Marshall Islands

Marshall Islands & St Lucia spearhead work of Coalition of High Ambition Nations

Called the Coalition of High Ambition Nations, the two ministers from Marshall Islands and St Lucia took centre stage at the media conference room at Le Bourget Saturday to explain the work the group has been involved in the past week of negotiations, in their effort to step up support for the goals of the small and vulnerable nations at the frontline of climate change.

El Niño weather starts move toward drought in Marshall Islands

Weather officials say, however, that the Marshall Islands is not yet safely out of the El Niño-inspired cycle that has produced multiple tropical storms and cyclones with resulting damage and seawater inundations in this low-lying country.

Even as the weather system appears to be shifting, the Marshall Islands has one or two months left in the typhoon danger zone, while drought conditions will magnify, Guam-based weather officials predict.

German dies while diving Bikini World War II wrecks

The remains of German Hans Erich Volborth were being flown to Majuro yesterday from the distant northern atoll in the Marshalls group.

The 75-year-old diver was reported to have died after he separated from a group that was diving on the World War II naval wrecks on Bikini's lagoon floor.

Bikini was the site of 24 American nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s, including one that sank a fleet of U.S. and Japanese navy vessels.

US deports steady stream of Marshall Islanders

For the past 15 years, Marshall Islanders have been deported from the United States at an annual rate of 16 per year, according to government data.

But the numbers increased dramatically from 2011.

The larger numbers also coincide with ongoing heavy out-migration to the United States that has seen an average of over 1,000 islanders leaving to the U.S. annually since the late 1990s.

More than 30,000 Marshall Islanders are estimated to be living in the U.S.  

US deports steady stream of Marshall Islanders

Government data indicates that over the past 15 years, there's a rate of sixteen deportations of Marshall Islanders per year.

While there's been a slight decline in the deportation rate this year, overall the numbers have increased dramatically from 2011. It coincides with ongoing heavy Marshallese out-migration to the US, with an average of over 1,000 islanders leaving to the US annually since the late 1990s.

US office urges review of Marshall Islands, Micronesia trust fund strategies

This is a question the latest economic review of the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia, issued last week, suggests should be asked by officials from these two north Pacific nations.

The Graduate School USA, which produces annual economic reports on these three U.S.-affiliated nations, includes an assessment in the reports of the U.S.-funded national trust funds now being capitalized to provide a funding source to the island governments when U.S grant funding ends after 2023.

PNA happy with ‘finalist’ selection in industry competition

The finalists for the prestigious industry award were unveiled last week at the sixth edition of Seafood Expo Asia in Hong Kong. Dawn Martin, President of SeaWeb, was joined by Suzanne Gendron, Director of the Ocean Park Foundation in Hong Kong and a 2016 Seafood Champion Awards Judge, to make the announcement to a crowd of seafood industry professionals and media.

Big fish harvest anticipated in Marshall Islands

Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi said this week that the first harvest is just a few weeks away. The fish farming work is being run by the Atoll Technologies of the Marshall Islands or ATMI, a local company in partnership with off-shore investors that was developed by the Rongelap Atoll Local Government with the aim of developing fish farming export ventures on remote atolls around this western Pacific nation.

“I hope over the next three to five years, we will mature as a big company for export markets,” he said. “The market is there in the United States and Asia.”

Small islands call for global moratorium on coal mines

The leaders of the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu caught up on Monday before the wider 16 nation Pacific Island Forum leaders summit in Papua New Guinea later this week.

They issued a special declaration on climate change that demanded the world limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and that countries uphold the principle of polluter pays.

Marshall Islands' new ambassador to Taipei takes up post

Fredrick Muller arrived in Taiwan Aug 25 to take up his post as ambassador, said Elliot Charng, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, at a regular news briefing.

Prior to his posting in Taipei, Muller was his country's ambassador to Fiji, according to the foreign ministry. His previous posts also included serving as a member of the Marshall Islands parliament 2008-2012, the ministry said.