Marshall Islands

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Army Base Faces 'Marathon of Recovery' After Rogue Waves

Repairs on Roi-Namur in Marshall Islands 'may last months or even years,' says Army rep

(Newser) - Powerful rogue waves slammed into a remote Pacific island that's home to a major US military installation on Saturday, causing extensive damage that could take months to repair, according to an Army statement. The Army said multiple areas of Roi-Namur "are underwater ," per CNN . Lying about 2,...

Only One UN-Recognized Nation Has No Soccer Team

The Marshall Islands aims to change that, as ESPN explains

(Newser) - An ESPN story about the Marshall Islands begins with an unusual stat: This nation of 60,000 people, five islands, and 30 atolls just happens to be only UN-recognized country without a national soccer team. However, a Marshallese entrepreneur named Shem Livai aims to change that. The story by Tom...

'Ghost Boat' Packed With Cocaine Found on Pacific Atoll

Authorities in the Marshall Islands say it could have drifted for years

(Newser) - It was the biggest drug find ever made in the Marshall Islands—or at least the biggest one ever reported to authorities. Richard Hickson, the Pacific island nation's attorney general, says an 18-foot fiberglass boat was found last week with 1,430 pounds of cocaine stashed in a hidden...

Ex-Arizona Official Jailed for 'Baby-Selling' Scheme
They Hoped to Adopt. They
Walked Into a 'Baby Mill'
in case you missed it
Dec 5, 2020 7:00 AM CST

They Hoped to Adopt. They Walked Into a 'Baby Mill'

Ex-Arizona official jailed for 'baby-selling' scheme prosecutors say spanned 3 states

(Newser) - A former Arizona elected official and adoption lawyer has been sentenced to six years in prison in Arkansas for what prosecutors say was a scheme that involved smuggling dozens of pregnant women from the Marshall Islands into US states to give birth, reports the Washington Post . Paul Petersen, 45, "...

One of the Final Places Without COVID Reports First Cases

2 arrivals from Hawaii are in quarantine in Marshall Islands

(Newser) - A remote Pacific nation has finally been touched by the coronavirus. The Marshall Islands reported its first positive cases on Thursday, saying two workers at a US base on Kwajalein atoll tested positive after arriving on a military flight from Honolulu on Tuesday. The 35-year-old woman and 46-year-old man's...

Report Paints Grim Picture of US Treatment of Islands

'Los Angeles Times': Marshall Islands dome with radioactive soil in danger of failure

(Newser) - The US used the Marshall Islands as a regular testing site for nuclear weapons decades ago. Now a new investigative report in the Los Angeles Times finds that the repercussions remain all too real. The most tangible sign of this is the Runit Dome—a massive concrete dome built by...

The Nuclear Waste We Buried in the Marshall Islands Might Start Leaking

'Coffin' in Marshall Islands was never intended to be permanent

(Newser) - The United States military conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958, including the 1954 hydrogen bomb that sent a massive mushroom cloud over Bikini Atoll and covered nearby inhabited islands in radioactive ash. The US built a "kind of coffin" in the...

'90% of Bikinians Have Never Seen Bikini. It's a Legend'

In Pacific, rising tensions evoke troubling nuclear legacy

(Newser) - As a young boy growing up on Bikini Atoll, Alson Kelen spent idyllic days playing on the beach and fishing. With fewer than 150 people on the remote Pacific island it was a close community, he says, with few signs of the former US nuclear testing program other than...

Earhart Experts Cast Doubt on New Photo

Her plane didn't have enough fuel to reach Marshall Islands, says one

(Newser) - Any clue about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart should thrill Ric Gillespie, who's spent nearly three decades trying to solve the 80-year-old case. But a lost photograph included in a History documentary, which purportedly shows that Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan survived a 1937 plane crash in the Marshall...

Displaced Bikini Islanders Seek Another New Start in US

Having survived atomic testing, they're now threatened by climate change

(Newser) - Their first home was destroyed by nuclear testing. Their new home is being threatened by climate change. Now the former residents of Bikini Atoll want to use their million-dollar government trust fund to resettle in the US, USA Today reports. More than 150 residents of Bikini Atoll were moved 500...

