The Belgian Government proposed its assistance in the USA: medical team sending, sending of systems of purification of water and sending of part of the strategic oil reserves.
It was still however primarily Friday on the level of the proposals, Washington not having for the moment made no request concretes, even if Thursday Sean McCormack, the spokesman of the American ministry of the Foreign Affairs, had stressed that no offer of assistance would be refused.
NATO, by the voice of its secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, was said "ready to answer any call of assistance " of the United States, but did not give any additional precision. The EU reaffirmed its will to help, the Top representing for the foreign politics of the EU, Javier Solana, going until mentioning the idea of an oil supply. All that they ask, one will give them, of the crude oil reserves (…) to anything else which they would need, it declared.
But the contribution of the EU should especially concentrate on the humane and logistic assistance. A little earlier besides, the British secretary with Foreign Office, Jack Straw, had seemed to exclude the idea that the EU draws from its crude oil reserves.
To be frank, it is not that which people had at the head (but) much more one humanitarian aid and a help to face the floods, it declared, underlining however that it rested with the American government to ask the assistance of the European Union.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) planned Friday to draw from the gasoline reserves of its Member States to help the United States, whose Tenth of the refineries were touched by the cyclone.
The decision will be made in a collective way, specified a spokesman, stressing that the organization held consultations on this subject. Germany and Spain favour themselves right now known as such a decision.
Europe waits
The proposals for an assistance continued to flow Friday of many countries. Germany proposed systems of supply drinking water or a help with the emergency residences. The chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in full election campaign, passed part of his day to coordinate the various ministries, grateful however until one waited an American request before concretizing anything.
The Netherlands proposed their experts in dams, Sweden, medical equipment and a technical support as regards communications, as well as temporary residences and water treatment, France, significant stocks of humanitarian aid available in Martinique, in the Antilles, like planes and boats, and Austria, a team of the Red Cross specialized in psychological assistance with the victims.
The Netherlands proposed their experts in dams, Sweden, medical equipment and a technical support as regards communications, as well as temporary residences and water treatment, France, significant stocks of humanitarian aid available in Martinique, in the Antilles, like planes and boats, and Austria, a team of the Red Cross specialized in psychological assistance with the victims.
In Asia, Taiwan decided to grant two million dollars of assistance the disaster victims, without specifying which form it would take, and Japan, 500.000 dollars, including 300.000 in material of assistance. Even Sri Lanka, however devastated by the tsunami of December 26 which had made there 31.000 died, decided to allot 25.000 dollars of assistance to the United States. Australia proposed teams of first-aid workers and financial assistance, for 7,5 million American dollars.
A budgetary extension
The FEMA, the federal organization of management of the crises, need more than money to continue its efforts of help, explained Bill Frist, head of the republican majority. These supplementaru estimates, which release 10 billion dollars for the FEMA and 500 million to finance the participation of the Defence Department in the operations of help, should be definitively approved this after - midday by the Room of the representatives.
The White House has justified this budgetary extension, evoked for Wednesday, by the need for supporting the FEMA, which since the passage of the cyclone Monday devoted some 500 million dollars per days to the victims. I was not informed of money problems having blocked our efforts until now, but we wanted to be sure that that does not arrive, explained the director of the budget of the White House, Josh Bolten. This envelope is only one beginning, also indicated Mr. Bolten, according to whom the White House envisages to ask in the weeks has just resolved funds urgently additional. The senatorial debate flash of Thursday evening was the occasion for the majority to greet the efforts of the authorities vis-a-vis a catastrophe without precedent and unforeseeable, according to Mr. Frist.
A handle of senators belonging to the republican party of president George W. Bush and the democratic opposition expressed their compassion with the victims. The persons in charge for the Congress had announced Thursday after - midday that they had decided to suspend the estival vacation, designed to last until Monday, in order to act immediately in favour of the victims of Katrina, which sowed desolation in Louisiana, in Mississippi and in Alabama.
The democrats for their part underlined the great unit of the Americans vis-a-vis this disaster, pointing out the continuations of the attacks of September 11, 2001 against New York and Washington, but they also promised to ask accounts the authorities for their unpreparedness. Come time, we will put difficult questions, not for launching charges, but to learn from the made errors so that the country is prepared better for the next catastrophe which could strike, said the new Yorkean democrat Charles Schumer.
Risk oil crisis
The European Union was declared lends to provide all whose the United States would need to face the catastrophe of the Katrina cyclone, including while drawing from its strategic oil reserves, affirmed the Top representing for the foreign politics of the Javier Solana EU. All that they ask, one will give them, declared Javier Solana. Expressing itself on Sky News, Cristina Gallach, a spokesman head of the European diplomacy, explained that the American government had contacted several countries of the EU individually. Supply of the Member States and demand of the United States were managed in a bilateral way and not through the EU, it has says.
The States Unis have vast rough crude oil reserves, but not gasoline. However Katrina deprived the United States of almost 10% of its capacity of refining at one time when this industry functioned already with tended flows. Some 58 oil platforms or platforms of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico were put out-service by Katrina, according to the estimates of the American Institute of oil (API). Among these platforms, 30 are regarded as lost according to the API one which does not have for the moment any distribution by oil companies. Consequently, the prices of the gasoline flame in the United States, so that president George W. Bush announced that foreign boats will be temporarily authorized to convoy petroleum products between the American ports to mitigate the failures of the pipelines and invited American to be sparing.
And if a crisis of supply gasoline, if it were to start in the United States after the Katrina hurricane, would be propagated quickly with the rest of the world because of the close commercial links between Europe and America, according to the International Energy Agency. Market oil is in time normal already very fluid on the Atlantic, and when there is a crisis in the United States, price go up on market American and that increases a number of tankers which will sell in the United States rather than in Europe, which increases the shortage on our premises, declared the director executive of the International Energy Agency Claude Mandil to the French daily newspaper the Cross. Consequently, there is not any doubt that if following the hurricane Katrina, a crisis of the gasoline intervenes, it will be propagated on a world level very quickly, he continued. (AFP and AP)
Other private assistances are also organized by the Rotary Drill Belgium – Luxembourg
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