Union Media Alliance: News from the Tavari Union

[Acronis]

“Long Overdue”—Diet Legalizes Acronian National Anthem, Advances Mobile Payment Legislation with Enormous Margins

NUVRENON— It was a blockbuster day at the National Diet on Tuesday, and an emotional one, after Delegates across the partisan divide voted by overwhelming margins to approve two landmark measures. In one, the Diet granted fast-track status to legislation proposed by the Prime Minister to legalize mobile payment applications, whose illegality has been decried for years as an example of why the Tavari economy seems to lag behind other developed economies in matters of technology. In the second, the Diet voted almost unanimously to overrule a three-century old court ruling forbidding the public performance of a controversial Akronist hymn, “No Line but Akrona,” which in 2022 the newly-established Acronis selected as its national anthem. While not related to one another, the two items both represent major paradigm shifts in Tavari law and society Prime Minister Žarís Nevran Alandar called “long overdue.”

The Banking Modernisation Act of 2024 was brought by the Prime Minister today to, as she said in brief remarks after the day’s first vote, “rectify a 40-year old error that has, unintentionally, hamstrung an entire generation.” In 1984, a law also called the Banking Modernisation Act championed by famed reformer Bežra Išdašt Tovrenar required Tavari banks to cease using the public telephone network for financial transactions and to set up and maintain their own network, at their expense, by quite literally running new wires from bank to bank. Mobile payment apps—like Debby, PrimPay, BAST RecanPass, and Blast!Pay by BajaTech, all common elsewhere on Urth—were unknown at the time the law was passed, but because the law explicitly forbade using phone networks from carrying financial transactions, they have heretofore been illegal in Tavaris. Tuesday’s “fast-track” motion does not immediately change that, but it does mean the bill will spend far less time in the Diet: the stage of committee deliberation has been waived, allowing the bill to proceed directly to the whole Diet for consideration. Both the Prime Minister’s Irínavi Voi! and the official opposition Socialist Green Party for Democracy voted for the measure, which required and well exceeded a two-thirds majority—not a problem with the two largest blocs in the Diet agreeing, as the measure attained 1,000 votes in favor to just 40 opposed. The bill will require two readings before the house, but the third is almost always a formality, and the Prime Minister estimated that the bill could be in front of the Emperor for Royal Assent “in two weeks or less.”

The Banking Modernisation Act of 1984 is widely considered to have been a poor decision on the part of otherwise generally quite popular Bežra Išdašt Tovrenar, was blamed in part for the 1985 collapse of what was then the largest bank in the country, Western Bank and Trust, and its parent conglomerate the Rundra Group, the largest company of any kind in the country. Ms. Išdašt Tovrenar lost an election later that year, largely due to the fallout from the Rundra Group bankruptcy. Prime Minister Nevran Alandar, who cites Ms. Išdašt Tovrenar as one of her primary political role models, named her legislation after the 1984 law deliberately as a way of correcting what she called “a huge mistake.” “Today’s bill represents real modernisation, true modernisation, and rectifies the huge mistake we made forty years ago. Now, we are one step further away from the analog past and one step closer to the digital future,” said the Prime Minister.

But it was the day’s second vote that gathered the most attention and even brought tears to the eyes of many both in the Diet and watching from the gallery. Her Most Esteemed Beneficence Matron Vana Dandreal was watching as the Diet voted by an even greater margin, 1127-25, to overrule the 1713 court ruling that outlawed the hymn “No Line but Akrona,” using a legal mechanism known as “entrenchment” that, with a two-thirds majority of the Diet, requires the courts to treat the law as equivalent in force to the constitution. The 1713 court ruling was made in the days before Tavaris established its modern judicial system in the 19th century, and was in fact issued by the Chief of Oren in the judicial capacity that was then afforded to all the hereditary Chiefs of each Tavari Line. In those days, Chiefs were responsible for matters of law in their jurisdictions and had the power to organize their own judicial systems on their lands and even sit in judgment themselves. The Chiefs of Oren, based in the Motai region since time immemorial, were long known for what would today be called conservative, right-wing, nationalist, and anti-Akronist politics, and in 1713, Chief Gamdi of Oren ruled that a man arrested for attacking and grievously wounding an Akronist who was singing the song to herself on the street had committed no crime because the song was an “incitement to violence” and “treason.”

