Organizations Helping Out

Don't be a Drive-By Rubber-necker
by Pat Darnell | Jan 13, 2013 | Bryan TX

If you can send the word out that yesterday was the three year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, it is appreciated.  Maybe folks who were able to donate in 2010 will ask the right questions of the leadership in Haiti and in the USA. MooPig has published numerous articles on Haiti disaster, and that is its contribution. We were shocked to realize there is still almost a 100,000 people living in squalor, in tent cities in Port au Prince, after three years.

Below you will find web sites of organizations that provide relief for disasters all over the world.

SOURCE   ::  Supporting Haiti – How a Bionic Beauty can help…:

'via Blog this'

Each of the following organizations have fund raising efforts in place to earmark donations for Haitian relief. The main page of their websites provides details.

• Haiti Relief Fund www.haitirelieffund.org
• Haiti Action www.haitiaction.net
• Lamp for Haiti www.lampforhaiti.org
• Habitat for Humanity www.habitat.org 
• UNICEF www.unicef.org 
• Red Cross www.redcross.org 
• Salvation Army www.salvationarmy.org 
• AmeriCares www.americcares.org
• Doctors Without Borders www.doctorswithoutborders.org
• Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org
• Oxfam www.oxfam.org
• Worldvision www.worldvision.org

Example: [Slideshow from Jan 2010]
Paul McMaster, a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgeon, describes what he and his team have seen and done since they arrived in Port-au-Prince to bring emergency medical care to earthquake survivors on January 15. (doctors without borders. JANUARY 20, 2010. HERE)








__________________Reference
http://www.haitirelieffund.org/
http://www.haitiaction.net/
http://www.americares.org/
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/aboutus/
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/photogallery/gallery.cfm?id=4180
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=4190&cat=video
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=4188&cat=voice-from-the-field
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id=208

MooPig Reconstruction Review :: "Haiti after Three Years, Continued"

The Bombast and Grandiloquence Continues
Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Jan 13, 2013 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Haitian homeless feel abandoned years after quake | News24:  ""We have been abandoned by the authorities. January 12 will be the anniversary of three years of suffering, misery and contempt ..."

'via Blog this'

January 12, 2013 will mark three years of misery, tragedy, and homelessness for 358,000 people in rough tent cities and camps around Port au Prince. During those three years refugee Haitians have been exposed to "crime wave, a cholera outbreak and - from time to time - hurricanes." Haitians wonder when there will be relief for them.

" ... The 2010 disaster triggered a global outpouring of sympathetic rhetoric and pledges of aid for the already impoverished Caribbean nation, but residents and aid agencies complain that rebuilding and re-development has been too slow. (SAPA. 2013-01-11 12:30. HERE) ... "

"We are without support," complained Wisly Decimus, a former teacher who has given up trying to run classes in a tent in the Marassa camp, just outside the capital, where 5,000 people cling to life beside a dangerous river.

"We have been abandoned by the authorities. January 12 will be the anniversary of three years of suffering, misery and contempt," he spat.

[Picture LINK]

Three years ago on January 13th, 2010 this story made the news:

" ... Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who previously traveled to Haiti to lend their star power to musician Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation, said they were “devastated” by the tragic news.

“We are devastated by the news from Haiti,” the duo said in a statement to The Agence France-Presse. “We will work closely with our good friend Wyclef Jean to support the humanitarian efforts on the island and help those who have been injured and left without homes and shelter.”(by NBC Universal, Jan 13, 2010. HERE) ... "

For now the refugees get a wreath and rhetoric:

" ... In the late morning, Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, joined Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe in placing a wreath at a mass burial site north of the capital of Port-au-Prince. None of the three spoke at the event.

Clinton expressed hope about Haiti's future in brief comments to reporters after the ceremony.

"I think that you will see, particularly in the economic sphere, a lot more in the coming year, where Haiti is projected to have the highest growth rate in the Caribbean," he said. "Well, we hope to speed up some of the infrastructure. We have to repair the agriculture and ... build a lot more houses. We've got to get those people out of those tents."

Clinton, Martelly and Lamothe met privately in the afternoon. (TRENTON DANIEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS. Saturday, 01.12.13. HERE) ..."

