[dissention]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050904...s_050904195241
Stars Celine Dion, Harry Connick brand N. Orleans suffering unacceptable

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Diva Celine Dion and crooner Harry Connick Junior have rounded on US authorities over the slow response to the effort to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

In a special broadcast of CNN television's Larry King Live programme, the Canadian singer famed for her theme song from the watery epic Titanic became highly emotional as she spoke of the plight of the survivors.

"I open the television, there's people still there, waiting to be rescued, and for me it's not acceptable," she said in an interview late Saturday in which her sobs frequently drowned out her words.

"I know there's reasons for it. I'm sorry to say I'm being rude, but I don't want to hear those reasons," she said of the delayed relief effort that has prompted virulent criticism of the US government.

Dion has donated one million dollars to the victims of the storm that wrought catastrophe on the US Gulf Coast after hitting Monday and sparking a deadly flood of the US jazz capital of New Orleans.

"We need to serve our country and for me to serve our country is to be there right now to rescue the rest of the people. We need the cash. We need the blood. We need the support. Right now we need the prayers," she said.

Officials say that thousands of people are feared killed in New Orleans where tens of thousands of survivors had to wait up to five days for military convoys and airlift planes to get into the city to rescue them.

Many died in overcrowded makeshift shelters set up in the city's Superdome stadium and convention center as they waited for help to arrive.

Dion also slammed authorities for arresting looters in the city that became a hellish haven of crime and violence after the storm laid waste to its infrastructure and services.

"The main thing right now, it's not the people who are stealing. It's the people who are left there and they're watching helicopters flying over their heads and they're praying.

"How come it's so easy to send planes in another country to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives?" Dion said in a clear reference to the US-led war in
Iraq.

Singer and actor Connick, who hails from New Orleans and visited the stricken city last week, said he was horrified by the sight of the scores of bodies, including that of an old woman in chairs in the convention center.

"That woman was born a long time ago, and she died on the street like an animal essentially. And this is the United States. You know, this is New Orleans," he said.

Connick criticised the fact that troops and the main aid columns only made it into the city on Friday, four days after the storm, saying a friend had commandeered an abandoned city bus to help evacuate refugees.

"And I'm thinking, if (she) can get on a bus and drive a bus out with sick people, you know, well, we can't get a barge to park back up on the Mississippi behind the convention center and get these people out?"