Sydney Morning Herald
Katrina rates as the costliest disaster
By Andrew Cave
September 6, 2005
Total losses from Hurricane Katrina in the United States are likely to make it the costliest natural disaster ever, according to analysts.
Consultancy firm Risk Management Solutions says the losses from flooding in New Orleans, wind damage, coastal surges, battered infrastructure and indirect economic effects could total more than $US100 billion ($131 billion).
Analysts also believe the crisis will prompt further increases in petrol prices. Oil refineries along the US's Gulf of Mexico coast and battered offshore oil and gas platforms were recovering slowly almost a week after Katrina devastated the largest energy hub in the world's top consumer of fuel.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/katrina-rates-as-the-costliest-disaster/2005/09/05/1125772465380.html
Two survivors return amid storm over ex-minister's remarks
September 6, 2005 - 10:39AM
As two Australians returned home today after five terrifying days, there were calls for former federal minister Wilson Tuckey to apologise for criticising of Australians trapped by the hurricane disaster.
Mr Tuckey had implied the troubles of Australians stranded by Hurricane Katrina were of their own making, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said today.
"What were a mob of Australians doing there? Were they local residents, were they tourists, were they tourists with travel insurance?," Mr Tuckey told parliament last night.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/survivors-land-amid-storm-over-mps-attack/2005/09/06/1125772499010.html
Nine killed in cable car crash
September 6, 2005 - 9:45AM
A coffin is carried to a crashed cable car cabin on a mountainside near Soelden, in Austria's western province of Tyrol.
Photo: Reuters
Nine Germans, including six children, were killed when a helicopter accidentally dropped a 750 kilogram concrete block on a ski-lift, plunging a cable car down a mountainside in Austria.
The helicopter was carrying material to a mountaintop construction site when it dropped the block, knocking the car in a string of gondolas off its wires and leaving others swinging so violently that their passengers were thrown out.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/nine-killed-in-cable-car-crash/2005/09/06/1125772489555.html
Bush tours stricken region as response probe urged
September 6, 2005 - 7:35AM
President Bush greets local officials and law enforcement personnel at the Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Mississippi.
Rescuers went house to house in once-bustling New Orleans -- now reduced to a few thousand people -- searching for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, as mobile morgues stood by to collect the dead.
A week after Katrina walloped the Gulf Coast, leaving thousands feared dead, some residents headed back to relatively undamaged areas while President George Bush made his second tour of the devastation in three days.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-tours-stricken-region-as-response-probe-urged/2005/09/06/1125772491619.html
Deadly typhoon pounds Japan
September 6, 2005 - 10:57AM
A huge wave smashes a national highway as a powerful typhoon approaches Kagoshima yesterday.
A powerful typhoon hit Japan today, leaving one person dead and another missing, and prompting officials to order thousands to evacuate their homes for fear of landslides and storm damage.
At least nine people were injured on Japan's southern main island of Kyushu and the island chain of Okinawa, police said.
Nabi, meaning butterfly in Korean and packing winds of up to 144 kilometres per hour, was located near Makurazaki City on Kyushu's southern tip at 8am (0900 AEST), the Meteorological Agency said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/deadly-typhoon-pounds-japan/2005/09/06/1125772499707.html
Chernobyl death toll 56 so far: UN
September 6, 2005 - 9:44AM
The number of people killed by radiation as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident, is so far 56, much lower than previously thought, United Nations organisations said.
A report compiled by the Chernobyl Forum, which includes eight UN agencies, said the final death toll was expected to reach about 4,000 - much lower than some previous estimates - and that the greatest damage to human health was psychological.
The disaster occurred at 1.24am on April 26, 1986, when an explosion at Reactor 4 of the Ukrainian power plant spewed a cloud of radioactivity over Europe and the Soviet Union, particularly contaminating Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
"Claims have been made that tens or even hundreds of thousands of persons have died as a result of the accident. These claims are exaggerated," the Chernobyl Forum report said.
