Fidel Castro Offers to Send 1,100 Cuban Doctors to Help With

[Daanyeer]

Fidel Castro Offers to Send 1,100 Cuban Doctors to Help With US Hurricane Relief Efforts

Source: Associated Press
September 2, 2005 Author: By Anita Snow Associated Press Writer

HAVANA (AP) - President Fidel Castro announced in a live television broadcast Friday that he had just issued a second offer to the United States to send 1,100 Cuban doctors to help care for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"These personnel have international experience and the language skills necessary to attend to patients," Castro said on state television. He said the first 100 doctors have been equipped with backpacks filled with medicine and first aid supplies and are ready to travel as soon as Friday night to Texas, where many of the hurricane victims have been evacuated.

"We are offering life, to save 10, 100, 1,000," said Castro.

The Cuban leader said his government was hoping for a rapid response, "hopefully immediately so as not to lose another minute."

Castro said a diplomatic note containing the offer was sent late Friday afternoon to the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here, and was the second such offer of its kind made this week.

Castro said the first offer of Cuban doctors for hurricane relief efforts was made during a meeting with Cuban foreign ministry and U.S. officials in Havana on Tuesday, days before the extent of the hurricane's catastrophic damage was known.

At the time, American officials had asked Cuban authorities not to publicize their offer of aid, said Castro.

"(American) authorities are going through a difficult time, we are not asking for anything," said Castro, whose country has not had diplomatic relations with the United States in more than four decades. "We're not criticizing anyone."

But Castro indicated the deepening of the human suffering in New Orleans and other U.S. Gulf Coast cities had compelled him to repeat the offer.

Currently, there are tens of thousands of Cuban doctors working on goodwill missions in developing nations, especially in Venezuela and Haiti, as well as in Africa.

Cuban lawmakers on Thursday held a minute of silence Thursday for Hurricane Katrina victims and expressed solidarity with the mostly impoverished black and Hispanic Americans affected by the devastating storm.

Castro was among more than 500 members of the National Assembly who stood silently at the start of a regular session to remember the hundreds believed to have died this week when Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Louisiana, and other U.S. coastal communities on the Gulf of Mexico.

"This news causes pain and sadness for the Cuban people," said a resolution lawmakers unanimously approved. "In their name, we wish to express our profound solidarity with the people of the United States, state and local authorities and the victims of this catastrophe.

"The entire world should feel this tragedy as if it were their own," it concluded.

Cuba, set in the middle of the western Caribbean sea just southeast of the Gulf of Mexico, is battered by hurricanes annually.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBIUB545DE.html

[LionHeart-112]

Perhaps he should feed his people before he helps any1?

[Daanyeer]

US asks EU for emergency aid of blankets, food, water trucks

Source: AP
September 4, 2005

BRUSSELS - The United States has asked the European Union for emergency assistance, requesting blankets, first aid kits, water trucks and food for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the European Commission said on Sunday.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the 25-nation bloc was “ready to contribute to the US efforts aimed at alleviating the humanitarian crisis” in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama the American states hardest hit by Katrina.

The European Commission said its aid coordination office would manage the aid from European countries and has already drafted a preliminary list of materials, team and equipment being pledged by EU member states.

So far Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia Sweden, Spain and The Netherlands have pledged aid.

“Specialist teams from several member states are on stand-by and ready for immediate deployment,” the Commission said in a statement.

[Steeler [Crawler2]]

And we should take the help. In fact, I see an opportunity in this disaster. We should send as many people as possible to Cuba, to get medical assistance and short term billeting. If Cuba is offering, it's close, and we need all the help we can get. Maybe this could be a window of opportunity to mend fences.

A lot of other countries have offered help. We've helped everyone over the years, so I say don't be proud, take the offers.