MikeLigalig.com

The president, who was criticised for the initial delay in getting relief to the worst-hit areas, argued that the local authorities had primary responsibility as first responders.

"But the destructive force of this typhoon was of such a magnitude that even those personnel... were themselves victims," he said, noting that only 20 police officers in Tacloban -- the affected region's largest city -- were able to report to work the day after the storm.

"So we have to admit, there was a breakdown in terms of government and there was a cascading effect," said Aquino.

The lion's share of the aid burden has been taken up by a massive global relief effort spearheaded by the United States, which deployed an aircraft carrier strike force to help distribute emergency supplies.

As of Monday the official death toll stood at 3,976 with 1,602 people missing. The United Nations estimates up to four million people have been displaced.

AFP News â€" 10 hours ago



This handout photograph taken on November 10, 2013 and released by the Malacanang Photo Bureau (MPB) shows President Benigno Aquino (right) distributing relief goods to families displaced by Typhoon Haiyan, in Leyte


Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Monday blamed the slow response to the ravages of Typhoon Haiyan on the total collapse of local government in the face of the storm's unprecedented destructive power.

"The systems failed," Aquino acknowledged as he toured areas devastated by the super typhoon that smashed through the central Philippines on November 8, killing thousands and laying waste to entire towns and villages.

"We had a breakdown in power, a breakdown in communications... a breakdown in practically everything," Aquino told reporters.

Cool tuod si Cooper, pero morag mas cool man si Nognog...

http://boholchronicle.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1236:aggenstein-appears-before-sp-hearing-turns-comical&catid=64:headlines&Itemid=102

Hmm, as in sartor resartus, adjutor auxiliaretur?

Quote from: islander on November 18, 2013, 11:19:58 AM
looks like some grown men are children forever.

Aren't we all? I mean, men and women, humans and felines...

Quote from: islander on November 18, 2013, 11:21:00 AM
mutual, to be fair. one is swiss cheese, the other is spare ribs.

Sorry, can't relate to your sense of taste...

A piercing stare could be a sign of hope, too.

Quote from: hubag bohol on November 18, 2013, 04:22:05 PM
Roxas, however, admitted that looking for survivors under the rubble was not a priority of the government at the moment.

“I think the three who had just died were from recent causes. Maybe they had a heart attack, pneumonia or something, but not because of Yolanda,” Roxas said.

Is it proper for the Interior Secretary to say this?

By Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
6:27 am | Sunday, November 17th, 2013


TACLOBAN CITY, Philippinesâ€"Three bodies were recovered from a collapsed house near a soft drinks plant here on Friday, raising hopes some missing victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” could still be found alive.

The Crime Laboratory of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said the three apparently died quite recently possibly due to illness and not as a direct result of the deadly storm surges that killed thousands of residents by the sea here on Nov. 8.

The report, however, also raised fears that the lack of medical facilities and the slow pace of relief operations could be taking an added toll on the devastated city.

The discovery of the three new fatalities was reported during the interagency meeting presided over by Interior Secretary Mar Roxas at the sports complex here.

“The three cadavers were newly dead, maybe just 24 hours when they were recovered,” said Senior Supt. Emmanuel Aranas of the PNP CrimeLab.

One of them had a big gash wound in his left leg. The other two were elderly men who might have died of cardiac arrest.

“But we cannot ascertain the real causes of death until we conduct autopsies on the bodies,” Aranas said.

Asked if the discovery of the three bodies was an indication that rescuers might still find survivors, Aranas said: “I don’t know.”

A member of an American volunteer rescue group reacted to news of the recovery by saying that it was a “very good sign” that some missing typhoon victims may still be alive beneath the rubble. The rescue worker recalled that survivors were pulled out alive from the ruins 22 days after a powerful magnitude-7.0 earthquake shook Haiti in 2010.

“I think this is a compelling reason for rescue workers to double their efforts in finding missing persons,” said the American rescue worker, who asked not to be named.

