Chinese religious leader paroled on Guam<\/p>\n
HAGATNA, Guam (PIR) — Controversial Chinese spiritual leader Zhang Hongbao has been released on parole after being incarcerated for more than 15 months.<\/p>\n
The founder of the Zhonggong religious group in China, Zhang faces charges of entering Guam illegally.<\/p>\n
Zhang, who has appealed for political asylum, is expected to remain on Guam for several more days before traveling to Washington for an immigration appeals court hearing.<\/p>\n
The Zhonggong movement is banned in China as an “evil cult.”<\/p>\n
Excess US military land returned to Guam<\/p>\n
HAGATNA, Guam (PIR) — The federal government has returned almost 2,500 acres of excess military land to Guam.<\/p>\n
In a brief ceremony, 20 different deeds to properties held by the U.S. Navy in various parts of the island were signed over to the territorial government.<\/p>\n
After the land is surveyed, deeds will be processed by the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission, which is charged with identifying original landowners or their estates.<\/p>\n
NZ attacks Japan over Pacific whale numbers<\/p>\n
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (PIR) — Conservation minister Sandra Lee has strongly attacked Japan for what she called over-estimating whale numbers as justification for continued scientific whaling.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Lee defended the rights of indigenous people to a whale quota.<\/p>\n
She made the comments prior to the start of a regional conference this week in Apia, Samoa aimed at winning Pacific Islands nations’ support for a proposed South Pacific whale sanctuary. The sanctuary would stretch 4,400,000 square miles over a region inhabited by six whale species.<\/p>\n
Fiji’s Rabuka, Speed form new party<\/p>\n
SUVA, Fiji (PIR) — Former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Fijian Association Party leader Adi Kuini Speed have joined forces to form a new political party.<\/p>\n
Ms. Speed said the move was initiated by a “group of people extremely concerned about the state of the country.”<\/p>\n
“We are so concerned that we can’t just stand by and watch it sink,” she said.<\/p>\n
Marshall atoll re-examined for radioactivity<\/p>\n
MAJURO, Marshall Islands (PIR) — The safety of Ailuk Atoll – dusted with fallout from U.S. hydrogen bomb tests in the 1950s – is being reevaluated by independent scientists.<\/p>\n
Ailuk, home to about 400 people, is classified by the U.S. as “not exposed to nuclear test fallout.”<\/p>\n
However, a U.S. Department of Energy study shows that the atoll was exposed to levels of radioactivity significantly above internationally recognized exposure limits.<\/p>\n
The current environmental radiological survey of Ailuk is being funded by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, an agency established to compensate islanders for exposure to 67 nuclear tests in the Marshalls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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