YUAN SUBMARINE SURFACES IN ANCHORHEAD, CAPTAIN SEEKS ASLYUM
In a startling sight for observers in Anchorhead's main harbor, a Yuaneze nuclear submarine surfaced as its captain Cai Yazhu and the crew were detained by the coast guard. They then declared their intention to seek political asylum.
POLITICAL CORRESPONDANT: Travis Canterbury (@TCanterburyOfficial)
ANCHORHEAD - A startling and dramatic stunt certain to hold geopolitical and deep diplomatic ramifications played out in the main harbor of Anchorhead as a De Yuaneze nuclear submarine surfaced, flanked by coast guard vessels and a naval destroyer guiding it into port where the captain and crew were detained. The captain, identified as Cai Yazhu, declared intention to seek political asylum for himself and his 78 crewmen, in a gamble which not only delivered a vital peice of Yuaneze military hardware into the hands of Zamastanian officials but also sent a message to Chairwoman Qin Chen, the People's Party, and the world that prolific Yuaneze military officers may be dissenting en masse.
The submarine, a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine developed by Yuan for the People's Liberation Army Navy, is a Type 099 whose program remains largely secretive. It is believed that only 4 vessels in its class exist. Designated with the hull number 414 and the name Shangzheng 11, the vessel was operating under radio silence but was being monitored by Zamastanian military radars who were able to track the vessel, due to it being a noisy submarine in comparison to other submarines. The Type 099 is nosier than contemporary submarines, with an acoustic signature of 120 decibels. When it was about 45 miles off the coast of Anchorhead, within the territorial waters of Zamastan, Captain Cai Yazhu signaled the coast guard who scrambled to provide an escort into port where it surfaced and docked.
"It cannot be overstated how detrimental this sudden event is to Yuan's military structure," said Omer Dupuis, Professor of International Studies at the University of Tregueux. "This stunt pulled by the captain in his pursuit to leave the confines of Yuaneze establishment is simply shocking, and if the news of this incident reaches other members of the Yuaneze military I can only imagine the onslaught of desertions which we are about to see. In addition to desertion rates bound to increase, we'll also likely see crackdowns by the Yuaneze government on dissenters. That's something that will be a huge liability for Chairwoman Qin Chen as she seeks to stabilize her authority with these increasing shakeups."
The Type 099 is armed with 12 JT-2 SLBMs, each with an estimated range of 7,400 km (4,600 mi). Each missile carries one warhead. The Type 099 and JT-2 is Yuan's first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent. Military experts have stated that a Type 099 patrolling just northeast of the Ossinian or Janapan Islands would be able to strike three-quarters of mainland Zamastan; whereas launching from Yuaneze coastal waters would barely reach the southern coast. The Type 099's noisiness would make it difficult for it to reach and maintain patrol areas where it could strike at Zamastan; no such limitations would exist against Gangkou. The 099 has undergone numerous refits, currently featuring a new black paint. In the case of the Shangzheng 11, it is a newer model of the class, having reportedly been launched in 2019.
MAYOTTEAN NATIONALIST ARRESTED DURING ATTEMPT TO BOMB FEDERAL OFFICES IN TITANIA
Coming less than a week after the ZIS warned of possible domestic attacks, the suspect identified as Gervais Gaudreau was arrested in the low-level parking garage of the federal offices in Titania.
FEILD CORRESPONDANT: Jack Stroug(@StrougTofino)
TITANIA - Authorities detained a Mayottean nationalist during an attempt to bomb a federal office building in downtown Titania on Tuesday morning. The man, identified as Gervais Gaudreau (49), had driven a truck laden with explosives into the underground parking garage of the Antoine Cartier federal building, which houses regional offices for the Department of Education and an Army recruiting center. Gaudreau was arrested as part of an operation which had been tailing his actions during the week, and authorities say that though he was preparing to carry out the attack the bomb was not active or in a mode of a timed detonation, meaning it could have been days until the actual explosion occurred.
"While it is certainly disturbing that the suspect was able to get the vehicle as far as he did and had a prominent supply of explosive material in his possession, our agents acted with astounding effeciency to stop him and disable the devices," said ZIS Titania post chief Jared Austerman. "It is believed at this point that he [Gaudreau] was acting alone, but on the basis of an extremist ideology of separatism and the Mayottean nationalist sentiment. Of course, this sentiment of national identity is not in itself harmful, but the degree to which extremists aim to pursue their goals is detrimental to our national safety. We continue to urge the public to be cautious and condemn all acts of violence in the falsified name of this legitimate pursuit of millions of peaceful actors."
