Here you can ask to the whole of Mundus the most useless, random, fun facts of it's nations. Because useless facts are the most interesting ones!

How many % of households in your nation owns a dog?

Vaguzia, 28%
Phuebra, 15%

(OOC-prologue of this story shall be in the vignette of Niccolò  Daza)

Coast of Daito, 1301

The Travel had been long and tough, for almost 3 months, Niccolò had already been sailing on the ocean looking for the mysterious lands of Ardia, it was known there was land here, but not many had been there, whether it was because of lack of resources, fear of hostile people, or fear of the travel itself, not many outside of Ardia had been in these lands, all the knowledge there was about these lands came from vague rumours and stories from drunken sailors about lands with people who look different, and food that is also different to the Vaguzian kitchen, and most importantly new opportunities for wealth.

Niccolò Daza, the 26 year old son of the Saburise Merchant Matthieu Daza, had always been obsessed by the stories told about these mysterious lands and never understood the unwillingness to further discover these far away lands, a few weeks ago, Niccolò had sailed past the Iwi lands, from this point, all knowledge there was, was based on rumours so they now sailed for land and soon saw a fisher town in the distance which had just about enough space for the two boats of Niccolò which had around 100 men with them, mainly merchants and servants of Niccolò, Niccolò on purpose had not taken any knights or soldiers with him as he wanted to show that they came in peace and were purely out there for diplomacy, knowledge, cultural exchange and trade, most of the people on this journey were armed with a sword but this was considered normal in the parts of Mundus where Niccolò came from. The boat now arrived and Niccolò could see that the boats stationed looked quite different from what Vaguziase ships normally looked like "well those sails look quite interesting, i wonder what the idea is behind them" Pierre-Nathan Fillon, the captain of Niccolò's ship remarked "it's certainly one of the many things i wonder about this place" Niccolò replied as the ship now entered the port.

As the ship entered the port, a small crowd had gathered to look at the strange ships entering the town Niccolò gave a small wave, he assumed this was a friendly sign even in this part of Mundus. As the ship had now docked in the port, Niccolò made sure he was the the first to exit the ship to show that he was in command to the locals, and when he looked at the local he immediately noticed that these people indeed did look different than what he had seen "okay their eyes do look different, and their clothes look odd, but it's still clear that these are fishers" he said to his captain Pierre-Nathan, "i guess fishers just look the same everywhere" he replied. The crowd that had awaited the ships looked a little confused, and soon walked towards the crew entering their town and started touching the hair of some of the crew members, mainly the ones who had curly hair, "it seems like they haven't seen people like us before either" Niccolò noted as some of the people also touched his hair and beard. Now with sign language Niccolò tried to explain the people what he wanted "Could any of you tell me where we  are?" No reply  "okay i guess we have to start with something different, okay okay, look at me yes? I am Niccolò, and you are?" He said as he pointed towards a random person in the crowd "Keisuke!" The fella replied "ah look we are getting somewhere, do you guys have a leader?, A boss?, An elder?" Niccolò asked while trying to make himself clear with some kind of sign language, but unfortunately, again, no reply " I'm afraid this will be a long day" "don't worry sir, i think that whatever leader there is here, we will get their attention soon enough, come on, around 100 strange looking people, entering their land, trying to communicate, find shelter, surely this must be to some interest to local leaders?" Pierre-Nathan replied.

