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FRIDAY, December 11, 2009
President Jurelang drives TB response
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Protestant Church members spiced up this year’s Gospel Day celebrations by organizing a lagoon “parade” around Majuro Atoll that attracted numerous boats and plenty of attention from the shore. Photo: Tolmen Attri.
This Week's
Inside Stories
CDC: Here
since 2004
Drug-resistant TB has been in the Marshall Islands for five years, according to the Centers for Disease Control. “There were approximately 10 confirmed or suspected cases of multi-drug resistant TB during 2004 to 2009,” said Rachel L.C. Powell, a member of the News Media Team at CDC’s Office of Planning and Policy Coordination in Georgia.
Silk wants
$60m for RMI
The Marshall Islands government has made a pitch to the US government for up to $60 million in tax and trade reimbursements related to the first Compact of Free Association — and wants the money invested in the government trust fund. “If we can prove that because of the removal of tax and trade provisions from the first Compact by the US Congress, we can be compensated,” Foreign Minister John Silk told the Journal last week.
CMI survey sees violence
A survey of College of the Marshall Islands students found that nearly half said they had experienced physical violence, while about 23 percent said they had suffered sexual violence. CMI student Scott Keju recently published the findings of a survey he did at the college.
Holistic
24/7 training
CMI’s Academic Boot Camp (ABC) program is delivering vocational and classroom training, as well as improving diet and exercise routines for its 48 students. But “the fundamental thing being proven by the ABC,” said CMI President Wilson Hess, “is the success of an immersion program.” “We have 48 young people enrolled, and we haven’t lost a single one,” Hess said of the 10-week program that ends this week with a graduation Friday December 11.
CMI CEO search moving ahead
The search for a new president for the College of the Marshall Islands is nearing completion with four off-island candidates being considered for the job. Presidential search committee Chairman Jack Niedenthal said he expects a decision on a new president to be made soon, possibly at a CMI board meeting scheduled for Monday.
By GIFF JOHNSON
Kwajalein Senators Mike Kabua, Tony deBrum and Jeban Riklon are pushing for a strong TB response on Ebeye, and attempting to light a fire under government officials for immediate action. Kabua spoke at two churches on Ebeye Sunday about the TB situation and deBrum has been pushing to get a Kwajalein trailer moved to Ebeye to use as an isolation unit for patients with contagious TB. DeBrum is also concerned about delays in obtaining a new x-ray unit to replace the non-working equipment at Ebeye that is preventing confirmation testing for TB. “I do not know
who is on the ‘emergency committee’ to move this thing along but I am getting the definite impression that this is being treated the same old, same old way — government numbness,” deBrum told the Journal on Sunday. “Clearly this response is unacceptable.” His outlook improved Monday after meetings with President Jurelang Zedkaia (pictured right), who okayed the dispatch of Public Works’ YFU to Jaluit to collect Anil Construction’s crane and to transport it to Kwajalein to move a trailer to Ebeye. “The President kick-started things by assigning two ministers to meet with us,” debrum said Wednesday of a meeting he and Riklon had Tuesday with Ministers Maynard Alfred and Amenta Matthew to get action on crane. Asked why he and not government officials was organizing the delivery of the trailer to Ebeye, deBrum told the Journal: “It couldn’t wait. If I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t happen. I’m not trying to embarrass anyone, but just get the job done.” Kabua spoke to churches on Sunday saying people need to be aware of the TB problem, and said there is no reason for people to be ashamed of having the illness, according to deBrum. DeBrum made the point that the two most important actions to control TB spread are isolating patients with TB and testing to confirm if people have it — both of which Ebeye cannot do now because its x-ray machine is not functional and it has no isolation ward. On Tuesday this week, one week after Cabinet approved $1.9 million and Ministry of Health recommendations, top government officials told the Journal they were waiting for a plan from the Ministry to trigger the government’s TB response. Examples of the problem:
• Anil Construction owner Charles Domnick on Monday, responding to Kwajalein leadership requests, sought to arrange for the YFU to get his crane to Kwajalein to move the trailer to Ebeye but was told by Public Works he would have to pay $16,000 for fuel.
• Early this week, US Army officials told the Journal that there had been no official request from the RMI to pick up and move a trailer to Ebeye.
The YFU fuel funding problem, deBrum indicated, appeared to be resolved by intervention from President Zedkaia Monday. USAKA officials had also waived the normal two-week clearance period to allow Domnick onto Kwajalein to deal with the trailer issue.
Health Secretary Justina Langidrik told deBrum on Monday that a Guam vendor said it could take 30-45 days to get new x-ray equipment to Ebeye, even with the government giving Health a waiver on the normal bidding procedures. “Forty five days is too long,” deBrum said of this news and said other sources should be looked at, including getting the US Interior Department involved in helping. Because there is no x-ray machine, the Ministry of Health on Ebeye does not want to do TB screening in the schools because if it gets positive readings from the initial screening it cannot take the next step of confirming TB status for lack of an x-ray machine. “There were 200 known contacts two weeks ago,” deBrum said Monday. “How many are there now?”
MIR hotel sale halted
Concern over the purported sale of the government-owned Marshall Islands Resort resulted in a High Court-order Wednesday to hold off on any change in the hotel’s status until February 15, 2010. The sale could be approved by the RMI bid committee next Wednesday, but Judge James Plasman’s order will prevent the deal being closed. Marshall Islands Social Security Administration attorney David Strauss (pictured right) filed suit Tuesday requesting a temporary restraining order to block the sale of the hotel due to the fear that sale in a manner that does not include any liens — MISSA is owed over $400,000 by the resort — would put MISSA in danger of not having assets of the resort available to collect. Chief Secretary Casten Nemra, chairman of RMI’s bid committee, and Attorney General Frederick Canavor, Jr. were subpoenaed to provide documents and information regarding the sale to a hastily called High Court hearing Wednesday morning. But the hearing did not materialize as the parties discussed the dispute first in chamber with Judge
Plasman and then among themselves before arriving at an agreement to put the sale on hold until February. Involved in the discussions were Canavor, Strauss and private attorney Philip Okney, who is representing a company known as RC International Inc. that is bidding to buy the MIR from the government. Top RMI officials have declined to provide the identity of the bidders to the Journal. Also mentioned in Strauss’ court documents as part of the pending resort sale are the land leases currently in effect on the resort’s property.
Education’s School Enrichment Program joined
forces with the Special Ed program last week to sponsor a day-long sports and activity bash at the old weather station. Local students had a blast in the contests.
Cops wrap 3-month training
The National Police Academy is wrapping up three months of training later this month. The group posed for this shot outside the Public Safety Building this week.

