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Leaders � Editorial

Welcome to the Economist. I have decided to publish a Romanian edition of the newspaper for the first time. In the UK, a newspaper such as this one recieves only a handful of votes, and I am interested to see what the difference is between the countries. Obviously it is written in English, and I apologise for not using Romanian. If it is successful, I will write a Romanian edition. Much of the content is from a British perspective. I hope this is interesting, and if you like the format then I will publish an edition with a focus on Romanian politics as well.



Leaders � Glory on the fields of...Brussels

This week we have had the resistance war (RW) in Belgium dominating headlines. The resistance war in Belgium was not sanctioned by the British and Belgian governments, but was instead started by a renegade ex-President of Ireland. The original intention was for the Belgians to use the sale of the resistance war medal to pay for the war and give the Belgian treasury a boost. This would also give the armed forces a chance to practice exercising manoeuvres and raise overall wellness.

However, after the RW was started, it was decided by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that the manoeuvres would go ahead, but with a British victory. This would allow the original plan to go ahead without it costing the British or Belgians any money. Afterwards, another war would be started and the region reclaimed by Belgium. Despite two of the top 5 news articles being instructions on how to balance the war to allow a maximum number of participants, the war lasted less than 24 hours. Originally, this resulted in a questioning of the effectiveness of the MoD by some, but it emerged that it was PEACE sleeper units and mobile forces which has unbalanced the war deliberately.

In the next resistance war, we need to be prepared. Not just the armed forces regulars, but all citizens. The wellness you receive from the war takes a huge burden of the NHS. You could potentially receive 20-40 wellness in just a few minutes. You simply fight on the losing side of the war, then click the 'heal' button next to your hospital. You lose 10 health for fighting, and gain between 30 and 50 health when you heal, depending where you live in the UK. It is the duty of every active UK citizen to participate in this, even if it is just fighting 'for the wellness', meaning with no weapon. The Economist fully backs the MoD in this, as returning the Brussels region to Belgium will help foster what is already an outstanding relationship between the two countries, as well as helping boost our national wellness and therefore productivity. So be prepared eUK, and spread the word.



Letters (none)



Britain � Royal Mess?

With much of the UK's politics revolving around the Final Destiny fiasco this week, the rest of the political scene has been quite slow. So we at the Economist have decided to run an article on something a little less serious than usual. It was brought up by a newcomer to the forums, Bodnotbod (welcome to the forums!) that the styling of a lot of our governmental organisations as 'Royal' was a bit silly considering we have no Monarch in game, and it's effectively a republican system. Naturally the debate descended into an argument about the real life monarchy, and this author is a bit ashamed to admit that he did post a large-format picture of the Queen on the forums, which may have been a little excessive.

But what does the British public feel about the issue? Most people in-forum were in favour of keeping the current names for ease of recognition and because, ultimately, Royal Navy sounds a lot better than Republican Navy. But we know from experience that the demographic which eRepublik attracts tends to be male, quite young, and rather socially radical. So what do you think about our naming? Is it worth changing to reflect our Presidential status? Should we just make Dishmcds honorary King, since he basically fulfils the role anyway?

A few good quotes from the 'debate':

“If the Admins change us to the United Republic of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, then we'll remove the royal tags, although they'll have a fight from me if they do.”- John Forseti

“And considering the lack of boats... Space Marines? Oooh, Space Marines. Now that's an idea I can get behind.”- Rayf Drayson



Europe � Romania Rising

This week the main piece of the Economist's Europe column is going to be an interview with Romanian ambassador to the United Kingdom Stefan Dorunga. Romania perhaps receives an unfair amount of negative coverage in the UK press, and the Economist, ever neutral, feels it must give the Romanians a chance to respond. The following interview was conducted on the 18th of February 2009. All questions and responses are unedited, commentary is starred...


Romania is the number one country in eRepublik. What would you say is the secret of your success?

The first thing that must be factored in is the age of our community, ours being one of the oldest here in eRepublik. But the most important factor here is the skill and dedication of our members and politicians.

Does Romania have an exceptionally high level of member activity?

That goes without saying. Besides having one of the most efficient media systems in the eWorld, our members are very highly involved in the military of our nation. This not only guarantees the military strength of our community but also makes for a very close-knit group of people. But having extremely active members has its down-sides. If something unexpected and unacceptable happens(like bugs) it causes our members a great deal of frustration causing some to even give up.

