1599 Tour de Valland

1598 Tour de Valland

1600 Women's World Cup

The 1600 Women's World Cup features the twenty-three top nations qualified from qualifying rounds and host nation Lanlania.

The current champion is Goldecia.

THE TEAMS

Host
Lanlania

From the Qualifying rounds
A'Sir
Arrenland
Biyra
Carpathia and Moldova
Florinthus
Goldecia
Hoinom
Jandrea
Karjelinn
Kave
Kazemura
Kortoa
Nyland
Magentina
Mordvania
Nentsia
Oslanburg
Saratov
Sequoia
Severyane
Videjszeme
Wilmington
Zargistan

The Daily Review

• Cardinal Lodovico Antonelli of the Sentric Church in Lomarre calls for continued international pressure on Eskkya over what he believes as "religious persecution" of the Sentric Church in Eskkya.
  
• Varenthia, Adwest, Lomarre, and Nerysia reportedly planning war games to be held later this year.
  
• Varenthia Aeronautics and Space Agency (VASA) announces plans for a new manned space program.
  
• OPINION-- The Eskkyan Crisis; When Liberals and Progressives Achieve Their Goals
  

1597 Tour de Valland

1600 Dosa 20

Another wonderful flight. New Magawa Airways Flight 574 flew 38,000 feet in the air, carrying with it it's 324 passengers. The captain, Satoshi Nakazaki, a veteran with more than 10,000 hours of flight experience on various aircraft, was feeling confident as the plane approached the border between Carpathia and Eskkya. The co-pilot, Katsura Hashimoto, a newcomer with only about 2,000 hours on his belt, was using this as a valuable learning experience. A new hire to the company, his skill as a pilot was not in question, but it was standard airline policy for captains to be veterans. The flight engineer, a position common on Akitian airlines but rare among foreign airlines, was Jun Hasegawa, someone who was well respected in the company and known for his skill and reliability as a flight engineer. It seemed like the perfect environment for Katsura to gain more experience flying.

Satoshi had just signed off from Carpathian air-traffic control. Luckily things seemed to be going smoothly, tensions between Eskkya and Carpathia were at an all-time high but that didn't seem to affect Akitian flights for the moment. He turned to his co-pilot.

"If I handle the flying for now, do you want to check into Eskkyan air traffic control?" he asked.

"Sure." replied Katsura, before he started using the radio.

"Bealadaii Control, this is Magawa 574. We are bound for Rambouillet, we would like clearance to enter Eskkyan airspace, over."

Dosa 13, 1600
Quvak, South Kolhar

It seemed like another normal day in the supermarket in Quvak. And for shoppers, that's no doubt what they thought it would be. Just another day living in the south, under a government they loathed but didn't know how to stop, but at least their daily lives were relatively livable. Food was a reasonable price and not scarce, water was clean, and things generally seemed okay in spite of the dictatorship that reigned over them.

But today was not in fact another day. For in fact it had been years since the companies granted a monopoly over the food market saw the sorts of profits that they used to see back when the country was unified. All of their assets in the north had been confiscated and redistributed to entrepreneurial northern Kolhari citizens. In the north, a healthy capitalistic free market had developed in the industry, with competition and a small amount of regulation from laws brought about from compromise between the Party of Honor and KPFP allowing for the development of many companies in the north. The south, however, simply had many private monopolies that were not happy at all. They lost their profits and wanted to recover it.

When rush-hour came to the supermarkets, people were shocked to see that prices of food had doubled and in some cases even tripled. The store employees were just as shocked, and the managers couldn't offer any explanations. Many assumed it was corporate greed, which was true but only partly. The other part of the story being that the fascist government recently ended subsidies to the industry, while maintaining the monopoly's. Without those subsidies, some of the company's would go under, unless they raised prices that is. Not that many people in the supermarkets realized this, they assumed it was another move by monopolies aimed at squeezing the populace for money, all in the name of profits (and patriotism of course).

They were not happy. It didn't take long for shouting matches between store managers and shoppers became a regular sight on that day. They continued well into the night, and would happen regularly.

Dosa 14, 1600

It was another day and crowds gathered at the supermarkets. More shouting matches between shoppers and managers, though it was only the second day it was already a regular sight. Some smaller managers again tried to explain that it was beyond their own control, that they had been told to do it by people in ranks higher than them. By now several groups had begun organizing themselves to collectively go to stores to try and pressure managers into lowering prices, but this got them nowhere. Finally, defeated by the end of the day, some of these groups met together and conferred.

It was around this time that news that the government ended subsidies to the food industries spread, and the people decided to make their opinion of the move known. The next day, they would gather in Quvak.

Dosa 15, 1600

It was a group of roughly 400. All of them a particular type of person. They were mothers and fathers, people who had families to take care if. Though the mothers far outnumbered the fathers, as women in Kolhar were traditionally in charge of protecting the house (a job that in Kolhar was considered equally important if not more important than the man's traditional role of leaving the house for jobs). They saw themselves as doing their motherly duty to protect their households from a threat, in this case the threat of not being able to afford food.

The government quickly took note of this and tried to contain the protests with police. Though they were successful in ending the demonstrations early, they did not realize this was simply the first domino to fall.

The Allied States and their western neighbor, Eskkya, had a long history of tensions and close calls, neither nation willing to budge in a seemingly neverending political tug-of-war. Over the years, a pattern had emerged in the relations between the national-communist power of East Brigidna and the Breizighist governments of Strathae and later, Eskkya, bordering it. Again and again, the Breizighists would issue some sort of provocation, followed by negotiations and promises to "not do it again" after the Carpathian response caught the attention of the international community. And several years later, the Breizighists would issue another provocation as they relentlessly hounded the Allied States, for reasons which seemed more and more like they were motivated primarily by a deep, racist hatred against the Carpathian nation and its people.

Once again, the pattern repeated itself. But this time, something was different. This time, Carpathian blood was spilled, innocent blood, the blood of children. This time, Eskkya had gone too far. And this would be the last time the Breizighists would repeat this cycle, the last time they moved the goal post. Clearly, negotiations weren't working. Clearly, diplomacy had failed and now, it was time for more direct, firm and final action, to put a permanent end to the Eskkyan madness which was growing ever closer to a holocaust with each passing day. During the last incident, a line had been drawn and now, despite all warnings, it had been crossed. The time for talks, for endless rounds of pointless and ineffective negotiations, had ended.

Thus, the Allied States had convened in secret with their southern neighbor, the Kingdom of Lomarre, with which the Allied States shared a long history of friendship and deep ties. Secret missives had also been sent out to other nations such as the West Brigidnan Union, the Holy Lanlanian Empire, Nerysia and even Ashford and Keszaria and a proposal had been put together as Carpathia prepared itself not for another round of negotiations with Eskkya, but for war.

As the government of the Allied States readied itself to receive the delegates from its regional neighbors, the military readied itself for the rappidly approaching date when hostilities with Eskkya would commence. Behind the now-closed land border with Eskkya, battalions of troops and columns of armored vehicles were massing even as the Allied States Air Force deployed its fighters and its formidable anti-air defense system, the well-known "Garda" to close off its airspace from potential Eskkyan interference. Military trains brought forth massive railguns, long-range siege artillery platforms, to several staging grounds and special forces began preparing for covert operations as high command drafted up the plans for the invasion.

To the east, the 2nd and 5th Fleet Sections left port to link up with the 3rd, a full three-fifths of the Allied States' powerful navy now on its way south and then west, towards the Middangard Sea. The clock was now ticking towards zero and when it stopped, the sun would set for the final time upon the Breizighist regime in Eskkya.