Roxas, however, admitted that looking for survivors under the rubble was not a priority of the government at the moment.

“I think the three who had just died were from recent causes. Maybe they had a heart attack, pneumonia or something, but not because of Yolanda,” Roxas said.

However jaundiced and overwritten, the following article might provide some perspective.



Perfect storm
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
9:33 pm | Sunday, November 17th, 2013


There were in fact two disasters that Supertyphoon “Yolanda” wrought. The first was natural, the second man-made.

The first was Yolanda slamming into the Visayas, particularly Leyte, particularly Tacloban, with a fury we’ve never known before. The before-and-after pictures of Tacloban, the one lush with greenery and the other bare and barren, the leafless trees looming in stark relief across a gray landscape, brought tears to the eyes. And that was from afar. The scene up close, an entire city shattered, debris everywhere, bodies lying on the ground, people who had lost their homes and their loved ones wandering around aimlessly, numbed the senses.

The second was the disaster that attended government’s attempts to cope with this disaster. The second is probably the bigger one. It is certainly the longer and more debilitating one. The first (b)lasted only a few hours, leaving a city, or province dazed in its wake. The second has already lasted more than a week, leaving a country stunned and furious, wailing and cursing, frazzled and riven in its condemnation and defense of government.

Much of the disaster that befell government came from public perception, or government saying the most unfortunate things. P-Noy himself contributed to it. The immediate aftermath of the supertyphoon, when Tacloban lay in shambles, was a moment that called for inspiration and reassurance. Or for some Churchillian “blood sweat and tears” message, rallying the country to come together to fight off not a gathering storm but one that had already come. It was a moment that called for inspiring belief in government as a pillar of strength amid the hunger and death, amid the grief and despair. The country was no less at war than in the shooting kind.

Alas, P-Noy instead took issue with the number of the dead. By itself, that meant nothing, and under ordinary circumstance might even have been admirable. P-Noy had done it before, during storms and floods, while camped out in Pagasa, monitoring developments, making sure figures were accurate. But in the face of the awe-inspiring vision of the Apocalypse that was streaming into TVâ€"unforgettable sights like a small group huddled in a makeshift shelter, hungry and cold, some of them keening for the loss of family, while the bodies of the dead teemed around them, they have nowhere else to put them in and too tired and too dead inside to do itâ€"it sounded insensitive. It sounded like denigrating the public ordeal. And insensitive was how the public, particularly those with relatives in the Visayas, found it.

Just as well, P-Noy took issue with how Tacloban’s local officials, and the Romualdezes in particular, took care of their province and city. It was playing the blame game, Leyte officials themselves put it. It didn’t just sound misplaced, it sounded cruel.  It was all the local governments could do to remain a government: Their own police, soldiers and service-givers had been devastated, some had died, many had relatives that died, they were themselves desperate to survive. The task had fallen on the national government. And where was the national government?

It didn’t help that Korina Sanchez rebuked Anderson Cooper for asking the same question. Korina is not a public official, but she is the wife of a public official, indeed the wife of the one public official widely seen as wanting to become the highest official of the land after P-Noy. All she did, quite apart from bringing the wrath of the world on her head, was draw attention to her husband, the head of the police and local governments, and his inability to supply either or both.

There are limits to what the local governments can do when beset by a catastrophe of these proportions, and these are biblical proportions. That was how Barack Obama won a second term: Hurricane “Sandy” did it for him. Overnight, all the objections about the federal government doing a Big Brother vaporized, as the victims called desperately for it to intervene. Except that in our case, unlike New York and New Jersey, Tacloban did not just need being helped by the national government, it needed being temporarily replaced by it. Local government had been swept to the sea, or left jerking spasmodically around like a zombie.