At that time, appeals to judicial verdicts issued by Chiefs could be made to the entire body of assembled Chiefs and, after that, to the King. It was the common practice at the time for the Chiefs to select a random handful of their own number as “judicial chiefs” to hear appeals, but both the panel so convened in 1713 and King Kanor IV declined to weigh in on the issue, thus permitting the Chief of Oren’s ruling to stand. Still in the early 18th century, and for more than a century afterward, the population of Akronists outside western Tavaris and the colonies was quite small, less than one in twelve, and there was little pressure on authorities to heed calls for expanding Akronist civil rights. On the contrary, Akronism was morally opposed by most in power at the time, and there was little sympathy for the victim in the case due in no small part to the subject matter of the hymn in question, which was and by some still is considered deeply objectionable.

“No Line but Akrona” dates to the year 1495, the peak of a mass Akronist social, political, and religious movement called by some a rebellion or revolution known as Line Akrona. Dating to about two decades before then, the Line Akrona movement called upon Akronists to shun all association with any previous Line or Chief but instead to swear allegiance only to the goddess Akrona. Members cast aside their former identities and preached a message of egalitarianism, with all equal under Akrona. The institution of the Lines and their Chiefs were already well-entrenched in Tavari society, culture, and most relevantly, law by that time—the Chiefs enforced most law, and to defy allegiance to a Chief was to claim immunity from the law and, as many followers of the Tavat Avati saw it, defy religious and cultural norms and stand in opposition to the King and to everything that made the Tavari, the Tavari. Outrage led to brutal violence by agents of many of the Chiefs and the King, with Kings Vonar I and Zaram I sending soldiers to the west on multiple occasions with deliberate instructions to kill Akronists and destroy their homes and temples. The hymn “No Line but Akrona” was written by the movement’s most famed leader, Davras Akrona Retkonar (born Davras Nuvo Retkonar) to be sung in battle with the forces of the King, and while the song’s message of equality under Akrona is deeply meaningful and important to Akronists, this legacy of violent defiance to the King rendered the song outrageous to the Avatidar-dominated society of the time and has been controversial to many ever since.

There was no outrage at the Diet today, but there were many tears. Dozens of Akronist Diet Delegates openly wept as the bill was voted upon. After the measure passed, the Prime Minister again stepped outside to give remarks to the media, herself with misty eyes, alongside not only the Matron but His Esteemed Majesty Emperor Otan IV of the Tavari, who stood side-by-side with the two women and joined them and a crowd of Akronist faithful who gathered around them to sing the song. It was only then, as the King of Tavaris, with a smile on his face and with his whole chest, sang “we have no Line but Akrona,” that the Matron herself began to weep. That the Emperor—who is Spiritual Head of the Tavat Avati Shrine Association—sang along is certain to be controversial to many and enraging to some, but at the Diet on Tuesday, one could almost pretend it wouldn’t be.

A reporter from the right-wing media outlet Chronicle of the Tavari asked the Emperor if he “knew what [he] was doing.” “I am not afraid to sing a song,” the Emperor responded plainly. He continued: “There is nothing wrong with singing an Akronist hymn. There is nothing wrong with Akronism. Tavaris, the Tavari Union, and the entire world are made better by the presence of Akronists and Akronism. My ancestors are part of why our society has failed, for generations, to welcome and honour our Akronist family members, friends, and neighbours. As our Diet has corrected a mistake today, so shall I. I am proud to be a member, and the Chief, of Line Nuvo, but to those whose hearts name Akrona their Chief, I encourage you today, and all days, to sing your truth.”

[Acronis]

BREAKING: EMPEROR OTAN IV SHOT IN THE ROYAL PALACE, RUSHED TO HOSPITAL

NUVRENON– Emperor Otan IV has been shot and wounded, the Silver Court reported Tuesday evening, and has been rushed to the hospital. Information on which hospital, and specific details about the Emperor’s injury and prognosis, were not publicly released.

Prime Minister Žarís Nevran Alandar is “actively following the situation and guiding the government response,” according to the Office of the Prime Minister. The OPM statement indicated “no active shooter is at large” and stressed that “there is no threat to the community from an active shooter at this time.” However, unusually, the Royal Tavari Army—not the Marshalls—have been deployed to Palace Square and assembled a perimeter around the Royal Palace. “The Army has been called to ensure the security of the Silver Court and to address the current situation,” said the OPM statement.

The shooting occurred only hours after the Emperor joined Matron Vana Dandreal and Prime Minister Žarís Nevran Alandar at the National Diet to sing the Acronian national anthem, a controversial Akronist hymn, which the Diet today voted to legalize.

