June 2011
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WikiLeaks Haiti Cables Paint Stark Picture of U.S....
In 1,918 new cables released by WikiLeaks, the United States’ relationship to Haiti is laid bare—the maneuvering, the pressure, and the arrogance. The Nationis partnering with the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté to produce several reports based on these cables, illuminating some of the many facets of this complex geopolitical struggle.
In the two pieces published today,...
May 2011
2 posts
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U.N. Role Is Found in #Haiti Cholera
By JOE LAURIA UNITED NATIONS—Fecal matter from United Nations peacekeepers that was improperly disposed of by a firm contracted by the U.N., along with a poor sanitation system for drinking water, was the cause of the cholera outbreak in Haiti last year that killed more than 4,500 people, a report by a U.N.-appointed panel said on Wednesday. Another 300,000 people were made ill in an outbreak...
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Martelly: #Haiti 's second great disaster -...
via english.aljazeera.net Many of Haiti’s poorest citizens were not dissuaded by former singer Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly’s near-total lack of political experience [GALLO/GETTY] No sooner had Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly been confirmed the winner in Haiti’s deeply flawed presidential election than he jumped on a plane and headed to Washington,...
April 2011
3 posts
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UN, U.S. and International Community Now Angry...
UN, others voice concerns on Haiti vote fraud By Clement Sabourin (AFP) – 2 hours ago PORT-AU-PRINCE — The United Nations and Haiti’s major donor nations, including the United States, voiced concern Friday over allegations of fraud in final results of the country’s legislative elections. Reversals in 18 legislative races raised doubts about the legitimacy of the voting process,...
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HAITI : Seeding Reconstruction or Destruction? -...
Seeding Reconstruction or Destruction? By Correspondents* Ambroise Pierre shows a reporter how strong and tall his corn, grown from his own seed, stands. Credit:Courtesy of Haiti Grassroots Watch PORT-AU-PRINCE, Apr 1, 2011 (IPS/Haiti Grassroots Watch) - Last year, tens of thousands of tonnes of tools, seeds and plant cuttings were distributed to almost 400,000 Haitian farming...
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Obama's Election charade in Haiti shows he...
In the South American nation of Chile, last week President Obama delivered a fantasyland narrative on America’s benign intentions towards its southern neighbors, including an obscene claim that the recent elections in Haiti are proof of a U.S. commitment to democracy in the region. The truth, of course, is that the United States snuffed out democracy in Haiti in 2004, when it deposed,...
March 2011
5 posts
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Is Obama following the Bush Playbook in Haiti ?
The arrogance of Washington’s renewed efforts to thwart former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return to Haiti from a seven-year exile in South Africa is mind-boggling.
During the 29 February 2004 coup d’état, in the middle of the night, a US Navy Seal team, under the direction of American deputy ambassador Luis Moreno, kidnapped President Aristide and his wife Mildred...
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U.S. urges Aristide to delay return to Haiti
Washington (CNN) — The United States warned Monday that the return of exiled former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide could disrupt Sunday’s election.
“Mr. Aristide has chosen to remain outside of Haiti for seven years,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “To return this week can only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti’s...
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Former "Fugees" Member Pras Michel Says Haiti Will...
via youtube.com
If this does not illustrate the low point of Haitian political history, I don’t know what does.
Posted via email from THOUGHT MERCHANT’S POSTEROUS | Comment »
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Combined Haitian Press Responds and Warns of...
Friday, March 11, 2011
Press note from the AJH
Submitted to AlterPresse March 11, 2011
The Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH) condemns the aggressive and threatening Michael Joseph Martelly against journalists participating in a televised debate, Wednesday, March 9, 2011. The terms used by the presidential candidate recalled that in a time not too long ago, a president of the...
February 2011
2 posts
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Haiti Protesters Call for Preval to Quit
From this link
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Around 200 protesters demanding that Haiti’s outgoing President Rene Preval leave office immediately set up burning barricades on Monday and threw stones at police and U.N. peacekeepers in the capital, witnesses said.
Haitian riot police fired some shots in the air to try to disperse the demonstrators, who shouted “Preval must...
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Haiti's Growing Momentum Towards Democracy
Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive (centre) and Jose Miguel Insulza (left), Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, look on during a press conference on the election crisis in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The OAS’s attempt to rubberstamp the flawed December presidential election has run into trouble. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
It didn’t get much attention in...
