The Fiji Times reported on 3 July 2005 that recent research by the Fiji Museum and the University of the South Pacific ( USP ) has found that skeletons excavated at Bourewa, near Natadola in Sigatoka, at least 3000 years old, belonged to the first settlers of Fiji, with their origins in South China or Taiwan.

Archeologist Sepeti Matararaba of the Fiji Museum expressed astonishment at some of the discoveries at the site, which included an iron axe used by white traders in exchange for Fijian artifacts.

He was also a dedicated seashell collector whose financial support and gift of cowries and cones from Fiji helped to create the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on Sanibel, Florida.

Mystery Incorporated, the Fiji Mermaid makes an appearence as one of the objects in display at Darrow's Oddity Museum, in the episode The Secret Serum.

* Lau Islands, Fiji, By Arthur Maurice Hocart, Published 1929, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Ethnology, 241 pages, Original from the University of Michigan, no. 62 1929, Digitized Feb 23, 2007.

* Lau Islands, Fiji, By Arthur Maurice Hocart, Published 1929, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Ethnology, 241 pages, Original from the University of Michigan, no. 62 1929, Digitized Feb 23, 2007.

The Fiji Museum in Suva also hosted an exhibition featuring photographs, along with medals, walking sticks, and a glass-encased tabua ( whale's tooth ) that had belonged to Ratu Sukuna.

* Fiji Museum, publication Domodomo, Article on Fijian canoes by Sela Vuinakasa Rayawa.

* Yalo i Viti: Shades of Viti: a Fiji Museum Catalogue-Page 173 by Fergus Clunie, Fiji Museum, Julia Brooke-White-1986 ; following is a snippet: Leha died trying to save Niumataiwalu, the father of the first Tui Nayau to rule Lakeba.

The Fiji Petrel was originally known from one immature specimen found in 1855 on Gau Island, Fiji by naturalist John MacGillivray on board ' HMS Herald ' who took the carcass to the British Museum in London.

* Lau Islands, Fiji, By A. M Hocart, Bernice Bishop Museum Bulletin 62, 1929

One tribal chief, Ratu Udre Udre in Rakiraki, Fiji, is said to have consumed 872 people and to have made a pile of stones to record his achievement.

Speaking at 30th anniversary celebrations on 26 July 2006, Commander Bradley Bower said that the greatest challenge facing the navy of a maritime country like Fiji was to maintain sovereignty and the maritime environment, to acquire, restore, and replace equipment, and to train officers to keep pace with changing situations.

On 13 April 2005, Fiji's Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, rejected criticism from Australia and some other countries over the prosecution and imprisonment of two foreigners charged with committing homosexual acts, which are illegal in Fiji, and said that other countries needed to respect Fiji's independence.

Qarase said that as member of the United Nations, Fiji was as entitled as any other country to make its own laws as it saw fit.

Susan Boyd, a former Australian High Commissioner to Fiji, strongly criticized the legislation, but Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said that it is an " internal matter " and that Australia does not want to get involved.

Qarase said that he had asked Australia to provide two or three experts to help with the establishment of the proposed Fiji Research Sugar Institute.

The then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that he would maintain his tough stance against Fiji in order to prevent a " coup culture " spreading around the Pacific.

" Chinese Ambassador Cai Jin Biao rejected this explanation, and said that the visit was a violation of the One China Policy, to which Fiji had agreed when diplomatic relations were established in 1975, which would " sabotage relations between China and Fiji.

Jia Qinglin, chairman of the People's Political Consultative Conference ( CPPCC ), was dispatched to Fiji and met Prime Minister Qarase during a brief stopover on 21 – 22 May, a move that Tavola said was not coincidental.

He said that Fiji could not afford to lose China, and that the government would ensure that " careless incidences " like Naivalu's vote in Geneva would not recur.

Helen Clark has said in the NZ Herald that she would consider sanctions against Fiji.

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said that " Diplomatic relations with Fiji are roughly the same they have been for the last couple of years unfortunately " and that " we have had our ups and downs and unfortunately today they are down ".

On 29 June, Foreign Minister Tavola said that Fiji was " running out of patience " and that he was writing to the government of Vanuatu in what he called a " final gesture of friendship.

On 18 August, Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority chief executive Tevita Banuve said that importers would be given two weeks to clear their kava stock from the wharf.

On 15 August, Qarase said that the United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP ) had granted assistance to Fiji to develop its biofuels project.

