Word: tonga
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...juggling the numbers Tonga 's former court jester has agreed to pay the kingdom's government $1 million in compensation after allegedly squandering $26 million from a trust fund under his stewardship...
...Last Laugh It's good to be King, but it's better to be the court jester - at least in Tonga. American Jesse Bogdonoff, who advised the government on financial matters, charmed the Pacific island's King into naming him official court jester and giving him access to the country's treasury. King Taufaahau Tupou IV was left with little to smile about after Bogdonoff absconded with $26 million, an amount equal to about half of the tiny nation's annual budget...
Offshore "data havens" are another piece of classic cypherpunk vaporware. Here's the pitch: just subvert one little Internet-hooked island country, say Tuvalu (.tv) or Tonga (.to), let it pass a bunch of pirate-friendly laws, and you can store anything there that American computer cops disapprove of. This might yet become a real business opportunity if the Internet gets better policed...
After a dispute sillier than states competing to hold the first election primary, the Republic of Kiribati beat out Tonga and New Zealand's Chatham Islands for the media's anointment of birthplace of the third millennium. To jump in front of the Chatham Islands by 15 minutes, Tonga sneakily used daylight savings time, while Kiribati had the international dateline moved in 1995 so its snazzily named if unfortunately uninhabited Millennium Island would be first. Kiribati's Micronesian dancers, shipped in from Tawara, whupped it up before the world's cameras for six minutes and then prepped for the next...
Other adventures into the 21st century were fortunate. Photographer Steve Liss traveled to the Chatham Islands, which were, until the Kingdom of Tonga and the nation of Kiribati tampered with the rules, the first inhabited place on earth to greet each new day, and thus would have been the first to reach the new millennium. But when he got to the tempestuous isles, he was told, "We get to see the sun rise maybe four times a year." Nervously, Liss waited and was rewarded, along with the islanders, with a brief but stunning dawn, the first sunrise...