Greater Middle East

Business Expansion
_{Australian businesses find new locations}
^{June 17th}

Coles

Coles Supermarkets have been attempting to enter the Aotearoa market since the 1920s, but have consistantly failed. 3 stores in Auckland (1929, 1940, 1985) and one in Dunedin (2000) have lasted no more than 6 months. Aotearoa has a notoriously difficult but profitable food and grocery market valued at over $22bn, with Woolworths and Foodstuffs holding a near-duopoly over the Aotearoa market, similar to Coles and Woolworths in Australia. While Woolworths has been extremely successful in Aotearoa since 1929 with 180 stores across the state, Coles has been unable to break into the market. Woolworths AOT (Previously called Countdown between 1990 and 2011)'s largest competition in Aotearoa is Foodstuffs, the largest grocery distributor and the largest supermarket chain in the state. Owning and running New World, Pak'nSave, and Four Square, the company's success is thought to play a large role in Coles' failure in Aotearoa. Likewise, Foodstuffs has had no success on the mainland, with an attempted expansion attempt in 2000 causing the company to completely withdraw from the mainland in 2008 after the GFC.

This week, Coles announced that they will launch a store in the Christchurch suburb of Richmond in the company's fifth attempt to expand into Aotearoa.

Chicken Treat

Chicken Treat is a BBQ chicken fast food restaurant chain based out of Western Australia. Of the chain's 56 restaurants, 54 are in Western Australia and 31 in the state's capital of Perth. Until now, the only Chicken Treats outside Western Australia have been in the Central Queensland towns of Gladstone and Moura. Chicken Treat has recently announced that they will be opening 6 new locations in the next four months; Esperance (WA), Katherine (NA), Mount Barker (SA), Rockhampton (QLD), Cairns (QLD), and Dubbo (NSW).

Pancake Parlour

Mount Gambier (SA) will be the restaurant's first location outside Victoria, with Frankston, Benalla, Seymour, Geelong, and Corio (Geelong suburb) joining the 6 new locations of family-owned pancake restaurant chain Pancake Parlour by 2024.

Westfield Group

Westfield owns 42 shopping centres around the country, and another 61 around the world.* Westfield have stated they plan on expanding to 50 locations in Australia by 2025. Sylvia Park, The Crossing, and The Base, all in Aotearoa, will be purchased within the next 4 months for an undisclosed amount, and a new shopping centre near Darwin is set to begin construction next year.

Nusantara Times - Defense
_{^{June 18th, 2021}}

Indonesia's submarine procurement

A lucrative has been signed yesterday with German shipbuilding consortium Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft for the purchase of 6 Type 212 submarine, with the option for 2 more. Valued at €1.6 billion, the Type 212 will reinforce Indonesia's maritime boundaries especially in the midst of KRI Nanggala's unfortunate sinking in April. The 212 is set to replace the outgoing Cakra-class, which has passed it's retirement time and is soon to be scrapped next year.

Six of these submarine will be delivered by at least next year, with their hulls (excluding technologies installed) to be assembled in PT PAL's shipyards. By far, Indonesia is the first Asian and non-European customer of the Type 212, and upon commission, is set to be the most advanced classes of submarines in Southeast Asia.

Wulworth

TRT World

President Meral Akşener addresses unfounded and baseless American attacks

'My noble people, my beloved nation, and the valuable members of our press, I greet you with my most heartfelt feelings. Since the darkest of nights in recent history that was the failed coup attempt of November 9th, we have come together as a nation more united than ever. We saw the coup attempt for it was, an attempt of betrayal not from within, but sponsored from abroad. It was the big game itself seeking to restore the chains of servitude on our noble people. They sought to turn our nation into the next Iraq, into the next Libya, into the next Sahuristan. Think back to the before the war in these countries, they thrived on their own two feet, yet what brought down each of these nations was the precursor of November 9th. As our noble people have answered the call to return these nations, and the oppressed people of the world to return them to the standing they truly deserve, the nation who has sought to undermine the stability of the world for its own gain tried to pounce at us. It was our brave people who poured into the streets to stop this from happening, it was our brave people who saw the attack on our democracy, on the very inheritance our Eternal President left us, and we took action. The fire the United States sought to set across Turkey failed, instead it only grew the burning fire that burns in the chest of our noble people in the face of the crooked eagle.'

'My noble people, my beloved nation, fear not as we shall overcome these attacks made by the United States against our nation. Trump does not know the reality of the situation, he stands as what he is, a failed man whose own people burn their flag in protest of him. The United States is nothing more than a disease, a plague, that has unleashed itself on the Islamic World. Just as our domestic vaccine led the fight in wiping out the Wuhan Virus, the Turks shall be the leading vaccine to wipe out the virus that is the United States from the Middle East. The removal of Turkey from the F-35 program, including the remaining orders Turkey had placed, is nothing more than a violation of international norms set by the international community. The very same norms that the United States supposedly represents, instead it holds the rest of world to these international norms, yet they hold themselves of a different standard. The call of justice across the world has gone on for long enough, enough is enough, the United States does not have the standing to govern the world when it cannot dictate its own people beg for the United States to stop governing them. The reason the world knows the names of Breonna Taylor, Daunte Wright, and George Floyd are now known across the world. This is the nation who demands who bend our legal system to free an American, who was arrest for heavy involvement with multiple terrorists groups, despite working as a Pastor in a Church in İzmir. Not only have they gone blind with their own hate of their own nation, they have turned to a hate of faith to achieve terror they have unleashed on the world for the last century. The United States of America has no place, or business in determining anything located outside of its own borders. Effective immediately, all American diplomatic missions have been given 72 hours to leave Turkey immediately, Turkish diplomatic missions to the United States shall return home by Sunday. The United States must reconsider its actions, and finally begin acting in accordance with international norms if they seek to continue being part of the international family. We shall stand firm in the face of this aggression, the removal from the F-35 program is a spit in the face that shall be met with a thousand time the response. The Turkish people stand united, Allah is with us, the Eternal President is with us, our ancestors are looking over us from the heavens, we shall triumph like we have before history, and we shall long after it! How happy is the one who says I am a Turk, thank you.'

Rajapaksa Party
_{Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna splits}
^{June 19th}

28 former members of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna have split to form the National Front Against the Degeneracy of Sri Lanka. The NFADSL takes a more extreme stance on the former governing party's policies, as well as a stronger support for the Rajapaksas. Colloquially refered to as the Rajapaksa Party, the NFADSL holds true the idea that the April election was heavily rigged and that the Supreme Court is heavily biased in favour of the Tamil National Alliance. The party holds strong anti-Tamil views, which Prime Minister P. Ananya has labelled 'not unlike how the Jewish were depicted in WW2,' and has expressed 'extreme concern' towards Rajapaksa and the NFADSL.

Chairman of the SLPP G.L. Peiris has stated that the official position of the SLPP on the Sri Lankan conflict is one of 'great annoyance towards either side' but a 'general acceptance' of the election results and that is is in the best interest of Sri Lanka to 'stop the violence and start the governing.' Meanwhile, the NFADSL has made it clear that they will 'not back down' from the conflict until 'Sri Lanka is restored,' which in party leader Mahinda Rajapaksa's mind is a Sri Lanka before the April election.

Meanwhile, the NFADSL has launched a severely anti-Tamil program, calling them 'vermin' and 'aliens.' Mahinda has called Tamils 'filthy Indians' and has called for 'an extermination of the pests.' Gotabaya has denounced Ananya, saying that Sri Lanka was 'decending into maddness' because of 'the sh-- coloured tigers.'