Where will housing be found for Sandy’s victims? Where will housing be found for Sandy’s victims? ADVERTISING NEW YORK — Government leaders are turning their attention to the next crisis unfolding in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: finding housing for
Where will housing be found for Sandy’s victims?
NEW YORK — Government leaders are turning their attention to the next crisis unfolding in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: finding housing for potentially tens of thousands of people left homeless.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has already dispensed close to $200 million in emergency housing assistance and has put 34,000 people in the New York and New Jersey metro area up in hotels and motels.
But local, state and federal officials have yet to lay out a specific, comprehensive plan for finding them long-term places to live, even as cold weather sets in. And given the scarcity and high cost of housing in the metropolitan area and the lack of open space, it could prove a monumental undertaking.
For example, can enough vacant apartments be found? Will the task involve huge, Hurricane Katrina-style encampments of trailer homes? And if so, where will authorities put the trailers? In stadiums? Parks?
Authorities cannot answer those questions yet.
UN imposes sanctions on Haqqani network
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. committee that oversees sanctions against the Taliban imposed global sanctions Monday on the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, a fierce militant group considered a major threat to U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, and its “chief of suicide operations.”
The Taliban sanctions committee ordered all 193 U.N. member states to freeze the assets and institute an arms embargo against the Haqqani network, saying the group is linked to al-Qaida and other militant organizations and is responsible for suicide attacks and targeted assassination as well as kidnappings in Kabul and Afghan provinces.
The committee also ordered an asset freeze, arms embargo and travel ban against Afghan-born Abdul Rauf Zakir, also known as Qari Zakir, who it said oversees training of suicide attackers and provides instructions on how to construct improvised explosive devices.
The Security Council committee described him as “chief of suicide operations for the Haqqani network” under its leader, Sirajuddin Jallaloudine Haqqani, “and in charge of all operations in Kabul, Takhar, Kunduz and Baghlan provinces.”
The United States earlier Monday also imposed financial sanctions against Zakir and labeled him a terrorist.
Syrian chaos deepens as rebel rivals fight at border crossing
BEIRUT — New chaos engulfed Syria’s civil war Monday as Palestinian supporters and opponents of the embattled regime were swept up in intense fighting in Damascus, while rival rebel groups clashed over control of a Turkish border crossing.
The rare infighting — accompanied by car bombs, airstrikes and artillery shells that killed or maimed dozens of people — heightened fears that if Syrian President Bashar Assad falls, the disparate factions battling the regime will turn on each other.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near an army checkpoint in Hama province, killing 50 soldiers in one of the deadliest single attacks targeting pro-Assad troops in the 19-month uprising, according to activists. Eleven civilians died when a bomb exploded in a central Damascus neighborhood, state media said, and activists reported at least 20 rebels killed in an air raid on the northern town of Harem.
“It’s the worst-case scenario many feared in Syria,” said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics.
The fighting in the capital of Damascus was some of the worst since July, when rebels took over several neighborhoods, only to be bombed out by regime forces days later. Shortly after those battles, rebels moved on Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, and it has become a major front in the civil war since then.
By wire sources
