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MAJURO — Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine survived a vote of no-confidence Monday afternoon, as parliament split evenly 16-16.

The movers of the motion of no confidence needed 17 votes to topple Heine. The vote was held with 32 of the 33 members present, as one was off-island for medical treatment.

Hilda Heine

In pre-vote comments to the public and media, President Heine had said the no confidence motion was largely motivated by a proposal by an outside investor, Cary Yan, to create an investor haven at Rongelap Atoll. But debate in parliament Monday morning was limited to the five issues identified by the opposition, which did not include mention of the Rongelap proposal.

President Heine, Finance Minister Brenson Wase and Foreign Minister John Silk led 45 minutes of government response to the five issues outlined by the motion movers, with President Heine saying the vote was really a “referendum about our own politics.”

Wase said the criticism of the Marshall Islands government for moving ahead with a digital currency plan has been overtaken by events, with numerous countries in the Pacific following the Marshall Islands with announcements that they will be establishing their own digital currencies and requesting support from the International Monetary Fund. He said delays in releasing the Marshall Islands’ “SOV” digital currency were so the country could meet the requirements of the U.S., European Union and others.

Silk said the international recognition accorded President Heine and her government showed the opposition’s contention that the government had ruined the nation’s reputation internationally was wrong. He cited donors doubling their annual grants and the country’s chairmanship of various global climate groups.

Opposition Senators Casten Nemra, Bruce Bilimon and Alfred Alfred, Jr. fired back, hammering the government on lack of transparency in handling theft of money from its national trust fund in 2017 and saying the government had taken away people’s right to vote by eliminating postal absentee balloting for islanders living offshore.

The parliament chamber was packed with a standing-room crowd to view the debate and the vote that followed.

Immediately after the vote results were confirmed, Speaker Kenneth Kedi, who had backed the no confidence move, congratulated Heine and her Cabinet, and then, following a motion to recess, declared Nitijela to be in recess pending the call of the Speaker. </s> Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine narrowly survived a vote of no confidence Monday, seeing off a challenge she alleges was orchestrated by Chinese-backed business interests intent on undermining the Pacific nation's sovereignty.

The vote to topple Heine, the first and only elected female leader of a Pacific island nation, split parliament 16-16, one short of the 17 her opponents required.

In front of a packed public gallery, Heine and her allies spent 45 minutes defending the government's record, including claims from the opposition it had sullied the country's international reputation and eroded voting rights.

Once the vote was confirmed, Speaker Kenneth Kedi -- who had backed the no-confidence move -- congratulated Heine and declared parliament was in recess.

Heine said in the days leading up to the vote that the opposition's stated reasons for trying to unseat her were a "smokescreen" to cover their real motives.

She said the no-confidence motion was actually prompted by her government's refusal to back plans for an independently administered tax haven on an atoll within the Marshalls.

The proposed Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR) is the brainchild of Cary Yan, a Chinese businessman and Marshall Islands citizen who launched the concept in Hong Kong earlier this year.

The idea is that the territory would be self governing and completely tax free, making it an attractive option for hi-tech firms.

Heine's government has rejected the proposal over concerns it could be vulnerable to money laundering and passport-for-sale scams.

She suggested last week that the RASAR could be a Trojan horse for China to take over part of her country.

The no-confidence vote was "an effort by certain foreign interests to take control of one of our atolls and turn it into a country within our own country," she told Radio New Zealand.

Beijing has used billions of dollars in investment to court influence with tiny island nations across the Pacific Ocean, a region considered strategically important as a maritime gateway to Asia.

Heine said she was determined to protect her country's sovereignty.

"We have to be cautious knowing what the geo-political situation is in the Pacific region," she said.

"I think it's important for the government to do its own due diligence and ensure that the sovereignty of the country is secure." </s> The Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) president Hilda Heine has survived a vote of no confidence by just one vote, meaning her proposed national cryptocurrency is still on the cards.