UN officials said the death toll was 47 emergency workers and nine children who had died of thyroid cancer.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Chernobyl-death-toll-56-so-far-UN/2005/09/06/1125772496264.html
North Korea wants talks to resume
September 6, 2005 - 9:50AM
North Korea has told China it wants to resume six-way talks on an international standoff over its nuclear development programs on September 13, Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported.
China, host of the talks which also involve the South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia, is expected to announce the official date after discussion with all parties, Yonhap reported.
North Korea has said the talks could resume next week, but has not set a date.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/North-Korea-wants-talks-to-resume/2005/09/06/1125772496592.html
The hurricane babies who defied the odds
By Mark Coultan Herald Correspondent in New Orleans
September 6, 2005
Nine-day-old Symphony looks remarkably unfazed for a baby who has experienced premature birth, a hurricane, a flood, evacuation and separation from her mother.
By contrast, her 23-year-old mother, Sharia Spikes-Sotomayorcolon, looks as she has lived several lives in the last few days. Who could blame her? She underwent a caesarean section at New Orleans Methodist Hospital while Hurricane Katrina was heading up the Gulf of Mexico.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-hurricane-babies-who-defied-the-odds/2005/09/05/1125772465656.html
Katrina's big victim
September 6, 2005
The weather warning delivered to New Orleans on the morning of Sunday, August 28, was clear and precise: Hurricane Katrina would bring devastating damage. It would render large areas of the city uninhabitable for weeks. Half of all well-built houses would have roofs and walls fail. On and on it went. And yet, though warnings were issued and the city evacuated as far it could be, US authorities appear to have done little to be ready to help those left behind.
Exactly who is to blame for America's spectacular failure to look after its own will no doubt be determined by detailed inquiries in coming months, but without any doubt the political burden now falls heaviest on the shoulders of its President, George Bush. The sick, the elderly, the newborn left to die in squalor without food or water as armed gangs rape, loot and kill - these images from the world's richest nation are not quickly forgotten. The US, like the rest of the world, is shocked. But it is angry, too. Mr Bush has toured the devastation twice now. He has hugged the homeless and encouraged aid workers. But despite his attempts at Churchillian rhetoric, Mr Bush is looking less and less like the leader for a crisis.
http://www.smh.com.au/editorial/index.html
Petrol soars to $1.39 in Sydney
September 6, 2005 - 4:40PM
Petrol prices have hit a high of $1.39 a litre in Sydney and motorists are being warned to expect prices to continue rising.
Average prices in Sydney stood at $1.29 a litre today, up from an average of $1.25 last week, according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum and petrol tracking website Motormouth.
The state's most expensive petrol was in inner-city Redfern where standard unleaded was selling at $1.39 a litre, more than ten cents above last week's highest price of $1.28.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/petrol-soars-to-139-in-sydney/2005/09/06/1125772513741.html
The Times Picayune
Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives
Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center
By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer
Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.
"Don't step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man."
Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.
"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html
It's an excellent editorial about Rhenquist and his successor.
Editorial: Chief Justice Rehnquist
Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist's death adds more confusion to an already unsettled political scene. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court's key swing vote, announced her retirement earlier this summer. Hearings on John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to replace her, were at hand when Hurricane Katrina roared onto the Gulf Coast and caused death and havoc in New Orleans.
However unusual the circumstances, Justice Rehnquist's legacy is not in question. While his colleagues respected his sense of humor and his orderly management of the court's affairs, most Americans will remember him for pushing the nation's highest court in a more conservative direction -- and particularly for his efforts to limit federal power.
The authority of the federal government relative to that of the states and the private sector grew immensely during the New Deal and the civil rights movement, and Mr. Rehnquist sought in his legal work to reverse that trend. Early in his career, he criticized efforts to forbid racial discrimination, particularly in situations in which the federal government enforced such measures over the objections of states. His arguments back then, critics have long contended, provided legal cover for attempts to curtail African-Americans' fundamental liberties.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html
St. Tammany residents starting over in Midwest
By PAUL BARTELS
St. Tammany bureau
Almost 50 Slidell and Pearl River area residents made homeless by Hurricane Katrina’s devastation were evacuated over the weekend on two big tour buses with the promise of a new start in the Midwest.
