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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 17998
[Politics]
Date Posted:
6/15/2007
9:34:26 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 5,631
RSS: 21,726
Comments: 11
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New Orleans Turns To International Aid
Author: Becky Bohrer, The Associated Press Source: The Sun-Herald
Title: NEW ORLEANS TURNS TO INTERNATIONAL AID
The cash-strapped city of New Orleans is turning to foreign countries for help to rebuild as federal hurricane-recovery dollars remain slow to flow.
Kenya Smith, director of intergovernmental relations for Mayor Ray Nagin, said city leaders are talking with more than five countries. He wouldn't identify the countries, saying discussions were in the early stages. But he said the city is "very serious" about pursuing foreign help.
For months Nagin has complained bureaucracy is choking the flow of much-needed federal aid dollars to New Orleans - slowing the city's recovery. As of June 8, the city said it had received just over half of the $320 million FEMA has obligated for rebuilding city infrastructure and emergency response-related costs.
Discussions with foreign representatives have been occurring off and on since the storm, but Smith said the city became re-engaged after a news report in April that millions of dollars in aid offered by foreign countries after Hurricane Katrina went unaccepted.
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Community Thoughts: There are 11 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| We HAVE Begun At Home, And We're Still At It... | Jun 17th. at 4:39:51 pm EDT
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Riverbend (New Orleans, Louisiana) - Email Me
"Charity begins at home" is a nice mantra if you actually still have one. Having said that, people down here are knocking themselves out helping one another and have been ever since WE RESCUED OURSELVES in the flood. Not to diss the Coast Guard or any of the other search & rescue folks by any means--they are all amazing and we are profoundly grateful--but thousands of people were rescued by our own local emergency personnel and a gazillion regular people who survived the initial impact of the storm and then got out there in that unbelievably nasty burning snake-and-gator-filled contaminated water in anything that could freaking float and got people off of what was left of their houses.
There's a reason people started flying "BUY US BACK, CHIRAC!!" banners after the storm. The US is such a weird country--so many, many people have done so amazingly much to help us, and all these others just give us sh*t about how we shouldn't be living here anyway and what the hell did we expect, why should anyone go out of their way to help us when we're living in a dangerous area to begin with, and anyway it's such a corrupt state that we can't be trusted with anything that's sent to help us anyway (unlike, say, the fine upstanding oh-so-honest W administration, who would just NEVER lie cheat steal or start a war to enrich their buddies, no sirree...) .
If anyone ends up with the final credit for getting NOLA rebuilt, it's gonna be the students from all over who are coming down here in shift after shift after shift and the other fine folks with Common Ground and Global Green and Habitat for Humanity, etc. We're still in very bad shape here, but without them we'd be a lot worse off. Maybe if there are Constitutional issues here, the foreign aid should be given to those kinds of organizations directly rather than to the state or city government.
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| PS | Jun 17th. at 4:01:26 pm EDT
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| A Way Home | Jun 17th. at 3:26:40 pm EDT
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Terra Gazelle (Springfield, Louisiana) - Email Me
I was in New Orleans a few weeks ago....then I went down the coast into Mississippi....
I saw cement slabs where large houses once stood in Ms. I went by forests of broken trees some with clotheing still flying like flags in them. FEMA campers like mushrooms...
Louisiana and Ms. are being treated like orphans...two years and people are still waiting for help...insurance companies still fighting whether it was wind or flood...the Goverment's Corp of Engineers responcible for the buiding and maintaining of levees still working on fixing them back to what it was two years ago...pumps not working to keep water out of New Orleans ( the pumps that did not work was manufactured by a Bush friend) .
This is the nation that went to the moon, yet can not help their own. We will make sure that Iraq has hosbitals while the people of New Orleans does without. There is a shortage of nurses, doctors,teachers, schools... everything and everyone.
Billions was supposed to go to those people affected by the 2005 hurricanes...so far Halliburton, Bectal, and other non bid corporations have their money.
People need to pay attention to what is going on....promises made while the light is on you, is not the same as promises kept...and what promises in the last 6 years has been kept, except for vetos?
This is my state...I chose to live here and I love it. New Orleans is unique, it has a life that can not be duplicated anywhere. It deserves to be saved and it's people helped to find a way back home.
terra
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| Wow... | Jun 15th. at 6:21:16 pm EDT
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Mirian (Urbana, Illinois) - Email Me
This is disgusting. Not that New Orleans is doing it; they are simply doing what they must to rebuild their city. But that they are being driven to this extreme.... When another country experiences a natural disaster of this nature, the US is usually the first country to respond with money and aid. But when disaster occurs on our own home ground, New Orleans has to turn to foreign nations for assistance?
This is so sad.
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| Wait A Minute Here!!! | Jun 15th. at 1:47:23 pm EDT
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Denise (Bremerton, Washington) - Email Me
I had always heard that charity starts at home.
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| Failure And Need | Jun 15th. at 1:40:53 pm EDT
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J & V Enterprises (Sweetwater, Tennessee) - Email Me
While this may well be unconstitutional action, it is not unprecedented and is very much needed.
As things stand now it is quite routine for states to enter into such things as trade agreements with foreign nations without the consent of the federal government.
The federal response to this disaster has been woefully inacequate. Whether the base cause of this failure is red tape, incompetence, or criminal is irrelevent to the need. The need exists, the federal government is not addressing that need, so the city is turning to those who are willing to address that need.
Once again, the clear need for fundamental change in our federal government is clearly demonstrated.
Jason
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| Bloody. | Jun 15th. at 12:52:01 pm EDT
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Eran Rathan (Old Town, Maine) - Email Me
someone posted before i could that it was unconstitutional.
though, that makes one wonder if the treaties given to the various tribes and First Nations are legal and binding, as they were made in some cases with the states and not with the federal government.
Eran Rathan
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| Well, | Jun 15th. at 11:51:20 am EDT
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Moro NightBird (Carbondale, Illinois) - Email Me
If the federal dollars don't get home in time for dinner, I see no problem turning to other countries for help.
~Moro NightBird~
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| Considering..... | Jun 15th. at 11:08:12 am EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
the help they got with this one- it is little wonder. The time is coming I fear, where standing on one's own will be nearly impossible.
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