Ruth Gidley
Ruth Gidley has been on the AlertNet team since late 1999. Before that, she lived in Guatemala, working first with a small local NGO and then as a journalist for a Central American news service. Ruth, who has a Masters in Latin American Studies, has edited a book on human rights in Guatemala, and written chapters for books on truth monuments and on Native American traditions.
Disasters rising, but don't just blame climate change
Author: Ruth Gidley
Natural catastrophes are on the rise, a new report by disaster experts confirms, with the number of recorded floods, storms and other weather emergencies increasing by 7.4 percent a year on average.
But 2007 bucked the general trend, seeing a slight fall in disasters and the lowest death toll in a decade.
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Author: Ruth Gidley
Natural catastrophes are on the rise, a new report by disaster experts confirms, with the number of recorded floods, storms and other weather emergencies increasing by 7.4 percent a year on average.
But 2007 bucked the general trend, seeing a slight fall in disasters and the lowest death toll in a decade.
...
Will corruption hurt Myanmar relief effort?
Author: Aaron Goodman
Will corruption hurt Myanmar relief effort?
BANGKOK (AlertNet) - The international community has poured $85 million dollars into Myanmar, but rights groups claim the junta is already misusing and manipulating aid, preventing it from reaching cyclone survivors who need it most urgently.
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Author: Aaron Goodman
Will corruption hurt Myanmar relief effort?
BANGKOK (AlertNet) - The international community has poured $85 million dollars into Myanmar, but rights groups claim the junta is already misusing and manipulating aid, preventing it from reaching cyclone survivors who need it most urgently.
...
Why not just do air drops in Myanmar?
Author: Ruth Gidley
The Myanmar military junta is sticking to its guns about not wanting outsiders to give out aid, and international debate is hotting up on whether the world has a duty to give relief to people in Myanmar's cyclone-hit delta even if the government rejects it.
Nonetheless, there are some good reasons why it's not as simple as just flying over and dropping aid down to desperate survivors.
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Author: Ruth Gidley
The Myanmar military junta is sticking to its guns about not wanting outsiders to give out aid, and international debate is hotting up on whether the world has a duty to give relief to people in Myanmar's cyclone-hit delta even if the government rejects it.
Nonetheless, there are some good reasons why it's not as simple as just flying over and dropping aid down to desperate survivors.
...
Post-Katrina New Orleans takes the good with the bad
Author: Ruth Gidley
New Orleans has some things to be happy about, and plenty to make you angry. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is bringing some of the top, top names in jazz, country and all kinds of music. And the basketball team - the Hornets - are back in the city full-time after basing themselves partly in Oklahoma City since Hurricane Katrina, having a good season with play-offs against the Dallas Mavericks.
But homelessness is up, rents are still high and the buses are nowhere near back to normal.
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Author: Ruth Gidley
New Orleans has some things to be happy about, and plenty to make you angry. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is bringing some of the top, top names in jazz, country and all kinds of music. And the basketball team - the Hornets - are back in the city full-time after basing themselves partly in Oklahoma City since Hurricane Katrina, having a good season with play-offs against the Dallas Mavericks.
But homelessness is up, rents are still high and the buses are nowhere near back to normal.
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BOOKS: Hurricane Katrina, fact and fiction
Author: Ruth Gidley
Ahead of World Book Day on 23 April, I've been reading a lot about Hurricane Katrina.
Some of the best accounts I've come across of the storms that ripped into the U.S. Gulf coast in August 2005 have been in the fiction of James Lee Burke. His stories in Jesus out to Sea and his detective novel The Tin Roof Blowdown are throbbing with anger at the authorities who let more than 1,800 people die and left elderly women, tiny children, hospital patients and chained-up prisoners sweating in tropical heat with no electricty, clean water or food, surrounded by sewage and hostile police.
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Next entries
Author: Ruth Gidley
Ahead of World Book Day on 23 April, I've been reading a lot about Hurricane Katrina.
Some of the best accounts I've come across of the storms that ripped into the U.S. Gulf coast in August 2005 have been in the fiction of James Lee Burke. His stories in Jesus out to Sea and his detective novel The Tin Roof Blowdown are throbbing with anger at the authorities who let more than 1,800 people die and left elderly women, tiny children, hospital patients and chained-up prisoners sweating in tropical heat with no electricty, clean water or food, surrounded by sewage and hostile police.
...
