A terrible day in Maltese history

[Radion]

Over three thousand dead.

Plantation owners, stock traders, and import/export company employees all committed mass suicide today as the Maltese Stock Exchange plummeted due to the announcement from Valletta Station that they would no longer buy premium scrap at their previous prices. This in itself was not a problem, but the Junkers had then announced that due to the price drop, trading with the Maltese nation and exporting cardamine was no longer sufficiently profitable. Malta was reliant on the Junkers, their primary exporter, to support the cardamine industry which was over ninety percent of the planet’s economy. The news would mean that many would be unemployed and that Malta might even loose its power over Sirius.