Marshall Island

The government and Mr de Brum have been named 2016 Arms Control Persons of the Year after taking the nuclear-armed nations to court for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

They were among ten individuals and groups nominated by the Washington-based Arms Control Association for their leadership on disarmament.

The award comes despite rulings by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in October which went against the Marshall Islands.

The court upheld the nuclear states' arguments that the court lacked jurisdiction on the matter.

Almost the entire Pacific region is preparing for the onset of what climate forecasters predict could be one of the worst El Niño events since the late 1990s.

Our correspondent in the Marshall Islands, Giff Johnson, says the system has been building all year, with meteorologists there predicting a drought that could last for six to nine months.

He says the last El Niño-related drought in 1997 was devastating.

In the Kazan Arena, Furgeson took to the pool in the Women’s 50m Backstroke. 

Having previously competed in the same event two years earlier in Barcelona

The 2013 World Championships in Barcelona saw her set an impressive time and personal best of 34.48 seconds, in the heat. However, the more recent Pacific Games, in Papua New Guinea, saw that record beaten unequivocally with a time of 33.19 seconds. With only a two week gap between the games and leaving for Kazan, preparation was limited. This did not seem to affect the young athlete.

Public School System officials outlined the plan for a major change, which will replace the current kindergarten to third grade Marshallese language environment to extend bilingual education through the 12th grade. The presentation was delivered to the hundreds of educators from around the Pacific attending the conference in Majuro.

The new plan will have the Marshallese language as the language of instruction for all subjects, except English Language Arts, from kindergarten through to the sixth grade.

From grades seven to 12, the language of instruction will be a near 50-50 bilingual arrangement.

The director the the country's Customary Law and Language commission, Alfred Capelle, says an innovative community based approach is needed to address linguistic and cultural human rights, and achieve effective education.