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FRIDAY, October 30, 2009
The rapid
spread of
the mealy
bug and other
insects is
threatening Majuro's natural food supplies.
The white
'blob' at right is the
destructive mealy bug that is destroying Majuro's trees
and plants.
Photos:
Karen
Earnshaw
and
Suzanne
Chutaro
This Week's
Inside Stories
Japan to
give Majuro solar power
Japan has approved a multi-million dollar solar power plan for the Marshall Islands and three other Pacific nations, the Japan Embassy in Majuro confirmed this week. The solar project is being funded under Japan’s “Cool Earth Partnership” program and will total $20 million for the four nations. The Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Tonga will also receive solar power equipment. The RMI portion will see solar panels and related equipment installed on the roofs at Majuro Hospital to feed up to 200 kilowatts of electricity into the MEC power grid for Majuro.
Christian wins Moses' seat in FSM Congress
Pohnpei’s Peter Christian is back in the FSM Congress. After losing two years ago to Resio Moses for the four-year seat from Pohnpei, Christian won this seat in a special election last week held to fill the vacancy created when Moses died recently.
Key fisheries office to get Majuro home
A regional fisheries office will be established in Majuro by January next year. The eight nations that make up the “Parties to the Nauru Agreement” agreed at their ministerial-level meeting last week in Tarawa, Kiribati to move forward with the PNA Secretariat in Majuro.
Pan Pacific's plan to hire 100
Pan Pacific Foods loining plant in Delap continues to step up the pace of tuna processing, according to General Manager Don Xu. He said the plant is now up to nearly 400 Marshallese workers and is looking to hire another 100 to staff an additional shift.
Army officials honor RMI soldiers
Marshall Islands soldiers have been honored by US military officials for making their fifth deployment to Middle East war zones, according to RMI UN Ambassador Phillip Muller. One Marshallese soldier described southern Afghanistan as “hell,” and US
military’s death toll for October — 58 soldiers killed as of press time this week — is the highest monthly death toll since the Afghanistan war started in October 2001, confirming the description. Ambassador Muller, who was in Majuro this past week, said he attended a ceremony earlier this month to honor Marshallese in the US military who were heading to Afghanistan. He said US military officials recognized the Marshallese for their commitment to the US Armed Forces. The ambassador noted that some of the Marshallese in the Army were making their fifth deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Meanwhile, US Army Sgt. Julium Lejjena, a veteran of many deployments to war zones, is currently in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, an area of intense fighting. In an email he said life was okay (“ej bwe wot mour”) but added that there is a lot of death and destruction where he is currently deployed. “Rockets and mortars all the time and roadside bombs,” he said. “Two body bags came in today — two casualties blown up and shot up.” He said that he’s only bumped into two other Marshallese soldiers, Fred Laninbelang and Ando Note. At the bottom of his email, Lejjena listed a three-line address for the location of his base in Afghanistan, followed by a fourth line: “aka hell.” At the top of Sgt. Lejjena’s mind in the midst of the mayhem of Afghanistan? “Is there a website where I can order an extra large Marshalls Billfish Club T-shirt?”
By GIFF JOHNSON
Following four days of intense negotiations among the various factions of Nitijela members, a grouping that includes many UDP Senators and former President Tomeing banded together to elect new President Jurelang Zedkaia and Speaker Alvin Jacklick Monday. A coalition led by Aelon Kein Ad party members, former President Kessai Note and other UDP defectors joined to oust Tomeing last week, but could not muster the numbers needed to elect Note in Monday’s election.
Last weekend, Jacklick — who himself was courting the presidential nomination, but didn’t have all the votes needed to win — reportedly offered Zedkaia the UDP’s backing if he’d run for the top post, and the rest is history, though the vote tabulation at Nitijela Monday was anything but assured when Zedkaia and Note tied at 15-15 before the final two votes elected Zedkaia. The move by Jacklick and the UDP, with the backing of Tomeing, has for the second time this year prevented the AKA from gaining control of the RMI government’s executive branch. The vote for Zedkaia was 17-15, the same as last Wednesday’s vote of no confidence, giving Zedkaia the bare one-vote minimum needed to win the presidency in the 33-seat parliament. He defeated former President Kessai Note, the only other nominee. The Nitijela is preparing for a Monday morning swearing in ceremony for both Zedkaia and Jacklick. On Wednesday, President-elect Zedkaia told the Journal the existing Cabinet will remain on board, with one exception: Justice Minister David Kramer has informed the new President he plans to step down and will be replaced. Both Zedkaia and Jacklick indicated their desire to work with all factions within the Nitijela. Jacklick expressed concern about the situation with RMI’s ambassadors, who are required to resign as a result of a new President taking office. The Speaker said he will “look to the President and Cabinet (for guidance) if Nitijela needs to come back for two-to-four days to approve any urgent legislation.” He said the ambassador issue should not wait until the January session. “If the President wants to call Nitijela (for a special session), I’m ready to put out the announcement,” Jacklick said. On cooperation with President Zedkaia and the executive, Jacklick said: “We’ve been politically married. We have a positive relationship. We will seek anything that will help the country move forward.” For the time being, all committee chairmanships in Nitijela will remain the same, Jacklick added.
Food friends
Eating local was the focus of a World Food Day event at RRE compound earlier this month. WUTMI women Deborah Shoniber, Carmen Bigler and Nika John were pushing tasty local goodies, while the Laura boys — Gideon Lang, Junior Kuli, Mr. Lin, Ison Riklon — cooked up a storm to encourage eating local.