Saburi
It had been a bad day for the Vaguzian maffia, just a few hours ago, EM intelligence had found out a funding stream of the Borlanders, this massively hurt the D'Arco family and other Vaguzian maffia who had been trafficking humans and trading weapons with Borlander terrorists, making a lot of profit from this, Icilio D'Arco, de facto leader of the D'Arco family, was absolutely furious as he had invited his trusted members of the family to his mansion in Saburi "Do you guys even understand how bad this situation is, as soon as the Morelanders find out that we are working together with Borlander terrorists, we are done!! fact is that the only way that the Morelanders found out about the funding stream, must be that some of the Vaguzians in East Moreland have been snitching, and im betting its the Imbrogno family in Silverhills!" the Imbrogno family was the biggest Vaguzian maffia organization out of all the Vaguzian diaspora, they became big by investing into a lot of Silverhills Casino's with drugs money mainly made in Portworth, and nowadays many of the casinos in Silverhills have links to Vaguzian maffia. The Imbrogno family is part of the Vaguzian diaspora in East Moreland, most of them living in Portworth, when the big recession of the 60s broke out in Vaguzia many Vaguzians migrated illegally to East Moreland, also taking the maffia culture with them. The Imbrogno family was originally from Saburi, like most Vaguzian maffia organizations, because of this they also still have a lot of contacts in the Saburi Ports, which helps them when they smuggle drugs through these ports. "So here is what we are gonna do, we have some guys of our own in East Moreland and im going to ask them to teach these snitching Imbrogno assholes some lessons, i know that a lot of them hang out in the Vaguzian Bar Le allagre (means the cheerful) in Silverhills so we just gonna throw some grenades in there and shoot the place to pieces" Icillio said aggressively, his right hand Azeglio Chiavetta was very sceptic "Icillio, i understand where you are coming from, but come on, we all know that Silverhills isnt Saburi, here in Saburi we can maybe shoot up a bar till pieces, but the military and police in Silverhills dont fuck around, we dont have power over any police in East Moreland like we have in Vaguzia, so this plan just really seems too risky." Icillio was having none of it "I honestly don't care, as long as they cant connect it with me, and if our guys get arrested and snitch us, they know what will happen to their families."

Docks of Saburi
Shortly after East Moreland police and intel had discovered a funding stream of the Borlanders, The Vaguzian Police had been informed by East Moreland authorities that there was serious evidence that there was human trafficking going on within the ports of Saburi. The Vaguzian Police had reacted to by sending their Elite Special Operations unit named Speziala Interverzione Polizia (Special Intervention Police) to the Docks of Saburi to research whether the docks that were suspected to be owned by maffia organizations, were indeed also doing human trafficking. The SIP is mainly made out of former Tenagri Legionnaires and others are scouted from the regular military units, the SIP has access to all hand weapons they want and are considered to be the 2nd best trained unit after the Tenagri Legiona. The one who was going to lead this operation was Captain Cristian Spinale, Spinale was a former Tenagri Legionnaire and had moved to the SIP a few years back because he wanted to be less far from home, he was immediately given his own team and was also part of the operation which prevented the terror attacks in Saburi Train Station. "Okay guys the plan is to enter the suspicious docks, clear them and find out whats in them." After he said this the SIP immediately started the operation, they slowly walked towards the dock, and now were ready to smash open the door of the dock. The door had to be smashed open by human force, because there was a risk that there were dangerous materials being kept in these docks, and they didnt want this to explode. The SIP used a crowbar to open the door, and immediately after they opened the door, they rapidly entered the dock and cleared it, there were 13 guys in the dock, and they immediately went to the ground when the SIP told them to, soon the SIP opened the 4 containers being kept in the docks and what they found here was truly shocking, all the containers were filled with Zimalians who had been smuggled into the ports by these guys. The 13 guys that had been arrested turned out to be Borlanders and members of the Vaguzian mafia.

Silverhills
Vivaldo Buffone and Elio Vallese had just a received a call from their friend Icilio D'Arco that they had to revenge him against the Imbrogno family, Vivaldo and Elio were both member of a Vaguzian gang in Portsworth who worked very closely with the D'Arco family, they basically viewed each other as family and would do anything for each other. Vivaldo and Elio were now in an Ornati ZX-5, which was a sedan that could reach 260 km/h, with them in the car they had two AK 47s and a grenade launcher. As they were on their way to the target they drove through Silverhills and saw a lot of Military and Police patrolling "Amigo, Icilio gave us a really hard job, if any soldier or police officer is near that bar, we are probably not gonna survive today" Elio told Vivaldo "Yes what we are doing today is risky, but we are family and we gotta help each other out, so we gotta punish those who are snitching us!" Vivaldo replied. As they were now approaching the bar, they turned off the loud playing Vaguzian rap, as the people in the bar would probably be suspicious if they heard Vaguzian music on the street. Now Vivaldo and Elio stopped the car in front of the bar and slowly opened the dark window, Elio now looked if there were any military or police near but he didnt see any, he now grabbed the grenade launcher aimed it at the bar, waited 3 seconds... and fired the grenade. The grenade went through the big window right into the bar, the people in the bar were now completely confused and then after 3 seconds, before anyone had noticed the grenade, the grenade exploded and absolutely shattered the whole bar to pieces. Now you could hear people yelling and running away, people on the street near the bar who were panicking, and survivors in the bar who were completely disorientated. Vivaldo and Elio now rapidly stepped out of the car with their AK 47s, ran into the demolished bar and shot around them, hitting some of the survivors as well "This is what you get for snitching, you Imbrogno scum!!" After 10 seconds of shooting they ran back to the car, as they heard police racing towards the scene. They now full throttle drove away from away from the bar in hope to escape the Police, but soon the Police and even Military came from all sides, Vivaldo and Elio now stopped the car, stepped out and ran into an alley, in the hope to escape to police....

