Category Archives: Guam

Pacific island governor backs $800m US military upgrade amid China threat

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Northern Mariana Islands governor says ‘the world is changing in the Indo-Pacific’ as work continues in the US territory on defense development

The governor of the Northern Mariana Islands says an $800m US military upgrade plan which includes a new airfield in the Pacific territory “has to happen” amid concern over China’s recent missile tests in the region.

Tinian, home to about 3,500 people, is one of the three main islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated US territory. During the second world war, the US launched a nuclear bomb against Japan from Tinian, and now a major rehabilitation of a deserted airfield and other military upgrades are under way on the island.

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Pacific Islands warn US over Chinese threat and urge Biden to increase aid

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GOP-led House committee convenes on Guam as officials say Beijing working to ‘fill perceived voids in America’s assistance’

Countering China and bolstering national security dominated the conversation in a Hilton hotel on Guam, 15 hours before and oceans away from the Milwaukee arena hosting the first Republican primary debate.

Nine members of the GOP-led House committee on natural resources convened on Guam for a rare field hearing – during the summer recess – on countering China’s influence in the region.

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Guam fears becoming ‘target’ over planned $1.5bn US defence system

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Proposed air and missile defences raise ire of residents who are also concerned about environmental impacts

A planned missile defence system on the island of Guam could turn the US Pacific territory into a “target,” local residents have said, as opposition to the plans grow.

The Pentagon plans to invest $1.5bn in a 360-degree, air and missile defence architecture on Guam. It aims to complete the system by 2027.

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Weather tracker: Typhoon Mawar narrowly avoids landfall as it hits Guam

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Wind and rain bring island to a standstill but eye replacement cycle fortuitously weakens it temporarily

Earlier this week, Typhoon Mawar whipped up a storm in western Micronesia as the category 4 storm came close to landfall on the island of Guam. Starting out as a tropical depression over the weekend, Mawar rapidly deepened and intensified over the following couple of days, almost reaching category 5 by Tuesday evening. Wind gusts peaked at 155mph (250km/h), briefly making Mawar a super typhoon about 100 miles south-east of the US island territory.

In a stroke of luck an eyewall replacement cycle occurred overnight, hours before the then super typhoon was due to reach Guam. The cycle involves the slight degradation of the storm’s structure as a new eye develops around the old eye. Consequentially, the storm’s intensity weakened temporarily while simultaneously spreading strong winds over a larger area. Mawar’s winds dropped to a sustained speed of 140mph as the typhoon brushed the northern edge of Guam at about 7am local time (2200 BST) Had Mawar made landfall, it would have been the first category 4 typhoon to do so since Typhoon Pamela in 1976.

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Typhoon Mawar tears through Guam, leaving most of island without power

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Electricity lines and trees downed and ‘what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks’ as governor declares the worst is over

Much of Guam was without power and running water after a typhoon packing ferocious winds and torrential rains battered the western Pacific island but caused no reported fatalities or serious injuries.

Residents in the US territory were ordered to boil their water until further notice amid water contamination concerns as crews repaired generators damaged by Typhoon Mawar, according to local media and Guam’s water authority.

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China-backed hackers spying on US critical infrastructure, says Five Eyes

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Targets include US military facilities on Guam that would be key in an Asia-Pacific conflict, say Microsoft and western spy agencies

A state-sponsored Chinese hacking group has been spying on a wide range of US critical infrastructure organisations and similar activities could be occurring globally, western intelligence agencies and Microsoft have warned.

“The United States and international cybersecurity authorities are issuing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to highlight a recently discovered cluster of activity of interest associated with a People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actor, also known as Volt Typhoon,” said a statement released by authorities in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK – countries that make up the Five Eyes intelligence network.

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Weather tracker: Guam and Philippines brace for Typhoon Mawar

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Typhoon projected to affect US territory of Guam as early as Tuesday. Elsewhere, Europe is heating up

Over the weekend, a rapidly intensifying region of thunderstorms in the western Pacific culminated in the formation of Typhoon Mawar.

The movement of this storm is projected to affect the Mariana Islands, including the US territory of Guam, as early as Tuesday. There is a risk of wind speeds above 75mph, with torrential rain.

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North Korea has fired another ballistic missile, South says

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Launch was the sixth in 12 days and the first since an intermediate-range missile was fired over Japan on Tuesday

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missile toward its east coast in the direction of Japan, after joint South Korean and US missile drills and the return of a US aircraft carrier to the region in response to the North’s recent missile tests.

The missile launch was the sixth in 12 days and the first since North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile (IRBM) over Japan on Tuesday.

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Guam’s vaccination success story turns grim with Covid surge

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Once the great vaccination success story, the island is under strain amid a new wave of infections, but experts say cases would be far higher without vaccine coverage

Outside Guam Memorial hospital, blue medical tents have sprung up to accomodate an overflow of Covid patients.

