Journal 5/31/1985
P1 Rongelapese clash with US ambassador The verbal sparring between US officials and Rongelap Atoll leaders escalated this week when the US ambassador to the United Nations charged that the nearly completed evacuation of Rongelap was instigated by outsiders who were misleading the islanders about radiation contamination on the atoll. Ambassador Harvey Feldman told the UN Trusteeship Council that “there is simply no new scientific information, either radiologically or medically, that support the move.” Referring to the evacuation of the people by the Greenpeace organization, Feldman said: “The Administering Authority (US) feels that it is tragic that the people of Rongelap have been victimized by outside forces without the benefit of the available scientific information.” Rongelap Senator Jeton Anjain issued a stinging rebuttal to Feldman by radio from onboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior vessel that is in the final stages of evacuating the 300 residents of Rongelap to Mejato Island in Kwajalein. “In the first place,” said Anjain, “this evacuation was not instigated by outsiders. It was instigated by me and my people as a result of the American nuclear testing program. Secondly, we don’t need the most brilliant scientists to come and tell us we are not sick. We know we have had health problems from the beginning — we are having them today and we will have them for the indefinite future.”
Journal 5/30/1997
P1 Midtown’s downtown facelift The look of downtown Majuro is getting a facelift, thanks to G&L Enterprises. The old and dilapidated former Social Services community center has been demolished and the aging former Food Services warehouse is about to follow to make way for a mall of new shops and offices. Grant Labaun, owner of Midtown Shop, said this week a new two-story shop complex will go up on this site.
P1 US backs N-test study The US Centers for Disease Control is proposing a nationwide thyroid study that would, for the first time, attempt to reconstruct the radiation doses Marshall Islanders alive in the 1950s received from American nuclear tests. Marshall Islands Cabinet and Health officials expressed strong support for the study, with Foreign Minister Phillip Muller saying that the study would be “very helpful to us.” CDC officials have spent the last year looking into the feasibility of conducting a broad study that would involve checking some 8,000 Marshall Islanders who were under 15 years of age during the nuclear weapons testing. Although the thyroid examinations will follow in the footsteps of earlier studies, the proposed joint CDC-Marshall Islands study would break new ground by gaining access to currently classified US government data on radiation doses throughout the Marshall Islands that were recorded following nuclear tests at Bikini and Enewetak.
P7 Many islands received fallout US radiation monitoring during Operation Castle — a series of six of the largest US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands held at Bikini in 1954 — shows that Ailuk and Wotje atolls received a dose of radiation that was above what US test officials considered to be the safe “permissible” level. US documents also show that some southern islands in the Marshalls received more fallout exposure from hydrogen bomb tests Romeo and Koon than from Bravo. Although these exposures were relatively small, Arno, Mili and Jaluit received from two to 15 times the amount of fallout from these later Castle tests compared to Bravo, confirming that it was not only the infamous March 1 Bravo shot that was responsible for fallout around the Marshall Islands.
Journal 5/30/2008
P1 Dive bomb The Marshall Islands flagship tourist destination — the World War Two ships sunk by nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll — is shutting down in two weeks after sustaining unprecedented financial losses. Problems with Air Marshall Islands and skyrocketing fuel prices torpedoed a once-thriving scuba diving business that lured thousands of visitors from Europe, America and Australia to this former nuclear test site, Bikini Atoll Divers manager Jack Niedenthal said Tuesday. Conde Nast Traveler Magazine called Bikini Atoll one of the “top 50 worldwide island escapes.”
P4 Gas hits $6 mark Gas prices surged past the $6 per gallon mark in Majuro on Friday for the first time. In January 2005, the price of gas in Majuro broke the $3 per gallon level for the first time. In the three and a half years since, the cost of gas has doubled.