Free Republic

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday sought to address concerns over the US role in supervising Haiti relief efforts after a devastating earthquake. "The international community must ensure we are working in sync. Aid coordination has long been a challenge in Haiti, even before the earthquake," Clinton said at a donors' meeting in Montreal. "We must find better mechanisms for coordination, oversight, and accountability to ensure that aid and investments are used effectively." Washington has taken a frontline role in the disaster relief effort since the January 12 quake, sending in 20,000 troops as well as rescue teams...

HONOLULU — On a search-and-rescue mission in a tsunami-stricken American Samoa village, Capt. Nate Duff and his Hawaii Air National Guard troops waded through knee-deep swampland and under trucks hanging from trees in hopes of finding missing children. Duff's medical team was the first government relief agency to reach the fishing town of Leone following the tsunami, one of dozens of American rescue squads spread throughout the wrecked islands delivering personal help, food, tents and medical supplies. "The air stunk with ... hundreds of dead fish and animals, and rotting food and debris," Duff wrote in an e-mail to his...

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (NNS) -- USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) Sailors have teamed up with Salvation Army volunteers to prepare care packages for residents of the Gulf Coast affected by Hurricane Katrina. Crew members sifted through hundreds of bags and boxes filled with donations to ensure each care package was filled with the necessary supplies. “Our first goal is to meet the immediate needs of the people affected by this hurricane, such as providing food and water,” said Salvation Army Warehouse Supervisor Perry Balcom. Balcom and many of the other volunteers are part of an organization known as Hope Force International. They...

Hello Fellow Freepers, I am posting this because forum is the biggest, most active place I can think of to help out a fellow Texan and the Katrina survivors at the same time. I posting this letter from fellow Texan Scott Chaffin, a gentleman who lives just up the way from on the rambling river known as "the Arms of God", El Brazos de Dios, who would like to utilize the resources he has at his "tiny bidness." He writes : Dear Sweet, Clean Texas Members of the TFG Blogroll, You might or might not know that I have a...

I have two weeks of time that I have managed to clear out, does anyone know where I can find out which organizations need warm bodies in the effected areas down south?

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN — The aircraft carrier leading the U.S. military's tsunami relief effort steamed out of Indonesian waters yesterday after the country declined to let the ship's fighter pilots use its airspace for training missions — part of a broad effort by Indonesia to reassert control over its territory.     The USS Abraham Lincoln's diversion, which was not expected to affect aid flights, came as the White House asked the Indonesian government to explain why it appears to be demanding that the U.S. military and other foreign troops providing disaster relief leave the country by the end...