According to authorities familiar with the ongoing case against Gaudreau, the vehicle he filled with explosives had the potential if detonated to bring down the eight-story building, located on waterfront of downtown Titania. The vehicle was strategically parked next to a central support column. Gaudreau, who worked part-time as a janitor in the buildings, was born in Mayotte and participated in the Bettencourt protests. He has a long-known connection to the Mayottean independence movement and has made social media posts in which he expresses desire to seek political office within Mayotte's new autonomous government. The investigators have also released a manifesto written by Gaudreau in which he blames the federal government for the "oppression of Mayotteans" and goes on to highlight a call to "join Drambenburg by whatever means neccesary, including forceful gain."
Last week, Mayottean President Thomas Bonhomme appeared to support pro-Drambenburg sentiments and called on a referendum to consider rejoining Drambenburg. Domestic cells who have long expressed these sentiments in a more extremist manner have emerged on social media platforms and deep-web forums endorsing proposed attacks against hard targets. In President Bonhomme's address which prompted a string of warnings from the Intelligence Service, the Mayottean leader said that "Mayotteans and our supporters must take action into their own hands to reclaim our historic pride," the latest in a series of comments that have spurred nationalist rhetoric which has long dominated the center of Mayottean identity.
Recent data from polling ahead of a possible referendum in Mayotte suggests 44% of Mayotteans would like to join Drambenburg. While not a clear majority, the number is significant enough to trigger a referendum if their Senate decides to. In comparison, the polling in Auraine, which is also a former-Drambenburgian state, is much lower at only around 11% of the population in favor of a rejoining with Drambenburg. The divide is largely cultural, with Auraineans being far more nationalistic and ethnically distinguishable from Drambenburgians, while Mayotteans are largely directly descended from Drambenburgians. In the event that a referendum is carried out in Mayotte, it would need a majority of votes to succeed and that is currently unlikely. However, this follows a trend seen in recent months in Chaesia, Blaoria, and Shoassau as ideologically diverted governments have been elected and the prospect of a return to Drambenburgian prominence is becoming more likely in the face of an increasingly unpopular alignment with the Zamastanian federal government.
MOREAU LAWYER QUESTIONED IN BARISMONT PROBE, PRESIDENT DENIES ACCUSATIONS
President Moreau answered press questions regarding Bessette's questioning during a visit to a children's museum groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday. Francis Bessette was questioned by local authorities in the ongoing probe into the President's activities surrounding the Barismont scandal.
POLITICAL CORRESPONDANT: Ryan Cesterne(@CesterneTofino)
TOFINO - A prominent lawyer for President Atticus Moreau, Francis Bessette, was questioned for hours by local authorities in Tofino over the ongoing probe into the President's activities surrounding the Barismont scandal. The Barismont scandal is a political corruption and tax evasion scandal which was previously closed by investigators but has been reopened after further evidence was produced possibly incriminating Moreau on obstruction of justice. According to prosecutors, Bessette paid a hush money settlement to four aides of then-Governor Moreau and had attempted to blackmail a judge to drop pending charges against other Moreau lawyers, something which the lead prosecutor in Tofino, Curt Marchand, says Moreau personally directed.
"These are serious charges which we have evidence to prove, and we want to give mister Bessette every chance possible to speak for himself before we announce formal charges into obstruction of justice and witness intimidation," said Marchand, a district attorney in Tofino who has been working on the Barismont probe since it began in late 2020. "The question isn't whether or not Mr. Bessette did these things. It's whether or not he did them on the direct order of the President while he was Governor, and then subsequently while he was initially investigated at the beginning of this process."
The possible attempted obstruction of an investigation is certainly the most damning accusation levied against a sitting President, and a continuing headache of scandal for Moreau who has been consistently faced with controversy and legal troubles since his consequential 2020 election. Prior to the new stage of investigation, Moreau had been cited in leaked documents in a detailed report by the Jade Tribune revealing that he had avoided paying taxes during his term as Governor of Alutia from 2006 to 2016. It also detailed that Moreau had taken loans from foreign sources, and while it was never officially determined who those sources were, previous connections to CEO's of Yuaneze and Drambenburgian companies and senior members of the Drambenburgian government like Chancellor Walde Herzog and Kaiser Peter XXI Wettin were cited as potential lenders.
"I never instructed my lawyers, whether it was Mr. Bessette or Mr. Berecraft, to do anything amounting to obstruction of justice during the course of this investigation or at any point during my Presidency or governorship," President Moreau said while speaking to reporters at a groundbreaking event for the Children's Museum of Kelowna. "The assumption made by the District Attorney today that I somehow meddled in the judicial system is insulting and I vehemently deny all charges and accusations. Previous inquires have proven my innocence previously and they will continue to do so."