More on this situation as it develops…

[Acronis]

President Shtonar Talakar is Cheating on His Wife—and Using State Resources to Conceal Evidence

ACRUNI– One cannot blame the President of Metradan for feeling stressed these days. It is inarguable that Shtonar Talakar is perhaps the busiest President of Metradan, and the one under the most pressure, since Ontran Vedendi abolished the Marshalls in 1991. In the north, the entire Cescolian community has been stunningly united in a months-long campaign of political and economic resistance, boycotting the use of the Tavari našdsat in a mass movement that no one expected could last as long as it has. Relations with Cescolia, never chummy, are at their lowest point in decades, as the massive increase in demand for the Cescolian Aureo in Metradan has wreaked havoc on the exchange rate and is placing inflationary pressure on Cescolia’s economy. All the while, the Cescolians of Zampanea are ratcheting up public pressure on demands not just for civil rights but for political autonomy within Metradan, said to be the subject of long-running but highly secretive talks between President Talakar and the de facto leader of Metradan’s ethnic Cescolian community, Delegate Niballo Gargiulio, leader of the political party Zampana.

Yet more talks, just as quiet and just as apparently unproductive, have been taking place in presumably smoky rooms at the Tavari Union headquarters in Anarís on such matters as the Tavari Union Postal Service, the Trans-Cerenerian telecommunications cable, and the governance of Metrati Anar, all of which are sorely delayed in their resolution. Because Metradan holds the annually rotating Presidency of the Tavari Union, President Talakar is responsible for setting the agenda of the Union Council, and is the Union’s primary representative in foreign affairs, meaning the President’s time has been taken up by matters like sanctions on places as far flung as Sayyed and East Atalandr, and a trade agreement with Vistaraland that has been hung up for months. And in recent days, there have been unconfirmed but persistent rumours that President Talakar is now involved in negotiations with the Church of Akrona to restore the community of Metradani Akronists into good standing with the mother church of Akronism—a matter even the Packilvanians are beginning to comment on.

According to extensive evidence reviewed by the Daily—paper records, text messages, recorded phone calls, and testimony from whistleblowers, kept anonymous to protect their privacy—President Talakar has been handling his stress in a fashion most unbecoming of the highest office in the land. For nearly a year, Shtonar Talakar has been secretly seeing Balendra Tolovil, the CEO of Avanar, Metradan’s largest phone company, and using state resources—spending government money and diverting the work of government employees—to conceal his activity and to illicitly reward the people who helped him. From trysts in government offices that required cleanup afterward, to diverting flights of the state plane to pick up gifts for his mistress, to lavish dinners and parties paid for with campaign donations, not just the President but several high-level officials in the Akronist Democrats party are implicated in wrongdoing not just immoral but demonstrably illegal.

First round elections for the Presidency are in three days. So are elections for the Diet. Shtonar Talakar and his Akronist Democrats have been solidly in the lead, but today’s revelations have the possibility of blowing the race wide open.

Shtonar Talakar is 61 years old, and he has been married to his wife Bedi for 37 of them. Bedi Mentasi Talakar was a photographer who occasionally modelled in cigarette advertisements when she first met her future husband, a law student at the University of Nezhendris. Bedi stayed at home and raised the couple’s two children while her husband started his legal career, supporting him as he entered politics in the early 1990s—first the Nezhendris Province Legislature in 1992, and then the National Diet in 2004. As First Lady of Metradan, Bedi Talakar has been noted for overseeing a renovation and redecoration of the Presidential Residence widely praised by designers, art critics, and the public, and hailed for hosting successful state visits from Arlavia, the Federation of the Southern Coast, Norgsveldet, Tretrid, Vakrestrender, and Ymirland—a record for the most in a single term. While she has been dutifully at work for her unelected, unpaid job coordinating the household of the head of state, the President has been spending tax nashdat and našdat on a mistress who was not even born when he married his wife.

36-year-old Balendra Tolovil is the youngest CEO in the 125-year history of Avanar, which for the country’s entire independent history has been essentially the only landline telephone company in Metradan. Only in recent decades have mobile phones begun chipping into Avanar’s dominance, and Ms. Tolovil has been praised by investors and industry leaders for turning around Avanar’s declining fortunes by expanding cell phone service offerings and securing more government contracts as an Internet Service Provider—contracts which are now certain to be reviewed for impropriety. She was a guest at the state dinner with King Olav I of Norgsveldet last January (from whose country, incidentally, comes the Jotun phone now exclusively sold by Avanar in Metradan.) However, as one of the country’s largest ISPs, Avanar is highly involved in maintaining the Trans-Cerenerian Cable—and it is through this connection that the relationship definitively began in earnest, according to an anonymous high level staffer of the Akronist Democrats party.