Teacher: I Was Given 'Key' to Earhart Mystery

Experts analyzing plane parts found on atoll in Marshall Islands

(Newser) - A $500,000 search operation will once again scour the Pacific island of Nikumaroro next month for signs of Amelia Earhart's plane. But if you ask Dick Spink, they're looking in the wrong place. Spink, a high school teacher from Washington state, has spent $50,000 searching for...

Rising Seas Wash Up WWII Skeletons

Climate change puts Marshall Islands at risk, official says

(Newser) - The Pacific Ocean is rising so quickly that it's washed up a little history—in the form of 26 dead soldiers from World War II, the BBC reports. At climate-change talks in Germany, Tony De Brum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, said spring tides did the damage: "...

A Tiny David Sues the World's Nuclear Goliaths

Marshall Islands call for justice in non-proliferation treaty

(Newser) - The world's nuclear powers are getting hauled into international court by a tiny challenger. The Marshall Islands are suing the nine nuke-equipped countries in nine cases in the Hague—though the case against the US was also filed in a San Francisco federal court, Reuters reports. The Islands hold...

Castaway Arrives Home a Celebrity

Fisherman back in El Salvador after 13 months adrift

(Newser) - A fisherman who says he spent 13 months drifting across the Pacific Ocean finally made it home to El Salvador last night and was overwhelmed by the welcome. Jose Salvador Alvarenga was met by family members, government officials, and dozens of journalists. He attempted to address the media but was...

A Week Later, Guy Lost at Sea Looks ... Worse

Jose Salvador Alvarenga appears weak, tired in appearance today

(Newser) - Jose Salvador Alvarenga seemed in pretty good shape when he washed ashore last week after what he said was more than a year lost at sea. Today, however, the Salvadoran—sporting a short, new haircut and a shave—appeared a lot worse for the wear and needed help entering his...

Man's Incredible Year-at-Sea Story Is 'Plausible'

Mexican officials seem to back some details of Jose Salvador Alvarenga's tale

(Newser) - A mysterious man drifted ashore in the Marshall Islands last week, and his story is almost unbelievable—but is it too unbelievable? A refresher : Jose Salvador Alvarenga says he and a teen named Ezekiel set out from Mexico in December 2012 and ended up adrift at sea; Ezekiel perished, but...

Guy Lost at Sea for Year-Plus Tells His Story

Jose Salvador Albarengo arrives in Majuro

(Newser) - The shrimp and shark fisherman who says he spent more than a year adrift at sea before washing up at a remote Pacific atoll last week arrived in the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro today. The man, who previously identified himself as Jose Ivan, told officials his full name is...

Man Says He Spent 16 Months Lost at Sea

Jose Ivan washed ashore on a remote atoll this week after setting off in 2012

(Newser) - No, this isn't the plot of Life of Pi retold, but it sure sounds like it. A bearded, emaciated man wearing only tattered underpants washed onto a remote Pacific atoll in the Marshall Islands yesterday, and told the locals who found him he'd been floating at sea in...

Island Nation Creates Largest Shark Sanctuary

Protected area size of Mexico

(Newser) - A Mexico-size chunk of the Pacific will soon be a haven for sharks—and they have a tiny island nation to thank. The Marshall Islands’ government is declaring its waters off-limits to commercial shark fishing and the trade of shark products, the BBC reports, providing the creatures with 750,000...

If Marshall Island Sinks, Will It Still Be a Nation?
If Marshall Islands Sink,
Does Nation Still Exist?
in case you missed it
Dec 11, 2010 1:50 PM CST

If Marshall Islands Sink, Does Nation Still Exist?

All kinds of thorny legal questions lurk

(Newser) - The rising ocean is swallowing the Marshall Islands, and the tiny nation’s 61,000 residents are wondering: What then? Will they still have a country, complete with a UN seat, and control of their fisheries and now-submerged minerals? “We’re facing a set of issues unique in the...

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