People Briefs
People Briefs
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Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas was awarded a coveted Year 2000 Philippine Presidential Banaag Awards. Tenorio received the honor for his commitment to promote the well-being and uplift the conditions of some 20,000 Filipino workers in the Northern Marianas. The Presidential Awards is a biennial worldwide search.
After directing the South Pacific Peoples Foundation/Pacific People's Partnership for nine years from its British Columbia, Canada base, Stuart Wulff has moved on. Under Wulff's direction, PPP's quarterly Tok Blong Pacifik newsletter blossomed into a crisply designed publication addressing important, but often forgotten issues in the Pacific region, ranging from East Timor's road to independence to Fiji's veterans of nuclear testing at Christmas Island.
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Anthony Corn has been named Regional Sales Manager for Air Nauru. Prior to joining the airline, he served as marketing communications manager at the Hilton Guam Resort and Spa. Replacing him at the Hilton is Sheila Baker-Cayetano, who joined Hilton International in 1995.
Governor General Sir Silas Atopare, in welcoming new U.S. ambassador Susan Jacobs to Papua New Guinea in early November, thanked the United States for the role its citizens are playing in developing PNG. Jacobs succeeds another woman ambassador, Arma Jane Karaer, who recently returned to Washington, D.C.
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Saane K. Aho, a graduate of the University of Portland, was recently named administrator of the Marshall Islands Social Security Administration. She is the first woman to head the agency that oversees both the national retirement fund and the country's health fund. Her appointment to the post came from a reform-minded board that was named early last year.
Manfred Pieper has been named General Manager of the Hilton Guam Resort and Spa. Pieper, who joined Hilton International in 1969, has extensive hotel experience in Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Asia and the Pacific. From 1988 to 1995, he was GM of the Guam Hilton. Then he was promoted to Vice President for East Asia and Thailand, and in 1998 to VP for Hilton Hotels in Japan, Korea, China, Philippines and Micronesia along with duties as GM of the Hilton Tokyo. He replaces Herman Ehrlich, who was named GM of the Hilton Cairns in Queensland, Australia.
Interior Department Insular Affairs Director Danny Aranza delighted Guam leaders during his late October visit when he delivered a check worth nearly $10 million for Compact of Free Association "impact assistance" to Guam Gov. Carl Gutierrez. He also presented a check for $1 million for the same purpose to Northern Marianas Commonwealth Acting Gov. Jesus R. Sablan. The money is in response to complaints that the large numbers of citizens from the Freely Associated States who have migrated to Guam and Saipan are eating up social and health services budgets.
In one election where there was no controversy about the outcome, Guam's incumbent Delegate to the U.S. Congress, Robert Underwood, easily won reelection in November, gaining 29,099 votes to defeat Manny Cruz, who received 8,167 votes. Underwood is a Democrat.
The Roman Catholic Church has announced the appointment of the Rev. John Ribat as one of two new bishops in Papua New Guinea. Father Ribat, 43, was the Director of Novices of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Suva, Fiji. Born in Rakival, on the island of Watom, in East New Britain province, he was ordained priest in 1985.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon was welcomed by President Kessai Note with a state dinner on his arrival in the Marshall Islands in October. Moon, spiritual head of the religious group known officially as the Unification Church and unofficially as the "Moonies", and who owns the conservative Washington Times and other newspapers worldwide, flew into the Marshall Islands on a private jet with his wife and an entourage of 15. He spent most of his four days in Majuro on charter boats sportsfishing.
American Hawaii Cruises has named Captain Evans W. Hoyt master of the S.S. Independence, an 860-passenger vessel that sails to five major ports on four Hawaiian islands once a week. Tom Carman, senior vice president of marine operations for the parent company, American Classic Voyages Co., made the announcement. The U.S.-flag S.S. Independence homeports in Kahului, Maui. Hoyt's 18 years of maritime experience includes officer positions aboard several ocean-going cruise, cargo, and military vessels.
Amelia Kinahoi Siamomua has been appointed as Women's Development Adviser to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), bringing a passion for gender issues and 15 years experience in technical assistance work, development and economic policy to the Noumea-based Pacific Women's Resource Bureau. Currently the Development Cooperation Advisor at the Forum Secretariat in Suva, she moves to SPC in late January. Prior to the Forum Secretariat, the Tongan national was based in Port Vila with the Asian Development Bank.
In Memoriam
Powerful Kwajalein landowner Handel Dribo died in October. The "sail-in" protest actions that he led beginning in the late 1960s at the U.S. Army's key missile testing base in the Marshall Islands—when few had heard of missile testing and representation by big time lawyers was far in the future—helped set the stage for increasing compensation payments from a few thousand dollars annually to the multi-million dollar levels that have been achieved.
Kiribati Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs and Rural Development Tewareka Tentoa collapsed and died in Parliament in mid-November, while delivering a statement on improving electrical services in the country. Tungaru Central Hospital reported that the Vice President suffered from heart problems. President Teburoro Tito and First Lady Keina Tito led a who's who of Kiribati dignitaries at the funeral service. Before becoming a politician from his home island of Onotoa in 1982, Tentoa, 58, was a teacher.
U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates, who chaired the powerful House Appropriations Committee that oversaw funding to all of the American-affiliated Pacific Islands, died at the age of 91 in early October. He was the longest serving member of Congress, having served 24 terms when he retired in 1999. Bikini attorney Jonathan Weisgall, called him a "champion" for Marshall Islands nuclear victims. Weisgall described Yates' hearings as "high theater, the best show in town. During one memorable hearing, at which (U.S.) High Commissioner Adrian Winkel and Office of Territorial and International Affairs Director Ruth Van Cleve testified, Mr. Yates kept referring to the High Commissioner as 'Mr. Van Winkel.' Whether he joined them at the hip by accident or on purpose, we'll never know."