“There was a roundtable with telecom industry leaders last July about the Cable because the Union wants to transfer it to Union ownership along with the former TavariPost as part of a proposed ‘Tavari Communications Union.’ The meeting went terribly but Shtonar and Balendra stayed hours later than everyone else, and then they got dinner, and then I was told that I needed to get a hotel room somewhere at short notice and to use the discretionary account the party has for special events to pay for it,” said the staffer. After “three or four” similar trysts in the weeks after, that fund soon became exhausted. “That was when they told me to start using campaign donations.”

It should be noted that, while marital infidelity is not a crime in Metradan, funds donated to political parties are strictly regulated and can only lawfully be used for the purpose stated by the party when accepting the funds. Using a special events fund for a hotel room for “unexpected overnight negotiations” might exist in a legal grey area, if one has the right lawyer, but using campaign funds for that purpose is unambiguously illegal, especially considering the 2024 campaign season had not officially begun by that point and Shtonar Talakar was not even campaigning for anything. This alone is cause for an investigation and could be grounds for removal from office, but it is only the beginning.

Six different interns and Akronist Democrat staffers report being in the Presidential state car on several occasions when Talakar asked to divert from the planned route to stop at various seemingly random places for an hour or so each time—including hotels, restaurants, and in one case, an office building for the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources that was closed at the time. Each time, President Talakar is said to have said only that he had a “meeting” with an unspecified individual. There are no witnesses to these meetings and no one to say who else may have been at these locations, but at the ENR office building, one staffer reports that President Talakar requested they order a “cleaning crew” and specifically stated “keep it discreet.” Such a cleaning crew can cost thousands of našdat (or hundreds of dollars) and must be paid out of government budgets. This cost, however, pales in comparison to the charge to the state incurred when, in October, President Talakar ordered the Presidential plane to land at Avatan, instead of Acruni as scheduled, to purchase a particular bottle of rum. “Every additional monai in the plane costs the taxpayer thousands of našdat, not to mention the costs of unloading the limo and the motorcade, and then he drives the whole thing to some fancy wine shop to purchase a single bottle of rum that cost 144,000 našdat ($2,793.60 SHD),” said one staffer. “And I’ll say this—the first lady’s birthday is in May and he certainly didn’t make any purchases like that then.”

On the note of gifts, one thing nearly everyone to whom the Daily mentioned repeatedly was the President’s habit of taking people out to very expensive dinners. “One thing Shtonar will always do when he visits a Diet Delegate in their district, which he’s been doing five or six times a week since the first of the year, is take the Delegate out to eat and pay for it out of the party’s fund for legislative outreach. Now, Shtonar doesn’t come from money and used to be he was good for picking an entry-level sit-down place, usually just a slightly fancy pizza joint, for dinners with Delegates. If it’s an opposition party Delegate, he always goes for fish-and-chips. But ever since these mysterious unscheduled ‘meetings’ started, he’s been picking just absolutely out-of-your-mind expensive places, like… dozens of tiny plates with drizzles of sauce for a hundred thousand našdat per plate type places. He’ll get these Delegates two or three bottles of wine, he’ll get two courses of dessert, then he’ll get after-dinner drinks for hours. He’s done this like six, eight times since the first of the year, a couple of times even for Liberals, and he’s always doing it in places where he had these meetings. Couldn’t be more obvious he’s paying back these Delegates for, like, finding him good spots to boink his mistress,” said one anonymous official close to the Office of the President.

Said a second staffer: “In November in Nezhendris, the President had one of those meetings of his at a casino. I’m not gonna say whose casino because I don’t want to sleep with any fishes, but I will say that just last week he took that district’s Delegate out for dinner at the most insanely expensive, like, Mexregionan-Packilvanian fusion place, and then afterward they got coffee at a Qayami place that had solid gold cups where getting milk and sugar costs more than I make in a year. Shtonar used to be smart and not mess around with the mob, but when you get casinos and nice gifts involved, I don’t know what else it can be. It’s a real shame. He was never like this before he met that woman.”

