US President Barack Obama was scheduled to return to the Gulf of Mexico coast yesterday, insisting he’s in charge of efforts to shut down what is now estimated as the worst oil spill in US history, but admitting the government doesn’t have the technology or expertise and must rely on BP.
BP yesterday said the cost of the disaster now was US$930 million, up from a US$760 million estimate on Monday. The cost is sure to multiply with clean-up of the spill, which has now surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster off the Alaska coast in 1989.
Yesterday’s trip was to be Obama’s second visit to the Gulf in the more than five weeks since a rig explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed the oil from a well head 1.6km down.
PHOTO: EPA
His tour comes just a day after he vowed to “get this fixed” as criticism swelled over what many Americans see as a slow government response to one of the country’s biggest environmental catastrophes.
Even his 11-year-old daughter Malia is weighing in, asking, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” Obama told reporters.
Obama seized ownership on Thursday of what he called a “tremendous catastrophe,” after weeks of allowing Cabinet members take the public lead.
“I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down,” Obama said at a White House news conference dominated by the spill.
Even at the lowest estimate — 68 million liters — the Gulf spill has far surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster, in which a tanker ran aground in Alaska, spilling nearly 42 million liters.
Asked about inevitable comparisons between his administration’s handling of the disaster with his predecessor’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which flooded New Orleans and other areas, Obama said: “I’ll leave it to you guys to make those comparisons. ... What I’m thinking about is, how do you solve the problem?”
Conceding that “people are going to be frustrated” until the well is capped, Obama said he would use the full force of the federal government to extract damages from BP.
“We will demand they pay every dime they owe for the damage they’ve done and the painful losses they’ve caused,” Obama said.
The quandary for Obama, however, is that the federal government lacks the tools and technology to solve the deep-sea disaster and depends on BP to find the way to stanch the flow.
While making clear he was leading the response, Obama acknowledged some things could have been better handled.
He said his administration didn’t act with “sufficient urgency” prior to the spill to clean up the Minerals Management Service, accused of corruption and poor regulation of drilling rigs and wells.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not