The social media lashed out with the same fury as Yolanda. But it’s not just perception that caused government to experience its own Yolanda, it’s reality too. Specifically the chasm between the awesomeness of the blight and the awesomeness of the slight. Government looked like a deer caught in the headlights, frozen to the ground, dazed and confused. Government’s defenders would defend it by saying that Hurricane “Katrina” froze government too. But quite apart from the fact that the US government, then headed by George Bush Jr., was dazed and confused about a lot of things, Katrina did not bring images of dead bodies strewn alongside near-disembodied forms, huddled in the cold and dark, hungry and grieving. These are scenes from a war, not unlike the siege of Leningrad.

The foreign media, however transient or “paratroop,” however blithe and impressionable, were not far off the mark. They were merely echoing the sentiments, unspoken or roared out, by the despairing and angry: Where was government?

Well, it’s back there now, with no small help from volunteers, local and foreign, with no small help from the international community, with no small help from a nation roused to frenzied bayanihan all over again by the spectacle of the mother of all disasters. I do hope the recriminations dissipate and disappear over time, there is so much to do and so little time to do it. I do hope government recovers from the perfect storm that hit it.

I do hope we recover from the perfect storm that hit us.

Quote from: islander on November 18, 2013, 01:15:10 AM

Bodies of a woman and a child, victims of Typhoon Haiyan float in a sea at Tacloban November 16, 2013. REUTERS/John Javellana

How heartrbreaking...

Volunteers in typhoon-hit areas must be ‘self-contained’
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/
Saturday, November 16, 2013


THE Aquino administration asked Saturday all volunteers in typhoon-hit areas to be "self-contained" and not to add up on the problem of the government.

Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II said in an interview in Tacloban City that the normal, regular systems that are present in an urban setting are not available in Tacloban City in Leyte.

"So for all of the relief efforts, 'yung mga taga-labas, dapat self-contained po; may shelter kayo; may pagkain kayo; may krudo kayo, at least three or four days operational na krudo; may sasakyan kayo," he said.

He said that all of those who have been following the situation in Tacloban should be aware that there is no available infrastructure in the city, considered as one of the hardest-hit areas by typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

Roxas said that the government was thankful for all those who want to help.

But he said, "sana isipin ito bago dumating nang sa ganoon ay talagang from Day 1, pag-landing pa lang ninyo, nakakatulong na imbis na kailangan pa mag-setup, maghanap kung saan, anong pension ang titirhan, na kung ano pa."

International help countinued to pour in areas affected by Yolanda, particularly in Leyte. (SDR/Sunnex)

Presidential response

It was not immediate clear where President Aquino would set up camp in the typhoon zone.  He has faced growing domestic criticism in recent days for a perceived sluggish response to the storm.

On Sunday, Mr. Aquino made visits to the ruined city of Tacloban on Leyte and the town of Guiuan in Eastern Samar province, which was the first to be hit by the typhoon.

Speaking to local officials in Guiuan, he expressed appreciation for volunteers assisting with the relief work.

"The government can rise up," he said.  "There are so many countries helping, that the Philippines will be able to recover.  But if every [small town] were to volunteer to help immediately, the process would be easier and faster."

Aquino has made similar trips out of Manila to respond to recent crises.

Last month, Aquino slept overnight in an army tent on the central island of Bohol, where an earthquake killed more than 200 people and left thousands homeless.  He also spent several days in the southern city of Zamboanga in September to oversee a military offensive against Muslim rebels who seized parts of the area.

Washington-based Cardinal Theodore McCarrick visited the town of Palo on Leyte island and led a mass for the faithful at a heavily damaged cathedral.   Speaking to VOA later in the day in the city of Ormoc, the 83-year-old acknowledged that words of scripture may not be enough for some traumatized people.

"At the beginning everyone is hurting.  And they lost so many friends and family," he said.  "And they do not know why God is doing this to us.   Well, in a real sense, we say it is not that God is doing this to us, [but] he is allowing these things to happen probably for a greater cause."