The promise – guaranteed jobs and free apartments for up to six months – was made by Ed Blinn, a Marion, Ind., businessman who owns three used car lots and almost 100 apartments.
Some 47 people who had spent much of the week in five crowded, squalid school gymnasiums took him up on it the offer and boarded one of the buses Blinn hired to journey down the nation’s midsection and back.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html
'Stench of death' filled St. Bernard Parish
Violet family tells harrowing tale of survival
By Chris Kirkham
St. Tammany bureau
As Merlin Ruiz gathered the last of his family's belongings from their muddied 14-foot flat boat at the edge of Salt Bayou south of Slidell, the look of resignation on his face could only hint at the harrowing four-day escape he and others had been forced to make from flood-torn St. Bernard Parish.
A few packs of tuna fish and cases of bottled water crammed into a plastic bag were the only remnants of a Violet home inundated by floodwaters and a waterside camp devastated by powerful winds. Arriving in St. Tammany Parish Saturday morning was a welcome conclusion to a journey from a place filled with what Ruiz called "the stench of death."
His family's odyssey, which he recounted from a shelter in Slidell, began Aug. 28, hours before Katrina's strongest winds ripped through St. Bernard Parish. Realizing they would not be safe in their one-story home and lacking the money to evacuate, Ruiz, his wife, Sharon, and their daughter, Triniti, made their way in a pickup truck to meet a friend at a food processing warehouse near the old Kaiser aluminum plant at the Chalmette slip. Inside the warehouse, about 50 people endured the heart of the storm the next morning, which ripped apart the roof and gutted the walls of the building.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html
Editorial: Neighbors deliver in time of need
Neighbor is a casual kind of word. Most of the time we use it just to refer to someone who lives on our street or block, someone we greet in passing most of the time but also someone we'd call upon if there were an emergency, knowing full well that they will help.
We have an emergency. And, thank God, we also have neighbors. They are in places like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. They've never clapped eyes on the men, women and children streaming out of the devastated New Orleans area. But they are opening their doors and their hearts to us.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html
Exclusive: Saints VP says team should stay
Fielkow source of off-the-record comments
By Mike Triplett
Staff writer
SAN ANTONIO - Arnold Fielkow, the Saints' executive vice president of administration, issued a statement to the Times-Picayune on Monday to explain the intent of off-the-record statements he made to the newspaper, as well as a handful of other media outlets on Saturday.
Fielkow's statements, which he said were made with "much personal frustration" following a meeting with the team's top executives earlier that day, expressed concern that team owner Tom Benson was leaning toward playing all of the Saints' home games in San Antonio this year.
Fielkow, who feels strongly that the team should play as many games as logistically possible in Baton Rouge, said that he now believes the organization will indeed attempt to play several games at LSU's Tiger Stadium, if possible.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/
The Sun Herald
Coroner insists death count is accurate
EAST BILOXI - The Katrina death toll is not being held back, the Harrison County coroner said as body recovery teams under his direction entered a new phase - searching with heavy equipment.
"There is no reason for me to deceive the public or the news media because that's not going to help the situation either," Coroner Gary Hargrove said. "Because if we start reporting low numbers and keep them low and then all of a sudden, 'bam,' we walk in and put high numbers on it, then you've created another problem. You've created deception."
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12567449.htm
It stinks to high heaven
Rotting chickens, pork foul Gulfport neighborhood
GULFPORT, Miss. - Like communities all along the Coast, the west beach neighborhood of this seaport town has block after block of leveled homes and businesses, and plenty of flood and wind damage to those that survived Hurricane Katrina's wrath.
