Video Conference on the Protection of Foreign Nationals in Jakub

Pacifica
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The Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Besern, sending out on this 24th day of November, 2023, hereby invites all relevant representatives, but primarily those of the Republic of Eflad, the Republic of Sedunn, the Federal Republic of Gianatla and the Republic of Hazelia to a video conference on international co-operation on the protection and evacuation of foreign nationals in Jakub, and hopefully subsequent affairs like this.

Ring! Ring!

“Good day, your Excellency Meier. Quite a while, ever since an international video conference?”

“Already? I lost track of time.”

“Time’s two hours fifty in the afternoon, give or take.”

Meier let out a hollow, breathy sigh of cold exhaust. The rain had been freezing the streets to the point that wearing less than a fully-sleeved shirt was suggested “at your peril”. It’s been quite some time doing research on a realistic solution to the most pressing issues; the rising cost of living causing an economic slowdown and the economy regurgitating prosperity, and the housing crisis. His mind became quite numb, as if dangling from a rope hanging it inside a metal birdcage. Though, he doesn’t want to think of his mind like that.

Ms. Berlyne threw him a text message a while ago, that foreign nationals, especially those of Besernians, are at risk from the coup in Jakub. Well, that’s no good! Our people cannot be productive when they’re being threatened abroad! It’s our responsibility to protect them. Doesn’t matter whether the coup is morally justified or not, which he swore was not; one thing is universal; our nationals need to get out of Jakub. They’re not safe there given the tactics of the coup.

He remembered his short ballad on the clickity-clack vibrations on that slippery slab a few days back. Besern is after all, a powerhouse of the international economy. We need to rescue foreign nationals too if we can to safeguard our economy too, not just because of the philosophy of foreign aid. The welfare of our people brings us prosperity and boosts our economy, so we must ensure that; which also means that we must also ensure the welfare of others, those that are not citizens, but do also play a part in our economy; directly or indirectly.

To that he finished, “sure. I’ll go then. Please help set up the equipment by then, with my thanks”.

His office chair flew across the carpet of his dimly-lit, mahogany-yellow study, barely making a sound but the wind that hit from the movements. To his main study, he pulled strongly down the beady chain that lit up a shaded lamp to his right, near the window. He hastily swung his mouse, left-and-right, exercising it, bringing his monitor out of sleep mode.

After making sure that he repressed all his programs and switched to a new task window, courtesy of the operating-system Harmony, he opened up what was called the “Government Conference Portal”. With notes in his virtual hand by the right side that he whipped up a few ago, of course. Won’t want to get unprepared, he learned from his debate misadventure when he was in upper secondary.

“Hello! This is Chancellor [sic] of the Federal Republic of Besern, with many best wishes. Have all of you had lunch?”"

“Ms. Aberlil Berlyne, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Besern. Good day. Are we ready? Should we, then propose away, but can we agree that His Excellency from Besern starts first after we’ve all got the rough ideas in our introductions? Don’t be afraid to quip a few.”

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“I can’t believe… This piece of… Junk!” Sedunnic Minister of Foreign Affairs Hevv Gjieramm exclaimed, not attempting to contain his frustration with his laptop. It was well known among his staff that he had an almost non-existent patience with computers, much to everyone’s secret joy.

After having watched the minister click the greyed out camera symbol in the meeting app at least ten times in vain, his personal secretary cleared his voice.

“Last time this happened, I unplugged the conference system and plugged it in again.” Then it worked."

“Oh?”

Gjieramm sighed and did as instructed. And it worked; the camera symbol was no longer greyed out. He took a deep breath.

“We’re ready then. I’ll wait until a few seconds before the meeting starts to join.”

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Foreign minister Strunk was excited for the upcoming video meeting. Not as excited as a child would be before Santa came to visit, but as excited as an office worker would be about their morning coffee. It’s a work meeting and it’s an important issue. Important in a sense, that it is to be expected, there will be many refugees from Jakub on top of those from Romordia currently flown out via Kliegme to Eflad, and that apart from some loose agreements between Besern, Eflad and Gianatla, there is no real plan on what to do when there’s a bigger migration wave. Also, when the invitation was given out, it was not made clear, to which extent Gianatla or the other invited countries would be expected to take up refugees from other nationalities than Romordia, Jakub or one of the Frastinian countries.
All those questions will hopefully be answered after Strunk has put on his headset and pressed the “Join Call” button.

Hazelian President Hausklav’s very first official meeting with world leaders was not starting under good preconditions. The internet in the island country was a bit unstable today due to the weather conditions, but with a yellow signal marker he somehow to join the conference. “Hello, can you hear me?”, he asked, because he couldn’t hear anyone yet and the faces were a little pixelated or just all black. “I will turn off my camera, because we need to save bandwidth unfortunately”, he apologised after everyone saw him once and assurred him, he’s audible.

