentina were treated to a grandiose day’s festivities as the new king and his fiancée, a renowned actress born from Portuguese emigrants in Juliana, paraded through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian government, perhaps inspired by the curiosity of seeing, has begun funding the development of television stations in the country’s major cities, hoping that one day they will see the fruits of this dazzling new technology.
The Bahian government has begun construction on the so-called Pan-Atlantic Highway, a four-lane, limited-access, grade-separated superhighway that will run adjacent to the country’s coastline, ultimately intended to connect the cities of Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, and the capital at Salvador, running well outside the city centres - which are to be connected to the highway through arterial roads – such as to not disrupt urban life. The highway is not expected to see completion until well into the middle of the decade, but at well over a thousand kilometres long it stands as South America’s – and perhaps the world’s – most ambitious infrastructure project to date. Most Bahians see such a project as necessary, as the country’s road infrastructure lags behind much of the rest of South America, something which the government has proclaimed is hampering the Bahian economy.
A new round of violence broke out in some rural areas in Grao-Para, even as the government tried to set about on economic reforms to begin immediately redistributing land formerly owned by Argentine agribusiness. While those land reforms continue to be carried out, it seemed that rumours had spread amongst some Amazonian Indians that the government would soon infringe on their lands, and that a number of them had begun to resist government figures. This threatens to greatly undermine the pillars of Grao-Para’s revolution, but so far the military junta’s leadership, especially as word of incredible corruption in the capital continues spreading.
North America
The polarisation of North America continued in earnest in 1950, with the increasingly visible north-south divide solidifying as both Canada and Mexico spearheaded the formation of international organisations.
Mexico formed the American Organisation of Mutual Defence and Advantage, a defensive military alliance, as well as an organisation to facilitate Mexican foreign aid to the less developed countries within the organisation. Initially, Mexico was joined by its neighbours in Arkansas and Louisiana and its ally in Grao-Para; Colombia declined entrance for the time being. Several months later, Oregon joined the organisation as well.
Alarmed by the solidification of Mexican influence, Canada followed with the Winnipeg Agreement, establishing the North American Democratic, Defence, and Economic Community, or NADDEC, which was formalised shortly after the creation of the American Organisation of Mutual Defence and Advantage. New England, Indiana, and Missouri quickly joined NADDEC. By year’s end, Florida, too, threw its lot in with NADDEC, something which has been applauded by an increasingly Mexico-phobic urban population, but has also been opposed by a significant minority who had been seeking to maintain a course of isolationism.
All this leaves, of all things, the United States as the only truly non-aligned countries on the North American continent, and how long even those can last is incredibly uncertain.
One of the first projects under the auspices of the new NADDEC was an improvement and streamlining of cross-border rail links between Canada and Indiana, in the hopes of increasing economic integration in the future. This rail connection is a joint effort between the two nations, and is expected to be completed sometime by the middle of the decade.
Meanwhile, Canadians went to the polls for elections. The largest issue was not NADDEC, but rather the newly forged Canadian-Japanese friendship treaty. This was enough to make the Conservatives break their alliance with the ruling Liberals. However, using the treaty as a platform, the Liberals were able to cultivate votes amongst left-leaning urbanites and Westerners who would have voted Social Credit, gaining seats and increase their majority, enabling them to form a government. Furthermore, the Social Credit party fell into infighting and all but disappeared as a unified force in Canadian politics. Nonetheless, the era of Liberal-Conservative consensus that had been in effect since the end of the civil war over a decade ago seems to have come to a crashing halt. Incumbent prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King did not contest the elections, instead stepping down and handing the party and country to his successor James Garfield Gardener.
In Arkansas, with the absolute rule of President Elmer B. Morris now secure, he announced a grand vision: Razorback City, a new, modern capital district, with all the technological amenities of modern life and seemingly luxurious residential high-rises, to be built on empty, flat land just to the east of the existing Little Rock. Many within Morris’s own party, especially those who hail from Arkansas’s more rural areas, have resisted the concept, claiming that it is little more than egotistical showboating to front a supposedly modern technocratic state while the rest of the country continues to suffer. But Morris has claimed the ideal of Razorback City is to also create an engine to drive employment and revitalise Arkansas’ broken economy. Indeed, as ground broke in September 1950, thousands, many of whom would have otherwise attempted to leave, began to flow in from across the country, finding steady income. The pomp and circumstance surrounding Razorback City has done little to alleviate the growing rumours of death squads roaming the Arkansian countryside, and the flow of migrants from Arkansas into neighbouring countries seems to have been scarcely affected at all.
