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Suriname: South America
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The Suriname national football team is the national team of Suriname and is controlled by the Surinaamse Voetbal Bond. Although the former Dutch colony is located in South America, it competes in CONCACAF, together with Guyana and French Guiana. Until the independence of Suriname in 1975, it competed as the Dutch Guiana national football team. Many Suriname-born players and Dutch-born players of Surinamese descent who could have opted to play for Suriname chose instead to play for the Netherlands; that list includes Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Aron Winter, Romeo Castelen, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
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The Jewish community of Suriname is one of the oldest in the Americas. During the Inquisition in Portugal and Spain around 1500, many Jews fled to Holland and the Dutch colonies to escape torture and condemnation to the stake. Those who were converted to the Catholic fate were called "Marranos." The stadtholder of the King of Portugal gave those who wanted to depart some time to settle their business and supplied them with 16 ships and safe-conduct to leave for Holland. The most prominent amongst them were Rabbi Izak Aboab and members of the Nassi, the Meza and the Pereira families.
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A military coup in Suriname in December 1990 reversed the trend toward elected government in South America. Despite this and ongoing civil strife, the government scheduled elections in May 1991. Human Rights in Suriname investigates current abuses in the context of the election campaign as well as ongoing abuses including executions, committed by the military and military-allied armed bands. It ... examines the military's dominance of the government even during the three years of civilian rule that preceded the coup, and analyzes the prospect for the new government to exert civilian control over the army.
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Suriname is mostly rolling highlands covered by tropical rain forests. The relatively small population is concentrated along the flat coastal plain, where the use of dikes makes cultivation possible. The people are largely of South Asian or mixed African and European ancestry; there is a significant Indonesian minority. Dutch is the official language, although English and Sranang Tongo, a creole English, are widely spoken. Hinduism, the Moravian and Roman Catholic churches, and Islam are the predominant faiths.
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Suriname, formerly Dutch Guiana, is located on the Caribbean coast of South America, between Guyana and French Guyana. Suriname is covered by large areas of biological diverse, tropical forest with some areas of savanna. The forests and the people who live in them are currently threatened by the Surinamese government's plans for large scale logging and mining.
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Today Suriname might qualify for another name, the Las Vegas of South America. At the multi-starred Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino, you will find a 15,000-sq ft casino with table games and some 151 slot machines. There are ... Las Vegas-type shows, a wedding chapel, Oriental marketplace, heated therapy pool, an outrageously hunky Elvis Presley impersonator, and a Shangri-la pool with a two-storey waterfall. Weather permitting, the latter is the venue for an outdoor Hawaiian luau, complete with Polynesian buffet dining, and no dearth of mai-tai cocktails.
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