Heine’s opponents were unable to find the majority required to oust Heine over persistent plans to alleviate the nation’s reliance on the US dollar with a national cryptocurrency called “the Sovereign,” Nikkei Asian Review reports.

RMI’s parliament ended split evenly over whether to remove Heine from her leadership, 16 to 16. Heine will continue to serve as the nation’s head of state.

The decision to vote was realized after eight senators accused Heine of ruining the nation’s reputation with her idea of a state-backed cryptocurrency.

Straight after the vote, RMI finance minister Brenson Wase reportedly confirmed the government’s intent to launching the Sovereign, pending it meets requirements set by regulators from the US, Europe, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Sovereign was first revealed at the start of the year, when government ministers announced it would issue a new digital cryptocurrency via initial coin offering (ICO), intended to be used as legal tender.

But just last month, the IMF warned Heine to ease off on launching the Sovereign, or face being cut off from the US dollar altogether, which RMI uses to access critical monetary meant to curtail spiralling inflation.

To date there has been little evidence for Heine giving up on the idea of a sovereign cryptocurrency any time soon, and surviving today’s vote could only bolster her confidence – that is, until the IMF catches wind of these results. </s> Photo: AFP

Edouard Fritch has been re-elected as French Polynesia's president for a five-year term.

In the territorial assembly, Mr Fritch of the Tapura Huiraatira received the backing of 39 of the 57 members.

He defeated the challenges of Geffry Salmon of the Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party and of the five-time president Oscar Temaru of the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira Party.

In a surprise development, an as yet unidentified Tahoeraa member also voted for Mr Fritch.

Mr Salmon received ten votes although his party has 11 members while Mr Temaru got eight votes.

In the policy speeches preceding the assembly vote, Mr Temaru sharply attacked Mr Fritch and outlined his campaign for sovereignty.

Marking five years since the UN reinscribed French Polynesia on its decolonisation list, Mr Temaru placed a UN flag on the podium.

In his speech, Mr Fritch denounced the UN for failing to send aid after last year's floods in Tahiti.

Mr Fritch first became president in 2014 when the Tahoeraa leader Gaston Flosse was forced to resign because of a corruption conviction which carried with it ineligibility to hold office.

In the past term, Mr Fritch was convicted for corruption twice and ordered to repay more than $US80,000 but has been allowed to stay in office.

Both he and Gaston Flosse are still due to stand trial for alleged abuse of public funds over making a local council provide water to Flosse's residence for free.

Yesterday, the assembly elected Gaston Tong Sang as assembly president for five years, just two months after he was given a one-year suspended jail sentence and a fine of $US20,000 for abusing public funds. </s> Brasilia, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, the culmination of a yearlong fight that paralyzed Latin America’s largest nation and exposed deep rifts among its people on everything from race relations to social spending.

While Rousseff’s ouster was widely expected, the decision was a key chapter in a colossal political struggle that is far from over. Her vice president-turned-nemesis, Michel Temer, was immediately sworn in as president with Rousseff’s allies vowing to fight her removal.

Rousseff was Brazil’s first female president, with a storied career that includes a stint as a Marxist guerrilla jailed and tortured in the 1970s during the country’s dictatorship. She was accused of breaking fiscal laws in her management of the federal budget.

“The Senate has found that the president of the federal republic of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff, committed crimes in breaking fiscal laws,” said Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who presided over the trial.

Opposition lawmakers, who made clear early on the only solution was getting her out of office, argued that the maneuvers masked yawning deficits from high spending and ultimately exacerbated the recession in a nation that had long enjoyed darling status among emerging economies.

Nonsense, Rousseff countered time and again, proclaiming her innocence up to the end. Previous presidents used similar accounting techniques, she noted, saying the push to remove her was a bloodless coup d’etat by elites fuming over the populist polices of her Workers’ Party the last 13 years.

The opposition needed 54 of the 81 senators to vote in favor for her to be removed. They got many more, winning in a landslide of sorts, 61-20.

