Clinton and Bush Snr arrival to survey tsunami damage

(21 Feb 2005)
1. Wide of tarmac with red carpet and airplane arriving with ex-US presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush
2. Airplane passing in front of camera
3. Wide of plane and media waiting
4. Bush Snr and Clinton coming out of airplane, walking down stairs
5. Flags of the Maldives and the USA
6. President of the Maldives Maumoon Abdul Gayoom greeting Clinton and Bush Snr
7. Security
8. Wide of plane and ex-presidents walking down red carpet flanked by officials and media
9. Clinton shaking hands with Maldives officials
10. Bush Snr shaking hands with Maldives officials
11. Gayoom, Bush Snr and Clinton walking down red carpet
12. Wide of two speedboats
13. Bush Snr (in white shirt and sunglasses) sitting down in speedboat
14. Wide of speedboat
15. Clinton (in yellow shirt) surrounded by media walking to board speedboat
16. Wide of speedboat
17. Clinton sitting down in speedboat
18. Speedboat leaving
STORYLINE
Wrapping up their tour of Asian tsunami-ravaged nations, former U.S. Presidents Bill and George H.W. Bush on Monday visited the Maldive Islands, a nation of islands that suffered severe damage to its tourism, agriculture and fishing industries.
Upon arrival in the Maldives capital, Male, the two men were met by the country''s President Abdul Gayoom, before heading off in a boat to a luxury beach resort to mingle with European tourists.
The two former presidents travelled by speedboat to the nearby Kurumba resort, where tourists in bathing suits lounged by the pool, shaded by palm trees.
Bush senior said vacationers around the world could help the Maldives recover by returning to its resorts, repeating a similar call that he made in Sri Lanka.
"You ought to come here, you ought to try it," Bush said against a backdrop of deep blue water sparkling in the sunshine. "If it''s as beautiful every day as it is today, you''re missing something."
The purpose of the former presidents'' three-day tour, which included stops in Thailand and the devastated Indonesian province of Aceh, was to encourage more donations for a reconstruction process across the Indian Ocean region that is expected to take years.
"We''re going to have to stay at this for some time," Clinton said.
The current U.S. president, George W. Bush, asked his father and Clinton, former political adversaries, to lead the American effort to raise private funds for tsunami relief.
Private U.S. donations have amounted to 700 (m) million US dollars, and President Bush has asked Congress to provide another 950 (m) million US dollars to tsunami relief at a time when costs of U.S. involvement in Iraq are mounting, Clinton said.
Clinton said he supported the establishment of independent auditing operations to make sure there is no corruption or mismanagement.
Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom warned that a tsunami warning system would be of little use because his citizens had nowhere to run on their low-lying islands if the ocean struck again.
He appealed to the international community to curb greenhouse gas emissions that environmentalists point to as the main cause of global warming.
The Maldives, a string of 1,192 coral atolls about 500 kilometres (300 miles) off the coast of India, is one of the lowest-lying countries in the world. Officials estimated in the days following the devastating waves that up to 40 percent of the nation was under water.
The two ex-leaders began a tour of the tsunami zone in Thailand on Saturday and visited Aceh, Indonesia on Sunday before travelling to Sri Lanka and the Maldives on Monday.
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