New Cambria

New Cambria, officially the Republic of New Cambria (French: République de Nouvelle-Cambrie; Keva: Orvehi Đijoro) is a country in the North Atlantic Ocean, comprising the island of New Cambria and five smaller populated islands near the boundary between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Home to a culturally distinct indigenous people known as the Keva, New Cambria was explored by French fur traders beginning in the 1610s, then settled mostly by Roman Catholic emigrants from Great Britain during the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries. New Cambria experimented with limited self-rule during World War II, and declared its independence from the United Kingdom in 1956. Following a series of negotiations between the British and New Cambrian governments, the Republic of New Cambria was recognized in 1961, and functions under a parliamentary republican form of government. Arvant is its capital and largest city.

Geography
New Cambria Island is roughly triangular in shape. Its northern and western shores are dotted with dozens of natural harbours. Several of the country's major cities have been built up around them, Arvant and Southport, for example. On the eastern coast of the island, cliffs rise out of the sea, the highest of which measure over 180m. Stone County takes its name from the rocky coastline in this part of the island.

Arvant, New Cambria's capital city, is located at the same approximate latitude as Belfast, Gdansk and Moscow. On the summer solstice New Cambria experiences over 17 hours of daylight, compared with just 7 hours on the winter solstice.

New Cambria's nearby islands are far less developed than their larger neighbour, and large parts of Alaric and Saint Claire Islands are still uninhabited.

Climate
New Cambria is situated between the cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream Current. Because of this, fog is quite common throughout the country. New Cambrians enjoy mild summers and cold, wet winters. Due to its awkward oceanic location, snowfall is less common than other places at a similar latitude, but freezing rain is a near-daily occurrence in the winter months. The warmest temperature ever recorded in the country was 35.9 degrees Celsius (96.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on 24 July 1929. The coldest ever recorded temperature was -34.5 degrees Celsius (-30.1 degrees Fahrenheit) on 16 February 1970.

Ancient History
Paleo-Indians camped at locations in present-day New Cambria approximately 9,000 years ago. Archaic Indians are believed to have been present in the area between 1,500 and 4,500 years ago. The Keva people are their direct descendants.

Some believe that the Vikings may have settled in New Cambria at some time, though there is little evidence of this, and the claim is disputed by historians. The only authenticated Viking settlement in North America outside of Greenland is L’Anse aux Meadows on the nearby island of Newfoundland, which establishes the fact that Vikings explored the continent 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

European Discovery and Settlement
While the exact location of his landing is disputed, it is most widely believed that Italian explorer John Cabot visited the present-day Cape Bangor in 1497. The first European settlement in New Cambria was established in 1612, over a century later. The French, led by Christian Leveque, landed in present-day Southport on 9 October, and named the island “Île Denis de Paris (Denis of Paris Island)”, after the Roman Catholic saint whose feast day was celebrated on 9 October. Also, French fishermen established a settlement at what is now Arvant in the spring of 1613.

Government
New Cambria is a representative democracy and a parliamentary republic. The President of New Cambria is a largely ceremonial office whose chief duties are to present and represent the Republic abroad, and function as a ceremonial head of state. Among some of his or her limited powers, the President can block a piece of legislation and put it to a national referendum. The extent of the political powers possessed by the office of the President is disputed by legal scholars in New Cambria. Several provisions of the Constitution appear to give the President some important powers, but other provisions and traditions suggest differently. The current President is Daniel Burns. He was elected to the office in 2003.

The head of government is the Prime Minister, who, together with the Executive Council, oversees the government's executive branch. The Executive Council is appointed by the President after general elections to Parliament. This process is usually conducted by the leaders of the political parties, however, who decide amongst themselves which parties can form the Executive Council and how its seats are to be distributed, under the condition that it enjoys majority support in Parliament. Only when party leaders are unable to reach a conclusion by themselves in a reasonable time does the President exercise this power and form the council himself.

