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Catastrophes

  • Groups Urge Bush Not to Offer Military Assistance to Indonesia
    4 June 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by John M. Miller
    More Than 50 Groups Urge Bush Not to Offer Military Assistance to Indonesian President
    A wide range of U.S. organizations today urged President Bush not to offer military assistance to Indonesia when he meets President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono tomorrow. The groups further called on Bush to raise concerns about ongoing human rights violations and the failure to bring to justice members of Indonesia’s security forces responsible for human rights violations in Timor-Leste (…)

  • Agent Orange lawsuit: an unjust, immoral verdict
    14 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    by Anh Hieu
    US Judge Jack B. Weinstein’s dismissal on Thursday of the compensation lawsuit by Vietnamese Agent Orange victims was unjust, immoral and an irresponsible denial of the US’s war crimes in Viet Nam.
    And, it signals a new uphill battle for justice for Viet Nam despite the solid body of evidence against the toxin’s devastating effects on the land and generation-after-generation of Vietnamese people.
    Judge Weinstein claimed the documents presented in the New York Court were not (…)

  • The Other, Man Made Tsunami
    18 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    THE OTHER, MAN-MADE TSUNAMI
    The west’s crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or a week’s bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush’s coming inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair increased their first driblets of "aid" only when it became clear that people all over the world were spontaneously giving millions and a public relations problem beckoned. The (…)

  • Bush’s Insult to Tsunami Victims
    14 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    Strings attached to Washington’s disaster relief Bush’s insult to tsunami victims By Alan Maass | January 14, 2005 |
    WHAT THEY give with one hand, they take away with the other. U.S. government aid to the desperate victims of the Indian Ocean tsunamis is finally arriving. But it has strings attached.
    As badly as the money is needed to keep people alive and rebuild, Washington’s conditions for disaster relief will make people’s lives worse in these countries—while helping to expand U.S. (…)

  • Time To Cancel Tsunami Countries’ Debt
    13 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Mark Engler
    Despite an increase in promised aid to tsunami-affected countries last week, the United States’ aid offering still isn’t topping the list. Australia, for one, has donated much more. But the United States could make up for its somewhat meager offering by forgiving debt payments for tsunami countries. A temporary moratorium on payments won’t be enough. It’s time to go farther-much farther-and end debt obligations for tsunami countries in Southeast Asia. Trouble is, we (…)

  • The NeoCon Agenda and Tsunami Relief
    10 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    Although the U.S. relief aid to tsunami-stricken Indonesia is undoubtedly saving untold lives, there is a dark side to it that will have a much longer-lasting effect on that nation than the devastation wrought by the killer waves. After a slow, seemingly reluctant start, with a paltry pledge of $15 million, George W. Bush did a complete turnaround and upped the number to $350 million. He also sent the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and a growing flotilla of other naval (…)

  • Tsunami Relief ....for some.
    7 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    Vultures of the insurance industry By Leigh Johnson | Janury 7, 2005
    SURVEYING THE immense loss of life and structural damage in coastal Southeast Asia from the tsunamis, the global insurance industry had a perverse response: Relief.
    While survivors searched for lost relatives and clean water, insurers were celebrating that the tragedy wouldn’t have a “material impact” on their 2004 profits. At least 5 million people have been made homeless, but because few have insurance, the industry (…)

  • Tsunamis and this Thing Called Humanity
    6 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    by Manuel Valenzuela
    From the Oceans, Indiscriminate Devastation
    As if to burst the bubble of human grandeur, infallibility and perceived omnipotence, Earth has once again thundered powerful vibrations onto her once pristine surface, in a sudden instant of horrific oceanic energy killing hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and laying waste to vast coastlines throughout Asiatic lands bordering the Indian Ocean. In one brief moment the fantasies of Hollywood fictions fused with (…)

  • NYT calls US aid for tsunami "stingy"
    1 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    NEW YORK: The New York Times said Thursday that the United States has been stingy in its response to the Asian tsunami disaster and in giving aid in general.
    The newspaper highlighted in an editorial that the 15 million dollars initially offered by Washington was less than the figure the ruling Republican Party would spend on President George W Bush’s inauguration in January.
    Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have given indignant reactions to a comment by UN chief disaster relief (…)

  • Tsunami Disaster Highlights Corporate Media Hypocrisy
    31 December 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
    9 comments

    by Peter Phillips
    The terrible earthquake/tsunami disaster, along coastlines of the Indian Ocean, left tens of thousands dead and many times more people homeless and weakened.
    Front pages news stories swept the US corporate media -12,000 dead, 40,000, 60,000 and 100,000 made progressive day by day headlines. Twenty-four hour TV news provided minute by minute updates with added photos and live aerial shots of the effected regions.
    As the days after unfolded, personal stories of survival (…)