Marshall Islands officials said they are ready to resume talks with the US this week on renewing a long-standing economic and security deal, provided Washington addresses grievances stemming from the testing of nuclear weapons on the Pacific archipelago more than 70 years ago.
The US detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958, and the health and environmental impacts are still felt on the islands and atolls that lie between Hawaii and the Philippines.
US special envoy Joseph Yun is scheduled to land in the capital, Majuro, tomorrow to resume negotiations on extending the 20-year Compact of Free Association, part of which expires next year.
Photo: AFP
Marshall Islands negotiators first want the US to pay more of the compensation awarded by the international Nuclear Claims Tribunal, totaling more than US$3 billion, of which about US$270 million has been paid so far.
Officials in Majuro broke off talks in September to renew the compact, a key international agreement between the US, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.
The Marshall Islands said it would also be ready to resume talks with Yun if Washington tackled health and environmental issues stemming from its nuclear testing.
“We are ready to sign [a compact extension] tomorrow, once the key issues are addressed,” Marshall Islands Parliament Speaker Kenneth Kedi said.
“We need to come up with a dignified solution,” he said.
Kedi represents Rongelap Atoll, which is still affected by nuclear testing. He was encouraged by an agreement signed in late September by US President Joe Biden and Pacific island leaders, including Marshall Islands President David Kabua, that included references to the US commitment to addressing its nuclear past.
However, until that happens, “it casts a question mark on all the promises Washington has made,” Kedi said.
“If we can’t resolve issues from our past, how will it be going forward with other issues?” he said.
Thousands of Marshall Islanders were engulfed in a radioactive fallout cloud following the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test by the US military, and many subsequently experienced health problems.
Tonnes of contaminated debris from the testing was dumped in a crater on the Enewetak Atoll and capped with concrete that has since cracked, sparking health concerns.
Hundreds of islanders from the Marshall’s Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik atolls have also had to relocate due to nuclear contamination. Many are still unable to return home.
A study issued by the US National Cancer Institute in 2004 estimated that about 530 cancer cases had been caused by the nuclear testing.
“As Bikinians, we’ve done enough for the United States,” said Alson Kelen, chairman of the Marshall Islands’ National Nuclear Commission, who believes the US should pay the full amount of the compensation awarded.
“We’re not asking to be rich. We’re asking for funding to solve our nuclear problems ... really the funds are to mitigate and address the problems of our health, relocations and nuclear cleanups,” Kelen said.
It is usually a serene two-and-a-half-hour ride on Japan’s famously efficient bullet train, but on Saturday, the journey quickly descended into a zombie apocalypse, with passengers screaming in terror. Organizers of the adrenaline-filled trip, less than two weeks before Halloween, touted it as the world’s first haunted house experience on a running Shinkansen. On board one chartered car of the Shinkansen, about 40 thrill-seekers were ready to brave an encounter with the living dead between Tokyo and the western metropolis of Osaka. The eerie experience was inspired by the hit 2016 South Korean action-horror movie Train to Busan, in which a father and
IRANIAN THREATS: Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami said that it would be a ‘mistake’ for Israel to attack Iran and if it did ‘we will strike you again painfully’ Israel yesterday bombed a Syrian coastal city, while the US conducted multiple strikes on targets in Yemen nearly a month into Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza all belong to the so-called “axis of resistance” led by Iran, which on Oct. 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel. Israel has vowed to retaliate for the strike. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami yesterday said in a speech that Tehran would hit Israel “painfully” if it attacks Iranian targets. “If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in
NEW RECRUITS: A video released by Ukrainian officials allegedly shows dozens of North Koreans lining up to collect military fatigues from Russian servicemen Russian aerial strikes wounded more than a dozen and knocked out electricity for tens of thousands of Ukrainians overnight in attacks on residential areas as temperatures dropped toward freezing, Kyiv said yesterday. Ukraine also said it had targeted a crucial Russian explosives factory, about 750km from the border, in an overnight drone attack, while Moscow said it had shot down 110 drones, the largest attempted aerial barrage by Kyiv in more than two weeks. At least 17 people were wounded in an attack on Kryvyi Rig, Ukraine, including a first responder, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service said. “At night, the enemy attacked Kryvyi
The space rock that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period caused a global calamity that doomed the dinosaurs and many other life forms, but that was far from the largest meteorite to strike our planet. One up to 200 times bigger landed 3.26 billion years ago, triggering worldwide destruction at an even greater scale, but as new research shows, that disaster actually might have been beneficial for the early evolution of life by serving as “a giant fertilizer bomb” for the bacteria and other single-celled organisms called archaea that held dominion at the