Jabor: Seedbed of ‘sin’

Journal 10/15/1973

P4 Expert watchmakers in Marshalls Two local men, one from the Marshalls and one from Kusaie, have just returned to the Trust Territory after completing a year and a half training course at the Bulova School of Watchmaking in New York. The two men, Anju Jejjon of Majuro and Aisur Tholl, are classified as expert watchmakers qualified to repair all types of timepieces, including ship chronometers.

P7 Inside Ponape — UN Day Ponape was bursting at the seams last week as far as sports for the UN holidays was concerned. The games (baseball, rack and water events) among the municipalities of Ponape proper were fun and exciting — all possible due to DistAd Leo Falcam’s revitalization of the spirit of the games.

P7 Outer islands lack shipping service Albattar Jamore, a member of the Marshall Islands Nitijela, has stated that people on the outer islands in the Marshalls are suffering as a result of poor shipping service and need assistance immediately. He returned last week from a three-week field trip to the southern islands and found discontent everywhere. “At Namdri, the people have over 100 tons of copra ready to sell but no boat has picked up their crop for months,” he said.

Journal 10/16/1992

P6 RMI worried by specter of sea level rise Marshalls Foreign Minister Tom Kijiner addressed the General Assembly on the first anniversary of the RMI’s admission to the UN. He called the Assembly’s attention to the threat from sea-level rise, emphasizing the special vulnerability of low-lying atoll nations.

P11 Jaluit: A major port town in 1880s Most people know of Jaluit Atoll as the former German and Japanese administrative headquarters for the Marshalls. And that it was. But Jabor was a big port town before the Germans formally annexed the Marshall Islands in 1885. This atoll has a remarkable array of six passes on its eastern and western fringes, including two a stone’s throw from Jabor. Although chiefly power and missionary work was concentrated on Ebon and other islands, Jabor by the early 1880s was a center of commerce. Such was life in a Pacific port town then that seamen and missionaries alike agreed on one thing: Jabor was “a seedbed of drunkenness and licentiousness,” in the words of one missionary.

P17 New principal Carmen Chong Gum took over at Assumption High last month. She is a 1984 graduate of the school.

Journal 10/10/2003

P2 Special passports illegal? Over 900 so-called special circumstance passports issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1990s are arguably illegally issued documents and should be cancelled, according to a research paper prepared by an assistant attorney general for the RMI. Jack Jorbon, author of the paper, offers a complex and detailed rendering of legal steps taken by the Cabinet and Nitijela since the inception of naturalizing citizenship concept in RMI. Jorbon maintains that 910 passports are documented as having been sold to foreigners between 1995 and 1996. He also maintains that not all of these passports were fully paid for and that the social, cultural and economic impact of passport sales has been harmful to Marshallese society. “The Marshallese society was immediately transformed into what it is today — a society whose economy is no longer controlled by Marshallese and Americans.”