In its latest casualty report issued Sunday, the Philippine government said the typhoon killed at least 3,974 people and left about 1,200 others missing.  Many of them were swept away and drowned in a huge storm surge triggered by one of the strongest cyclones on record.

The Civil Defense Office also estimated that almost four million people have been left homeless.

British-based child development agency Plan International  posted a dramatic video of the storm surge on YouTube.  Filmed by staff member Nickson Gensis, it shows tsunami-like waves engulfing homes in the coastal town of Hernani on Samar island.

Gensis said he shot the video from the second floor of a building that withstood the impact.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino (C) visits the navy port where some relief supplies arrive by boat in Tacloban, Nov. 17, 2013.


Simone Orendain, Steve Herman, Michael Lipin
November 17, 2013


MANILA, ORMOC â€" Philippine President Benigno Aquino has vowed to "stay" in the typhoon-battered center of the country until he is "satisfied" with efforts to help survivors of a devastating November 8 storm.

Aquino made the pledge Sunday as he visited the hard-hit central islands of Samar and Leyte, where thousands of people flocked to ruined churches for weekly prayers.  Some gave thanks for surviving Super Typhoon Haiyan, while others prayed for the souls of the thousands of people who were killed.

Sunday services typically are a time of reflection in the Philippines, whose population is 80 percent Roman Catholic.  Filipinos have maintained that faith despite repeatedly enduring disasters of biblical proportions.

Politics of pettiness...

Nasheed, who resigned last year amid protests, was the leading vote-getter in the Nov. 9 first round, with 47 percent to Gayoom's 30 percent, but a runoff was required because no candidate got 50 percent.

Gayoom improved on his first-round performance by courting supporters of tourist resort owner Qasim Ibrahim, who finished third in the first round with 23 percent of the vote. Ibrahim drew his support from conservative Muslims who accused Nasheed of undermining Islam because of his friendly relations with Israel and Western nations.

Addressing the nation after being sworn in, Gayoom said his main priority would be to "increase the love of the religion and the nation" and bring back stability. He also promised economic policy changes that would give more opportunities to youth, fishermen and farmers.

Nasheed was the clear pre-election favorite, but lost his momentum amid long delays to complete the election.

He conceded the election Saturday and said he would not challenge the results.

By HUSSAIN SINAN
1 hour ago


MALE, Maldives (AP) â€" The brother of the Maldives' former authoritarian ruler was sworn as the country's new president on Sunday, a day after his runoff victory capped a messy election that raised concerns that the tiny archipelago nation's fragile new democracy was in jeopardy.

In a close runoff on Saturday, voters chose Yaamin Abdul Gayoom, the brother of former autocrat Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Indian Ocean nation for 30 years, over the Maldives' first democratically elected leader.

Gayoom and his deputy, Mohamed Jameel, were sworn in Sunday by the country's chief justice.

Gayoom received 51.4 percent of the vote Saturday, according to the Elections Commission. Mohamed Nasheed, who led the Maldives' struggle for democracy and was elected president in the country's first multiparty election in 2008, had 48.6 percent.

CAPTAIN WITHOUT A SHIP

The Romualdez-Marcos clan have long had a political stranglehold over Tacloban. Hanging in City Hall is a typhoon-tilted portrait of the man Romualdez replaced as mayor in 2008: his father Alfredo, who held the position for nine years.

Imelda's birthplace of Tolosa, a short drive south of Tacloban in Leyte province, was badly affected by the typhoon. The former first lady was crowned "The Rose of Tacloban" as a teenage beauty queen.

Romualdez has defended his preparations for the storm, which he said were approved by national government officials at a meeting 24 hours beforehand. "They said everything was okay," he told reporters at the battered City Hall on Friday, his voice hoarse from days of shouting and little sleep. The odor of a nearby open-air morgue wafted through the broken windows.

The typhoon overwhelmed the city's government operations.

A week later, an average of only 70 city officials, many of whom lost homes and loved ones, were showing up for work each day, compared to a staff of 2,500 before Haiyan struck.

