Word: mururoa
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...united in a quixotic cause, were a former French army general, a New Zealand service station owner, a former Australian paper bag manufacturer, a young American couple and a New Zealand woman six months pregnant. They and a dozen or so companions were heading for the lonely atoll of Mururoa, about 750 miles southeast of Tahiti and 530 miles northwest of rocky Pitcairn Island. Their mission: to force the French government to abandon plans to explode a series of nuclear devices in the area...
...Pacific protesters are not alone, however. Indeed, although France has conducted nuclear tests in the region of Mururoa yearly since 1966, it has never encountered the current level of outrage. The New Zealand government ordered a frigate, with a cabinet minister aboard, to steam into the test area. The World Health Organization called for an immediate halt to the French plans. Australian trade unions refused to handle French imports, from Camembert cheese to cosmetics; they also let 1,000 bags of mail from France pile up in the post offices. Somewhat ghoulishly, the girls at a Melbourne high school sent...
...general in 1961 over the mistreatment of Algerian captives. The former general, said Servan-Schreiber, "is saving the honor of the French army." The American couple in the zone were David and Emma Moodie, who had recently been running a ferry service in New Zealand. Before sailing toward Mururoa, David Moodie, 27, said: "The danger to ourselves is of little importance. Man's tenancy of this world is severely threatened due to a philosophy of violence...
...Gaulle wistfully mused within earshot of a local mayor at a luncheon. Indeed it had to, for the President of France had one final bit of sightseeing on his agenda: witnessing the explosion of a French nuclear device hung from a balloon over the French test site at Mururoa. If the prevailing winds were right, De Gaulle at week's end hoped to end his tour with a bang before setting off for Guadeloupe and home...
...France's navy, have been busy building bunkers, laying airstrips, deepening Tahiti's harbor and extending its piers. Last week, the job completed on schedule, French Admiral Jean Lorain gave the order from aboard his flagship, the cruiser De Grasse, and an irregular black mushroom rose above Mururoa lagoon...