Word: fiji
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...warehouse - in a sprawling industrial estate on the edge of Suva, Fiji's capital - had been leased by a trader from Hong Kong. The crystal methamphetamine, or ice, being "cooked" inside was destined, says Fiji Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes, for "the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Europe." The cops who swooped on the building June 9 - finding 5 kg of the glassy drug and enough chemicals to make a metric ton of it - came from Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. Of the suspects arrested that day, one was Fijian-born, two were Chinese Fijians and four held Hong Kong passports...
...have crisscrossed the South Pacific for decades. But organized crime didn't cast much of a shadow over the region until 2000, when police in Suva seized 350 kg of heroin bound for Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Since then, the law-enforcement radar has blipped increasingly often over Fiji. In 2002, 74 kg of methamphetamine was found on a ship in Singapore headed for Fiji and Australia; the same year Hawaiian police busted a syndicate that smuggled cocaine and ice to the U.S. mainland, Tonga, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand; and last year almost 2.5 kg of pseudoephedrine...
DIED. RATU SIR KAMISESE MARA, 83, founding father of Fiji who helped guide the Pacific island to independence after 96 years of British colonial rule; in Suva, Fiji. An important U.S. ally during the cold war, he served as Prime Minister for 25 years before becoming President in a 1993 coup but was forced to retire in 2000 after an armed gang held the Prime Minister and Cabinet hostage for 56 days...
...leaders accused him of selling the country out to Indo-Fijians, he stood down under pressure from the military. The turmoil of recent Fijian politics only served to underscore Mara's achievement. Imperious he may have been - visitors were enjoined to approach him on their knees - but he gave Fiji the basis of a stable democracy and laid the foundations of its current prosperity. And he never stopped reminding Fijians that racism was the enemy of both...
...DIED. RATU SIR KAMISESE MARA, 83, Fiji's first Prime Minister and a leader of the nation for three decades after its 1970 independence; in Suva. Born into a family of clan chieftains, Mara helped draft a constitution that sought to balance the rights of native Fijians and residents of Indian descent prior to the end of British rule. He served as Prime Minister from 1970 to 1992, aligning the country against communism, and was appointed to the largely ceremonial presidency in 1993, only to be forced out in 2000 when an armed gang stormed the Parliament and held...