US extends Marshall Islands deal

THE US has struck a deal with the Marshall Islands to continue using the key missile testing range at Kwajalein Atoll to 2066, officials said yesterday.

The deal, which ends an eight-year impasse, offers new hope to the nearby overcrowded Marshall island of Ebeye, referred to locally as the “slum of the Pacific”.

It will extend the US use of the Reagan Test Site for an additional 50 years from 2016, and it hikes their annual rental for Kawjalein Atoll by about €2.8 million.