Side note: " ... Foreign diplomats and Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova, earlier named by Martelly as one of Haiti's goodwill ambassadors, were also there. ... "

[Picture LINK]

And, last but not least, Sean Penn has worked at organizing relief for Haiti:

" ... Sean Penn has spent the last two years helping the relief effort in Haiti, and he's got little time for those who have long abandoned the country.

"It's not only celebrities who went for a day," Penn said at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday when asked about the lack of support for the Haitian relief effort. "It's the whole f--king world. It's all of you."

Following the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in January of 2010, Penn headed to the country and helped set up J/P Haitian Relief Organization, an aid group that rebuilt homes, schools and hospitals. For his efforts, Penn was awarded with the 2012 Peace Summit Award by the Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and also became an ambassador-at-large for the country.

"He was not a drive-by celebrity," former President Bill Clinton said recently. "He went into those camps and he was actually solving their water problems, solving their sanitation problems." (Christopher Rosen. Posted: 05/18/2012 1:08 pm Updated: 05/18/2012 1:44 pm. HERE) ... "

[Picture LINK]

______________________Reference
http://www.news24.com/World/News/Haitian-homeless-feel-abandoned-years-after-quake-20130111
http://www.accesshollywood.com/brad-pitt-and-angelina-jolie-devastated-by-haitian-earthquake-donate-1-million-to-help_article_27680
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/12/3179303/haiti-quietly-marks-quakes-3rd.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57563658/haiti-quietly-marks-3rd-anniversary-of-quake/
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/12/moopig-reconstruction-review-haiti.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/12/24/world/americas/HAITI.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#1
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/world/americas/in-aiding-quake-battered-haiti-lofty-hopes-and-hard-truths.html?_r=0
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2011/01/moopig-food-for-thought-facts-proximate.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/13/sean_penn_on_haiti_six_months
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2010/07/haiti-recent-headlines.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/sean-penn-haiti
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/sean-penn-at-cannes-haiti_n_1527757.html
http://www.vogue.it/en/people-are-talking-about/parties-events/2012/05/sean-penn-for-haiti

MooPig Reconstruction Review :: "Haiti after Three Years"

The NYT won't like me snagging this Slide Show... but ...
Retrieved by Pat Darnell  |  Dec 31, 2012  |  Bryan TX

I have seen both sides of human survival now. I have seen the Mitt Romney nouveau riche bunch, where nouveau riche describes rich people who acquired their wealth within their own generations ... the equivalent English term is the new rich; ... and I might have seen some of the worst poverty stricken masses.

Whenever I traveled I tried to at least see what is going on in the community I stayed. In Mexico I stayed with my family in a pretty nice hotel, but from the window I could see naked children running and playing soccer in the woods behind the building. If I opened the window they would run up and ask for money.

In Osaka, Japan, I saw no poverty. Associates there took me to the "bad parts" of town, and it looked like "One Mag Mile" of Chicago. In Chicago, I would walk on one side of a street, like Lake Shore Drive, and it was swank high-rise apartment/condo -- while just across the street was high urban density bric-a-brac ...

Here in Haiti, after so much western countries pledging billions to reconstruct post earthquake conditions, there are many projects not even started after three years.

Here in Bryan Texas, the Lutherans threw up a solid brick, buttressed hexagonal, 'cathedral' church in just a few months. Now it sits on a busy road, with its moving message sign flickering about its services. I am a skeptic, because a good builder a minister does not make. Maybe the wrong people are in charge over there in Haiti?

This, the Haiti earthquake aftermath, is a carbuncle on the face of humanity, that such boastful pledging goes without follow up. Eh? We don't like bombast, for an other-wise great cause, here at MooPig Enterprises. We scorn it.

" ... A boy rested on the edge of a construction site in Cabaret, outside Port-au-Prince. The American government had promised to complete 156 houses there, but earlier this month only about a dozen had been completed, and they lacked doors and windows. (ibid. NYT) ... "

[Pictures LINK]

Despite Billions in Aid, Reconstruction in Haiti Stalls - Slide Show - NYTimes.com: 
Nearly three years after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, uncleared rubble and ruined buildings remain in downtown Port-au-Prince. Vegetable vendors worked amid the debris.

A vegetable vendor sold her goods on top of piles of earthquake rubble in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Agricultural crops like corn and millet are being grown and harvested in the vacant lots left behind after destroyed buildings were cleared away in the capital.
'via Blog this'

A woman used piles of earthquake rubble as a platform to sell toys in a market.

