Deltaria

[Aquinas]

Priests celebrate SEVENTY PERCENT pay rise

September 3516
by Orbán Olasz



Cardinal Vladan Martinek's government has capitulated to clergy demands for a pay rise. He offered them 70% in the end, more than most people expected, although still less than the 105% they were demanding. He also proposed splurging millions of Deltarian Telars on religious artworks, a move guaranteed to cement his support in the religious establishment.

To the horror of many, Martinek revealed that in future the state and not the Church will have to pay the salaries of clerics in the Terran Patriarchal Church. Fiscal experts are wondering how this will be funded. Brother Branko Jespersen, the Finance Minister, insists that "all of this has been budgeted for within our existing plans". Rumours persist, however, that the government intends to pay for both the clergy salaries and the religious arts projects by dipping in to the 10 billion Zards provided by Zardugal, which was meant to be used for alleviating poverty amongst the rural poor.



Father Werdheri Chvátal (pictured above), who led the strike for higher clergy pay, has seen his political profile rise as a result of this episode, which his supporters are already calling a "great victory". It is being speculated that the Hosiany Národná Strana (Hosian National Party) hopes to co-opt him by making him a candidate at the next election.

One organisation which may have lost an opportunity following the priests' pay rise is the Royal Bank of Lodamun. Following speculation that the Bank might freeze the accounts of Deltarian clerics, panicked priests, monks, nuns, bishops, archbishops and cardinals have rushed to withdraw their funds and close their accounts. These people, who are now earning more money than before, are likely to deposit their future savings with the Royal Bank of Lodamun's competitors.

[Aquinas]

Czar Ľubomír II forced to sign Veľká Listina

[Aquinas]

Paranoid Martinek to unleash Army of Boh on Deltarians

November 3517
Opinion piece by political commentator Mahulena Jelen


Coming to your town centre soon...

The Prĭvŭ Posadnikŭ, Cardinal Vladan Martinek, is pushing through a draconian bill that would dismantle the police forces run by local vojevodstvos and entirely hand policing duties over to the Army of Boh, one of the few institutions the increasingly paranoid Martinek feels he can trust. Observers fear this will in effect leave ordinary Deltarians at the mercy of a religious police, ill-trained at managing the nuances of civil policing but over-eager to impose Hosian orthodoxy with minimum subtlety and maximum brutality.

According to rumours, many of the nobles, who have already lost their standing armies, are appalled by Martinek's aggregation of power and are plotting to oust him when the next Věšte assembles in October 3519.


Mounting attacks on Zardic troops

The government has finally admitted that the number of assaults committed by locals against Zardic troops stationed in the city of Balgrad has "increased substantially in recent months". So bad is the situation now, that Zardic commanders are warning their men "to limit their ventures outside the military base to as little as possible". In one incident last week, a Zardic military adviser talking near a bus stop was smashed over the head with a wine bottle by a local who suspected his Zardic accent. Many Deltarians resent the base as a "foreign occupation", and are sensitive about the fact that Deltaria's last war against Zardugal occured not so many years ago.


Railway workers lament "most stupid proposal ever"


Can they run our trains?

Aurel Podsednik, General Secretary of the Deltarian Railway Workers' Union, has attacked the government's St. Krištof's Railway Act as "quite honestly, the most stupid proposal I have ever seen in my life". He continued:

A railway system run entirely by monks? Whatever will be be next? These government ministers don't have a clue. Our railway workers are highly skilled and experienced men and women. Their skill and experience are absolutely vital to keeping the railways running safely and efficiently. You can't just sack them all and replace them with a bunch of clerics who don't have a clue about running a railway - or anything else, for that matter. If you ask me, the Czar ought to be put back in charge.

The union is unable to organise a strike, however, because public sector strikes are forbidden under Deltarian law.


Stuffy Culture Minister bans Felinist children's book


Banned...but was this really necessary?

Culture Minister Father Štefan Blaha has officially banned Temple Cat, the popular illustrated children's book about a cat that lives in a temple and is worshipped by cat worshippers known as "Felinists". Censors have turned a blind eye to the book for some years now, but Blaha has decided to act "because it would not be responsible to allow the impressionable minds of young children to be manipulated by this subversive, sick and blasphemous indoctrination".

Last week, Father György Vastag, a priest in Hadjod used a Sunday service to lift a cat up in front of his congregation in order to denounce it as "a vile creature of Satanail", but the protesting animal escaped the priest's grasp and inflicted a severe scratch across the chin before leaping away. The priest later contracted cat scatch fever and required medical attention.

