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Global News Podcast
America marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
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Twenty years on, Americans remember Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans
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You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Friday 29th August. 20 years on from Hurricane Katrina, we hear how New Orleans has recovered. UN experts say Palestinians have been disappearing at food distribution centers in Gaza, Israel denies involvement and Rohingya refugees tell us how they were dumped in the sea by the Indian authorities. Also in the podcast is giving cash the best way to end homelessness. I was like, oh my goodness, this is a weight of my mind. Wow, it came at the perfect time. There's no words to describe leaving the stress behind. And a right handed, and a right handed snail can sort of fit together like puzzle pieces, but a lefty can't. If they try to get with a righty, it's a bit awkward. The New Zealanders helping try to find a mate for a rare snail. But first, it was one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the United States. 20 years ago today, at just after 6 in the morning, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the state of Louisiana. New Orleans was spared a direct hit, but its flood defences were overwhelmed by the storm surge and heavy rain. The city, which sits partly below sea level, was inundated, triggering one of the largest population displacements since the Great Depression. 1,800 people died across the region and the storm caused well over $100 billion worth of damage. The then president George W. Bush was criticized for the government's SL response. As one of our Washington correspondents at the time, James Kumarasamy had an eyewitness View of the chaos and returned to the city in the following years. The house is floating away. People are dying. They're dying. Babies is dying. They got old lady over there right now dead in the jail. People are dying. We starving out with every day. The level of desperation here is rising. Thousands of people are still trapped inside New Orleans. In a city where the authorities appear overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, the head of New Orleans emergency operations described the relief effort as a national disgrace. Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and let's do something and let's fix the biggest God damn crisis in the history of this country. Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. These days, the dark green trams are once again trundling slowly along the edge of New Orleans historic French Quarter. But a year ago, the scene was very different. I remember standing here on the corner of Royal and Canal streets and watching as a man in a Salvation army hut handed out sandwiches to desperate people, a shotgun prominently displayed at his side. When I was on the roof on Monday, August 30, looking at my parish and seeing 22 to 25ft of water everywhere, and I'm thinking, gee whiz, this is going to take two or three years to recover. We're approaching two years and we're nowhere near scratching the surface. Joey Defata, who was council chair of St. Bernard's parish, one of the worst hit neighborhoods. Twenty years on from the disaster, James caught up with him and with Byron LaFrance, a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, who he met while trying to rebuild his ruined house. First to Joey. It was a horrific time for all of us. We were the probably most devastated community ever in the United States with right about 24,000 homes. We could identify five locations that did not flood. So that tells you the massive devastation in the whole parish. And I know the Ninth Ward had probably 100% devastation for that area of New Orleans. Yes, Byron, that's where you were. What are your memories of the hurricane hitting and the floodwaters rising? Well, my house went out without power and when we came back, it was gone. When we first met, you were just starting to rebuild. You had plans. Tell us about the rebuilding. How did that go? I started rebuilding on my own, me and my father. My block was my family. We stayed on this whole block and we all was Homeowners. We had nowhere else to go. Some of us had just bought homes and we was knee deep in debt with the mortgages. So our only position was to rebuild. What my dad told me to do is we have no city, we have no city hall. Who's going to tell us to stop building our houses? We went ahead, we went, got a U haul truck and we went anywhere we can go find builder supply and we brought it back home and we started rebuilding our houses ourselves. And how long did it take you to rebuild? It took three months to get the house finished, but then we didn't have any electric. And how long then until you did get power? I got power about a month later. What was the situation with you, Joey? Well, we had several aspects of the storm, not including the storm, that we had to overcome. We had the largest single land oil spill in America here in St. Bernard Parish. So the folks who live within that footprint of the oil spill could not rebuild until EPA came in and designated the area safe. And what about you personally? My house, well, it was probably the last one to be rebuilt because being chairman of the St Bernard Parish Council, myself and the other council members put our lives on second to rebuild the community. And we all felt the same. If we can't bring our parish back, there's no reason to bring our homes back. So that was our guiding light to rebuild the government, the infrastructure, so the folks could come back home. Until today, we're still not at 70,000 people. We're probably around 50,000. So what we're doing now is still trying to rebuild our community back