A man offered a knife-sharpening service amid the ruins and garbage of destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince.

This thick tangle of iron rebar is all that remains of the shattered National Palace that was finally demolished earlier this year.

A boy rested on the edge of a construction site in Cabaret, outside Port-au-Prince. The American government had promised to complete 156 houses there, but earlier this month only about a dozen had been completed, and they lacked doors and windows.

Long rows of homes in the Zoranje development outside Port-au-Prince. It is the only big, new housing project completed and occupied, but the houses are still not connected to water.

Women bring buckets of water back to their homes in the new Zoranje development.

In the mountain town of Furcy, Haiti, some 480 students cram into two small, makeshift schools planted in the heart of a construction site for their new school. Construction was halted on this and 20 other school sites when inspectors discovered construction error and design flaws indicating they would not be safe during earthquakes.

While construction on their new school is stalled, students attended classes in a makeshift structure without electricity.

Sixth-graders in their temporary classroom, lighted only by the natural light that seeps through the gaps between partial walls and tin roofs.

A partly demolished section of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince that is still being used as a holding area for patients being prepped for surgery. A $70 million reconstruction of the hospital by the American, French and Haitian governments, announced in September 2010, has yet to begin.

The emergency room of a newly finished teaching hospital in Mirebalais, outside the disaster zone. The hospital, built by the nonprofit Partners in Health, which plans to run it jointly with the Haitian government, has not yet secured its first-year operating budget.

Dieudonne Zidor, a local elected leader who represents the Campeche neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. “As you can see, conditions are calamitous,’’ she said.

Nadain Janvier, 29, repaired a leaking roof with tarp material on his makeshift home in the Campeche neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Mr. Janvier has lived here since his home on this site was destroyed almost three years ago in the earthquake.

Charles Frantz, 46, and his family live in the Campeche neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, a jumble of tents, half-destroyed buildings and makeshift shacks. Campeche has been the focus of millions of dollars in reconstruction aid but has seen little progress.

Makeshift tents along the signature steep, red-dirt roadway of the Tapis Rouge (Red Carpet) camp in the Campeche neighborhood.


______________________________Reference
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/12/24/world/americas/HAITI.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#1

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/world/americas/in-aiding-quake-battered-haiti-lofty-hopes-and-hard-truths.html?_r=0

MooPig Food for Thought Facts :: pROXIMATE cAUSES FOR hOUSING cRISIS OFA dIFFERENT mAGNITUDE

Retrieved by Pat Darnell

• Magnitude 7.2 SOUTHWESTERN PAKISTAN January 18, 2011
• Magnitude 7.0 LOYALTY ISLANDS January 13, 2011
• Magnitude 6.6 VANUATU January 09, 2011
• Magnitude 4.1 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA January 08, 2011
• Magnitude 7.1 ARAUCANIA, CHILE January 02, 2011
• Magnitude 7.0 SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, ARGENTINA January 01, 2011 [HERE]

Haiti: Alaska: Puerto Rico: Hawaii: Japan: Indonesia: California:

01/11/11 - Haiti Dominates Earthquake Fatalities in 2010 [HERE]
While the U.S. Geological Survey recorded 22 magnitude-7 or larger earthquakes in 2010, almost all the fatalities were produced by one — the major quake that hit Haiti on Jan. 12.
In 2010, about 227,000 people were killed due to earthquakes, with over 222,570 from the magnitude-7.0 Haiti event, as reported by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

According to official estimates, the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti injured 300,000 people, displaced 1.3 million, and left 97,294 houses destroyed and 188,383 damaged in Port-au-Prince and much of southern Haiti. This includes at least four people killed by a local tsunami in the Petit Paradis area near Léogâne. According to the USGS, this large, shallow earthquake produced violent shaking in Léogâne, west of Port-au-Prince. This shaking level can cause damage even to well-built buildings anywhere in the world. In Haiti, this high-intensity shaking together with both buildings vulnerable to earthquakes and high population exposure resulted in catastrophe.

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Haiti's Lame Duck

One Year After the Earthquake, Baby Doc goes to Haiti ...
by Pat Darnell

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Interview with Haiti President Rene Preval:   |  [SOURCE]
On 12th January 2010, the world was exposed to terrible images of the earthquake in Haiti.

