The coverage they get over there likely is Reuters and AP, maybe CNN International. I've seen stories in the blogosphere from all three and all were seriously biased and factually flawed. All failed to have an awareness of the constitutionally-defined role of the federal government in disasters (it doesn't have one, really), and all published stories constructed upon that perhaps deliberate ignorance. Pierce is likely a lightheaded, prancing goose celebrity whose knowledge of the law does not approach what an ordinary U.S. citizen should know.
It is so true: if he'd keep his mouth shut, he'd at least seem intelligent sometimes.