Kiribati

11 Stories

This Nation Kept COVID Out. Now, a 'State of Disaster'

Pacific archipelago of Kiribati sees an outbreak after allowing citizen missionaries to come home

(Newser) - When the coronavirus began spreading around the world, the remote Pacific archipelago of Kiribati closed its borders, ensuring the disease didn't reach its shores for nearly two full years. Kiribati finally began reopening this month, allowing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to charter a plane to...

Bodies of 30 US Troops Found on Pacific Atoll

They died during bloody Battle of Tarawa

(Newser) - In three days of bitter fighting on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa in November 1943, as many Americans died as were killed in the first 10 years of the war in Afghanistan. Now, more than 75 years later, some of those men are finally coming home. The BBC reports that...

After Ferry Sank, Survivors Floated for Week Without Water

Search operation continues 500 miles west of Kiribati

(Newser) - A search and rescue operation is heating up in the Pacific Ocean near Kiribati, where passengers from a missing ferry were discovered Sunday. The 56-foot MV Butiraoi ferry was carrying at least 50 people, and perhaps 100, when it departed on a two-day, 150-mile trip from Nonouti to the island...

Pacific Nation Creates Huge Shark Sanctuary

Kiribati says it is committed to saving them

(Newser) - The island nation of Kiribati has established a large shark sanctuary that will help ensure the creatures are protected across much of the central Pacific. Vice President Kourabi Nenem said at the sanctuary's launch on Friday that the nation was committed to protecting sharks from exploitation and overfishing, the...

Amelia Earhart May Have Been Found—76 Years Ago

Photo of Earhart matches skeleton found in 1940: TIGHAR

(Newser) - For 79 years, people have been searching for Amelia Earhart. But for 76 years, the mystery of her disappearance might have been solved. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery says Earhart's bones were perhaps found on the island of Nikumaroro in Kiribati in 1940, three years after her...

World's 1st 'Climate Refugees' Find a Home

New Zealand accepts family from island nation of Tuvalu

(Newser) - Mark your calendar: The age of modern climate-change refugees may have just begun. New Zealand has agreed to let the family of Sigeo Alesana, a teacher, migrate from Tuvalu, a Polynesian island nation where rising salt water is said to be polluting the drinking water, the Smithsonian and Radio New...

Earhart's Wreckage Not Caught on Video, Say Experts

Court battle continues over donations to search

(Newser) - News from another, far older search for a missing plane: Experts yesterday filed court statements saying underwater video at the heart of a lawsuit doesn't show Amelia Earhart's plane after all, the AP reports. At the center of the saga, and suit, is the claim from a donor...

Climate Change Killing Pacific Island Nation

Businessweek profiles Kiribati, a desperate, sinking, place

(Newser) - Kiribati in the central Pacific looks like a dream vacation spot. But for its 103,000 citizens, the turquoise water surrounding the nation's 33 islands is ever creeping. Before the end of this century, it will drown most of the 310 square miles of land the I-Kiribati live on,...

Future Nobel? Neutrinos Discovery Heralds 'New Era for Astronomy'

They were found at the South Pole, and they're out of this world

(Newser) - Scientists at the South Pole have found visitors from outside our solar system, but instead of little green men, think "ghostly neutrino particles," in the words of Space.com . Twenty-eight of them to be exact, all detected by a special observatory called IceCube in Antarctica. Ars Technica has...

Entire Pacific Nation Might Move to Fiji

Kiribati considers backup plan as sea levels rise

(Newser) - The Pacific archipelago of Kiribati is so worried about rising water levels that the government might just move everyone to Fiji, the AP reports. The president's Cabinet has approved a plan to buy 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island in case Kiribati's 103,000 residents need...

Samoa Tops List of Fattest Countries
 Samoa Tops List 
 of Fattest Countries 
the world is round
Nov 27, 2009 1:05 PM CST

Samoa Tops List of Fattest Countries

Also, Samoa is a US territory, so...yay?

(Newser) - From Pacific islands to Eastern Europe, the world is fat. The cause is the same almost everywhere, Laurie Cunningham writes for Global Post : increased access to processed foods and sedentary lifestyles. The top victims of "globesity:"
  1. American Samoa: Percentage of population that's overweight: 93.5. The tiny Pacific
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11 Stories