Open season for crime in RMI

Journal 3/5/1978

P1 Marshalls ConCon resumes The Marshall Islands Constitutional Convention resumed here last week after a long recess. A final draft constitution is expected to be finalized within the week. A date for a vote on the document, which calls for a parliamentary form of government, is expected to be proposed soon by the Marshalls Nitijela.

P6 Mangefel: ‘Negotiating with the wrong people’ Senator John Mangefel told the Senate that Micronesia has been negotiating with the wrong people for the last nine years. The Yap senator said that when Micronesia “first got into the future status business, we traveled East and West, North and South looking for our future.” And during all this time, Mangefel said, Micronesians “should have been negotiating with each other.”

P10 We don’t like Marshall Islanders reclaimed a second small island in the heart of the US Army’s Pacific Missile Testing Range here March 8 to protest 12 years sod use with no compensation for landowners. It was the second such action by landowners in a week. “I don’t care about missiles or danger, I only care about my land,” said alab Handel Dribo, the aging landowner and traditional leader who led about 30 men, women and children to tiny Omelek Island inside Kwajalein’s hazardous mid-corridor.

Journal 3/12/1993

P1 Erikub project hits a snag A group of landowners are asking the High Court to nullify a 50-year agreement signed by another group of landowners with an American resort developer for Erikub Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands.

P5 “East Wood” refugees returned to China The 524 Chinese passengers from the “East Wood” departed Kwajalein for China Saturday after living in a temporary tent camp at the US Army base for 20 days. “The Chinese were repatriated to China early Saturday by the International Organization for Migration,” US Ambassador David Fields told the Journal. “They were flown back in four chartered aircraft to Xiamen, China.”

P17 Thousands of little known facts Did you know that the number of visitors to the Marshall Islands in 1991 was nearly double that of the highest number in the mid-1970s? Or that as of 1992, there were an estimated 49,969 people in the Marshall Islands? Or that in 1991, 22,110 pigs were produced in the country?

Journal 3/12/2004

P3 Ailuk first ‘unexposed’ atoll to file for N-dollars Ailuk Atoll has filed a claim with the Nucelar Claims Tribunal — the fist so-called “unexposed” atoll to present a case for compensation to the Tribunal. The 15-page claim states that although US officials were “aware that Ailuk was receiving levels of radioactive fallout (from the Bravo test) similar in magnitude to those received by Utrik, the US decided not to evacuate Ailuk, which at the time had approximately 400 residents.”

P4 NTA: No to fiber optic The US Army says it’s going to pay for an underwater fiber optic communications cable to be installed at Kwajalein and connect a “free line” to Ebeye. But the atonal Telecommunications Authority says the Army’s plan will cost the RMI at least an additional $8 million and has been rejected.

P24 Open season for crime Local businessman Jerry Kramer is concerned about a possible “open season for crime” in Majuro because of the lack of prosecutions by government. He said the government filed embezzlement charges against two former PII workers a year ago, but there has been no action or result in either case. The number of criminal cases filed by the Attorney General’s office declined by 50 percent from 2001 to 2003.