Cyclone devastates Niue

January 12, 2004 1:57 PM

A cyclone has essentially flattened the tiny Pacific island nation of Niue. Although only one of the island's 1200 inhabitants has died, the infrastructure is so battered that the government may simply call it quits, ceding control to New Zealand. Although suffering from sharp population declines over the years, Niue had been one of the most technologically advanced microstates, being the first country to install free Wi-Fi accessible to all of its residents and visitors. And they control the top-level domain .nu - or do they? The recent natural disaster may highlight the fact that the story of the .nu domain is one of economic and legal exploitation. And if Niue folds, can you run a website from a domain attributed to a deleted country? A fascinating sidebar to this fascinating story. (Via /.)
posted by PrinceValium (6 comments total)

hmmm. thoughts for the people of .nu from minneapolis - i hope they are able to recover. did .cx get hit too?
posted by specialk420 at 2:59 PM on January 12, 2004

As long as we're on the topic of small South Pacific island nations that start with the letter "N" and may be close to throwing in the towel, may I introduce: Nauru.

See also the captivating This American Life piece "No Island Is An Island" [RealAudio, 1st act after intro]: "Nauru is a tiny island, population 12,000, a third of the size of Manhattan, far from anywhere, yet at the center of several of the decade's biggest global events. Jack Hitt tells the untold story of this dot in the middle of the Pacific and its involvement in the bankrupting of the Russian economy, global terrorism, North Korean defectors, the end of the world, and the late 80's theatrical flop of a London musical based on the life of Leonardo da Vinci, called Leonardo, A Portrait of Love."
posted by donovan at 3:28 PM on January 12, 2004

how horrifying. all those poor nu-metal bands.
posted by quonsar at 4:27 PM on January 12, 2004

Tuvalu (home of .tv) also said they were going to shut down back in 2001. What happened? The CIA WorldFactbook still has 11,305 people there as of July 2003.

Christmas Island (.cx) has hills, but no significant population or economic activity.
posted by Nelson at 4:27 PM on January 12, 2004

Ther'es via, and then there's pretty much re-writing an entire /. post, including the reference to .su, etc.. Not a big enough deal for me to take it to MeTa, but kind of a waste.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:42 PM on January 12, 2004

Well, I thought it was interesting. So .su me.
posted by PrinceValium at 5:20 PM on January 12, 2004