Archive - Apr 2012 - Article (News Story)

It was a busy weekend for the Department of Education (DOE) American Samoa High School Athletic Association (ASHSAA) sports competition, as two sports, ASHSAA Girls Varsity Basketball and ASHSAA Baseball each came to an end, with new champions being crowned for each sport for this 2011-2012 season.

The ASHSAA Girls Varsity Basketball came to a close on Friday evening, while ASHSAA Baseball finished out its season on Saturday morning. 

2011-2012 ASHSAA Girls Varsity Basketball Championship Game

The American Samoa Under 19 Football All Stars, who will be competing in the 2012 International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Under 19 World Championships, held a ‘Clean-a-thon’ fundraiser this past Friday, where they picked up trash along the side of the road, to raise funds for individual airfares for team members going to Texas this coming June. The IFAF Under 19 World Championships will be taking place June 30 through July 7, 2012 at Burger Stadium in Austin.

The highlight of the 40-year anniversary of the American Samoa Bar Association (ASBA) has been to promote justice and the rule of law in the territory.

These were remarks made by Bar Association President Sean Morrison during the law conference of the ASBA held at the ASCC lecture hall over the weekend.

A Samoan man, Calliope ‘Ope’ Saaga and his Hawai’i based travel/ tour company, Performing Hawai’i Tours, is at the center of a possible investigation by state and federal law enforcement officials for accepting more than half a million dollars without providing the services for which he was paid.

Education, hospital, homeland security, and economic development are some of the issues on the campaign platform for the gubernatorial team of candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Faoa Aitofele and his running mate as lieutenant governor, Taufete’e John Faumuina with more issues to be revealed along the campaign trail heading to the Nov. 6 general election.

Pacific International Engineering Ltd (PIE) attorney Mark Ude wants the High Court to seize $250,000 in the Court Registry deposited by the government, as partial payment for a court judgment against ASG in 2010 following PIE’s lawsuit.

However, the court in an Apr.23 order denied Ude’s application for a “writ of execution” to seize the money that ASG deposited in the court registry pursuant to a court order in the Southwest Marine of Samoa Inc., case against ASG.

The High Court is asking members of the American Samoa Bar Association (ASBA) for assistance in writing benchmarks that can be inserted into new software called “JustWare” that the court is hoping to have installed into the court system before the end of this year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama gave a steely defense of his handling of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and his use of it to burnish his re-election credentials a year later, saying Monday that it is appropriate to mark an anniversary that Republicans charge is being turned into a campaign bumper sticker.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The blind Chinese lawyer at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing is a taboo topic in each capital. Neither side wants the biggest human-rights issue between the two since Tiananmen Square to disrupt high-level strategic and economic talks set to begin on Thursday.

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has dismissed the high-tech fautasis owned by some villages in American Samoa saying that they are actually not fautasi.

“They are no different from high-tech yachts built by pouring liquid plastic into moulds to form the body of the boat when it hardens and the moulds have been taken off,” said Tuilaepa in his weekly radio program 2AP ma le Palemia.