The victims have been dispersed to states across the country. Many still sleep on cots in arenas, desperately trying to locate family members separated in the furies of Katrina. They are struggling with a staggering psychological toll -- destruction of homes, loss of jobs, suffering, abandonment, displacement to a new city, prospects unclear, past literally under water.

The negotiations on the draft declaration for the World Summit - which opens on Tuesday - have been nothing short of bizarre. The United States government has fought a relentless battle to dissociate itself from specific obligations regarding international development, and has tried repeatedly to the quash obligations that it has taken on the past. All of this has been taking place at a time when the US itself has become an aid recipient, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina has thrust the twin issues of race and poverty at President Bush, who faces steep challenges in dealing with both because of a domestic agenda that envisions deep cuts in long-standing anti-poverty programs and relationships with many black leaders frayed by years of mutual suspicion.

By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: September 14, 2005
NY Times

The United Nations General Assembly meeting today was to have been a rare moment when the quest to relieve the crushing poverty of a billion people took center stage. But so far that goal has been overshadowed by Katrina, the oil-for-food scandal and squabbling over reform of the United Nations itself.

Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality.

by Katrina vanden Heuvel
September 8, 2005
The Nation

New Orleans is destroyed, the Gulf Coast's infrastructure is in tatters and tens of thousands of citizens are without jobs as gas prices nationwide rise to record levels. Television sets brought the destruction into all of our homes. But this White House seemed unable to grasp the misery unfolding before its own eyes.

Doctors offered by Cuba to help attend Katrina's victims probably won't be needed because the supply of U.S. physicians is adequate, the State Department suggested Tuesday.

First Mom Barbara Bush yesterday walked past rows of poor and ailing refugees at the Houston Astrodome, then said, "So many of the people here... were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

An offer of aid from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, which included two mobile hospital units, 120 rescue and first aid experts and 50 tonnes of food, has been rejected, according to the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson.

Tens of thousands of people remain stranded on the streets of New Orleans in desperate conditions because officials failed to plan for a serious levee breach and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina was slow, according to disaster experts and Louisiana government officials.