Chasing disasters close to you...

Today's fire map

2006-12-07T16:24:00.000+11:00

Victorian bushfires

2006-12-06T14:18:00.001+11:00

Picture: Jon Hargest

Fire threat to escalate

Jordan Chong
December 6, 2006 - 12:44PM

Victorian authorities have warned residents in the state's north-east and Gippsland regions of a potential 600,000 hectare blaze this weekend as northerly winds and forecast heat combine to create potentially disastrous conditions.

"We want people south of these fires ... to be ready later on in the week and next week if this fire comes down and impacts on their property," Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Kevin Monk said.

"We trying to get people to think not just 'the fire is going to burn me today' but to think ... 'that fire could come down next week, what am I doing to prepare for that'?"

Premier Steve Bracks also appealed to residents in the affected regions to attend community meetings and prepare for the prospect of bushfires threatening their homes.

"The fires we're now facing will be threatening towns. The threats will escalate over the weekend,'' Mr Bracks told reporters at the Country Fire Authority headquarters in Melbourne.

"It's going to be one of our most difficult fire weekends ever in the history of this state.

"We're already fronting a very, very difficult fire but it's going to be made worse.''

Up to 50 fires have been burning in the north-east and Gippsland regions since lightning strikes last Friday.

The largest fire is at Mt Darling, about 30 kilometres north-west of Dargo, where 10,000 hectares has been scorched.

Mr Monk said some fires, including the Mt Darling blaze, had joined together overnight, as predicted.

Fire crews would focus on protecting assets and property and trying to establish control lines around the fires, Mr Monk said.

More...

For information on Victorian bushfires, see:
Department of Sustainability and Environment - Fire and Other Emergencies
Country Fire Authority
Metropolitan Fire Brigade

We love a sunburnt country... but are we prepared?

2006-11-24T18:03:00.000+11:00

Summer is here and this year, the land is thirsty and the Australian landscape is at risk of burning. BOM recorded the second dryest October on record. Victoria has measured the lowest mean rainfall since 1914, with many areas recording the lowest rainfalls ever.

Prior to the beginning of the Summer of 2007, small scale but numerous bushfires have already started to burn the land. This week, fires threatened the outskirts of Sydney and parts of regional Victoria.

The question is... are we prepared?

Will you stay and defend your property or will you leave early?

The Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change

2006-11-02T13:32:00.000+11:00

So it's in... the final word on the state of the earth and the state of the environment we find ourselves living in. Constructed for our use, it has rendered the earth a very sick and ailing planet that even economists believe has reached critical mass.

Warning! - Your risk to natural disasters is on the rise

We are seriously screwed... if you can't swim, at least learn to paddle

If you live in a low lying area, take heed now and move to higher ground - if it's not a tsunami, the surf will be lapping on your rooftops by some time around 2035-50. Register now to become an 'environmental refugee', we will put you in a detention centre under the sea. It will be just like Finding Nemo!

Download the report: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm

Australia's position: I'm embarassing if not dumbfounded by the complacency of the Howard Government to make a useful and intelligent comment on this issue. To the Government, we should not 'overreact' to the Stern Review, regardless of the 30 years of supporting evidence. As Public Opininon polls reflect over 90% of coalition voters support the evidence presented by the Stern Review, Howard considers this as a simply topical for the moment, so of course people will say, 'yes, yes, climate change'. We debate and lament the potential emissions of China and India, yet we can not set an example for ourselves. Policies are needed, clearly, to bring about a full behavioural change in a nation that was considered 'cornucopia'. We do need leadership on this change and adaptation that is necessary if the human race is to survive.

This is not a fad... this is reality... so think before you turn on lights, turn on the tap, make consumer choices, live your life. I'm not a green, tree hugging hippie - though I have been a vegetarian for the past 17 years, use only organic products that breakdown to non-harmful substances, am conscious of where my next meal comes from, what's in it and where it is grown, take 3 minute showers, clean with only organic products, and walk everywhere. However, I am a huge contributor to jet-stream cloud and need to consider my overseas travel impacts on CO2 emissions.

Some food for thought:

Climate change presents a unique challenge for economics: it is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen - so we stuffed up the balance sheets by not factoring the externality of carbon, nor did we put a risk management plan in place to mitigate the risk of producing too many externalities, and now the earth is unbalanced - fiscally and physical.

The benefits of strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs

... policy must promote sound market signals, overcome market failures and have equity and risk management at its core. That essentially is the conceptual framework of this review.

From all these perspective, the evidence gathered by the Review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweight the costs.

The scientific evidence points to increasing risks of serious, irreversible impacts from climate change associated with business-as-usual paths for emissions.

An example of increasing emissions: Prior to the Industrial revolution we were emitting 280 ppm CO2, Current levels of GHG now stand at - 430 ppm CO2.

What concerns me is: 'Such changes would transforem the physical geography of the world. A radical change in the physical geography of the world must have powerful implications for the human geography - where people live, and how they live their lives.

The revmoval of barriers to behvioural change is the third essential element, one that is particularly important in encouraging the take-up of opportunities for energy efficiency.

Policies are required to support the development of a range of low-carbon and high efficiency technologies on an urgent timescale

Volcano erupts in PNG

2006-10-26T14:16:00.000+10:00

Very late getting news up on this one, but better late than never. I've had an email from someone on the ground, and things sound like they're worse than the Australian media indicated...

Volcano erupts on PNG island

October 8, 2006

Huge clouds of ash billow from Mt Tavurvur after it erupted yesterday, sending locals fleeing.
Photo: AAP

A volcanic eruption on the Papua New Guinea island of New Britain yesterday caused panicked residents to flee homes and sent ash plumes 18 kilometres into the air.

Mount Tavurvur on the outskirts of the former provincial capital Rabaul erupted around 8.45 am local time with a blast which shattered windows up to 12 kilometres from the caldera.

"It was quite scary, but it's quiter now and has quietened considerably through the day," Rabaul Volcanological Observatory chief surveyor Steve Saunders told Reuters.

In 1994, a large eruption on Mt Tavurvur and the nearby Vulcan peak destroyed much of Rabaul, covering the airport and much of the town with ash, and forcing the construction of a new capital, Kokopo, 20 kilometres away.

PNG's Mining Department said in a volcano bulletin that ash was falling on Kokopo, causing power and phone cuts.

Saunders said magma had been welling up inside the 688 metre (2,200 foot) peak since 2005 and contained large amounts of gas, which accounted for the explosive force of the eruption.

"Today looks like the activity it has been building up to, so it should fall off now," he said.

Saunders said vulcanologists expected the peak to quieten quickly, but the volcano was still surrounded by gas and dust, making it hard to assess damage amid rumours lava had flowed from a previously unknown vent. There were no reports of death or injuries.

Rabaul Chamber of Commerce President and hotelier Bruce Alexander told Australian Associated Press that around 2000 people - or 90 percent of the local population - had fled the town as Mt Tavurvur erupted.

All flights into Tokua airport across the harbour from Rabaul had been cancelled due to ash falls.

Papua New Guinea lies on the Pacific Ocean "ring of fire", and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common.

REUTERS

Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Date: 13 Oct 2006

Papua New Guinea: Mount Tavurvur Volcano DRED Bulletin No. MDRPG001

The Federation's mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization and its millions of volunteers are active in over 185 countries. In Brief This DREF Bulletin is being issued based on the situation described below reflecting the information available at this time. CHF 30,000 was allocated from the Federation's Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to recover the distribution costs incurred in the Papua New Guinea Red Cross initial relief activities and to replenish disaster preparedness stocks distributed to the affected population. This operation is expected to complete in one month, by mid November 2006. A final report will be made available three months after the operation by February 2007. Unearmarked funds to repay DREF are encouraged.

The Situation

On Saturday (7 October), Mount Tavurvur situated on the outskirts of Rabaul (a town on the eastern tip of the New Britain Island) erupted with a blast that caused windows some 12 km (7.5 miles) away to shatter according to the UNOCHA situation report. Some 2,000 panicked residents (representing approximately 90 per cent of the local population) have been evacuated from areas experiencing heavy ash falls. The worst affected communities include Matupit, Bai, Nordup, Matalau, Rakunat, Koere and Rabuana. There have been reports of minor injuries.

The National Disaster Centre announced that 1,221 people from the towns of Matupit and Rabual have been evacuated by sea to Vunapope Mission Station. Some evacuees have been moved to designated resettlement blocks at Sikut, Gelegele, Clifton and Warema which were established by the East New Britain Provincial Disaster Committee (PDC) after the 1994 explosive eruption. The local Red Cross branch reported that three main informal care centres have been established at Sikut, Tavuiliu and Vunapope Catholic Mission where basic health, food and water services are provided. The PDC is conducting assessment, addressing food need and securing public infrastructure.

According to the Rabaul Volcanology Observatory (RVO), volcanic activity has subsided and continues to decline. Seismicity is at background levels and land deformation rates are low. Thin to moderate pinky-white haze emissions continue to be produced, rising to <1,000m>

The government has declared state of emergency although this is likely to be lifted in the following days. Schools remain closed but commercial activities continue in Rabaul. Public security measures are tightened to ensure law and order.

A major concern is potable water due to insufficient transport links and contaminated local supplies. Immediate needs also include tarpaulins, water containers, facemasks and food within the affected communities and the informal care centres. Red Cross and Red Crescent action.

For further information specifically related to this operation please contact:

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) : Jacqueline Boga, Secretary General, PNG Red Cross Society hqpngrcs@online.net.pg;phone: + 675 325 2145

In the Pacific Region: Pankaj Mishra, Disaster Management Delegate/Acting Head of Delegation pankaj.mishra@ifrc.irg; mobile: +675 682 4868 or Martin Blackgrove, Regional Disaster Management Delegate in Suva regional delegation martin.blackgrove@ifrc.org; Phone +679 3311 855

In Geneva: Asia Pacific Department, Hyun-Ji Lee, Regional Officer; phone +41 22 730 4260, hj.lee@ifrc.org;

Full report (pdf* format - 111 KB)

Oh, the places you'll go...

2006-08-31T11:54:00.000+10:00

I love this book and I always thought the right person would bring it to me... today i thought about all the places i've been... and all the places i'm yet to go, the people i'm yet to meet... how i wish i had a world to share, but now i'm on my way to places, i will go... dark lights, new strangers - who'll become my friend, a place where people cheer and jeer... i'm looking forward again to my gypsy life - but in this day and age, i've got laptop and mobile phone in tow... but nothing can replace the pack on my back of stories and tale of lives i collect along the way.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!You're off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourselfany direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets.
Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."

With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find anyyou'll want to go down.
In that case, of course, you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener therein the wide open air.
Out there things can happenand frequently doto people as brainyand footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,don't worry.
Don't stew.Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.

OH! THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

... by Dr Seuss

The Spirit of New Orleans

2006-08-29T10:05:00.000+10:00

Sometimes I walk through the neighbourhoods and I wonder what life was like before the Hurricane. I did not have a point of reference at all to most of what I now see. But there is something magical about this place. Perhaps I have rose coloured glasses on and perhaps I can't see the real pain behind the smile. Perhaps I can't see through the alcholic's glistening eyes, the hurt they feel since they lost everything. But I do find that people have an ability to see the brighter side of life.

What is the spirit of New Orleans? Well, it's different for everyone. Most people will turn to the beats, the sounds, the big brass bands, the music that plays all day and all night. The dancing, the kickin' it out to the sound, closing your eyes and letting the music just take you away from the world that remains so empty and sullen. The music can breathe life back into the world where daily living becomes so difficult that it's easier to sit and do nothing and let the days drift by. Music can put a smile on the face of a stranger, through song, through words, through sound.

Music can even smell. The place it is played, the beer, the sweat as people perspire into each other, onto each other, as they dance like wild banshees in a wicked twist of sounds so intricate that you can stomp to any beat of the drum, trumpet, trombone, base or sax. I love to dance. I let myself go. I understand the feeling of reaching a euphoric peak as the music churns and my body moves and grooves. It's a sensual action that brings out my spirit. I wonder if it does the same for others?

Food, is unique down south. The spices, the smells, the Po-Boys... what can I say. I was introduced to a whole new way of eating and cooking. Everyone can make something good down here and everything has a spice... the spice of life... nothing is bland, nothing is bad... however everything is fried, but that's ok... it's food for the soul. It's good old home cooking. And since so many McDonald's and Burger King joints have closed down, the local Po-boy shop is doing a roaring trade. The Joint - where u get Moma's peacan pie, mash, mac and cheese, real burgers, gumbo... coleslaw on the side. It's something I can't find anywhere and feel comfort whilst i eat and drink...