to what it was. So the work continues 20 years on? Yes, we're not finished yet. We're bringing back everything that the folks who live here before Katrina can enjoy again. Byron, what are your thoughts about where you are now and the impact that Katrina had on you and your family? It's not a community anymore. We don't have the essentials to sustain anything here. There's not too much in this area anymore for me to do. You're saying it's still not a community or it's not a community anymore 20 years on? No, it's not. It's not what keeps you there? What keeps me here? This was something I built from the ground up with my father. Just a final thought, Joey, from you. When you reflect on that time 20 years ago, what impact do you think Hurricane Katrina had on you and on your area? Well, it actually changed everything for everyone. The community is not the same group of folks who were here prior to Katrina, it has changed drastically. And individually, I had children who had young children who had to relocate for school for their kids, my grandchildren. And that changes your community when your family moves on. So it's not the same, but we're trying to bring it back as best we can. Two residents of New Orleans reflecting on the impact of Hurricane Katrina, two decades on. The White House has confirmed that the head of the US Public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been sacked after a month in the role. Lawyers for Susan Monorez have accused the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of Weaponizing Public health for political gain. In a statement, the White House said she was, quote, not aligned with the President's agenda of making America healthy again. The Washington Post has reported that Jim o', Neill, the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, will serve as the acting director. In recent months, several leading scientists have left the cdc. This emergency physician in Texas said undermining the agency made his job as a health worker increasingly difficult. Data is what we have to rely on for all of our decisions. What are the number of measles cases or COVID 19 cases in Texas? What is going on when it comes to things like the availability of certain medication? When we don't have that data, it's hard for us to make those decisions for our patients and to be able to give recommendations and guidance with confidence. Mr. Kennedy says the sacking is necessary to ensure the competent functionality of the agency. There's a lot of trouble at cdc and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture and bring back pride and self esteem and make that agency the stellar agency that it's always been. Cheryl Gay Stolberg writes on health policy for the New York Times. Sean Lay asked her for her assessment of the Trump administration's approach. I think this is just a very, very extraordinary exertion of power by the health secretary into the independence of the CDC director. Our reporting shows that Secretary Kennedy wanted Susan Menar as the director to not only fire some top CDC officials, but also to embrace without question the recommendations of the vaccine Advisory Committee that he, Kennedy installed to advise the CDC on vaccine policy. And ordinarily there's this committee of outside advisors. They're experts and they advise, and the CDC director uses his or her expertise to either accept or reject the recommendations. Kennedy fired the whole committee, all 17 members, a few months ago and installed new people, many of them skeptical of vaccines. And now he wanted Menares to accept their recommendations. And she said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let you interfere with my scientific independence. In the end, though, she's an appointee of the administration. I mean, she'd actually only taken up the job comparatively recently, having been nominated after the president's original, original pick dropped out. But in a sense, she knew what sort of administration she was going into. Shouldn't she, if she can't accept the policy, have resigned something she's refused to do? That's a good question. But she's standing on principle. And yes, she knew the administration that she was going into. But Secretary Kennedy also said at the outset, at his confirmation hearing that he wasn't going to take anybody's vaccines away, that he wasn't going to mess with this advisory committee. He assured a senator of that. And I think he has gone farther than many people expected or anticipated. He just crossed a line or wanted her to cross a line that she was not willing to cross. She says that Kennedy can't fire her. And she's right. She is appointed by the President. She's confirmed by the United States Senate. That means she serves at the pleasure of the president. And she and her lawyers want Trump to fire her personally. He hasn't done that. He's just put out his press secretaries to say, yeah, she's fired. Health policy reporter Cheryl Gay Stolberg. UN Human rights experts say they are alarmed about claims that starving Palestinians are being seized by the Israeli military at some of the controversial food distribution sites in Gaza. The alleged disappearances, including that of a child, reportedly happened at aid collection points run by the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which is backed by the US and Israel. The Hamas run Ministry of Health says 22 Palestinians have been killed while seeking assistance over the past 24 hours. More details from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Emir Nada. Food distribution sites in Gaza are already known to be chaotic and deadly. Now a group of independent rights experts have alleged that some Palestinians are being seized as they seek aid. Sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian foundation were introduced by Israel in late May to replace UN Led food