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Countries Which Don't Exist (Self-Declared; Unrecognised; Etc.)

‘King of Germany’ jailed over self-issued driving license
http://rt.com/news/king-germany-speeding-jail-414/
Published time: October 19, 2013 09:32 Get short URL

Image from bild.deImage from bild.de


A notorious activist, who has proclaimed himself ‘King of Germany’ and counts 3,500 among his faithful subjects, has been jailed for three months after police stopped him for speeding and found he was carrying a driving license he had issued himself.

Peter Fitzek, 48, claims to rule a nine-hectare kingdom outside Wittenberg in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which he founded in 2012. He prints his own money, issues his own passports and insists on using the Royal ‘We’ in communications with German authorities.

His Royal Majesty is fond of driving fast, and he has racked at least 24 traffic offences. In 2012 he gave up his German driving license in favor of a document he authorized himself as head of state.

In January, Fitzek was caught by police driving 116 km/h in a 70 km/h zone in his BMW. He produced the home-made license and refused to pay a 2,400 euro fine for the violation, which eventually brought his case to a court in Neustadt in Lower Saxony.

The self-proclaimed monarch appeared for the hearings in a shirt featuring his micro-nation’s coat of arms and insisted that the license he carries is valid. But Judge Thorsten Steufert didn’t show any awe in the royal presence, German media reported.

“You have built a fantasy world with a fanciful political worldview,” the judge told the defendant on Thursday before giving him a three-month term with no right for parole.

Fitzek said he will appeal the ruling, because German courts’ jurisdiction “does not apply to other heads of state,” Bild newspaper reported.

The former cook and video store clerk has a long record of confrontation with German authorities apart from his driving habits. The king was fined for forging a license plate for his car, attempted to ‘arrest’ an official in Wittenberg and then a judge, who was reviewing battery charges filed against him.

He also had a quarrel with teachers at a school, where his son studied, over sex education classes, which resulted in police being called in.
 
Slide show at link.

The World’s Tiniest Countries and the Eccentrics Who Rule Them

Never heard of the Imperial Kingdom of Calsahara? The Conch Republic? The Principality of Sealand? You’re not alone.? Léo Delafontaine hadn’t either until 2012, when he visited the Republic of Saugeais, a self-proclaimed micronation in eastern France. He’s since become fascinated with “countries” unrecognized by world governments and organizations. His book Micronations? documents independent states that are just as varied and interesting as their official counterparts.

“Humankind likes discoveries and challenges. One solution is the creation of new countries, but not in order to persecute people or for religious reasons. The idea, rather, is to create new countries and territories for fun, to make people think, to re-enchant the world in a way,” he says via email.

French writer and historian Bruno Fuligni, who wrote the introduction to Micronations, estimates there are more than 400 of these self-proclaimed entities.

Delfontaine visited 12 locations throughout the US, Europe, and Australia. They included monarchies, republics, “funny dictatorships,” and some with no government at all. He earned citizenship in three—the Principality of Sealand, the Principality of Seborga, and the Conch Republic. ...

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/micronatio ... id-1637607
 
On Israel's coastal road, just south of Lebanon, lies a crossing into a land of another kind.

Large blue iron gates with white painted signs mark the border, but there is no entry procedure - visitors just arrive, then go and look for the president. This is Achzivland, perhaps the most unusual piece of territory in the Middle East. It has the trappings of a state - a flag (of a mermaid), a national "anthem" (the sound of the sea) and a constitution declaring the president democratically elected by his own vote (never actually cast).

Achzivland also has a House of Parliament - a timber structure with scatter-cushions round a table - though it has no serving MPs and has never held any sessions. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31800580
 
Welcome to Liberland, the tiny patch of woodland claiming to be the world's newest country
Self-proclaimed libertarian micro-state whose founder admires Nigel Farage welcomes its first citizens on Friday, with the first 100 arrivals to be granted honorary citizenship
By Nick Squires, Rome
5:29PM BST 30 Apr 2015

The first citizens will arrive on Friday to populate the world's newest self-declared country – Liberland, a tiny patch of woodland and fields on the sandy banks of the River Danube.
The establishment of the pocket-sized nation was declared earlier this month on land wedged between Croatia and Serbia which, its founders argue, was never properly claimed by either country.
Liberland has its own flag, which features an eagle and a sun, a constitution, and a motto – "To live and let live".
Its self-appointed ruler is Vit Jedlicka, a conservative, anti-EU Czech politician and admirer of Britain's Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP.