The spirit lies in each person... sometimes dormant and waiting to arise, sometimes alive and kicking and ever present in a smile. But many people still cry on the inside. They hurt. They feel more than just forgotten about, they feel abandoned, well before the hurricane. It took a hurricane of this magnitude to really hammer home that they are the forgotten souls.

So I hope I can rekindle the spirit and people will go to New Orleans and pay the people a visit, step out of the French Quarter and into the lives of the people who make this City the place we know for it's Love of life, music, dance, sounds, tastes, sights and touch.

The 1 Year Anniversary of Katrina's Landfall... how a city copes

2006-08-29T09:32:00.000+10:00

I'm not there but I wish I was still sitting amongst the rubble and mould that still surrounds the City of New Orleans. My heart hurts for my friends who still live and work there and I feel useless in my office back in Melbourne. Our newspapers and TV media have no idea. As I flicked through the crap they report and reprint from the Washington Post. I've tried to pitch my stories but no one is interested in a first hand eye-witness account of carnage. I guess it's not so lighthearted as the reporters on Sunrise!

So here are some links to the city I just left and want to go back to...

The Times-Picayune http://www.nola.com has dedicated every day of news to information about the rebuilding of New Orleans, to serve the community who needs to know what is going on. There is such a mis-match and disconnect of information from City council, State government, Federal Government, NGOs and other organisations. Residents are confused about the new planning procedures that sees Rockefellar foundation chipping in to pay the bill to rebuild a city. An interesting plan, let's see what happens. I invite any comments about the planning process. My own thoughts are more negative. But then, even for me, an outsider, it's tough to find anything happy to write about.

It's true, it's still a flattened city, and across the skyline at night, my friend Ezra pointed out the neighbourhoods with restored electricity (the flickering sight of street lights) and those who remain in darkness. If that happened to you, how pissed would you be?

People ask about why it hasn't been rebuilt. Well, check out the previous posts... They spell the reality of the state of the United States. Something that could happen anywhere in the world as we turn to privatisation and removal of responsibility of government to serve the people. Instead, governments just want to fight wars. Thanks Howard... I know u do too... What happended the Australian higher education system, our primary and secondary schools? Why are some of the people I used to work with in meanial jobs still illiterate, even though they went through the Australian School system? yes, they are white australians... What happened to our Health system? Why is it so hard for me to see a doctor. I have a tooth ache now and no money to go fix it, and I have a tertiary education and a job.

So, when I think of New Orleans... I wonder, how many people are still left in the rubble. As I left the city 3 weeks ago, they were still pulling out dead bodies. How can that be? How can people be so forgotten by society? It's not just a travesty of the City of NOLa, but the world. We forgot a city that needed help. Just because... why? Because they are Americans? We need to stop the racism towards other countries. People say to me, as an Australian, how can you go to America, how can you empathise with people who went to war? Well, these people didn't go to war, their president did, their administration did... my question is... how can we generalise such complex issues into simple forms and blame these people who are suffering like the Tsunami survivors. The fishing communities in the Bayou's bear resemblence as indigenous indians, to the indigenous communities in the Andaman Islands. I still wonder, how the richest nation in the world can forget it's people. I hope we never do, but we are already beginning to... have a look around you.

People remain resilient. They are troopers. They have so many battle to fight in the South. The South has always been predominantly black, with a history of slavery and a culture that has not completely healed from this time. Like we can not say 'sorry' to the Indigenous peoples we committed genocide against in Australia, there is a need to reconcile with the past as well. Here lies an opportunity to rebuild and to fully understand a history that may hinder the 'build back better' dreams of disaster recovery planners. It gives me something to think about in the history of the country I grew up in, when I read about the history of slavery in Louisiana.

Peoople call it apathy - it's not apathy, I see people trying their hardest to rebuild whilst the system they are trying to work with, is working against them. Insurance - well, most were informed not to take out flood insurance as the flood walls and levees were supposed to protect them - to keep the rivers might away from the people. Well, I guess one can not harness nature. but we continue to do so.

There is no power, no water, nothing... in may of the neighbourhoods, still... Why? The conspiracy grows to become a reality. There are no public transport services because if you put services in, people might just return to these areas. If there was electricity and running water in St Bernard and the Lower 9th Ward, parts of New Orleans East, Gentilly, then perhaps, just maybe, people would return. If there were local businesses, trade services, equipment to gut and demolish, then rebuild a home, then, perhaps people would return home. But the truth in the matter is, it's not a conspiracy - the city does not want people to come back.

Has it affected the poorest of the poor? Yes and no. Yes, poor people - the economically poor, the educationally poor have been affected. But the spiritually rich have also been affected. There is 80% home ownership in the Lower 9th Ward. They own much more (financially) than I can ever imagine in my lifetime! So are they poor? What is poverty in New Orleans? There are wealthy people who have lost everything. Sure, they have savings and a means to rebuild, but many can not face returning - they are traumatised by the event that destroyed their lives, yanked them into a whirlwind of chaos and threw their children out of schools... not to return, because they see no future in a City with few services for them and their children. It's a falacy to say that it affected only the poor. IT AFFECTED EVERYONE FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE - STATUS - RACE - CREED... The more it becomes a race and status issue, the more people will believe it is. Why not channel the energy into collaborations, partnerships, lobbying the government to do something about the plight of EVERYONE. Mobilise and move forth and conquer???

We are no longer fighters. We agitate and we talk and talk... but no one does anything. Pick up a hammer and start putting nails into walls and building a home, not a coffin. I want to go back to pick up a hammer and build stuff.

So what of this Casino to be placed in the Lower 9th Ward? Someone tell me about it please!!! I'm dying to find out.

The New York Times has a special: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/nationalspecial/index.html

When I gutted a Home... and then a bit of fun...

2006-07-29T04:55:00.000+10:00

Helping my friends gut their home...

So I helped Allesandra and Donald gut their house. That was an experience in itself. They were really really glad to have me help, but I could feel the emotional trauma that Allesandra felt whilst she rifled through their stuff, their wedding presents and their life – washed away. She kept finding ‘little boy’s’ clothes and she kept finding ‘little boy’s toys’ and then she kept saying – but we don’t have a little boy, we have a little girl.

She was clearly traumatized by the experience. It was damn hard work. It was the hardest work I have done for a very long time. We masked up in these huge ventilation masks, rubber gloves and huge rubber boots in the deathly humid heat of a hot New Orleans summer day. We started early, about 9am, and ploughed through in mechanical sequence until Ezra showed up. We all hauled fiberglass, asbestos lining, crap and more crap, moulding, smelling and dank, into troughs and then hauled it all out to the side of the road where it all piled up.

Donald took the Garage – that was his space. He was going through his stuff, or what was left of it. In his jovial manner, he laughed at what he could salvage, and laughed at how the cans had exploded and spewed out all over the can to make huge foam pillows. He found his shark in a bottle of formaldehyde and we all marveled at its ‘resilience’ as a dead creature. He dealt with it like a trooper, to make it easier for Allesandra to deal with. It was harder for her as she found wedding pictures and gifts from just 5 months prior to the Hurricane.

Ezra and I didn’t really know what to do, we kinda just hauled it all out and tried not to show her the pictures – waterlogged and ruined. It amazed us how chemical based the environment was, how the water had literally eaten away at a lot of solid wood and metal. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a toxic waste dump out there.

It’s a traumatic experience for the residents, the home owners, the people who lived in these houses to gut their own homes. It’s right that they should be there when it’s done, so there is some closure. Donald, I guess and Allesandra, felt closure – but it was more finality that there was absolutely nothing they could do but to demolish what was left of a house that had few foundations left and was literally sinking.

Luckily, as lunch time drew near, we all sat in the back on Ezra’s truck and drove down the road to a food van selling junk food, burgers, fries, burrito’s etc… I had brought my own cold past from the evening prior and was eating cold spaghetti and asparagus. I bought them all lunch and we all woofed it down. A burly fellow sitting at the table asked us folk what we were up to. Donald started explaining and then they started talking about what each other were doing. The guy told us that the FEMA office down the road (St Bernard Parish) was open, so we should go down there and sign up for demolition.

So we high-tailed it over there and Allesandra couldn’t believe her luck. Mainly, due to the problem she had several months ago when she would take lunch breaks off to line up and never made it to the beginning of the queue. You see, the problem is, if they take days off work to gut the house, then they lose income. Neither could afford to with a step daughter from a previous marriage and a second mortgage to pay off on a new, smaller, home in Kenna. But at least they had a roof over their heads. They are not poor enough to be helped by the NGOs and Non-Profit groups. But, they are not wealthy enough to pay for someone to gut and demolish their home. They lay in between the poverty line and the line of low income. Allesandra as a PhD student and Donald as a sales manager, they made enough to have a comfortable existence, but not enough to deal with a catastrophe like Katrina.

But like the troopers that they are, and most of New Orleans residents are, they sorted themselves a roof and decided to stay. They love their life and they have no reason to leave, given they are rooted in the South and want to make a life and family of their own in a city they call home.

Good Luck guys!

and then a bit of fun...

So it's not all work here... I also find time to play. Unfortunately, it's either play or sleep... I tend to get lured to the play ;-)

Went to La Bom Temps Roules (let the good times roll...) to see The Soul Rebels... Live... they rock! It's inspired me to buy a trumpet and pick it up and play... again...

Here's a pic of my friend Ezra... at work... he's also famous now that he was quoted in the Washington Post! Stay tuned to - A day and night in the life of a Grad Student; Post Katrina.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500976.html

http://www.watercenter.org/blog/WCorgposts/00000341.html

Labour Unions in New Orleans... the fight for the people

2006-07-28T11:39:00.000+10:00

Today I had the opportunity to stand in the corridor of a Regional Transit Authority meeting of unionised labour and planners. It was a unique position as a researcher to talk to the overflow of people milling in the corridor and outside. Clearly the RTA had not anticipated the very vocal and numerous turn out of labour union representatives and workers. It was a show of the blue collar who have lost their jobs and want to work.

However, the situation in short lies in the hands of the Government once again. Where public transport services do not exist (in the outer and poorer areas - East and 9th ward, St Bernard, Chalmette, etc...) there remain no jobs for the bus drivers, trolley car (tram) drivers, and the mechanics who service the vehicles.

I met the President of both the Mechanics and Bus Drivers Union. It seems obvious that if u leave these services out of the poorer areas where resouces and the ability of people to access them is already scarce, then these people will be isolated... or worse... they will not return to their neighbourhoods. It seems like a conspiracy... cos I thought about the economic rationality of not putting services in... Yes... it will make a smaller New Orleans full of the richer people who can afford services or already have them (they run fine in the French Quarter, leading uptown), but where will all the people go, what will happen to their livelihoods?

So you just cut what u don't like out of society and hope it disappears to another state?

More from me later... I'm still pondering this one...

Debris management and Landfill issues: How a community fights for NIMBY

2006-07-26T13:38:00.000+10:00

A New Landfill in New Orleans sets off a Battle

By Leslie Eaton

Published in the New York Times

May 8, 2006

Block after block, neighborhood after neighborhood, tens of thousands of hurricane-ravaged houses here rot in the sun, still waiting to be gutted or bulldozed. Now officials have decided where several million tons of their remains will be dumped: in man-made pits at the swampy eastern edge of town, out by the coffee-roasting plant and the space-shuttle factory and the big wildlife refuge.

But more than a thousand Vietnamese-American families live less than two miles from the edge of the new landfill. And they are far from pleased at having the moldering remains of a national disaster plunked down nearby, alongside the canal that flooded their neighborhood when Hurricane Katrina surged through last year.

Environmental groups are also angry, accusing local and federal officials of ignoring or circumventing their own regulations, long after the immediate emergency has ended. The same thing happened after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, they warn, and that dump ended up becoming a Superfund site.

The new landfill, known as Chef Menteur after the highway that borders it, sits across a canal from Bayou Sauvage, the largest urban wildlife refuge in the country, with 23,000 acres of marshland, canals and lagoons that are home to herons, egrets, alligators and, in the fall, tens of thousands of migratory ducks.

Nonetheless, the landfill lacks some of the safeguards that existing dumps do, like special clay liners. The government says they are not needed because demolition debris is cleaner than other rubbish.

Residents and environmentalists think otherwise, because after Hurricane Katrina the state expanded the definition of construction and demolition debris to include most of a house's contents, down to the moldy mattresses and soggy sofas.

"It's essentially the guts of your house, all your personal possessions," said Joel Waltzer, a lawyer representing landfill opponents. "Electronics, personal-care products, cleaning solutions, pesticides, fertilizers, bleach."