Photo: Darren Lanki.

Journal 12/12/1970

Journal 12/14/1984
P1 A “crown of thorns” starfish control team for the Marshalls is currently being organized in Majuro. Starfish control specialist Milt McDonald arrived from Ponape to train a four-to-six man starfish killer team.
P1 The Reverend Sam Sasser, former director of the Marshalls Congregation of the Assembly of God, paid a short visit to Majuro this week. He met with the newly established Executive Committee of the Marshalls’ Assembly group.
P1 The Marshall Islands has truly entered the age of air travel. On Monday, Marshall Islands Air Taxi’s Grumman Wigeon seaplane arrived in Majuro from Alaska, now giving the district two operating air taxi services. The other company presently operating here is Lagoon Aviation, which opened for business November 28.
P1 Iroij Anjua Loeak’s “jepta” with over 200 participants is preparing for the Christmas dancing and singing competitions. He is confident his “chop suey” team will come out on top in this, the 137th year of Christian competition. That’s how long ago the first Morning Star sailing vessel arrived in Ebon Atoll with the first missionaries. Iroij Kotak Loeak is the leader and a renown dancer in the Marshalls.
P1 Trust Territory Judge Richard Miyamoto December 7 decided that the municipalities of Laura and Darrit-Uliga-Delap must
combine into one entity and comply with the Local Government Act enacted by the Nitijela.
P1 Landowners of Kwajalein Atoll, site of a major US test facility for anti-ballistic missile defense technology, filed suit in federal court in Washington, DC December 5 seeking to invalidate the military base rights agreement negotiated in 1982 for use of the islands by the US for missile testing.
P1 A special session of the Nitijela convened Monday for reviewing and making recommendations for the forthcoming five-year budget. District Administrator Oscar deBrum told the legislators: “This is the first incidence in the history of the Marshall Islands when the opportunity and the responsibility to plan for the utilization of funds…has been given to the people in our district.”
P3 Nine students from the Auriaria Ataria Kokoi School in Eita Village, Tarawa arrived Majuro Thursday on the Tetami Maru. The students will be attending school in Laura at the Assembly of God-run Calvary Bible Institute.

Journal 12/11/1992
P1 Job training programs, “traditionally” the domain of men, are going to see active recruitment of women into trades, said Marie Maddison, the director of research and development for the College of the Marshall Islands. “Gender issues are new items for discussion here in the Marshalls and Micronesia, so we assume there aren’t any problems,” she said. The fact that last year there were very few Marshallese women trained in the federally funded job training program shows that there is a bias in the programs in favor of men, she said.
P1 A major and sensitive outer island development project is being contemplated for the Marshalls’ renown island of beauty: Erikub Atoll. The project, according to Wotje Mayor Tony Phillip, is planned by the firm Islander Investments, Ltd. of Newport Beach, California. Erikub has been known throughout Marshallese history as one of the most pristine and desirable locations imaginable, an island described by visitor after visitor as bountiful in fish and turtle resources. It may be in process of the kind of development that will not only preserve as much as possible the natural beauty of the atoll, but also afford quite a few Wotje residents access to much needed outer island employment in a clean, non-polluting industry, which is intended to cater to that special kind of tourist who wants to get away from all the hustle and bustle of urban life and sample a little bit of fabled Eden right here on terra firma, says the mayor.
P21 Eight years, 61 tires, seven passports and 142 countries later, motorcyclist Emilio Scotto and his wife Monica arrived in Majuro on the second part of their round-the-world trip by motorcycle.