THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2009
NEWS
9A
GOVERNMENT
Administrators pledge millions for Gulf Coast recovery
BY MICHAEL KUNZEMAN Associated Dress
NEW ORLEANS — Disturbed by what they saw on a bus ride through
year elec- ucca
Hurricane Katrina's scars, two members of President Barack Obamas cabinet pledged Thursday to speed the pace of the Gulf Coast recovery operation they inherited from the Bush administration.
"What we have seen today made us disturbed, angry even, to see some of the families living the way they have."
SHAUN DONOVAN HUD Secretary
Obama promised a stepped-up commitment to the region several
On their first visit to New Orleans since Obama took office, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing and Urban Development secretary Shaun Donovan announced millions of dollars in new funding for post Katrina housing initiatives and vowed to cut red tape that has kept money out of local governments' hands.
tion and continued to trouble criti cs who considered the emergency response too little too late.
"This will not be the last time we are here," said Napolitano, who is scheduled to take a helicopter tour of Mississippi's Gulf Coast on Friday. "We're going to get this done."
The federal government's response to the 2005 storm that devastated New Orleans was a defining moment for the Bush administra-
weeks ago, saying Gulf Coast residents struggling to rebuild have not always received the support they deserve. Katrina was blamed for more than 1,600 deaths and billions of dollars in property damage.
Napolitano and Donovan got a firsthand look at the juxtaposition of hard-fought
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, right, answers a question at a news conference as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, looks on after they completed a tour of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Thursday. The Obama administration promised to designate more money to speed recovery in the Gulf Coast.
progress and frustrating inertia in neighborhoods devastated by the August 2005 storm.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
They were joined by Craig Fugate, Obama's pick to lead the Federal Emergency Mana gement Agency, a target of many New Orleans residents' frustration since the early aftermath of the storm.
rebuilt since the storm's catastrophic levee breaches.
Along the route, they stopped to peer at homes being built as part of actor Brad Pitt's Make It Right project, but a sign that pleaded "Please Help Our Community" adorned a different house in the same neighborhood.
"What we have seen today makes us disturbed, angry even, to see some of the families living the way that they have." Donovan said at the last stop. "We pledge to you our partnership for a new beginning in New Orleans and across the Gulf."
They started with a visit to a lakefront university in New Orleans where students still take classes in trailers, then met with a property owner on the outskirts of the city whose home was rebuilt by volunteers. The bus tour ended at a 9th Ward public housing development
Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal said he heard some encouraging words Thursday, but action will be critical now.
At the housing complex, a homeowner disgusted by the pace of his own personal rebuilding project waited to hear what the officials had to say. Malcolm Russell, 56, said a $130,000 federal grant wasn't enough to totally rebuild his home and rental property in
"Three years later I'm still begging (Louisiana's homeowner grant program) for money."
MALCOLM RUSSELL
Hurricane Katrina victim
"What I hope they take away is how much government assistance helps, but also how much work needs to be done," he said.
New Orleans.
"They're sending all this money from Washington, and the little people are not getting a dime of it," he said. "Three years later, I'm still begging (Louisiana's homeowner grant program) for money."
the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said he almost wished officials had seen how devastated things were before, to realize how far people have come.
city and others in Louisiana is that they're not getting all they're due for rebuilding work from FEMA and that the decision-making process for approving funding should be more transparent.
A consistent complaint from the
Walter Leger, vice chairman of
FEMA has contended that many buildings across Louisiana suffered from years of deferred maintenance and that it's charged only with helping bring infrastructure back to its condition before the storm.
Napolitano blamed delays on FEMA staffing turnovers and confusion over FEMAs legal obligations in disbursing money. She said a new team of state and federal officials has been formed to settle disputes over funding of local rebuilding projects.
INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sale halted on Ghandi items
Toni Bedi, left, an executive of UB Group speaks to reporters on behalf of the Indian company's CEO Vijay Malya, and Sant Singh Chatwal, right, at the Antiquorum auction house after placing the winning bid for Mohandas Gandhi's items Thursday in New York. Gandhi's eyeglasses and other items have been sold at auction for $1.8 million to an Indian freight company, but the seller no longer wishes to sell the items.
Auctioning off monk's relics raises Indian government's outrage
BY RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mohandas Gandhi's eyeglasses and other items sold for $1.8 million Thursday at an auction that drew outrage from the Indian government, a last-minute reversal from the seller and a frenzy of bidding won by an Indian conglomerate that said the pacifist leader's possessions will be coming home.
The Indian government had protested the sale, saying the items should be returned to the nation and not sold to the highest bidder. The seller and the government could not work out a deal, and the auction went forward as planned.
The lot included Gandhi's wiirim eyeglasses, worn leather sandals, a pocket watch, a plate and the brass bowl from which he ate his final meal.
Auctioneer Julien Schaerer announced as the sale began that the Gandhi items would be held for two weeks "pending resolution of third party claims."