January 2011
4 posts
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Haiti's President Preval's Chosen Successor May...
Haiti presidential candidate ‘may pull out’
(AFP) – 36 minutes ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haitian President Rene Preval’s ruling party candidate Jude Celestin is considering withdrawing from the presidential race, Senator Joseph Lambert, a senior party official, said Tuesday.
Celestin could “withdraw his candidature in the next hours,” said Lambert, a senior official...
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OAS Decision on the #Haiti Election Fraud Denies...
From this link:
A year after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, an estimated 1 million people are still living in accommodation intended as temporary shelter, while millions of dollars were spent on an election that was effectively boycotted by the majority of Haitians. Photograph: Thony Belizaire/AFP/Getty Images What is it about Haiti that makes the “international community” think they have the...
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Bill Clinton's Current Damage to Haiti Being...
A year after an earthquake shook the small island-nation of Haiti, a mere 5 percent of the rubble has been cleared. Not even half of the donor money pledged has arrived. The government has failed to show leadership, and international NGOs are not helping — circumventing the Haitian authorities to write their own rules. Perhaps most biting, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC)...
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Haiti Second Round Vote Impossible Before February
From this link:
By Joseph Guyler Delva
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti will not be able to hold a second round of its disputed presidential election before February as it awaits a report from regional experts on contested preliminary results from the November 28 first round, a senior electoral official said on Tuesday.
The outcome of Haiti’s chaotic November elections has remained in...
November 2010
3 posts
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Observers Validate Haiti Election. OAS Validates...
By INGRID ARNESEN
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—The Organization of American States said Haiti’s presidential election should be considered valid despite a host of problems, giving a big boost to the government and election authorities here.
The judgement from the main international observers of the election could dampen claims of widespread fraud made by a majority of the 18 candidates that...
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Haitian's Protest as their Government Tries to...
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Even as the international community continues to appeal for calm, Haitians gathered in the streets of Gonaives and elsewhere Monday to protest a decision to move ahead with election results despite allegations of voter fraud.
Thousands took to the streets to rally against what they believed was widespread wrongdoing in the day’s presidential race, including...
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Hurricane Tomas Soon to Hit Haiti
By INGRID ARNESEN And MIKE ESTERL
Associated Press
U.N. soldiers evacuate children from a tent camp on Port-au-Prince’s outskirts Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Tomas. Many refugees stayed put.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Hundreds of thousands of earthquake-displaced Haitians, still living in tents and under tarps, hunkered down in makeshift homes Thursday as a powerful storm threatened to...
October 2010
9 posts
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Mirlande Manigat, Jude Célestin lead in Haiti's...
Two front-runners have emerged from a field of 19 in Haiti’s upcoming presidential balloting, according to a poll released Tuesday by the country’s business community.
Former first lady and longtime opposition leader Mirlande Manigat and Jude Célestin, President René Préval’s handpicked successor, are neck-and-neck in the race.
Also, if the elections scheduled for Nov. 28 were...
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Haiti Cholera Outbreak 'Stabilizing' – But Could...
Haiti’s cholera outbreak is “stabilizing,” with the United Nations and Haitian government thus far preventing the disease from spreading to the capital’s sprawling tent camps of 1.3 million people.
A speedy official response in containing the outbreak is seen as a relative success. But with elections only a month away and the public already fatigued by a lack of relief...
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Trafficking, Sexual Exploitation of Haitian...
BOCA CHICA, Dominican Republic — After several days of going hungry, Marie said she surrendered to sexual propositions made by several men in the park where she begged in this resort town in the south of the Dominican Republic.
Marie, 12, said she had sex with “many” of those men, sometimes for a dollar, while her cousins, 13 and 10, begged European and American tourists for...
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Cholera outbreak feared in rural Haiti - 135 dead ...
From this link:
At least 135 people have died in a suspected cholera outbreak, and aid groups are rushing in medicine and other supplies Friday to combat Haiti’s deadliest health problem since its devastating earthquake.
The outbreak in the rural Artibonite region, which hosts thousands of quake refugees, appeared to confirm relief groups’ fears about sanitation for homeless...