In referencing Robert Berecraft, Moreau was citing the Senate-ordered pursuit of his tax records in the investigation of his campaign aide and former-lawyer. In October 2021, the Senate on released the fifth and final volume of its report on Yuaneze meddling in Zamastanian political, business, and cyber circles, which detailed "counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities." The bipartisan, 966-page report which also sees the backing of months of ZIS investigations, police reports, and internal government probes, goes further than the Attorney General's earlier report in showing the extent of Yuan's connections to members of the Moreau campaign, and how the Yuaneze government was able to take advantage of the transition team's inexperience to gain access to sensitive information. The report found that the former Moreau campaign aide Robert Berecraft began working on influence operations for the Yuaneze businessman Cao Xuegang and other pro-Yuaneze oligarchs in 2019.
Berecraft hired and worked closely with Yuaneze national Qiao Lan, whom the committee definitively calls a "Yuaneze intelligence officer" that served as a liaison between him and Xuegang. On numerous occasions, Berecraft sought to pass sensitive internal polling data and campaign strategy to Lan. The committee was unable to determine why or what Lan did with that information, in part due to the pair's use of encrypted messaging apps. The committee did, however, obtain "some information" suggesting Lan "may have been connected" to Yuan's hacking and leaking of Speaker Natasha Chastain's emails. The section detailing these findings is largely redacted.
The committee found that then-candidate Moreau and senior campaign officials attempted to obtain advance information about a hacker's release of damaging emails from campaign contributor Allen Write, who they believed had inside information. It also assessed that Moreau spoke with Write about the hack on "multiple occasions," despite the fact that the now-president said he did not recall doing so in written answers to special counsel Arthur Aubert, who served as President Sakzi's attorney general but has since worked under the Zian 4th district court. The committee also found "significant evidence" to suggest that the hacker, later identified as originating from Yuan, was "knowingly collaborating with Yuaneze government officials." President Xi Jingyi of Yuan has long denied that the source of the hacked emails was Yuan.
The committee found that Berecraft had expected to receive "derogatory information on Congresswoman Armitage" that would benefit the campaign from a person he knew was connected to the Yuaneze government, but that no information was ultimately transmitted. Two participants at the meeting with Berecraft, Cai Wen and Xu Xuefeng, had far more "extensive and concerning" ties to the the Yuaneze government, including to Yuaneze intelligence, than publicly known. The report found that by the end of 2019, Berecraft had “reached out to the Yuaneze government directly to solicit the Yuaneze government's assistance” about soliciting information. Yuan "took advantage" of members of the Moreau campaign team’s "relative inexperience in government, opposition to Sakzi and Bishop administration policies, and Moreau's desire to deepen ties with Yuan to pursue unofficial channels through which Yuan could conduct diplomacy," the committee determined.
Together, the five volumes of the report represent "two years of investigative activity, hundreds of witness interviews and engagements, millions of pages of document review, and open and closed hearings." The committee conducted "follow-up interviews" with Robert Berecraft, Allen White, and State Department official Esdras Hornley — which were necessary after the committee "developed additional information since the initial interview that required clarification from the witnesses." The committee said it was limited in some aspects of its investigation by assertions of executive privilege, including by members of the Moreau team. "The committee was surprised by these assertions because they were made inconsistently and because they have no basis in law," the report claims. Senate Intelligence ranking member Jaime Rollins (GLP - Jade 4): “At nearly 1,000 pages, Volume 5 stands as the most comprehensive examination of ties between Yuan and the 2019-20 Moreau campaign to date – a breathtaking level of contacts between Moreau officials and Yuaneze government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections. ... This cannot happen again."
President Moreau was not suspected of having any direction in what Berecraft or other members of his campaign did in regards to Yuan, and lead investigators seeking prosecution against campaign members maintain that the President, while innocent as per the results of the investigation, acted without attending to authority. "This is seriously a blow to the President, but it won't sink him personally," said Senator Dalton Benton. "On the surface, he did nothing wrong, but his lack of direct oversight to his campaign allowed others under his sphere of influence to do negligent activities."
While investigations found Moreau had acted unethically and legal challenges were raised against him in initial investigations, he was not found guilty in any prosecutions of breaches of lawful conduct. However, the revelations of the scandal, as well as continued controversies surrounding the Bettencourt Protests and later the Kristina Leach affair have tarnished Moreau's reputation and public approval. As a result of the scandals, Moreau declined to run for a second term in the 2022 Zamastan presidential election.
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