MARINES APPREHEND FORMER DUCHESS IN ROUTINE STOP
By Roisin Shaughnessy: Chief Correspondent
The notion of a stop and search snowballing through multiple offences is nothing new for police officers across Mundus, today it proved true for the Achkaerinese military a routine stop of a vessel resulted in the arrest of Alys Arsenault, the former Grand Duchess of Marseilles. In a statement a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: "Earlier this morning the INS Pegasus, operating as part of ongoing efforts to combat slavery, human trafficking and smuggling stopped a vessel. In the course of the subsequent search thirty people being trafficked were freed. One of these thirty was during processing confirmed to be Alys Arsenault, the traffickers were carrying a false identity passport for Ms Arsenault and we have no reason as yet to believe that the traffickers were aware of her real identity. With the confirmation of Ms Arsenault's identity the existing international arrest warrant for her was executed. The Diplomatic Office has been in contact with the Governments of Marseilles and Aquitaine notifying them of this."ELECTROBREAKER TAKES RECORD
By Kimberly Thorn: Science and Technology Correspondent
Team Dawnbreaker has taken their third speed record, already holding the records for fastest solar powered land vehicle and fastest human powered vehicle with vehicles named Dawnbreaker and Aerobreaker respectively. The record they took today is the record for an electric powered aircraft, taken by the Electrobreaker (pictured above), with a speed of 186 knots, beating the previous record of 182 knots. Project leader Kit Davenport spoke after the record was confirmed saying: "This was new territory for us, we weren't used to the challenges involved but we got there, everyone involved has put in a lot of good work and I guess we'll have to figure out which record we want to challenge next.""LAWSON AND PHOENIX ROBBED" - EXPERTS ANALYSIS
By Nick Watson: Sports Correspondent
As the Mundus Cycling season heads towards its final weeks before taking its winter break experts have not held back in their criticism of event organisers, highlighting several issues that in their opinion indicates a "concerted agenda against a rider and team for no other reason than being successful.", it has already been posted on social media that Phoenix Cycling has demanded an investigation into the conduct of the race officials at the womens Tour of Ardia and many now expect the same to occur in respect of the Avignane GP. This latest race saw Olha Mikhailov take the win and the Mundus Cycling Cup, pipping Sammy Lawson to the title. A result which has been greatly questioned as one expert put it "It's highly convenient that the second place rider in the standings wins the race and happens to have two team mates that lock out the two positions that would deny them, meanwhile the strongest team in the peloton, with the strongest rider are somehow incapable of pulling that rider to the front? Something's very fishy if you ask me. These results suggest that the team on the day rode for Zoe Carpenter which is surely a nonsense, excellent rider though she is this is not a situation where she is the lead rider." this is a point reiterated by Christopher Warrington the head of Achkaerinese cycling, who said "We'd have no issue with this if it had been fair and square but there's been a clear undercurrent in the latter part of the season to sabotage this team, we saw it at the Tour of Ardia on day two a traffic cone was thrown in front of Melanie, she crashed, got back up and was then prevented from continuing by a race official, this undoubtedly influenced the race. Then on day seven, the day we managed to get Niamh and Sammy clear in a breakaway what happened? The lead car for no good reason slows down and Niamh goes right into the back of it. And then it gets even better, Sammy only managed a single top twenty finish in that tour, which considering that she is a stage racer, an excellent climber and consistently performs well in the mountains is very odd, so we investigated her bike and found evidence of interference."
Another expert raised similar concerns saying "On consistency, reputation, performance and ability we know Phoenix Cycling is the strongest team, we know they have the strongest rider, yet they can't set up a sprint train or sit on the front of the peloton? No. And then let's consider how convenient it is that Olha Mikhailov is allowed, in a race to decide a title which multiple people could have won, break away. It's not tactically sound, it doesn't make sense and is frankly speaking nothing more than a farce."