Regional

This visit is a follow-up from the May 2011 trip to Ulithi. The team will be visiting all the community schools in the whole atoll. The main purpose of the trip is to monitor teacher performance in the classroom to be sure they have included lessons and activities for children with special needs. I…

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has announced “Operation Divine Wind” against the Japanese. Divine Wind is the formal translation of the Japanese word “kamikaze,” the name given to hundreds of World War II suicide pilots, sailors and soldiers who attacked Allied forces in the Pacific. They we…

Tataua Pefe, the secretary-general of Tuvalu’s Red Cross, said  because of the lack of rainfall, residents would likely “be finishing up their rationed water.” New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully said his country was rushing to help as best it could, sending in defense force personnel to …

First light honors, shared in summer by Poverty Bay’s Mt Hikurangi and the Chatham Islands, will now belong to Fakaofo in Tokelau. Tokelau, a three atoll New Zealand colony and home to 1,200 people, has opted to move across the Dateline, following Samoa to the south. Earlier this year Samoa’s Prime…

Following intense deliberation on the national budget, Congress extended the second regular session for six  more days until Oct. 8 to tackle the nominations by President Emanuel “Manny” Mori for his cabinet positions, heads of agencies and offices of the national government along with the posts fo…

This means assembly members have had their remuneration reduced by 10 percent to no more than $7,800 a month. The assembly earlier rejected a proposal by Sabrina Birk to cut entitlements in half, reflecting a call by President Oscar Temaru in May when he suggested such a cut to balance the budget. …

The Test will be administered by the special education program in order to better identify students who may need assistance to enhance their academic performance in their education. This screening is done regularly three times per school year in all Wa’ab elementary schools. School principals of ea…

The Nitijela, the Marshallese parliament, unanimously passed legislation last week that ends commercial fishing of sharks in all 1,990,530 square kilometers (768,547 square miles) of the central Pacific country’s waters, an ocean area four times the landmass of California. “We salute the Republic o…

Deloitte’s “Independent Auditor’s Reports on Internal Control and on Compliance” for FY2 010 describes serious financial management problems in the government’s procurement system, questions spending of $2.2 million in United States grant funding, and says dozens of checks were issued by the govern…

“The Ministry of Finance has 14 (audit) findings from the previous years, and as of today only two findings have been resolved (with) unresolved questioned costs worth about $2.2 million,” said the report issued by Public Accounts Chairman Sen. Frederick Muller. The Public Accounts Committee is the…