The American International Building in lower Manhattan.

AIG Hawai‘i is not likely to go out of business, nor are its thousands of Hawai‘i insurance customers likely to lose their policies, as a result of the well-publicized financial problems of its parent holding company, American International Group. But AIG Hawai‘i and other local companies held by AIG may be sold off to repay the billions in loans that the parent company is getting from the federal government.

According to the AIG Hawai‘i Web site, “It was announced at the conference call to investors on October 3, that the AIG Personal Auto Group is on the list of assets for sale. This does not necessarily mean that the company will be sold, or a buyer has been identified.”

The state, meanwhile, says policy holders are safe.

“Edward Liddy, the fellow who took over AIG with the Fed’s blessing, has said that he doesn’t want to sell off the companies individually,” says Hawai‘i Insurance Commissioner Jeffrey P. Schmidt. However, Schmidt believes AIG’s local assets may be sold off as part of a larger package. Read More

New Zealand citizens voted on Saturday. And amid the election of a conservative prime minister, the Maori Party is now in a position where it can expect its demands to be met by Aotearoa/New Zealand’s next government.

“There won’t be a piece of legislation that can be passed without a Maori signatory to the treaty agreeing to it,” party president Whatarangi Winiata said at a recent campaign rally. “This journey we have been on is starting to change our experience in our own country.” Read More

Making a pollution fine look good

Waste Management Inc., the nation’s largest garbage handler, has been trying to clean up its image in recent years. A national ad campaign touts its innovative recycling programs with the tag line, “Think Green. Think Waste Management Inc.” So when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that the company would pay a massive fine for violating the Clean Air Act at the Pu’uanahulu Landfill in West Hawai’i, it was definitely an off-message moment.

But, the company claims that the site actually has no air pollution problem—that it simply had failed to report air monitoring test results to the EPA. And it has worked out a deal with the EPA and the County of Hawai’i, so that part of the fine will go to fighting a very real environmental problem at the landfill’s predecessor in Kona. Read More

Palau's coral reefs suffered severe damage by coral bleaching caused by warmed ocean currents.

For the Republic of Palau, an independent island nation located 4,609 miles across the Pacific from Hawai‘i, the present day results of global warming carry with it a chilling reality—Palau has already seen deforestation, sea level rise and climate change decimate its reef fish populations and threaten the island’s economy. Its waters are home to saltwater crocodiles, 850 species of coral and sponges, and 1,300 varieties of reef fish, which are closely tied to Palau’s tourism and fishing markets.

In light of pressing threats of climate change, Palau President Tommy Remengesau, Jr. has led a preservation movement to the doorstep of the United Nations in an effort to educate the world on the immediate dangers posed to millions of island-dwelling people, from the Maldives to Papua New Guinea to Hawai‘i.

“Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns,” Remengesau said. “We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high tides. These are not theoretical, scientific losses—they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods.” Read More

Bordered by large houses, a pot-holed dirt road and a naupaka hedge fronting a white-sand beach, the narrow lot that Joseph Brescia owns at Naue, on Kaua‘i’s North Shore, isn’t especially remarkable—at least on the surface.

But some 30 burials discovered beneath the sandy soil where Brescia is building a home have sparked a controversy that promises to set a precedent for how iwi kupuna (ancestral bones) are handled on private property. The case is raising questions about the access rights of descendents, what constitutes preservation and just how much power the state-created Burial Councils really have. Read More

Telescopes on Hold for Mauna Kea Management Plan

“First light,” for astronomers, usually means the moment that a newly-built telescope first points its lenses and electronics toward the heavens. But a giant new telescope that may be coming to the summit of Mauna Kea could give the term a whole new meaning. The Thirty-Meter-Telescope, or TMT, could peer back over billions of light years to the literal dawn of dawns, when the light of stars first began shining from the universe’s first galaxies.

The telescope could reveal other wonders as well. Today, for instance, astronomers can discover planets circling other stars by watching for a slight wobble of the stars caused by the gravitational tug of the circling planets. But the TMT may be able to see the planets themselves.

The scientific consortium that wants to build the TMT has narrowed the possible sites for the telescope to Cerro Amazones, Chile, and to Mauna Kea on the island of Hawai‘i. The group recently opened an office in Hilo to begin work on an environmental impact statement for putting the telescope on Mauna Kea. It has already prepared a similar document for the Chilean site.

But the Mauna Kea site may be torpedoed by a long history of broken rules and bad feelings.

“Tell the world that 40 years of mismanagement have unfortunately poisoned the well, so the TMT should not be allowed on the mountain,” says Nelson Ho of the Sierra Club’s local chapter. “They should walk away. The problems are still there.” Read More

On the 54th anniversary of ‘Bravo’, March 1, 2008, survivors of the U.S. nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands and the people gathered at the International Convention Center to pay tribute to members who have died from radiation contamination. Over 600 people attended the event. ‘Bravo’, a thermo nuclear device was 1000 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Nuclear fallout exposed the people who were living on Rongelap and Utrik atolls. Read More

Three committees of the state House of Representatives will hold a hearing Saturday morning on a very different version of the OHA settlement bill. HB 266 HD 1, released into the public today, alters the terms of the debate by not treating the recent agreement between the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Governor Lingle as a settlement, but as a “joint policy recommendation.”

As such, the new bill does not include a broad ‘waiver of claims’ section.

The new bill raises a question, though: will OHA and the Executive Branch agree to this new bill? The two parties had been very willing to give up legal rights in order to accomplish the transfer of lands and money to OHA; without the quo, will they accept the quid?

The Molokai Ranch, a multinational corporation that aims to develop luxury housing on Molokai’s rural Laau Point, has pulled its advertising from The Molokai Times in protest of the paper’s pro-conservation coverage.

According to sources close to the story, Ranch officials have complained about the papers’ publishing of letters from proponents of conserving Laau Point for cultural and recreational uses.

In response to an inquiry from The Hawaii Standard, Becker Communications, the public relations firm hired by Molokai Ranch, says that “the decision to cease advertising was strictly budgetary.”

“It was communicated to the paper that the Ranch did intend to advertise with them in the future on a spot basis,” the response continues.

In spite of Becker Communications’ response, however, the Ranch’s actions do point to a history of political retribution against outspoken media. A year ago, the Ranch also pulled its advertising from The Molokai Dispatch, a local publication which has published several pro-conservation articles.