That migration issue has flared up again in neighbouring Missouri, where an incident in Omaha occurred when a member of Missouri’s legislature and his wife were shot dead in their car outside their home, in what appeared to be an attempted mugging. The perpetrator, when arrested, turned out to be an economic migrant from Kentucky. The incident has incited calls amongst the general public to do something about the supposedly porous border with the other post-American states.
Culture and Entertainment
After an almost two-decade-long interregnum, it was decided that the international Olympic Games would be restored in 1950. Several cities had bid for the Games, but in the end they were awarded to Athens, commemorating a return to the Games’ roots as a means of starting a new era. For the Greeks’ part, the Games were an international showpiece of the country’s incredible economic and social progress over the first half of the twentieth century. They showcased both traditional Greek culture as well as modern Greek pop culture, which has already begun to become tremendously popular throughout the Mediterranean, even in the Ottoman Empire. Not all went swimmingly; many Asian countries did not bother sending delegations, seeing it as simply too great an expense for an already Western-centric event. Furthermore, thanks to the ZAR’s presence, the Cape Republic quite loudly did not send a team. Still, in sum, most attendees and participants returned home quite impressed and generally considering the 1950 Games as a tremendous success.
However, one question remains: what of the next Games? Numerous cities, but nothing concrete has been made yet and the International Olympic Committee is open to all bids. The ultimate decision will be made in 1951.
New South Wales hosted the first Rugby World Cup, with several Oceanic, Asian, and European nations arriving in Sydney to contest. Ultimately, over a dozen teams from across the world – including teams as far as Florida and Italy – competed, though their respective quality varied wildly, and the tournament ended up being dominated by the traditional powerhouses, namely New South Wales and New Zealand. The New Zealanders edged out the hosts in the final, something that was seen in the New Zealander press as a mild political comeuppance. Still, the tournament was a success, building New South Wales’ image abroad and attracting far more attention in the Asia-Pacific region than the simultaneous Olympics.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
Map for 1951
(Thanks Bair_the_Normal for fixing)
Despite the moves towards détente and demilitarisation in Central Europe, with rumour still swirling about the mysterious Pacific detonation and the tense situations in Iberia, Russia, and East Asia only intensifying, the Doomsday Clock for 1951 has been advanced one minute, to 23:54.
OOC
At one point mid-update, my computer crashed and undid some of the progress on the word doc that had the stats in them. For that reason I’m not posting stats yet until I can make sure everything is back to normal.
Sniiperman456, CoffeeBeetle: Unfortunately due to the advanced stage of where I was in the update I wasn’t able to process your orders properly. I’m really sorry about this, but you’re confirmed as your respective countries in any case.
I’m still working on stats – and also casualties for the Russian war – and those, hopefully, should be up tomorrow. Also people who asked me questions in orders, I will answer those tomorrow as well. I just wanted to get the update up asap because it has been long enough.
(Thanks Bair_the_Normal for fixing)
Despite the moves towards détente and demilitarisation in Central Europe, with rumour still swirling about the mysterious Pacific detonation and the tense situations in Iberia, Russia, and East Asia only intensifying, the Doomsday Clock for 1951 has been advanced one minute, to 23:54.
OOC
At one point mid-update, my computer crashed and undid some of the progress on the word doc that had the stats in them. For that reason I’m not posting stats yet until I can make sure everything is back to normal.
Sniiperman456, CoffeeBeetle: Unfortunately due to the advanced stage of where I was in the update I wasn’t able to process your orders properly. I’m really sorry about this, but you’re confirmed as your respective countries in any case.
I’m still working on stats – and also casualties for the Russian war – and those, hopefully, should be up tomorrow. Also people who asked me questions in orders, I will answer those tomorrow as well. I just wanted to get the update up asap because it has been long enough.
