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Article: Tougher times for Christmas Island?(WORLD)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- August 1, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Nick Squires Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Territory of Christmas Island, Australia -- For more than a century, it has been the sole raison d'etre of this tiny, jungle-clad island. Of all the gifts nature bestowed on Christmas Island, phosphate has been by far the most lucrative.
Since the 1890s, the powdery soil - the legacy of millions of years of bird droppings - has been dug from beneath the island's monsoon forests and shipped around the world as fertilizer.
But now, the Australian government, which administers remote Christmas Island as an external territory, has said enough is enough.
Canberra, ...