Vanuatu

[undeterred]

Can your local news media pronounce it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu

[Warpy]

1. My local media can't pronounce it, don't know where it is

and don't have a clue what just happened there.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31866783

[Stargazer09]

2. Don't watch the news here

But I'm proud of my middle schooler for learning the proper pronunciation for his current events presentation.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

3. Don't watch local news and almost no cable news. They will

be able to pronounce it some day, perhaps soon, whenever they have to report that Vanuatu ahs silently and finally slipped beneath the waves. And, yet, they will still promote doubt about climate change.

[undeterred]

5. Island nations will be the first to go.

And they are the first to know that there is climate change which cannot be reversed.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

6. People are already retreating from the surf and also leaving Vanuatu for

a neighboring country, though I don't recall atm which country that is. I do think there are arrangements either that have been made or negotiations are ongoing for an escape hatch for Vanuatuans.

[undeterred]

4. I'd like to think I would learn the pronounciation of a country

before reading a news story about it on the air. But I'll bet they don't get complaints about it.

[csziggy]

7. It's easier to say than America Samoa, at least for some Representatives

American Samolia
Rep. Kerry Bentivolio can't pronounce Faleomavaega (neither can I) but also seems stymied by the name American Samoa.
Video at link: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4456337/american-samolia

[PowerToThePeople]

8. similar to this?

[Number23]

9. Va Noo WAH Too

How is that hard??

[undeterred]

10. President: Cyclone Devastation Forcing Vanuatu to Start Anew

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Vanuatu's president was rushing back to his country on Monday in the wake of what he dubbed a "monster" cyclone whose damage was still unknown beyond the devastation in the South Pacific archipelago's capital city.

Looking weary and red-eyed, Baldwin Lonsdale told The Associated Press that the latest information he had was that six people were confirmed dead and 30 injured from Cyclone Pam, which he said destroyed or damaged 90 percent of the buildings in the capital alone, when it hit over the weekend. Lonsdale was interviewed in Sendai, in northeastern Japan, where he had been attending a U.N. disaster conference when the cyclone struck.

"This is a very devastating cyclone in Vanuatu. I term it as a monster, a monster," he said. "It's a setback for the government and for the people of Vanuatu. After all the development that has taken place, all this development has been wiped out."

Lonsdale said because of a breakdown in communications infrastructure, even he could not reach his family. "We do not know if our families are safe or not. As the leader of the nation, my whole heart is for the people, the nation," he said.

Officials in Vanuatu had still not made contact with outlying islands by Monday night and were struggling to determine the scale of devastation from the cyclone, which tore through the nation early Saturday, packing winds of 270 kilometers (168 miles) per hour. Bridges were down outside the capital, Port Vila, making travel by vehicle impossible even around the main island of Efate.

Paolo Malatu, coordinator for Vanuatu's National Disaster Management Office, said officials had dispatched every plane and helicopter they could to fly over the hard-hit outer islands. The office was expecting to get full reports from the flyover crews early Tuesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/16/world/asia/ap-as-vanuatu-cyclone-pam.html

[Violet_Crumble]

11. I would have thought it'd be pretty difficult to mispronounce it...

But then again I've heard American tourists totally mangle the can't get it wrong name of the city I live in, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised if the US media manages to do it with Vanuatu. I'm assuming it's not a country that would appear in the media much in the US.

I was in Port Vila (that's the capital) a few months ago and tonight I saw some pictures of the cyclone damage. Very, very different than when I was walking down the main street. Port Vila has the most taxis of anywhere I've ever been, all unmarked but with drivers who stop and try to persuade you to go with them back to wherever you came from even though you just arrived, and that road was more congested than the Sydney CBD during peak hour...



btw, for anyone who wants to donate to the cyclone appeal, here's information on how to do it...

http://www.redcross.org.au/cyclone-pam-vanuatu-2015-appeal.aspx