The Executive Councils have almost always been coalitions with two or more parties involved, due to the fact that no single political party has received a majority of seats in Parliament since New Cambria became a republic.

The modern parliament was founded in 1956 as part of a five-year power-transfer agreement between New Cambria and Great Britain. The Parliament of the Republic of New Cambria first convened in 1961. It consists of 100 members, and elections must be held at least every three years. The Constitution allows for a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 30 parliamentary constituencies, though the current number is 22. Each constituency returns no fewer than three and no greater than seven Members of Parliament, on the basis of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) voting method. Counties are given an apportionment of seats in Parliament, and then constituency boundaries are created, abolished or altered based on each county's apportionment. Before 1998, Parliament's 100 seats were apportioned by each county's population. However, New Cambria's islander, Keva and French-speaking populations, most of whom live outside the greater Arvant area, felt under-represented. Thus, the Parliamentary Apportionment Act 1997 was passed, which guaranteed each county a minimum of three seats. Therefore, 27 of Parliament's 100 seats are allocated equally amongst the nine counties, with the remaining 73 allocated by population. In effect, the passing of this Act transferred 7 seats from the two most populous counties (six from St. George's and one from Cape Bangor) to the five least populous counties. St. David's, Stone and Trinity Counties each gained one seat; Cavit Island and the Outer Islands each gained two seats. A census must be taken at least every five years in order to redefine constituencies and apportionments.

Municipal and parliamentary elections take place every three years. Presidential elections are held every six years. Since election days are not set by law, they may be held on any day of the week. The last three national elections have been held on Thursdays, though there is significant voter and parliamentary support to hold the upcoming general election on a Sunday to allow as many to vote as possible.

Political Parties
For the most part, New Cambria has a left-right multi-party system. The biggest party is the centre-right Independence Party, while the second-largest is the Social Democrat Party. Other major political parties are the centrist Progressive Party, the left-wing ecological Green Party, and the right-wing National Party. Two additional parties operate outside the traditional left-right system. The Keva minority has its own party, called Eđa Elaho Ohati (literally Voice of the First People, often referred to as EEO in English and French). Originally formed as an alternative for Keva voters who felt excluded from the political process, the EEO has experienced a growth in electoral popularity among non-Keva voters in the past decade. The French-speaking community also has a party, the Parti égalité (Equality Party), though it has struggled to find a foothold amongst voters due to competition from the French-speaking chapters of the major parties. Historically, the National and Independence parties support each other in Parliament, as do the Green and Social Democrat parties. The Progressive Party most often votes with the majority, while alignments of the French- and Keva-communities' parties are much more difficult to predict.

Many other parties exist on the local level, most of which run only locally inside a single municipality. Parliament is currently controlled by a coalition between members of the Independence, Progressive and National and Equality parties and one independent member. The Social Democrat and Green parties sit in opposition. While the EEO did not formally declare support for either faction in this Parliament, its MPs more frequently vote with the opposition.

Foreign Relations
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was one of the first governmental ministries established when New Cambria declared its independence in 1956. Although diplomats could not present credentials at foreign governments until the United Kingdom formally recognized New Cambria's independence in 1961, a number of unofficial representatives worked on the provisional government's behalf internationally.

The initial purpose of the newly formed foreign ministry was both to represent New Cambria's interests though diplomatic channels, and to provide consular services for New Cambrian shipping and commerce overseas. In 1962, the Parliament decided to establish nine embassies in Europe, and one each in Canada and the United States. 20 consular offices were also opened.

In 1970, the ministry was consolidated and reorganized to ensure fuller cooperation between the diplomatic and consular branches. The reorganization included the formation of a designated career path for diplomats that included completion of a university entrance examination and professional experience from international trade. New Cambria joined the United Nations on 18 September 1973.