State officials say that the new landfill is safe and that they are simply moving quickly to protect public health and the environment, using techniques that did not exist 40 years ago. The new site was chosen to speed up the cleanup, they say, because the debris will not have to be hauled far. The state estimates that 7.2 million tons of hurricane debris remains to be cleaned up; the Chef Menteur landfill will take 2.6 million tons.

"You cannot rebuild until you clean up," said Chuck Carr Brown, an assistant secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, which provided a permit for the landfill. "I'm still in the eye of the storm."

The state has agreed to do some extra monitoring of groundwater, Dr. Brown said. But it has determined "there's nothing toxic, nothing hazardous," he continued. "There will be no impact" on the community, which is sometimes called Versailles.

Like so many disputes that have erupted since the hurricane, this one involves some highly charged issues: politics, money, history and race. Not to mention a highly developed distrust of government that almost all Louisianians now seem to share.

Unlike most residents of eastern New Orleans, the Vietnamese have returned, rebuilt and drawn up elaborate plans for their 30-year-old community's future. Now they feel unwelcome, said the Rev. Vien thé Nguyen, the pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church and a leader in the fight against the landfill, which opened on April 26.
"They're threatening our very existence," Father Vien said of the government agencies that approved the dump site, which residents fear will tower 80 feet or more above their neighborhood, dwarfing the new church they are planning to build, once the Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers are gone from the site.

Father Vien said he was particularly worried about the quality of water in the canal and the lagoon that run through the neighborhood of tidy brick houses. Residents use that water on the tiny waterside gardens that supply the community with sugar cane and bitter melon and Vietnamese varieties of vegetables, he said.

He and his parishioners are particularly angry at Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who in February used emergency powers to waive zoning regulations for the landfill.

"Maybe we're not the right kind of people he wanted to return," Father Vien said. Neither the mayor nor his staff responded to requests for response to the priest's comments.

The state and the Army Corps of Engineers, which is handling cleanup in the city, say that without the dump, the cleanup would take much longer. The existing dumps would not be able to process all the debris fast enough, officials say, and are too far from the blighted buildings.
And the need for the new dump will only increase, they say, as the cleanup progresses. Maurice Falk, the corps official in charge of the cleanup, said at a federal court hearing last week that only 115 houses have been demolished so far.

Given that slow pace, critics question why the landfill had to be opened so quickly, before environmental studies were prepared and the community was consulted. The community would be willing to negotiate a compromise and do its part in the cleanup of the city, said Kelly H. Tran, who lives in the Vietnamese enclave and with her husband runs a construction company that has been fixing damaged houses.

But, she continued, "It's not fair for us to have no voice in this big decision, this critical decision."
State officials said they had reviewed the site for a landfill in the past, when political opposition had blocked it, and now simply could not wait two or three months to get through the public comment period. But on April 28, after the opposition was in full cry, the state and the corps put out a notice soliciting public comment on the landfill.

If residents or opponents "have something we missed, we'll address it," said Mike D. McDaniel, the secretary of the State Department of Environmental Quality. As for those who argue that there is no emergency involved, he disagrees. "Some people can't seem to understand this is not business as usual," he said.

Environmental groups are not happy. Adam Babich, director of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, said government agencies in the region had never been vigilant about complying with environmental regulations but had been especially lax since the storm. This attitude is most apparent, he said, when it comes to landfills. In nearby Plaquemines Parish, a longtime dispute over a landfill has flared up because the dump is taking in Hurricane Katrina debris.

And sparring continues over the Old Gentilly landfill, an old-fashioned, unlined dump that the state closed in 1986 but reopened after the hurricane. It is now accepting a limited amount of debris after a suit was filed by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, one of the groups represented by Mr. Waltzer, and it was criticized in a report commissioned by FEMA.

The fight over the new landfill is by no means over, Father Vien said. On April 27 he was showing visitors the site — and admiring the alligators gliding through the adjacent Maxent Canal — when he got the news from Mr. Waltzer that a federal judge had refused to issue a temporary injunction against the dump.

At first he seemed stunned. "I cannot believe that," he repeated several times.
Then he rallied.

"The game is not over," he said. "It just started, actually."

http://www.neworleanseast.com/news/article/landfill/landfill1.htm

More things to uplift your spirits in New Orleans

2006-07-26T04:52:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I was allowed a unique opportunity to meet two incredible Afrian-Amerian community leaders who took me and a wonderful friend Au to a little café in The Algiers. Malik Rahim is the founder of Common Ground Collective, an organization that began with a $50 donation and has grown in size to try to service the needs of the people of New Orleans.

As we ordered vegan veggie burgers, sipped soft drinks and I found a cup of English breakfast tea and soy milk (the first I’ve had since leaving Melbourne!!!) I began to learn of the struggles of this community. More to the point, I learned of the frustrations faced by a leader like Malik, an ex-black panther with a passion for human kindness and compassion and no time for apathy and the mind of the oppressed. He is a unique individual who has managed to find a recipe for building - literally – a common ground for people to help others in need, as well as attempt to bring those who have suffered out of the doldrums that keep them down and out. 'Common', meaning anyone of any race, religion, colour, class... can volunteer and work here in exchange for a place to stay and food to eat. It is a collective of people from not just the USA, but the global community at large.

They hold the black community together. They talked about apathy and that it's the black African American community that is doing it to themselves. He said that it's time to stop blaming the government and by all means, criticise, but get off your arse and get active and do something about your own situation. He's very much in the mindset that his black brothers and sisters, and they need to dig themselves out of this culture of 'representation of the oppressed'. They need to find pride and find some self responsibility - gut their houses and get back to work, help each other and stop talking the talk without walking the walk.

As we drove around, he stopped at various construction and work sites and literally kicked their black asses! He was harsh and yelled at these boys who had decided to slack off. The boys had promised they would move a pile of debris yesterday and it was still there. He gets upset when they join gangs and get high on crack and told them off. He says it just perpetuates a representation that the government and some white folk want to keep alive. He is trying to quash it and build a strong community that can rely on each other in time of need and celebrate together in times of joy.

He says that the government has never ever looked after them, so why bother relying on the government now?

We shared stories of other 'so called vulnerable' in other countries and I told him about the informal sector in Thailand, the land issues after the tsunami (which mirror the problems in the lower 9th ward). He was taken back and wants all the stuff we wrote about the Tsunami, so I'm sending it all through so he can show his brothers how other poor brothers overseas live their lives.

He quoted Desmond Tutu - not sure if it's the exact words, but the gist is - 'The greatest weapon of the oppressed is the mind of the oppressed'.

He said that the folk here have become more capitalist than the capitalists themselves, but they don't even have the capital to get what they want. Their lives are a contradiction and he wants to change that mindset.

The society they live in is based on exploitation, resources are scarce, if u have non, u r not tolerated and hence become a liability, which is why there are so many black brothers and sisters are in jail. Society is based on old racists who control Louisiana - the old plantation syndicates. The condition is created by slavery. The right to vote is a rights based act that is extended every 25 years or so. Bush is trying to build a presence of black. But why do black people need a special bill to vote?

He is frustrated by those who call themselves Activists who help themselves, rather than their community. Who play rhetoric to life itself to further their own careers - selfish beings with no concern for others at large. They stay and talk about the game, the play the game, and care not for the communities but for themselves, furthering their own self interests.

He wants to push for self determination and self sufficiency within the community. He also wants to build a stronger community that can rely upon itself as well as other communities and not the government. Its people who make things happen, people need to be motivated and given incentives to move forward.

Then there are the broader geo-political forces. Malik talked about the air and water. He asked, what happens when we no longer have these necessities. We are killing our planet and we have to stop, take stock of our lives and start looking at the broader picture and how our communities fit within it.

Katrina has provided an opportunity to save not just New Orleans, but mankind. We either do something about the environment, the society, now or it will be the end of humanity.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/05/155209
http://www.commongroundrelief.org

Things that give u hope in New Orleans

2006-07-26T03:33:00.000+10:00

Amongst the undercurrents of sadness and silent trauma haunting the residents of New Orleans as they walk and drive daily through the city that used to be, there are little glimmers of hope around every corner. Where humans can destroy, nature can destroy human existence. Yet, when we learn to live together, understand each other and accept who we are, perhaps we can one day learn to live with nature as well.

Over the past few days I have found hope, pride, motivation, spirit and life in the communities I have visited and now live amongst. The Vietnamese community has taken me in as one of them, invited me into their homes and shared their lives with me. Life isn't that dis-similar to where I come from. They are a jovial young bunch of adults who see the brighter side of life. They mock and play in jest, poke fun at each other and generally 'take the piss' - i taught them that aussie euphemism.

Although life is hard, this community has managed to band together and rebuild a lot of what they had lost. They all came from the same 2 villages in the north of Vietnam, escaped to the south, then escaped in a boat to the US. As boat people, they were sent to Arkansas and then decided - due to climate and coast, to settle in the south of Louisiana. So the networks are already in existence and the experience of Katrina was nothing more than just another thing to deal with in life for these, once boat people - war refugees. I guess life is relative to what you have lived through, what you experience and how you dealt with it in the past. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and this holds true in this community. As generations grow up, there are problems arising. There's the usual shit - gang involvement, drugs, crime, finding a Vietnamese-American identity, forging a life as a refugee migrant, grappling with a new culture, holding on to the past and trying to make a hopeful and fruitful future for the next generation. Their ties to Vietnam and their ties to other Vietnamese around the world and throughout the United States has provided them with the resources necessary to build back better. Yet, there is resentment. As usual, when one community does better than another, the others will also want a slice of the cake, become envious and wonder - why can't we have that too? I can see some changes in this generation. There is discussions of coalitions with other ethnic groups. One community leader who is just fantastic, asked me to connect him with another group so he can learn from their experience, perhaps see where he can be of assistance and provide extra resources. This is the change. At this point I hope communities collide in an aray of rainbow colours... literally.

Links to the Vietnamese Community projects and future recovery plans

http://www.mqvncdc.org

http://www.huongdoung.org

Things that make u smile in New Orleans

2006-07-25T15:17:00.000+10:00

Anything remotely happy will make me smile now, be it a little boy named Anton I met yesterday who just asked me why I was as small as he was... he was so cute. He was trying to play a toy guitar and asked me to show him - 'how do'ya'll hold this'old guiiitar?' I went to Common Ground Relief, where I've offered to help out in the distribution centre in exchange for a patch of ground to lay by body at night and a way into the community to do my research. They were happy to have me... However... the distribution centre is an abandoned house that has been reinforced so it won't cave in (picture an old gutted out terrace house), and my patch of floor is at St Mary's Elementary School. It's a now abandoned school with shattered windows, graffiti everywhere, smashed desks, chairs and lockers (think... to sir with love - the movie with Sidney Portier with the school hall scenes). Classrooms are filled with very dodgy makeshift bunk beds and mattresses covered in plastic to stop them getting wet and mouldy, it stinks of mould and sweat. It's dirty, he stairs are falling down and the showers and toilets are makeshift out in the school yard. I got a sleeping bag.

It was started by an ex black panther. Very interesting! Here's an account of what has been going on... and a few pics. I'm ok... I'm glad the national guard has arrived as the murder rate has dropped by 30%. Someone was murdered in a trailer park yesterday and it was a bit hectic. There's an average of 4-5 murders each month... and apparently it's getting better, but touch and go. We have 8pm curfew and everyone obeys it. I'm alone now... my boss bailed back to Melbourne... he doesn't research like I do. I kinda have to embed myself in the community. I'm in a buddhist temple now, working with the Vietnamese Community for the nxt 8 days, then will head to CommonGround distribution centre to work there.

I'm trying really hard just to absorb everything. My head is spinning. There are tourists here who have no idea! I hear 'oh, it's all ok... ' but as soon as you head out of the french quarters, it's literally a war zone. I have to be very careful. Everyone is very suave and cos I have to talk to people for my research, and I'm exceptionally friendly and have a smile on my face, I tend to have trouble beating off these black boys who 'dig my accent'.

It's all a bit of a head fuck, mainly because I see this carnage and I'm trying hard to roll up my sleeves and work as well as research... then I see the destruction around the world... what's the use? My job, my passion... my work... my life revolves around cleaning up the destructive forces of both humans and nature... or perhaps, it's just us not appreciating or understanding nature or each other. It's humbled me. It's made me think really hard about my loved ones and I just want to give everyone a huge hug. I haven't cried yet, but I reckon I'm gonna need to see a shrink after this. The people are strong. Their government sux. I'm going to fight in Australia... I'm going to fight to keep every right we have, because they are slowly slipping away from us - the right to welfare, the right to education and health care.

