NationStates Jolt Archive

***This is an unofficial report from the KIRA***
What is our government up to? That is the question the Kelonian Independant Reporting Agency has decided to investigate.
Recently, government sources and contractors have been buying up swathes of land around certain areas, mostly in the remote west of the country. Hundreds of acres around the highly secretive Roloff Airbase is now government property, and even more is owned by Izborksi Industries, a well-known government contractor which has been establishing tighter and tighter ties with the government in recent times. Huge swathes of the largely-desolate or forested areas in the west and centre of the nation have been bought up, including an area consisting of two thousand acres of barren plain in the north-west, previously public land, now declared part of the previously-small-scale Chekor Proving Grounds.

So what is our government up to? Several months ago, journalists were invited up to the very gate of Roloff AFB to witness the flight of the newly-developed spy plane, the Malcha - now you can be shot on sight for going anywhere near that facility - and the same goes for many other installations up and down the country. From what we thought would signal a new era of openness from the Kelonian government, we appear to have stepped backwards into another age of secrecy and disinformation.

This has been Kira Rentrovich, a safe distance from Roloff Airbase, for KIRA News.

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OOC: Kira Rentrovich and KIRA News are not named after one another, the idea just struck me as I was writing :P
Also, KIRA News is a semi-underground news network in Kelonia, seeing as the 'official' news is either censored by the government or by the Turvic Corporation, who own almost all broadasting stations in the country. It'd be pretty unlikely for something like this to make the 'official' news.

I'm just laying some groundwork for a story I'm considering lining up...

Following accusations of clandestine activity from one of the few independant, uncensored news companies in the country, the Kelonian military moved quickly to quash these rumours:

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***Official Press Release on Behalf of the Advanced Weapons Research Bureau***
It has come to our attention that an article given out on the crackpot KIRA network was intended to stir up confusion and unrest by citing several recent government acquisitions as something abnormal.

The purchasing of land around military installations is common procedure, and the recent enlargement of the government-owned area around Roloff AFB is simply to allow for possible expansion of the facility to accomodate the new projects scheduled to go on there. The reason for the heightened security is because testing is still going on on the 'Malcha' airframe, and we cannot allow the secrets of the project to fall into the hands of those who might use them to harm our great nation.

In a bid to appease these crackpot conspiracy theorists, we have decided to inform the citizens of Kelonia of the projects going on at Chekor Proving Grounds, another facility mentioned in the article;

Project Pave Spooky
A project for fitting unusual or untested weapons and/or configurations of said weapons to converted AC-130 'Spectre' gunships. This is to investigate both the battlefield usefulness of the weapons involved as well as to see how the performance of the gunships themselves could be improved through the addition of new systems.

Project Pave Guardian
A similar project to the above, this time fitting the weapons to Mi-24 'Hind' and Mi-28 'Havoc' attack helicopters to explore the idea of using the former as dedicated tank destroyers and the latter as high-value or high-risk convoy escorts. Again, this will also provide information as to the battlefield usability of the weapons themselves.

Project EBFU (Ethanol-Based Fuel Usage)
An ongoing study into the logistical problems involved in using ethanol rather than fossil fuels, and the possible problems arising from converting existing, fossil fuel-burning designs to ethanol-based systems, as well as the design of vehicles and aircraft specifically for ethanol usage.

As you can see, there are no clandestine in the four projects going on inside this facility that would be considered worthy of conspiracy material - the people of Kelonia can sleep easy in their beds knowing another tinpot theory has been exposed for what it is.

And as for Izborski Industries buying up land near Roloff, Izborski Industries is a totally seperate entity to the government, who wish to use the facilities around the base to test their new jet engine projects.
To suggest they are simply buying the land to give the government an unofficial 'buffer zone' around the No Access zone already implimented around Roloff (which is within allowed limits) is absurd.

~ Alexei Dragunovic, Senior Director of the AWRB.