The Almarian Foreign Affairs Secretariat issued a measured statement of concern yesterday following reports of renewed armed hostilities along a contested coastal corridor in the broader Mediterranean neighbourhood, in which civilian casualties have been confirmed despite a ceasefire brokered earlier this season. Ambassador Llorens, Almaria's permanent representative to the Regional Stability Council, called on all parties to honour their obligations and urged that humanitarian corridors remain open.

The statement was endorsed by the Crown's advisory council, which convened in unscheduled session at the Palau de la Cort. Observers in Almaria Vella read the hour of the meeting — late, and by summons rather than by schedule — as a sign of the gravity with which the matter is regarded at the highest level.

The renewed fighting compounds anxieties already pressing upon the crude markets, and is understood to be among the factors driving the forecourt prices reported elsewhere in this edition. The question of the missing correspondents, whose fate Cardenal Marín has raised in two successive audiences with foreign ambassadors, acquires a further sharpness in light of the fresh hostilities; the Primate is expected to name them again at Sunday's intercessions.

"We speak with the voices we have," the Cardenal told this paper earlier in the week, "and we do not stop speaking."