New Cambria tends toward independence in foreign policy, thus it is not a member of NATO and, owing to its absence of an army, has a longstanding policy of military neutrality. This policy has helped New Cambria's Coast Guard and Crisis Response Unit to be successful in their contributions to UN peace-keeping missions, first in Lebanon in 1978, and more recently in the former Yugoslavia, East Timor, Liberia.

New Cambria enjoys its closest political ties with Canada, the United States, Iceland and Denmark, the latter mostly via Greenland. New Cambria is also a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) since 1990, and of the International Criminal Court since 2002.

Military
New Cambria maintains no standing army. There is, however, no legal impediment to forming one. New Cambria maintains a well-trained Coast Guard, National Police forces, Air Defense system and well as a voluntary expeditionary peace-keeping force. These services perform many of the operations most countries relegate to their standing armies. The Crisis Response Unit is manned by approximately 1,000 personnel from New Cambria's other services, armed or not, including the National Police, Coast Guard, Emergency Services and Health-Care system. Because of the military nature of most of the unit's assignments, all of its members receive basic infantry combat training. This training has often been conducted by the Canadian Forces, but the Coast Guard and Special Forces are also assigned to train the Crisis-Reponse Unit. Since its founding in the early 1990s, the formation and employment of the unit has met with controversy in New Cambria, especially by people to the left of the political spectrum.

Canada has agreed to grant New Cambria citizens the same eligibility as Canadian citizens for military education in Canada and to serve as professional soldiers in the Canadian forces.

Administrative Divisions
New Cambria has 65 municipalities grouped into nine counties, of which seven are located on New Cambria Island itself. Cavit Island functions as its own county, but Alaric Island and its neighboring islets are grouped together as the "Outer Islands."

Demographics
''See Article: New Cambria Nationality Law

The original population of New Cambria was an indigenous people called the Keva. The Keva's recorded history extends back over two millennia, and physical remnants of their society, culture and religion are evident throughout the islands. Today, however, most New Cambrians are descendants of English, Welsh, Irish and French settlers who arrived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The population of New Cambria totaled 2,770,031 on 01 July 2006. On 01 July 2008, the population was estimated to have increased 0.07% to 2,771,933.

In 2006, approximately 197,000 people (approx. 7.1% of the total population) who were living in New Cambria had been born abroad, including children of New Cambrian parents living abroad. Approximately 130,000 people (4.7% of the population) held foreign citizenship. Canadians and Americans make up the far largest minority nationalities, and still form the bulk of the foreign workforce. About 56,000 Canadians and 43,000 Americans now live in New Cambria, mostly in and around the capital city. The recent growth in immigration has been credited to a labor shortage caused by the booming economy, and a simultaneous relaxing of immigration restrictions designed to attract immigrants from Europe.

Language
New Cambria's official language is English, and most New Cambrians speak a distinct dialect called New Cambria English. The country's constitution protects and promotes certain minority languages as established by law. Currently, French (approx. 170,000 speakers) and Keva (~90,000 speakers) enjoy such protected status. The most widely-spoken minority language without special constitutional protection is Bosnian, with an estimated 5,000 speakers.

Keva, known in its own language as Hejvat, is a language isolate, linguistically unrelated to any other living language. The total number of Keva-language speakers in New Cambria has consistently declined since census record keeping began in the mid-1800s. In the last two decades, the Keva community and the Ministry of Culture has worked to make Keva language more accessible and visible in everyday life. In 1997, the first official Keva translation of the New Cambrian constitution (Keva: Đanehe Eha Orvehi Đijoro) was published.

Foreign language study is a required component of public and private education at all levels. Most New Cambrian students receive education in French and Spanish, though other European languages are gaining in popularity.

