Category Archives: Tsunami

More Tsunami relief

The Paris Club (donor nations) are offering a debt freeze and letting tsunami-hit countries suspend repayments on billions of dollars of debt. The freeze will be immediate and without conditions for those countries that request it. The five countries affected most by the tsunami pay $45 billion annually in debt repayment.

Meanwhile, Indonesia said that foreign troops must leave in 3 months, in response to the impression that it was surrendering sovereignty to outsiders. And cash-starved Zimbabwe plans to donate $3.6 million to tsunami relief efforts in Asia.

Banks help Tsunami relief efforts

Beyond the food aid and cleaning up, survivors of the tsunami need a lot more help to re-build their lives and businesses. Banks are helping in some parts of India by waiving interest payments and extending loan periods and in South Africa by waiving bank charges related to fund-raising efforts for victims. I hope Kenyan Banks can emulate such efforts whenever there are local disasters here such as floods, fires, or other devastating events.

Discrimmination, even in death

While unidentified foreign remains are kept in refrigerated containers at nearby temples, unidentified Thai bodies are brought to the cemetery by the truckload and packed in shallow trenches under the baking sun.