**We can see here the role of the media in Romania. It acts much as the forums do in the UK, transferring information between citizens and prompting them to take action. Stefan told us that in some cases articles in Romania can receive more that 300 votes in one day, and last on the top five only a few hours. It would be ideal if this could also be the case in the eUK**

You mentioned the media, do you think it is worth publishing an edition of the Economist in Romania, or advertising it on the Romanian forums?

It would probably be a very good idea as our readers appreciate a good article once in a while. Unfortunately the forums are not such a great place to publish it as we do not have such an active forum as the eUK. Only I would recommend not publishing it too soon on the media as it is being flooded by the large number of Hungarian articles and spam which reduces interest in the media and pushes articles out of the top 5.

**Here we see that Romania manages as it does without high forum activity. It shows the different atmospheres presented by different countries. Whereas Romania runs almost entirely outside of the forums, the eUK would collapse within a few days without the forums.**

There has been several peace offers and counter-offers with Hungary. Do you see a peaceful resolution to the conflict as likely?

This is a very sensitive issue. As you may know there have been quite a few peace proposals since the wars in August. Some were severely unreasonable like Alex Craciun's request of 5000 Gold and some were disproportionately lax compared to our investments in this war such as Dsalageanu's white peace while allowing to attack their original regions with no response from us other than defending them (i.e. no counter attacks). A peaceful resolution is of course desirable but it must be kept close in mind that many Romanians, as Hungarians, have invested a lot of hours, money and stress in order to succeed in this war. The Romanian public at large sees peace with eHungary as more and more unacceptable as many threats and insults have been made from the other side(not that we were perfect angels). Seeing as the Hungarians are rapidly growing in numbers I do not foresee a quick and easy peace a close solution. Of course unless our political leaders on both sides could forgo the politic interests and do what's best for the geopolitical scene as a whole.


Romania is the strongest country in Atlantis, what do Romanians think about the super-alliance?

Well, sadly to say Romania makes no exception from the general Atlantis dissatisfaction(this is not on the official level, but more the general public's sentiment). People generally tend to think that as the strongest nation we represent the first bastion against PEACE(not very good word play) and as such we should be supported by all member nations in our actions. Some Atlantis countries have fought with us and have helped us quite a lot, and you can feel the respect that is given to them, nations like Sweden and Norway. Yet there are some nations that are seen as maybe 'lazy' militarily such as the eUSA which although has the largest potential force has never seemed to give us a significant push in our operations, though we helped their actions in French Toast. All things considered though, the Romanian attitude is such that we would never let our allies down, regardless if we are assisted by them in the future/past or not.

What do Romanians think about the eUK?

On the low levels there is not much said about the eUK, the people that have been in the country are pleasently surprised by how things go on in your country but those that haven't are mostly neutral. More importantly on the high-level the eUK is very appreciated and seen as an important asset both to our alliance and community, with very respected opinions being one of the first nations to have ambassadors appointed to it.

The European Social Alliance has been proposed as a way to unify Europe politically- what does Romania think about this proposal?

Our president has already declared on the ESA forum that our stance is one of approval and support but we will not aspire to join it as it would not serve our best interests. Cooperation with this new organism is sought after but a direct involvement of our nation would skew the interests of all other nations in the alliance. Also this would allow us far more independence without having our mistakes affect this new organisation.


Turkey has left PEACE now, do you think it is our duty to help liberate Greece and Israel?

It is not our obligation to help these aspiring nations liberate themselves. We must on the other hand to our best to create a political climate that would make such a movement possible and acceptable to the Turks so that they may allow this without resisting. Only then should we directly fight for the freedoms of these two nations and only on the terms set forth in negotiations with the Turkish people

Do you have a message for the people of the UK?

You are a great nation with outstanding moral values and I am happy to have been posted here as ambassador and I am proud to be part of this community.

-Interview Ends-

I hope you enjoyed reading the interview. I must admit, the author's own opinions of the Romanians have changed a lot lately, and for the better. Despite our different beliefs, we must respect the Romanians as our strongest allies, and an ally which will never fail to stand by us when we are threatened.



United States � For the People, the Country, the Glory, and of course the Lulz

War broke out this week between the United States and Portugal. The Portuguese, already involved in a long drawn out conflict with Spain, seemed to be shocked by the American attack on Azores. In the words of the American President 'this battle can not be justified!' The Americans basically decided that they needed a good war to fix their shaky economy and sort out their wellness problems.

Economically, the war was of massive benefit to the Americans. By increasing taxation on weapons and iron, their intention was to make money from all the ordinary Americans participating in the war for 'the lulz'. The war funding was limited to just $15000, which at the current exchange rate of $1 – 0.016Gold equals roughly 240 gold. Considering the funding spent by Portugal and Spain on their wars, this was a pittance. The US treasury apparently increased by roughly $30000 in just one day due to the increased weapons tax.

