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Inside Stories
Friday, January 29, 2010
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Masked men hear TB
case in court
A Marshallese man has been take to court by the RMI Attorney General’s office for allegedly failing to take TB treatment and remain in isolation. The civil case names “Patient #1” as the defendant and the court hearing held Tuesday afternoon is being treated as confidential. All participants in the closed hearing wore facemasks.
Price of
power up
Majuro power customers will not “feel” it until early March, but Marshalls Energy Company’s new rate hike goes into effect this Monday. MEC is raising the price of power by 5.8 cents across the board. It amounts to a 26 and 24 percent increase for lifeline and residential rates, which are jumping from 22 and 24 cents per kilowatt hour to 27.8 and 29.8 cents, respectively. Government will be bumped to 36.8 cents per KW hour, while business is going up to 35.8 cents.
Bill to stop TB spread
The Director of Public Health will be given broad power to quarantine individuals who are deemed to be a threat to the health of others if an amendment to the Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Act of 1988 goes through. Bill 65 was introduced January 18 by Health Minister Amenta Matthew in response to the outbreak of drug resistant TB.
Bad decade
for copra
The decade of the 2000s produced the lowest production of copra since the 1950s, according to Tobolar Copra Processing Authority statistics. And without the greatly improved shipping service from 2007-2009, the decade just past would have seen an all-time copra low. The 10-years from 2000 to 2009 saw 50,573 tons of copra brought into Tobolar, the lowest 10-year total since the 1950s when fewer than 50,000 tons were produced
'Be honest to RMI payroll'
Arno Senator Gerald Zackios said now that RMI government accounts can be audited it is time to move to the next level of performance. Being auditable is an important development, but is only part of the process, he said. “We need to take the second step now,” he said. “Are we using the resources to make a difference?” Grants received from the United States and other countries come with performance requirements that the RMI is supposed to meet in using this funding. But, asked Zackios, “what about our own performance standards? What are our indicators of success?”		 Jack files slew of cases
By GIFF JOHNSON
The Attorney General’s office has come out swinging in January, with three high-profile criminal cases filed in the past few days and AG Frederick Canavor, Jr. promising more prosecutions in the near future. Charges against a number of prisoners who escaped late last year will be filed shortly, he told the Journal Wednesday.
A sexual assault case was filed last week by Assistant AG Jack Jorbon (pictured), who followed this with new cases on Wednesday in the High Court against two men who are charged with separate hit and run drunk driving incidents on New Year’s morning — one that caused a death and another serious injury.
Kiashie Kattil is facing six criminal charges for allegedly hitting and killing pedestrian Joe Tawoj in the Batkan area of Majuro around 4am New Year’s day. Jorbon charged Kattil with reckless driving, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, involuntary manslaughter, negligent driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, and failure to render assistance.
Police say a witness watched the vehicle driven by Kattil pass another vehicle at high speed in Batkan and then hit a man and keep driving The driver was later stopped and arrested in Delap. In the other New Year’s morning incident, Wilbur Allen is charged with the same criminal counts except not involuntary manslaughter. He is alleged to have been driving “at high speed” when he hit Mottelang Ninbit as he was crossing the road around 3am New Year’s morning by the capitalbuilding. Police saidhe did not stop.
Police officer Alex Maine said he and other officers stopped Allen by Stevedore office in Delap and he was so drunk when he got out of the car he almost fell down. Police said he failed two sobriety tests at the National Police station: walking a straight line and standing on one foot. Ninbit spent more than
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10 days in Majuro Hospital with “serious wounds” to his face and head, police said.
In Allen’s case, Chief Justice Carl Ingram set an initial hearing for this Friday.
Judge Plasman is hearing the other hit and run case and had not scheduled a hearing as of press time Wednesday. With three cases filed so far this month, the AG’s office is on track in 2010 to double the number of criminal cases filed in the High Court in 2009, which hit a two-decade low at just 17.
Yolani Matthew, one of 16 young women in CMI’s Toolbox Boot Camp group two that started last week, shows off her personal protective equipment.
Photo: Robert Revercomb, IV.
MOE instructed to feed students
As public schools enter the second half of the school year, the promised and approved funds for the school lunch program have still not materialized — so there has been no lunch program for public schools since they started last August.
But Cabinet is reported to have directed the Ministry of Education to get the food program turned on quickly, with the hope that it will be up and running at public schools in the next few weeks.
There is a funding dispute between the US and RMI governments over use of Compact funds that were reprogrammed for the school lunch program last September. But no action was
taken to address the lack of school lunch programs in public schools until the problem was raised by a senator at the Nitijela earlier this month. “There is a problem with the funds,” explained Education Minister Nidel Lorak to Nitijela Tuesday.“We are not allowed to use the $300,000 Nitijela has allotted (from the Compact) and now Chief Secretary is leading a committee that is trying identify other sources to fund the lunch program.” “In the fall session, the Nitijela made a unilateral shift of education funds without coordinating with the Ministry of Education or the US government, contrary to the approved budget resolution of the Joint Economic Management and Financial
Accountability Committee (JEMFAC), of which the RMI is a joint partner,” Ambassador Martha L. Campbell told the Journal this week. “An official communication is in draft and will be provided to the RMI shortly.” Foreign Minister John Silk told the Journal the government does not agree with the US interpretation and “is working on it.” He indicated that resumption of the school lunch program is a priority issue of concern for the Cabinet.
Journal sample
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Junk cars all over
At left is one of several cars left trashed next to the road in Uliga town. Throughout the capital these days are many such eyesores. Whose job is it to solve the ‘littering’ problem?
Photo: Douglas Henry
Book for Sale
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.
Send US money check/money order to the address below.
Students Joan Bungitak and Jessica Louis (above left) help Hemrina Jukkwe put on her safety harness at the CMI Arrak Campus, while right, Kency Besiko and Heltino Lelwoj work together on a writing assignment.
Graduates become mentors
The second College of the Marshall Islands “Boot Camp” program started last week at the Arrak Campus in Woja.
“We’re off to another great start,” said ABC Toolbox Director Robert Revercomb, IV. “We have 37 male and 16 female students.”
Enrolment in the current one is up five students from		 group one that graduated in December.
Four graduates from the first Toolbox group are on the staff for the Boot Camp training “to mentor the new cadets,” Revercomb said.
“We’re still getting phone calls from people wanting to know if it’s too late to join. I recommend they go to CMI to get on the waiting list for the third session.”