I'm hearing these horrific stories of nurses who had to make life and death decisions during the hurricane when the secondary generator failed. Elderly patients being taken off life support because there is no electricity. People fighting for life saving drugs. AIDS patients dying, cancer patients unable to get chemo, elderly and sick and mentally ill people who don't even know what medication they are taking - 'please give me the blue and pink pills I have to take every day'. Nurses beating off hordes of people desperate to be rescued from the roof of one of the Baptist hospitals.

There are stories of students stuck in dorms, foraging for as much food as possible and trying hard to get out, begging to be rescued and fighting others to get a seat in a bus or a flight out or to be picked up from the roof of a house. There are stories of hope as well. Stories of people salvaging school buses and driving around just before the hurricane, picking up anyone they can. I met a girl who got into her car and drove with her two dogs, as far as she could go up north and being rejected from motel, hotel everywhere she went, because there was literally no room to stay. There are tales of people fighting to get petrol at gas stations as it runs out and gas station owners inflating the prices so no one can afford to buy the fuel... only the fittest of the fit - or I guess in this case, those with the most resources and knowhow - money, cash... could get through. Even those with cash, who couldn't get it out cos they had their money in local bank accounts that shut down... their debit cards not working and no way of accessing their funds. People would literally hold up others at gun point to get a ride out, get fuel for their cars, get water to drink.

The looting was a myth. Yes, people literally emptied stores of their food and fresh water, but it was purely to survive. I don't know if I could do it.

So… what happened to Recovery – FEMA – the Government???

2006-07-25T15:13:00.000+10:00

Well... in regards to these questions... That's why I'm here. I'm listening to the communities stories about how and why they have to do it on their own. Basically, the federal government has abandoned them. The amount of money the Bush administration spends in 1 month in Iraq would be enough to rebuild about 75% of the city. Most people have not returned, because they don't have the resources to do what the council is asking - to clear and gut their houses themselves. Many have been advised not to take out flood insurance, so of course... they have no funds and literally have to start from scratch.

If u don't gut and clear out your home and all the debris by the 31 August, you will be fined - pretty much half the cost of the house. So most people have packed up and left. Some people have FEMA trailers and are camping outside their homes and rebuilding them. Others are in FEMA trailer parks scattered across town.

I could go on and on about this. U can read it on www.nola.com the Times Picanyue is the local paper. There is at least 2-6 murders each month so they sent down more national guard last week and the murder rate has dropped by 30%. Last night a woman was killed in a FEMA trailer park.

It's CHAOS here. I just went to common ground relief (set up by an ex-black panther Malik) where I will be working and researching (informal interviews with people etc...) for 10 days on the 1st of Aug... I'm living in an abandoned elementary school with 300 other volunteers and residents. All the windows are broken, all the lockers are bashed in, the tables and chairs are smashed, there is a makeshift toilet and shower facility... it's like walking into iraq... I swear... there are just rundown, broken down, burnt out cars and houses everywhere. THere's a an 8pm curfew and 5 resident crack houses selling loads of drugs within a 4-6 block radius of the temporary housing facility.

I'm not going to write anymore cos I'm scaring the shit out of everyone. But, it's the reality here. I've NEVER EVER seen or been in anything like this in my entire life... and I thought I'd been to some crazy places.

Reflections from New Orleans... almost a year later...

2006-07-25T15:03:00.000+10:00

It's a stinking hot day in Boulder, Colorado. Not much different to a typical Melbourne Summer, except the altitude and the american accents. I discovered last year that altitude makes 1 beer go the distance of 2... so I've turned into a very very cheap drunk. I've just attended the 31st Natural Hazards Workshop held by the University of Colorado. An intense and incredibly insightful event it was, particularly the bit when Michael Brown showed up to give an 'all american speech' - word for word... i don't lie! He said the word 'scapegoat' about 4 times and clearly feels that he should not be held responsible for the tragedy that has yet to be addressed by the administration. For those who don't know who Mikey Brown is... he's the ex-FEMA boss who completely stuffed up the response to Hurricane Katrina. He admitted he had no idea how to deal with emergency management but learnt it on the job - and that is better... apparently... or in this case... apparently not. The crowd was about to erupt, in fact... many exceptionally provocative questions were asked, and he didn't really answer anything. He referred to the media as - Barbara Streisand like - BS - as Bull Shit - he said this at a rather formal academic workshop that's quite famous for their work in risk reduction. So.... I'm heading down to Baton Rouge and New Orleans tomorrow. The national guard presence has been escalated in preparation for an even worse hurricane season thanks to our ability to completely ignore the process of global warming leading to climate change that will see the gulf as a target for the next CAT 5.. do they get any stronger than that? Apparently the NOPD have been extorting cash from people... bit like the police in some developing countries who don't get paid enough. Over the past week, I've had the privilege of meeting a family from Grand Bayou, a tiny subsistence shrimping community down south. If you have read the National Geographic (2002) on the Louisiana Bayou's and the impact of the oil extraction on the marshlands and bayous, you can see Father Paul's boat and Miss Ruby's house... as it was, sitting serenely on the banks of the bayous (pre-Katrina). The colour is exuberant, a mishmash of blues, greens, browns, brightly coloured stilted homes and bright red and yellow boats. It kinda reminds me of a Vietnamese fishing village that Jayse and I stumbled upon 10 years ago when we cruised the Mekong in Cambodia with a gunship beside us. They extended an invitation to me to come see their place and the Vietnamese community who have settled down in the deep south after the Vietnam war, around 1974-76. Before Katrina hit, they lived a peaceful existence with the land, free from the formal cash economy. They talked about the receding coastline and how it has forced them further and further inland, further and further into the urban, further and further into the cash based economy that we know as capitalism. I met a 15 year old girl named Ani who now lives in a FEMA trailer in down town New Orleans. The novelty of going to the mall and movies (or what's left of it) was great for the first week, she said. But, then... cash ran out and her heart yearns to go back to the Bayous to hear the cicada's and crickets, play with the jelly fish, go crabbing and climb mangrove trees. Right now, the bayou's are way too toxic for any sort of habitation and she has noticed the absence of the mating ritual of crickets. It's not just about the changes you see, but the changes that you hear... the difference is astounding she says. So, my impressions of the South come from talking to these incredibly extraordinary people who are so damn resilient that I can't call them Katrina Victims.... they are the survivors... those who will keep on going and going despite the political issues influencing the inability of people to recover, rebuild, re-establish a sense of normalcy to their lives. Now... remember... this happened 8 months ago. 8 months after the Tsunami, I went down to Phuket to do the same thing - look at the informal economy and talk to those who live their lives within this structure. The resiliency is almost mirrored... however, rebuilding was almost finished and the informal sector workers had switched occupations and found means to make a living and return to a state of NORMAL in Thailand. In the South of the US... the debris remains as it was swept in, the homes remain stagnant, stinking and moulding, the land itself, is leaching the toxic waste of household cleaning products and industrial waste that covered the area in August/September.... and still now. I want to share this all with you, as very few outsiders (bar official people) have gone down to the grass roots to find out how these people live their lives, prior, during and after the Hurricane. I won't lie... YES... I'm scared to death of hanging out in New Orleans, where the carnage is still in full view and very few residents have come back. With an increasing presence of National Guard in preparation for the NEXT BIG ONE... I have to now sit down and work out my own contingency plan. This is my pre-field work impression... I must admit, this is a greater challenge than doing fieldwork in other countries I've worked in - yes... even that crazy Remote Areas project in upland Laos treking from village to village doing M&E qualitative analysis... this even beats Bangladesh! so I'll keep u updated when i can... very little exists down there... electricity, gas, running water, landline telephones... are all adhocly connected... mostly unconnected and non-existent. Remember... I'm in the US... a developed country... Can it happen in Australia? (check out an article I helped write in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management - Hurricane Katrina: American exceptionalism or business as usual... implications for Australia.

It's all a bit insane here. It's a worse than the tsunami stuff i've seen. Literally kinda like i'm walking into a warzone. Where the levee's have breeched, the entire 'hood is FLATTENED!!! then as you go further back, houses have moved entire blocks or two or three... then I saw homes on top of other homes and homes on top of cars. Soft toys hanging from trees, debris lying where it was swept to almost 1 year ago, still sitting there, not moved... decaying. The further back I went, the less damage, but I had to walk a good 10 - 20 blocks in some areas... and even at the 20th block, the damage is really really bad - like everything inside the house is washed out to the yard - kinda bad.

The stench is minimal but evident. No more dead bodies thank goodness... I don't think I can go through what I went through with the tsunami anymore. It's all too much. I've decided that post disaster work - like reconstruction and recovery is all I can handle. The event itself hurts me and depresses me much too much and I have to learn to protect a bit of my sanity otherwise I'll go mental with the images and smells and touch of the oil slick that I'm constantly finding under my boots. There's asbestos everywhere!

If u go out at night outside of the french quarters, u get arrested for breaking curfew. The NOPD have their own rules. Since the national guard has arrive, crime has reduced by about 30%... so I fear for my life 30% less than before. I just don’t go outdoors at night. There is no power in most neighbourhoods and no running water. Almost every neighbourhood we drive through is empty. It's the eeriest feeling I have ever felt. It's almost too much to take in and swallow. I'm impressed by people's ability to stay positive, smile, and still sing. The New Orleans vibe is alive and well. It's a pity the government has literally forgotten about these people. They tell me to keep telling their stories so that someone will listen and someone will help them rebuild their lives. Most people are trying to do it on their own. But for many, it's difficult to negotiate in a developed country with regulations and laws and rules that hinder rather than assist. FEMA is shit. I hate to say it, but it is. Insurance companies are dogs. They advised most of these people not to take out flood insurance because they are in Non-flood areas... according to the so called 'experts'. I'm never calling myself an expert in anything. I learn from these people. I'm humbled by their resilience. Their ability to just get on with life. There are some who have given up. I understand why. I probably would too. I don't think I'd be as strong.

As I cruise the streets, all I see is complete wasteland... suburb after suburb... broken down signs, entire malls empty and gutted. The most spectacular and perhaps most heart warming observation and verification (through some officials) is that the major companies - MacDonalds, Burger King, Athletes Foot, WalMart, etc... have all decided not to reopen. So you have these empty lots of huge department stores just sitting there, empty and destroyed and next to them, tiny local businesses setting up next door that are thriving! It's great!!!! Rejuvenation of the local businesses... power back to the local and money back to the people, where it belongs.

I was invited to the Vietnamese youth group last night taken in by the East Village community. I'll be living with them for the next 10 days helping them organise a social event on Sunday and also helping them articulate the problem they have with the government landfill that they are trying to transplant next to this neighbourhood. It will be a toxic dump in their backyard. We call it NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard - it's a community action term to motivate them to take action and voice up against it.

Then, I've organised to work with Common Ground Relief (google it - and the viet community... u can find them) food distribution centre where they distribute food and other items to the people in the Lower 9th Ward. I'm working in exchange for talking to crew to do my research on resilience, livelihoods, informal social networks, social capital - in short - how amazing people can be in the face of crisis.

Then I'm going to hang out with the people from the Bayou's for a few days in between to see how their lives have changed and what the future holds...

Then, I'm gonna help my 2 friends gut their homes over the next few w'ends cos they have to be done by the 31st of August otherwise they are fined over $60,0000 (US) +++ for other 'violations of the city'. It's ludicrous... I swear... the government has literally abandoned these people. They don't give a shit. So I'm gonna help them out and cook up a massive BBQ and literally chuck some shrimps on... It's my way of saying Thanks to the communities that have invited me into their lives and their, well, sorta homes... and let me live the way they live, albeit for a little while.

I think I'm doing the right thing. I still don't think I'm doing enough at all. I fell like I'm invading people's space here, but the more I get involved, the more they invite me in. It's southern hospitality. They are beautiful wonderful amazing people. It's not me that's amazing, not at all... I'm just doing what comes naturally, what feels right for me. There's nothing amazing or out of the ordinary about this at all, it's just my nature. I'm not being a martyr about it either. I don't expect anything from these people and they have literally welcomed me with open arms after 7 days of being here. I'm humbled and intrigued, I'm also taken by their generosity, given they have literally lost everything. THe pics I sent u of inside a house was a friend's place. She just got married... lost every memory she has of her life up until now. It put me back into my box... that's for sure.

There is so much work to do here.

More later... hope u are all well... here are some pics so u can get a feel of Katrina... almost 1 year later.