“Today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54 million Brazilian votes in the garbage,” Rousseff tweeted minutes after the decision.

Rousseff won re-election in 2014, garnering more than 54 million votes.

In a second Senate vote about 30 minutes later, Rousseff won a minor victory as a measure to ban her from public office for eight years failed. The 42-36 vote fell short of the 54 votes needed for passage.

In the background of the entire fight was a wide-ranging investigation into billions of dollars in kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras. The two-year probe has led to the jailing of dozens of top businessmen and politicians from across the political spectrum, and threatens many of the same lawmakers who voted to remove Rousseff.

Rousseff argued that many opponents just wanted her out of the way so they could save their own skins by tampering with the investigation, which Rousseff had refused to do.

Many lawmakers and Brazilians nationwide, meanwhile, blamed Rousseff for the graft even though she has never been personally implicated. They argued that she had to know, as many of the alleged bribes happened while her party was in power.

Rousseff’s removal creates many questions that are not easily answered. Temer will serve out the remainder of her term through 2018. He was expected to address the nation in the evening.

But Brazilians have already gotten a taste of Temer’s leadership, and they are clearly unimpressed.

In May, Temer took over as interim president after the Senate impeached and suspended Rousseff. The 75-year-old career politician named a Cabinet of all-white men, a decision roundly criticized in a nation that is more than 50 percent nonwhite. Three of his ministers were forced to resign within weeks of taking their jobs because of corruption allegations, which also follow Temer and threaten his hold on power.

When Temer announced the opening of the Olympics on Aug. 5, he was so vociferously booed that he remained out of sight for the remainder of the games.

Rousseff’s allies have vowed to appeal to the country’s highest court. While previous petitions to the court have failed to stop the impeachment process, at the very least legal wrangling will keep the issue front and center.

The decision also leaves many question marks over the economy, expected to decline for a second straight year. Temer has promised to pull the country of 200 million people from its recession by tackling reforms that have long been taboo, such as slimming public pensions.

But he has not been able to accomplish much the last three months as interim president, and it remains to be seen whether Congress will be willing to work with him.

Several polls have shown that Brazilians prefer new elections to solve the crisis.

For that to happen, however, Temer would have to be removed from office or resign, something he clearly has no intention of doing. Speaking to the nation in televised address Wednesday evening, Temer hit back at Rousseff.

“Putschist is you,” he said, referring to Rousseff’s accusation that he had led the charge to oust her. “It’s you who is breaking the constitution.”

Temer said he had tasked his Cabinet with pushing forward budget and pension reforms as well as proposals to create jobs.

“From today on, the expectations are much higher for the government. I hope that in these two years and four months, we do what we have declared — put Brazil back on track,” he said.

Speaking to supporters at the presidential residence, Rousseff promised to mount a strong opposition, but didn’t elaborate.

“This coup is against social movements and unions and against those who fight for their rights,” she said. “Rights for the young people to make history, rights for the black, indigenous, LGBT and women.” </s> Brazil's Senate has voted to permanently remove President Dilma Rousseff from office.

Rousseff - the country's first female president - was accused of illegally using money from state banks to boost public spending in order to patch budget holes in 2014, masking the country's problems as it slid into its deepest recession in decades.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to convict her by 61 votes to 20. However, she has not been barred from holding public office.

Her conservative former Vice President Michel Temer, who has run the country since her suspension in May, will be sworn to serve out the remainder of her term through 2018.

A separate vote will be held on whether Rousseff will be barred from public office for eight years.

However, Rousseff - who was jailed and tortured in the 1970s during the country's dictatorship, during which she was a Marxist guerrilla - has not taken the verdict lying down.

In a tweet, she accused the Senate of ignoring the will of the people.

'Today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54million Brazilian votes in the garbage,' she wrote.

Rousseff won re-election in 2014 with more than 54million votes.

She had earlier confronted her accusers, telling the Senate that she was innocent and warning that the Brazilian democracy is in danger.

