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13 Jan 2012 09:43

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World: Two years later, Haiti continues its slow march towards recovery

  • Where does haiti stand after the deadly 2010 quake? While about $15 billion of aid money is still missing in Haiti, progress is still being made. “Recovery is here. It is painfully slow, it is agonizing to watch, but it is recovery,” said Harvard professor Paul Farmer. He has spent three decades in Haiti and is opening a new hospital. Big factories could also stimulate the country’s economy, creating 20,000 jobs at just one plant. Progress can also be measured somewhat superficially; HuffPo “Good News” writer Cameron Sinclair finds the silver lining in other ways. He noted the lesser-but-still-positive positives of Haiti, such as its fast WiFi and rich history. (Perhaps that’s looking too hard in the forest to see trees, but y’know.) So, while recovery is still being sought after, it is still coming. And in some ways, it is already here. (Photo by Ken Cedeno / The Washington Post) source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jan 2012 10:09

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World: Haitians, devastated by earthquake, moving to Brazil to find work

  • All I want is work, and Brazil, thank God, has jobs for us.
  • Haitian-born Wesley Saint-Fleur • Discussing how, in the wake of 2010’s Haitian earthquake, he and his family moved to Brazil, a quickly-growing part of the world where he’s found it easy to get a job. Not everyone has been so lucky, however: Nearly 4,000 people have moved from Haiti to Brazil since the devastating earthquake in 2010, and many of them have found things just as bad in Brazil. While Brazil’s economic growth has slowed recently, unemployment is still extremely low and the biggest beneficiaries have been those working low-income jobs, where salaries have grown sevenfold in recent years. Even Americans are heading down there for jobs. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Jan 2011 23:17

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World: “Baby Doc” returns to Haiti: Mother Jones is on the scene

  • “It sounded like a wild rumor …” Mother Jones was on the scene as Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti after a quarter-century of exile. And despite his unpopularity, he had his supporters today. “Things have never been as good as when he was here,” one translator told reporter Mac McClelland. “The only thing that was worse was we couldn’t talk about politics because he was a dictator, but everything else is much worse now.” (thanks idroolinmysleep for pointing it out to us immediately we found it) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Jan 2011 22:56

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World: Quick facts: How bad was Haiti leader “Baby Doc” Duvalier?

  • 19 the age that Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier took over Haiti
  • 28 number of years he and his dad, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, ruled over the country
  • 15 number of years “Baby Doc” was “president-for-life” before he was booted from power
  • 100k people left the country while “Baby Doc” was ruler; many sought asylum on rafts source
  • » With an iron fist: The regime of father and son – especially son – was noted for its disparities. The leaders, who had near-absolute rule (with the help of a secret police force called the Tonton Macoutes), lavished themselves while doing little to help Haiti’s population deal with the overwhelming poverty. It got so bad that Pope John Paul II publicly called out elites for their lack of interest in and care for the plight of the poor. To emphasize … this guy’s return is not good by any stretch of the imagination. He needs to go back to France.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Jan 2011 22:31

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World: Like a clichéd plot device, Jean-Claude Duvalier is back in Haiti


The guy on this sign was forced into exile from Haiti 25 years ago. Now, no longer a baby, “Baby Doc” is back, perhaps looking for forgiveness from the weakened country. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Nov 2010 11:56

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World: Haiti’s elections are today; think good thoughts for them

Between the earthquake, the cholera, and basically the past 300 years, they need effective leaders to recover and improve. Let’s hope the vote helps them. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Nov 2010 12:42

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World: Haitian microloan firms struggle, but committed to helping poor

  • Haiti has not had a good year. Many people are struggling to get by and need help to survive. For this reason, microloans have become very popular among small-scale entrepreneurs looking to get by, but even they are having trouble in the wake of absolute destruction of much of the country:
  • 30% the lowest interest rate one will likely find on a microloan from Haiti, which is very reliant on them in the wake of the earthquake
  • 53% the percentage of one lender’s microloans in Haiti that were late after the qake – a staggeringly high number that makes it hard for lenders
  • 18% of microloans have defaulted or risk doing so in Haiti this year; in most third-world countries, it’s more like 2-3 percent source
  • » However, they’re still fighting: These firms seen to understand how important their services are to Hatians, so they’ve used various methods to raise funds to offer the high-risk loans. While they’re a ways off from, say, India’s broad microlending program, they are expanding their work so that they can offer a wider variety of services to the people that need it most.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

22 Oct 2010 10:38

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World: Because Haiti doesn’t have enough problems, let’s add cholera

  • 138 dead in the biggest crisis since the quake source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Jan 2010 10:17

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U.S.: Bush, Clinton to team up on Haiti, give a bipartisan face to help

  • The former presidents will head the fundraising efforts. In an effort to emphasize the lack of politics at play in the face of a major tragedy, former presidents Bill Clinton (the U.S.’s special envoy to Haiti) and George W. Bush would lead the push for aid. This would be Bush’s first major public effort since leaving the White House in January, by the way. He’s pretty good at fundraising, by the way, helping to push $200 million into Southern Methodist University – home of his presidential library – since leaving office. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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