The sight is bewildering for Guam residents. The island ran an incredibly successful vaccination campaign, with almost 90% of eligible people having received two doses, and even began offering jabs to tourists in an “Air VnV” – vacation and vaccination – scheme.

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From vaccine mandates to a chatting ban: how schools in the Asia Pacific are managing Delta

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Outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant have led to closures in some countries, while others push to keep classrooms open

As countries across Asia battle worsening Covid outbreaks, schools face particular challenges in keeping children and teachers safe. Some countries – determined that classrooms stay open – are relying on measures like masks, smaller groups and even bans on talking in class to limit infections. In others, schools remain shut.

Here’s a look at what countries around Asia and the region are doing to prevent Covid spread in schools:

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Left stranded: US military sonar linked to whale beachings in Pacific, say scientists

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Islands surrounded by US military study area, including Guam and Saipan, call for activity that harms the whales to stop

In the midst of the western Pacific, flanked by the world’s deepest ocean trench, the waters off the Mariana Islands are home and habitat to whales, dolphins, and countless other marine mammals as they breed and feed.

It’s also where they encounter the might of the US military.

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Pacific nations herald Biden presidency amid hope for action on climate emergency

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Optimism abounds as leaders from Fiji to Papua New Guinea welcome the new US president-elect

Joe Biden’s presidential ascension had not even been settled when Fiji’s forthright prime minister was already urging greater US action on climate change from the incoming American leader.

“Congratulations Joe Biden,” Frank Bainimarama tweeted on Saturday afternoon. “Together, we have a planet to save from a climate emergency and a global economy to build back better from Covid-19.”

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The US election that doesn’t count: Guam goes to the polls but votes won’t matter

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‘Now that I live in Guam, I cannot vote’. The first Americans to ‘vote’ on polling day have no say in who will be president

Politics is a favourite sport on the streets of Hagatna, where voters are preparing for the US elections.

Billboards adorn every street corner and conversations are dominated by candidates and their policies. But when Guamanians go to the polls on 3 November and mark down their preference for president, their “votes” won’t count.

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‘Poisoning the Pacific’: New book details US military contamination of islands and ocean

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More than 12,000 pages of US government documents show military operations contaminating the Pacific with radioactive waste, nerve agents, and chemical weapons like Agent Orange

In 1968, Leroy Foster was a master sergeant in the US Air Force, assigned to the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, a United States island territory in the Pacific. The day after he arrived on the island, he recalled being ordered to mix “diesel fuel with Agent Orange”, then spraying “it by truck all over the base to kill the jungle overgrowth”.

Soon after, Foster suffered serious skin complaints and eventually fell sick with Parkinson’s and ischemic heart disease. Later, his daughter had cancer as a teenager, and his grandchild was born with 12 fingers, 12 toes, and a heart murmur. Foster died in 2018.

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Guam boy, 10, dies as Covid outbreak threatens country’s health system

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Of island’s nearly 1,900 cases, 70% were diagnosed in August and September, with one in 10 tests positive

A 10-year-old boy has become Covid-19’s latest fatality on Guam, as the island struggles to rein in an outbreak that threatens to overwhelm its public health system.

The boy, who had underlying health conditions, died on Sunday night at the US Naval Hospital, 10 days after contracting the virus. He is the 26th person to die from Covid on Guam.

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‘We are in dire straits’: Pacific stands on Covid brink amid surging infections

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Rising cases in Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia, and Guam raise fears of uncontrolled coronavirus outbreaks across Pacific

Surging Covid-19 cases in Guam are threatening to overwhelm the island’s healthcare system, while rapidly spreading infections across Papua New Guinea and new clusters in French Polynesia following the resumption of tourism have sparked fears of uncontrolled outbreaks in the Pacific.

The Pacific region is still the least-infected in the world – several countries remain Covid-19 free – but there are troubling surges across countries with fragile health systems ill-equipped for large numbers of infections.

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Coronavirus in the Pacific: weekly briefing

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Covid-19-related developments throughout the Pacific Islands

The total number of Covid-19 cases across the Pacific stands at 314, with new cases reported this week in New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.

New Zealand is under increasing pressure, both internally and from across the region, to consider Pacific countries as part of its proposed travel ‘bubble’, alongside, or even in place of, Australia. The foreign minister, Winston Peters, initially rejected including Pacific island nations, but later backtracked.

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‘Look what he’s taken from me’: the deadly toll of Catholic church sex abuse on Guam

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There are now nearly 300 sexual abuse lawsuits against more than 20 priests on the deeply religious island in the western Pacific

Roosters crow in the distance as Walter Denton gestures toward a white one-storey concrete building behind a church in Agat, a village in southern Guam.

“You know, just standing here, right behind you, that is where I was raped,” says Denton, 56.

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