Daily News of The Communist Bloc - January 13th, 2021

• First Minister Martyn Kiryu has posted their January 2021 end of term address and handed out awards. They discussed the highs and the lows of this term at length. You can check it out here

  • The following people were awarded:

    Feyrisshire was awarded the Order of the Guide
    Pajonia was awarded the Order of Development and the Hero of Liberty
    Eriadni was awarded the Order of Development
    Trabardia was awarded the Order of Artistry
    Theria han was awarded the Cross of Education
    Sodoran Alesia was nominated for Order of the Committee
    Shamian was awarded the Order of Loyalty
    Monkey, Rotasu, Karumia and Baobab of Europeia have been awarded the Order of Friendship
    Nottinhaps was awarded the First Ministers Star and the Order of Innovation
    

• The Executive Election will open up in 2 days! If you want to run, it would be a good idea to get a campaign ready now. You must be a citizen to vote in this election. If you have not yet applied for citizenship, please apply here

• The Law Archive is finished and has been released! This is an easy way to navigate and keep track of all our laws. This document will be updated as new laws get passed.

• The Minister of World Assembly Affairs. Servilis, has been recalled with 9 yes votes and 4 no votes in the Peoples Assembly. An election will be held to elect a replacement. As the Constitution only allows for one election at a time, it will happen during the next scheduled executive election on January 15th. After being recalled, Servilis made death threats and would not stop flaming in the discord and RMB, and was promptly removed and banned from the region.

• The Revolutionary Endorsement Program has launched. If you want some more endorsements, this is an easy way to get them! (If you were having issues with REP recently, it should be working properly now)

• The Minister of Domestic Affairs, Aquila, has posted the Stamp Records for December.

• The People's Assembly has passed the Vice Delegate Act and Oaths in Office Act Amendment.

• The Ex Post Facto Act of 2021 has been proposed in the People's Assembly. The Assembly is discussing this bill along with with Bloc Time Act. You can view the full discussion in our Regional Discord.

• We now have a channel in our Regional Discord dedicated to trading cards! If you've ever wanted to get in to trading cards but didn't know where to start, this is a great place to start learning.

• Our forums are back online, but unfortunately, we have lost a whole year of data. If you applied for citizenship after January of 2020, make sure to reapply!. You may also have to recreate your account. Apologies for this inconvenience. The government will be working as quickly as possible to re-accept citizenship applications. In order to prevent this from happening again in the future, we will be discussing our options and holding a vote on a potential forum transfer in the near future. Stay tuned!

  This Day in History
  By Theria Han
  
  Hello Comrades! Btw, thank you for awarding me the Cross of Education! I feel proud that I was able to educate TBC with the knowledge I have (well, mostly from the internet). Putting that aside, here is This Day in History for January 13!

  We start in the Medieval Times, where on this day in 1128, Pope Honorius II grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God. Led by the Frenchman Hughes de Payens, the Knights Templar organization was founded in 1118. Its self-imposed mission was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to and from the Holy Land during the Crusades, the series of military expeditions aimed at defeating Muslims in Palestine. For a while, the Templars had only nine members, mostly due to their rigid rules. In addition to having noble birth, the knights were required to take strict vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. In 1127, new promotional efforts convinced many more noblemen to join the order, gradually increasing its size and influence. By the time the Crusades ended unsuccessfully in the early 14th century, the order had grown extremely wealthy, provoking the jealousy of both religious and secular powers. In 1307, King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V combined to take down the Knights Templar, arresting the grandmaster, Jacques de Molay, on charges of heresy, sacrilege, and Satanism. Under torture, Molay and other leading Templars confessed and were eventually burned at the stake. Clement dissolved the Templars in 1312. The modern-day Catholic Church has admitted that the persecution of the Knights Templar was unjustified and claimed that Pope Clement was pressured by secular rulers to dissolve the order. Over the centuries, myths and legends about the Templars have grown, including the belief that they may have discovered holy relics at Temple Mount, including the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, or parts of the cross from Christ’s crucifixion. The imagined secrets of the Templars have inspired various books and movies, including the blockbuster novel and film The Da Vinci Code. (Medieval History)

  We head to 1953, where on this day, An article in Pravda accused some of the nation's most prominent doctors – particularly Jews – of participating in a vast conspiracy to poison top Soviet leaders. The Pravda is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, formerly the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the country with a circulation of 11 million. The newspaper began publication on 5 May 1912 in the Russian Empire but was already extant abroad in January 1911. It emerged as a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. The newspaper was an organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU between 1912 and 1991. The conspiracy they were talking about was the Doctors' Plot, which was an antisemitic campaign in the Soviet Union organized by Joseph Stalin. In 1951–1953, a group of predominantly Jewish doctors from Moscow was accused of a conspiracy to assassinate Soviet leaders. This was later accompanied by publications of anti-Semitic characters in the media, which talked about the threats of Zionism and condemned people with Jewish surnames. Many doctors, both Jews, and non-Jews were promptly dismissed from their jobs, arrested, and tortured to produce admissions. A few weeks after the death of Stalin, the new Soviet leadership said there was a lack of evidence and the case was dropped. Soon after, it was declared to have been fabricated. (Soviet Union History)

  We go back a couple of years to 1949, where on this day, The Durban riots began. These riots were an anti-Indian pogrom that began on this day in 1949, committed primarily by African people against poor Indians in Durban, South Africa. The two days of rioting were exceptionally violent, resulting in rape, immolation, and massacre of Indians and the looting and burning of their properties, claiming 142 lives and creating 40,000 Indian refugees. On the evening of Thursday, 13 January 1949 ethnic Indians in the center of the Indian business area of Durban were assaulted by black Africans. The riots began at Victoria street in the heartland of the Indian commercial center. The assailants began to attack individual Indians, stoning vehicles driven by Indians and looting Indian stores while chanting "Usuthu!". The violence was initially limited to destruction of property and looting which subdued after a few hours of rioting. An account by a police detective present at the riots states that there was an organized element to the riots within the Zulu community and "The talk was that the time had come to rid the country of the Indians." On Friday, African leaders from Cato Manor organized rioters from workers' hostels and from social networks such as the ingoma dancing troupes and boxing clubs. Taking advantage of the slow police intervention, the assailants attacked the Indian business area with an assortment of improvised weapons, attacking both property and people. Numerous reports suggest that European whites cheered the African assailants and joined in looting Indian stores. Donald L. Horowitz notes in his book, The Deadly Ethnic Riot: "A number of European women urged the Natives [Africans] on to 'hit the coolies [Indians]'. Thereafter they went dancing up the street with the Natives. The pictorial record shows Europeans actively inciting the Natives, or evincing all the signs of enjoyment at their excesses."By early evening the government troops blockaded the Indian district in central Durban after which the focus of assaults shifted to the suburban areas of Cato Manor, Clairwood, and the Jacobs area, where numerous acts of murder, arson, rape, and brutal attacks and looting took place. Rampaging African crowds burnt houses, stores, raped Indian women and girls and bludgeoned to death Indians of all ages and sexes. (History of Riots)

  While run by the Ministry of Information, the Daily News does not necessarily reflect the stance of the current administration. Please contact the Minister of Information Pajonia on NationStates or Ant(Pajonia) in the Regional Discord for any corrections, suggestions, questions, comments, or concerns.

  This article was authored by Pajonia