Known officially as the Free Republic of Liberland, the country's independence was formally declared on April 13.
Some 120 would-be citizens are expected to arrive on Friday for what has been dubbed the state's first Liberty Day.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...claiming-to-be-the-worlds-newest-country.html
 
Welcome to Liberland, the tiny patch of woodland claiming to be the world's newest country
Self-proclaimed libertarian micro-state whose founder admires Nigel Farage welcomes its first citizens on Friday, with the first 100 arrivals to be granted honorary citizenship
By Nick Squires, Rome
5:29PM BST 30 Apr 2015

The first citizens will arrive on Friday to populate the world's newest self-declared country – Liberland, a tiny patch of woodland and fields on the sandy banks of the River Danube.
The establishment of the pocket-sized nation was declared earlier this month on land wedged between Croatia and Serbia which, its founders argue, was never properly claimed by either country.
Liberland has its own flag, which features an eagle and a sun, a constitution, and a motto – "To live and let live".
Its self-appointed ruler is Vit Jedlicka, a conservative, anti-EU Czech politician and admirer of Britain's Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP.

Known officially as the Free Republic of Liberland, the country's independence was formally declared on April 13.
Some 120 would-be citizens are expected to arrive on Friday for what has been dubbed the state's first Liberty Day.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/11574521/Welcome-to-Liberland-the-tiny-patch-of-woodland-claiming-to-be-the-worlds-newest-country.html

... this reminds me of the old Ealing Studios comedy film, Passport to Pimlico when Pimlico finds a loophole that allows them to become an independent state ..

 
And another one!

Welcome to the world's newest country – the Kingdom of Enclava
The tiny Kingdom of Enclava is established on a patch of land between Slovenia and Croatia, weeks after the foundation of another micro-nation, Liberland
By Nick Squires, Rome
6:17PM BST 15 May 2015

The concept of Balkanisation has been taken to a new level with the creation of a brand new, self-declared country on the border between Slovenia and Croatia – the second such micro-nation to be formed in a month.
The Kingdom of Enclava is unlikely to be given international recognition any time soon but its founders insist it has every right to exist because it has been established on land claimed by neither the Croats nor Slovenes.

The 1,000 square foot patch of land is near the Slovenian town of Metlika and around 30 miles west of Croatia's capital, Zagreb.
It has been designated as the Kingdom of Enclava by a group of Poles who discovered that the land was "terra nullius" – no-man's-land.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ds-newest-country-the-Kingdom-of-Enclava.html

As physicists find more and more sub-atomic particles, geographers find more and more micro-nations!
 
What series of events would lead to a tiny sliver of land being unclaimed? And the whole thing about starting a country there is just moot, unless the surrounding landowners and their governments allowed you to pass freely. Because unless you've got a skyscraper filled with hanging gardens and farms, well, i mean, the king gets hungry doesn't he?

Am i just taking this thing too seriously? Is it sort of a joke?

And another one!

Welcome to the world's newest country – the Kingdom of Enclava
The tiny Kingdom of Enclava is established on a patch of land between Slovenia and Croatia, weeks after the foundation of another micro-nation, Liberland
By Nick Squires, Rome
6:17PM BST 15 May 2015

The concept of Balkanisation has been taken to a new level with the creation of a brand new, self-declared country on the border between Slovenia and Croatia – the second such micro-nation to be formed in a month.
The Kingdom of Enclava is unlikely to be given international recognition any time soon but its founders insist it has every right to exist because it has been established on land claimed by neither the Croats nor Slovenes.

