Clinton and elder Bush address graduating New Orleans students

May 14, 2006, 1:27 GMT

Washington - Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H W Bush addressed graduating students at Tulane University in New Orleans on Saturday, offering a message of hope in what has no doubt been a difficult final year on the campus.

'The flood waters may have breached the levees that surround this city...but today we know they could not break the spirit of the people who call this remarkable city home,' Bush said, addressing the crowd of 17,000 at New Orleans Arena.

The two former presidents have worked together to raise money for the victims of hurricane Katrina, receiving more than 100 million dollars to date. Bush and Clinton on Friday announced new grants of 9.7 million dollars for the rebuilding effort.

'If you look at Katrina and the enormous response it provoked... it's a positive manifestation of the most important fact of your lives: the interdependence of human beings on this planet,' Clinton told graduates.

Comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, a native of New Orleans, added a lighter tough to the commencement ceremony, appearing before the students in a bath robe and joking that everyone else was wearing robes as well.

More than 2,200 Tulane University students received their degrees on the day.

Katrina swept through the US Gulf Coast last August, killing 1,300 people across five states and devastating countless homes and towns in the region, including much of New Orleans.