MARCUSBURG - Just a few weeks after the opening of vast new tracts of land in the far west by Congressional Parliament, debate has emerged over the future of Terra Occidentale.

On Feburary 2, 2003, three new countries were founded in the west: Danikistan, Nahegypt, and Stevensk, with an additional 25 countries also claiming land. Luckily however, there was enough land in Terra Occidentale to accommodate the record number of territorial claims. As a result of the newly adopted 'competent leadership policies' of Congressional Parliament, the three nascent nations have proven to be the promising new countries on the Mapp in over a year.

As Danikistan was evolving into a metropolitan hub, Nahegypt into a tourist attraction, and Stevensk into a distinguished capital city, the Ethnarch of Rattanjeetland proposed a grand sweeping vision of the far west. At a routine meeting of the General Assembly in Marcusburg, the Rattanjeetarr ambassador to Congressional Parliament put forth a motion to the Great Powers Forum for the exclusive development of Terra Occidentale as an 'urban corridor' containing economic structures and hybrid towers. The nascent powers would be exempt from the effects of the proposal.

While Rattanjeetland and Siggary voted in favour of the motion, the Gorditan, Lindsholmic, and Marcurean ambassadors managed to defeat the Rattanjeetarr proposal on February 14, 2003. Although initially receptive to the idea, Marcusburg withdrew its support after realizing that the motion would have violated a nation's right to self-determination. However, still supportive of a peaceful economically vibrant west, the Marcurean ambassador put forth a motion of his own.

Instead of forcing nations to build hybrid towers and economic structures, the new motion would make Terra Occidentale a non-militarized zone, with the exception of the nascent powers. Although two nations have yet to vote, the motion has already passed with Lindsholmic, Marcurean, and Siggarian backing.

While pacifists celebrate, Congressional experts are considering putting the motion back into the next Congress for retroactive approval by all countries since so many nations, 28 in all, are affected by the motion. The Great Powers Forum was consulted in the first place because construction had been accelerated in Terra Occidentale and if a non-militarized or economic-based motion were to pass, it had to before any construction by the non-nascent powers had begun.