It is not unusual for politicians to meet and discuss business over dinner, and as such it is not necessarily illegal to use funds earmarked for “legislative outreach” for these purposes—as long as that is actually what the funds are being used for. However, using regulated political party funds for “quid-pro-quo” exchanges of favours and calling it legislative outreach when it isn’t is illegal. At the very least, using regulated funds to give gifts to politicians has the appearance of impropriety and places significant doubt on the President’s activities and motivations for them. The Office of the Presidency strenuously denied any impropriety on the part of President Talakar, but notably did not make him available for a direct interview.

“At no time whatsoever has the President ever bribed anyone, ever ordered anyone to bribe anyone, and has never, ever intentionally ordered the illegal expenditure of regulated funds. At no time whatsoever has the President diverted state resources to cover up any sort of secret activity. The Office of the Presidency will not even comment on the salacious rumours [the Daily] is alleging, as they are entirely without merit and entirely baseless gossip. President Talakar is laser-focused on the issues of the day, including outreach with our Cescolian community, outreach to the Tavari Union, modernising our military, combating organised crime, and keeping more money in our nation’s pocketbooks. Gossip like this is nothing but crass politicking of the lowest order,” said a statement from the Office of the Presidency.

“Avanar enjoys its good working relationship with the government of Metradan, and our meetings with government officials including but not limited to the President of Metradan and members of the Council of the Tavari Union are always above-board, always conducted with nothing except the best interest of the Metradani people at heart. We do not illegally influence politicians, we do not arrange shadowy ‘meetings’, and we do not have any knowledge of any sort of affair between our CEO and the President,” said a statement from Avanar’s Chief of Public Relations, Dana Mebemda.

“We take all reports of crimes, including ethical and campaign violations, very seriously, and will as we always do faithfully and carefully investigate these reports. If true, these represent serious accusations,” said a statement from Police Ambulance and Fire District 6 (known by the Tavari acronym “ACAB”), the regional law enforcement agency in Acruni. A request for comment from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which has responsibility for investigating and sanctioning wrongdoing by high level government officials including the President and members of the Cabinet, was not returned.

With the election only days away, it is certain that no official resolution to any of these questions will be ready before voting begins. With President Talakar having been leading the race, however, opposition politicians clearly smell blood in the water. Del. Niballo Gargiulio came out swinging against the President in a statement, saying “Yet again, term after term, generation after generation, we see the Metradani government show its true colours and engage in disgusting, blatant corruption. We cannot and will not let this stand. Metradani people of all stripes, no matter their language or their species, can smell how bad this stinks. Shtonar Talakar must resign in shame. The people of Metradan should not stand idly by and allow these corrupt politicians funnel their hard-earned tax money into illegal activities and covering up their improper activities. This is an insult to all of us good people. Ordinary working men and women in Metradan don’t go around charging taxpayers thousands to cover up their affairs and take their friends out to lavish dinners. Already we knew our country is a failure. Now there is no excuse for anyone, Tavari or Cescolian, to support this rotting, stinking government.”

“If true, these allegations are immeasurably disappointing and deeply distressing, not just from a religious standpoint but from the standpoint of a citizen,” said Priestess Manda Botoca, a spokeswoman for the Union of Independent Akronist Temples of Metradan. “We are a young organisation with an uncertain future as we are still in negotiations with our mother church, and we have depended on the support of our President to ensure we are able to continue properly serving the needs of our community and providing essential community services such as food banks, health clinics, homeless shelters, and schools. We, like all Metradani, need a government and a President that follow the law and work for good, not for themselves. We pray that, if these allegations are true, Akrona leads everyone involved to a place of goodness, understanding, and love, but most importantly, to justice.”

Del. Gargiulio has announced a rally against corruption in Argiento, and several Akronist temples in major cities are planning candlelight vigils “in prayer for the soul of our country.” At press time, more than twelve Diet Delegates have called upon the President to resign. “#ResignShtonar and #ShtonarItak (a Tavari language term meaning, approximately, “Cancel Shtonar”) is now trending on Pigeon in Metradan. Political corruption and scandal are not necessarily unusual in Metradan, a country that inherited a culture of backroom dealing, quid-pro-quos, and bribery from a Tavari society that inculcated these as values to be celebrated for centuries. What happens from here is anyone’s guess—Metradani politicians have lost their careers for less, and escaped unscathed for more—but some things are certain: in today’s modern, connected age, keeping secrets is hard, news spreads fast, and it’s easier than ever to get others to hear what you have to say. President Talakar has yet to comment himself, but every moment he does not, the people of Metradan are commenting, thinking, and making judgments. Whatever the truth ends up being, one thing is sure: one way or another, the people will have their say.