Heard of Nauru? Apparently it's one of the richest country in the world.
[A href="vny!://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~jonno/story4.htm"]Nauru, the smallest yet one of the richest countries in the world [/A]
Just as Albert F. Ellis was leaving the offices of the British Pacific Island Company in Sydney, Australia, one day early in 1899, he stumbled over the doorstep - a curious lump of wood that his manager had brought back as a souvenir from the Pacific island of Nauru, which he had visited a year or so earlier.
Ellis stopped to examine the doorstop carefully, for to him it did not look at all like wood. He carried out various tests and discovered that it was, in face, a rock of almost pure phosphate. Once believed to be formed from the droppings of countless generations of seabirds, but today considered to be the remains of an ancient sea creatures, phosphate is prized as a fertilizer. And when Ellis visited Nauru in May 1900, he found that the island was virtually made of phosphate.
The eight-square-mile republic of Nauru - the world's smallest republic - lies in the western Pacific, nearly 200 miles from its nearest neighbor. Today, because of the phosphate that the island exports, Nauru's economy produces $35,500 per capita every year - nearly twice as much as the American economy. The tiny nation is one of the richest in the world, ranking just after the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.
But the island's riches had not been won easily. For nearly 70 years after Ellis's discovery, the Nauruands were exploited by German, Japanese and Australian administrations. Only when Nauru gained its independence from Australia in 1968 did the islanders begin to reap the full benefits of their store of mineral treasure. The 4,600 citizens of Nauru pay no taxes. And they enjoy superb medical care (anywhere in the world), schools, telephone calls, and public transport free of charge.
When Nautuans marry, a house is placed at their disposal in which they can live rent-free for as long as they wish, with all the bills and maintenance costs paid. Consumer goods are abundant, and many families have three or four cars - despite the fact that the round trip on the island's single road takes only 15 minutes.
Not that this wealth has changed the islanders much. Most live in simple houses, sleeping on mats woven in a pattern unique to each of the island's 10 tribes. It is forbidden for a member of one tribe to copy the patterns of another, just as legends and songs of one tribe may not be told or sung by someone from another - no matter how well known they are to everyone.
And Nauruan hospitality is legendary. The custom of bubutsi still flourishes: anyone expressing admiration for something - a car, a boat, a refrigerator - is given it immediately. Since the Nauruans are fully aware that the phosphate cannot last forever, the government has made investments abroad: Nauru owns Australia's tallest skyscraper, as well as hotels and office buildings around the world, and has set up 5 long term trust funds.
All this has designed to produce enough capital so that, without the phosphate, Nauruans will still enjoy a significantly decreased but still a tidy income. One estimate puts the income at about $500,000 for each and every year of a Nauruan's life.
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Read more on the geography of Nauru: [A href="vny!://www.earth.northwestern.edu/people/emile/nauru.html"]vny!://www.earth.northwestern.edu/people/emile/nauru.html[/A]