A year on, President René Préval’s defended his government’s handling of the disaster in an interview with euronews.

Sophie Desjardin, euronews:

We saw the pictures of the collapsed presidential palace, and numerous ministries were destroyed. How do you lead a state when part of its infrastructure is in ruins?

President René Préval:

We had 300,000 dead, 300,000 injured. We had destruction equivalent to 120% of our GDP that we calculate to be around 8 billion dollars. In other words a huge humanitarian disaster, and also serious damage to infrastructure. Haiti lost many schools, many churches, many public buildings. All the ministries fell down, the palace, the parliament and we lost 30% of our civil service staff. It’s a big tragedy.

euronews:

For a year there’s been criticism of your secrecy, some say absence. You were not seen or heard after the earthquake. Why such reserve?

President Préval:

When the earthquake struck, I was feeding my little one-year-old girl. I saved her. I went out into the street, I saw so many dead, the roads were strewn with bodies. I was at the hospital, it was hardly possible to walk. I heard people crying under the debris. And really that was all very emotional. It’s said that the biggest emotions are silent ones, I now understand that saying, I now understand why. I was speechless, and it was difficult for me to express my emotion at that time.

euronews:

The NGOs on the ground deplore the lack of action or decisiveness at a political level. They say they are filling the vacuum left by the state. How has it come to that?

President Préval:

The day after the disaster, the international community rallied with extraordinary generosity. And then after six months there was the reconstruction phase. An interim commission for reconstruction was formed, and on 31st March the international community undertook promises worth 11 billion dollars. Today around two billion (worth) of projects are already submitted, and a billion and a half (dollars worth) have begun.

Haiti cannot (get by alone) given the current state of its potential, which was already weak – don’t forget that 60% of Haiti’s budget is backed by external aid – so we are waiting for promises to become reality, making tangible what’s been undertaken. I should add that we can’t do things again in the same way. No longer can we rebuild shanty towns. The moment has come to found Haiti once again: that means taking care of the provinces that were abandoned for so long.

euronews :

The first round of the presidential election in December brought violence and plunged the country into political crisis. The commission of experts evaluating the process recommended that Jude Celestin be excluded from the 2nd round. He’s your chosen candidate, what’s your reaction?

René Préval, Haitian president:

I’ve not yet received this report. I’ve asked for it to be handed to me after 12th January, after we’ve come together to pray for our dead.

Sophie Desjardin, euronews :

The report’s conclusions have been all over the agency wires since yesterday. I’d just like to know your feeling about the elections. What will happen if Jude Celestin is ousted from the 2nd round?

President Préval:

The elections took place, we had some problems and we asked the OAS (Organization of American States) to come and verify what happened – so that each candidate could see in all transparency why they had votes taken away. And that will reassure them, so that each accepts the position assigned to him, so that we can continue the electoral process.

euronews :

You’ve spent almost 10 years in power. Once dubbed the “Pearl of the Caribbean”, for decades Haiti has been struck by multiple disasters. Have you ever been disheartened?

President Préval:

Indeed this term in office has been very difficult yet despite that, we’ve still had some significant results. Inflation has come down from 13% to 5%. We’ve had growth where GDP had been negative before we arrrived, and we ended last year with growth of 3.5%. So (there’ve been) lots of problems but also some success.

One of Haiti’s problems is instability. I have been the only president to complete his mandate, the only president not to go into exile, the only president who stayed at home and got re-elected, and I hope to be able to hand over power to an elected president and an elected parliament, so that stability comes to Haiti.

Copyright © 2011 euronews

Haiti :: Recent Headlines -- Dangling Chads or Lost ID's, it's a "Ruse," they say.

[SOURCE]

"We need a new Haiti without fraud," he added.
Haitian candidates allege widespread fraud in national election
From Ivan Watson, CNN
November 28, 2010 3:25 p.m. EST

Haiti :: Recent Headlines

A new Prince
by Pat Darnell


Who is the new Prince of Haiti
He claims the rumpled boulders
that were once a city

Don't jump into the rivers
Keep yourselves clean
Don't panic.