Romualdez now resembles a captain without a ship, trying to marshal meager resources while the national government, aided by U.S. military might and international aid agencies, increasingly takes control of resurrecting his city. Romualdez has complained that Aquino's government is undermining him, citing a request from Manila to declare the city administration dysfunctional so the national authorities can take full control.

"This is very lamentable because we are doing everything we can to help the people and fulfill our duties and responsibilities as elected leaders," he said.

The mayor's wife, formerly a sultry B-movie star and now a Tacloban city councilor, held a tearful news conference in Manila, apparently prompted by Aquino's remarks. "This is not politics," said Cristina Gonzales-Romualdez, her voice breaking.

The finger-pointing, however, is sure to worsen as the typhoon's official death toll rises to nearly 4,000 amid unrelenting recriminations over poorly enforced evacuation orders and tardy relief efforts.

Super Typhoon Haiyan turned Tacloban into a corpse-strewn ruin and made Romualdez - nephew of Imelda and the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos - its most prominent survivor.

It has also stirred up difficult questions over whether the Marcos clan's history of bad blood with the current First Family has hindered the often chaotic rescue and recovery efforts and whether politics had a role in one of the country's worst natural disasters.

President Aquino's father, also called Benigno, was assassinated on his return from exile in 1983 when Ferdinand Marcos was president. The Marcos government said it was a lone gunman who broke through security and shot Benigno Aquino dead on the tarmac.

The corruption-riddled Marcos regime was overthrown three years later by a "people power" revolution, fuelled by Benigno Aquino's death and led by his late wife Corazon.

11 hours ago
By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Stuart Grudgings


TACLOBAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Minutes before a tsunami-like storm surge slammed into the Philippine coastal city of Tacloban, a tall man in a motorcycle helmet strode along the shore through ferocious typhoon winds.

Mayor Alfred Romualdez, 51, was wearing the headgear to protect against what he called a wind so strong "it would take your eyes out." He didn't see the wall of water coming and was lucky to survive the catastrophe that killed at least 819 people there and 3,633 across the central Philippines.

The disaster not only flattened his city, it also dredged up a history of enmity between his political clan, led by shoe-loving former First Lady Imelda Marcos, and the family of President Benigno Aquino -- the country's two most influential political families.

President Aquino, under mounting criticism over his handling of the disaster, has sought to deflect some blame toward Romualdez's administration, whose staff and security forces have been decimated by the storm.

"It appears (Tacloban) was not that prepared, let's just say, compared to other areas," Aquino told reporters in Manila a day after the typhoon hit.

Hmm, tinuod ba kaha ning balitaa. Wa pa man sa mainstream media...

Banana art to end all banana art...

Supercute...

In Hong Kong, home to 133,000 Filipinos, volunteers outside one church were collecting food, medicine, blankets and clothing to send to the affected region. Most of Filipinos working in the city are low-paid domestic workers.

"We can't really afford to give much money, but we can help them by praying," said Jovie Tamayo, 32, from central Iloilo province. The roof of her family's house was ripped off in the storm, but her family members were uninjured.

Chelly Ogania said she had been unable to contact her mother and brothers on Samar Island, where the storm made landfall, though she had heard from friends that the village was safe.

"We pray that they are really safe, we pray always," said the 35-year-old. "That's all the things I can do, just pray and trust the Lord, because I'm very far from them. No communications, just praying, praying."

Santo Nino and other churches have also been helping care for those who survived.

About 30 families are living in the church, and there are boxes of water and canned goods and food piled up on the promises. The seawater flooded much of the first floor of the compound.

The Nov. 8 typhoon killed more than 3,500 people and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes in what was already a poor region. A major international relief effort, spearheaded by the U.S. military, is underway to assist survivors.

While food, water and shelter, along with medical teams, are now flowing quickly into the region, there is still tremendous need. Reconstructing the region will be a challenge, requiring good leadership and millions of dollars in assistance.