The 1,000 square foot patch of land is near the Slovenian town of Metlika and around 30 miles west of Croatia's capital, Zagreb.
It has been designated as the Kingdom of Enclava by a group of Poles who discovered that the land was "terra nullius" – no-man's-land.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ds-newest-country-the-Kingdom-of-Enclava.html

As physicists find more and more sub-atomic particles, geographers find more and more micro-nations!
 
What series of events would lead to a tiny sliver of land being unclaimed? And the whole thing about starting a country there is just moot, unless the surrounding landowners and their governments allowed you to pass freely. Because unless you've got a skyscraper filled with hanging gardens and farms, well, i mean, the king gets hungry doesn't he?

Am i just taking this thing too seriously? Is it sort of a joke?
Sure it's a sort of a joke. That's what's great about it.
 
The oldest micro-nation in Australia may soon enter a new era, as its 90-year-old monarch contemplates retirement.

Based on an agricultural property 500 kilometres north of Perth, the Principality of Hutt River was born out of a farming family's stoush with the State Government.

Through a series of legal manoeuvres, Leonard George Casley - who calls himself Prince Leonard - founded the principality in 1970 in response to the WA Government's wheat production quotas, which would have allowed only a fraction of his farm's crop go to market.

"If we would have accepted that quota, it would have made the farm at that time valueless," Prince Leonard said.

The principality, which the Australian Government does not legally recognise, has existed for 45 years.

The unusual enclave, based near Northampton, attracts tourists from around the globe, who make the pilgrimage to have their passports stamped and purchase the local currency, the Hutt River dollar

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-...onsiders-retirement/6749604?WT.mc_id=newsmail
 
Those both sound like varieties of goulash. Probably involving turnips.
 
How I ran a half marathon on Sealand, the fortress 'nation' in the middle of the sea
A relic of the second world war, Sealand is in the North Sea, is about the size of a tennis court and was declared a nation in the 60s with its own flag and currency. So, a perfectly crazy place to do a perfectly crazy run

2559.jpg

The scenic Sealand half marathon. Photograph: Simon Messenger

Simon Messenger
Friday 11 September 2015 08.23 BST Last modified on Friday 11 September 2015 09.46 BST

“It helps if you switch the power on,” shouted Mike, the security guard, as he chuckled into his beard. And our hearts started beating again.

Earlier that morning, I had been winched on to Sealand to take part in possibly the weirdest, most unlikely run of my life as part of my “around the world in 80 runs” challenge.

Sealand is a small, self-declared nation 12km off the coast of Essex, located on an abandoned second world war fortress. About the size of a tennis court, it was built in international waters, meaning that, once vacated, it more or less belonged to no one. Roy Bates (or “Prince Roy”) spotted this loophole in the 60s and, despite British protests, set up his principality, complete with flag, currency and motto. It has had a few adventures over the years: in the 70s, it was taken over by Germans. Shortly after, the original Sealanders recaptured it with a helicopter and shotguns and imprisoned one of the Germans for seven months; in the 90s, it became a data hub; in the 2000s, it nearly disappeared in a ball of fire. However, through grit and hard work, it has survived as a nation.

This slightly tamer adventure started with a simple email to the Sealand government, to which I didn’t really expect a reply. When it came, they were surprisingly keen. I might actually be able to visit this place that had captured my teenage imagination so long ago.
However, with their go-ahead, the real challenge started: how the hell do I get there and, more to the point, how do I run a half marathon, bearing in mind the fatal consequences if I missed a corner? A treadmill was the only real option.

From thereon, the project grew beyond my expectations: from a small, slightly random idea at the back of my mind, it escalated into a full-blown official half marathon, with film crew and sponsors in tow.
In early July, a small team and I were all set. The treadmill – kindly provided by Nordic Track – had safely made it there the previous day; there was hardly a cloud in the sky; an official Sealand government speedboat was waiting for us; Nathan Sports had kindly kitted us out – nothing could stop us now! Well, not quite. At the 11th hour, we got the bad news: the winds were high out at sea, it would be too dangerous and we’d have to reschedule.

