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AOSIS: Alliance of Small Island States

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is a coalition of small island and low-lying coastal countries that share similar development challenges and concerns about the environment, especially their vulnerability to the adverse effects of global climate change. It functions primarily as an ad hoc lobby and ( Read more... )

So Palau (widely called Belau in Micronesia) has agreed to take the 17 Uighurs from Gitmo in exchange for $200 million. The part of the story that is striking to me is that apparently nobody else has been willing to take the Uighurs, because the PRC wants them back and has been pressuring other countries not to take them. Why was Palau willing to ( Read more... )

My brother e-mailed me today with the news that John Mangefel died in April at age 75. Mangefel was a powerful figure on Yap and in Micronesia. When my family moved to Yap in 1966, he was Superintendent for Elementary Schools on the island, and thus my father -- a teacher and principal -- got to know him a little. In 1967, he was elected to the ( Read more... )