Transformation of the Fiji Sugar Corporation into an energy and sugar company would result in a turnover of F $ 1 billion by 2025, he said, and would cut imports of crude oil, generate export earnings, and provide a source of electricity.

More than 31, 000 Australian companies were trading in the Pacific, half of them in Fiji, Bray said.

Incomes had improved, the report said, with Gross Domestic Product rising from F $ 5440 to F $ 5880, but other aspects of the quality of life enjoyed by Fiji Islanders had deteriorated.

It used to be said that boas are found in the New World and pythons in the Old World, but with boid species present in Madagascar, Fiji and the Solomon Islands, this is not quite accurate ; instead, it seems that they have survived in evolutionarily isolated areas.

" If the trend continues, Fiji will be left with a large pool of poorly educated, unskilled work force with disastrous consequences on our social and economic infrastructure and levels of investment ," he said in a statement on 19 June 2005.

He lamented the " indications of a growing feeling of insecurity, frustration and disaffection among people of all races at the direction in which Fiji appears to be headed ," and said that only way to reverse the trend was to elect a government that would provide stability, raise living standards, and create a climate of confidence for investors and opportunities for job seekers.

Speaking on 20 May, he said that a " culture of coups " had developed in Fiji and that it needed to be eradicated.

He had raised the issue with Om Prakash Chautala, he said, after being hounded by the media in both Fiji and India.

A Fiji Government website gives the land area of the Fiji Islands as 18, 333 km < sup > 2 </ sup > while the CIA Factbook gives the area as 18, 274 km < sup > 2 </ sup > a difference of 59 km < sup > 2 </ sup >.

The area served ( along with Fiji and Samoa ) as a gateway into the rest of the Pacific region known as Polynesia.

These bases would protect Japan's major base at Rabaul, threaten Allied supply and communication lines and establish a staging area for a planned offensive against Fiji, New Caledonia and Samoa ( Operation FS ).

At one time there were four missions in the South Pacific area in Canberra, Sydney, Wellington and Suva in Fiji.

Today, pine plantations, virtually nonexistent 40 years ago, cover close to 480 square kilometres throughout the Fiji Islands, and there is an ongoing programme to further expand area in all parts of the country.

[...] Fiji will look at making the necessary legal changes in the area of electoral reform, to ensure true equality at the polls.

Fijian people are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands, and live in an area informally called Melanesia.

The island was planned to become an outpost in a new area of dominance that would later include the Samoan and Fiji Islands and New Caledonia.

He went on an insect collection trip, to the Pacific islands, Fiji and conducted a field trip off Vanua Levu, in the area of Taveuni island, across the International dateline.

* 4th Battalion, Fiji Infantry Regiment: The 4th Battalion has responsibility for the defence of Nadi airport and the surrounding area.

* 5th Battalion, Fiji Infantry Regiment: The 5th Battalion has responsibility for the defence of the area around Lautoka, Ba, Tavua, Vatukaula and Ra.

The mission of the Seventeenth Army in Operation FS was the capture of strategic points on New Hebrides islands, New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, ( also Tuvalu, Tokelau, Tonga, others sources included at Fenix islands, ( strategic U. S. Base in area ) as well as the occupation of Port Moresby ; all in co-operation with the Japanese Navy.

Kadavu ( pronounced ), with an area of, is the fourth largest island in Fiji, and the largest island in the Kadavu Group, a volcanic archipelago consisting of Kadavu, Ono, Galoa and a number of smaller islands in the Great Astrolabe Reef.

Taveuni ( pronounced ) is the third-largest island in Fiji, after Vanua Levu and Viti Levu, with a total land area of 435 square kilometers ( 169 Square Miles ).

With a land area of 108. 9 square kilometers ( 42. 1 square Miles ), it is the sixth largest island of Fiji.

The Yasawa Group is an archipelago of about 20 volcanic islands in the Western Division of Fiji, with an approximate total area of 135 square kilometers.

It was the first tropical cyclone to form in the area of responsibility of the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre ( RSMC ) at Nadi, Fiji, during the 2003-04 South Pacific cyclone season.

By the time of the discovery of the Ono Group in 1820, the Lau archipelago was the most mapped area of Fiji.

Just off the island of Vanua Balavu at Lomaloma was the Yanuyanu Island Resort, built to encourage tourism in what has been a less accessible area of Fiji, but the small resort failed almost immediately and has been abandoned since the year 2000.