Tsunami stories: US trumpets tsunami efforts in newspapers

In a newspaper opinion piece signed by President George W. Bush and offered to newspapers around the globe, a White House eager to lessen anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world is trumpeting US efforts to help tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean region.

"Americans join those across the globe in mourning the tens of thousands of lives, many of them children, who were lost in the recent violent tsunamis from Thailand to the Horn of Africa," Bush writes. After a sluggish start in the days immediately after the earthquake and tsunami struck 12 countries on December 26, Bush pushed the US response into high gear.

Islam digs deep

Members of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference have contributed about US$118 million ($172 million) in aid to tsunami victims in countries hit by the disaster, the Malaysian Government said.

The funds from the world's largest Muslim political grouping would be channelled through the United Nations, said Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, whose country chairs the OIC.

Red light burns

A German brothel owner has been so moved by the plight of survivors from Asia's tsunami disaster that she is donating part of her takings.

"It's not every day you can make a charitable gesture by going to a brothel," said Mercedes Mueller, who is giving 5 euros ($9.57) of the 39 euro entrance charge clients pay.

"It's so terrible what happened there and I wanted to do something," said Mueller, who owns the Happy FKK Club in the western city of Dortmund.

Mueller said clients, prostitutes and the public had responded with great enthusiasm to her gesture, and about 1300 euros had been raised so far.

Holidays on hold ...

Thomson Holidays and Thomas Cook, among the UK's biggest tour operators, said yesterday that holiday bookings since Christmas had been slow as scenes of devastation in Asia had put people off holidays.

"People have been seeing devastating images on their televisions, and that has inevitably knocked some people's confidence. But people are pretty resilient and bookings are starting to pick up."

... 'Future' on hold

Music producers Quincy Jones and Jermaine Dupri say the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia has prompted them to postpone recording We Are the Future, an update of the 1985 benefit song We Are the World.

"The timing is not right for us to record a song about the future when so many people have lost their lives," Dupri said.

Proceeds from the new song will go to help children in war zones, in areas such as Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.

Cities of fear

Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles lead a world list of urban areas that could suffer catastrophic losses in lives and property from earthquakes, flooding, tsunamis or terrorism, says the world's largest reinsurance company.

Munich Re urged governments and urban planners to take disaster risks more fully into account when approving sites for development, and to take more preventive measures.

Stefan Heyd, the company's head of corporate underwriting, said such "megacities" brought new risk to the insurance business.