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These past few days since my last article have been a very exciting time worldwide, from the tension and drama of the Presidential elections to the excitement over recent Phoenix successes around the world. But before we get on to all the interesting events of the past few days we are going to take an indepth look at something that has been talked about a lot recently, PTOs...

PTOs
A PTO or Political Take Over, is when people attempt to take control of another country using political means, like winning CP and Congressional elections, rather than using conventional war. They are generally carried out when countries have open citizenship after being wiped and being unable to grant citizenship, however they are sometimes carried out over a long period where they gain more and more congress members to grant more and more citizenships when countries haven't been wiped.They are carried out for a variety of reasons, one reason is that the PTOers are after resources for their country, sometimes it is because of real life reasons, another reason is to take control of a strategically important country and sometimes it is just done for the lulz. PTOs are usually carried out by groups of people not necessarily associated with a government, although sometimes there are government sponsored PTOs and are also occasionally carried out by raiders from external online communities. Some notable PTOs include the long running PTO of Australia by a group of Indonesian players, which led to Indonesia controlling many key Australian high resource regions, although they would probably have managed this anyway. Another famous PTO is the constant battle between Serbia and Croatia & Bosnia for political control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a key real life flash point in the Balkans, another currently ongoing PTO is the pro Phoenix PTO of South Africa. PTOs are often controversial as multiple accounts are often suspected to be involved in them and many see them unethical due to the damage they can have on the country's community. This brings us conveniently on to our next topic...

Attempted PTOs in Portugal and Russia

After Russia and Portugal failed to return to the map in time for congress, they were inevitably going to come under a serious PTO threat, especially Russia with all its high regions and symbolic importance. The voting on the 5th was tense with Phoenix and EDEN both sending large numbers of ATO/PTO forces. The vote in Portugal was relatively easy for the ATO candidate Malagueta in the end, with EDEN focusing on Russia. The vote in Russia was very close throughout the day although the Russian candidate Mogaba always held an advantage over the Romanian Alpho, however there were fears of a late night EDEN vote but these thankfully never materialised. All in all, this can be counted as quite a successful day for Phoenix, however the congressional elections are going to be vital, which means the PTO/ATO effort will likely take place all over again.

The French and Brazilian Invasion of Spain Continues

Over the past couple of weeks France and Brazil have been taking part in an invasion of Spain. Until yesterday everything was going very smoothly for the Phoenix forces, with Spain losing nearly all of its battles. However we are now meeting a few bumps in the road to Asturias, the Spanish high iron fortress region and one of the most profitable in the world, and the aim for the total destruction of Spain. Yesterday, Brazil succeeded in taking the key region of Castilla y Leon, bordering both Asturias and the French held high grain region of Madrid. However, before Brazil managed to attack Asturias, the Spanish CP attacked Castilla y Leon, blocking any assault on Asturias from happening. Brazil lost their defence of Castilla y Leon meaning that any chance of an attack on Asturias, something which would likely provoke one of the biggest battles since the start of the new war module, is still a long way off. There have also been attacks and resistance wars on many French held Spanish regions, but apart from in the second Spanish high grain region of Catalonia they look set to win all the battles.France and Brazil could potentially keep a stalemate going for a long time by each taking turns to attack Castilla y Leon. Overall, this front has quietened down a bit, mainly due to the important war happening in Germany.

EDEN Attacks on Germany

Over the last few days, EDEN have launched coordinated attacks on Germany. These attacks came to their peak today when Poland attacked Lower Saxony and Bremen, a crucial region due to its strategic position bordering the Netherlands. If Poland win the battle, which is a possibility at the moment, they will be able to attack the Netherlands and would be able to steamroll them within a few days due to the Netherlands lack of MPPs. This would enable them to seriously threaten both the UK and France, almost certainly putting a stop to the French participation in the invasion of Spain and would leave the UK under an even more serious threat than it is already. This means that winning this battle is essential. Italy and Sweden have also launched attacks on key German regions, Italy won in Bavaria and are now facing a counter attack and Germany also have launched a battle against their real life Polish held capital of Berlin. This looks like it will be a key conflict which may determine the situation of Western Europe for weeks to come if Poland were to win in Lower Saxony and Bremen and continue into the Netherlands, France and the UK.

The Rest
- Russia fought hard in a resistance war against Romania against Volga but were beaten after a close fight and remain with only one region, Far Eastern Russia.
- The USA and Indonesia are continuing their skirmishes in South East Asia with neither side making a breakthrough.
- Hungary was attacked by Romania and Croatia but easily defended their regions against these largely diversionary attacks.
- Serbia faced an attack on its key region of Vojvodina which was quite heavily contested but in the end finished with a Serbian victory.

Thats it for today, I'm sure we'll have even more excitement over the next few days.

Minister of Foreign Affairs
Keram10