distribution. They've proved controversial with Palestinians forced to walk long distances into Israeli controlled military zones to reach the sites. The UN Experts say they have received reports of a number of people, including a child, who've gone missing at the centers and that Israel is directly involved in the disappearances. They say the Israeli military is refusing to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of persons who have been detained and they are urging Israel to stop what they call a Heinous crime. The Israeli military hasn't responded to the BBC's request for comment. The GHF told the BBC there was no evidence of disappearances at their sites. The experts said they fear that the reports of disappearances will discourage individuals from accessing food aid, aggravating the risk of starvation. Last week, the UN's human rights office reported that it had documented more than 1,800 Palestinians who've been killed while seeking food, over 1,000 of them in the vicinity of GHF sites. Most of these killings appear to have been committed by the Israeli military, they said. Allegations denied by Israel Emir Nada should you give cash to people who are homeless? Does it help them? Or would they end up spending it on drugs or alcohol, as is often claimed? Researchers have been looking at this question and a study in Canada suggests that direct cash grants can be an effective route out of poverty. Now a similar project is being rolled out here in the UK. As Richard Hamilton explains, in 2018, the New Leaf Project in Vancouver gave 50 homeless people $5,500 each. They also monitored 65 other homeless people who they didn't help. A year later, they found that those who had received the money spent fewer days homeless, but had not spent the cash on things like drugs or alcohol. In 2022, the Centre for Homelessness Impact began a small pilot study in Britain, giving people $2,700 each. That's now been extended to a much Wider trial of 250 people in London and Belfast. Michelle Binfield is the organisation's Director of Programmes. The first pilot, we saw a little bit of resistance on the part of the workforce that was supporting homeless people. In some of the projects, they admitted that themselves in the beginning, that they were reluctant to refer people and worried about what might happen. And over time, I think that reluctance and that nervousness sort of dissipated as they saw people spent it on things that were very sensible for them. So generally, I think the trust built up over time. The project we're running at the moment is run as a randomised control trial. So basically we've got half a group of people that get the money and half that don't. So we really are going to be able to measure very robustly and very scientifically whether the money makes a difference to people in exiting homelessness. Greater Change is a British charity that is already applying the principle of direct cash grants. One of those who's benefited is Laura Burns, a single mother who was facing eviction. Greater change gave her $800. I was like, oh, my Goodness, this is a weight of my mind. I'm wow, completely stunned. But I'm actually used the money as part moving and part paying off the debt. It came at the perfect time. There's no words to describe leaving the stress behind. The charity has paid out nearly $1 million this year to more than 400 people. It says they are giving them dignity and the agency to make their own decisions. It's estimated that 150 million people worldwide currently experience homelessness. They face increased risks of trauma, mental health challenges and substance abuse. Life expectancy is also 8 to 13 years less than the general population. There are also significant economic costs. In the UK, for example, a hostel costs around $37,000 a year. So this research suggests that giving someone a few thousand dollars to get them back on their feet actually saves money in the long run. Richard Hamilton 55 years ago, the British artist Ralph Stedman was hired to illustrate a magazine story by the American journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Their partnership, which went on to include the cult Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, helped make Stedman's artistic style one of the most recognizable of the past half century. A new exhibition of his later work has opened here in London. Ralph Stedman has been speaking to Peter Goffin. Ralph Stedman has been documenting the world around him for more than 60 years, and his body of work still looks like it's been dropped in from another dimension. Lines slash like razor blades, ink spots splatter like blood. The human form stretches to its weirdest and most grotesque. But look for the story it tells. Drawing is about content and not style. Content is everything when it comes to what you're doing. That's how I like to think of it, really. Something with a subject of interest, like Donald Trump or something. Stedman has drawn at least four caricatures of the US President, including one that depicts him as a giant baby. Stedman has sketched and skewered some of the most powerful figures of his time, from Richard Nixon to Margaret Thatcher, George W. Bush to the British royal family. He's illustrated editions of classic literature, Animal Farm, Treasure island and several books of his own. It's a career so long and so prolific that a new exhibition at the Mewes Gallery in London, which covers its latter half, still contains 30 years worth of work. The show is curated by his daughter, Sadie Williams. It's a selection of some of the prints that dads has done, probably going back to about the 1990s. Dad's embraced all sorts of forms of printmaking, including etching and now G clay, digital printing. And the first printing press was invented in 1440. So in a way, this exhibition contains 600 years of printing techniques and