A man with fever arrives
he is carried into the tent
he was living in a tent
in San Marc

In only hours
this Prince charged amongst us
it devoured many and left us grieving

He came at us from miles away
from upstream
from the clay and sand

This new Prince
is bigger than our president
bigger than our 1000 camps

bigger than Jan 12 earthquake
it claimed 300,000 lives.

This Prince ...
is bigger than God.

MooPig Movie Reviews: "CHOLERA [2010]"

[SOURCE]

Cholera reaches Haiti quake camps
Health officials confirm first case of deadly disease in camp for earthquake survivors as toll soars to 600. | Last Modified: 11 Nov 2010 | " ... The development heightened fears that the disease, which has already claimed hundreds of lives, could spread rapidly among thousands of people living in the cramped camps - the perfect breeding ground for cholera. ... "

At least 600 people have been killed by cholera since the first cases were confirmed about two weeks ago. More than 7,000 others are receiving treatment. ... Haiti suffered yet another tragedy last Friday when Hurricane Tomas triggered rains and flooding that left at least 20 people dead. ... The disease, spread when infected faecal matter contaminates food or water, is treatable mainly by rehydrating the sick with safe water mixed essentially with salt, sugar and potassium.

" ... Antibiotics also are used sometimes. ... But decades of failing and often regressing infrastructure - wracked by political upheaval, unbalanced foreign trade, a 1990s embargo and natural disasters - have left millions of Haitians without access to clean water, sanitation or medical care. ... " (Source: Al Jazeera and agencies)

Haiti :: Recent Headlines

[SOURCE] Retrieved at Democracy NOW! by Pat Darnell

" ... AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Six months ago today, one of the worst natural catastrophes in the world took place, the earthquake here in Haiti. We go now to Camp Corail right near a killing field, a dumping ground for bodies years ago during the coup, but now, right next to Camp Corail, one of the refugee camps. We’ll hear from Haitians in the camps. ... "

Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Headlines

In the Shadow of Ruins: Haitians Decry Conditions in Massive Tent City Across from Destroyed National Palace

Land Ownership at the Crux of Haiti’s Stalled Reconstruction

Rape in the Camps: Lacking Security, Women Organize to Protect Themselves

"When Everybody Comes and Has a Solution for Haiti, It Only Creates a Problem"–Sister Mary Finnick on Recovery Efforts

Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Headlines

Sean Penn on Haiti Six Months After the Earthquake, Recovery Efforts, and Why He Decided to Manage a Tent Camp of 55,000 Displaced Haitians

Monday, July 12, 2010
Headlines

Beverly Bell: There is No Plan For Permanently Housing the 1.9 Million Haitians Who Lost Their Homes in the Quake

Democracy Now! in Port-Au-Prince: Patrick Elie on Haiti Six Months After the Earthquake

Displaced Haitians: "We Can’t Continue In This Situation Anymore"

Haiti, Six Months After the Earthquake
July 12 marked the six-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake here in Haiti that killed as many as 300,000 people and left much of the country in ruins. Up to 1.8 million people are living in squalid tent cities, with inadequate sanitation, if any, no electricity and little security, or any respite from the intense heat and the worsening rains.

Haiti :: Food Sovereignty

Haitian Farmers Say “Burn Monsanto’s Seeds”
Written by CBAN   |   Thursday, 03 June 2010   |    [SOURCE]


" ... “Haiti’s farmers are telling us that the future of Haiti depends on local production with local seeds and local knowledge, for local consumption,” said Colleen Ross of the National Farmers Union, “This is called food sovereignty and we support Haiti’s farmers in their struggle.”


“Food sovereignty cannot be attained with hybrid or genetically modified seeds” said Sebastien Roux, Coordinator of the Quebec group HAITI: One Seed One Country which has already sent more than $15,000 worth of organic and open-pollinated seeds to Haiti. “We strongly denounce this shipment of seeds from Monsanto which will jeopardize the future of Haitian agriculture.”

“Monsanto’s corporate give-away of seeds will secure a future for Monsanto, not for Haiti’s farmers,” said Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.

So far, Monsanto has said that the donated corn seeds are not genetically modified but are hybrids, which means that they may not be suitable for replanting in the subsequent seasons. By cultivating Monsanto’s corn, Haitian peasant farmers will be forced to make annual purchases of seeds.