 

OOC: just ignore the Israeli flag on the pic, its Vaguzian

Live from the office of the Prime Minister of Vaguzia in Vallis.

"Good evening, fellow Vaguzians. As we all have seen and heard, a brave Vaguzian solidier has been slaughtered by WMRA cowards. Me, my wife, my cabinet and as i am sure the whole of Vaguzia mourns his passing and wishes his family strength. Private Miguel Alarcon was a brave soldier from Domanti who had almost finished his military service, he was on his last 3 months, i have spoken with Regent Vicenzo Delacroix-Bruguière and we have decided to give the Private Miguel Alarcon Les Croiy á Solomon III, the most honourable medal in the Vaguzian military only given to 3 other people in the last 100 years, this also means that the state will financially support his family for the rest of their lives. But this murder of our brave soldier also showed us that we have lost control of the situation in West-Moreland, the last year the WMRA has rapidly been growing in numbers and also have rapidly expanded their territory, despite us already have made West-Moreland one of the most militarized regions in the world. We can also not let this murder be unpunished, which means our cabinet and Generals have come to the conclusion that the only way to take back control of West-Moreland is a large scale invasion, which is why on this very moment our airforce have started bombing important WMRA-spots and safehouses and why on this very moment a big part of our army is moving towards West-Moreland, we declare our country in Security Code 4 of 6, which means that we call up all reservists as well. I understand that you worry about your sons and daughters now who might are being sent to West-Moreland now, but these are special times, and the first time there will be war in our own land since the civil war, but i have full trust in our soldiers and i am sure that this measure will make our country safer and will normalize the life of West-Morelanders again. I ask you to be brave, to have trust in Izra, Helus or god, together we shall overcome this crisis."

West Moreland, 2 miles from the East Moreland border
It was a cold night in the Morelander alps so the soldiers patrolling in the area putted on their winter jackets "for Izra's sake, why do we have to patrol this middle of nowhere place in the alps?" Sgt. Gomez said, "apparently there have been spotted a group of 5 passing the border illegally, we need to look out for them." Cpt. Valverde replied. "Why would anyone living in East Moreland ever want to illegally pass the border to Vaguzia? Our social services are completely shit compared to East Moreland and our minimum wage is also lower." "Yes that is exactly why this is very weird and why we should look out." Pvt. Lennon was aiming his gun through the trees looking for movement "how long ago were they spotted?" "1 hour ago so they cant be far." Valverde replied. The group now walked deeper into the wood and nearer to the East Moreland border. "We are now 400 metres from the border, they cant be this close from the border can they? They must be miles away now." Gomez said and right after he said that shots were fired upon them "shit its a fucking trap, get to cover!!" Valverde yelled. The 7 soldiers hid behind the different trees while trying to look where the shots were coming from. Soon Pvt. Lennon spotted that they were getting shot from 40 metres distance eastern direction, he aimed his gun to the direction of where the shots were coming and soon saw one of the guys shooting, he didnt want to kill him so he shot him in the knees and did the same to one of the other attackers, meanwhile Cpt. Valver moved closer towards the attacking while constantly going from cover to cover, he then came close enough to have a proper aim and shot one of the attackers down with a shot in the chest and neck. The attackers were shocked by the overpowering of the Vaguzian military and now dropped their weapons with their hands in the air, Valverde and his men now ran to the attackers to put them in cuffs, "on the bloody ground you stupid assholes" he yelled to them. As the attackers were forced on the ground, the Vaguzian soldiers grabbed everything they could out of the pockets of the attackers while the attacker shot in his knees was taken care off. Valverde looked closely at the documents he found in the pockets of the attackers "well, this is very odd, they are East Morelanders, Lennon ask them why they would illegally pass the border and shoot at us" Lennon (a Morelandish Vaguzian) followed his orders and asked the attackers why they passed the border illegally "all they are saying is that they will avenge their Cultist brothers." "okay, we will give them to the Intel, maybe they can get some information out of them."

