mali

once the home of a great african empire, and later a french colony, mali is a west african nation. it was a single party state for many years, walking an interesting but disasterous line between marxism and islamic fundamentalism. it's a very poor nation, with no economic activities in the barren interior.

bamako is the captial of mali.

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cape verde

a bunch of islands off the atlantic coast of africa. unpopulated area until the portuguese brought african slaves here to work on sugar plantations. although it's been a sovereign country since 1975, it is still dependent on portugal to survive economically. politically, however, the county is the most stable and prob. the freest in africa.

cape verde exists off africa's coast.

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papua new guinea

commonly known as PNG, papua new guinea is an island nation in oceania, consisting of part of the huge island of new guinea, which it shares with indonesia. once a portuguese, and later german and then australian territory, it became independent in the 1970s. it is currently the most rural country in the world, with most people outside of the capital of port mosebly either working as subsistant farmers or living in traditional tribes.

papua new guinea has over 850 different languages spoken among its indegenious tribes.

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gabon

one of the poor west african country's that used to be european slave raiding areas. former french colony, it's been ruled by the same dictatorial pres. ondimba for 40 years. oil is bringing wealth to this country, but that can't solve it's problems right now.

teeny pop music is popular among wealthy people in gabon.

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guinea-bissau

the country in africa where the slave trade originated from over 500 years ago. the portuguese colonized this place until a bloody civil war in the 1950s. the nation then saw several coups, autocratic governments, and a long civil war in the 1990s. ginnea-bissau is most famous for ruler kumba yala's attempts to move the capital. in a deplorably poor country, yala spent a fortune attempting to build the small rural village where he was born into a grand capital.

guinea-bissau had a long civil war.

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myanmar

a country that is not named burma, regardless of what some nations say. myanmar was originally burma, a once proud kingdom that fell to the british and was a colony til the wwii era. it experimented with democracy, but american actions in vietnam drove this country toward communism in the 1970s, which evolved in the 1990s into a corporatist military junta. myanmar is a very efficient military state that has fended off countless coups. however, it is one of the world's 2 'secret societies,' along with north korea. foreigners are rarely admitted and no one really knows the power structure of the gov't.

myanmar is the focus of u2's famous song 'walk on,' which references political prisoner aung san suu kyi, a democracy activist.

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solomon islands

a group of islands in the pacific that are a battered nation. surprisingly, the world's colonizing powers left them alone until about 110 years ago, when the british took over. the nation is significant, though forgotten, as being the home of guadalcanal and other brutal wwii battles. since independence, the nation has been involved in periodic civil wars. as a result, the militaries of austrialia and new zealand are the only thing keeping this country afloat right now.

the solomon islands are in the pacific.

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