But the self-identified owner, California art collector james Otis, told reporters outside the Antiquorum Auctioneers that he no longer wanted to sell the items. Meanwhile, U.S. Justice Department officials served an Indian court injunction on the auction house, blocking it from releasing the items.
Toni Bedi, an executive of the Indian company UB Group, had the winning bid after a furious four minutes in which the offers raced
from $10,000 to $1.8 million. Bids came from the floor and by phone and Internet over overseas; none of the other bidders were identified.
Bedi said he was acting on instructions of Dr. Vijay Mallya, CEO of UB Group, whose firms in India include breweries, airlines, chemical, pharmaceutical and fertilizer firms and information and technology companies. He said that the company wants to donate the items to the Indian government, and plans to return them for public display in New Delhi.
Otis, who calls himself a pacifist and advocate of nonviolence in the Gandhi tradition, had said he planned to donate the auction proceeds to that cause. In announcing that he wanted to withdraw the
Antiquorum president Robert Maron would not confirm that Otis was the seller, saying the house never identifies its consignors. "I have not spoken to Mr. Otis today," he said.
Otis said he was embarking on a 23-day fast to "consider my actions," apparently meaning his earlier decision to auction the items off.
"There are restrictions at the moment pending a court resolution that (the) auction was legal," Bedi said, referring to the injunction served on the auction house.
Otis' attorney, Ravi Batra, said the injunction aimed at barring the sale was legal under treaties between the U.S. and Indian governments.
items from sale, he said, it was his "deepest hope" to get them back on Thursday.
The auction house said Gandhi had given the eyeglasses and its leather case to an army colonel who had asked him for inspiration, telling him they were the "eyes" that had given him the vision to free India.
Antiquorum said the items were consigned by a private American collector who obtained them from descendants of the Gandhi family.
Mariama Ntichala, center right, sits with other family members as she mourns her husband, stained armed forces chief of staff Gien, Bastiste Tagme na Waie, at their home in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau Thursday. Tuesday's swearing-in of Head of Parliament Raimundo Pereira marked a welcome continuation of democratic rule after the killings of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira and his long-standing rival, the head of the armed forces.
INTERNATIONAL
President of small African country murdered amid rising drug violence
Vieira's death met with disinterest from populace
BY TODD PITMAN
Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Less than 24 hours after the brutal slayings Monday, market stalls were open, people were back in the streets and the city's dilapidated fleet of blue-and-white Mercedes taxis was again cruising the potholed roads, Caribbean rhythms pulsing from their radios.
BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau — The blood-soaked dining room where Guinea-Bissau's president was brutally murdered is littered with broken glass, bullet casings and a rusted machete.
The reaction was nearly identical after the last military coup in 2003: no surprise, mild speculation, then within a day, a return to normalcy so complete it seemed as if nothing had happened.
No crime scene tape cordons off the area, no police stand guard outside. No one has been arrested, and hardly anyone in this sleepy tropical capital seems to care.
Since winning a violent struggle for independence from Portugal in 1974, this nation of 1.5 million has been on a losing streak — cursed by coups, coup attempts and war. Today it is
L[ 译录 ] / MR A. AN
The apathy surrounding the slaying of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira in his own home — as well as the bombing attack that killed his main rival hours earlier — symbolizes just how far this drug-wracked state has fallen.
"What are we supposed to do, cry? Demand justice?" asked journalist Zique Choaib, 41. "The powerful people at the top have been fighting each other for decades. They'll keep fighting. It's really nothing new."
ranked third-worst of 177 nations on the U.N. Human Development Index, which measures general well-being. One of the world's poorest countries, life expectancy is a mere 45.
Vieira is blamed for much of the slide. He seized power in 1980 and ruled for 19 years until being ousted at the end of the country's civil war. He returned from exile to win elections in 2005 that observers deemed free and fair.
U. N. officials now say Guinea-Bissau has become a leading transit point for Europe-bound cocaine. Last month, the State Department warned that the "degeneration of Guinea-Bissau into a narco-state is a real possibility."
But life only seemed to get worse.
Then, multistory villas began springing up on the edge of town, signaling the arrival of suspected Latin American drug traffickers who moved in to take advantage of the country's weak government, corrupt security forces and strategic position south of European drug markets.
The nation's economy is minuscule, driven largely by cashew, fish and peanut exports, so even a small influx of drug money can have a major impact.
The U.N. estimates the cocaine transiting through Guinea-Bissau is worth more than a billion dollars a year, dwarfing the meager national budget.
Top military officials have been accused of taking a cut to allow drug planes to land and to turn a blind eye to drug activity.
EARN $40 TODAY.
$80 THIS WEEK.
*Finish new donors*
CASH IN YOUR POCKET.
DONATE PLASMA.
IT PAYS TO SAVE A LIFE.
816 West 24th Street, Lawrence, KS 65046
785.749.5750 > blbplasma.com
Fee and donation times may vary. New donors bring photo ID, proof of address and Social Security card
ZLB Plasma
Good for You Great for Life