Front pages from 1983, 1992 and 2012.
Journal 7/12/1983
P2 US seeks dismissal of suits
The United States has filed briefs in the US Court of Claims seeking dismissal of the claims citizens of the Marshall Islands for half a billion dollars in damages. He Marshall Islanders claim the the government’s nuclear test program in the islands between 1946 and 1958 caused radiation damage to their property. The government on June 3 asked the court to dismiss the claims because the delays of so many years in bringing them makes adjudication no longer feasible or permissible lender the law.
Journal 7/10/1992
P5 Baron claims fishing crown
Baron Bigler capped a remarkable year of fishing in the two-day annual Marshalls Billfish Club tournament to win the prestigious President’s Cup award. “In the history of the Marshalls Billfish Club, there hasn’t been a (winning) streak like it,” reported last month’s MBC newsletter of Bigler’s streak that began with the new year. Fishing with Ronnie Reimers and Steve Phillip on Jinekjij, Bigler caught up to and and then went ahead of Helly Kajeong, who had held an early point lead during late 1991.
P25 Walap will be launched
Friday The Marshalls’ only voyaging canoe will be launched this Friday in a ceremony from the Weather Station in Delap. Four months in the building, the “walap” will make its inaugural sail in Majuro’s lagoon after the blessing Friday afternoon. President Amata Kabua is expected to lead a group of top level government officials to sail on the outrigger that day, according to Waan Aelon Kein project staff. Alele Museum Curator Alfred Capelle said that to his knowledge it is the first voyaging canoe build in the Marshalls since the 1940s.
Journal 7/13/2012
P1 Kathy ‘Tells Them’ at poetry festival
CMI public relations officer Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner represented the Marshall Islands at the Poetry Parnassus Festival in London, one of several cultural events leading up to the Olympic Games.
“It was such a great opportunity for me and my writing and I had an amazing time,” she said. She delivered a poem she wrote about the Marshall Islands titled “Tell Them” to two different public events.
P4 Muller wants US N-reports released
A new focus on nuclear test-related issues was on display by RMI government officials at the Marshall Islands-Department of Energy annual meeting in Majuro late last month.
After several years of being a largely one-way information transfer from the DOE to Marshall Islands participants, Foreign Minister Phillip Muller set the stage for greater ongoing government engagement by calling on the DOE to continue declassifying nuclear test era documents, and help identify Marshallese and Micronesians who worked at the Bikini and Enewetak nuclear test sites in the 1960s and 1970s for possible future compensation eligibility.
A key topic of discussion centered on monitoring of the nuclear waste in the dome at Runit Island in Enewetak.
P7 $2m and five years later, hospital back to square one
The RMI government is expected to dismiss the contractor hired by the Ministry of Health and “start from scratch” designing a new hospital for Majuro. More than $2 million in US Compact funding has been spent on this non-performing project.
“$2,041,607 has been wasted to date,” said a US government official. At the March JEMFAC meeting in Majuro, Foreign Minister Phillip Muller told US officials that the RMI set a 90-day deadline for EMPSCO and Leo A. Daly to complete the design for the new hospital — which at the time was only about 60 percent completed.
The 90 days expired at the end of last month.
