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dbcooper41 wrote:http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_thorp_1
thorp was apparently the official liar in the jessica lynch story. so there is a family tradition for "stretching the truth".
DoYouEverWonder
Quote:
Haiti is reeling from a massive earthquake, and U.S. and international agencies are scrambling to respond.
In a statement, Randy Martin, director of global emergency operations for the relief group Mercy Corps said, “Initial reports indicate that the quake has caused extensive damage, and we fear that casualties could be widespread.”
A few hours ago, I received this tweet from my friends Kira Kay and Jason Maloney of the Bureau for International Reporting, currently in Haiti to shoot a documentary. “Planning to head out at first light to Port au Prince,” they write. “Don’t know if we will have communications. Will post when we can #fb.” I’ll be following their tweets and Facebook posts all day.
The Coast Guard has mobilized cutters and aircraft: The service deployed the crews of a C-130 Hercules cargo plane; the Valiant, a Reliance-class cutter; and the medium-endurance cutters Forward, Tahoma and Mohawk. According to a Coast Guard statement, additional Coast Guard assets in the region are also standing by to render assistance if needed.
The U.S. military has a long history of involvement in Haiti, including major interventions like Operation Uphold Democracy in 1994 and 1995. More recently, Haiti has been a destination for military-led humanitarian assistance missions like Continuing Promise 2009, pictured here. The Associated Press, quoting White House sources, says that less than 20 U.S. military personnel are currently in the country, and they are prepared to take part in humanitarian operations.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01 ... aid-haiti/
Where were these guys after Katrina hit?
Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps Nancy Lindborg, president of Mercy Corps, takes a deep breath when she thinks about 2005. So far, to understate things just a little, it’s been a highly unusual year.
“You never want to say never,” Lindborg says. “But it does seem like we’re hitting on all cylinders right now in a way we rarely have. The tsunami set the stage for some all-hands-on-deck responses, and there’s really been no letup since.”
Indeed, the Indian Ocean tsunami, 2004’s calamitous closing act, prompted one of Mercy Corps’ most extensive emergency efforts ever. Then, an unfolding food crisis in Niger and boiling-point civil strife in Uganda created a two-headed emergency on either side of Africa. When Hurricane Katrina shattered the Gulf Coast, Mercy Corps embarked on its first-ever full-scale relief effort within the United States. The agency’s Guatemala staff leads international efforts to help areas devastated by floods and mudslides after Tropical Storm Stan swept through Central America. At almost the same time, the 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northern Pakistan monopolized international headlines.
As efforts to save quake survivors entered a second week, Mercy Corps doctors, sanitation specialists and relief organizers ventured into remote mountain valleys in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. Meanwhile, Mercy Corps’ far-flung staff - from Portland to Scotland to Hong Kong - scrambled to keep a perpetual motion machine running: logistics, funding, planning, supplies, human resources, security, communications, media relations.
Most of the time, Mercy Corps programs take a practical, low-key, long-term approach to aid: repairing canals in ex-Soviet Georgia; providing micro-loans to Chinese farmers; organizing community forums in Serbia. Those efforts continue. The overlapping crises around the globe, however, make disaster response the agency’s most high-profile calling card. And they pose a challenge for an outfit that prides itself on providing efficient, innovative help to the world’s most vulnerable.
“I’d say people in the organization are really looking forward to some disaster-free time,” Lindborg says.
But according to Lindborg and other senior Mercy Corps staff, this extraordinary year has both sharpened the agency’s ability to work at top speed and underscored the strengths of its flexible, creative approach. In this recent chain of calamities, they see opportunities as well as crises.
“We used to talk a lot about a continuum,” says Neal Keny-Guyer, Mercy Corps’ CEO. “There was relief, then recovery, then development. We’ve learned that it’s not a continuum, or at least not necessarily a sequential one. You can do relief, recovery and development all at the same time.”
Crises Emerge in Africa
In hindsight, Randy Martin recognizes that no one really knew what Mercy Corps was in for when, this summer, the agency decided to dive into a pair of long-simmering African crises.
“Niger and Uganda are sort of like the opposite of a tsunami or an earthquake,” says Martin, Mercy Corps’ director of global emergency operations. “They’re slow-onset disasters, so to speak.”
In Uganda, a marauding rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army had forced 1.6 million from their homes, creating a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Sudan's Darfur region. Meanwhile, in Niger, locust swarms and persistent drought put millions at risk of starvation. Mercy Corps decided to dispatch an assessment team to each country.
Then came Hurricane Katrina, with Stan and the Pakistan earthquake close behind. To Martin, Mercy Corps’ ability to respond simultaneously to very different, very complex disasters in Africa, South Asia and the Americas has everything to do with flexibility. The D.C.-based emergency operations team he leads includes just four full-time responders. To handle any given emergency scenario - where a grasp of fast-changing facts on the ground and international coordination are equally vital - Mercy Corps pulls together resources from around the world.