Headquarters of the V.I.A., Saburi
Head of the V.I.A., Jean-Christophe Devereux, had gathered his highest ranked people together because after the news of the East Morelandish attackers had reached the V.I.A., Devereux started to sense that something was really wrong here. "men and women, thanks for coming, i have some very important stuff to tell and remember that everything i am going to say now is highly classified and will remain in this room, understood? So well to get to my point, tonight our Infantry have arrested 4 East Morelanders and shot down 1, they passed the border illegally and attacked our men who were trying to find them. When we searched them in all our systems, we found out that these guys all have a criminal record in East Moreland, two of them have served prison for beating up Vaguzian tourists in Northfort, one of the tourists being still in coma three years after the incident. But now it gets interesting, one of the attackers gave up as reason for beating up the Vaguzian that he would never allow blasphemous Izraïtes to visit the holy city. What is also very interesting is that in a house search that the EM police did at the house of one the attackers, they found a non-registered Kalashnikov and a Warriors of Helus flag, so we have serious reason these guys have ties to the Warriors of Helus, the only question that remains now is what were they doing in Vaguzia?"

West Moreland, deep in the woods of the Morelandish alps
Julien Farrugia was sent by the the V.I.A. to the West Moreland to find out what weapons the WMRA had and was getting, and how they were getting them. After he had been following a group of WMRA militia member he now found himself deep in the woods of the Morelandish alps around 100 metres from the WMRA members. He looked with his binoculars to see what was going on, he saw two jeeps stopping in front of WMRA and out of the jeeps stepped 10 men, all armed with Kalashnikovs they were yelling some thing at the WMRA members and then signed them to follow them to the car. Julien now slowly walked closer to the scene to hear what they were saying, when he was around 10 metres of the scene he hid behind a tree and started listening to what was going on. "You sure you werent followed?" one of the jeep guys asked to a WMRA members "No i am sure of it, now fast, show me what you maffia pigs got for us." the supposed maffia guy now walked to the back of the jeep and opened the tailgate, Julien now carefully tried to look what was in the jeep, he could vaguely see 4 objects that appeared to be small missiles "well here i have 4 beautiful SMA-9 missiles for you, and another 4 in the other jeep, they are all 8 military tech so not self made but a beautiful piece of Vaguzian military tech " "how the heck did you get that?!" one of the WMRA members asked "not gonna go in detail, but lets just say the Maffia here in Vaguzia has connection up until the very top of the government, but it doesnt matter, i would like my 5 million$ now." "of course, us Cultists always stick the deal my friend" as the WMRA member said that he got handed a suitcase by another WMRA member and he opened it so the maffia guy was able to see the money, he then closed it again and handed it to the maffia guy "nice doing business again my friend." "same my friend."  the missiles were now loaded out of the car and putted in trucks that the WMRA had brought with them, Julien now could see them very clearly and could also see that these were indeed SMA-9 missiles "hell, what are they up to" Julien now got his camera out and filmed the missiles being put in the truck. "time to sent this stuff to the V.I.A."

To his Majesty King Andrew III,

In these times of world tensions, it is important to reach out to other nations, and your country has been one of the countries that we have had minimal contact with, this i find very weird, because when you think about it, our nations have a lot in common, both heavily influenced by Helusite culture (even though we also have heavy influence by Izraïte culture). Our countries are also one of the biggest military and economic powers in Mundus, which is why it would be good to talk about economic, military, diplomatic and cultural relationships, which is why i and the Vaguzian goverment would be honoured to invite you to our capital city Vallis.

