NAURU

Nauru is an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean and the third smallest country in the world by area, after Vatican City and Monaco. Its economy was transformed in the 20th century by the mining of phosphate deposits, which briefly gave it one of the highest per capita incomes in the world during the 1970s and 1980s, before the near-total depletion of those reserves left it economically dependent on foreign aid and, more recently, on revenue generated by hosting an Australian offshore immigration detention facility.

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