The Ossitanian National Review

[Ossitania]

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Rogue Maxtopians Launch Sea Invasion of Ossitania!

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Ossitana experienced its first military invasion since the Second Island War today when a rogue group of Maxtopians landed on a beach near Caloria. The invaders arrived in a flotilla of lilos and were armed with an array of slightly sharpened sporks. They claimed to represent the Maxtopian military and attempted to assault a lifeguard who had seen them landing and was checking to see if they were okay. Luckily, all five men suffered a catastrophic failure of motor functions due to a combination of excessive quanities of alcohol in their bloodstream and pneumonia contracted during their sojourn across the sea, allowing the young lifeguard to escape unharmed.

After disarming his assailants, the lifeguard, Jamie Brewer, called first an ambulance and then the police to remove the men from the beach and ensure they were taken care of properly. However, one of the men regained consciousness in transit and subsequently attempted to take the paramedics transporting him hostage by threatening them with another slightly more sharpened spork he had concealed on his person.

Although the on-going police investigation prevents us from reporting on the details of what transpired within the ambulance, what is clear is that when they arrived at the hospital, both of the paramedics were unharmed and their attacker had a spork lodged four inches into his arm. Since their arrival at the hospital, it is believed the invaders have remained relatively peaceful, though there was at least one report of one of the men declaring himself the king of Unibot, suggesting, perhaps, that the invasion of Ossitania was actually a botched attempt at a coup d'etat against our neighbours in Unibot.

The five men were unavailable for comment when the National Review attempted to contact them. According to a doctor at the hospital where they are staying, they may be out of the hospital and into police custody as soon as tomorrow, though an intern that we questioned described them as "still pretty fucking toasted". More on the story as it develops.

[Ossitania]

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Party Tensions Surface Once More As General Election Approaches

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Tensions between coalition partners in the National Executive have reached new highs in recent weeks, in spite of the government's previously secure position in the coming general elections. In an address to his party's ruling council, Argyll O'Meara, leader of the Komodoist Party, has said that he will recommend that his party not participate in the next government as long as Ambassador General Derek McGregor of the Labour Party retains his position in the Diplomatic Corps of Ossitania.

McGregor, who replaced the NDSP's Eli Burke as Ambassador General after his predecessor's untimely death in February, is a founding member of the radical secularist group known as the St. George Society and monthly contributor to this newspaper. McGregor and O'Meara last butted heads in 2007, when McGregor, then serving as Junior Minister of Sport and Tourism, spoke out against the Komodoist Party's inclusion in the coalition, claiming that they promoted "an antiquated and exclusionary version of society". O'Meara responded by arguing that McGregor's claims were "fundamentally anti-family" and demanded that McGregor withdraw his comments, a request that McGregor refused.

However, the rivalry between McGregor and O'Meara has not been the only source of conflict; a growing rift between the two largest parties in the coalition, the New Democratic Socialist Party and the United Western Federalists, is threatening to leave the future of the coalition in serious doubt. Despite having been in coalition together for fifteen years, President Keane and Deputy Prime Minister Calloway, leader and deputy leader of the UWF respectively, have announced that they will not seek a coalition with the NDSP unless the UWF is given the premiership. Since the inception of the Commonwealth, the UWF have always taken the largest amount of seats in the Federal Parliament but haven't held the premiership since their coalition with the Conservatives and Labour in the 80s. In the past 15 years, the NDSP have held the premiership through the backing of the Labour Party, despite being the smaller party, but today the UWF have made a bold move to regain it.

As the support of the NDSP and Labour are widely seen as crucial to the UWF's ambitions to retain their place in government, the announcement has sparked rumours that the UWF are deliberately attempting to curry the favour of the Conservatives and the Atlas Party as part of a broader move towards the right, though these claims were denied by the UWF Defense Minister Garth Connolly in a statement made to this paper just hours ago. Whatever the reasons, it is now seeming far less likely that the current coalition will return for a second term. As this article went to print, there had not yet been any comment from the NDSP, Labour or Neon Bible Party.

