Marshall Islands

Huge waves spawned by Typhoon Axel lashed the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro on Wednesday, submerging houses and cars in knee-deep water and leaving hundreds homeless. Waves triggered by 100 m.p.h. winds rolled across the low-lying Pacific atoll, wrecking scores of homes as the typhoon headed west across the Pacific. It was the worst storm to hit the Marshall Islands, 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii, in more than 70 years, weather officials said.

Members of the House transportation committee castigated the Coast Guard on Thursday for being insufficiently aggressive in tracking and inspecting foreign oil drill vessels such as the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 crewmen and causing the worst spill in U.S. history. Under harsh questioning, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Kevin Cook said the Deepwater Horizon, registered to the tiny Republic of the Marshall Islands, operated under a different command structure than would have been permitted for a similar vessel operating under the U.S. flag.

President Bush on Monday declared a major disaster in the Marshall Islands, allowing parts of the Pacific Ocean territory to qualify for federal disaster assistance in the aftermath of Typhoon Zelda. The aid can include temporary housing, low-interest loans and grants to help repair public structures.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean. And the Marshall Islands, a maze of tiny atolls, many smaller than the ill-fated oil rig, outsourced many of its responsibilities to private companies.

Scruffy children in tattered clothes rummage through a garbage drum full of empty beer cans near a cemetery on Ebeye Atoll in the Marshall Islands. A few miles away, four young Americans play on Kwajalein Atoll's immaculately trimmed nine-hole golf course, chasing balls on palm-fringed fairways. Only a narrow strip of green water and two islets separate Ebeye from the U.S. missile range at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, a tiny republic 2,300 miles southeast of Tokyo.

A supply ship dropped anchor Monday off one of the Marshall Islands to unload a cargo of U.S. surplus food for residents evacuated from an atoll covered by atomic fallout 31 years ago, the environmental group Greenpeace said. The Marshall Islands ship Militobi was diverted from its destination at Rongelap Atoll and sent to Mejato Island after Greenpeace spokesmen said that the food supply for the 260 persons evacuated from Rongelap was "getting desperate."

The United States has completed plans to clean up Bikini Atoll, the site of U.S. atomic bomb tests at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s. A delegation headed by U.S. Assistant Interior Secretary Stella Guerra will present the plans to the leaders of the atoll next week, a spokesman for the Bikini islanders said. Congress has provided $90 million for the cleanup.

Richard Jenkins recalls staring with wide-eyed wonder as one gigantic mushroom cloud after another fanned into the blue skies above the western Pacific's Marshall Islands 33 years ago. At the time, Jenkins, now an Oxnard resident who builds custom boats in Ventura, did not realize that the explosions would cast a pall over his life. As a Navy radio operator aboard the U.S.

When government officials decided last summer to open the first garbage dump in this tiny mid-Pacific nation, residents argued bitterly over where to put the two-acre eyesore. The only surprise was why. "Everybody wanted it on their land," recalled Ronald Cannarella, a local environmental official. "It was an incredible fight." The reason is that trash means landfill.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean. And the Marshall Islands, a maze of tiny atolls, many smaller than the ill-fated oil rig, outsourced many of its responsibilities to private companies.

The tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, with its phosphate mines nearly depleted and without any other significant natural resources, has only one thing left to sell: its international reputation. Enter Russia, which is more than happy to buy. That's how Nauru this week became the fourth country to establish formal relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The other three countries are Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, that's all it has to show after 15 months lobbying its allies to recognize the two breakaway republics, which are trying to assert their independence from Georgia with Russia's backing.

Squirting the sugar substitute xylitol on infants' teeth could help prevent the tooth decay that afflicts an estimated 28% of U.S. children ages 2 to 5, according to a new study. Severe tooth decay occurs when bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans proliferate in the mouth and attack enamel. Largely preventable, it strikes poor children twice as often as wealthier ones. The problem is compounded because decay is more likely to go untreated in poorer communities.

Tommy Remengesau Jr., the president of this tiny Pacific nation, will never forget the day four decades ago when he went sailing on his bamboo raft and returned with more fish than his family could eat. He figured his parents would be pleased. Instead, his father hit him on the head and lectured him on the principles of conservation. "I thought I was a hero," the president recalled. "But my father said, 'What are you going to do with the rest of this fish?' I never forgot that lesson."

A harmony of soulful voices and hopeful words drifted up from the whitewashed church and out over the island. "Standing ... Standing ... I'm standing on the promises of God." Women with flowers in their hair, men in neat Sunday shirts joined in the hymn to a promised future. Children crowding the concrete floor listened. Beneath a pew, in the morning heat, a dog lay panting. The pastor stepped up to his pulpit and commended the 100-strong congregation for its undying faith.

"There's a story I can tell you," a fellow called Bruno Lat said to me a few years back. "I was 13. My dad was working with the Navy as a laborer on Kwajalein" -- an atoll in Lat's native Marshall Islands, controlled by the U.S. military. "It was early, early morning. We were all outside on that day waiting in the dark. Everybody was waiting for the Bravo." That day was 50 years ago: March 1, 1954.

Your article "Keeping Up With the Rules of the Visa Game" (Travel Insider, Jan. 27) mentioned an Australian government Web site where travelers can obtain an Electronic Travel Authority for approximately $11. I was surprised that you failed to mention that ETAs can be obtained free from the commercial carrier the traveler uses to enter Australia. Most of them are part of the computerized network that is used to obtain the ETA, and all the traveler has to do is provide passport information when booking or ticketing passage.

American President Lines has had a long and proud presence in international trade, hauling cargo across the oceans as the United States' second-largest shipping company. But in a move some call unpatriotic, APL is heading for the Marshall Islands. Six new container ships to be added to the APL fleet by December will be registered in the islands under a waiver granted by the Maritime Administration in Washington.

It was only about three hours into the party and already the guest of honor had skinned out of more outfits than Gypsy Rose Lee could in a week. One minute he would be resplendent in a brand new custom-made suit, the next he would be charging around in his underwear, only to be swiftly dressed again in yet another new outfit. Pretty heady stuff for a 1-year-old.

Aloha Airlines is adding new flights to Kona, Hawaii, and to the Marshall Islands. On April 5 it begins Kona-Oakland service four times a week (it already flies to Honolulu and Maui from Oakland). On April 9 it will begin service between Honolulu and Kwajalein and Majuro in the Marshall Islands. . . . The chickens are coming home to roost in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood.

Teachers at Sonora Elementary School in Costa Mesa sometimes have a peculiar problem when they need to call a student's parents. Some children are as comfortable in the home of a friend or a cousin as they are in their own. A friend's parents might be more familiar with both children's homework routines, while another parent might be responsible for the two friends' after-school snack. An uncle might be the one who knows all about the dance the friends are learning for a weekend party.