Java Earthquake

2006-06-10T16:27:00.000+10:00

At about 5.30am on Saturday 27th of May, and earthquake struck the Indonesian Island of Java measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale.

http://ochaonline.un.org/humanitarianappeal/webpage.asp?MenuID=7497&Page=1375

more on informal recovery...

Socceroos... GOAL!!!!!! (it's far from a disaster but i have to tell u about it!!!)

2006-05-26T11:53:00.000+10:00

Hellas! Hellas! may have been the call at 7.30, but the night ended with booming chants of Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! oi oi oi!!!

GOAL!!! scored in the first half gave the Socceroos their final game and victory before they head off to the World Cup in Germany.

I've never seen a 95,000++ capacity crowd at the 'G', nor have I seen the crowd jeer off a bloke behaving badly, chanting, 'you're going home in the back of the divi van', 2 runners at the end of the game and a rally of flares... yeah!

Trouble in Timor-Leste...

2006-05-25T10:31:00.000+10:00

CANBERRA, May 25 (Reuters) - Foreign troops could be in East Timor by late Thursday after the tiny nation asked for help from Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia to quell deadly clashes between sacked military police and government troops.

Two Australian navy ships were already heading towards East Timor and Australia's deputy Defence chief was to visit the East Timorese capital, Dili, on Thursday to finalise details of the deployment.

"We could, if we choose to, have some elements of the Australian defence deployment (in Dili) as early as very late this afternoon or early this evening," Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson told Australian radio on Thursday.

"But that will basically be decided ... today," he said.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Australian embassy in Dili had reported gunfire and people fleeing the city on Thursday.

source: alertnet

Chasing extreme events in Asia... monitoring the impact of monsoon season 2006

2006-05-21T13:39:00.000+10:00

Monsoon, wet, rainy season has started in Asia. Over the next few months, there will be extreme climatic events causing typhoons, cyclones, heavy rainfall and both slow and fast onset flooding. The majority of people living in Asia are described as 'Living with Risk'. People living long coastal areas as well as those living in low lying areas, along major waterways and deltas will be exposed to the risk of damage and destruction of property and livelihoods. Household preparations made now will affect peoples ability to cope with and recover from potentially disasterous situations.

This post will report on the this year's monsoon season, focusing on anecdotes of survival; informal strategies for preparing, warning, coping and recovering; indigenous coping strategies; informal social networks; resilience of the 'most vulnerable and at risk'; and how people cope when their formal systems either do not exist or fail.

20 May 2006 Asia Typhoon kills 104, hundreds missing in Vietnam

A typhoon that swept through the South China Sea has killed more than 100 people, officials said, as rescuers from Vietnam and China extended their search on Saturday for more than 400 fishermen missing since Wednesday.

Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest on record to enter the South China Sea in May, the start of the storm season, left a trail of destruction in China, Vietnam and the Philippines. It killed at least 37 people in the Philippines last weekend, and by late Friday rescuers had found the bodies of 44 Vietnamese fishermen. They drowned after their ships were caught in Chanchu's path.

The typhoon, with winds of up to 170 km per hour (106 miles per hour), killed 23 people in China after it slammed into the southern coast on Thursday. Eight fishing ships sank 1,000 km (621 miles) east of Vietnam's central city of Danang, while eight remained missing. Rescuers had found 26 bodies and rescued 81 others, the government said in a statement.

"However, the number of missing fishermen and the ships remains huge," Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said in an urgent telegraph carried by state-run Vietnam Television.

source: alertnet

FLOODING AND MUDSLIDES IN UTTARADIT, NORTHERN THAILAND

Mudslides, torn up roads and fallen trees hampered rescuers on Wednesday after northern Thailand's worst floods in 60 years killed at least 30 people and left nearly 100 missing, officials said.

Uttaradit, 500 km (310 miles) north of Bangkok, was the worst-hit province with 22 known dead and 75 missing, although officials there said the toll could be a lot higher.

Unusually heavy rain at the start of the monsoon, which lashed deforested hills and sent flash floods into villages and towns in five provinces, stopped in Uttaradit on Wednesday. Water levels had receded, officials said, but showers were expected to continue until Friday. Most of the deaths were believed to have occurred in the Laplae district of Uttaradit, where heavy rain caused mudslides and a power blackout. About 12,000 people were short of food and water, officials said.

"Drinking water is most needed now as tap water facilities have been damaged by the floods," Jarin Udomlert, a Laplae rescue official, told Channel 3 television. Survivors have complained of a lack of early warnings of flash floods or mudslides from the government, but provincial officials said warnings had been issued, but ignored.

"Nobody ever thought Uttaradit would be severely hit by flash floods like these," Uttaradit chief medical doctor Boonreang Chuchaisaengrat told Channel 9 television on Tuesday

Casualties and Losses (from Reliefweb)

- 30 persons reported dead (22 in Uttaradit, 7 in Sukhothai, 1 in Phrae)
- 75 missing
- A total of 103,355 persons have been affected (34,100 families)
- 1,240 persons have been evacuated so far
- 80 roads and 28 bridges have been damaged

Exposing the extent of violence against women and children in remote Aboriginal communities

2006-05-18T12:12:00.000+10:00

The issue of inpunity, culture and traditional beliefs has been put under the spotlight this week as NT Crown prosecutor Dr Nannette Rogers' paper exposing abhorent sexual abuse of women and children in the NT was exposed. The debate raises questions regarding traditional societies and how they should be treated within the context of modern day Australia. It is a contentious issue that digs into the hearts and minds of our nation because we are all responsible for this abuse, but how do we deal with it in a culturally sensitive, but also effective way, to stop the violence against such vulnerable people - children.

Traditional beliefs, culture and societies are not stagnant, nor should they remain 'as they were' in the romantic sense. They are, like every other culture, belief and tradition - dynamic forces that evolve and change within the context they exist in. In this case, alcohol is a new variable in this society, and a factor that is found in almost every single case of abuse mentioned in Dr Rogers paper. It also made me think about other traditional beliefs I shun - female circumcision, foot binding, child marriage, dowry's, promised marriages... and I could go on and on...

Are Australia's views of Aboriginal culture dynamic? Do we allow questioning, adaptation and change, or is it us who don't want change. Sometimes people suffer at the hand of tradition. Should this practice continue? Or should we take responsibility as intelligent beings with conscious thought?

Below are a series of links to reports, interviews and articles about the issue.

A leaked Northern Territory police briefing paper has revealed disturbing cases of sexual abuse and violence against women and children in remote Aboriginal communities. The Crown prosecutor for central Australia, Dr Nannette Rogers, has collected the details over a 15-year period and revealed some of them on last night's Lateline program.

Dr Rogers details cases of utter depravity and the contents spell out a level of human degradation and suffering that she believes can no longer be tolerated. They include the rape of a seven month old baby as well as the sexual assault and drowning of a girl by an 18-year-old man.

Her paper exposes the extent of the problem and how Indigenous male culture and the web of kinship have helped create a conspiracy of silence.

http://abc.net.au/news/items/200605/1639145.htm?alicesprings

Q: Why do you think there's been such a long silence about this particular issue in central Australia?

A: I think there are a number of reasons for that. The first is that violence is entrenched in a lot of aspects of Aboriginal society here. Secondly, Aboriginal people choose not to take responsibility for their own actions. Thirdly, Aboriginal society is very punitive so that if a report is made or a statement is made implicating an offender then that potential witness is subject to harassment, intimidation and sometimes physical assault if the offender gets into trouble because of that report or police statement.

Q: Can we talk in detail about some of the cases. One of them in 2004. They're all shocking, in fact. But one of them in 2004 was the case of a two-year-old child who was raped. Can you explain the circumstances?

A: Yes, the two-year-old was playing outside with some other children. Her mother was away from the house, drunk in a small town. The offender woke up, took the small child, carried it out bush, had the child out bush for some hours. Undressed the child and inserted, simultaneously, two fingers in her vagina and two fingers in her anus and moved his fingers up and down a number of times causing injuries. He then - I'm sorry, he had his trousers off while this was happening. Then he placed the child on his lap and had his penis next to the child's vagina and tried to masturbate and so on. And eventually returned the child back to his father's camp. He was carrying the child with its legs on the side. The child was crying throughout the assault. The child was still crying and bleeding. He handed the child to his drunken father. He himself had been drinking. The father then took the child back to the area that the child had been removed from and when the mother returned from town, where she'd been drinking, the child was crying and the other children indicated that the offender had taken her away some time before and it was then that the bleeding and so on was noticed in her nappy.

The unedited Lateline Transcript of the interview with Nannette Rogers can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1639127.htm

"Customary law is an unconscionable mechanism by which the criminality of violent Aboriginal men is reduced or excused, and it should therefore be removed from the deliberation of courts in criminal proceedings." - Jodeen Carney

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1639536.htm

Mount Merapi Erupts

2006-05-13T23:12:00.000+10:00

RED ALERT! In the Pacific Ring of Fire as Mount Merapi erupts...

Indonesia raised the alert status of the Mount Merapi volcano to the highest level on Saturday, prompting a compulsory evacuation of thousands of residents living on the slopes, officials said.

"This morning we raised the status of Merapi to the top alert, which is the red code. Every resident has been ordered to evacuate," Subandrio, head of the Merapi section at the Centre for Volcanological Research and Technology Development, told Reuters.

EVIDENCE OF INFORMAL WARNINGS BEING HEEDED OVER FORMAL WARNINGS:

The local government has been struggling to conduct mass evacuation as some villagers living on the slopes refuse to be moved because they rely on natural signs rather official orders. Residents say signals would include lightning around the mountain's peak or animals moving down its slopes.

Most Javanese, who make up the bulk of Indonesia's 220 million people, are Muslim, but many cling to a spiritual past and believe a supernatural kingdom exists on top of Merapi

Excerpts from: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK109650.htm

5 Facts about Indonesia's Mount Merapi...

1. Gunung Merapi, or Fiery Mountain, located in central Java overlooking the ancient royal city of Yogyakarta, is the most active volcano in Indonesia.

2. Merapi has been witnessing small eruptions every two or three years, bigger ones every 10-15 years, and very large ones every 50-60 years.

3. The biggest eruptions occurred in 1006, 1786, 1822, 1872 and 1930. The eruption of 1006 was so bad an existing Hindu kingdom was apparently destroyed while in 1930 more than 1,300 people were killed.

4. The 1994 eruption claimed more than 60 lives, but the 3,000-metre (9,800-ft) volcano is considered sacred by local people who believe a supernatural kingdom exists atop Merapi. Every year a priest climbs to the top to make an offering.

5. Indonesia has the world's highest density of volcanoes and is located in the so-called 'Ring of Fire', a vast zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions looping around the Pacific Ocean and including Japan. Of these volcanoes, 128 are active and 65 listed as dangerous.

21 May 2006

Smoke and Lava spews... the view from Tunggularum village nr Yogyakarta

"The mountain continues to spew lava," said Mohammad Djilal, a vulcanologist at the Centre of Vulcanological Research and Technology Development in Yogyakarta. "The activity is a little bit lower than yesterday, because the hot clouds are less."

He said the hot gas clouds, which residents call "shaggy goats", stretched between 2.5-3.5 km down the mountain. Before the last major eruption in 1995, they had sprawled 6 km.

Vulcanologists fear the collapse of a lava dome that has built up on the mountain could trigger a deadly eruption.

Many residents living on or near the slopes of Merapi, which means "Mountain of Fire", have already returned to their villages after a major eruption failed to materialise. Many villagers consider Merapi sacred. Every year, a traditional Javanese priest climbs to the top to make an offering. Residents say they have yet to see what they consider the traditional signs of an impending major eruption, such as animals fleeing down Merapi's sides or lightning around the peak.

The spiritual keeper of the mountain performed a midnight ritual walk around villages earlier this week to calm the volcano.

(Source: Alertnet)

OPPOSITION WALKED OUT OF PARLIAMENT!

2006-04-25T15:50:00.000+10:00

OPPOSITION WALKED OUT OF PARLIAMENT!
Solomon Star News 25 April, 2006 - 3:36pm.

By Ednal Palmer.

The government rivals, the opposition camp, walked out of the parliament house this morning after their request to postpone the Speaker’s election was declined.

The Speaker’s election was scheduled for yesterday, but the opposition camp requested a postponment as one of their members Nelson Ne’e was in police custody.

Today in Parliament, the Opposition again requested postponement of the election as another member of their camp Charles Dausabea was arrested, which they say would affect their numbers.

However former Speaker of Parliament Sir Peter Kenilorea stood firm against the request saying that parliament has to go on with its business.