Two weeks later, the forecast was worse, with severe weather warnings sweeping across the south-east of England. Despite this, Princes James, Roy’s grandson, assured us that we’d be OK so long as we left Sealand by midday – or we would be stuck out there for a week. So, at 4am, we set off from London. Time was precious. We had an eight-hour window to get to Sealand, run and get back.

By 7am, having signed all the relevant disclaimers, donned our life-jackets and hard hats, we were on the boat and ready. Slowly but surely, the speck in the distance became clearer and clearer until the unmistakable silhouette of Sealand came into focus.

768.jpg


Getting up on it is a little tricky, and one of the reasons why we were the first tourists in two years. The only way is via the worryingly named Plummet Winch: basically, a swing attached to an engine that dangles you 100ft up. Once swinging, I switched off and enjoyed the view and the randomness – but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly nervous. It’s safe to say that this will be the weirdest mode of transport I’ll ever use to get to a race.

After a visit to passport control for visas, and then assembling the treadmill, we were all set: the machine was ready, I had my running kit on, the camera crew was in place, we switched on the treadmill and … nothing. Nada. We tried again. Still no response. The heart palpitations began: had we come this far for nothing? And then, Mike the security guard pointed out that the fortress’s power was off. Panic over.

The race itself wasn’t the most exciting part – let’s be honest, running on a treadmill isn’t very stimulating. However, the setting was incredible. A relic of the second world war, a private fiefdom or a rusty old fort in the middle of the sea: it mattered not – we were very honoured to be here.

As the morning progressed, the rain held off. The cameramen were having a field day and I cracked on, happily maintaining a 1km-per-4 minutes pace. I was actually a little too fast for them and, as I reached the 21.1km mark in 1h27, I heard them shout back to me: “Just keep going, we’re not quite ready.” Er … sure, thanks guys!
After another kilometre or so, I got the thumbs up and sprinted up to the helipad to cross the official “finish line” and be met by Prince James. And there I was, the first person to complete a half marathon on Sealand.

Why do this? Well, why not? It’s a bit of fun, a bit of an adventure and a chance to visit somewhere on our doorstep hardly anyone’s heard of, let alone been to: a place full of history, of idealism, of romance and of pure barking madness

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...-the-fortress-nation-in-the-middle-of-the-sea
 
I find it odd if they could get away with imprisoning a german national for 7 months.
 
Princess Joan of Sealand - obituary
Housewife who became a princess when her husband founded a state on a derelict and rusty sea fort
7:02PM BST 28 Mar 2016

Princess Joan of Sealand, who has died aged 86, was plain Joan Bates, a former Essex carnival queen, until 1967 when her husband Roy declared himself head of state of an abandoned wartime gun platform off the Suffolk coast.

In 1965, on the nearby Knock John fortified tower in the North Sea, Roy Bates, a former Army major, had established Radio Essex, claiming it as Britain’s first 24-hour pirate pop station, only to see it swiftly closed down by the Labour government. He then bought HM Fort Roughs, a windswept hulk some seven miles off Felixstowe, with twin towers of steel-reinforced concrete spanned by a 5,920 sq ft rusting iron platform.

In 1967, however, when a law took effect making it illegal for pirate radio operators to employ British citizens, Bates, who had fought in the International Brigade in Spain and once faced a fascist firing squad in Greece, knew how to respond. On his wife’s birthday, September 2, he declared UDI and founded Sealand, declaring it exempt from British taxes. Styling themselves Prince Roy and Princess Joan, they took up residence with their children – and Fruitcake the family cat. Their motto was E Mare Libertas (“From the Sea, Freedom”).

Not long after Sealand’s birth, shots were fired in a confrontation with the British authorities, landing Bates in court. But the judge concluded that Sealand was in international waters and therefore beyond British jurisdiction. The Bateses took the ruling as de facto recognition of Sealand’s independence (though it has never been recognised by Britain or any other country).

It was not long, however, before Sealand’s sovereignty faced a further challenge – in the form of a boarding party from Radio Caroline, which the Bateses repelled with Molotov cocktails and warning shots. In 1968, when the Royal Maritime auxiliary vessel Golden Eye passed close by, three warning shots were fired across her bow before she turned for the shore. Bates was summonsed under the Firearms Act and appeared in the dock at Essex Assizes. Again the judge decided that the courts had no jurisdiction. A QC commenting on the case described the family as having “the element of swashbuckling more appropriate to the days of Queen Elizabeth I than ours”.