Religion
New Cambrians enjoy freedom of religion under the constitution, though the Roman Catholic Church is the state church. The National Registry keeps account of the religious affiliation of every New Cambrian citizen. In 2006, New Cambrians divided into religious groups as follows:


 * 80.7% members of the Roman Catholic Church
 * 6.2% members of unregistered religious organizations or with no specified religious affiliation
 * 4.9% members of the Anglican Church in New Cambria
 * 2.8% not members of any religious group
 * 2.5% followers of the Keva religious traditions

The remaining 2.9% is mostly divided between around 20-25 other Christian denominations and sects, with less than 1% belonging to non-Christian religious organizations. The largest non-Christian denomination is the Æstra Fellowship, a neo-pagan group. Religious attendance is relatively low, as in most Western countries.

National Registry
All living New Cambrians, as well as all foreign citizens with permanent residence in New Cambria, have a personal identification number identifying them in the National Registry. This number is composed of thirteen digits in the form PNNN-DDMM-YYYYC. The first digit is the place of birth (1-9 for each county in alphabetical order, and 0 for foreign-born residents). The next three digits are assigned randomly when the number is issued. The following eight digits are the individual's date of birth in the form DD-MM-YYYY, and the final digit is a check digit. A hypothetical, but valid example would be 1138-2411-19768. While similar, personal registries exist in other countries, the use of the national registry is unusually extensive in New Cambria. For example, video rentals register their customers using the Registry's identification numbers. It is worth noting that the completeness of the National Registry eliminates the need for censuses to be performed in the traditional sense.

Economy and Infrastructure
Historically, New Cambria's economy depended heavily on its forests, shipbuilding, fishing and fur trading. To this day, fishing still provides about 30% of earnings from exports and employs 6% of the country's workforce. The economy is vulnerable to declining fish stocks and drops in world prices for its main material exports. Although the New Cambrian economy still relies heavily on fishing, its importance is diminishing as other industries, particularly tourism, technology and forestry grow. Apart from a minor slowdown in 2001 and 2002, the economy has consistently grown and expanded since 1994. New Cambria boasts an unemployment rate of just 1.9%, one of the world's lowest.

Although New Cambria is a very developed country, it is still newly-industrialized. Until the late 1980s, New Cambria lagged far behind its two neighbors, Canada and the United States, and ranked among North America's poorer countries. The fast economic growth that it experienced in the last decades is only recently allowing for upgrading of infrastructure such as transportation. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the successive governments instituted policies aimed at diversifying the economy, privatizing state-owned industries and limiting foreign borrowing.

In the last decade, New Cambria's economy has diversified into manufacturing and service industries, including software production, biotechnology and financial services. The tourism sector is expanding, with particular attention paid to eco-tourism. New Cambria's agriculture industry consists mainly of potatoes, green vegetables (grown in greenhouses) and dairy products. Market Square in Arvant is New Cambria's financial nerve center, housing several companies, investment banks, and the Arvant Stock Exchange (ASE), which opened in 1996.

The primary currency of New Cambria is the New Cambria Pound (NWP). During the republic's first decade, the United States Dollar was widely accepted as a de facto currency. From 1970 to 1980, the pound was pegged to the dollar at a rate of 1 USD = 2.50 NWP. New Cambria's economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s has strengthened its currency's value against the dollar, and the exchange rate was reported to be 1 USD = 0.91 NWP in May 2008.

Transportation
''See Article: Vehicle registration plates of New Cambria‎

Though the main mode of transport is by car, New Cambrians rely far less on automobiles than their American and Canadian neighbors. Due to the country's small size and a relatively evenly populated network of small towns and urban centers, most residents need not travel far for essential services.

Intra-island transport is made possible by ten national routes. Four of them originate in Arvant, then fan out southward to all parts of New Cambria Island, crisscrossed by east-west national routes. Until the mid-twentieth century, New Cambria could only afford to pave roads near the largest towns and cities. Today, roads are being paved throughout the country and freeways are being built in and around Arvant. New Cambria currently has one railway, running from Arvant in the north to St. Saviour and Greenbriar in the south. Inter-island travel takes the form of a ferry service. The ferries are based in Arvant, stopping off at The Settlement on Cavit Island and Wild Harbour on Alaric Island several times daily. The smaller islands are connected to Wild Harbour daily, and to Arvant twice weekly.