Filipinos elsewhere in Asia also remembered their homeland in their prayers Sunday.

Aquino, who has faced a succession of crises over the last year, is facing criticism in some quarters over his administration's preparation for the typhoon, as well as its response.

Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people, was largely leveled by the Nov. 7 storm.

Alvero carried on his work until the fifth day, blessing bodies wherever they lay â€" in smashed cars or floating in water. He stopped when the smell became too much for him, though he said other priests have continued doing so.

Asked why would God allow a storm so powerful and so deadly to obliterate the region, claiming the lives of so many innocents and causing immense suffering, Alvero used an argument familiar to followers of the Abrahamic faiths.

"We are being tested by God, to see how strong our faith is, to see if our faith is true," he said. "He wants to know that we have faith in him in good times, as well as in bad."

Sun shone for the first service, but by the second, rain was falling through a gaping hole crisscrossed by wooden beams in the roof of the downtown church and landmark. Its windows were blown out, and winds now snap at a silver cross on top of its steeple, which hangs upside down.

It was one of dozens of churches across the region holding services that were attended by thousands, many homeless and grieving. More than 80 percent of the 90 million people in the Philippines are Roman Catholic, the largest in Asia by far and a legacy of its history of Spanish colonial rule.

Some came to give thanks for surviving. Others to pray for the souls of the departed.

"Coming to Mass gives people hope that things will eventually get better," said Marino Caintic.

Also on Sunday, Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III visited the two hardest-hit islands, Leyte and Samar.

By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press | November 17, 2013 | Updated: November 17, 2013 4:13am



A Filipino man prays on a statue of Jesus Christ prior to a Mass at Santo Nino church, which was damaged by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, Philippines, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013. Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms on record, hit the country's eastern seaboard Nov. 8, leaving a wide swath of destruction. Photo By Dita Alangkara/AP


TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) â€" Hours after the storm hit, the Rev. Amadero Alvero was on the streets, sprinkling holy water over the dead and praying for them. By late afternoon, the 44-year-old priest had blessed about 50 corpses in the remains of this Philippine shattered city.

He then returned to his half-destroyed Santo Nino church and led Mass. On Sunday, Alvero was again overseeing worship at the peach-colored building, leading services for hundreds of survivors of one of the worst storms on record.

"Despite what happened, we still believe in God," he said. "The church may have been destroyed, but our faith is intact, as believers, as a people of God, our faith has not been destroyed."

Quote from: islander on November 17, 2013, 07:11:30 AM
When journalists focus on looting and slow aid delivery, they miss the point. Information is aid. Their reports are part of weaving the fabric of a global Filipino community back together after a typhoon tore through their hometowns. By showing communities coming together, journalists can amplify the dynamics that save lives.

Indeed.

Cassini does not attempt many images of Earth because the sun is so close to our planet that an unobstructed view would damage the spacecraft's sensitive detectors. Cassini team members looked for an opportunity when the sun would slip behind Saturn from Cassini's point of view. A good opportunity came on July 19, when Cassini was able to capture a picture of Earth and its moon, and this multi-image, backlit panorama of the Saturn system.

"With a long, intricate dance around the Saturn system, Cassini aims to study the Saturn system from as many angles as possible," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Beyond showing us the beauty of the Ringed Planet, data like these also improve our understanding of the history of the faint rings around Saturn and the way disks around planets form -- clues to how our own solar system formed around the sun."

Launched in 1997, Cassini has explored the Saturn system for more than nine years. NASA plans to continue the mission through 2017, with the anticipation of many more images of Saturn, its rings and moons, as well as other scientific data.

Credits:
Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

This collage includes about 1,600 images submitted by members of the public as part of the NASA Cassini mission's "Wave at Saturn" campaign. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

“This mosaic provides a remarkable amount of high-quality data on Saturn’s diffuse rings, revealing all sorts of intriguing structures we are currently trying to understand," said Matt Hedman, a Cassini participating scientist at the University of Idaho in Moscow. "The E ring in particular shows patterns that likely reflect disturbances from such diverse sources as sunlight and Enceladus’ gravity.”