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“Hey, can you please give me admin [sic]?”

Click.

“Okay, thank you.”

As Meier acted as a turnstile, rotating with ease to the leaders of the nations, Ms. Berlyne could do nothing but sip lightly on her tea in her small, rugged and bland white porcelain mug. And drink. And drink. She got the addiction too of Besernians around the Cenche region, the tradition that whenever it’s cold, you spam the tea button until something happens. 'Tis the new information age making lives better, giving birth to new culture.

MEIER: Hello everyone, this is Meier here, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Besern, and Civic Union member of the Fedinschtag for the Oberkein ward of Auroth-am-Rotischau. You may call me Mr. Meier.

MEIER: How are you? Have you ate? I hope you are all doing well. I hope you saw the information in that mass invitation. I hope you are all ready now then, so I’ll go according to plan and show my propositions first, then we can all deliberate.

He shares his screen. He has a Workclient 6 window open, with a presentation at hand. The details are quite minimal when it comes to the design, since the content has to take major hold here; a line of a red-white combination on the bottom. The bottom caption of all slides in the line state in white, “Property of the Federal Chancellery: Closed - Sensitive”.

PAGE 1. GETTING THE CONTEXT:

  • The coup in Jakub is horrible for everyone. Let’s make that clear.

  • Besern is interested in co-operation with Sedunn for the evacuation of foreign nationals in Jakub, as stated in news sources. We find it necessary not only for our economy, but for all of Pacifica and the global economy. The welfare of all humans should be our priority, as they are what make us progress and productive, as they contribute to our economies also, directly or indirectly.

  • We have been contacted by representatives of the Republic of Eflad, who are also interested in extracting their own nationals. To clarify, in Besern’s point of view, we want to extract our nationals first, but take on other foreign nationals as much as we can where we can.

  • With the current situation in Jakub, it would be unfeasible, inefficient to initiate airplane lifts direct to our countries. We would all end up wasting fuel, creating excess wear and tear on our planes and create hazards at Jakubian airports.

  • It would thus be wise to pool our resources for a more efficient transfer.

PROPERTY OF THE FEDERAL CHANCELLERY: CLOSED - SENSITIVE

PAGE 2. OUR PLANS FOR A SYNCHRONISED AIRLIFT:

  • We thus propose a plan. We create a front-base for lifts in this region for rescuing foreign nationals from the coup. All foreign nationals.

    • Government Island would not be feasible. The airport is too small to support such airlifts, and even if we are okay with that, we would end up creating a mass refugee camp that would take a long time and a lot of unnecessary effort to clean up.

    • We need front-bases to be able to support a mass influx, while at the same time be able to efficiently and quickly transport foreign nationals back to their home countries. Location and capacity are thus the factors in here in maximising our efficiency.

  • We hereby propose that the State of Tholisia-Ostselvatia, the State of Tholisia-Obravia, the State of Treisag in the Federal Republic, and relevant municipalities of the Republic of Eflad, serving countries in the north-west and west of our region, and relevant municipalities of The Republic of Hazelia and the Republic of Sedunn serving counties in the east of our region become hubs for transit of foreign nationals outside of Jakub. They will facilitate flights between them and Jakub/neighbouring countries, and from them to the destination home countries.

    • Besern, given its importance in international commerce, is able to undergo such endeavours, especially our airport in Treisag.

    • Flights will be scheduled back to respective home countries from these hubs, or if avaliable, other suitable means of public transport, such as the train.

    • If needed, we might wish to negotiate for a plan for the south-west and the south, where needed. Perhaps, we could open an agreement to Izaakia or Valkyria?

PROPERTY OF THE FEDERAL CHANCELLERY: CLOSED - SENSITIVE

PAGE 3. TAKING IN REFUGEES:

  • We must acknowledge that we must give refugees the same care as any other human. Given circumstances, we would be taking in refugees of foreign nationals as a result.

    • Our nation is very open to refugees, as they increase our productivity and are able to contribute a lot to our nation from the get-go. We also have a lot of space in this land, and thus are pretty much able to accommodate if not all, at least most through our system of dispersal.

      For foreign nationals returning home, we are able to provide them support through reserving lodging at our airports until their way out back to their home countries.

    • However, we of course cannot guarantee this for all refugees, given the hub approach. We also need to acknowledge that some Jakubians would also want a ticket out. We cannot guarantee that our national approach would work for all. Thus, we need to initiate dialogue on this matter when it comes to hosting foreign nationals in transit and potential Jakubian refugees, to clear this up also for posterity.

