BBC News: New London, Leeds and the Sigmas

[Victor Steiner]

New London

With the Battle of New London now over, and the Gallic fleet having withdrawn to the Leeds system, the great cleanup of the Capital has begun. Thousands of fires still rage across the surface and many old and ancient buildings have long since crumbled into charred dust. The death count has yet to be confirmed, but it is confirmed that millions are dead, with many more still missing. The Houses of Parliament stand in ruin as does the Royal residence of Buckingham, efforts to restore power and water to those neighborhoods that were hit hardest are ongoing with Engineers from the University of Cambridge estimating that total restoration could take at least 20 years. Rain is expected for the following weeks and firefighters are hoping that the weather may be able to extinguish the blazes which are occurring in the more inaccessible regions such as Peckham, Richmond and Greenwich. The Government has implemented food rationing for Bretonia, to prevent malnutrition, disease and food shortages from gripping an already battered population. The news was received with mixed reactions with many openly condemning the enforced rationing of tea, compounding the issue was the confirmation that the Bretonian Army and Armed Forces were not subject to the new ration scheme, provoking an angry response from those living in Maidstone.

Leeds

While the true magnitude of the genocide that is currently happening on Leeds has yet to be witnessed by many outside of the system, reports are flooding in from survivors. Following the defeat of the Royal Navy over the skies of New London the Gallic forces pulled back to Leeds and promptly began a massive and sustained planetary bombardment of the planet with no obvious target. Survivors and correspondents attached to the BAF maintain that the only goal of such a bombardment is to wipe out as many survivors as possible and to ultimately render the Planet uninhabitable for future development. While the death count remains unknown, the reaction caused by such an atrocity has not gone unnoticed by the rest of Sirius, with many hundreds of transports from Liberty, Bretonia and Rheinland, as well as dozens of independent ship captains making the dangerous trip to and from Leeds, ferrying hundreds of thousands out of harms way and back to Bretonian space. The Minister for Housing was not available to comment on what is undoubtedly the worst humanitarian disaster since the founding of the Houses.

The Sigmas

The war in the Sigmas between the Empire of Kusari and the Federal Republic of Rheinland ended yesterday with the signing of the Treaty of Nevers. This comes after the Gas Miners Guild outright rejected peace and subsequently pulled out of the negotiations. With the war between both houses now over, the future of Rheinland & GMG relations is uncertain, no comment has been made by either party on their stance toward the other and many speculate that the war between the two groups will simply continue.

Bretonian Broadcasting Corporation
28th of August, 826 A.S

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