Hello South Pacificans,

it's been a while since I've last given an update - and there is a good reason for it. As many of you already know, our dear friends in Lazarus are currently being couped. The cabinet has been working overtime helping to managing this situation and giving our good ally as much help as we can. We are currently opening an embassy with Lazarene Exiles, a region for nations banned from Lazarus as a result of the coup. Once it's open, I encourage you to cross-post messages of support on that region's RMB.

Partially as a result of the Lazarus kerfuffle, we've also had some foreign affairs kerfuffles. First, the West Pacific decided to close embassies with us due to disagreements on our Discord server as well as our support for the government-in-exile in Lazarus (which they oppose). It's regrettable but, honestly, not the end of the world. Furthermore, Balder has declared us a "hostile" region based on a variety of absurd claims. It's also regrettable, but if the government of Balder wishes to believe falsehoods, then we can't do anything about it except stand above it.

I realize that these two foreign affairs happenings can seem worrying, and I really only gave you the reader's digest version. However, I do believe in transparency and I see it as my duty to tell you about it rather than trying to hide it. If you have any questions or worries about this, please don't hesitate to contact me about it.

Now, onto more positive things in foreign affairs - as always, Escade has been talking to many people and generally being culturally very engaged here and abroad. Concurrently with this year's Defender Awards, Escade set up a spontaneous Defender Expo where people of all alignments and interests (defender, raider, independent, unaligned, neutral, what have you) were invited for various fun events, including movie nights and chasing competitions. Other such cultural events, though with more of a slant towards specific regions, are sure to follow.

In regional affairs, Editor-in-Chief Punchwood and Minister Spenty have been working hard on our journalistic efforts, and indeed we just had another release of the Southern Journal, with another publication coming very, very soon. Furthermore, as you may have noticed from hints here or there, we've got a regional festival coming up very soon! I'm quite excited. And, did I hear something about a TSP Anthem?

The South Pacific Special Forces are ridiculously active as always - and that's despite the current summer lull across NationStates! Really, there isn't much more to be said except that I'm incredibly proud of the SPSF, which continues to be the most active and most competent GCR military currently around. A new military code is still in the works, though Yuno has submitted a specific amendment to get her feet wet in the legislative process. Progress has been somewhat slow on this due to, in part, Lazarus - I hope that's understandable.

We finally sent a Permanent Justice candidate to the Assembly - Kringalia (aka Kris Kringle). We took quite a bit of time, including evaluating the entire legislator roster, sending a large evaluation form to prospective candidates, and personally interviewing people. We feel good about our choice, even though it was politically probably the worst option, and hope that the Assembly approves him for the position (this is currently at vote).

That's all for now. This update is quite long - too long, even. I need to start doing these more frequently so that this doesn't happen anymore. And as always, I love answering your questions, so feel free to ask me here, or via TG, or on the RMB, or via forum PM, or via Discord, or via IRC even, any and all questions that you have.

-- Roavin