'Twice I have seen the face of death close up,' she said. 'When I was tortured for days on end, subjected to abuses that make us doubt humanity and the meaning of life itself, and when a serious and extremely painful illness could have cut short my life,' she said.

'Today I fear only for the death of democracy, for which many of us here in this chamber fought.'

The impeachment process that has polarized the Latin American country and paralysed its politics for nine months. </s> Brazil’s senate has voted to permanently remove president Dilma Rousseff from office.

The decision is the culmination of a year-long fight that paralysed Latin America’s most powerful economy and exposed deep rifts among its people on everything from race relations to social spending.

Brazil’s first female president was accused of breaking fiscal responsibility laws in her management of the federal budget.

She denied wrongdoing, and frequently pointed out that previous presidents used similar accounting measures.

Ms Rousseff later denounced the senators who removed her from office. She sent a tweet saying that “today is the day that 61 men, many of them charged and corrupt, threw 54 million Brazilian votes in the garbage”.

Ms Rousseff won re-election in 2014 with more than 54 million votes.

Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who presided over the trial, ruled: “The Senate has found that the president of the federal republic of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff, committed crimes in breaking fiscal laws.”

The opposition needed 54 of the 81 senators to vote in favour for her to be removed. They got many more, winning in a landslide of sorts, 61-20. In a second vote about 30 minutes later, Ms Rousseff won a minor victory as a measure to ban her from public office for eight years failed.

In the background of the entire fight was a wide-ranging investigation into billions of dollars in kickbacks at state oil company Petrobras. The two-year probe has led to the jailing of dozens of top businessmen and politicians from across the political spectrum, and threatens many of the same politicians who voted to remove Ms Rousseff.

She argued that many opponents just wanted her out of the way so they could save their own skins by tampering with the investigation.

Ms Rousseff’s removal creates many questions that are not easily answered. Michel Temer, her vice-president who became her nemesis, will serve out the remainder of her term until 2018. In May, he took over as interim president after the Senate impeached and suspended Ms Rousseff.

The 75-year-old career politician named a cabinet of all-white men, a decision roundly criticised in a nation that is more than 50 per cent non-white. When Mr Temer announced the opening of the Olympics, he was so vociferously booed that he remained out of sight for the remainder of the games. </s> Photo: AFP/Toshifumi Kitamura

Vanuatu was in a state of mourning on Saturday after its revered president, Baldwin Lonsdale, died unexpectedly. He was 67.

He was rushed to Vila Central Hospital late on Friday night after a suspected heart attack, but died just after midnight.

"Vanuatu has lost one of its greatest leaders," said Sela Molisa, a former long-time parliamentarian who described the late president as a humble, gentle man. "Vanuatu was lucky to have had him."

Flags around the country were lowered to half mast, and hundreds of family, friends and members of the public gathered outside the hospital to stand vigil on Saturday.

The Council of Ministers met to discuss mourning plans, which are likely to include a state funeral, and the late president's body was taken to lie at State House on Saturday night.

Baldwin Jacobson Lonsdale was born on Mota Lava, in the northern Banks islands, in 1950. He grew up to become a senior civil servant and the secretary general of the Torba provincial government before becoming an Anglican priest.

In September 2014, Father Lonsdale was elected to the presidency by an electoral college in the eighth round of voting, when he finally achieved a two thirds majority of MPs and provincial chairs.

Father Lonsdale promised to uphold the constitution and asked the people of Vanuatu to stand united: "I know that there is a big responsibility in the office of the head of state," he said on his appointment.

"But my first and foremost priority is to make sure that the constitution of the nation is upheld at all times and that peace, unity, justice and harmony prevail at all times," he said.

That commitment would come to be tested in a turbulent year in 2015, when the largely ceremonial role would become a pillar of stability through a destructive cyclone and a political crisis.