During the 1970s Bates created Sealand’s own constitution, flag (red and black with white diagonal stripe), passports, national anthem and stamps and currency bearing Princess Joan’s arresting features.
But, she insisted, “I got my title the hard way. I had to earn it.” Once, while Roy tended to business matters, she was forced to hold the fort with only her teenage son Michael for company for a 14-month stretch during which she carried a .38 pistol by day and slept with it under her pillow at night.

“Sealand’s accommodations are anything but royal,” reported a visiting journalist in 1984. “On the main deck are four cold, clammy rooms equipped with space heaters, basins [with no taps] and a shower, and permeated by a distinctly mouldy aroma.” But Princess Joan insisted that it was “sheer luxury” compared with what they found when they first arrived, when Sealand was just “dead seagulls, dust, rust, no light, no doors and no windows”.

To make the place feel more homely she installed frilly bed covers and adorned the bulkheads with framed hunting scenes. She shopped weekly in Harwich but also kept three years’ worth of frozen and dried food on the platform in case of emergency.
“I like all things luxurious,” she explained. “But luxury is security and being able to do your own thing at your own time.”

She was born Joan Collins on September 2 1929 in Aldershot barracks to Albert Collins, a regimental sergeant major in the Royal Artillery, and his wife, Elizabeth. She was brought up in Essex.

A striking blonde, she worked as a fashion model as a teenager and was a local carnival queen when she met Roy Bates at a dance aged 19. “It was stunning, like what you read in a book,” she recalled. “He was tall, dark and handsome. There was no question in my mind that we would always be together from the first minute.” It took Roy three days to propose, “and I thought he was taking a helluva long time”. Within three months they were married.

Joan supported her husband as he tried his hand at various schemes.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12205685/Princess-Joan-of-Sealand-obituary.html

A fascinating tale!
 
Princess Joan of Sealand - obituary
Housewife who became a princess when her husband founded a state on a derelict and rusty sea fort
7:02PM BST 28 Mar 2016

Princess Joan of Sealand, who has died aged 86, was plain Joan Bates, a former Essex carnival queen, until 1967 when her husband Roy declared himself head of state of an abandoned wartime gun platform off the Suffolk coast.

In 1965, on the nearby Knock John fortified tower in the North Sea, Roy Bates, a former Army major, had established Radio Essex, claiming it as Britain’s first 24-hour pirate pop station, only to see it swiftly closed down by the Labour government. He then bought HM Fort Roughs, a windswept hulk some seven miles off Felixstowe, with twin towers of steel-reinforced concrete spanned by a 5,920 sq ft rusting iron platform.

In 1967, however, when a law took effect making it illegal for pirate radio operators to employ British citizens, Bates, who had fought in the International Brigade in Spain and once faced a fascist firing squad in Greece, knew how to respond. On his wife’s birthday, September 2, he declared UDI and founded Sealand, declaring it exempt from British taxes. Styling themselves Prince Roy and Princess Joan, they took up residence with their children – and Fruitcake the family cat. Their motto was E Mare Libertas (“From the Sea, Freedom”).

Not long after Sealand’s birth, shots were fired in a confrontation with the British authorities, landing Bates in court. But the judge concluded that Sealand was in international waters and therefore beyond British jurisdiction. The Bateses took the ruling as de facto recognition of Sealand’s independence (though it has never been recognised by Britain or any other country).

It was not long, however, before Sealand’s sovereignty faced a further challenge – in the form of a boarding party from Radio Caroline, which the Bateses repelled with Molotov cocktails and warning shots. In 1968, when the Royal Maritime auxiliary vessel Golden Eye passed close by, three warning shots were fired across her bow before she turned for the shore. Bates was summonsed under the Firearms Act and appeared in the dock at Essex Assizes. Again the judge decided that the courts had no jurisdiction. A QC commenting on the case described the family as having “the element of swashbuckling more appropriate to the days of Queen Elizabeth I than ours”.