This has caused fury and MP for Aoke Langalanga Honorable Batholomew Ulufa’alu a member of the opposition camp, walked out of Parliament followed by his fellow camp members

Parliament however continued with the Deputy Speaker’s election without the Opposition, where MP for Savo/Russell Constituency Allan Kemakeza was elected the new Deputy Speaker of Parliament.

The position of the Deputy Speaker was supposed to be contested by Patterson Oti of the Opposition against Allan Kemakeza.

Charles Dausabea MP detained

2006-04-25T15:48:00.000+10:00

East Honiara MP Charles Dausabea has been detained by police, charged with inciting people to riot, intimidating a hotel security guard, and threatening to destroy a hotel. Magistrate Kieran Boothman rejected Dausabea's defence counsel's argument that he should consider the political implications of refusing his client bail and therefore the chance to participate in a vote of no confidence in new Prime Minister Snyder Rini (see here).

The Chinese on the Chinese

2006-04-24T19:32:00.000+10:00

On the Chinese online newspaper networks there has been considerable discussion regarding the return of many Chinese citizens and people of Chinese origin. I wonder whether it was mainly 'new' chinese who returned 'home' mainly to Southern China. I wonder how they will be received by their government and I wonder where the Taiwanese national will go... Taiwan or China? Many new Chinese were hoping to be granted SI visa's and then apply to come to Australia and NZ to make a better life. I wonder whether this path will be used in the future. I wonder if immigration to the Solomon Islands by the Chinese will cease or be scaled back?

"We will give support to any Chinese people on the islands who want to come back and help them live here in Guangdong," said Wang Baorong, chairman of the province's Returned Overseas Chinese Association.

"We have thought about ways to help these people as some of them lost their properties and some lost identity papers. We are also considering their children's education," said Wang.
The Chinese government has closely followed the development of the situation in the Solomon Islands since the incident happened and has promised to take every measure to ensure the safety of its people there including compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Since China and the Solomon Islands do not have diplomatic relations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry made urgent contact with the governments of Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, asking them to provide assistance to Chinese citizens if required.

The ministry has also ordered the Chinese Embassy in Papua New Guinea to immediately dispatch diplomats to the Solomon Islands to contact local Chinese people.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/24/content_4464933.htm

Pic’s of Chinese leaving: http://english.people.com.cn/200604/24/eng20060424_260658.html

Great listening: http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2006/s1621088.htm

Cyclone Monica Update.... headed for Darwin!

2006-04-22T19:20:00.000+10:00

Cyclone Monica is headed towards Darwin!

for a great report online: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1622815.htm

anyone in the area, i'd love to hear from you, please post stuff about your preparation, warnings etc... i wanna hear about how u made your decisions...

CYCLONE MONICA HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO A CAT 5 CYCLONE...

TROPICAL CYCLONE WARNING
TROPICAL CYCLONE ADVICE NUMBER 48 Issued by the BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY, DARWIN at 5:00 pm CST Saturday 22 April 2006

A CYCLONE WARNING continues for coastal and island communities between PORTROPER and MANINGRIDA, including NHULUNBUY and ALYANGULA.A CYCLONE WATCH extends west for coastal and island communities betweenMANINGRIDA and POINT STUART, including CAPE DON.

At 4 pm CST SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE Monica CATEGORY 5 was located about 260kilometres east of Nhulunbuy, and 345 kilometres east northeast of Alyangula,moving slowly northwest. The cyclone should maintain its current intensity as itmoves towards the west northwest across the northern Gulf of Carpentariaovernight. GALES with gusts to 120 kilometres per hour are expected to develop betweenGROOTE EYLANDT and ELCHO ISLAND, including NHULUNBUY and ALYANGULA, overnight orearly Sunday morning.

GALES may increase to DESTRUCTIVE WINDS with gusts to 160kilometres per hour in this area later on Sunday if the cyclone moves closer tothe coast. GALES near the outer edge of the cyclone may extend as far south asPORT ROPER overnight or west to MANINGRIDA later on Sunday.

The VERY DESTRUCTIVE core of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE Monica with gusts to 290kilometres per hour may approach the northern Arnhem Land coast later on Sundayor Monday.

GALES may extend further west into Arnhem land and along the coast to POINTSTUART, including CAPE DON, during Monday.

DANGEROUSLY HIGH TIDES could cause EXTENSIVE FLOODING at the coast betweenGROOTE EYLANDT and ELCHO ISLAND during Sunday.HEAVY RAIN is expected to cause significant stream rises and flooding of lowlying areas on Sunday and Monday in northeastern Arnhem land.

For updates: http://www.bom.gov.au
and for news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1621695.htm

CYCLONE MONICA STRIKES!

Cyclone Monica has been downgraded from a Category Five to a Category Two, but not before she "smashed" an Aboriginal community 570km south of Darwin, injuring some residents, flattening buildings and cutting off electricity. While about 200 people live in Maningrida, the community supports more than 2000 people who live on 30 outstations around the town (full story here). Darwin residents are breathing a collective sigh of relief that Monica has veered south, while the towns of Adelaide River and Batchelor — about 100 and 115 kilometres south of Darwin respectively — are battening down the hatches this morning as a depleted cyclone Monica heads their way. See here and here for more.

The Aftermath... images and dialogue from local people

2006-04-22T18:35:00.000+10:00

These images were sent to me from a friend in Honiara. They depict the aftermath of rioting in Chinatown. As you can see, it's a smouldering mess. What needs to happen now is for these shops to reopen and the cash economy to resume operations. This morning the market was open briefly, but there are fears of food shortages in Honiara. The Chinese people had developed and established a local cash economy that remained in operation during the 1998 Tensions. In hindsight, their actions helped maintain a sense of normalcy in a time of crisis. It is essential that this local economy, including the Chinese shops, the local fish and vegetable market and betel nut trade remain operating. Although it is obvious that fundamental changes need to be made in terms of transparency, governance, law and order etc... but the concern for the immediate recovery of the people is to ensure that the local and most likely informal economy is revitalised.

.....chinatown will probably be blocked off for another week or so. Assessment of the damage has to take place but also scavangers will have to be discouraged. Every morning, opportunists go through the rubble to salvage what they can. Our staff have been advised by the police to report anyone going through the burnt out buildings. Both ends of chinatown are sealed off and only people with genuine interests in the area is allowed in.

Two planes coming in from PNG will arrive in abt 36 hours to help take the chinese away. With little political clout in the Solomons, PRC has done more for the chinese than Taiwan will ever do. Just shows their true colours.

Chinatown should still be standing. It had been rumoured, and also confirmed, that when the the unrest occurred, the "mob" knew that despite their actions, RAMSI will not shoot.

It is only fitting that the staff i have working for be give all the praise in protecting my shop. Without their help and the help of their "wantoks" (shop name removed) would have suffered the same fate. An analogy was given to me by one of my staff saying "this is our garden (the shop) and we need to look after our garden". It certainly made me proud to have these guys despite any misunderstandings.

'I was writing up my food shopping list in case we face food shortages or high food prices when thoughts of "whats next" came up. How can we get some positive out of these ashes. Crazy it may be but I feel that having just the right people in the Govt now would be a chance to build a brand new Honiara. This I mean is properly planned structures that will change the view as to the old Honiara you saw when you were here. Its a chance to do away with the square old colonial buildings....'

'With regards to the Mob and Looters, I think it revolves around the politics that fit the definition as..."the art of getting votes from the poor and money from the rich at the pretext of protecting one from the other". What I mean is these mobs form two third of Honiara's population. They live in out back squatters on TOL land. Most of them unemployed, been through little formal education and some came out of broken families and those social problems that is associated with it. These are people who gets negative thought impulse feed into there mind on a daily basis since they were kids. They dwell so much on the bad that was done to them in the past that they live no room in their minds to deal with their future. This was a chance to try out what they see in movies. They feel some sort of fame in their actions in line to that of the main character of the movie they saw.
How do we put this right? Re-settling them could be an option as all they did was climb over a ridge and there is Honiara, loot it, burn it, climb back over that ridge and in the valley is home. The Guadalcanal people have called on the past Govt already, about removing them from the TOL and Alienated land and they not prepared to go. In-fact their newly elected MPs, during their campaign promised to have the TOL land turned into a fix term land. It was all they wished for but their members camp did not make it to form the Govt....'

More comments from the ground...

2006-04-21T20:17:00.000+10:00

More comments from the ground...

As with the first post - these comments are anonymous.

I would think that the public tide might turn in Honiara if the rioters begin attacking government buildings. One only hopes that RSIP/RAMSI have some plans to protect them. Most of the new Chinese hotels, casinos and other developments - all under threat if not destroyed - were built with bribes to successive SI governments, shady land deals, profits from illegal land transfers...

As feared, we had a disturbance in Auki this evening...The police worked hard today, discouraging any plans to riot or loot this evening...

The police (RSIP and RAMSI) organized themselves with riot gear and took on the group, backed by the general population of Auki, a few of the latter shooting stones on behalf of the police. Having seen what has happened in Honiara, and also having fairly good relations with our local Chinese, there was no interest in the general population in joining the group causing the disturbance...The police thanked the crowd afterwards for their support and orderliness.

Rioting is continuing in Honiara this morning, with Chinese businesses targeted, especially new developments. Pacific Casino is now under attack and marchers are headed for Parliament. All are demanding the resignation of the new Prime Minister. He refuses to resign. (If he continues to refuse, the Parliament building will probably be torched.) Overnight, Chinatown and various other Chinese stores in Point Cruz and around Honiara were torched. There are roadblocks all about, both RSIP/RAMSI and local people (e.g., Fishing Village). The Speaker of Parliament and Governor General have been on the radio pleading for calm but to no avail...

In some cases, police are doing nothing and letting the rioters go ahead, as they are beyond the power of the police...

Decades of bitterness against the Chinese community for its wealth, its abusive behaviour towards Melanesian staff, its "buying" of successive national governments (including, most likely, this one), its apparent immunity from RAMSI investigation, its involvement in highly lucrative resource extraction, the larges sums of money taken out of the country illegally...finally came to the fore, sparked by the result of yesterday's Prime Ministerial election. The talk here is of "stage two" in the "ethnic tension" process, Solomon Islands vs. Chinese.

The Solomon Islands democratic process remains seriously flawed. While the election itself went well, corruption still remains in the election registration process, with registration officers removing new names from voting lists of those they know will not support their candidate...

Comments from the ground...

2006-04-21T16:26:00.000+10:00

(For permission to use these comments you must contact the owner of the blog through the comments section. All comments are anonymous and come from anonymous sources. You decide what the truth is)

This is a collection of commentry I have received indirectly and directly from various sources in and out of Honiara... they are just feelings of the people as events unfold from both the Chinese and Solomon Islander point of view. However, at this point I would like to make a huge point... The Chinese are very much part of the Solomon Islands. They are intermarried, they live together and they have not been targetted in the past. They are not a homogenous group so the actions of a few are being reflected on an entire population. The mindset of the Chinese are different amongst themselves. The people whom I call my friends are friends with each other, the put me in contact with each other, which says to me that they are not enemies. This will pass, but the fundamentals have to change.

Here are a few comments...

The whole thing started out of mainly, "lack of understanding" of how the system works and that of mare selfishness of both our politicians. Weeks leading up to the elections of parliament members and the elections of the prime minister had calls from various individuals, churches, Groups, Leaders NGO's etc calling for a free and fare elections. During the days leading up to election of the PM, there was heavy lobbying going on which involved business people backing the different groups trying to form a coalition. People have seen with their own eyes which Chinese business people were driving arround with newly elected members of which most are within the PM elects camp. The reason behind why this chinese business man is entertaining new members is not know but these mob already had there own conclusions to which the result of the PM's election was not welcomed.

My personal view is that there are two things at play here. First is that most of these mob just love looting and chasing people around. The second is that of the election of the PM. One is an excuse of the other. A chance to loot and be rich for just a couple of days or months at the pretext of calling on the PM to step down.

Slogans painted on shops
*This is the same guy who sents his own Children under Gov't scholarship which was outside of the Education system of this country.
*This is just the same corrupt Gov't that recently lead the country. This time they will bulldoze all Local workers of the City council and the Gov't from their homes and replace them with Chinese people as has already been done.
*This is the same Gov't that fell to the hands of ROANK con-man Noah Musinku, the Kings University that did not exist at all, and just recently the signing of a document with Geofrey Moss.
*This is the same Gov't that used public money to have their cronny (Betea) travel with them to the UN General Assembley on a touring trip. All just for lessure. This gov't is the same puppet of ROC

(some) chinese people spoilt it for the rest of us...

The shop next to us was burnt and our boys (local boys) did their best to stop the spread of the flames. Some damage but very very minor. Some of the boys defending the property were injured...mainly burns.