The main hub for international transportation is Sebastien Brun International Airport (ARV), which serves Arvant and the country in general. Daily flights depart Arvant bound for St. John's, Boston, Montreal and Philadelphia, and other American, Canadian and European destinations are served once- and twice-weekly.

Education
New Cambria's education system is similar to that of most western countries. There are three tiers of education: primary, secondary and tertiary. State-sponsored education is free to New Cambrian citizens and their dependents at all levels, including university. The Department of Education and Achievement, under the control of the Ministry of Education, is in overall control of policy, funding and direction, though most of the day-to-day administration of schools is the duty of the municipal or county government. All children must begin compulsory education before their seventh birthdays.

Pre-Primary
Though not mandatory, most New Cambrian children begin schooling at age four or five, with some beginning pre-primary education at age three. The recent phenomena of urbanization the increasing number of double-income families have meant more young children are enrolling in pre-primary programs.

Compulsory Education
Primary level begins at grade one, and lasts through grade five. The primary curriculum is the most standardized of the three levels, with students receiving generalized instruction in physical and life sciences, maths, English language arts and mechanics, art, music, physical education, history and civics. Since 1998, foreign language instruction has been a part of the curriculum, with most students learning French or Spanish.

The secondary level begins at grade six and lasts through grade twelve. During secondary, students build on the subjects introduced in primary, with additional career-oriented and university-preparatory education. A certificate of completion is awarded to students who complete secondary level. This certificate is required for entrance into most tertiary institutions.

Until 2003, students were required to remain in school until age 18. Now, students may withdraw from compulsory education at age 17, or with parental consent required at age 16. At the same time, the Department of Education and Achievement created an Completion Equivalency Certificate (CEC), which secondary dropouts may earn after completing a prep course either in a classroom, by correspondence or online.

Tertiary
New Cambria offers students a number of options for post-secondary education. The University of New Cambria in Arvant is the country's premier tertiary institution. In total, New Cambria boasts six universities (three state-sponsored and three private) and four colleges.

Homeschooling
Homeschooling was illegal in New Cambria from 1970 to 1998, and is still actively discouraged by the Ministry of Education. Nevertheless, an estimated 100 children receive education in the home as of 2007.

Privately-funded schools
Like most other developed countries, many parents in New Cambria choose to send their children to privately-funded schools. Many of these are operated by the Roman Catholic Church or other religious organizations. New Cambria's French-speaking community also operates a network of French-language private schools.

Culture
The culture of the peoples living in New Cambria is far from monolithic. Many notable cultural divides exist between the rural people and city-dwellers, between the three major language communities (English, French, Keva), and increasingly between new immigrants and the existing population.

Family Life
New Cambria's strong Roman Catholic tradition has placed a heavy emphasis on traditional family principles since the first settlers arrived. Today, however, the social and economic change in recent years has brought about significant changes in family life in the country. According to figures published in 2006, 27% of all births in New Cambria occur outside marriage. This compares with 5% in 1976. Currently, the average age of mothers having their first child is 30, and the fertility rate is an average of 2.02 children.

Divorce became legal in New Cambria on 1 January 1982. The most recent statistics show that the number of divorced people in New Cambria stood at 24,300 in 2006, compared with 6,700 in 1986. The number of separated people, including divorced people, increased from 60,800 in 1996 to 92,600 in 2006. Cohabiting couples made up 8.4% of all family units in 2006 compared with 3.9% in 1996.

Holidays and Festivals
See Articles: Keva Calendar, Public Holidays in New Cambria

Most school and public holidays in New Cambria generally follow the Roman Catholic calendar, including Easter, Christmas Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Assumption of Mary, All Saints' Day, etc. The government observes at least the following eight holidays each year. Other holidays may be, and often are, observed as decided by Parliament.