But unlike those other communities, this one also has tons of rotting chickens and pork products strewn about like coconuts on a tropical beach, plus an assortment of other less offensive items, all swept from the nearby State Port at Gulfport.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12567540.htm
Finding beauty among the ruins
LONG BEACH, Miss. - My neighborhood looks like it was struck by a hurricane and a train wreck simultaneously. The tidal surge obliterated homes. Huge shipping containers shattered them.
Tons of poultry and other meats, bound for foreign destinations from the State Port at Gulfport, spilled between the railroad tracks and the beach all the way into Long Beach.
The few of us whose homes appear to be structurally sound worry that they will be condemned as biohazards.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12567520.htm
Shrimping industry faces many tough months ahead
D'IBERVILLE - Wee shrimp and giant storms are Gollott family traditions.
C.F. Gollott rebuilt his D'Iberville shrimp plant after the storm of '47. Arny Gollott Sr. rebuilt after Camille in '69. And Brian Gollott and the rest of the third generation intends to rebuild C.F. Gollott & Son Seafood after Katrina in '05.
Brian Gollott figures that the fourth generation will probably have to rebuild some day, too.
"And that's just the way it is, living down on this beautiful coast."
Capable of processing 75,000 tons of Gulf shrimp a day, his plant on the Back Bay was shredded by Katrina's gales and surge. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, fearing health and sanitation problems, has brought in earth-moving equipment and is hauling away the rotting shrimp and ruins of Gollott's facility and neighboring seafood distributors.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12567468.htm
The actual Newspaper
http://activepaper.olivesoftware.com/Daily/skins/SunHerald/navigator.asp?skin=SunHerald&BP=OK&AW=1126005372891
Editorial Thank you, thank you, thank you
We will never know all their names. We may not ever have a complete list of all the companies and churches and organizations and communities that have poured relief into South Mississippi.
But each and every individual, each and every business and company and corporation, each and every charitable and religious organization and every single individual and community that is sharing its time and treasure with us has our unending thanks and appreciation.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12555320.htm
The Advocate
Blanco coolly greets Bush
Friction between state, federal government shows in visit
By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON and MARK BALLARD
Capitol news bureau
Advocate staff photo by Patrick Dennis
President Bush, right, walks with Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, from right, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau at the state Office of Emergency Preparedness on Monday.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour got a hug. Gov. Kathleen Blanco was lucky to get a hello.
The friction between state and federal officials has been brewing for the past few days and bubbled to the surface with President Bush's visit to Baton Rouge on Monday.
In fact, Blanco did not learn Bush was coming to Louisiana for the second time in three days until informed by an Advocate reporter late Sunday night.
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/090605/new_blanco001.shtml
Jefferson residents get look at damage
BY JESSICA FENDER
jfender@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau
Advocate staff photo by PAUL RUTHERFORD
Dagoberto Reyes carries items from his home in Kenner on Monday. Jefferson Parish officials allowed residents to go back to their homes for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.
METAIRIE -- Marlena Kristapovich's hands shake as she sits in a pickup truck at the flooded intersection of Labarre Road and San Carlos in Jefferson Parish. She tucks a photo of her teenage daughter back into her wallet and sighs.
Her fiancé has just disappeared down their street in a neighborhood called Old Jefferson, wading through the knee-high water and sewage that greeted the couple when they -- like many displaced residents -- returned home for the first time Monday afternoon.
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/090605/new_residents001.shtml
Morgue ready for grim work with respect for Katrina dead
By DAVID J. MITCHELL
River parishes bureau
Advocate staff photos by Liz Condo
Disaster Mortuary Response team members prepare to process and identify the remains of Hurricane Katrina victims Monday. More than 100 DMORT members from a wide range of specialties - including forensic pathology, fingerprinting and funeral direction - will be involved in the 'dignified and respectful process,' a spokesman said.
ST. GABRIEL -- The sign written and hung by Dr. Corinne Stern bears a lesson worth remembering: "Mortui Vivis Praecipant," or "Let the dead teach the living."
The reminder hangs from the entrance to an assessment area for the thousands of dead expected from hurricane-ravaged New Orleans.
