The US government has yet to respond to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s offer to send planeloads of aid, including 2,000 soldiers, firefighters, volunteers and other disaster specialists to Louisiana. Venezuela, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, also pledged $1 million… Read moreChavez offers US disaster aid, warns of global energy disaster
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina may not be entirely the result of an act of nature. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. The Corps of Engineers strengthened and… Read moreEnvironmental policy roots of Katrina disaster
As looting and gunfire erupt in New Orleans, the authorities are shifting their attention from a humanitarian mission to what is starting to look like counter-insurgency. “They have M-16s and they’re locked and loaded,” Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of… Read moreNew Orleans: laboratory of counter-insurgency
In his Aug. 30 speech overwhelmingly focusing on his World War II analogy, Bush did let slip this one telling line at North Island Naval Air Station: “If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a… Read moreBush admits: It’s the oil, stupid!
Cindy Sheehan and her entourage have left Crawford, TX, as Bush ended his vacation a few days early in response to the disaster in New Orleans. She is taking her act on the road with a “Bring Them Home Now… Read moreBush: the anti-FDR
With nine major refineries closed and many oil rigs or platforms reported missing in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurrice Katrina, the US government has decided to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to help offset… Read moreBush opens Strategic Reserves
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says Hurricane Katrina probably killed hundreds and “most likely, thousands” of residents. “We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water,” and others dead on roofs and in attics, Nagin told… Read moreKatrina: levee system made disaster worse
Warmer sea-surface temperatures caused by climate change could boost the frequency and potency of hurricanes, and that may be what we are now witnessing following the wave of ferocious Atlantic storms in recent years. A paper published last month in… Read moreKatrina, Republican “witch-hunt” worry climate scientists
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is devastated. Eighty percent of the city is submerged and the water is expected to keep rising for days due to levee breaks. The death toll of 60 could be just the… Read moreIraq impacts felt in New Orleans
Note how this Aug. 30 Associated Press report implicitly accepts Sharon’s language that “the main settlement blocs will remain under Israeli sovereignty.” Of course none of the settlement blocs are under Israeli sovereignty, according to international law. Sharon: Not all… Read moreSharon: No major West Bank pullout
Reporters Without Borders is calling for the immediate release of Nosir Zakirov, a correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Uzbekistan’s eastern province of Namangan, who was convicted of “insulting a government official” and sentenced to six months on prison… Read moreReporter gets prison in Uzbekistan
From Halliburton Watch: Army demotes senior official who exposed Halliburton cronyism 29 August 2005 WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (HalliburtonWatch.org) — The top civilian contracting official at the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was demoted after exposing cronyism between Halliburton and… Read moreUS Army “reprisal” against Halliburton whistle-blower
