Local carver Jill Benavente talks about the sinahi and its place in the
Chamorro cultural revival. The film was produced by Ronnie Ray Blas
Melissa Meno, Da'kota, and Nina Mishio Peck . The producers were
students in Dr. Anne Hattori's Spring 2012 Modern Pacific History (HI
444) course at the University of Guam. The film is part of an ongoing
Guam Oral Histories project made possible by the College of Liberal Arts
and Social Sciences at the University of Guam.
World Bank Rankings Fail the Needs of the Pacific – Pacific NGO
The recent praise handed down to some Pacific Islands from the World Bank’s 2015 Doing Business rankings is sending the wrong message claims the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG). The rankings compare the ease of doing business across countries compared to the world’s ‘best practice’.
“The latest rankings again display the absurd contest between countries to see who can be the most pro-business without any regard for what that real costs are for social, environmental, cultural or human rights,” commented PANG Coordinator Maureen Penjueli.
“It rewards countries' lowering of social, environmental, cultural and human rights safe guards, therefore allowing the exploitation of natural resources and human capital by foreign investors and local elites,” continued Ms Penjueli.
The World Bank has singled out Palau, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu as countries who have undertaken reforms to encourage business growth over the last year.
“The rankings act to pressure small islands states in the Pacific to implement the reforms that major industrial economies currently enact. These are the same economies that used many of the domestic policies which the World Bank’s rankings would frown upon to in fact develop and nurture their local industries and capacities,” added Ms Penjueli
Since 2002, through this annual publication, the World Bank has been benchmarking and ranking countries according to “the ease of doing business. The Doing Business is based on the principles of privatization, deregulation, low taxation for corporations, and ‘free market’ fundamentalism.
The rankings are again attracting criticism from the multi-continental campaign “Our Land Our Business” who challenge the legitimacy and mandate of the World Bank to issue such rankings. The international campaign is calling on the World Bank to stop pressuring developing countries such as Pacific island countries to free up land for investment and other activities that aim to ease the costs of doing business for multinational corporations.
Ms Penjueli continued “there are no winners in the race to the bottom created by the Doing Business rankings, which are today’s version of the Structural Adjustment Programs that devastated livelihoods of millions of people through the withdrawal of state intervention and the forced liberalization of national economies in the 1980s and 1990s.”
“The many facets and connections that make up the Pacific reality, like custom control of land, sit opposed to this system of ranking the Pacific economies. It is not for the World Bank to come in and tell Pacific Islanders that becoming like the major economies is what is best for them, the World Bank has no right to do so” concluded Ms Penjueli.
Motion Filed in Case to Protect Pacific Whales, Dolphins from Navy Sonar
Millions of marine mammals face injury, death off Hawai‘i, Southern California
The Navy and Fisheries Service estimate this training will cause nearly 9.6 million instances of harm to whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.
October 30, 2014
Honolulu, HI — Earthjustice, representing Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, the Animal Welfare Institute, Center for Biological Diversity and Ocean Mammal Institute, filed a motion for summary judgment with the federal court here today.
The filing represents the latest salvo in lawsuit originally filed in December 2013 that challenges the National Marine Fisheries Service’s approval of a 5-year plan by the U.S. Navy for testing and training activities off Hawai‘i and Southern California.
The Navy and Fisheries Service estimate this training will cause nearly 9.6 million instances of harm to whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. The operations will include active sonar and explosives, which are known to cause permanent injuries and deaths to marine mammals.
The National Environmental Policy Act requires that a range of alternatives be considered, including alternatives that could be pursued with less environmental harm, and that the public have an opportunity to review and comment on that analysis. The groups claim the Fisheries Service approved the Navy’s plan without evaluating any alternatives that would place biologically important areas off-limits to training and testing.
Since the initial filing, the lawsuit was expanded to also name the Navy as a defendant and to challenge the plan’s violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
BACKGROUND
Ocean mammals depend on hearing for navigation, feeding, and reproduction. Scientists have linked military sonar and live-fire activities to mass whale beaching, exploded eardrums, and even death. In 2004, during war games near Hawai‘i, the Navy’s sonar was implicated in a mass stranding of up to 200 melon-headed whales in Hanalei Bay, Kaua‘i.
The Navy and Fisheries Service estimate that, over the plan’s five-year period, training and testing activities will result in thousands of animals suffering permanent hearing loss, lung injuries or death. Millions of animals will be exposed to temporary injuries and disturbances, with many subjected to multiple harmful exposures.
Chanting Through Time is a short film produced by Charlene Flores,
Jamielyn Mantanona, Ana Cornwell, and Brandon Lee Cruz from the
University of Guam's Modern Pacific History Class HI-444.
A Typical President’s Daughter Probably Wouldn’t Blockade the World’s Biggest Coal Port, but Milañ Loeak Did
Pacific Climate Warriors did something amazing earlier this
month. Using traditional canoes, they paddled out to block the path of
coal ships headed toward the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle,
Australia. Milañ Loeak, daughter of the president of the Marshall
Islands, was among the protestors. Watch her speak out about the
blockade and the collective faith and strength of the Pacific Warriors.