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UN Official: Haiti Humanitarian Crisis Remains
Photo: AP
From this link:
UN top representative on Human Rights for Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kaelin (file photo)
A U.N. expert on the rights of displaced persons says a profound humanitarian crisis remains in Haiti and the reconstruction process needs to be accelerated. The U.N. top representative on Human Rights for Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kaelin, says there is an...
US Lawmakers Concerned over Haiti's Forthcoming...
From this link:
Members of the US Congress have warned that post-earthquake Haiti is heading for unfair presidential and legislative elections next month because more than a dozen political parties have been barred from taking part.
In an open letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 45 US lawmakers said Haiti needed a strong, representative government in the wake of January’s...
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Food aid is wrecking Haiti’s agriculture sector,...
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International food aid to Haiti following the devastating January earthquake no doubt saved many lives in the impoverished Caribbean island nation. But a new report by a leading international NGO warns that the delivery of subsidised food – especially from the US –, while well-intentioned, is fatally undermining Haiti’s critical agricultural sector and its hopes of economic...
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WatchSenator Tom Coburn holds up 1 Billion Dollars of Aid to Haiti. Watch whole video above
September 2010
13 posts
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Dominican Armed Forces denied sending troops to...
From this link:
The Armed Forces Minister denied yesterday the story that Dominican soldiers serve on the United Nations mission (MINUSTAH) carried out relief efforts in Haiti.
Armed Forces Minister, Lieutenant General Joaquin Virgilio Perez Feliz, said that sending troops abroad is a faculty Senate, as was stated in the new Constitution, specifically Article 80, paragraph 7.
The senior...
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Reported decision to send Dominican troops to...
SANTO DOMINGO.- Dominican Army soldiers will join the UN Haiti Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) for the first time, military sources told newspaper El Dia, a move that would draw rebuke nationwide.
The source said the first group already concluded training and most of them come form the Special Operations Command (COE) and will support security maneuvers in the neighboring country.
This...
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Dominican Army to join UN, MINUSTAH in Haiti
via zoelando.com
Dominican Army soldiers will join the UN Haiti Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) for the first time, military sources told newspaper El Dia, a move that would draw rebuke nationwide.
The source said the first group already concluded training and most of them come form the Special Operations Command (COE) and will support security maneuvers in the neighboring country.
This...
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AP IMPACT: Haiti still waiting for pledged US aid
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Nearly nine months after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians still live on the streets between piles of rubble. One reason: Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived.
The money was pledged by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in March for use this year in rebuilding. The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on...
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Haiti food production significantly below...
Food production in Haiti is still significantly below levels that existed prior to the January 2010 earthquake, but is slowly recovering, according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The spring harvest in the region saw bean production fall 17 percent, the UN FAO found in a joint assessment with the UN World Food Program.
Maize production fell 8 percent, while...
No plan in sight for Haiti’s homeless
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The promised reconstruction of this earthquake-crippled nation hangs on the potentially explosive issue underlying a simple question: Whose land is this?
Take this spot below the city’s main transmission lines off the Delmas 33 road. Before the earthquake eight months ago, goats grazed here and tenant farmers planted patches of corn and sugar cane. One of Haiti’s...
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Building Homes a Struggle in Haiti
From this link:
CORAIL-CESSELESSE, Haiti — It was promised as the place where those displaced from the Western Hemisphere’s worst natural disaster could begin to rebuild their shattered lives as they await the birth of a new city.
Here, 12 miles north of a quake-ravaged Port-au-Prince, on a sun-beaten gravel plain, thousands left homeless by the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake...
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Haiti's Disaster Capitalists Swoop In
Refugee evictions, private land grabs, disaster capitalism—you can’t tell the story of Haiti without all this. Eight months after the earthquake, many of the 1.7 million [1] Haitians living under tattered tarps in squalid squatter camps around Port-au-Prince are being forced to abandon the tent cities they’ve set up on privately owned land. Meanwhile, businesses—eager to slurp up...
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WatchHow Fish Farming is Changing Lives in Haiti
From this link:
Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti (CNN) — Far from his native Ivory Coast, fish farm developer Valentin Abe has been improving the lives of thousands of poor villagers in Haiti by teaching them how to become commercial fish producers.
His fish-farming project has become a source of food and income for several communities in the small...
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UN Launches Campaign Against Rape in Camps for...
UN launches campaign against rape in camps for displaced Haitian quake victims
By Anita Snow (CP) – 1 minute ago
The United Nations is launching a campaign to combat the rape of Haitian earthquake victims living in camps for the homeless, the U.N.’s top official in the country said Monday.
