GIFF JOHNSON Nearly three years after the first in-person preliminary discussions were held between the US and the Marshall Islands for a third funding agreement in the Compact, negotiations resumed again this week with a two-day meeting at Kwajalein. The negotiations stalled after these first discussions were held in Pohnpei between President Trump’s Secretary of […]
GIFF JOHNSON “On a scale of one-to-10, with 10 being the best, I put my visit to Washington at 9.5,” said Speaker Kenneth Kedi in an interview with the Journal Wednesday this week. The Speaker was in Arkansas at mid-week, following a packed agenda in Washington, DC over several days last week with meetings with […]
EVE BURNS Marshall Islands Marine Resource Authority launched its Protected Area Network (PAN) office last week at International Conference Center. The PAN program vision is for a sustainable and resilient Marshall Islands where natural and cultural resources are effectively managed and conserved for future generations. Their mission to secure and enable mobilization of resources in […]
Due to the rapidly evolving Covid spread in many Pacific island countries as a result of the omicron variant, the FSM government announced this week it was in the “public health interest to delay the forthcoming repatriation flights to the States of Pohnpei and Chuuk, and to cancel until further notice the repatriation flights to […]
GIFF JOHNSON Veterans from the Marshall Islands and the other freely associated states, all nations aligned with the US through Compacts, must travel at great personal expense to take advantage of health benefits they earned by their service in the US military. The practical impact of this situation is that most Marshallese veterans are completely […]
GIFF JOHNSON Pacific International Inc. received a mediation award in its construction dispute with the FSM government over US government-funded road work it did in Chuuk state from 2009-2013. But the FSM refused to pay the mediation award of an initial $2 million on a total $6 million award. More recently, PII received a $9.5 […]
GIFF JOHNSON RMI government authorities are making special arrangements for Guam-based couriers to bring an overdue delivery of cash for local banks and, separately, for a handful of Marshallese stranded in Pohnpei to return to Majuro. Although planning has progressed, it is unclear if either of these initiatives will happen, based on: • The reluctance […]
GIFF JOHNSON Pohnpei strengthened its ban on incoming travelers Saturday in the face of the escalating spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in the region. Pohnpei Governor Reed Oliver issued an amended emergency order March 21 the same day as Pohnpei health authorities announced the second “person under investigation” (PUI) for Covid-19. The island, which hosts […]
GIFF JOHNSON President Hilda Heine joined with Palau and Federated States of Micronesia presidents in a historic meeting with President Donald Trump Wednesday (Majuro date) at the White House — the first time the three presidents from the freely associated states have met an American president as a group. In lead up meetings with Interior […]
Journal 4/6/1982 P6 Yap Governor: Development a matter of survival Yap Governor John Mangefel declared last week that emphasis would shift to economic development as his administration’s number one priority. “The state of Yap, like the rest of the FSM, needs economic development: not as a matter of principle or because ‘it would be nice’ […]