Mauri!

Mauri is “hello!” in I-Kiribati. Why are you telling me this? You probably ask yourself. Well, let me explain…

I was just checking out our statistics and the first three countries on the “visitors per country list”were no surprise: The Netherlands is first, then the U.S.A. and then the Indeterminable countries, whoever they are ;-). The big surprise was number four. Beating out France, the UK and China is a small group of islands with the name of Kiribati. Although most of the population does understand English I did think it was a good idea to give all those MoM fans a nice welcome in their own language.

The information I give you now will put things into a different perspective, nonetheless, I learned a new word and found a new tropical island to put on my “43 places to visit before I die” list. Mauri!

• The country became independent in 1979 and the legal system is derived from Britain. The court system consists of the Magistrates’ Court, High Court and the Court of Appeal is the highest appellate court for the country. There are also some local courts.

• At present, there is no national ICT policy or e-commerce legislation. The Copyright Ordinance Cap 16 can be considered as supportive legislation, but there is no recognition for computer software or programmes.

• There is at present no national information technology and communications policy in Kiribati. However, in the area of intellectual property, there is a Copyright Ordinance. However, this offers no recognizable protection for computer software or programmes. The situation in Kiribati could be described as an extreme case scenario for lack of policy or legal support of ICT in the Pacific island subregion.

(Source:http://www.unescap.org/tid/publication/tipub2348_part1iv.pdf)

Oh yeah, and they sent three people to the Olympics n 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati_at_the_2004_Summer_Olympics).

Kiribati is conquering the world! :-)