[Aquinas]

Deltaria offers Selucian government "full moral support"

[Aquinas]

New [Kalopia-Wantuni] government "worse than Wantuni Hegemony", warn Deltarian clerics

[Aquinas]

Journalists gasp as Martinek announces pre-election slavery gamble
January 3519

by Orbán Olasz


Cardinal Vladan Martinek. Will he still be here in October?

Cardinal Vladan Martinek came to power in late 3513 promising Deltaria and the rest of Terra that he would "do something about slavery". For over 2 years he did nothing, scared of falling foul of the Czar and nobles, who have a long history of defending their vested interests with terrifying efficiency. Eventually, when a Deltarian slave ship sank at the cost of 208 lives, international pressure cajoled him into ending the transport of slaves between North Utembo and Deltaria.

But despite pleas from other nations and non-government bodies like the International Human Rights Movement, he took no further action on slavery - despite repeatedly raising hopes he would do so.

Now, in a bold pre-election gamble, the Martinek government is determined to put its Slavery in Deltaria Act on the statute book before the current session of the Veste is dissolved. This legislation would not outlaw slavery, but would guarantee all children the right to be born in freedom, allow new enslavements only in cases where individuals had committed serious offences and set down basic legal guidelines for the humane treatment of slaves by their masters.

There is a crucial exclusion clause to the Bill, however. The new regulations will not be applied to North Utembo and Statrica, Deltaria's colonies. Government ministers privately fear that any further restrictions on slavery in the colonies would goad the Deltarian elites who rule them towards open rebellion.

Few informed commentators are prepared to predict what will happen this October when the Vojevodstvo Vestes meet to elect Deltaria's next national parliament. The internal security situation is much more under Martinek's control now than it was when he first entered office, but he is not loved by everyone. His slavery reforms offend much of the nobility - many of whom fear that if he wins again, he might try to go further and stamp out slavery altogether. Nor have his austere social policies endeared him to those who perceive him as a killjoy and a puritan. The expansion of the power of the Church has become resented too. Martinek also earned opprobrium for his decision to allow Zardic troops - who had been fighting Deltaria only years earlier - to station themselves on Deltarian soil.

The clerical government has had its achievements, no doubt, such as its provision of health and education services for the poor, and its remarkable success in rehabilitating Deltaria's international relations with its neighbours. Nevertheless, a shadowy faction of Czarists known as the Vonkajšíci have been quietly increasing their influence in recent years. Could they yet pull off an upset and end the clerics' ruthless hold on power?


"Day of Carnage": Hosian fundies smash up Indralan restaurants



Raided, looted and vandalised: Indralan restaurant in Tepesovo

Incensed by Indrala's latest criticism of Deltaria's clerical government, gangs of young hardline Hosian fundamentalists have rampaged across the country, smashing up Indralan restaurants in what they are calling a "Day of Carnage". Bishop Paul Nordskov, the Justice Minister, said he was "sorry" for the "intimidation, upset and damage to property", but that "no prosecutions would be brought forward". "We must show mercy to those young people," he added. "What they did was wrong, but their righteous anger against Indrala was absolutely justified and surely reflects their inner holiness."

[Polites]

Clerical Government Overthrown; Czar Back in Power
...and Deltarians celebrate drunk on Borovička




More to come

http://classic.particracy.net/viewbill. ... lid=387806

[Polites]

Traitors Punished
by Andrej Kováč



November 3519 - As the Veches were being convened last October, a large popular uprising initiated by the Vonkajšíci, the Czar's militia, forced the clerical government of Cardinal Martinek out of power and restored Czar Ľubomír II to his rightful place as the sole source of political authority in the Czardom. In a Golden Bull, the Czar officially proclaimed his restoration and dealt appropriate punishments to the usurpers. The leaders of the clerical government were sentenced to death, and as the traditional penalty for treason, impalement, is not fit for men of the cloth, they were beheaded. Two clergymen escaped the Czar's wrath due to his godlike mercy, namely Archbishop Kamil Jedlicka, who was imprisoned for three years, and Cardinal Martinek himself, who was punished by blinding with a red hot iron and was banished to the Monastery of Saint Volos in Kéjencvár, where he will live the rest of his days in repentment and the hope that Boh may forgive him and grant him deliverance from his grave sins.

To celebrate the return of rightful authority in Deltaria, the Czar distributed enough free Borovička wine to each and every Deltarian, man, woman, and child, so all would rejoice at the return of their Father.

Editor's note: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the entire staff of the Nesporný Pravda was inebriated when the previous issue was published, resulting in an incomplete article. We apologize to our readers for this lack of oversight. Needless to say, all those responsible have been punished accordingly, and the former editors and writers have been enslaved.