Journal 2/1/1971

Journal 2/1/1985
P1 Reaction to the Senate Joint Resolution introduced by Yapese Senator Petrus Tun, which calls for the immediate replacement of American Peace Corps Directors by qualified Micronesians was expressed this week by Marshalls District Peace Corps Director Cleveland De Costa. Calling the Tun Resolution tantamount to an expression of a lack of confidence or appreciation for Peace Corps by the Senator and the people who support his resolution, De Costa said: “I would also feel that if the colleagues of Senator Tun support his supposition that Peace Corps has failed and that we (Peace Corps) should consider picking up our marbles and going home.”
P1 Marshall Islands Air Taxi Service (MIATS) has received qualification from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate an air taxi service in the Marshalls.
P1 The Auditor General has submitted his second report to the Nitijela. The Auditor General, Brian Riordan, stated in the report that past RepMar accounts are almost all unauditable as a result of the “legacy of the Trust Territory.” He noted that RepMar “has never prepared comprehensive financial statements, and consequently, has never known to any degree its overall financial position.” He traces this problem directly to the inadequate accounting procedures of the TT government. The Interior Department found that TT ledger trial balances for fiscal years 1980 and 1981 “were so unreliable that the
TT declined to release them to auditors.” Riordan said the TT has “never produced auditable financial statements and consequently through no fault of its own, nor has RepMar.” He documented a number of irregularities in government operations, including finding that the government lost $53,000 as a result of overpaying certain employees.
P2 The big winner last night at the well-attended raffle drawing for Kwajalein Atoll Private School was Carwin Albias, who picked up $1,000 for his lucky purchase of the lottery ticket.
P2 A lengthy debate took place at the Nitijela Monday on a proposed resolution ordering Air Marshall Islands to immediately provide a financial statement to the Nitijela. Senators arguing for a deferment said AMI is required by law to provide an audit to the Nitijela later in the year, and this resolution could negatively effect current negotiations in Washington between top RepMar officials and West German government representatives for the purchase of new planes to replace the grounded Australian Nomads. The resolution was introduced by Senators Leikman Robert and Kunio Lemari and states that AMI has not provided an accounting of funds since it began operations more than four years ago. A motion to defer consideration passed, 15-13.
P3 In the Marshalls it is worse to grow marijuana than to assault, batter, rape and murder people. Murderers so far seem to get four years in jail and other jail terms can be run concurrently to that. But if you are caught growing your own smoke you are liable to a $5,000 fine and five years in jail. Somehow it doesn’t seem right.
P6 The first cassette tape of Marshallese music sung, recorded and produced in the Marshalls is out on the streets for your listening pleasure. Entitled “Kakije Iben Limited Corporation,” the new tape is all instrumentals. Betwel Lekka, Alan Jorkan, Esther Iaman, Tony Wase and Mobi Lorennij make up the band managed by Edinal Jorkan.
According to MIATS President Robert Reimers, all that is necessary now for the company to being commercial chartering is final certification from the High Commissioner. Until that is received MIATS will be permitted to fly emergency flights for the government — four such flights have been flown this week for medical emergencies in the outer islands.
P10 Peace Corps Marshalls announced that a 70-year-old Peace Corps Volunteer, Chalmers Anderson, will be arriving soon to work in the capacity of hospital administrator for the Armer Ishoda Memorial Hospital, Majuro. Anderson, a retired Navy commander, served in the US Navy from 1919 to 1957. Twenty of these years he served as hospital administrator in hospitals ranging in size from 100 to 5,000 beds.

Journal 1/29/1993
P1 The Marshall Islands now officially has a second roving ambassador, Milton R. Polland of the US, who joins the RMI’s original roving ambassador former Chief Secretary Oscar deBrum.
P7 Gibson’s Shopping Center has a new general manager to take over from the Guam-bound John Smith. The new manager, Keith Fawcett, originally hails from Sydney.
P15 A gang of youth traveling around after spending time at the takeouts in the Demon Town area ended up causing expensive damage to the front of the G&L Midtown Shop. The boys kicked in the pane of commercial display windows at the popular store.
P24 MBMB Brewery ran out after initially introducing its new locally made draft beer in Majuro.