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
Very glad to see this.
CoffeeBeetle
Chieftain
Hello, and greetings from Westphalia.
It is our desire to establish close ties with all our neighbors in the near future.
To further this goal, we would like to establish Observational status within the various trade blocks surrounding us.
We look forward to working with our neighbors.
Joachim Born
It is our desire to establish close ties with all our neighbors in the near future.
To further this goal, we would like to establish Observational status within the various trade blocks surrounding us.
We look forward to working with our neighbors.
Joachim Born
Grandkhan
Telvanni Master Wizard
Excellent update SK!
IC
Mexico wishes to announce the holding of the first four yearly Football World Cup in Mexico this year, following the example set by New South Wales in using sport to bring the international community together. We are concurrently financing the organisation of the Federación Internacional de Fútbol Asociación, and international and independent body, in order to continue the hosting of the Football World Cup into the future and to promote the sport of Football and its power to bring the world together.
IC
Mexico wishes to announce the holding of the first four yearly Football World Cup in Mexico this year, following the example set by New South Wales in using sport to bring the international community together. We are concurrently financing the organisation of the Federación Internacional de Fútbol Asociación, and international and independent body, in order to continue the hosting of the Football World Cup into the future and to promote the sport of Football and its power to bring the world together.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Argentina would like to join this Football World Cup, and we would also invite the members of UNASUR to participate. However, we would request to have a representative in this newly-christened organisation from every federation, in order to ensure fairness.
We would also like to lead an investigation to inquire into the mysterious nuclear detonation, with the explicit goal of figuring out who has nuclear weapons in their hands. Any nation desiring to join our committee can feel free to do so.
We would also like to lead an investigation to inquire into the mysterious nuclear detonation, with the explicit goal of figuring out who has nuclear weapons in their hands. Any nation desiring to join our committee can feel free to do so.
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
Dear Mr. Born,
The Miedzymorze is pleased to accept Westphalia, as a member state of a neighboring organization, as observers to the Eurasian Economic Agreement.
We applaud your efforts, like those of the Ljubijana group, to reduce tensions and polarization in Europe by coordinating with a wider diversity of neighboring nations in promoting economic prosperity, regional stability, and European cooperation.
Signed,
P. Gavinksi
Miedzymorze Prime Composite
Seon
Not An Evil Liar
OOC: You are already part of a trade block known as the EEC. I will send you the obligations soon.
Sniiperman456
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2016
- Messages
- 253
Switzerland would like to join the football World Cup.
tobiisagoodboy
Prince
Siam would also like to join the Football World Cup, eventhough our team is not that good.
From New South Wales
To the world
From now on, New South Wales, New Zealand, and Madagascar will be joining various international federations of team game sports (such as football) as separate national teams, mirroring what's already in place for rugby.
For Olympic games and various sport events that feature individual or non-game disciplines (such as athletics, chess, racing, boxing, etc.), the Empire of New South Wales will be represented by a united team that includes New Zealander and Madagascan athletes in it.
OOC: @SouthernKing - I don't want to micromanage various sports applications for every single international sports federation somebody comes up with, so please consider me in for every major sport event, unless I explicitly deny it.
From New South Wales
To the world
In the spirit of recognition of the wrongs of its colonial past and with a "live and let live" attitude, the New South Welsh government is proud to announce that the Kingdom of Fiji under benevolent protectorate of the Empire of New South Wales is being granted an offshore tax heaven status, with corporate, income, and sales taxes being reduced to a nominal 0.01% value. The Kingdom administration will also be advised to lift or significantly reduce various limitations it has established for gambling, alcohol consumption, and various other activities. In order to boost tourist, expatriate, and corporate attraction to the distant island of Fiji, the Royal Commission of Pacific Development will be established, with the goal of developing both the infrastructure of the island and its communications with the rest of the world. Our hopes are that foreign and private capital will greatly ease the development of this beautiful Pacific island into a resort, international corporate/syndicate hub, and a heaven for free thinkers, artists, expatriates, and entertainment-seekers. "What happens in Fiji, stays in Fiji."
