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Thank you South Africa!
I'd like to start off by thanking all of you who voted for me in Wednesday's congressional election. I received 6 votes in Free State, which was enough to secure me a seat. I will do my best to make South Africa as strong and prosperous as I know it can be. Hopefully this will be the first of many terms that I will serve in congress.

The KB World Report
Starting with this issue I will be doing semi-regular World Reports covering current events not only within South Africa but across the globe. In this way I hope to keep South Africans informed about everything that's going on in the world. I hope you enjoy reading, and please vote and subscribe!
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Table of Contents

1. South Africa
a. Elections
b. Citizenship Pass Controversy
c. Congress Speaker Elections

2. World
a. Former Peace Nations Launch New Offensive
b. Malaysia Under Fire
c. US-Portugal Treaty Invalid
d. Peru Annexation
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South Africa

Elections
Wednesday's election will certainly be remembered as a turning point in South Africa's history. Indeed many are already hailing it as the start of a new era in South African politics. This of course is due to the sweeping Gold Party victory which I am proud to say I was a part of. The Gold Party won 18 of 40 seats, just two seats shy of controlling a majority. In addition to the Gold Party gaining more seats, the AGW and SAL (running under the ANA banner) also increased their power in congress, reducing the UNSA and IA to significantly smaller shares of congress.


Side by side comparison of the 3rd and 4th congresses.Enlarge.

Of course the victory of the Gold Party is not the only major shift in congress this election cycle, there were also twice as many seats to fill than there were in October. This was due to the four region returns since the last election. With less power per individual congressman, this likely means that the former emphasis on individual congressmen will be replaced by an emphasis on a party line, which has some people becoming anxious. I do not believe that South Africa is about to descend into a battleground of partisan politics, so long as our congressmen are willing to debate based on the merits of an idea, rather than on the party in which the idea originated.

Citizenship Pass Controversy
As I and many of my fellow congressmen discovered yesterday, we each only have one citizenship pass, instead of the three from last month. According to wiki the system is supposed to work like this:
“Citizenships can be granted only 10% of the country's population during one congress term. One congress member can approve only certain number of citizenship requests, which is that 10% divided by number of congress members.”
This makes sense with last month's count, where we had a population of about 600 citizens and 20 congressmen, 600/10=60, 60/20=3. However with our current numbers, 1000/10=100, 100/40=2.5. We should have at least 2 passes per congressmen if not 3. In fact despite our population growth somehow we've lost 20 citizenship passes. This is clearly a bug, as it does not follow what wiki states, and it otherwise just doesn't make sense. But as of yet Admin has only directed us to the wiki when we've complained (which proves that there is a problem).

Congress Speaker Elections
The first task of the new congress is to elect a new speaker. Ines Shumacher has announced that she will not be seeking reelection. The nominations so far include Frank Furglar, Robert Reid, and Mark Morcom. The tone in congress seems to indicate that Robert Reid is likely to win due to him being president of the Gold Party, however until there is a vote we cannot say for sure.

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World

Former Peace Nations Launch New Offensive
Despite having been officially disbanded, the former PEACE nations are still a powerful military bloc capable of organizing and carrying out military actions. They've proved this today by launching a mass offensive against Croatia, as well as several distraction battles across the globe. Currently in Northwest Croatia with about seven hours remaining Hungary has pushed the defense way underground, and Russia and Latvia are both winning their battles in Finland. PEACE, or more accurately the nations formerly known as PEACE are as strong as ever and still just as willing to fight together against Eden/Brolliance.

Malaysia Under Fire
With the majority of it's MPP allies distracted by the offensive in Croatia and other battles Malaysia is losing ground to the invading Indonesian forces. So far today Indonesia has occupied Sabah, and currently is holding Peninsular Malaysia just below ground with about 40 minutes remaining. Things are not looking good for our Sol allies.

Update: Peninsular Malaysia has also been conquered. With 15 minutes left the wall is still well above the line in Sarawak, however Indonesian tanking has reduced it significantly in the past hour.

Update 2: Sarawak has been defended. Malaysia lives to fight another day!

US-Portugal Treaty Invalid
Recently a treaty between Portugal and the US was violated when the US failed to pay a sum of gold within an alloted 30 day period. However when Portugal tried to have admin acquire the money from the US it became apparent that the treaty was in fact invalid because it was not signed by all the members of congress. This created a lot of uproar as the rules regarding treaties between countries were previously vague, and the new decision invalidated many current treaties. Admin has clarified the new requirements for treaties are as follows:

-the contract must be signed by Presidents involved as well as 50 % +1 of each country's Congressmen;

-the contract duration is by default 30 days (it ends automatically on the 6th day of the next month);

-the contract must be validated by admin. As soon as the contract fulfills the requirements, submit a ticket to Feedback Department asking for admin validation of the contract;

-the contract can be prolonged if needed for another 30 days through the signatures of the next elected Presidents involved, without the need for Congresses to sign it again.

Peru Annexation
Currently Peru is in the process of being annexed by Brazil and Argentina. This comes as a response to an alleged PTO of Peru by Polish agents. Within the next few hours all three remaining Peruvian regions will be conquered by Brazil, wiping Peru off the map. While Peru is a member of the ALA, there has been some controversy as it was the only ALA member which was not also a member of PEACE, leading some to suspect that Argentina and Brazil are not liberating Peru but rather absorbing Peruvian regions for their own purposes, with Brazil taking the high grain region Northern Low Amazon and Argentina taking the high wood and high iron region Great Andes.

-Karl Bauer
South Africa Congressman
South Africa Gold Party Media Director
Editor of the KB Report