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<p>Nine months before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, three emergency-preparedness officials from Louisiana were indicted, accused of obstruction and lying in connection with the mishandling of $30.4 million in disaster-relief money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has tried unsuccessfully to recover the money following an investigation of a program to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas.</p>

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 6, 2005 – Naval Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Ty Redmon starts each day at the Military Severely Injured Center with a new life-changing challenge. Each case that comes across Redmon's desk involves helping a severely injured Reserve, Guard or active sailor, mostly due to action in Iraq and Afghanistan. He may help get military orders for relatives to stay bedside, wrangle with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service on pay issues, or simply provide a list of free child care centers injured troops' hometowns. "You can't put a cookie-cutter pattern on people that are hurt," Redmon said. "And...

'Expedited assistance' $2,000 payments to Katrina victims stopped quietly. Is everyone getting their fair share of FEMA hurricane recovery funds? Already, FEMA has given away a staggering amount of money to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- nearly $2 billion to 850,000 people, according to figures provided by Federal Emergency Management Agency's Eugene Kinerney. And much more aid is probably on the way. Victims are eligible to receive up to $26,200 based on a means test, enough for 18 months of living expenses according to government calculations, FEMA says. With that much money being doled out, there's bound to...

STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. (NNS) -- Hurricane Kartrina victims at one Navy command here have a place to shop without cost thanks to an outpouring of donations across the naval service. Davy Jones Locker is a volunteer-run store serving Navy and civilian personnel and their family members at Stennis Space Center near the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Now a makeshift store inside the Matthew Fontaine Maury Oceanographic Library, it has a bevy of items, from soup to soap, and from clothing to cat food. The Stennis-based Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and the Naval Oceanographic Office have 441 employees who lost...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2005 – Soldiers from Task Force Baghdad's 2nd Brigade Combat Team and the 448th Civil Affairs Battalion conducted a humanitarian aid drop in the Nissan district of Iraq's capital Sept. 28. The supplies dropped included pens, pencils, notebooks, backpacks, shoes, toys, personal-hygiene items, antibiotics, and other medical aids. The recipients of the supplies were all special-needs children. "Some of the children suffered from injuries, and some were born with handicaps and other medical conditions," Army Capt. Todd R. Olsen, 448th CA team leader, said. "(They) seemed very happy and enjoyed receiving gifts from coalition forces." Following the...

One must wonder? For a country that has depended for over decade on relief organizations to feed it's people after it's farming system collapsed years ago, All of a sudden to want to stop receiving aid for infrastructures, Must seem strange. Who really benefits from the infrastructures? It is already believed that the food aid doesn't even benefit the poor. As we can see, alot of Koreans are selling their food aid at markets, Alot of the food is being diverted to the soldiers and food rations have been cut many times since it's mostly the North Korean government who...

WITH billions of dollars pouring into the Gulf Coast, you might expect that the $488 million in federal money designed to help displaced families pay for private-school tuition would elicit no more than a perfunctory nod. If so, you haven't been following the contentious world of education policy, where any proposal to help children that doesn't involve pumping more money into the public-school system is viewed as heresy by teachers' unions and others with a vested interest in the status quo. The trouble started when the Bush administration unveiled a $2 billion emergency education package for K-12 public and private...

Item from a hurricane Katrina-related Washington Post story last month: "John D Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and head of a leading Democratic think tank, says Democrats must start by casting Bush's brand of conservatism --emphasising an 'ownership society' elevating individualism and private enterprise -- as fundamentally flawed and hostile to society's collective responsibility to help citizens." Really? The hole in Podesta's logic is of Category 5 size. Which groups did the better job in aiding Katrina's victims -- government or the loathed individuals from the netherworld of "private enterprise"? That's easy: the private sector. Government,...

Date: 2005-09-22 Denial of Hurricane Aid to Catholic Schools Is Assailed U.S. Bishops' Aide Criticizes Senators Kennedy and Enzi WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 22, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops' secretary for education says that Senator Edward Kennedy's opposition to hurricane relief aid for private and religious schools "makes no sense." "Denying educational aid to victims of Katrina because they attended Catholic schools is like denying home repair assistance to anyone who is not in public housing," said Dominican Sister Glenn Anne McPhee. "Congress needs to reach out to help all afflicted by disaster, whatever their race, economic level, or school ties,"...

BILOXI, Miss. (NNS) -- Sailors and Project HOPE volunteers from USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) reconstructed a Hurricane Katrina-damaged garage here and made it into a fully operational primary care clinic Sept. 17. The group used donated supplies as well as scattered debris to rebuild the roof and walls of the facility and then separated the room into sections to promote patient privacy. “We came to the area because we learned there was a great need for medical care here,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Dorrance, Comfort's assistant H-1 division head. “We were lucky enough to locate this garage and literally rebuild...

