"This is Pine Station, bringing you all news Barkadian since 2005. Breaking new strikes yet again as those across the border in Kolonia bring a double bombshell to global attention. Their parliament seemingly has confirmed a catastrophic uranium spill near the Slavian border, where said radioactive substances have spilled across a large area causing contamination. They also confirmed local reports of widespread contamination of the water supply for the large mining city of Bana, meaning that up to millions of people have ingested a large enough amount to increase the amount of cancers, or even worse. If what was said is true, it would be one of the largest disasters ever in Barkadian history, and it has the ability to cause mass death and damage still, right now."
He sighs, flips some pages in his packet, and continues reading again.
"The other thing they have also revealed is the shootdown of a jumbo jet as it crossed over to Barkadian airspace. Serrian news pages released an unconfirmed story of it being missing last night, although the cause was unknown. It now appears that the Kolonians have confirmed the cause. A missile, most likely launched from one of the many S-400 installations near the border, exploded next to the airliner, causing it to rapidly disassemble and crash near a small hamlet on the border, killing everyone on board and destroying an unoccupied house. The radar footage and video camera recordings of the incident are proven real, which confirms that this did occur. There has been no word from the government or the military about th-"
He pushes a finger against his earpiece.
"Wait, hold on. I have just been made aware of something. The True Pine is having an emergency conference within the Rada building. Give us a moment, we're establishing a feed now."
The screen turns black, and then cuts to the True Pine behind a podium in a mostly empty conference room, with reporters running in through the back doors. She begins talking.
"I want to apologize for the suddenness of this, I understand how random this conference thing is. Anyways, I will get started immediately. What has been revealed to the world, exposed by are enemies, is somewhat true. But may I remind everyone where this information came from. This wasn't some neutral country, this wasn't one of our allies. This was Kolonia. A nation well known to us to be a harbinger of misinformation and conflict for the continent, and anything they say must be taken with a massive grain of salt. There was a train that derailed with uranium on board. Was there a massive spill of radioactive elements? Are our people poisoned? Of course not. Kolonia has gone out of its way to lie and bring panic to our country, in another desperate attempt to bring disaster. Was a large passenger aircraft shot down over the border? Yes, there was. I will not pretend it did not happen. But was it intentional? Did we go out of our way to suddenly end the lives of 408 people? Ridiculous! What happened was that a conscript abused prescription medication, became jumpy and erratic, and suddenly ordered the missile battery to open fire! Serria is one of our closest non-aligned economic partners. We would never intentionally destroy or harm their efforts to conduct business and trade with anyone. The radar operator has already been forcefully removed from their position, and will be court martialed until conviction. We can only hope that another incident like this can never occur. I will now be taking questions."
People start jumping in their seats and waving their hands She points to a reporter in the second row.
"Ma'am, I am not doubting your awareness or anyone else's, but how can you be sure there wasn't a major spillage like what was claimed?"
"We have been testing surface water, groundwater, and the surface for radioactive elements daily. So far, nothing too far above normal levels."
She points to someone else in the back row.
"Ma'am, how do you plan to address the likely political conflicts between Serria and Kolonia?"
"That's a little difficult to answer. We will have to tread carefully with Serria for a little while. They of course are very upset at us, and we hopefully can find away to successfully pay reparations and do other things to apologize. Kolonia on the other hand will most likely continue to spread misinformation to the world, and as much as most of the Western hemisphere already dislikes us, it will continue to harm our reputation. We want to continue having neutral relations with some of the CDN and neutral world. But if this continues, we cannot, and we must do something."