BRIEFS July 23, 2014 ANNOUNCEMENT: Yap SBDC Schedules Business Workshop In August COLONIA, Yap (Yap SBDC/Media Division) — The Yap Small Business Development Center (Yap SBDC) wishes to announce and invite the general public to a business workshop on how to manage employer/employee and coworker relations. The workshop is scheduled for August 20 and 21, 2014, from 10:00 AM TO 1:00 PM at the Yap SBDC conference room. The event is open to the public, and is geared specifically toward business owners and managers who want to improve their understanding of employer/employee relations. The workshop is free, but advanced registration is required. To register or to get more information, interested individuals or organizations may call the Yap SBDC at Tel: (691)350-4801. Market events The Small Business Development Center is reminding its members, vendors and customers that the upcoming market day events for the month of July will fall on July 23rd and 24th, 2014 from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm. The events will take place on both days at the front parking lot of the Small Business Development Center. Interested individuals and organizations may call the SBDC at 350-4801 for more information or clarification. Tony Ganngiyan Sponsoring Yap State Media “Live” Broadcasting For The 8th Micro-Games COLONIA, Yap (DY&CA, Media Division - Release July 23, 2014) - Three days into the 8th Micronesian games in Pohnpei State, the Yap State Media crew on the ground has not been able to transmit complete live feed back home leaving the public outraged. Upon learning himself that the Yap State Media crew on V6AI Radio couldn’t cover the 8thMicronesian games in Pohnpei live because of technical issues, Tony Ganngiyan inquired deeper into how to make such service be rendered to all listeners by listening live to all Yap Team’s games updates in Pohnpei state until closing on July 30th, 2014. Yap State Media Team arrived in Pohnpei onJuly 16, 2014 with intent to cover the 8thMicronesian games including live radio broadcasting back home for the Yapese listeners. Unfortunately, the media center at the Olympic site in Pohnpei was not made available for the crew to transmit signals back to Yap on free live connection. While the Media crew was able to put forth segments of the opening ceremony on July 20, 2014, it wasn’t satisfactory due to limited minutes allocated to the crew. With coordination between the FSMTC Headquarter and Mr. Ganngiyan, an account has been created for the Media crew in Pohnpei to utilize for live coverage of the events into Yap beginning today, July 23 untilJuly 30, 2014. “We are grateful for this unexpected sponsorship”, said Tamagken, Media Chief for V6AI Radio. “Despite all pre arrangement with our counterparts at the FSMPIO and other technical people in the games, free connection wasn’t made available leaving us crippled on live broadcasting. While we are doing other on-the-ground coverage people of Yap deserve live updates on what’s happening all the way into the Neighboring Islands of Yap. We are indebted to this kind of benevolence service”, concluded Mr. Tamagken. MV Hapilmohol To Make Special Run COLONIA, Yap ( PW&T, Sea Transportation Release – July 23, 2014) The Division of Sea Transportation has issued a new departure schedule for the State Inter Island vessel MV Hapilmohol, to neighboring islands within the State of Yap where Solar Energy Projects has been installed by Yap State Public Service Corporation. MV Hapilmohol will depart Yap Proper at 6:00 pm on July 30, 2014, to service Ulithi Atoll, Fais Island, Falalap Island in Woleai Atoll and Satawal Island, where Solar Energy Development Projects have been currently ongoing. Due to limited space, the Division of Sea Transportation is encouraging both the Private Businesses and the Government to book accordingly as to avoid any last minute delays. The Division of Sea Transportation is also requesting that all cargo be palletized and booked accordingly before delivery to the stevedoring company. This will allow a speedy turn around of the State Ship MV Hapilmohol, which is scheduled to arrive within this week. Following are the schedule dates and times for bookings. Cargo booking for Government and Private Businesses will open on July 18, 2014 at 9:00 am and close on July 24, 2014 at 4:30 pm. Last day of cargo for delivery to Stevedore Company is on July 25, 2014 before 4:30 pm. Private passenger bookings will open on July 25, 2014 at 9:00 am and close July 28, 2014 at 4:30 pm. Screening for passengers will begin at 3:00 pmon the departure day July 30, 2014. The MV Hapilmohol is being scheduled to return to Yap on August 7th, 2014 at 7:00 am. For further information or clarification please contact The Division of Sea Transportation at 350 -2403. Chuuk Needs Close To 100 Teachers WENO, Chuuk (MV Guam Edition, July 23, 2014) — The Chuuk Department of Education needs to hire nearly 100 teachers to make up for a potential shortage in their local public school system. Chuuk DOE Director Gardenia Macayaon and her team are conducting interviews at Guam Community College for potential new teachers. “We have a need for many teachers. Chuuk has 71 schools. Many of them are short of teachers right now,” Macayaon told Variety in an interview. Although the department doesn’t have the exact figures, Macayaon confirmed that they are looking at close to a hundred teachers to replace those who have left or will be retiring in the coming school year. Moreover, she said they have to prepare for September 2015 when the department has to let go all uncertified teachers. At present, Macayaon said there are 74 uncertified teachers in the Chuuk public school system. The department has been working closely with partners such as GCC to identify