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) -- Helping repair Keesler after Hurricane Katrina struck the base is not the only thing on the mind of civil engineers deployed here; they are also helping the people here get back on their feet. The engineers, deployed from the 56th Civil Engineer Squadron at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., are helping the 81st Training Wing repair the damage Hurricane Katrina left behind. Not only are they repairing damage on base, but Sept. 17 they were at Stanley Morgan's house removing moldy drywall, sopping wet insulation, scattered debris, ruined furniture and, unfortunately, memories collected...

US president George Bush's promise to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf coast "higher and better" has triggered a wave of anxiety among conservatives in his own party, who are shocked at the expansion of the federal role in disaster relief. Yesterday Mr Bush led the country in a day of prayer for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in Washington's national cathedral, declaring: "The destruction of this hurricane was beyond any human power to control, but the restoration of broken communities and disrupted lives now rests in our hands." But his ambitious pledge the night before to lead "one of...

Tilting towards terrorists Under Condoleezza Rice, U.S. foreign policy continues to veer in the direction of the "Arabism" of her mentor Brent Scowcroft and James Baker. Diana West points to the latest evidence. First, according to West (who cites worldtribune.com), the Bush adminstration snubbed Israel's efforts to provide aid in the early aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Then, once it finally accepted Israel's aid, the State Department apparently omitted Israel's name from the list of countries participating in the relief effort, a list that touts Arab aid-givers. These affronts may be less the work of Rice than of Karen Hughes, to...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The United States does not deserve foreign aid in the wake of hurricane Katrina given the amount of money it spends on military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Iranian cleric said on Friday. "Those who spent millions of dollars to kill the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are now asking the people of the world to assist them in providing relief for their storm-hit people," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at Friday prayers. "Why aren't they ashamed of themselves?" he asked in the sermon broadcast live from Tehran University on state radio. "Why do you...

In another development here in Texas, the Mexican army is crossing the border to bring help to New Orleans and its stranded citizens. This is the first time Mexican military troops have crossed into Texas since 1846, during the war between the United States and Mexico that resulted in Mexico losing the vast area now known as the American southwest. The Mexican soldiers will not be armed and the 35 trucks in the convoy will be loaded with blankets, water, food and mobile kitchens. Mexican President Vicente Fox brushed aside complaints from some opponents who said he should have sought...

Nonpartisan congressional research report finds Louisiana governor took necessary steps John Byrne The Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report Tuesday afternoon asserting that Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government, RAW STORY has learned. The report, which comes after a request by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to review the law and legal accountability relating to Federal action in response to Hurricane Katrina, unequivocally concludes that she did. "This report closes the book on the Bush Administration's attempts to evade accountability," Conyers said in a statement. "The Bush...

LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. (AFPN) -- More than 30 international aid flights have landed here, the hub and clearing house for all international aid going to help Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisiana and Mississippi. More the 94 countries and international organizations have offered aid for the hurricane victims, according to a State Department spokesman. Since Sept. 5, Belgium, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Israel, Italy, Russia, Spain, Tunisia, Thailand and the United Kingdom have all landed here bearing needed supplies and aid. The international effort brought supplies like generators, packaged meals, water, baby food, tents, personnel, medical supplies, blankets...

German Plane With Katrina Aid Turned Back By CLAUDIA KEMMER, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 10,11:18 AM ET BERLIN - A German military plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of Hurricane Katrina was sent back by U.S. authorities, officials said Saturday. The plane was turned away Thursday because it did not have the required authorization, a German government spokesman said. The spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, declined to comment on a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel that U.S. authorities refused the delivery on the grounds that the NATO military rations could carry...

With Vietnamese evacuees continuing to pour into Houston, some Asian representatives worry the community may be trying to do too much on its own. The uncounted thousands of Vietnamese storm victims are not going to the Astrodome or the George R. Brown Convention Center to seek help from the government, leaders say. Instead, many gather at Hong Kong City Mall on Bellaire, a privately run mall where they are being connected with ample free food and housing from fellow Vietnamese &#8212; help that cannot last indefinitely. "The problem is, because the Vietnamese are not in the shelters, they are not...

Kanye West was right: George Bush doesn't care about black people. Unfortunately, West was so focused on reading the teleprompter, he forgot to read one of the words. George Bush doesn't care specifically about black people. How did this become a race issue, instead of a tragedy that affects all Americans? As happens so often these days, it became a race issue because members of that race - and sympathetic media representatives and activists - made it a race issue. Contrary to West's opinion newspapers aren't referring to black scavengers as "looting" and white scavengers as "looking for food." One...