In March 2015, the country was devastated by Cyclone Pam, a category five storm that swept its way down the archipelago, leaving thousands homeless and much of the country's crops and infrastructure destroyed.

At the time, Father Lonsdale was in Japan at a conference on disaster risk reduction, where he made a tearful appeal for international assistance. "As a nation, as the head of my nation, my heart is for the people," he said in an address that was beamed around the world. "Everyone has that same feeling, because we don't know what happened to our family.

"There's a breakdown of communications that we cannot reach our families and we do not know whether our families are safe or not," he said.

Father Lonsdale described the cyclone as a monster that had wiped out the country's developments, and blamed climate change for contributing to the disaster.

Then, six months later, with the country still rebuilding from the cyclone, another crisis descended upon Port Vila.

In October 2015, 15 MPs -- half the government of Prime Minster Sato Kilman -- was convicted of corruption, making them ineligible for office.

But while Father Lonsdale was overseas, one of the convicted MPs, then-speaker of parliament Marcellino Pipite, pardoned himself and 13 of this colleagues in his capacity as acting president.

A furious Father Lonsdale returned to Vanuatu and rescinded the pardons, before addressing the nation to express his "shame and sorrow" at Pipite's actions.

"I will clean this dirt from my backyard," a visibly shaken president swore in his televised address. "We as a nation have to stop these crooked ways."

Following a failed appeal against the pardons, Father Lonsdale moved to dissolve parliament and called snap elections for January 2016, which saw Mr Kilman's government ousted and a new government formed that promised widespread reforms.

At the opening of the new parliament, Father Lonsdale said "the corruption we have seen is an abuse of public trust for private gain," describing the new legislature as a "new chart for Vanuatu's destiny."

"He was firm and wouldn't be swayed," said Mr Molisa, who said Father Lonsdale's unwavering commitment to the rule of law enshrined him as one of the country's greatest leaders. "History will remember him for this."

"I'm sure the government and every other - especially at the political level - people would recognise that Vanuatu has lost a very outstanding leader," he said.

That was a sentiment shared across Vanuatu. As the news director of the Vanuatu Daily Post, Dan McGarry, said in a post on Facebook: "By shouldering the burden of office, even when others had abused it so, he reasserted the integrity of an office that the Constitutions says embodies 'the unity of the nation'."

"And now, we're all united in mourning. His gift to the nation was immense, and will not be forgotten."

The Prime Minister, Charlot Salwai, was due to address the nation on Saturday evening to announce the nation's plans for a period of mourning. However, government officials said these would likely include a state funeral before the burial of the president's body on Mota Lava.

Under the constitution, the speaker of parliament, Esmon Saimon, is currently the acting president, and a new head of state will need to be elected by another electoral college within three weeks. </s> Federated States of Micronesia President Peter Christian, whose administration was rocked by a bribery scandal involving his family, is likley to lose the presidential seat to David W. Panuelo, chairman of the FSM Congress standing committee.

The FSM National Elections on Monday certified the results of the March 5 elections, which showed Christian’s receiving 6,716 votes against Panuelo’s 6,775 votes.

Christian’s election defeat came on the heels of the FBI’s investigation into the bribery case involving Hawaiian businessman Frank James Lyon, in which the FSM president’s son-in-law Master Halbert was implicated and charged with money-laundering.

The Hawaiian Free Press last week reported that Christian’s son Christopher Ivan Christian was also offered a “retainer fee” of $5,000.

The case involved the U.S.-funded FSM engineering contracts worth $7.8 million, which were awarded under-the-table to Lyon.

David Panuelo

(Correction: In an earlier version of this story we mistakenly identified David Panuelo as the Speaker of FSM Congress. Our apologies)

Christian was the 8th president of FSM. He was elected in 2015 succeeding Manny Mori. Under the FSM Constitution, the president and vice president, who each serves a four-year term, are first elected to the FSM Congress to the at-large seats, or four-year term.

He will remain president until Congress official selects the president and vice president in May.