OOC: I want to make Fiji a TTL Las Vegas, only in the middle of the Pacific Ocean instead of being in the middle of the Mojave Desert, plus with some other business-friendly and counter-culture-friendly attitude. I also want to make it an open project: basically, any player (PC and NPC) is welcome to invest into it as much as you want, with the assumption that such an offshore corporate hub could generate some positive economic and cultural feedback for any countries that invested into it. Feel free to either PM me about your investments (CC Southern King, so that he's aware) or declare them openly in the thread.
To the world
From now on, New South Wales, New Zealand, and Madagascar will be joining various international federations of team game sports (such as football) as separate national teams, mirroring what's already in place for rugby.
For Olympic games and various sport events that feature individual or non-game disciplines (such as athletics, chess, racing, boxing, etc.), the Empire of New South Wales will be represented by a united team that includes New Zealander and Madagascan athletes in it.
OOC: @SouthernKing - I don't want to micromanage various sports applications for every single international sports federation somebody comes up with, so please consider me in for every major sport event, unless I explicitly deny it.
From New South Wales
To the world
In the spirit of recognition of the wrongs of its colonial past and with a "live and let live" attitude, the New South Welsh government is proud to announce that the Kingdom of Fiji under benevolent protectorate of the Empire of New South Wales is being granted an offshore tax heaven status, with corporate, income, and sales taxes being reduced to a nominal 0.01% value. The Kingdom administration will also be advised to lift or significantly reduce various limitations it has established for gambling, alcohol consumption, and various other activities. In order to boost tourist, expatriate, and corporate attraction to the distant island of Fiji, the Royal Commission of Pacific Development will be established, with the goal of developing both the infrastructure of the island and its communications with the rest of the world. Our hopes are that foreign and private capital will greatly ease the development of this beautiful Pacific island into a resort, international corporate/syndicate hub, and a heaven for free thinkers, artists, expatriates, and entertainment-seekers. "What happens in Fiji, stays in Fiji."
OOC: I want to make Fiji a TTL Las Vegas, only in the middle of the Pacific Ocean instead of being in the middle of the Mojave Desert, plus with some other business-friendly and counter-culture-friendly attitude. I also want to make it an open project: basically, any player (PC and NPC) is welcome to invest into it as much as you want, with the assumption that such an offshore corporate hub could generate some positive economic and cultural feedback for any countries that invested into it. Feel free to either PM me about your investments (CC Southern King, so that he's aware) or declare them openly in the thread.
Last edited:
Japan urges New South Wales to invest in protecting Fiji's cultural history. As a small nation, the impetus of this enterprise may forever change the Fijian way of life, and its people should have some form of institution to preserve all their collected knowledge and accomplishments.
From New South Wales
To Japan
Fiji monarchy enjoys a reasonable level of freedom in domestic decisions, so, if anything, this enterprise will provide the funds for the monarchy and indigenous peoples to not only preserve, but even popularize their culture. It is our firm decision to allow locals rip the benefits of foreign investment into their native land. After all, we'd rather expose the Fiji culture to the world in order to bring much deserved prosperity to ordinary Fijians, instead of keeping them in perpetual isolation and Medieval poverty for the sake of relishing the unique culture it brings.
OOC: In case I didn't make it clear, it's not a resource exploitation economy that I'm building there, so I doubt there will be anything similar to the American Trail of Tears. If anything, I'd love to use their local culture as one of the ways to attract tourists and expats.
To Japan
Fiji monarchy enjoys a reasonable level of freedom in domestic decisions, so, if anything, this enterprise will provide the funds for the monarchy and indigenous peoples to not only preserve, but even popularize their culture. It is our firm decision to allow locals rip the benefits of foreign investment into their native land. After all, we'd rather expose the Fiji culture to the world in order to bring much deserved prosperity to ordinary Fijians, instead of keeping them in perpetual isolation and Medieval poverty for the sake of relishing the unique culture it brings.
OOC: In case I didn't make it clear, it's not a resource exploitation economy that I'm building there, so I doubt there will be anything similar to the American Trail of Tears. If anything, I'd love to use their local culture as one of the ways to attract tourists and expats.