In addition, Keva-population regions follow the holidays observed in the Keva lunisolar calendar. A few of these holidays have been absorbed into New Cambrian culture as a whole, and are celebrated by a significant portion of the population. The three most widely-observed Keva holidays are listed below.

Literature and the Arts
Although the official literacy rate of New Cambria is 99%, some estimates have placed functional illiteracy at 8%-12% of the adult population.

While reading remains a more popular pastime of New Cambria's youth than their counterparts in Canada and the United States, surveys show that it has decreased in importance compared to music, television, sports and other activities. Literary taste in New Cambria remains centered on the novel (23.8% of book sales in 2006), although New Cambrians read more non-fiction essays and books on current affairs than the Canadians or Americans. Contemporary novels lead the least (13% of total books sold), followed by detective and spy fiction (4.2%), science fiction and horror (2.2%), by sentimental novels (2.1%), "classic" literature (1.5%) and erotic fiction (0.2%). About two-fifths of all fiction sold in New Cambria comes from the United States.

Languages
The three most widely-spoken languages in New Cambria have long influenced each other, with the local English dialect adopting aspects of the French and Keva grammatical structures, and in turn, Keva drawing much vocabulary from English and French. English is spoken by approximately 89% of the population as a first language, and virtually the entire population as a second or third language. Native French-speakers make up approximately 7% and Keva-speakers approximately 3%.

Several other languages are spoken on the island, entering the country along with recently-arrived immigrants. For example, the fourth most widely-spoken language in New Cambria is Bosnian, which arrived in the mid-1990s.

Print
There are several daily newspapers in New Cambria, including Dawn, The Daily Connection, and New Cambria Times. The French community is served by two dailies: La Voix (The Voice) and La Nouvelle République (The New Republic). The best-selling of these is The Daily Connection. The Times is New Cambria's newspaper of record. The Sunday market is quite saturated with American and Canadian publications. The leading Sunday newspaper in terms of circulation is the ''New York Times.

There are quite a large number of local weekly newspapers, with every county and many larger towns having one or two newspapers. Curiously, Arvant remains one of the few places in New Cambria without a major local paper since the Arvant Sun closed in 1986. In 2002, the Arvant Tribune was launched, but failed to attract enough readers to make it viable, and eventually closed in 2006.

While there are no Keva-language dailies, there are two weekly newspapers which publish at alternating parts of the week: Keđekaves (lit. Shout) has published on Mondays since 1985. Its sister publication, Lumahan (lit. Rumor) opened in 1997. Publishing every Thursday, Lumahan is oriented more towards younger readers, and features a large entertainment section devoted to each upcoming weekend.

The magazine market in New Cambria is one of the world's most competitive, with hundreds of international magazines available in a relatively small country. This means that domestic titles find it very hard to retain readership. Among the best-selling New Cambrian magazines are Cam' (short for Cambria), Kaleidoscope and Spin.

Radio
The first official radio station in New Cambria was 1CF Arvant, which began broadcasting in 1927. 1CF Arvant later became part of New Cambria Public Radio. The first commercial radio station in New Cambria, Apex Radio, signed on for the first time in 1967.

Beginning in the 1980s and continuing on to the present day, dozens of local radio stations have gained licenses. This has resulted in a fragmentation of the radio broadcast market. This trend is most noticeable in Arvant, where there are now 7 privately-licensed stations in operation.

Internet
Despite the large number of technology companies located in New Cambria, and its image as a high-tech country, Internet penetration in New Cambria lags behind many Western countries. Broadband access remains a particular problem. In 2006, it was estimated that only 12% of New Cambria homes had broadband access. New Cambria's dispersed settlement pattern is partly to blame and many rural areas have no broadband providers other than expensive satellite services. The municipality of St. Saviour in Trinity County is implementing a plan to provide high-speed Internet access free of charge to every home by the end of 2009. Their progress is being monitored by other municipalities, and may serve as a template for implementation elsewhere in New Cambria.