Funds have been frozen and projects are on hold while audits are being undertaken. To date, only 10.4 percent of the funds allocated by the government have actually been spent.
UN Adviser Jeffrey Sachs has recommended that countries at risk for frequent hurricanes consider purchasing national insurance policies to prepare in advance for disaster relief needs, rather than rely on international aid appeals to help residents after a disaster strikes.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) announced they will not attend talks with the Sri Lankan government, scheduled for 24-25 April 2006 in order to strengthen an increasingly fragile 2002 ceasefire.
The permits are intended to accommodate the demand for wood in Aceh’s post-tsunami reconstruction effort. But residents complain that they were not consulted and that they will have to bear the brunt of adverse consequences, such as increased flooding dangers.
A recent Supreme Court decision could make it harder for conservationists to safeguard wetland areas previously protected under the U.S. Clean Water Act.
The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) is designed to allow faster responses to disasters. UN agencies and their implementing partners will be able to access the Fund within 72 hours of an emergency being declared, enabling more lives to be saved in the earliest moments of a disaster when people are at most risk.
Michael Vatikiotis, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, argues that the small Nordic monitoring mission—the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission or SLMM, with just 64 observers—is inadequate.
A total of 5,8 trillion Rupiahs ($650 million) were collected from domestic and international donors. The value of aid was deflated in translating foreign currencies into Indonesian Rupiahs.
The “Bring New Orleans Back Commission” has designated parts of New Orleans East “delayed recovery”—which means that residents can rebuild only at their own risk, without any guarantee that there will be any basic public services in the near future.
The options usually discussed include maintaining the status quo; Kashmir independence; and Kashmir joining either Pakistan or India in its entirety. But the governments in New Delhi and Islamabad and the people of Kashmir never found consensus around any of these options, and perhaps never will.
A recent Supreme Court decision could make it harder for conservationists to safeguard wetland areas previously protected under the U.S. Clean Water Act. 