An annotated version of the Saturn system mosaic labels points of interest. Earth is a bright blue dot to the lower right of Saturn. Venus is a bright dot to Saturn’s upper left. Mars also appears, as a faint red dot, above and to the left of Venus.

Seven Saturnian moons are visible, including Enceladus on the left side of the image. Zooming into the image reveals the moon and the icy plume emanating from its south pole, supplying fine, powder-sized icy particles that make up the E ring.

The E ring shines like a halo around Saturn and the inner rings. Because it is so tenuous, it is best seen with light shining from behind it, when the tiny particles are outlined with light because of the phenomenon of diffraction. Scientists who focus on Saturn's rings look for patterns in optical bonanzas like these.

They use computers to increase dramatically the contrast of the images and change the color balance, for example, to see evidence for material tracing out the full orbits of the tiny moons Anthe and Methone for the first time.

Cassini's imaging team processed 141 wide-angle images to create the panorama. The image sweeps 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across Saturn and its inner ring system, including all of Saturn's rings out to the E ring, which is Saturn's second outermost ring. For perspective, the distance between Earth and our moon would fit comfortably inside the span of the E ring.

"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of marvels," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "And it did so on a day people all over the world, in unison, smiled in celebration at the sheer joy of being alive on a pale blue dot."

The mosaic is part of Cassini's "Wave at Saturn" campaign, where on July 19, people for the first time had advance notice a spacecraft was taking their picture from planetary distances.

NASA invited the public to celebrate by finding Saturn in their part of the sky, waving at the ringed planet and sharing pictures over the Internet.

http://science.nasa.gov/


Nov. 12, 2013:  NASA has released a natural-color image of Saturn from space, the first in which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, all are visible.

The new panoramic mosaic of the majestic Saturn system taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which shows the view as it would be seen by human eyes, was unveiled at the Newseum in Washington on Tuesday.



On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.

The Philippines has a highly developed civil society sector and effective government disaster response authority. Although Typhoon Haiyan has overwhelmed local capacity for now, their local efforts should be supported. The Philippines Red Cross has already worked to rescue individuals and deliver lifesaving goods to people in hard-to-reach places. Other Philippines-based organizations such as Community and Family Services International and the Philippine Red Cross will know the local needs and how best to respond.

Americans are extremely charitable, and their generosity is recognized by people overseas time and time again. These impulses should be channeled to places that can do the most with the generosity. If you insist on giving something other than money, don’t assume you know what the needs are from afar. Wait for an organization that is in the Philippines to solicit specific items. After all, isn’t that what you would want if it happened in your community?

The good-hearted American response to disaster can border on the absurd. After the Haiti earthquake American mothers pumped and donated hundreds of ounces of breast milk, meant for mothers who may have stopped lactating due to the trauma. I remember the response of the nutrition manager of the agency I was working for when the call came that the plane had arrived: “Great. What am I supposed to do with this stuff now?” Nutritionists specifically work to help mothers lactate again. If they are given supplementary breast milk, that supply will eventually run out and mothers will no longer be able to lactate. They’ll typically end up feeding children foods they can’t easily digestâ€"like riceâ€"or unclean water which will make the babies sick. Additionally, breast milk needs to be kept coldâ€"a challenge in places where there’s limited electricity and not much in the way of refrigeration.

There is one simple way that people who want to help can help. Donate moneyâ€"not teddy bears, not old shoes, not breast milk. Give money to organizations that have worked in the affected areas before the stormâ€"they will be more likely to know and be able to navigate the local context and may be able to respond faster, as it won’t take them time to set up. Give money to agencies that are able to articulate what the actual needs are and transparently tell you how they are responding. Give money to agencies that are procuring items locally to help rebuild the economy. Give money to agencies that are working with the government to ensure that their response is aligned with the national response.

