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"The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from the indigious people of the Marshall Islands over whether they can sue the federal government again for blowing up and irradiating the land during nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s. The high court on Monday turned away the appeal from the people of Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll, both part of the Marshall Islands. The United States detonated 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, then a U.S. protectorate under the United Nations. The blasts were equal to exploding 1.6 Hiroshima atomic bombs a day for 12 years. The federal government agreed to pay the people of Enewetak $385 million and the people of Bikini $563 million for the loss of their land. But only a token amount has been paid so far."

The legal and political fight is expected to continue for Bikini Islanders and their lawyers, who are pushing for greater compensation from the government for nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s that displaced islanders, exposed them to radiation, and decimated the land. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled today against the plaintiffs, saying an agreement between the governments of the United States and Marshall Islands in 1986 is a settlement that is beyond judicial review. The court affirmed a U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruling.

Pius Henry fears his adopted government will kill him, that the United States won't live up to a health care obligation to people from Pacific islands where it tested nuclear bombs. Henry, a diabetic from the Marshall Islands, has received free dialysis treatments three times a week for years, but the cash-strapped state of Hawaii has threatened to cut off him and others to save money. Like thousands of legal migrants to Hawaii from independent Pacific nations, Henry believes the United States has a responsibility to provide health care to compensate for the radioactive fallout of 67 nuclear weapons tests from 1946 to 1958. "I don't have any option. I'm asking the government to help us," Henry said. "They say we're like U.S. citizens, but then they don't treat us the same. It's really unfair."