graduating students in educator training programs. Although they only received three applications yesterday, the department has met with 15 potential applicants who expressed a strong desire to help the schools in Chuuk. The department recently sent out a call via GCC for postsecondary students who are in the process of earning a degree and college graduates interested in making a difference in Chuuk. The interviews will continue today, July 23, from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1:30 to 5 p.m. at the GCC Center for Student Involvement, Room 5101, at the Student Center. Expected Drought Likely To Lead To Coral Bleaching In Palau KOROR, Palau (Island Times/PIR, July 22, 2014) — Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) CEO Yimnang Golbuu said that there is a big possibility that Palau will again experience severe coral bleaching with a drought predicted to occur either this year or next year. In a phone interview yesterday (July 21), Golbuu said that if a drought occurs as predicted, the possibility is that coral bleaching will hit sometime in the summer of 2015. Coral bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients, they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white. According to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO), an El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event, also known as El Niño, is predicted to continue to develop throughout this summer and into 2015. In Palau, according to Golbuu, this phenomenon leads to severe droughts and high seawater temperatures. He said that the result of abnormally high water temperature, from weeks to months, causes corals to bleach. The PICRC CEO added that current predictions point to Palau experiencing a severe to moderate drought. Coral bleaching follows a drought. Let us just hope that it will not be severe, so we will not be the same as what happened in 1998, Golbuu said. The 1998 coral bleaching episode in Palau was relatively severe and widespread across depths, sites, habitats, and coral taxa. It was said that 20-30 percent of coral reefs in Palau were wiped out as a result of that bleaching. Golbuu said that Palau is now more prepared in addressing such problem. When the 1998 bleaching occurred, there was still no PICRC. Now, we are more prepared for such occurrence, he said. According to a press release from the PICRC, a research team from the agency conducted a survey from June to July 2014 to assess the status of Palau’s reefs at their 22 permanent monitoring sites. It says that these underwater surveys followed the standardized monitoring protocol, recording data on benthic cover (photo quadrants) and on the abundance and size estimates of fishes and invertebrates. The press release also disclosed that throughout the entire summer period, PICRC also closely monitored seawater temperature using underwater data loggers. It says that in case of the occurrence of a bleaching event, which is expected in late July to early August in 2015, PICRC will do a large scale, rapid survey of 80 sites during the bleaching event to assess where and which corals bleach. The press release further disclosed that Follow-up surveys will be conducted at the 22 permanent sites after the bleaching event to examine mortality and recovery from bleaching. It says that data collected will help the researchers understand the effects of a bleaching event on the whole reef community, including invertebrates and fishes, in Palau. Golbuu said that at a time of rapid global climate change, ENSO events accompanied with the occurrence of abnormally high seawater temperature are predicted to occur more frequently and intensely. Therefore, according to him, it is essential to understand where corals bleach, and which corals die or recover, during these events. Judging by the last ENSO event, it has been shown that some reefs around Palau are more temperature tolerant than others, and are therefore more adapted to survive in waters with higher temperature, he said. The research by PICRC will help to identify where these temperature-tolerant reefs are located in Palau so that they can be given special focus for protection. These special areas might hold the key to our reefs survival in an increasingly warming world, he concluded. Coral bleaching also occurred in Palau in 2010, but it was not severe and only caused little damage among corals and coral reefs. Sport: Guam Still On Top After Two Days Of Micro Games POHNPEI, Micronesia (Radio New Zealand International, July 23, 2014) — Guam have retained their lead atop the Micronesian Games medal table after the first two days of competition. The US territory again dominated in the pool, winning 11 of the 14 events, with Jagger Stephens and Benjamin Schulte claiming four gold medals each, including relay races. Guam also won gold in team spear-fishing with a total haul of 99 pounds. Elsewhere, there were 55 medals handed out in athletics, including new Games records for the Pohnpei womens 4x100m relay team and Palaus Christina Wicker in the womens 5,000m, who also won gold in the 1500m. After two days Guam has 21 gold medals, 12 silver and 4 bronze. Hosts Pohnpei are second with 13 gold and 37 medals in all. Impacts On Pacific Of Radio Australia Cuts To Be Raised At Forum MELBOURNE, Australia (Radio Australia/PIR,July 22, 2014) — The impact of recently announced cuts to Radio Australia and other international services of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is likely to be raised at a Pacific leaders meeting in Palau next week. Vanuatus Lands Minister Ralph Regenvanu says the proposed cuts, which will see programs axed and 80 jobs lost from services to the Pacific and Asia, will affect Australias relations with Pacific countries. There is going to be