Right now, access to people affected by the disaster is a major challenge facing the aid community in the Philippines. According to the most recent U.N. Situation Report, resources to deliver relief goods are extremely limited. Roundtrip travel on the 11-kilometer road which connects the airport to the city of Tacloban currently takes about six hours; it is the only cleared road, according to the U.N. The airport’s air traffic control and fuel storage facility were damaged. Consider what happens when a plane full of unwanted donations is competing for runway space with planes carrying needed medicines and food items. Someone has to unload those donations, someone needs to sort through them for customs, someone needs to truck them to affected areas which are hard to reach anyway and where there’s a limited supply of fuel. When old shoes and clothes are sent from the U.S., they just waste people’s time and slow down getting lifesaving medicines and food to affected people. 

“Dumping” goods into areas of need also puts local vendors out of business at a time when they need their businesses to recover most. Your son’s old Nikes may put a smile on the face of a child for an instant, but you’ve now undermined his father who sells shoes in the local market, and who is trying to regain his livelihood to help put that same child through school.

Americans are exceptionally generous in the wake of an emergency. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Americans donated more than $1.4 billion to relief and recovery efforts; they donated $1.6 billion after the 2004 South Asian tsunami. But often these very humane instinctsâ€"to help people after a massive disasterâ€"result in inappropriate donations that can actually do much more harm than good. Here’s why.

Donate moneyâ€"not teddy bears, not old shoes, not breast milk.

After the tsunami, similarly well-intentioned people cleaned out their closets, sending boxes of “any old shoes” and other clothing to the countries. I was there after the tsunami and saw what happened to these clothes: Heaps of them were left lying on the side of the road. Cattle began picking at them and getting sick. Civil servants had to divert their limited time to eliminating the unwanted clothes. Sri Lankans and Indonesians found it degrading to be shipped people’s hand-me-downs. I remember a local colleague sighed as we passed the heaps of clothing on the sides of the road and said “I know people mean well, but we’re not beggars.” Boxes filled with Santa costumes, 4-inch high heels, and cocktail dresses landed in tsunami-affected areas. In some places, open tubes of Neosporin, Preparation H, and Viagra showed up. The aid community has coined a term for these items that get shipped from people’s closets and medicine cabinets as SWEDOWâ€"Stuff We Don’t Want.

I’ve been a humanitarian aid worker for a long time, and have even written a book about my experience. After a disaster like Typhoon Haiyan, I’m usually the person to whom friends and family members turn to ask, “How can I help?”

Wanting to help victims of a massive disaster is a human instinct that should be lauded. But unfortunately, well-meaning people repeatedly get it wrong. And this time around it seems that some are already responding in unsuitable ways. Updates have begun littering my Facebook wall from well-intentioned Americans: “On the way to local Filipino Market. With clothes and food ... Come on, go through your closets and make a stop at your market. They need food, detergent, canned goods, soap. They need flip flops. Any old shoes you don't want.”

The responses are coming in: “Terrific idea. Making my way there now.”

And another: “Good to know. Cleaning out my closet as I write this.”

http://www.slate.com/


Please Don’t Send Your Old Shoes to the Philippines

Survivors of Typhoon Haiyan need your help. But send money, not your hand-me-downs.

By Jessica Alexander



Volunteers in Manila pack relief goods inside a Department of Social Welfare and Development warehouse before shipping out to devastated provinces hit by Typhoon Haiyan.
Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters


Typhoon Haiyan is one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall and its impact for Filipinos has been devastating. Current U.N. and Philippine government estimates indicate more than 9.5 million people are affected by the typhoon in nine regions across the country. Additionally, nearly 620,000 people have been displaced from their homes and communities. All of this comes on top of displacement as a result of fighting in September and the Bohol earthquake of Oct. 15. The humanitarian response is stretched and needs support.

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