Pacific News Briefs

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The documentary Before the Moon Falls has received a Special Mention for Best Feature (International) at the Doc Edge Awards 2025. Just as its subject, celebrated Samoan writer Sia Figiel, awaits trial for the alleged murder of her friend and fellow poet, Professor Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard.

The powerful and timely work offers a rare look into Figiel’s journey as a writer, her mental health struggles, and the events that led up to the tragedy. The film was originally pitched at the Doc Edge Industry in 2021, long before the incident occurred.

Figiel was known across the Pacific and beyond for her groundbreaking work on the realities faced by Samoan women and girls. Her voice helped bring Pacific stories into global literary spaces.

Now, the film explores the complexities of fame, personal trauma, and untreated mental illness. It gives viewers a glimpse of how a celebrated public figure’s life spiraled into darkness.

Meanwhile, Figiel remains in custody as she awaits her trial, now scheduled for August 18, 2025. The delay was granted to allow prosecutors time to review her medical records, which were obtained from the United States and reportedly contain information about her mental health.

(The Observer)

RADIATION SURVIVORS

People on Guam are "disappointed" and "heartbroken" that radiation exposure compensation is not being extended to them, the president of the Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors (PARS) says.

Robert Celestial said he and others on Guam are disappointed for many reasons.

"Congress seems to not understand that we are no different than any state," he told RNZ Pacific.

"We are human beings, we are affected in the same way they are. We are suffering the same way, we are greatly disappointed, heartbroken," Celestial said.

The extension to the United States Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was part of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" passed by Congress on Friday (Thursday, Washington time).

Downwind compensation eligibility would extend to the entire states of Utah, Idaho and New Mexico, but Guam - which was included in an earlier version of the bill - was excluded.

All claimants are eligible for US$100,000.

Guam Republican congressman James Moylan attempted to make an amendment to include Guam before the bill reached the House floor earlier in the week.

"Guam has become a forgotten casualty of the nuclear era," Moylan told the House Rules Committee.

"Federal agencies have confirmed that our island received measurable radiation exposure as a result of US nuclear testing in the Pacific and yet, despite this clear evidence, Guam remains excluded from RECA, a program that was designed specifically to address the harm caused by our nation's own policies.

"Guam is not asking for special treatment we are asking to be treated with dignity equal to the same recognition afforded to other downwind communities across our nation."

(RNZ Pacific)

NEW ZEALAND FLOODS TRIGGER TSUNAMI FLASHBACKS

With New Zealand's recent weather warnings and widespread flooding, a Samoan man whose home in Marlborough was affected says the experience triggered haunting memories of the 2009 tsunami that devastated his home village of Aleipata.

Tauinaola Timuiaiala, originally from the villages of Solosolo and Lalomanu, moved to Aotearoa in 2018.

Now based on a farm in Marlborough with his wife Dione and their children, he told Pacific Waves that the flooding reminded him of the deadly natural disaster that struck Samoa and neighboring Pacific nations on 29 September 2009.

That tsunami killed 149 people in Samoa and caused widespread destruction to homes, vehicles, and infrastructure across the region. Thirty-one people in American Samoa and nine in Tonga also lost their lives.

(RNZ Pacific)

NORTHWESTERN HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

In April, a proclamation from President Donald Trump opened the 490,000-square-mile Pacific Islands Heritage Marine Monument to commercial fishing. The proclamation allows commercial fishers to fish in the 50- to 200-nautical mile zone around the coral reef and island habitats.

A new effort is now underway to open the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to commercial fishing, led by the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, a regional U.S. agency based in Hawaii.

Totaling 583,0000 square miles, Papahanaumokuakea is the largest marine conservation area in the world and includes the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — a 1,300-mile stretch of islands, seamounts, banks and shoals. The area is home to more than 7,000 marine species, including those that are threatened or endangered, such as the Hawaiian green sea turtle and Hawaiian monk seal. The region also holds deep cultural significance to Native Hawaiians.

The council plans to urge Trump to lift the commercial fishing prohibition at Papahanaumokuakea. In a June news release, the council “reaffirmed its longstanding position that commercial fisheries in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) were sustainably managed prior to the designation of Papahanaumokuakea as a marine national monument and sanctuary.”

“For more than 60 years, commercial fishing took place in the region without degrading the ecosystem, which was recognized as one of the healthiest and most intact in the world,” the council continued. It added that lifting the ban aligns with Trump’s executive order 14276, which “directs federal agencies to reduce burdens on domestic fishing and increase sustainable U.S. seafood production,” the release says.

(SF Gate)