During the 1970s Bates created Sealand’s own constitution, flag (red and black with white diagonal stripe), passports, national anthem and stamps and currency bearing Princess Joan’s arresting features.
But, she insisted, “I got my title the hard way. I had to earn it.” Once, while Roy tended to business matters, she was forced to hold the fort with only her teenage son Michael for company for a 14-month stretch during which she carried a .38 pistol by day and slept with it under her pillow at night.

“Sealand’s accommodations are anything but royal,” reported a visiting journalist in 1984. “On the main deck are four cold, clammy rooms equipped with space heaters, basins [with no taps] and a shower, and permeated by a distinctly mouldy aroma.” But Princess Joan insisted that it was “sheer luxury” compared with what they found when they first arrived, when Sealand was just “dead seagulls, dust, rust, no light, no doors and no windows”.

To make the place feel more homely she installed frilly bed covers and adorned the bulkheads with framed hunting scenes. She shopped weekly in Harwich but also kept three years’ worth of frozen and dried food on the platform in case of emergency.
“I like all things luxurious,” she explained. “But luxury is security and being able to do your own thing at your own time.”

She was born Joan Collins on September 2 1929 in Aldershot barracks to Albert Collins, a regimental sergeant major in the Royal Artillery, and his wife, Elizabeth. She was brought up in Essex.

A striking blonde, she worked as a fashion model as a teenager and was a local carnival queen when she met Roy Bates at a dance aged 19. “It was stunning, like what you read in a book,” she recalled. “He was tall, dark and handsome. There was no question in my mind that we would always be together from the first minute.” It took Roy three days to propose, “and I thought he was taking a helluva long time”. Within three months they were married.

Joan supported her husband as he tried his hand at various schemes.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12205685/Princess-Joan-of-Sealand-obituary.html

A fascinating tale!

Great story, I just tweeted it.
 
“But luxury is security and being able to do your own thing at your own time.”

It is certainly a luxury now! :cry:
 
Here's a new twist on this topic!
Kiwi tourist claims she was detained in Kazakhstan because 'officials refused to believe New Zealand was a country'
Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney
5 December 2016 • 2:30pm

A 28-year-old tourist says she was detained at an airport in Kazakhstan after immigration officials refused to believe that New Zealand was a country and insisted it was a state of Australia.
Chloe Phillips-Harris, who holds a New Zealand passport, said she was interrogated for hours and held in a guard room at Almaty Airport for a day and a half.
She said that a map in the interrogation room did not show New Zealand, which made it impossible for her to persuade the guards that her country existed.

“I landed in Kazakhstan on the last flight of the night, and I got to an immigration booth and they asked me for an Australian passport, and told me I couldn’t come in without an Australian passport,” she told The New Zealand Herald.
“They said New Zealand’s clearly a part of Australia… It’s just really unfortunate there was a world map that didn’t have New Zealand on it.”

Ms Phillips-Harris, a self-described adventurer, horse rider and journalist “who likes to wander off the beaten track”, said she was detained while entering Kazakhstan, where she planned to travel and work on farms.
Airport officials made her board a flight for China, but she contacted “someone who could help” and was allowed back to the airport but was then detained.

“Plain-clothes policemen got involved, immigration police got involved, airport officials got involved ... and at that stage it was a bit late to bribe my way out, which apparently is what I was supposed to do from the beginning, but being a New Zealander we're not familiar with that,” she said.

"It was an empty room with a bed basically. I didn't get any food or water but in the middle of the night they guards clearly felt sorry for me so once immigration police and everyone had gone, the guards would sneak me a drink.
“They had a half-drunk bottle of 7 Up. They did this thing of pouring it into two glasses and one of them drank one glass to show it was safe to drink… The guards were really nice.”