... we also survived because we have been here for a while and some people recognise that

Day 4 has been calm however there r still anti chinese sentiments floating around town. I had an incident today where a local wanted to fight me....yes, he was drunk but his feelings came to the surface. Beer has been banned however the local brew (kwaso) is still being consumed.

PM faces no confidence...

2006-04-21T16:22:00.000+10:00

A POLITICAL coalition that had contested the Prime Minister's election is moving to oust new Prime Minister Snyder Rini through a motion of no confidence.

Group spokesman and former Prime Minister Francis Billy Hilly said they had lodged a notice of no confidence yesterday. The move comes after two days of looting in Honiara sparked by the election of Mr Rini as Prime Minister. He said it would take seven days for the notice to come into effect and they are expected to debate the matter in Parliament on Wednesday."It is the most cleanest and the proper way of changing the Prime Minister," said Mr Hilly.

Our power is in Parliament House and that is where we are going, he said. Mr Hilly's group led by the Member of Parliament for North New Georgia Job Dudley Tausinga has the support of 25 members... On Wednesday, Patrick Vahoe, the member for Malaita Outer Islands crossed the floor and was yesterday joined by the member for South Vella Lavella Trevor Olavea. Mr Hilly said if the motion was passed it would annul the election of the Prime Minister.

"Then the whole process will start again with the nomination of new candidates. And we will vote for a new Prime Minister. So although it doesn't completely answer the concern of the public, we are taking it back to Parliament, that is where our power is."

He said he hoped that the public could see that they were trying to resolve the situation using the constitution. Mr Hilly said if the outcome of the next elections turn out the same then it would show how insensitive the members are to public concern."The effects could be even more devastating than what we have already seen."Members who have pledged their support to Tausinga's camp are; Francis Billy Hilly, Joses Sanga, Patterson Oti, Bartholomew Ulufaálu, Dr Derick Sikua, Nollen Leni, Gordon Lilo Darcy, Martin Magga, Francis Zama, Bernard Ghiro, Issac Inoke, Charles Dausabea, Japhet Waiepora, Nelson Ne'e, Bishop Leslie Boseto, Toswell Kaua, Samuel Manetoali, Samuel Rogosomani, Peter Tom, Sam Iduri, Stanley Sofu, Trevor Olovae, Patrick Vahoe and Steve Abana.

Contrasting Chinatown: Before and After...

2006-04-21T14:30:00.000+10:00

I have been researching the role of the Chinese in the Solomon Islands local economy. So far as I know, this project called 'Sources of Insecurity' is the only study conducted on this minority population. Over the next few weeks, I invite as much commentary on the situation as you can write and want to express. I will be posting my analysis of the situation over the next few weeks but I am not there, so your contributions are extremely valuable and may give people a more balanced view of the situation.

Here are some pictures of Chinatown in November 2005 before the recent riots, contrasted with the pictures printed in the Solomon Star today.

Now this is what it looks like:

Civil Security Requires Economic Security

2006-04-20T14:56:00.000+10:00

Rioting in Honiara is not simply evidence of ongoing instability in the Solomon Islands, but of the powerful collision between conflict, governance, and the struggle for peaceful and secure livelihoods.

From 1998-2003 Solomon Islands was plagued by conflict that resulted in the death of hundreds of Solomon Islanders, the internal displacement of tens of thousands more, and the destruction of the country’s narrow economic base. While the causes of the conflict are complex, the primary protagonists were the Malaitans and the indigenous inhabitants of Guadacanal, the island on which the national capital, Honiara, is based. Europeans arrived in the Solomons in the late 1800s, bringing with them the cash economy, and Malaitans began to migrate to Gudacanal in search of work. They settled on Guadacanalese land and achieved dominant positions in the economy, resulting in a build-up of tensions over time which successive governments failed to address. The Tensions began in 1998 when Guadacanalese militants embarked upon a campaign of intimidation intended to chase settlers off Guadacanal. While ethnicity and cultural differences played a role in the Tensions, the roots of the conflict also lie in competition for limited resources and strong ties to land in a transitional economy.

The recent rioting in Honiara also has an ethnic dimension, evidenced by the targeting of Chinese businesses in looting, and in the torching of buildings in Chinatown. But this is not about racism - it is about what happens when cultural identity collides with anger about entrenched corruption in government and limited access to resources. While the elections ran smoothly, the old powers – surrounded as they are by allegations of corruption - returned to the helm. The man elected PM, Snyder Rini, is thought to have both Chinese and Taiwanese links – protestors say that his coalition Government is funded and influenced by the owner of the Honiara Hotel, Sir Thomas Chan. During the election campaign, Solomon Islands media reported of complaints regarding the Asian influence over the political process. On Tuesday night the rioting spread from Honiara on Guadacanal to Auki on the neighbouring island of Malaita, where a gang of youths shot stones at a RAMSI vehicle and a Chinese store. The excuse for rioting in Auki was that the “waku (Chinese) supported candidate” won the election for PM.

The Chinese began to arrive in Solomon Islands in the early 20th century, originally in search of trading ventures and then later as labour for the British protectorate. They established a quasi-local economy of small general stores located in Honiara, and supply the local people with basic goods as well as employment. They developed and maintained the cash economy, and continue to control it today. Yet analysts have paid little attention to the place of the Chinese in Solomons society. Our research confirms that there are mixed feelings among the Melanesians about the Chinese. There are feelings of envy and bitterness towards the Chinese community for their economic clout and wealth accumulation, yet during the Tensions the Chinese were not targeted by militants and were acknowledged by senior Ministers for their commitment to the country by keeping their businesses operating in spite of rising violence.

Chinese business interests and political agendas are intertwined, but the situation s complex. Solomon Islands is a nation of incredible cultural diversity and lacks any economic distribution mechanism to ensure that its scarce resources are available to all. There are differing perceptions of productivity and the value of goods and services. More importantly, there is differing access to the cash economy which is now essential to survival. Very few Melanesians own their own businesses, most work for the Chinese. Since most Melanesians can no longer choose to remain outside the cash economy, they are confronted with the differing culture and economic power of the Chinese. The losing side to the PM's race decided to play the race card, igniting decades of bitterness. Locals are now worried about “stage two” in the ethnic tensions – instead of Guadacanalese versus Malaitan, there may now be Melanesians versus Chinese.

The rioting brings the consequences of cultural differences and tension over minimal resources into sharp focus. The increased immigration of Chinese and their economic success in Solomon Islands only reinforces the sense among Melanesians of being at the bottom of the economic heap in their own homelands. There is a limit to what Australian security forces can achieve. As is the case throughout the world, there will be no chance for real improvements in civil security unless the sources of insecurity are acknowledged not only by the country and its people, but by the bilateral aid donors.

Wei Choong (wei.choong@rmit.edu.au) is a researcher with the Centre for Risk and Community Safety at RMIT University, Rebecca Monson (rebecca_monson@fastmail.fm) is a Melbourne lawyer specializing in emergency management.

There are similar analysis and opinions in the Australian newspapers. Follow these links to the articles:
How did it come to this? - by Mark Baker http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/how-did-it-come-to-this/2006/04/19/1145344152831.html

The Australian has a rather sophisticated analysis: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

Chinatown is burning in Honiara...

2006-04-19T15:16:00.000+10:00

Police have abandoned the business and retail heart of Honiara to the "mercy of looters and arsonists,'' Solomon Islands' authorities said today. Australian tourists have told how they huddled in their hotel overnight as rioters attacked, while an expatriate Australian priest said he was confronted by looters this morning.

In last night's unrest, police arrested 49 people in the capital, and charged them with offences including theft and public disorder. Seventeen Australian and two New Zealand police were injured. Two of the more seriously injured Australians will be repatriated for treatment today.
Johnson Honimae, a government information officer in Honiara, today said he saw barely any police on the streets during the riots.

"This morning I haven't seen a lot of police officers,'' Mr Honimae told ABC Television today.
"In Chinatown, I drove from one end to the other and there was no police officers in sight."
Overnight (rioters) have moved into Chinatown, which is basically made up of shops made by Chinese, and they have basically burned the place down.

"The police couldn't do anything, and a lot of people would agree with me, they were basically outnumbered. Last night there was a police vehicle parked on the side watching these guys open up a shop and get everything out and they couldn't do anything.

"This is worse than the coup in June 2000,'' he said.

A Royal Solomon Islands Police spokesman said between 500 and 1000 protesters re-entered Honiara's Chinatown this morning. "There is still widespread looting in and around Honiara,'' the spokesman said. "They are looting any shop at all. They're just smashing into it and taking stuff, they're looting and then burning the shop. "There's been more fires lit in Chinatown itself. Basically what was left standing last night is on fire today,'' he said. The spokesman said another group of about 500 people had assembled in the Central Business District. Police were unsure what the people were doing but had blocked off roads in the area as a precaution. The spokesman said police had this morning arrested several people and charged them with unlawful assembly.

"I don't have numbers but certainly the watchouse is quite crowded,'' he said.

The spokesman said there had been no reports of police injured in this morning's unrest, and police were containing the situation. "The police have got control over it but when you've got a thousand people it's very difficult to do much about them. So police are monitoring and they're doing everything they can to protect property and protect the peace.''

Political unrest broke out in Honiara yesterday after MPs chose Snyder Rini, a longtime cabinet insider and former deputy leader, as the new prime minister despite a big anti-government swing at a general election dominated by allegations of corruption.

Tourists attacked
Australian tourists have told of huddling together in fear as they came under attack from rioters in their Solomon Island hotel rooms. Troubled flared in the capital, Honiara, yesterday after the announcement of a new Prime Minister, Snyder Rini. About 500 supporters of rival candidate, Job Dudley Tausinga, took to the streets, claiming the election was fixed and votes bought. Parts of Honiara have been completely burned down and looting continues unabated today, according to Reverend Kevin Rietveld, 59, an Australian missionary who has lived in the Solomons for eight years.

Priest threatened
Reverend Rietveld said he was threatened while driving through Honiara today.
"The mood is quite tense," he said. "There have been all sorts of people on the radio calling for peace and quiet.

"The thing that's happening now is people are just going out to see what they can get.

"It's no longer just a political backlash, it's now just greed and 'Let's see who we can rip off and how."

"I went out this morning to a place called Ranad. It's the industrial area about 3km from Chinatown. I passed two burning buildings, both of them owned by Chinese.

"I saw one building that had been burned out already and I saw another building in full flame. It was a grocery place and its containers were being looted. I saw people carrying boxes and bags of stuff all over the place."

Reverend Rietveld said one of the looters was then confronted by one of the looters.

"One guy, when he saw my car and saw that I was white, picked up a stone to throw it at me. I stopped right next to him and was able to pacify him. He was drunk. Some friends came and dragged him away."

He described Chinatown as being "pretty well burnt out".

"[There are] probably about twenty buildings that have been burned out [there]."
Reverend Rietveld said the mood on the streets was tense and the introduction of more RAMSI security personal may have an adverse effect. "On the one hand you don't want to create a further antagonism towards what RAMSI's doing her. I'm a little bit afraid that the influx of more armed personnel may create a backlash,' he said.

"On the other hand the absence of police in some of the danger areas is also a concern. If nothing is done, then things will just continue. So you are caught between a rock and a hard place."
Rioters hit

Robin Deamer, 33, an Air Vanuatu based in Honiara, was at the Pacific Casino Hotel when it came under fire about 2.30am. Mr Deamer said the hotel was filled with Australian tourists, Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) officials and other staff from international aid organisations.

"Basically it was right outside the hotel. What happened was a wave of rioters moved up from town basically targeting any Chinese-owned business," he said.

"It was pretty scary. You [could] hear small rocks coming through and then they got bigger and bigger. You could tell they got bigger and bigger once they started hitting the concrete wall.
"There was one room that caught fire because they pelted a petrol bomb through one of the windows. The local security jumped in pretty quickly with a fire extinguisher and put that one out."