PROPERTY OF THE FEDERAL CHANCELLERY: CLOSED - SENSITIVE

PAGE 4. POSTERITY:

  • We should officialise such hubs, as this region can break down any second despite our best efforts. We need to be prepared for future coups of countries in our regions, future refugee crises in our region. Should we sign an international treaty on evacuation cooperation?

  • The Romordian crisis is a contentious issue in our region, especially in Frastinia. We also acknowledge resources are also being used there; we can use them better.. Thus, we should also contend on cooperation in refugees, and come to understand refugees in our society, regardless of the circumstances; foreign nationals or locals fleeing coups.

    • We must initiate protocol for an international system of transfer in our evacuation therefore. For that, see the first point of this page.

  • We must also be prepared in case the hub nations come under unrest. Not to be pessimistic, but rather wanting to cover all bases.

PROPERTY OF THE FEDERAL CHANCELLERY: CLOSED - SENSITIVE

And that was all on his presentation file. He took out his notepad, already starting to look populated and came forward again.

MEIER: I hope this plan finds common ground. Let us deliberate on this to provide an effective, efficient evacuation procedure in cases like this, for our posterity.

If you wish to speak, don’t be afraid to unmute yourself; but one rule, please, no unparliamentary language. If you need to screen-share, notify me and I will allow you to do so.

Do note, if nobody responds however, I will need to close this conference then; which would not be beneficial to everyone involved.

He really is grateful for the speedy bandwidth.

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Ms. Berlyne almost forgot something.

BERLYNE: Ms. Aberlil Berlyne, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Besern. Mr. Meier, did you forget to also elaborate on how do we securely get foreign nationals, you know, out of the dangers of the coup to the airport to get out in the first place? How about not the airport, let’s say, for the only viable option of some would be to cross the border? What then?

MEIER: For your first point, two options; we either send our police to guard our planes, or airlift them out of our embassies; or we co-operate with the junta. I prefer the former, it’s more reliable and guarantees both lodging, efficiency and less blood spilt. However, we would need to find a way to contact all our foreign nationals, and be able to protect them in case of an emergency, or an affair with the junta. That, I’d reckon is up to dialogue.

MEIER: For your second point, we can use our plans deliberated and built upon in this conference as a point of co-operation for border nations. Therefore, yes, I do agree, co-operation with border nations is necessary, and we must negotiate to be able to use their airports to ferry foreign nationals to our hubs, amidst their refugee shock, to help alleviate it.

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Tirng and Tæren were almost late for the meeting because they stopped at a boulangerie and both got themselves a tomato-mozarella sandwich and an espresso. She got to her office and saw that her advisor (ea: Referent) already prepared the agenda booklet. Only two points were marked on there. She started his computer.
“Judging by the sound of it, I thought you were starting a plane in here, ma’am.” said her advisor Poller entering the office.
“Holy moly you scared the [REDACTED] out of me! Yeah, we should check into buying new PCs or refurbishing these old buggers.”
Pollers only reaction was nodding. “Do you need any help with the meeting ma’am?”
“No, no, I’ll find it myself. And how many time did I tell you to stop calling me ‘ma’am’?” Tirng said while not even lifting her head up, trying to login to the call. “Ah, got it!” she said as she heard the sound of joining the call.

“Hello everyone, can everyone hear and see me? Perfect. Oh, hold on, I can’t hear anything. Wait, let me put my headset on.” She grabs the earphones from the table. They replaced them this year, because the predecessors looked like something from the Great War trials. “Now it’s better.”

Tæren joined the meeting a couple of minutes later. “Sorry everyone, took me some time to navigate through everything on this new PC.”

After Mr. Meier and Ms. Berlyne finished their presentations, Tirng unmuted herself: “Well, can everyone hear me. Yes? Great! So we agree with the core of the proposition. The coup in Jakub is producing a catastrophic situation. It is our moral duty to save our citizens and if possible foreign nationals. In total we agree with Page 1. On Page 2 it says " relevant municipalities of the Republic of Eflad” that would probably be Sweori or Fredoast, as we have large cargo hubs there due to Selpe and Cræfoi. Now, we come to the heart of the problem. Page 3. Eflad can and will only take those who are eligible for staying in Eflad according to our laws. We are happy to station them in Eflad until there is an opportunity to fly or transport them back home. Considering the recent Romordian crisis and our capacities, we can only accept a handful refugees as permanent settlers. I will let Frank, sorry, Dr. Tæren take over from here."

“Thank you Hanna. I can only approve of what was already said. Eflad’s main strength would be it’s geographical position and railway infrastructure to bring the foreign nationals back home. Our main goal is to extract Efladians who couldn’t flee before. We think, or approximate, that there are 74 Efladians left in Jakub. We agree that this might be not the last time this conference meets. A loose agreement is, in our opinion, the best for now. Later, maybe we can discuss a treaty. You have to consider that our neutrality clause is held to a high standard.”