technology. Stedman's own artistic story begins in an airplane factory. I went to the Haviland Aircraft Company first, and I really didn't like factory life. And then I saw this advert. You too can learn to draw and earn pounds. His journey took another turn when he met the American writer Hunter S Thompson. Of all the people I go and meet, to be somebody like Hunter Thompson, it's quite a weird thing to me. It specified the things I had to do in life. Stedman's irreverent illustrations proved a perfect match for Thompson's gonzo journalism, an outrageous style of reportage that puts the author at the heart of the action. Their collaborations established them as chroniclers and heroes of culture and counterculture. Thompson took his own life in 2005, and at 89 years old, Stedman's output has slowed a little. But to generations of writers, artists and fans, the pair are still giants. We were so unlike each other. I think that was the attraction, really. It gave our lives a bit of a shape. May have been a shape of snake artist Ralph Steadman talking to Peter Goffin. Still to come on the global news podcast. For somebody like myself who's never drunk alcohol, being offered a wine menu every time I go out and eat is just really disappointing. Whereas if I had been given a water menu, I would be spending a lot more money. The restaurant's offering their customers a whole range of waters. At the BBC we go further, so you see clearer. With a subscription to BBC.com, you get unlimited articles and videos, hundreds of ad free podcasts and the BBC News Channel streaming live 24. 7 from. Less than a dollar a week for your first year. Read, watch and listen to trusted independent journalism and storytelling. It all starts with a subscription to BBC.com find out more@BBC.com unlimited. Back in May, alarming reports emerged of deported Rohingya refugees being forced off an Indian navy vessel and into the waters off the coast of Myanmar. The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, face violent persecution and genocide at the hands of Myanmar's military government. While the country is also in the midst of a brutal civil war, more than a million Rohingya have fled to neighbouring countries, including India. In an exclusive interview, some of those refugees have been telling the BBC how they were left in the sea by the Indian authorities. Samira Hussain sent this report from Delhi. Hello. A group of seven men appear on my screen they're all sharing a mobile phone. We were so helpless. We were waiting for someone to come and they're desperate to tell their story. How they were thrown in the sea and ended up stranded in Myanmar, a country they fled in fear of violent persecution. We don't feel secure in Myanmar. This place is completely a war zone. That's Syed noor and he's one of 40 card carrying UN recognized refugees living in Delhi who were put on planes to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, then put on a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal headed towards Myanmar. Fourteen hours later they were told to board smaller boats. We were boarded to two lifeboats. Our hands were bound for more than seven hours. They asked us to jump off the lifeboat one by one and we swim around 100 plus meter to get the seashore. When you got on the bus to go to the boats, who took you on the bus? The same navy. How do you know they were navy? Because of the bus inscription. Like Bharat Yanawasena, the Hindi word for Indian Navy. Then he says one by one they were pulled aside on the boat and questioned by Indian authorities. They would call someone and talk in Hindi and they will even say something like why didn't you become Hindu? They question to Christian Rohingya Christians, why did you convert Muslim to Christianity? Why didn't you become a Hindu? And even they threatened us to uncover our pains to confirm whether we are circumcised or not. And they said why did you come to India? Why didn't you choose another country? Despite being registered as UN refugees, the Indian government says the more than 20,000 Rohingya refugees living in India are illegal immigrants. This is a matter of life and death for these people. Tom Andrews is the UN's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. I've been receiving reports of refugees being detained, interrogated, mistreated. These are people who are not in India because they want to be. They're there because of the horrific violence that is occurring in Myanmar. They literally have been running for their lives. We put these allegations to the Indian government who did not respond to our requests for comment. I'm walking up the stairs of a four story building in Vikaspuri neighborhood in Delhi. I'm going to meet Nurul Amin. He's 24 years old. Noor Liman's parents, two brothers and sister in law are among the 40 deported refugees now in Myanmar. We are humans, not animals. How can you just throw people into the sea? In my heart there is only this fear that the Indian government will also take us and throw us in the sea at any point. India's Rohingya community, already existing on the margins, are now living in fear, not welcome in their home country and not wanted in the country where they sought refuge. A report by Samira Hussain. Britain, France and Germany have taken the first step towards reimposing sweeping sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. The European powers formally notified the UN Security Council of their intentions after concluding Iran's nuclear program remained a clear threat to international peace and security. Here's our diplomatic correspondent James Landau. Iran's nuclear program may have been damaged by Israeli and American airstrikes in June, but Britain, France and Germany believe the country is still breaching commitments it made in 2015. As part of an international deal, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear ambitions and capability. In return, the UN lifted punishing economic sanctions. But the European signatories say Iran has enriched and stockpiled so much nuclear fuel and restricted the access of UN inspectors that it's no longer complying with the deal. They're particularly concerned at the whereabouts of 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that's close to weapons grade purity. If Iran doesn't give UN inspectors full access and agree other terms, then the sanctions will automatically resume in 30 days. Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Arakchi said the European decision was illegal and unjustified. Much depends on how many countries enforce the sanctions if resumed. But Iran is already economically weak and may not cope easily with further restrictions on its trade. James Landau when asking for water in a restaurant, you may well be offered still or sparkling, but some establishments now provide a whole range of options from a water menu similar to a wine list. The trend began in the US More than a decade ago, but it's spreading as a result of changing attitudes to alcohol and restaurants struggling with tighter margins. La Popote in northwest England has recently launched a water menu of its own, with the most expensive bottle coming in at around $25. Its water sommelier is Doran Binder. How does one become a water smelly? By accident, really? Because when I found out about this, I thought it was a joke. Honestly, I'd never heard anything so funny in all my life. And then through the journey of learning about water, it stops being funny very, very quickly and it becomes very, very serious very quickly. And that's where my passion for this has come from. So the waters on the menu really are about elevating epicuring experiences for diners in fine restaurants. And that's when we're starting, hopefully this is gonna trickle down and become more popular as more and more people are drinking less alcohol. And for somebody like myself who's never drunk alcohol, being offered a wine menu every time I go out and eat is just really disappointing. Whereas if I had been given, you know, a water menu, I would be spending a lot more money when I go out and dine. So it's all about the measurement of minerals in water, and that's what drives mouthfeel and that's what drives the taste of water. So all of the water, the seven waters that are on the menu, all completely different TDS total dissolved solids, and they all taste completely differently because of that. So super low TDS waters. Distilled water has a metallic taste, dry mouth sensation because there's no minerals being added to your mouth as you're drinking the water, all the way up to 3300tds water Vishy Celestine, which is natural carbonation water that comes out of the ground, carbonated at the source by mother nature. So delicate flavors of food dishes go with lower TDS waters and bolder flavors of dishes go with higher, tedious waters. And that would be pairing. But there's no reason why you can't contrast and do the exact reverse, because what happens is foods that we don't season, you can line your mouth with water and minerals and it changes the taste and the flavor of food. And you need to try it. And when you experience it, I call it leveling up in life, because it's like another dimension opens up that's always been there, but we just missed it. Restaurants are noticing that people are drinking less wine, less alcohol. So restaurants, to survive, will have to make up that income deficit from somewhere. And I'm hoping that water might come and save the day. Water, sommelier door and binder. A garden snail might seem an unlikely subject for a dating campaign. But New Zealanders are attempting to find a love match for a rare gastropod, which has a shell that coils to the left instead of to the right. Unfortunately, this genetic difference means the snail's dating pool is rather limited. Chantal Hartle has the story. If you're left handed, you'll know it's not always easy navigating a world that isn't geared up for your needs. And the same could be said for Ned the snail. Giselle Clarkson was digging around in her garden when she stumbled across him. It was that uncanny valley type thing where you're looking at something and something's wrong, but you just can't put your finger on it. Because it's really subtle and at first I thought perhaps it was another species altogether and then I twerked and I realised I had a rear lefty. It's thought just 1 in 40,000 snails have a shell that spirals in an anti clockwise direction. Ned can't mate with the majority of the world's snail population who spiral the other way because their reproductive organs are located on the opposite side of the body. Thankfully, Giselle understood his difficult predicament. She got in touch with the magazine New Zealand Geographic which has started a campaign asking residents to search their gard parks and vegetable patches to try to find another left coiled snail. Anyone lucky enough to find another lefty is encouraged to put it in a jar with some spinach and contact the magazine. Ned is currently in a fish tank in Giselle's home to protect him from hungry birds while he waits patiently for his first date. And history tells us there may be hope for net. In 2017, an international search was launched to find a mate for Jeremy, another lonely lefty discovered in London. Two eligible left sided mates were found, but made headlines when they ended up coupling with each other instead. Jeremy eventually mated with one of the pair and produced offspring with exclusively right spiraling shells. Chantelle Hartle and that is all from us for now, but the global news podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Lee Wilson and produced produced by Nikki Verico. Our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time. Goodbye.