a reduced presence of Australia throughout the region because Radio Australia and ABC have been like the presence of Australia throughout the communities, he said. Australias deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss will be attending the 45th Pacific Islands Forum in Palau next week. Mr. Regenvanu believes a number of leaders will raise the issue with Mr. Truss. The cuts are the ABCs response to the Australian governments decision in its May budget to cancel the $223 million ten-year contract for Australia Network Television, amounting to a 60 per cent cut to funding for the ABCs International services. The proposed changes announced last week will see the ABC keep a 6-hour television service for the Pacific, to be called Australia Plus and its existing Australia Plus online and mobile services. Radio Australia will continue as a 24-hour service with hourly news bulletins from 5amuntil 6pm but all its English language programs made for a Pacific audience, except Pacific Beat, will be axed and replaced by domestic ABC programming. Pacific Beat will also have reduced resources. Mr. Regenvanu says he is disappointed by the changes. We knew that there was going to be some cutting because of the statements by the government prior to the election. However, we were hoping it wasnt going to be this extensive, especially to the Pacific service because as you know throughout the Pacific often the services of ABC, Radio Australia are the services people use to access news, more than even our national broadcasters, he said. In Vanuatu for example, in many places throughout the country they access news about the world, and even about Vanuatu, from the ABC because the reach of the national broadcaster Radio Vanuatu isnt as extensive as the ABC and often you cant get the same service you get in terms of news content. Director of the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University, Professor Stephen Howes, says the ABC has a particularly important role to play in the Pacific where media choices are thin on the ground, and he is taken aback by the proposed changes. I am pretty surprised and stunned to be honest, he said. Obviously there had to be cuts with the loss of the network and I guess with the new era of integration that was going to have some spill over on to radio but we didnt expect the cuts of this size, especially to impact Pacific correspondents and programming. There are quite a large number of Australians interested in the Pacific, working in the Pacific and they really rely on Radio Australia to bring that news. While it is good that Pacific Beat has been spared it is very hard to see how Pacific Beat will continue to function with all the cuts to it and going on around it. Correspondents to go All Australia Network and Radio Australia correspondent positions, including its Pacific, Indonesia and India Correspondents and Canberra Correspondent will be abolished. However, the ABC will maintain its foreign bureaux in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. Multi-award winning Pacific Correspondent Sean Dorney is one of those facing redundancy and says he is astonished by the extent of the changes. It doesnt surprise me in the least that my job has been declared to be non-existent anymore because principally I was working for the Australia Network service and in the budget that was what was cut, Mr. Dorney said. What does surprise me a little is that other jobs that werent actually part of the Australia Network set up, but part of Radio Australia, have also gone in this rejuggling that the ABC has done to try and maintain some sort of a service across more than just radio. Australia Network axing sends a strange message The Australian governments decision to end funding for the Australia Network is thought to have been made after it was angered by ABC reporting of Australian spying on Indonesias President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his inner circle. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says she saw Australia Network as a poor use of the soft-power diplomacy dollar. There was criticism over the bidding process for the Australia Network contract and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says with internet options available Australia Networks service had been overtaken by technology. ABC Managing Director Mark Scott lobbied the government to save the ABC International television service in the lead up to the budget announcement. On budget night, he said the decision sends a strange message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available ... to talk to our regional neighbors about Australia. The proposed changes have been put to staff for consultation. During that period Mr. Scott is unavailable for comment. In documents given to staff, the ABC says the changes focus on maintaining and developing those services with the strongest audience engagement and the greatest potential for growth. -END- COMMUNITY MESSAGE: Laws and ethics are clear on how government property, say, a government vehicle, a tool or any other property, should be managed by those who are entrusted with the responsibility. And it is not just State property, but national property in our land. It would be lying that folks who are entrusted with the responsibility are not clear on their legal and ethical obligations against personal and illegal use of the property. And it is not lying that we make the obligations even less important when we look the other way—not our own business kind of look. We have been digging our own grave for quite a while now and this nice digging tool has been quite helpful with the digging.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 12:48:47 +0000
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