Peace Blog Archive

Tale of Two Sisters: Why Is HUD Using Tens of Millions of Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans When It Costs Less to Repair and Open Them Up?

By Bill Quigley.

Bill is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill is one of the lawyers representing thousands of families who want to return to their apartments in New Orleans. You can contact him at Quigley@loyno.edu

Gloria Williams and her twin sister Bobbie Jennings are 60 years old. They are two of the over 4000 families who lived in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina struck who are still locked out of their apartments since Katrina. Their apartments are two of 4534 apartments that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced plans to demolish. Demolition is planned even though it will cost more to demolish and rebuild many fewer units than it does to fix them up and open them. Ms. Williams and Ms. Jennings, and thousands of families like them, are fighting HUD, they want to return. (more…)

by Avery Friend

The streets were packed and Lori could barely breathe as she pushed her way through, her thick black hair sticking to the back of her neck. Her ponytail holder had slowly slipped down for nearly an hour before she had finally ripped it out and wrapped it around her wrist – they had always annoyed her, anyway. Her hair tended to remain greasy despite washing it with special shampoo six times a week and conditioning as little as possible. Something that came from living in New Orleans, she supposed, where you could step outside for the newspaper and come back in sweating.

“Lori?” her husband called, craning his head over the throngs of people. “You there?” (more…)

MICHAEL KLARE FORESEES YEARS OF IRAQ BLOODSHED AND CHAOS

December 19, 2006

By Nick Mottern, Director, ConsumersforPeace.org

On December 5, a day before the release of the Iraq Study Group report, I interviewed Michael Klare about what he envisions happening in Iraq. (more…)

We have published a new, important report by James Brooks on Israel’s use of exotic weaponry against Palestinians in Gaza. It is an extentively researched work, with over 50 links to resources (given the number of links, we make it available as a pdf file, rather than printed within the blog.) Brooks explores the nature and use of DIME bombs in the context of the long term use of uranium weapons – also highly toxic (as well as radioactive) – by the US.

Download this report at
http://www.traprockpeace.org/israel_dime_bombs_121206.pdf

“Whether Israel’s new weapon is the Air Force’s DIME bomb or another similarly dreadful invention, the horrors unfolding in Gaza make it clear that “Focused Lethality” is a blood-drenched lie. It promises only a deadlier form of indiscriminate warfare.”

The DIME bomb has been under development by the US.

“US plans to explode payloads of cancer-causing genotoxic heavy metal powder “wherever and whenever necessary” may portend an escalation of a campaign currently limited to the vicinity of “hard targets” we attack with DU and NDU. Whatever we make of the intent behind these weapons, the habitual result is chemical-genetic warfare. It cannot be allowed to continue.”