Me, Prime Minister Aaron Kaalit and Prince Théodore shall receive you at Vallis International Airport, i look forward to meet with you,

Signed,
Regent of Vaguzia,  Vicenzo Delacroix-Bruguière
Prince of Vaguzia, Théodore Leonardo Fabiane Gabriel Delacroix
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Vaguzia, Aaron Kaalit

(OOC so this is basically a World Press Photo rip off)

Please nominate here the picture you think should win the prize for best press photo of 2019. Please note the place where the picture is taken, the photographer(name and country), the newspaper and a little bit of the backstory behind the picture. There are 7 different categories: Mundus Press Photo of the Year, Mundus Press Photo Story of the Year, General News, Nature, Sports, Contemporary Issues and Spot News, one picture can be nominated for multiple categories. The Pictures will be shown in exhibitions all over Mundus at locations yet to be anounced.

So:

Category:
Place of Picture:
Photographer:
Newspaper:
Backstory:

These are the candidates for the President of the Free Federal Republic of Phuebra



Iv Sorya (Free Phuebran Party)

Ideology: Center-Left, nationalist, secular.

Major plans: Military service of 2 years for every Phuebran that has turned 18, public transport, education and healthcare state owned

Religion: Buddhist




Son Chariya (Liberal Democratic Party of Phuebra)

Ideology: Left, Liberal, Socialist, Secular

Major Plans: Only secular schools, Education and Healthcare universal

Religion: Buddhist




Kaalim el-Zahra (National Phuebran Union Party)

Ideology: Right Wing, Conservative, Nationalist

Major Plans: Military service of 2 years for every Phuebran that has turned 18, funding for both public and religious schools, private transport

Religion: Muslim




Loun Chakra (National Buddhist Party)

Ideology: Right Wing, Conservative, Buddhist nationalist

Major Plans: Funding for both Buddhist and Public schools, every Buddhist to serve one year as a monk and one year in the Military, Public Transportation

Religion: Buddhist




Chhay Vannak (Communist Party of Phuebra)

Ideology: Marxism, Leninism, Left Wing, Nationalism

Major Plans: State to have full control over everything, Every Phuebran boy that turns 18 to serve 2 years in the Military, no religious schools

Religion: Chhay Vannak is a very secular Buddhist




Saleet el-Sadri (Islamic Party of Phuebra)

Ideology: Right Wing, Conservative, Islamic Nationalism

Major Plans: Funding for both Islamic and Public schools, every Phuebran that turns 18 to serve at least 1 year in the Phuebran military

Religion: Muslim

Quentin 2

Weight: 55 tons
Length: 10.8 m
Width: 3.6 m
Height: 2.4 m
Primary Armament: 120-mm/L55 smoothbore (40 rounds)
Secondary Armament: 1× 12.7×99mm (.50 BMG) OHMG-9 heavy machine gun (3,200 rounds), 1× 7.62×51mm coaxial machine gun (12,000 rounds)
Armor:  Ornati type of composite armour with ERA and NERA modular add-on armour in addition to soft-kill and hard-kill anti-missile defense systems
Engine: 4-cycle, 12-cylinder water-cooled diesel, 1,500 hp (1,100 kW)
Power/weight: 27.2 hp/tonne
Crew: 3
Operational range: 450 kilometres (280 mi)
Speed: Paved road: 70 km/h (43 mph), Cross country: 50 km/h (31 mph), Acceleration from 0–32 km/h (0–20 mph) in 7 seconds
Price: $8.5 million per unit

As a country it is only possible to buy a max of 50 of this type of tank until 2021, this is because of a deal with the Government of Vaguzia

To King Finley Ó Séaghdha,

As new Prime Minister of Vaguzia i wish to extend diplomatic ties in Mundus and your great country of Uí Ceinnselaig is one of the countries that i really want to create better diplomatic ties with. It would be my greatest honour if we could visit you in your country to talk about how we could make our ties stronger in a Military, economic, diplomatic and cultural ways. I am really looking forward to have a meeting that will hopefully profit us both, i am looking forward to your reply.

Signed,
Prime Minister Aaron Kaalit

To Grand Duke Hugo Lascelles of Bakkermaya,

As you may have noticed, our country has a new government since a few weeks, and because we want to extend our diplomatic ties, we thought it would be a great idea to visit your countries as one of the first, considering we view you as neighbours and we also have a significant cultist population. We think that a meeting between our nations could be very profitable for both of us, in economic, diplomatic, military and culturally ways. It would be our biggest honour to visit your country and we are looking forward to the visit.

