Portal:Micronesia
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Micronesia is the name of a region in the Pacific Ocean. The Philippines lie to the northwest, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia to the west and southwest, and Polynesia to the east. This region of Oceania consists of many hundreds of small islands spread over a large region of the western Pacific. The only empire known to have originated in Micronesia was based in Yap. The term "Micronesia" was first proposed to distinguish the region in 1831 by Jules Dumont d'Urville; before this the term "Polynesia" was in use to generally describe the islands of the Pacific.
Politically, Micronesia is divided between eight territories: the Federated States of Micronesia, comprising Kosrae, Yap, Pohnpei, and Chuuk; the Republic of the Marshall Islands; the Republic of Palau; the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; the Republic of Nauru; the Republic of Kiribati; the Territory of Guam and the Territory of Wake Island.
Nauru is an island nation in the Micronesian South Pacific. The nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in the Republic of Kiribati, 300 km due east. Nauru is the world's smallest island nation, covering just 21 km² (8.1 sq. mi), the smallest independent republic, and the only republican state in the world without an official capital. Initially inhabited by Micronesian and Polynesian peoples, Nauru was annexed and designated a 'colony' by Germany in the late 19th century, and became a mandate territory administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom following World War I. The island was occupied by Japan during World War II, and after the war entered into trusteeship again. Nauru achieved independence in 1968. Nauru is a phosphate rock island, and its primary economic activity since 1907 has been the export of phosphate mined from the island.[1] With the exhaustion of phosphate reserves, its environment severely degraded by mining, and the trust established to manage the island's wealth significantly reduced in value, the government of Nauru has resorted to unusual measures to obtain income. In the 1990s, Nauru briefly became a tax haven and money laundering center. Since 2001, it has accepted aid from the Australian government; in exchange for this aid, Nauru houses an offshore detention centre that holds and processes asylum seekers trying to enter Australia.
References
- ^ Republic of Nauru Permanent Mission to the United Nations URL Accessed 2006-05-10
- ...that only one mature specimen of Serianthes nelsonii, a large tree endemic to Rota and Guam, remains on Guam?
- Voters in Nauru go to the polls for the Nauruan parliamentary election, 2007. (ABC News Australia)
- Music producer and alleged con artist Lou Pearlman is arrested in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, and extradited to Guam to face fraud charges. He is accused of defrauding over 1,800 individual investors out of a total of $317 million. (Orlando Sentinel)
- Typhoon Kong-rey (pictured) becomes the earliest occurring typhoon in two years.
- Tosiwo Nakayama, the first president of the Federated States of Micronesia, dies.