In terms of wellness, the war was a great success too. The problems we face with our NHS are nothing compared to the problems the US government faces trying to keep it's 12000 citizens wellness high. A country that large requires citizens to look after themselves to a large extent. The war allowed those citizens to up their wellness quickly and effectively, in much the same way as the eUK did during the recent resistance war. The war module effectively provides free wellness in this way, and Uncle Sam has made war (but not imperialism) part of his Presidency for this reason.

Glory is the sticker in this. The Americans lost the war, and it wasn't that close either. It may be that this was because the war was, after all, for fun. However the old accusation that America merely hides behind it's huge population has surfaced again. The actual number of active citizens in the eUSA is ever in doubt, and if forum activity is to go by, the numbers in terms of a percentage are very low indeed. In this we have something in common with the Americans. Both countries must work on techniques to co-ordinate not just the experienced soldiers, but the new players as well, to take advantage of the numbers we have.

Finally, for the fun of it. I think that it's obvious from the American response to losing the war that fun was always at the heart of this conflict. The intention was to return the region through the retreat mechanism if the USA won, and most Americans seem pretty uncaring about the actual result. It is good to see at least one country in eRepublik still plays it for what it is: a game.



Middle-East and Africa � Israel lives

A resistance war in the Northern region of Turkey has been won, resulting in Israeli freedom for the first time in months. The Turks, although originally nonplussed about another rebellion, eventually made a statement asking their citizens to concentrate their efforts on recovering the Northern region.

Turkey has been behaving strangely in the last week. It first of all attacked allies Italy in a word of wars, complaining that Italian citizens were sparking the resistance wars in its territory. It went so far as to threaten embargoes and war if the Italians didn't desist. Later in the week it supposedly left Peace, although the truth of that is yet to be confirmed. All in all, a good time for freedom fighters in Israel and Greece. As this is published, the resistance war in Thrace is still ongoing. A curtailing of Turkish power is almost guaranteed in the next few weeks. But what does all this mean for us?

Well infighting amongst Peace countries is rare enough, and as an Atlantis nation we should be celebrating it. However, it has become increasingly apparent that the super alliances are disintegrating around the edges. Even the strongest proponents of the two alliances, Romania, Indonesia, Iran, Sweden, and so on, have doubts about the continuity of the current political situation. If Atlantis is to survive, we need to take a strongly pro-Atlantis political position immediately.



Asia � Thailand: Free, but for how long?

It has long been speculated that Thailand would remain free only as long as Indonesia decides. At the minute Indonesia is tied down with conflict in India, with Americans making up most of the Indian defence. However, this publication believes that Thailand will be the next target. Indonesian President Aban has made it clear that it is the Indonesian Army's intention to orchestrate a political takeover of the new state. Once infiltrated, the new government would then declare war on Indonesia, allowing the worlds most imperialist nation to conquer another new and defenceless country.

In the West, behind our high walls, we sometimes forget about the little guy. But it is in the best interests of free trade, and Atlantis, to offer the hand of friendship to new countries. Much as France, Italy and Portugal represent PEACE nations in our back yard, India, Singapore and Australia are countries in Peace's. However, a simple comparison of the relative support given by the Eastern superpowers to their allies in Europe to our support to our allies in Asia shows an obvious imbalance. If we are to be taken seriously, we must take steps to increase our support and influence over countries in the far East, with military AND economic support.

On a more immediate note, India's conflict and defeat at the hands of Indonesia is a dangerous precedent. It shows that Indonesia can pretty much single-handedly take on the armed might of Atlantis and win. We need to make sure that we have an organised defence of the new nation, to give it the chance to develop.



Business � Free Trade

This publication is a big advocate of free trade. But naturally this is difficult to form unilaterally. The trade agreements initiated to establish benchmark import taxes with Germany and Australia through a rebate system are a good step in this direction. The Berlin and Kangaroo economic Free Trade Agreements not only represent a step towards free trade of goods, however, but also free trade of currency. Protectionism in the long term does not help the national economy. Specialisation is the basis of the free market, and as a country with high grain we could be feeding the world. Cheaper raw materials and finished products, produced abroad, would alleviate the burden on the government to provide gifts to the NHS and weapons to the armed forces. Obviously, some degree of trust is required in this, but surely that is why we have allies in the United States and so on. This author has disagreed with Dish many times in the past, but his work in the Ministry of Trade is truly inspiring.



***The Economist***



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