“Other organizations that do this kind of work tend to have bigger dedicated emergency-response teams,” says Martin. “But basically, we leverage the whole organization. That allows us to punch above our weight, I guess you’d say.”
On most mornings following the Pakistan earthquake, for example, a telephone conference call buzzed with voices beamed in from Islamabad, Portland, D.C., Khartoum and Hong Kong. The calls galvanized agency specialists of all varieties to keep money, information and personnel flowing to the devastated region.
“Our culture really lends itself to this kind of response,” Nancy Lindborg says. “People don’t stand on ‘it’s not my job’-type thinking. And we’ve built up a reservoir of talent that allows us to, for example, put people who’ve worked in Iraq and Kosovo into the middle of our Hurricane Katrina response.”
According to Martin, Mercy Corps' on-the-ground response - bolstered by the “reservoir of talent” Lindborg talks about - scales up quickly as cash on hand increases.
“When the Pakistan earthquake happened, we were scratching our chins, saying how can we make this work?” Martin says. “So we put in a budget of $20,000. Pretty quickly, we were able to increase that to $50,000. And within a few days, it was up to $1.5 million. There’s a real clear connection between donations and what we’re able to do on the ground.”
dbcooper41 wrote:DoYouEverWonder
Quote:
Haiti is reeling from a massive earthquake, and U.S. and international agencies are scrambling to respond.
In a statement, Randy Martin, director of global emergency operations for the relief group Mercy Corps said, “Initial reports indicate that the quake has caused extensive damage, and we fear that casualties could be widespread.”
A few hours ago, I received this tweet from my friends Kira Kay and Jason Maloney of the Bureau for International Reporting, currently in Haiti to shoot a documentary. “Planning to head out at first light to Port au Prince,” they write. “Don’t know if we will have communications. Will post when we can #fb.” I’ll be following their tweets and Facebook posts all day.
The Coast Guard has mobilized cutters and aircraft: The service deployed the crews of a C-130 Hercules cargo plane; the Valiant, a Reliance-class cutter; and the medium-endurance cutters Forward, Tahoma and Mohawk. According to a Coast Guard statement, additional Coast Guard assets in the region are also standing by to render assistance if needed.
The U.S. military has a long history of involvement in Haiti, including major interventions like Operation Uphold Democracy in 1994 and 1995. More recently, Haiti has been a destination for military-led humanitarian assistance missions like Continuing Promise 2009, pictured here. The Associated Press, quoting White House sources, says that less than 20 U.S. military personnel are currently in the country, and they are prepared to take part in humanitarian operations.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01 ... aid-haiti/
Where were these guys after Katrina hit?
they were in new orleans.
http://www.mercycorps.org/countries/pakistan/10843Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps Nancy Lindborg, president of Mercy Corps, takes a deep breath when she thinks about 2005. So far, to understate things just a little, it’s been a highly unusual year.
“You never want to say never,” Lindborg says. “But it does seem like we’re hitting on all cylinders right now in a way we rarely have. The tsunami set the stage for some all-hands-on-deck responses, and there’s really been no letup since.”
Indeed, the Indian Ocean tsunami, 2004’s calamitous closing act, prompted one of Mercy Corps’ most extensive emergency efforts ever. Then, an unfolding food crisis in Niger and boiling-point civil strife in Uganda created a two-headed emergency on either side of Africa. When Hurricane Katrina shattered the Gulf Coast, Mercy Corps embarked on its first-ever full-scale relief effort within the United States. The agency’s Guatemala staff leads international efforts to help areas devastated by floods and mudslides after Tropical Storm Stan swept through Central America. At almost the same time, the 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northern Pakistan monopolized international headlines.
As efforts to save quake survivors entered a second week, Mercy Corps doctors, sanitation specialists and relief organizers ventured into remote mountain valleys in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. Meanwhile, Mercy Corps’ far-flung staff - from Portland to Scotland to Hong Kong - scrambled to keep a perpetual motion machine running: logistics, funding, planning, supplies, human resources, security, communications, media relations.
Most of the time, Mercy Corps programs take a practical, low-key, long-term approach to aid: repairing canals in ex-Soviet Georgia; providing micro-loans to Chinese farmers; organizing community forums in Serbia. Those efforts continue. The overlapping crises around the globe, however, make disaster response the agency’s most high-profile calling card. And they pose a challenge for an outfit that prides itself on providing efficient, innovative help to the world’s most vulnerable.
“I’d say people in the organization are really looking forward to some disaster-free time,” Lindborg says.
But according to Lindborg and other senior Mercy Corps staff, this extraordinary year has both sharpened the agency’s ability to work at top speed and underscored the strengths of its flexible, creative approach. In this recent chain of calamities, they see opportunities as well as crises.
