Word: caledonia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...large numbers of unique species face an immediate threat of elimination. Among the troubled areas: Madagascar, where more than 90% of the original vegetation has disappeared; the monsoon forests of the Himalayan foothills that are being denuded by villagers in search of firewood, building materials and arable land; New Caledonia, 83% of whose plants occur nowhere else; the eastern slope of the Andes, as well as forests in East Africa, peninsular Malaysia, northeast Australia and along the Atlantic coast of Brazil...
...daring May 5 rescue of 22 gendarmes and a magistrate held hostage in a jungle cave by New Caledonia separatists was at first hailed as a brilliant coup for French security forces. Then came a dramatic reversal. Last week Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a Socialist, announced he had launched an investigation of charges that soldiers involved in the rescue operation had murdered two hostage takers and failed to provide medical care to a third, who later died of his wounds. All 23 hostages came through the ordeal unscathed...
Almost simultaneously with the release in the Middle East, the quiet of a South Pacific dawn in Ouvea, New Caledonia, was broken by the dull thud of smoke bombs and the crackle of small-arms fire. Some 300 elite French troops and gendarmes had launched an operation to rescue 23 Frenchmen from a cave where they had been held by Melanesian separatists. In the 7 1/2-hour gun battle that ensued, two gendarmes and 19 militants died...
...French assault on the New Caledonian rebels provoked almost as much controversy. But Overseas Territories Minister Bernard Pons insisted that he took action only because "we believed that at any moment there would be a massacre" of the hostages. Leaders of New Caledonia's secessionists accused . the French of staging the assault to gain votes. Declared the rebels in a statement: "This has created a legacy of blood and fire that will increase our resolve...
...campaign across France. In six days, the Premier and his entourage were planning to hit 18 cities, eleven more than he had intended to blitz before the first-round tallies appeared. Somehow the hyperkinetic candidate was also managing to run the government and deal with the crisis in New Caledonia...