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Inside Stories
Friday, February 5, 2010
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Admiral learns to sail outrigger
Admiral Patrick Walsh, the US Pacific Fleet commander, stopped off in Majuro on Saturday on his return to Hawaii from Australia and Papua New Guinea. He was welcomed by RMI government officials, including Foreign Minister John Silk and Speaker Alvin Jacklick. He then joined with Silk and US Ambassador Martha Campbell for a brief lagoon ride on the “Kibed” outrigger canoe sailed by an Ailuk crew.
Ensuring our survival
The Marshall Islands government issued its political support late last week for the Copenhagen Accord, the rushed and controversial political agreement offered at last December’s global climate negotiations in Denmark. But the Marshall Islands, which face the risk of losing its statehood to rising seas, also linked its support to a demand for progress this year toward the adoption of a legally-binding treaty of sufficient ambition to ensure the survival of the most vulnerable nations, according to a Foreign Affairs release. The RMI also promised to cut its own “greenhouse gas” emissions by 40 percent.
Riklon heads
to US
Speakers come and go — moving on to become President — but one fixture in Nitijela has been constant for nearly 20 years, not subject to the vagaries of national elections or changing political affiliations. That fixture — Clerk Joe Riklon — will leave his post on February 12 as he prepares to head to Hawaii.
Only ri-Majol
in top jobs
Top-level government positions held by non-Marshallese are being targeted as the government aims to ensure only Marshallese hold such positions. “The aim of the government is to ensure that all top-level government posts are filled by Marshallese,” said Minister in Assistance Ruben Zackhras responding to a request by Jabot Senator Kessai Note on the status of the director’s post for the Economic Policy, Planning and Statistics Office, which has been held by Carl Hacker since its establishment.
Lagoon hot spots
Ten downtown lagoon areas and three locations in Laura are polluted, according to the RMI EPA coastal water quality report issued this week. EPA Chief of Water Quality Management Abraham Hicking said the “public should not swim, wade or fish within 400 feet of these polluted areas.”
Marshall Islands High
School students are busy rehearsing
for the
Shake-
speare
play
Hamlet.
Pictured
are Marcellus
(Peterson Larry),
Fransisco
(Wilson Aneo),
Horatio (Paul
Andress),
Bernardo (Mario
Kobaia), and
Ghost (Alex Jacklick).
Photo: Douglas Henry
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NEWS UPDATE:
Friday, February 5, 2010
Rongelap Atoll Local Government is reinvigorating plans for resettling the nuclear test-affected island and aims to build 40 more homes over the next two years.US Congressional officials recently expressed concern about the slow pace of resettlement activity, and are pushing RALGov to resettle Rongelap by late 2011 and “close down” Mejatto Island in Kwajalein - the islanders' “temporary” home for the past 25 years. RALGov Mayor James Matayoshi told the Journal that Rongelap Islanders living on Mejatto have always wanted to return to their home islands, but questions about radiation safety continue to linger, as do issues about housing available. What RALGov leaders and the US Congressional officials eager for a resettlement are likely to find is that building infrastructure needed to support a resettlement is the easy part: the complex human issues affecting a possible future resettlement are the challenge as the opportunity nears. Read more about this in the February 12 edition.
Tuberculosis (TB) threat
By GIFF JOHNSON
Underlining the health threat of drug resistant TB, three of 10 Marshallese with drug resistant TB have died, including one of two discovered in recent months, according to a recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control.
The report, based on a CDC investigation conducted in November at the request of the Ministry of Health, shows six patients were on Ebeye and four on Majuro. The drug resistant problem first developed in 2004.
CDC’s investigation estimated there are 480 people who had contact with the active drug resistant TB patients, and of those, 168 were “anticipated” to be infected.
CDC describes the outbreak of drug resistant TB as “a public health emergency.”
“This threat is an emergency,” said Assistant Attorney General Rosania Bennett at Tuesday’s hearing on a TB-related bill. “It can impact us all as it’s hard to monitor and cure.” As debate swirled in Nitijela this week over bill 65 to give the Ministry of Health power to quarantine people who are deemed a health threat to the public, the CDC report offers a window into the difficulty of tracking TB patients and people who came into contact with them who are highly mobile —
CDC: 'Public health emergency'
including several who moved to the United States. CDC reported that it notified the relevant state health authorities where Marshallese TB patients and contacts moved for follow up evaluations, and CDC is working with the Ministry of Health to ensure that US states get notified within one week when a TB patient or contact moves to the USA. “At least seven household contacts of ‘Patient A’ had relocated to the state of Washington before clinical evaluations were completed,” CDC reported. “Four household contacts of ‘Patient E’ were in Oklahoma. Because ‘Patient E’ may have still had infectious multi-drug resistant TB other contacts were possible in Tennessee. Two other patients with confirmed multi-drug resistant TB had also relocated to the US (California and Hawaii).” None of the patients getting drug resistant
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Government and NGO leaders turned out for the week-long Universal Periodic Review at ICC. Photo: Giff Johnson.
Focus on human rights
The Marshall Islands began preparation this week for a United Nations review of human rights activity in the RMI that will happen later this year.
The week-long workshop happening at the ICC “will give the RMI a chance to catch up” in an area long-neglected by government, said Kwajalein Senator Tony deBrum.
Book for Sale
Eminent imminent?
This book explodes the "myth of the four atolls" maintained by the US government since the Bravo hydrogen bomb test in 1954; relies heavily on previously secret US studies to show how US officials consistently underestimated or underreported fallout exposures; and points out, among other findings, that more than 40 years after the US nuclear testing program ended, the US government has still not released complete fallout data on 50 of the 67 tests conducted at Bikini and Enewetak.
details the amended Compact with its extension of US use through 2066 and beyond, with the amount of rent above that provided in the first Compact being put into an escrow account until landowners approve a new LUA. “Discussions between the government of the Marshall Islands and the landowners of Kwajalein Atoll are still pending for the extension of the occupation of lands, waters and airspace on Kwajalein atoll for missile practices,” the RMI said. “While negotiations continue, the existing LUA does not expire until 2016, which would allow the defendant (RMI) time to commence eminent domain proceedings if necessary pursuant to Article II, Section 5 of the Constitution of the RMI.”
The RMI government answered Iroij Imata Kabua’s (pictured) lawsuit last week, raising the possibility of future government eminent domain action at Kwajalein Atoll.
The response, filed by the Attorney General’s office, also suggests that jurisdiction in RMI courts over Kwajalein may be limited by the Compact of Free Association. Kabua’s suit filed late last year said the RMI government is violating his Constitutional rights by agreeing to long-term US use of Kwajalein without gaining his and other landowner approval through a land use agreement. The RMI is asking the High Court to deny Kabua’s claims for damages.
The RMI government’s response offers a brief history of the first
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Compact and LUA that was approved giving US use of Kwajalein through 2016, and

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