Ms Phillips-Harris said she was eventually able to enter after her contacts helped her to secure a new visa and obtain a United States passport. She spent six months travelling around the country and returned to New Zealand last month.
The New Zealand ministry of foreign affairs and trade told The New Zealand Herald it was "aware of the case, and a consular official has been in touch with family in New Zealand".
"The case has been resolved," said a spokesman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...etained-kazakhstan-officials-refused-believe/
 
I wonder how you just "get" an American passport sent to you in Kazakhstan?
 
I wonder how you just "get" an American passport sent to you in Kazakhstan?
Consular staff within the US Embassy in Kazakstan would locally-produce a new one, by using a blank spare from their contingency stock.

See https://kz.usembassy.gov

These blank passports are retained by embassy staff for use by US citizens who have had theirs lost or stolen, or for dependants/ new spouses or for approved permanent/extended emigrees from Kazakhstan moving to the US.

Stocks are maintained via the diplomatic bag system, rather than being printed within each country.
 
A European country that may not be real is angling for good relations with Donald Trump

"There are many ties and shared ideas between Liberland and President Trump," the self-proclaimed president of Liberland, Vit Jedlicka, told The Washington Post this weekend.

Jedlicka declared sovereignty over a 3-square-mile spit of land on the Danube River in April 2015, taking advantage of a decades-long dispute between Croatia and Serbia over their border.

Jedlicka, a Czech citizen with libertarian leanings and a Euroskeptic, found outabout the territory while reading about "terra nullius" — "nobody's land" in Latin — on Wikipedia.

While Jedlicka is optimistic about relations between his country and the Trump administration, the nascent relationship faces a peculiar and significant hurdle: Neither the US nor any other country recognizes Liberland's existence.

Jedlicka has links with anti-establishment political movements elsewhere in Europe, and he recently appointed Thomas Walls, a US citizen, as Liberland's foreign minister.

Jedlicka told Business Insider in April 2015 that he was against most forms of government assistance and that taxes in his country would be voluntary.

"We don't really care that much, because the government will have very little expenditure," he said at the time. "We will have so much money that we will not know how to spend it." ...

http://www.aol.com/article/news/201...ot-be-real-is-angling-for-good-rela/21621685/



 
Consular staff within the US Embassy in Kazakstan would locally-produce a new one, by using a blank spare from their contingency stock.

See https://kz.usembassy.gov

These blank passports are retained by embassy staff for use by US citizens who have had theirs lost or stolen, or for dependants/ new spouses or for approved permanent/extended emigrees from Kazakhstan moving to the US.

Stocks are maintained via the diplomatic bag system, rather than being printed within each country.
But the story doesn't explain why a New Zealander was issued with an emergency US passport, does it?
 
But the story doesn't explain why a New Zealander was issued with an emergency US passport, does it?

Dual NZ/US citizenship? NZ dependant/ new spouse of a US citizen in Kazakhstan? A permanent/extended emigree from Kazakhstan, formerly of NZ origin, moving to the US?

It may be the case that every one of these postulated scenarios has occurred, and been responded to, many times.

Alternatively, maybe the report is wrong.
 
Last edited:
San Escobar: Polish foreign minister's slip invents a country
11 January 2017

Do you know the way to San Escobar?
Probably not, it doesn't exist, but that didn't stop Poland's foreign minister claiming to have had a productive meeting with its officials this week.
Witold Waszczykowski told reporters he met with various nations for Poland's bid to join the UN security council, "such as Belize or San Escobar".

Mr Waszczykowski has been roundly mocked on Twitter, the one place San Escobar does now exist, flag and all.
He said that he had had meetings with officials from nearly 20 countries, including some Caribbean nations "for the first time in the history of our diplomacy. For example with countries such as Belize or San Escobar".

He put the slip down to tiredness. "Unfortunately after 22 hours in planes and several connecting flights you can make a slip of the tongue," he said.
He said he had in mind Saint Kitts and Nevis, a two-island Caribbean country known in Spanish as San Cristobal y Nieves.

Twitter users responded in customary style, creating an official account and a flag for the island nation.
One tweet said that San Escobar "fully supports Poland's candidacy to the Security Council".

Another designed some currency, but added: "It's funny until you realise your only allies left are Belarus, Hungary and an imaginary nation state."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38582447
 
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