Posted on 09/07/2005 5:53:25 PM PDT by kddid
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - For four days, a C-130 transport plane ready to lift supplies to Katrina victims has stood idle at an air base in Sweden. The aid includes a water purification system that may be urgently needed amid signs deadly diseases could be spreading through fetid pools in New Orleans.
The one thing that stands in the way of takeoff? Approval by U.S. officials.
Although some foreign aid is on the way to the U.S., many international donors are complaining of frustration that bureaucratic entanglements are hindering shipments to the United States.
"We have to get some kind of signal (from the U.S.) in the next few days," said Karin Viklund of the Swedish Rescue Services Agency. "We really hope we will get it." Aside from water purification units, the country has offered blankets and mobile network equipment.
The United States has accepted offers of nearly $1 billion in assistance from some 95 countries, said Harry K. Thomas Jr., the State Department's executive secretary. One of those rejected came from Iran. The U.S. has accepted Switzerland's offer for tarpaulins, plastic sheeting, bedding, crutches. It made the offer Tuesday night.
Tehran offered to send 20 million barrels of crude oil if Washington waived trade sanctions, but Thomas said the offer was rejected because it was conditional. The sanctions were imposed after militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took its occupants hostage in 1979.
Thomas said "every country has heard from us, all have been told their offers are being evaluated and that 'we may take your offers later.'"
But Poland, Austria and Norway said they had not heard back on their aid offers, and countries outside Europe said they were also waiting for replies:
_ India, which regularly is hit by flooding from monsoon rains, has said it has a planeload of supplies waiting. The United States said Thursday night that it has accepted $5 million in aid.
_ Taiwan said it was waiting to hear for guidance its $2 million pledge. The U.S. said late Monday that it has the financial offer along with medical supplies.
_ The government also said in a statement Thursday that it had accepted South Korea's promised aid of $30 million and 100 tons of goods such as blankets, diapers, crutches, bunk beds and wheelchairs. South Korea had promised the aid by this weekend. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu-hyung said Wednesday the delivery will likely be delayed until next week as "preparations are not going well."
Even Honduras - the second-poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean - has offered aid. It was told by the U.S. Embassy that "at this moment, the U.S. government is not asking for international assistance."
However, some countries said they received detailed requests for help from U.S. authorities and have started shipping supplies.
European Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said "the coordination effort is going much, much better because aid is now leaving and aid is arriving."
She said glitches are to be expected. "The Europeans and the Americans had to learn to work together," she said. "Coordination is the most difficult thing in any relief effort."
The British government said it began sending some 500,000 military ration packs with food on Monday and that it was working closely with U.S. authorities in the recovery effort.
German officials approved sending forensic experts to help identify Katrina victims after being asked by the U.S. government, spokesman Thomas Steg said.
He said that on Wednesday, a separate group of some 90 technicians left the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany aboard a U.S. military plane equipped with 15 large-capacity pumps to help clear floodwaters from residential areas.
European aircraft maker Airbus said the world's largest air cargo plane, the A300-600 Super Transporter, was carrying French and British relief supplies to hurricane-stricken areas.
The global mobilization has been accompanied by widespread surprise at the mayhem in New Orleans. People around the world have been shocked by the images of the devastation, and also by the looting and disorder that followed and the perceived shortcomings in the response by U.S. authorities.
"We have all watched as a large part of the United States fell from a First World society into Third World death, chaos and social breakdown," historian J.L. Granastein, a fellow of the Canadian Defense and Foreign Affairs Institute, wrote in Canada's The Globe and Mail.
Fintan O'Toole, writing in The Irish Times, said the disaster revealed "the underlying nature of a troubled country."
"When America looks at the huge expanse of filthy, fetid water that has drowned New Orleans, it becomes a mirror in which it finally sees the scars on its own face. The scars of poverty, of racism, of ideological zealotry, of public corruption and of environmental degradation, usually concealed by a cosmetic media, become visible," he wrote.
Simple, blame it on Liberals. They have them too. Maybe they can learn from our disaster not to trust them.
I wonder if African immigrants are still being burned alive in french apartment buildings.
If it had happened in Europe, the people would STILL be without water and the Europeans would be yelling and blaming us for not helping them.
Katrina wiped out an area the size of some of their countries, and they're loving it.
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I have one question, and forgive my ignorance, but...what has the exalted and beloved UN done? |
Well, I dunno. It applies to the corruption and malfeasance in Louisiana, the pap that our politicians spout, and it also seems to accurately describe the media.
People people. Don't you see what happening here? Where do you think EU get their news from?????? They don't have Fox News, do they?
Fintan, the UN has been busy with disaster relief elsewhere---like trying to get Kofi and his pals out of deep yougurt in the oil for food thingy.
Typical Eurotrash envy.
Ah, the tentacles of the anti-bush lamestream reach far and wide.
What are they wondering, exactly?
Hummmmm.....;-)
Sacre Bleau! Next they will wonder why people call them cheese breathed, chain smoking frogs.
Its called states rights... we have 50 of them, and 350 million people. This was not a house fire across town.
And they don't get hurricanes, either. I don't think they really have a firm grasp on the amount of destruction one of these storms can cause.
European people - no way. European press - ABSOLUTELY!
Their MSM is no different than ours. Does our press' views represent us???????
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