Trouble Brewing in Yerbouti

ARADIB BOOBOO:  Yerbouti was shaken Wednesday by an earthquake.  Centered in the Sultanate of Ifat, the 6.57 earthquake could be felt for quite a distance.  Here in Aradib Booboo, located 250 kilometers east of the capital Wacca Jawacca, resident M'gari said, "Earthquake?  We thought it was from eating the chicken gombo leftover from the community dinner last night."  The locals were relieved to learn it wasn't the chicken gombo leftovers.  We wish the best for our friends in Ifat.  Perhaps they would like some leftover chicken gombo.

In Wacca Jawacca, this week Interim President General Robert Aygotcha announced that elections would be held in early September.  The elections will include the presidency and all fifty seats, currently vacant, in the House of Government, Yerbouti's parliament.  The fifty seats cover Yerbouti's twenty-one governmental regions, with two or three representatives per region.  General Aygotcha also announced that he will not run for any position, president or otherwise, in the elections, and that he is looking forward to returning to his rightful position as big kahuna of the CDF. 

Hezeb al-Neby quickly declared its intention to field candidates for the elections on a platform of creating an Islamic state and instituting Sharia. A number of other parties likewise declared their intention to field candidates as well, each with their own pet platforms.   Other parties are in the process of forming and still have three weeks to declare before the ballots are finalized.  Interim President Aygotcha demanded of any parties desiring to enter the election that there will be no monkey business and promised "or else!".  He has also arranged for the Carter Center to observe the elections to ensure fairness and accuracy, an important consideration since many of the political parties are forming militas to back up their platforms.

In a masterful coup of journalistic reporting, 'WHiY?' has managed to discover who is responsible for training the officer candidates and recruits for the CDFY at Fort Don'wannagohdeh.  While working on another story, our reporter was able to surreptitiously snap this picture of a trooper from the French Foreign Legion conducting an exercise with Yerboutian trainees. 

A Legionnaire training Yerbouti's officer candidates

We knew it had to be an outside source training the CDF but could not have guessed who.  We have not seen the Foreign Legion in Yerbouti for many, many years but we are glad to see them here again, training our soldiers.  We know they will provide good solid training that will stand the CDF in good stead for years to come.  As long as we have good solid men to be trained.  Then again, the training might not last so long after all.

Elsewhere, we have recently begun hearing stories of food thievery in outlying villages.  At first, it was men sneaking into villages at night to try to pilfer a bag of rice or beans here and there.  But in the most recent incident reported to us, a truck with armed men drove into a desert village in broad daylight and took most of the food stores that the UN humanitarian mission had supplied to the village.  We find it appalling that such a thing could happen in Yerbouti.  These could only have been mischief makers from the country to the north of us or from Bamabar.  No Yerbouitian would do such a thing to his own people.  Interim President Aygotcha promised immedate action to protect the people of Yerbouti from such thievery as soon as he has a functioning army again.

This has been the latest news from 'What's Happening in Yerbouti?' coming at you from Wacca Jawacca.