Edmund Mulet, who heads the U.N. stabilization mission in the country, told the 15-member...
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Taiwan working to help Haiti become more...
2010/09/04 12:53:53 New York, Sept 3 (CNA) Seven months after it was struck by a devastating earthquake, Haiti is still in a state of chaos, with at least 1.3 million people living in tents with no running water or electricity.
The country’s efforts to crawl out of destitution is being hampered by a high cost of living, according to observers.
David Chang, a Taiwanese businessman...
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Haiti: UN mission launches projects to provide...
Female police officers serving in UN peacekeeping operations in Haiti
3 September 2010 – The United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti has unveiled three drainage and canal rehabilitation projects that it hopes will boost employment and reduce violence in troubled neighbourhoods of a major city.
The projects will benefit the districts of Goya, Petite Anse and Ti Riviere in the northern city of...
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Wyclef Jean's disqualification leaves Haiti in...
Supporters of the would-be presidential candidate take a wait-and-see approach. The hip-hop star, who alleges that election officials are corrupt, says he is not calling for upheaval in the streets.
August 26, 2010|By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times
First Wyclef Jean urged his supporters to respect last week’s decision by Haiti’s electoral council that he cannot run for president...
August 2010
27 posts
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Haiti Quake a 'Game Changer' for Corporate...
Leading aid agency expects to see greater corporate involvement in future disaster responses
SEATTLE, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — As Haiti marks nearly eight months since its devastating earthquake and Chile sees the six-month mark since its own destructive quake, international aid agency World Vision has seen a notable increase in both corporate donations and level of involvement...
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A Plan to Build a New Education System in Haiti
A plan to build a new education system in Haiti is one of the most encouraging things to emerge from the rubble of the Jan. 12 earthquake. It is expected to be endorsed at a meeting on Tuesday of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the joint Haitian-international body created to guide the country’s rebuilding.
Talk and promises have been far more abundant than visible improvements in the...
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Children in Haiti Remain Traumatized by the...
By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, August 26, 2010; A6
From this link
IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI When counselors asked the children at the Plas Timoun psychological therapy center to draw, what came out on the paper were images of crumbled houses, severed limbs and blood spurting from people trapped under the ruins.
But Jasmine Etelus, 8, was drawing another kind of...
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More Clinton Ties Exposed to Alleged Haiti Teleco...
From this link:
This column has long followed the story of Jean Bertrand Aristide’s Haiti, two U.S. telephone companies and a few American political insiders. Many questions remain unanswered and now both companies are back in the news. On July 10 the Federal Communications Commission hit IDT Corp. with a $1.3 million fine for “willfully and repeatedly failing to file with the...
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Congressional Candidate Kevin Powell Questions...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 28, 2010
(Brooklyn, New York) On August 27, 2010, more than seven months after a catastrophic devastated parts of Haiti, Congressman Ed Towns finally communicated with his challenger Kevin Powell on the disaster. Immediately after the tragedy struck Haiti, Kevin Powell was involved in a variety of activities and outreach, including a letter to Congressman Towns...
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Coca-Cola Company's Haiti Hope Project Gaining...
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Aug 18, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The Coca-Cola Company and the United States Government, acting through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), today announced that USAID will provide an initial contribution of $1 million to the Haiti Hope Project, a public-private initiative that aims to develop a sustainable mango industry in Haiti.
In...
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Haiti Delays Word on Whether Wyclef Jean Can Run...
via vancouversun.com
PORT-AU-PRINCE, (AFP) - Haiti’s electoral board decided to push back to August 20 its release of a final list of presidential candidates, a statement released Tuesday said, leaving in doubt for now whether hip-hop star Wyclef Jean can run.
“Due to questions posed regarding some candidates, … the electoral board has decided to delay until August 20 the release of...
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Wyclef's Run for President of Haiti Brings...
CROIX DES BOUQUETS, Haiti — A few months before Wyclef Jean, the hip-hop star, declared his candidacy for president of Haiti, the representative of a struggling tent camp made a pilgrimage to the new headquarters of Mr. Jean’s charity. He arrived, hat in hand, at the eight-acre compound the charity leased after a fund-raising bonanza in response to the Jan. 12 earthquake.
But the...