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/090605/sub_morgue001.shtml
Flood waters recede in New Orleans
By DOUG SIMPSON
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The floodwaters that caused so much misery and death in New Orleans were being pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain as rescue crews from as far away as California trolled the evacuated city for stragglers and authorities braced for what the receding deluge would reveal.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began pumping water out the flooded city Monday after closing a major gap in the levee that burst during Hurricane Katrina, flooding 80 percent of the bowl-shaped city.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HURRICANE_KATRINA?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Cause of Indonesia jet crash investigated
By IRWAN FIRDAUS
Associated Press Writer
MEDAN, Indonesia (AP) -- Investigators hunted for clues Tuesday that would help explain why an Indonesian jetliner crashed seconds after takeoff, sifting through body parts as they worked. Weeping families looked for loved ones among dozens of charred bodies lying outside a morgue.
At least 149 people were killed when the Boeing 737-200 crashed Monday in Indonesia's third largest city of Medan, including 47 people on the ground, a hospital official said Tuesday after tallying the corpses.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INDONESIA_PLANE_CRASH?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Fire, stampede at Egypt theater kills 29
By PAUL GARWOOD
Associated Press Writer
BENI SUEF, Egypt (AP) -- A fire that began when an actor knocked over a candle on the set of a play ripped through a crowded theater in this central Egyptian city late Monday, sparking a stampede of audience members and killing at least 29 people, survivors and officials said.
The fire spread quickly across the set, which was made entirely of paper and had been ringed with candles. Panicked audience members trampled each other trying to get out the one available exit door, which at one point was partially blocked by a piece of wood that fell during the blaze, survivors said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EGYPT_FIRE?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
New Zealand Herald
New Zealand risks becoming globally uncompetitive
06.09.05
Among comments by the 80 per cent of CEOs who are concerned:
* "Look at the data. We are falling in terms of exports and also foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP. Still too insular. Not willing to make capital investments offshore, probably due to the past track record of some bad investment decisions." (Brett Shepherd, CEO, Deutsche Bank NZ)
* "Labour has focused on social reform. Large part of labour force is uneducated. Investors reluctant to invest in NZ. No sense in having 5000 more apprentices and no manufacturers to employ them. Violence and crime is driving New Zealanders our of the country faster than tax relief or jobs will bring them back."(Energy sector CEO)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10344123
EU, China hail 'equitable' clothing deal
06.09.05 1.00pm
BEIJING - China and the European Union reached a deal today to release millions of Chinese garments blocked by EU customs officers because they exceed import ceilings, clearing up a mess that was souring two-way ties.
The search for a solution to release the 88 million sweaters, t-shirts, bras and other items had split the 25-member EU, embarrassed the EU's executive Commission and distracted diplomats from a China-EU summit taking place in Beijing.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10344280
Texas struggles to cope as refugees hit 250,000
06.09.05 4.00pm
By David Usborne
HOUSTON - The electronic traffic signs along route I-10, the Interstate highway that for days has been the prime artery for the bus caravans of evacuees fleeing southern Louisiana, flashed a new message that no one wanted to see: "ASTRODOME SHELTER CLOSED - I-45 TO DALLAS".
They might almost have said "TEXAS CLOSED", because the state which moved so quickly last week to open its arms to survivors of Hurricane Katrina, taking the brunt of the largest movement of evacuees in modern American history, by yesterday had reached saturation point.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10344259
The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is:
Scott Base
Some cloud
-23.0°
Updated Tuesday 06 Sep 8:59AM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is:
55 °F / 13 °C
Overcast
Humidity:
77%
Dew Point:
48 °F / 9 °C
Wind:
10 mph / 17 km/h from the SE
Pressure:
30.02 in / 1016 hPa
Visibility:
7.0 miles / 11.3 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds (AGL):
Scattered Clouds 3700 ft / 1127 m
Scattered Clouds 4600 ft / 1402 m
Overcast 5500 ft / 1676 m
end