[Aquinas]

Shock as Utemban ex-slave becomes Deltarian opposition leader
December 3519

by Orbán Olasz


Father Tendaji Djaanfari

Following savage retribution from the Czarists against the outgoing clerical government, the Hosiany Národná Strana faction in the Deltarĭsko Věšte has elected Father Tendaji Djaanfari, a former Utemban slave, as its new leader. With 11 former HNS ministers executed and the other 2 imprisoned, few were willing to put their names forward for the thankless and highly dangerous task of leading the political opposition for the next 6 years. All over Deltaria, people were shocked at the news that a relatively unknown priest - a black Utemban and a former slave - had somehow ascended to such a high profile position.

Djaanfari was born in North Utembo, Deltaria's notorious slave colony. At only 5 years old, he was separated from his family and trafficked to Deltaria as a slave to work in the fields in Dissuwa. His intelligence and wit impressed his progressive-minded owner, who took him off the fields, saw to it that he received a good education and eventually gave him his freedom so he could train to become a priest in the Terran Patriarchal Church. Falling under the sway of Cardinal Vladan Martinek's HNS movement, he become increasingly politically active until, only last month, he was elected to the national legislature. Although now HNS leader, it is widely believed that Djaanfari, who reveres Martinek, is only "keeping his seat warm for him" in the hope that one day Deltaria's former leader will return in glory to resume control of the country.

Djaanfari has already been busy in the Věšte, inveighing against Czarists ministers over their schemes to downgrade the influence of the Church and increase the authority of the Czar. In his most passionate speech so far, he bravely and vigorously denounced the treatment of the ousted HNS government ministers, warning them that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church". In another memorable speech, he castigated the government for demanding the right to veto the appointment of clergy, insisting they "Give to Tsěsar what is Tsěsar's and give to Boh what is Boh's". Djaanfari, for all his inexperience, is fast earning a reputation as a courageous and outspoken speaker who is not afraid to put his head above the parapet.

This remarkable slave-cum-priest-cum-politician is hoping to enhance his political stature and win international support for his movement by making some high-profile trips aware. Before he was blinded and imprisoned, Cardinal Vladan Martinek had been due to receive an award from the Governor of Ulbranch in Dranland. The proposed visit was controversial in Dranland, and also in Deltaria Nova, but as Martinek now cannot make the visit, arrangements are apparently being made for Djaanfari to visit Ulbrach to collect the medal on Martinek's behalf.

[Aquinas]

Can the Church recover?

May 3520
Opinion piece by political commentator Mahulena Jelen



In November, after the fall of the Hosian Národná Strana government, 10 of its former ministers were beheaded and another imprisoned for 3 years. Cardinal Vladan Martinek, the regime's leader, was brutally blinded with a red hot iron and then confined for life to the Monastery of Saint Volos in Kéjencvár. Now Pápež Ľudovít I has been shot dead whilst touring Dolgava, and the finger of suspicion is pointed at agents of the new Czarist government. His successor has not yet emerged, and it still remains unclear whether the conclave process will be independent of Czarist interference.

Only 7 months ago, the Terran Patriarchal Church in Deltaria was at the peak of its power, dominating the government, sidelining its opponents and encroaching ever further into our way of life. But today, it is battered and blooded - its leading figures dead, imprisoned or silenced. Some say it is dying. The leader of its political movement, Father Tendaji Djaanfar, is a black Utemban ex-slave. A charismatic presence he may be, and he is already picking up admirers - especially abroad - but there is no mistaking the feelings of most Deltarians towards a former slave. "He lacks the status and prestige that the Hosian movement's political leader should have," was one of the kinder remarks made by a fellow legislator.

Will the Church ever recover from this debacle? Can the HNS ever come to power again? At the moment things do not look good, but there is one lonely figure, wasting away in a damp and miserable monastery, who still inspires HNS supporters to carry on their struggle.


Cardinal Vladan Martinek: the blinded prisoner in the monastery

Cardinal Vladan Martinek has been described by one person who visited him as "totally transformed" since his blinding and house arrest. "He is like a prophet from the Old Testament," he said. "You listen to the guy, and it's like hearing the word of Boh himself." Father Tendaji Djaanfar and the other HNS leaders are hoping to exploit Martinek's imprisonment as much as possible, presenting him as a Hosian martyr, and waging a high-profile campaign for his release both in Deltaria and, if possible, across the whole of Terra. Is this the first part of a strategy to revive the poltiical fortunes of the movement Martinek began?