[Ossitania]

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General Election Stand-Off Comes to an End: UWF Are OUT!

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As the sun rose this morning, with just ten days left in the constitutional grace period in which a government must be formed after a general election, Ossitania was still teetering on the brink of political ruin. Should a government not have been formed - and this seemed exceedingly likely - a second general election would have been called in in one month's time. If the second election didn't produce a government, then the constitution's "civil war clause" would have been activated, suspending all elections for five years and giving sole legislative power to the standing President, Jareth Keane of the United Western Federalists.

To call this scenario undesirable is a gross understatement, given that President Keane and his party are at the centre of our nation's biggest political disaster since the election of the Liberal Thinkspace regime. But with the announcement today of a daring new coalition agreement, a terrible future has been averted and a tradition overturned. For the first time since the establishment of the confederation, the United Western Federalists, its architects, are not part of the government.

They are, however, still the second-biggest party in parliament, so the expected fallout from their poor handling of the resurgent O'Meara/McGregor controversy and their unprincipled attempt to coerce the NDSP into giving them the premiership did not have as large a toll as had been expected. Nonetheless, it was enough for the NDSP and Labour to replace them with the Conservatives as their centre-right influence. Unfortunately, the inclusion of the Conservatives lost the NDSP and Labour their traditional support from the Neon Bible Party, forcing them to include the Atlas Party to make up the requisite number of seats - a move which will undoubtedly set the stage for the first big internal clash of this bright new government.

Despite the continuing O'Meara/McGregor controversy, the Komodoist Party has been included in the coalition once again, perhaps encouraged by their close relationship with the Conservative Party. Cabinet positions will be announced later today. President Keane was unavailable for comment on how his political affiliation as the leader of the UWF would affect his relationship with the government coalition that has thrown them out of office for the first time since the federalisation of Ossitania.

[Ossitania]

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Cabinet Catch-Up: Executive Appointments for the New Government

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For anyone having trouble following the changes to our national executive, here's the essential catch-up guide:

No change:

• The two frontrunners for Minister for Infrastructure, Junior Minister Mark Foley (NDSP) and Junior Minister Kieran O'Rahilly (Labour) have been snubbed and left in the Departments of Transport and the Environment respectively.
• Vanessa O'Shea (NDSP) remains the Minister for Law, Justice and Human Rights, as expected.

Promotions:

• Caroline Fitzpatrick (Labour) rises from Junior Minister for Secondary Industries to Minister for Industry, as expected. The Atlas Party had their eye on the Ministry for Industry, but never really stood a chance at taking it with both the NDSP and Labour outnumbering them individually and collectively.
• Liam Terrence (Labour) rises from Junior Minister for Social Assistance to Minister for Social Affairs, as expected.
• Donnacha Ó hAilpín (NDSP) rises from Junior Minister for Art, Music and Literature to Minister for Culture, to the consternation of the Conservatives, who wanted to nab it. His colleague, Avalene Burton (Labour) has received a sideways promotion from Sport and Tourism to take his former position.

Shadows/Spokespeople:

• In a surprise move, Lorcan Mayhew (Conservative) is the only one of his party's Shadow Ministers to take a Ministry, but it's a big one for his party, the Ministry for Defense.
• However, Maria Clancy (Conservative), Henrietta Lawrence (Conservative) and Francisco Alderete (Conservative) have taken the Departments associated with their former spokesperson positions: Primary Industries, Youth and Children's Affairs, and Sport and Tourism. It's suspected the Conservatives conceded to this arrangement due to having so many of their key policy objectives (higher defense spending, agriculture reform and increased tourism) at their fingertips.
• Jennifer Cole (Atlas) and Gerard Brennan (Atlas) are their party's Ministers, taking the Ministry of Infrastructure and of Education and Innovation respectively. Brennan's appointment is the more surprising of the two, given his radical views on his portfolio, though it's unclear how much he'll really be able to do with his party's relatively weak position in the coalition.
• One of the most controversial appointments has been that of Argyll O'Meara (Komodoist) to the Ministry of Health, after Filipe Iglesias (NDSP) lost his seat. As the first time a Komodist has held a cabinet position, no one knows what to expect from the top dog of our nation's largest theocratic party. However, it seems the appointment was necessary to justify the continued inclusion of...