There are four at large seats, one seat given to each of the four FSM states – Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae. The presidency/vice presidency is only elected among the four occupants of the at-large seats by a majority vote of all members of Congress. The remaining 10 senators of Congress serve two-year terms, and the seats are apportioned by population. The two-year term Congressmen cannot be elected to the Presidency.

The 2019 election results data to follow is certified from the FSM National Election Office, presented to the FSM Office of the President on March 8.

Kosrae State has two senators in the Congress. For the four-year at-large seat, vice president and the Yosiwo P. George received 1,824 votes while challenger Aren B. Palik received 1,814 votes.

For the two-year seat, the incumbent Paliknoa K. Welly received 2,130 votes while challenger Johnson A. Asher received 1,491 votes.

For Pohnpei Election District One, representing Kolonia, Sokehs, Sapwuahfik, Nukuoro, and Kapingamarangi, the incumbent and Honorable Ferny Perman received 2,396 votes while challenger Dr. Merlynn Abello-Alfonso received 2,136 votes.

For Pohnpei Election District Two, representing Madolenihmw and Kitti—which had four candidates—the incumbent and Dion G. Neth received 2,054 votes, while challengers Berney Martin, Herman Semes Jr., and Quincy Lawrence received 1,082 votes, 984 votes, and 942 votes respectively.

For Pohnpei Election District Three, representing Nett, U, Mwoakilloa, and Pingelap, the incumbent Esmond B. Moses received 2,543 votes while challenger Marstella Jack received 1,155 votes.

Chuuk has six senators in the Congress. For the four-year at-large seat, the incumbent Wesley W. Simina received 15,941 votes while challenger Eriano E. Eram received 3,356 votes.

For Chuuk Election District One, representing the Mortlock Islands, the incumbent Florencio S. Harper ran unopposed; he received 2,727 votes.

For Chuuk Election District Two, representing Weno, the incumbent Victor Gouland ran unopposed; he received 1,787 votes.

For Chuuk Election District Three, representing Tonoas, Uman, Fefan, Parem, and Tsis, the incumbent and Honorable Derensio S. Konman received 4,599 votes while challenger Eflove F. Mailos received 2,256 votes.

For Chuuk Election District Four, representing Tol, Fanapanges, Eot, Patta, Polle Romalum, Udot, and Wonei, the incumbent Tiwiter Aritos received 4,938 votes while challengers Smith K. Paulus and Manuel Rawit received 245 and 555 votes respectively.

For Chuuk Election District Five, representing the Halls & Western Islands, and Namonuito—which had five candidates running—the incumbent Robson U. Romolow received 1,083 votes, while challengers Arisao Aichem, Joseph Konnor Jr., Dr. Vidalino J. Raatior, and Zander Refilong received 353, 182, 684, and 461 votes respectively.

Yap State has two senators in the FSM Congress. For the At-Large seat, the incumbent Joseph. J Urusemal ran unopposed; he received 2,371 votes. For the two-year seat, the incumbent and Honorable Isaac V. Figir received 2,225 votes while challenger Fidelis Thiyer-Fanoway received 244 votes.

Pohnpei voters cast their votes in Kitti March. Photo by Richard Clark/FSMIS

In addition to the voting of the nation’s elected representatives, all voters were asked to voice their opinion on whether or not the FSM should hold a Constitutional Convention. Per FSM law, every 10 years this referendum reappears and 75 percent of the population in 75 percent of the FSM states must consent for such a convention to occur.

In Kosrae State, 1,476 voters said yes to a Constitutional Convention and 480 voters said no; in Pohnpei State 5,948 voters said yes to a Constitutional Convention and 2,790 voters said no; in Chuuk State 1,283 voters said yes to a Constitutional Convention and 1,656 voters said no; and in Yap State, 1,064 voters said yes to a Constitutional Convention and 1,262 voters said no.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine narrowly survives a 16-16 vote of no confidence. 17 votes were needed to remove Heine from office.