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By Shinobu Rai College of Micronesia-FSM Student

WENO, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia (February 21-March 6, 2002 – The Kaselehlie Press)---Making canoes on my island is very important because it is a unique tradition. Canoes are built at any time and are used occasionally. For example, they are used for fishing, transportation, and especially in competitions. A typical canoe is made of a breadfruit trunk. It has one outrigger and two paddles. Having the outrigger makes the canoe easier to balance and move smoothly. A man makes a canoe in a hidden place so that when it is finished people will be surprised and that person who made it will be well known and appreciated.

How do we make them anyway?

The first thing is you need to have knives, an axe, carving tools and sandpaper. When all of these materials are settled and are with you, then you may be able to go out and start the job. Then, you look for a fine breadfruit trunk, one that is big, long, and...

Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands http://www.bikiniatoll.com/home.html

April 2002

This is a newsletter that is intended to give those interested in an update on the Bikini Atoll Dive and Sports Fishing programs on a periodic basis.

The 2002 dive season is under way on Bikini Atoll. Like most tourism related operations the world over [following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.], we are slightly off the great numbers of people we had visit Bikini last year, but we are optimistic that business will pick up during the second half of the season.

I just returned from my first "Fabio-less" visit to Bikini. I must say that Fabio did a great job in finding our new head divemaster and resort manager Tim Williams, and Tim, in turn, did a great job in hiring on Mike Dudas from West Chester, PA, to be his assistant. They are a great team with lots of wreck diving experience and they certainly...

TARAWA, Kiribati (April 7, 2002 - Radio Kiribati/PINA Nius Online)---Kiribati is bracing itself for more high tides, which continue to threaten and panic people on its low-lying atolls.

The tides flooded residential areas, pigpens, gardens and roads in heavily populated South Tarawa in February and March.

More are predicted later this month.

Affected residents had to watch helplessly as the high tides forced their way inland.

People say that despite what scientists might argue Kiribati is feeling the impact of climate change and rising sea levels already.

The Lagoon Breeze Motel, owned by academic and former parliamentarian Rooniti Teiwaki, was badly affected. The high tide flooded into the building area, as well as the surrounding compound.

The Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific nursery garden, once fully green and healthy with plants, was left with nothing but brown dead plants and salty soil.

A number of seawalls...

OSLO, Norway (April 5, 2002 - Reuters)---Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who crossed the Pacific on a balsa raft and the Atlantic in a reed vessel, is seriously ill with cancer, his oldest son said on Friday.

Heyerdahl, who won worldwide acclaim with his 1947 voyage across the Pacific on a replica of an aboriginal balsa raft called Kon-Tiki, was taken to the hospital over Easter in Italy, where he spent a family holiday.

"The situation is serious," his eldest son, Thor Heyerdahl, Jr., 63, told Reuters. "The cancer has spread to his brain."

Heyerdahl, 87, was treated for skin cancer last summer, while working on his book "The Hunt for Odin," in which he said that Odin, a Norse mythology god, might have been a real king.

Heyerdahl's exploits also included risking his life on Ra, a reed vessel made of papyrus, crossing the Atlantic to show that the ancient Egyptians could have done it.

Some historians have criticized Heyerdahl's findings, saying...