New positions:

• Derek McGregor (Labour), who has lost his position as Ambassador General of the Diplomatic Corps, as O'Meara requested...so that he could take over the new position of Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Although this may seem like a snub of O'Meara's deal-breaker, the new office actually takes McGregor out of the World Assembly, which was O'Meara's real goal. Still, if anything, McGregor has only gotten more powerful, though O'Meara has too. The Diplomatic Corps will now be administrated by an internal promoted diplomat with the new title of Ambassador-in-Chief.
• To compliment his appointment, Alexander Haughton (Conservative) and Désirée O'Shaughnessy (NDSP), have been given the new positions of Junior Ministers for IDU Affairs and WA Affairs respectively. O'Shaughnessy, McGregor's Deputy Ambassador General, will now lead the Ossitanian delegation to the World Assembly. It seems likely O'Meara will take some issue with her appointment, given her close working relationship with his arch-enemy, though O'Shaughnessy has shown herself to be her own woman rather than McGregor's bulldog.
• Probably for no other reason than to avoid leaving him as the only person without with word "Minister" in his title, Stephen Briscoe (NDSP) has had his position as High Chancellor at the National Treasury renamed to Minister for Finance.

Fresh blood:

• Keith Kearns (Labour) takes Minister Fitzpatrick's former position at the Department for Secondary Industries, while Carmen García Borges (NDSP) takes the Department of Tertiary Industries. Between them and Junior Minister Clancy, they've successfully kept Atlas out of the Ministry of Industry, a development that many had feared inevitable.
• Darren Nolan (NDSP) takes over the Department of Social Assistance from Minister Terrence.

[Ossitania]

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Area Man Survives Destruction of Homeland, Imagines Article About Survival in Popular National Newspaper He Will Never Read Again

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After the cataclysm that tore the earth beneath its citizens feet open like the hip of a roast turkey, Ossitania lives on in the person and mind of the guy in a boat in the sea near the floating debris and detritus that constitute the last relics of the once proud island nation.

Though the exact nature of the disaster that killed every living person and thing in Ossitania except the solitary man in a boat remains unclear, he remained optimistic, saying "I wish I could read this newspaper and look up and see everything back to normal" and "how messed up is my mind that even in my own fantasy of how this newspaper would report on the current circumstances of my life, the writer of the article is inaccurately characterising me as optimistic", before adding "I wish I knew how to fish".

The guy in the boat, who is only now beginning to realise that he has inherited his nation's seat in the World Assembly, was out fishing a few days ago when a very large seagull struck his head and he drifted out to sea. He awoke just in time to watch Ossitania sink under the waves, then spent days making his way to the empty space where once he might have lingered a while under the shadow of a cliff. He is currently in the midst of a panic attack.

More on this story as it develops.

[Ossitania]

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Area Man Wonders When He'll See Land Again

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"I haven't seen land in a long time," said a guy in a boat increasingly distant from the empty expanse of ocean where Ossitania once stood, "and it's really starting to get to me. I mean, Ossitania had neighbouring nations, like Pilaria and Na Laochra. Where did the rest of the region go?"

The guy in the boat has been feeding surprisingly well from fresh-caught fish, considering he never actually learned how to fish on any of his fishing trips, and really just used it as an excuse to get away from it all for a while. His stocks of bottled water remain reasonably full.

"Wait, what's that there?"