Mr Dreamer said tourists at the hotel were "pretty freaked out".
"They were bunching up in rooms. They jumped into their mates' rooms, especially the ladies. They thought they'd be safer." The rioters were quelled about an hour later as police forces moved in.
"It took them about an hour getting through the rioters and the stones were flying everywhere. Once the police moved in, it came to a bit of a halt."
Mr Deamer said the hotel was attacked because it was owned by a Chinese man.
None of the hotel guests was injured during the incident but most of the tourists and RAMSI staff have since moved on to safer areas in the city, he said.
Scene of destruction
"You've got broken glass [all] over the place," Mr Deamer said. "They've done a good job of cleaning all that up. A lot of cars outside have got broken windows and are banged up inside. A couple of the brand new RAMSI police vehicles are burnt out just outside the front gates."
Hotel secretary Lyndall Helen said said several rooms had also been looted. "There was these young boys. They throw stones and they come inside and smash all the cars outside the hotel. All the windows and things are broken. They stole all the computers and the bedding."
Mr Deamer said Air Vanuatu had ordered him to leave the Solomon Islands today.
"We have just been told by Air Vanuatu that we should get out of here in case something happens to us or our aircraft," he said.
theage.com.au, David Braithwaite, Jano Gibson and AAP

Cyclone Monica

2006-04-19T15:04:00.000+10:00

Tropical Cyclone Monica has started to pass over the remote Queensland town of Lockhart River, bringing with it torrential rain and very strong winds. The eye of severe tropical cyclone Monica has crossed the coast of Cape York Peninsula south of the town, the weather bureau says. Senior weather bureau forecaster Manfred Greitschus said the "wall'' of the cyclone's eye began crossing the coast south of Weipa around 1.30pm (AEST) today, with destructive winds of up to 220kph expected to extend about 40km from the edge of the eye.

Mr Greitschus said Monica was expected to weaken as it moves across Cape York Peninsula at a speed of around 12kph. "It's still a very intense system but will weaken to a category two or maybe even a category one as it moves across the land,'' he said.

"We expect it to continue heading west over the next couple of hours.'' The eye of the storm is expected to cross at noon and Peter Buckland, the chief executive of the Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council, says the town is hoping for the best.

"From what it looks like, the front of it has started to pass over the coast. For the last hour or so it is passing over us so we're yet to move in to the heart of it," Mr Buckland said from his council office just after 11 o'clock today.

"We expecting this to be an eight-hour process for it to travel over us. We're as prepared as we could ever be. We've done everything necessary and it's now just waiting to see what happens."

For the rest of this article... http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cyclone-hits-coast/2006/04/19/1145344110877.html

Glenda hits land...

2006-03-31T09:22:00.000+11:00

Cyclone Glenda moved quicker than expected across the Western Australian Pilbara coast, making landfall somewhere between 8-9pm WST at Mardi Station near the small town of Onslow 900kms north of Perth. The town of Onslow has been hit 4 times in the past 80 years by cyclones. People have been comparing the force of Glenda and Larry due to the high category rating of both extreme weather events.

The media is reporting on the impact Glenda will have on the mining industry as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto announced suspensions of mineral, oil and gas exports until conditions stablise. BHP shipping superintendent at Port Hedland, Roger Richardson predicted losses in total income to be approximately $30 million.

But, right now, the probability of flood risk is eminent as the destructive winds of Glenda are downgraded to a Cat 2 storm. The Murchison River is prone to flooding, and WA banana farmers are waiting as their crops are exposed to high wind conditions as the storm eases. Onslow received 140 mm of rain and 160km/h winds are expected to gust through the town early this morning.

SES Volunteers from towns around Pilbara will be making their way down to the affected area shortly in choppers, says Peter Mancini from the SES. The problem is that flood waters will block off roads leading to small towns, isolating small populations of people in this remote area. However, people in this area are experienced in the ways of cyclone preparedness.

For updated weather warnings, see the Bureau of Meteorology: http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/wa/

Comment on your experience...

Economic Impact

2006-03-30T10:30:00.000+11:00

So far... 'Global mining giant Rio Tinto has halted its massive iron ore shipping operations in the Pilbara ahead of Glenda, the sixth cyclone of the WA season, which runs between November and April, with most activity in the latter half of the period.

Oil and gas giant Woodside is continuing production offshore and onshore except at the Cossack Pioneer and Ocean Legend facilities, which have sailed out of the path of the cyclone.'

From The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cyclone-too-dangerous-to-flee/2006/03/30/1143441240888.html

Cyclone Glenda shuts down ports and oilfields

Cyclone Glenda has shut down Dampier Port and Port Walcott (dampier port authority); Port Hedland was closed this morning; and BHP Billiton, Northwest Shelf venture, Woodside Petroleum, Chevron Corp and Santos have shut up shop for the moment...

Rio Tinto (world's second largest iron-ore exporter) says WA lost 20% of outputs this quarter, approximately 6 million metric tonnes this quarter or 147,000 barrels per day has been halted until weather conditions stablise. BHP has lost 475,000 tonnes of output this quarter. Impact of production is expected to be made up later in the year.

Head of research at Daiwa Securities in Melbourne, Mark Pervan says it's a 'seasonal thing... so the market won't be too concerned about it...'

you can find more economic analysis on: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000081&sid=abwzkrF1MJ0E&refer=australia

Pic's from the Kimberley echo http://www.kimberleyecho.com/archive/2006/20060330/floods%202006.htm

Dunham River Crossing x2

Pacific Seeds sheds and silos

Downgraded to Cat 4, but still destructive... Glenda makes her move

2006-03-30T10:09:00.000+11:00

Glenda has been downgraded slightly to a Cat 4 Tropical Cyclone and is expected to make landfall between Exmouth and Onslow later today or early this evening.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued advice #42 @ 0600amWST Thursday 30/03/06

A CYCLONE WARNING is now current for a SEVERE CATEGORY 4 CYCLONE for coastalareas between De Grey and Minilya Roadhouse, extending inland to Tom Price,Paraburdoo and Mount Augustus.

A CYCLONE WATCH extends south to Kalbarri and inland parts of the Gascoyne.

Very dangerous SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE GLENDA is expected to cross the coastbetween Exmouth and Karratha, most likely tonight.

Details of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE GLENDA at 5am WST Thursday.

Location of centre : within 30 kilometres of atitude 19.1 South Longitude 116.4 East.

Recent movement : Southwest at 15 kilometres per hour.

Central Pressure : 930 hPa.

Maximum wind gusts : 250 kilometres per hour.

Severity Category : 4

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDW24200.txt

Red Alert issued by FESA

At 6am Thursday, the communities of Karratha, Roebourne, Point Samson, Wickham, Dampier and Mardie were put on Red Alert until further notice.

A Red Alert means there is a significant risk that destructive winds will occur in your area soon and you should move immediately to shelter.

A YELLOW Alert has been issued for the communities of Pannawonica and Onslow.

Meanwhile a BLUE Alert remains in place for people in or near communities at Whim Creek and Exmouth. Residents in these areas should start taking precautions.

ALL CLEAR WITH CAUTION has been issued for De Grey, Port Hedland and South Hedland.

Operations Area Manager Jim Cahill said that while communities are on Red Alert, people should expect the wind to be extremely powerful and noisy, and there may be some structural movement in buildings.

“Wait out the cyclone in suitable shelter. For all life threatening emergencies call ‘000’,” Mr Cahill said.

Now, residents should:

• go immediately to your shelter, in the strongest part of the house or closest welfare centre

• ensure that pets and animals are safely sheltered

• park vehicles in the most sheltered area available (with handbrake on and in gear or shift in P)

• disconnect electrical appliances and turn off gas supply valves

• ensure your neighbours have received this warning

• stay away from windows and doors, keeping them all closed

• remain indoors until you are advised that the cyclone has passed and the ‘All Clear With Caution’ is given by the emergency services.

Keep up to date with the cyclone’s progress through ABC Local Radio and other local stations, television and the BoM website www.bom.gov.au or call 1300 659 210.

People needing emergency assistance can call 1300 1300 39.

In a life-threatening situation call 000.

For further information people can visit the FESA website on www.fesa.wa.gov.au.

http://www.fesa.wa.gov.au/internet/alerts/display.aspx?id=732

Tropical Cyclone Glenda... warning

2006-03-29T10:10:00.000+11:00

Cyclone Glenda is looming over the north western coast of WA, up near Broome... BOM has issued a warning (see below) and the ABC has issued a news report... If you know more, please post any information you think might be useful for people living in the area.
Powerful Cyclone threatens Western Australian Coast

CANBERRA, March 29 (Reuters) - A powerful cyclone with winds up to 300 kph (190 mph) menaced northern parts of Western Australia on Wednesday, less than two weeks after a storm devastated homes and crops on the other side of the country.

Some oil and gas operations and key iron ore ports closed ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Glenda in an area known as "cyclone alley" because it is regularly swept by storms at this time of year.
The storm, ranked in the most powerful grade for cyclones, category five, was about 335 km (210 miles) north of the town of Port Hedland and moving south along the coast, the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre said. "Tomorrow's really the day where things could happen," said forecaster Adam Conroy from the centre in Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

The remote Pilbara region under threat is home to around 10,000 people and includes Woodside Petroleum's A$14 billion ($10 billion) North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at Karratha, about 700 km (440 miles) north of Perth.

"Residents of the central and west Pilbara coast are warned of the risk of very destructive winds with gusts exceeding 250 km per hour during Thursday as this very dangerous cyclone nears the coast," the Bureau of Meteorology said on its Web site (www.bom.gov.au).

Australia's northeastern coast was devastated last week by another category five storm, Cyclone Larry. It blew roofs off houses, uprooted trees and decimated sugar and banana crops, causing damage worth up to A$1.5 billion ($1 billion).

Woodside said on Wednesday that it had suspended production at its 100,000-barrel-per-day Cossack oilfield in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday as the sixth cyclone of the season approached.
Oil and gas producer Santos Ltd. shut its 40,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Mutineer-Exeter oil field on Monday and BHP Billiton's 10,600 bpd Griffin oil field has been closed since Saturday, after it was threatened by a smaller storm.

Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto both have operations in the Pilbara, which is home to large deposits of iron ore.

Rio said its port operations at Dampier and Cape Lambert had shut and ships had gone out to sea, while BHP said it was loading its last ship and port operations at Port Hedland would close shortly.

Rio said on Tuesday bad weather meant the company would fall 5 million tonnes short of its first-quarter iron ore output target. It still expected 2006 output to rise 14 percent on last year's 158 million tonnes.

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nSYD306937&imageid=&cap=

BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY WESTERN AUSTRALIA REGIONAL OFFICE

Media: The Emergency Warning Signal should NOT be used with this warning.
TOP PRIORITYTROPICAL CYCLONE ADVICE NUMBER 33
Issued at 5:55 am WST on Wednesday, 29 March 2006
BY THE BUREAU OF METEOROLOGYTROPICAL CYCLONE WARNING CENTRE PERTH

A CYCLONE WARNING is now current for a CATEGORY 5 CYCLONE for coastal areasbetween Pardoo and Mardie. A CYCLONE WATCH extends from Mardie to Coral Bay and the inland western Pilbaraand adjacent Gascoyne.At 5am WST SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE GLENDA was estimated to be 350 kilometres north of Port Hedland and 460 kilometres north northeast of Karratha and was moving west southwest at 15 kilometres per hour.Communities along the Pilbara coast should be aware that SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONEGLENDA is expected to approach the coast later today and during Thursday.

Galeswith gusts to 125 kilometres per hour may develop along the Pilbara coastbetween Pardoo and Mardie overnight, extending west to Exmouth during Thursday. Residents of the central and west Pilbara coast are warned of the risk of verydestructive winds with gusts exceeding 200 kilometres per hour during Thursdayas this very dangerous cyclone nears the coast.

Glenda upgraded to category 5

Wednesday, 29 March 2006. 10:11 (AEDT)
A severe cyclone off the Western Australian coast has been upgraded to a category 5 storm.

Earlier this morning, cyclone Glenda was estimated to be 460 kilometres north north-east of Karratha and moving west, south-west at 15 kilometres an hour. Forecasters expect it move towards the Pilbara coast later today or tomorrow morning and are warning of wind gusts of up to 200km per hour.

The blue alert for the west Kimberley has been removed.

Weather forecaster Gavin Edmonds says wind gusts will probably hit the Pilbara coast around Karratha.

"Over the next couple of days we certainly expect it to slowly take a course closer to the west Pilbara coast in particular and with that there will be the introduction of gales probably near the coast line later on Wednesday or Wednesday night and into Thursday morning," he said.
Meanwhile, academics studying the aftermath of north Queensland's cyclone Larry are advocating underground power networks and upgrades to country roads in cyclone-prone areas across northern Australia.

The Centre for Disaster Studies at James Cook University is carrying out a survey on the impact of Larry. The centre's director, David King, says there is much that the north-west and Kimberley can learn from Queensland's experience. He says there needs to be investment in underground powerlines and upgrades to highways to assist in the recovery of areas devastated by cyclones.
"The problem of the overhead power cables and the length of time that we go without power after a cyclone is something that we need to see addressed over a long period of time - it's not going to be a quick solution," he said.