“We used to talk a lot about a continuum,” says Neal Keny-Guyer, Mercy Corps’ CEO. “There was relief, then recovery, then development. We’ve learned that it’s not a continuum, or at least not necessarily a sequential one. You can do relief, recovery and development all at the same time.”
Crises Emerge in Africa
In hindsight, Randy Martin recognizes that no one really knew what Mercy Corps was in for when, this summer, the agency decided to dive into a pair of long-simmering African crises.
“Niger and Uganda are sort of like the opposite of a tsunami or an earthquake,” says Martin, Mercy Corps’ director of global emergency operations. “They’re slow-onset disasters, so to speak.”
In Uganda, a marauding rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army had forced 1.6 million from their homes, creating a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Sudan's Darfur region. Meanwhile, in Niger, locust swarms and persistent drought put millions at risk of starvation. Mercy Corps decided to dispatch an assessment team to each country.
Then came Hurricane Katrina, with Stan and the Pakistan earthquake close behind. To Martin, Mercy Corps’ ability to respond simultaneously to very different, very complex disasters in Africa, South Asia and the Americas has everything to do with flexibility. The D.C.-based emergency operations team he leads includes just four full-time responders. To handle any given emergency scenario - where a grasp of fast-changing facts on the ground and international coordination are equally vital - Mercy Corps pulls together resources from around the world.
“Other organizations that do this kind of work tend to have bigger dedicated emergency-response teams,” says Martin. “But basically, we leverage the whole organization. That allows us to punch above our weight, I guess you’d say.”
On most mornings following the Pakistan earthquake, for example, a telephone conference call buzzed with voices beamed in from Islamabad, Portland, D.C., Khartoum and Hong Kong. The calls galvanized agency specialists of all varieties to keep money, information and personnel flowing to the devastated region.
“Our culture really lends itself to this kind of response,” Nancy Lindborg says. “People don’t stand on ‘it’s not my job’-type thinking. And we’ve built up a reservoir of talent that allows us to, for example, put people who’ve worked in Iraq and Kosovo into the middle of our Hurricane Katrina response.”
According to Martin, Mercy Corps' on-the-ground response - bolstered by the “reservoir of talent” Lindborg talks about - scales up quickly as cash on hand increases.
“When the Pakistan earthquake happened, we were scratching our chins, saying how can we make this work?” Martin says. “So we put in a budget of $20,000. Pretty quickly, we were able to increase that to $50,000. And within a few days, it was up to $1.5 million. There’s a real clear connection between donations and what we’re able to do on the ground.”
The Coast Guard has mobilized cutters and aircraft: The service deployed the crews of a C-130 Hercules cargo plane; the Valiant, a Reliance-class cutter; and the medium-endurance cutters Forward, Tahoma and Mohawk. According to a Coast Guard statement, additional Coast Guard assets in the region are also standing by to render assistance if needed.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Death was everywhere Wednesday in this devastated city of 2 million. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets.
Moreover, untold numbers were still trapped after a powerful earthquake Tuesday crushed thousands of structures — from schools and shacks to the National Palace and the local U.N. headquarters.
As nations around the world mobilized to send help, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told Reuters that he believed the casualties would be "in the range of thousands of dead."
Soon after, however, Bellerive told CNN that "I believe we are well over 100,000" dead, while Haitian Sen. Youri Latortue said it could be 500,000.
8bitagent wrote:PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Death was everywhere Wednesday in this devastated city of 2 million. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets.
Moreover, untold numbers were still trapped after a powerful earthquake Tuesday crushed thousands of structures — from schools and shacks to the National Palace and the local U.N. headquarters.
As nations around the world mobilized to send help, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told Reuters that he believed the casualties would be "in the range of thousands of dead."
Soon after, however, Bellerive told CNN that "I believe we are well over 100,000" dead, while Haitian Sen. Youri Latortue said it could be 500,000.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34829978/ns ... arthquake/
Waking up today to headlines like "Haiti Capital Destroyed" is pretty unnerving.
The Haitians have had to suffer some of the most dehumanizing conditions in just the last 15 years alone, and I remember following the saga of the *almost* US war in Haiti in 1994.
But like the Turkish earthquake and the apocalyptic Dec 2004 Tsunami/Earthquake, I fear we'll be seeing more of these.
Its times like this I wish people like Goro Adachi were wrong.
And I have to disagree strongly with dbcooper: These are not manmade events in the least.
However, they do fit an almost apocalyptic pattern it would seem.
DoYouEverWonder wrote:
Instead of spending half of the US budget on defense, we'd all be a lot safer and better off if we spent it on help everyone live a decent life. What the US has allowed to happen to Haiti is a crime against humanity.
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