Newsitem List

One of the essential tasks in a disaster recovery operation—after evacuation and care for the living—is the removal of the dead. This is essential both to prevent the spread of disease and to identify the remains of those who were lost. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, however, federal and state authorities did not even begin the process for more than a week....

The latest Human Development Report issued by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) documents the growing inequality and absolute decline in living standards and social conditions in large areas of the world....

Interview with Steve Bradbury, community organizer with New Orleans ACORN, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus...

1,993 men, women and children died homeless over the past 18 years – 149 died last year alone. This Sunday, a three-day memorial held to honor their lives will begin. Organized by Religious Witness with Homeless People, the event will include a 94-foot memorial wall bearing the names of every person who died on the streets, as well as vigils, sacred song and dance, and a reading of the wall’s names led by religious leaders. The service presents a rare opportunity for San Franciscans to honor ...

I'm posting an update on the Algiers Clinic, and how things have been going in New Orleans. We're now calling the clinic Common Ground, and we're referring to the staffing as part of the Mutual Aid Collective of Algiers....

A report/blog from Algiers, a neighghborhood of New Orleans unhit by floods. This blog speaks of grassroots mutual aid happening there....

The Common Ground medical and relief effort in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans continues at full speed....

About one million people have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, according to various reports. Most of the survivors have left New Orleans and the surrounding areas, dispersed throughout the country in emergency shelters, military bases and donated living spaces. A majority moved in with friends and family, and so their new location is not known. Nearly 60,000 remain displaced within Louisiana’s overburdened shelter system....

Even as the grim task of locating bodies and counting the dead continues, it is already clear that whatever reconstruction effort is mounted in New Orleans, it will be geared entirely to advancing the interests of the city’s elite and the profits of corporations across the country....

Jefferson Parish, Louisiana - On the afternoon of Thursday, September 8th, Vermont National Guard troops brought food and water, by truck, into a number of poor and working class communities in Jefferson Parish, just across the river from New Orleans. Throughout the day twelve Guardsmen distributed an estimated 900 meals to hurricane survivors....