Why it is in the news
Addressing the General Debate of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York on 22 September 2026, President David Ranibok Adeang announced that his country has reclaimed its name and pronunciation — Naoero — in place of Nauru. Its three-letter international code changes from NRU to NRO, and its people will be known as dei-Naoero instead of Nauruans; he closed with three words: “Say our name.”
The exam angle
Thesis: Naoero's renaming shows how the smallest States use identity, international law and multilateral platforms to assert agency in a region where their geography has made them objects of colonial extraction and great-power competition.