Signed,
Prime Minister Aaron Kaalit

The adventures of the brave men and women fighting the WMRA and Borlanders in West-Moreland and other Border areas.

Vaguzia was a strange country when you thought about it, most of the country was relatively safe, with lots of tourists, parties etc. Of course these places have also been the target of big terror attacks, but which city hasnt in this part of Mundus. But when you would go to the more rural areas of Vaguzia, like West-Moreland and southern Irogana, the situation was completely different, these parts of Vaguzia had become a dangerous area, full of Borlander and West-Morelander separatist movements, for a tourist or even a Vaguzian it was hard to come into these areas, you first have to pass around 3 checkpoint and the chance they will stop you at one of them is large. To control this situation, the Vaguzian King had send the Army and Marines to these areas, and they also got support from Achkaerinese Troops, who share the Maelstrom base in Irogana close to West-Moreland in the middle of Borlander area.

One of these men and women were Captain Zefiro Bellisario, Staff Sergeant Giancarlo Galletti, Sergeant Emilia Moceri Corporal Filippo D'Antonio and Private Gondulfo La Scola . The 5 were marines and send out to West-Moreland to mostly do a lot of patrolling and to help the police, they now sat in their OrnatiAr-2 they drove through the Vaguzian Alps to Hudilodjul, a town close to Doqadis with around 40,000 people, mostly hardcore separatist, and known to be very violent towards military. As they drove into the town, you could see people who where giving them the middle finger or spat on the car, someone eventually even threw a stone at the car, Galletti reacted to this with warning shots. They had given intel by the VIA that there was a HQ disguised as a house in Hudlodjul. When the car arrived at the house, about 3 men started shooting out of the house towards the Marines, the Marinese now jumped out of the car so they could properly shoot at their attackers, Cpt. Bellisario now came out of his cover and was able to eliminate one of the shooters. While the shooting was still going on, another group of WMRA's came around the corner and now the Marines were getting shot at from 2 sides by 12 men.

 "Shit, we are in a ambush now, okay, Giancarlo and Gondulfo take out the WMRA's in the house, me, Emilia and Filippo shall take out the WMRA's at the left of us! " right after Zefiro said that, Emilia managed to shoot down 2 WMRA's at the left of them. Which gave Giancarlo and Gondulfo just about enough time to run to the house while Zefiro gave them cover. Giancarlo kicked in the door, and immediately, Gondulfo shot down the WMRA guy that stood at the top of the stair ready to shoot, Giancarlo checked the ground floor for enemies, but luckily there weren't any, they now first threw a flashblang upstairs, waited for it to explode and ran upstairs where they shot down 3 stunned man.

Meanwhile Zefiro, Emilia and Filippo were still in a heavy firefight, they had managed to kill another 2 men but now there were still 5 men left. Zefiro now threw a grenade which putted 3 another men down, soon after this Giancarlo shot the other 2 men down from out of the house. Just when they were checking the bodies, about 50 people were now around the scene, some very angry, some very sad, there were also some people who started throwing bricks, glass etc. on the Marines "Erm sir, i think we might need a little support here." Giancarlo said.

It is the year 1982, the Communist Party wins the elections in Saburi on the 23rd of February, a day later the Communist Government of Saburi calls out the People's Republic of Saburi, the Vaguzian Government tries to arrest the leader of the Commnunist Party but get stopped by more than 700,000 protesters who are celebrating the Communist state of Saburi. On the 26th of February the Vaguzian Government sends the military to Saburi to control the situation, but the protesters keep ground and Saburi changes into a war zone, this also triggers more communist uprisings in other Southern cities like Poletygesus and Livofati which brings the revolution very close to Vallis, now the military has also been split up by the revolution so now the communists are also armed to the teeth. The Vaguzian Civil War is a fact.

So i was wondering which role you see your country having in this war, and for the moment i am not gonna do a RP with this yet, so i just wanna know the roles for now.

Prince(regent) Vincenzo Delacroix has accepted the minority coalition (Izraïte Union only) of Aaron Kaalit. Aaron Kaalit is now the Prime Minister of the Kingdom Vaguzia.