Photos: Giff Johnson.

Journal 10/31/1970

Journal 10/29/1974
P6 “This is Ebeye,” by Mike Malone. Ebeye is radically different from any other island in the Trust Territory, and perhaps different from any island in the entire Pacific for that matter. Only 76 acres in size, the island is the home for 4,500 Marshallese. Some 400 hold down precious high paying jobs ($1.60 an hour, US minimum wage) on the army’s Kwajalein Missile Range located only three miles away across the lagoon.
Leaving Ebeye for Kwajalein every morning at 7am on the Army’s giant ferry, Tarlang, they return at 5pm to crowded single-level, single-room apartments built by the Army two-and-a-half-years ago. The Army built a total of 308 apartments or 77 units with four apartments to a unit at a cost of $7 million. Before that, Ebeye was perhaps the worst slum in the Pacific. Today it ranks as the most
P1 Rumor — but strong and persistent. Sixteen positions open for Public Defenders in the TT have gone unfilled during the past year. And what is the reason for this father dubious accomplishment of our friendly TT administration? The answer, apparently, lies in the fact that the TT used the money in prosecuting its case against former Chief Public Defender Roger St. Pierre. Very judicious use of funds, eh?
P1 The United States may soon make its first outright territorial acquisition in more than half a century — the proposed commonwealth of the Marianas, 14 islands located 1,600 miles off the Asian mainland.
Already administered by the US under a United Nations trusteeship, the islands would become formal US territory through an act of Congress. The driving force behind the acquisition effort is the Pentagon, which has begin plans to construct a $300 million air and naval base on Tinian, the flat-topped volcanic island in the Marianas chain from which the US launched the B-29s that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
P4 One Congressional race in the Marshalls, more than all the others combined, is grabbing the hearts and imagination of local voters. It is the race between Carmen Milne Bigler, Hemost Jack, Chuji Chutaro and incumbent Representative John Heine. Carmen, to tell the truth, has been demonstrating a brand of one-upmanship (upwomanship?) throughout the campaign that betrays the act that she is doing things according to a carefully laid out schedule. First, she came out with handouts proclaiming her candidacy. Next, she deluged the district center with campaign buttons. You saw them everywhere. Other candidates could not help but notice. Her most recent coup was a bumper sticker plastering foraying carrying the message “CARMEN.” Well, with all this going on in obvious orchestration, we can only surmise at this point that Carmen probably has some more tricks up her sleeve. Not knowing exactly what these may be for sure we are left with the eternal task of newspaper people to speculate before the public so that our readers will feel they are getting their 25¢ worth. The way I figure it is like this: High Noon November 5, 1974 Carmen does a four-mile streak through the district center as a grand finale. This leaves her fellow chair seekers in a quandary: should they compete at this level when they are so obviously placed at a disadvantage? I don’t they have the balls to do it. Ah, politics!
crowded island in the territory.
“Ebeye is like a large transient work camp,” said former Peace Corps Volunteer Charles Lanzilatta, now in charge of the Ebeye housing authority. “Marshallese come here, work a few years, saving money, then return to their home island and retire for a while.”
Dr. Tregar Ishoda and five nurses staff Ebeye’s ancient 20-bed hospital, which is “fully inadequate for Ebeye’s population,” according to Dr. Ishoda.
Life on Ebeye is far different from that on Kwajalein. When the Marshallese on Ebeye are bathing in their polluted lagoon during the dry season to save water, the Americans on Kwajalein are just turning off their lawn sprinklers. It may be unfair to compare the two islands in any respect, because, at least in theory, they belong to two separate governments. But America as the owner of Kwajalein and America as the trustee of these islands is one and the same. And Ebeye is something to be ashamed of.

Journal 10/23/1992
P1 The Kwajalein missile range is critical to the development of a limited nuclear missile defense system for America and its allies, the commanding general of the US Army’s Space and Strategic Defense Command told the Journal Monday. Despite budget cuts that are forcing US base closures in other parts of the world, Lt. General Donald M. Lionetti said he did not see the Kwajalein missile range reducing in size or scope. “Kwajalein is a world class missile testing range,” he said. “Kwajalein has been a prominent part of US missile defense work since 1963.”
P5 The Nuclear Claims Tribunal handed out more than 150 checks at its office in Majuro Monday. Eyewitnesses report that a few of these folks receiving compensation walked into the Bank of Hawaii with only their check in hand, and walked out with a stack of green bills — with not even a bag to cover them.
P8 Kilon Bauno — an elder Bikini leader who played a major role in gaining the Bikinians’ international visibility and multi-million dollar resettlement funds from America — died last week in Majuro at the age of nearly 80. “Many people were there on Bikini in 1946, when the people were evacuated by the US Navy, but very few can tell the story of Bikini like he could,” said Jack Niedenthal, who frequently translated for Kilon.
P19 Frank Cabral and Kirt Pinho were in good form, entertaining the Chamber of Commerce fundraiser Friday with their own special brand of blues and Hawaiian numbers. Kirt wanted to show everyone he was still on the job by keeping his hard hat on while performing.