Mr. Abed El Latif Younis
April 29, 1936 – April 18, 2020
As the CNMI celebrates 50 years of having its own local and independent voice in media, we take a moment to pay tribute to a man who shared this vision with his family and committed his life and career to ensure it continues today.
Marianas Variety News & Views founder Abed E. Younis was born on April 29, 1936 in Ara Village, Israel. From grade school in Ara, he moved to Haifa for high school and later to Jerusalem for higher studies. He was an alumnus of Bet Salel Academy of Arts and he also took some courses from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Abed spoke Arabic, Hebrew, and English. He learned English when Palestine was under British rule.
Fresh out of school, he was employed with the National Television Station of Israel. By 1970, he was offered a scholarship grant to travel to Japan and specialize further in graphics and animation.
In Japan, he visited universities and worked with educators in the field of graphics and animation. As he needed to adjust his status, from student to worker, he ended up on Guam. When his prospects to go back to Japan went dim, and at the same time, his U.S. visa was expiring, his option was to stay in Saipan for a few days in 1971.
For Abed, it was the warmth and compassion of the locals that convinced him to stay. Without a job, he said his newfound friends searched on island for jobs for him until it was clear to him that he should set up his own shop, Younis Art Studio. He was then operating out of a small office in Chalan Kanoa. He married Maria Paz Tudela Castro and had six children.
EXPANDING TO GARAPAN: After several years in Chalan Kanoa and then Oleai, Abed moved his office and printing equipment into a new and larger building in Garapan. Marianas Variety has been in this location ever since.
<strong>EXPANDING TO GARAPAN:</strong> After several years in Chalan Kanoa and then Oleai, Abed moved his office and printing equipment into a new and larger building in Garapan. Marianas Variety has been in this location ever since.
<em><strong>As the CNMI celebrates 50 years of having its own local and independent voice in media, we take a moment to pay tribute to a man who shared this vision with his family and committed his life and career to ensure it continues today.</strong></em>
He and Paz had the opportunity to take over the only weekly at the time, Marianas Star, and changed the name to Marianas Variety News & Views, with its first issue printed on March 16, 1972.
Abed said he wanted Marianas Variety to feature all local news. His vision for Marianas Variety came at the most opportune time in Marianas’ history: the Covenant negotiations and the establishment of the Commonwealth.
Abed was also an active community volunteer, serving at the Saipan Rotary Club and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce for many years, including as a board member of Karidat Social Services. He was the first to have served as President for both Rotary and the Chamber at the same time. In 2014, he was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the NMI Humanities Council and the CNMI Legislature honored him with a Resolution recognizing his contributions after his passing in 2020.
The Variety, which began its operations in Chalan Kanoa, moved to Oleai in 1974 until 1981 when Abed transferred the newspaper and studio businesses under one roof in Garapan.
For the past 50 years, the Variety, the islands’ oldest newspaper, has documented the social, economic, and political events that have shaped the Commonwealth and its people and to you, Mr. Younis, we tip our pens.