Today farmer and environmental groups from across Canada stated their support for tomorrow’s farmer march in Haiti, organized to protest a donation of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds from the U.S.-based multinational biotechnology corporation Monsanto. The seeds will be distributed by the U.S. government aid agency to Haiti’s farmers. (CBAN, 06.03.2010) ... "

MooPig Report From the Middle :: Large Loss Numbers Serve to Stupefy Every One

Is it Clear to any one yet, that We Really have no Idea What to Do?
Review by Pat Darnell

"Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says the government is working on a resettlement plan, not only to solve land disputes, but also to provide housing for all displaced. But he says the government's hands are tied until billions of pledged funds for Haiti come through. [Read the entire article HERE]"

"We have to understand that right now, the priority of the government is to protect the population from the next hurricane season," Bellerive said. "Most of our force is going in that direction."

I understand I should have solutions to post in my blog for all the messes ... but honestly, I am dumbfounded. I could go on with the notion that my weakness to look at everything as parody, is useless in this current rear end loaded world situation.

And really is it any different than years before -- as in the Great Depression -- or, previous Hurricanes desolation? How to explain the current events? Please, some one say it : " ... WE REALLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO PROCEED ! "

This story about Haiti and the Tent Cities, and refugee squatters is heart breaking. I repeat: Heartbreaking! In Texas, for instance, it would mean a major civil disturbance [gun play]. That is because private property is off limits to all but the proprietors ... as is the custom here in the USA.

Now Haitians are dependent on Big Brother to provide a "Relocation Strategy" and a "Disbursement of Relief and Funds Calendars." YIKES! I repeat: YIKES!

If one is to believe government leadership can respond to genocide of Haitians by Earthquake, line up with your debit cards, because Jack Pribek has a time share on the Brooklyn Bridge to sell you.

This is what happened -- an entire generation of Haitians has been wiped out by being crushed or burned and multitudes were trapped until their demises. Those left alive are subject to secondary pestilence. And now is Hurricane season.

Meanwhile, tent camps, thought to be temporary living arrangements in the aftermath of the quake, have become permanent fixtures all over the capital. More than 1,300 have sprouted -- hot, muddy from the rains, lacking water and proper sanitation, and in some cases breeding grounds for turf wars.
An estimated 1.5 million people are homeless and living in such conditions in Haiti. Many are on private property and the crisis is pitting landowners against the desperate. [ibid]

The Article ends this way:
" ... For Vladimir Saint-Louis -- whose athletic complex once boasted tennis and basketball courts, a soccer field and other recreational areas that have now become squatting areas -- news that this will take even longer does not sit well.
"There's a barbershop. There's a cyber cafe. There's a hotel in one of the tents, where people pay to stay there for the night -- I swear to God," he said.
So far, Saint-Louis has found a way to make peace with the homeless on his land, waiting for a solution to come to salvage his business that's taken a 50 percent hit since it became the site of a tent city.
Asked whether he can keep his business afloat, he replied, "God give the strength. God give me the strength." ... " [ibid HERE]

That's our Report From the Middle where in all honesty we are not facing end of life as we know it.
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Haiti :: Focus on Hospitals -- Pest Management

Houston Businessman's New Mission in Haiti
Staff  KIAH
June 25, 2010

The Haitian camps are congested beyond imagination, with ramshackle tents standing edge to edge in every square foot of available space. With the rainy season now beginning, the crowded conditions and overtaxed public toilets have raised very real concerns about a cholera epidemic.


The tents themselves are a hodgepodge. Families' first attempts at fashioning shelters have been augmented with plastic sheeting supplied by international agencies. But the makeshift housing certainly won't withstand a hurricane. If one were to hit Port-au-Prince, the death toll can only be guessed at. There would be nowhere for displaced families to take refuge in a city where most of the hotels, public buildings, schools and churches still lie in massive heaps of rubble.

It's to be expected that cleaning up the rubble will take time. But what is shocking is that it hasn't really started. In four days of driving through this sprawling, heavily populated city recently, I saw only one backhoe in operation. It was repairing a sewer line. The other handful of modest cleanup efforts I saw were being done by teams of a dozen people with shovels and wheelbarrows, tools pitifully inadequate to the task.

Massive, aggressive intervention is required. It will take a convoy of construction equipment, such as that possessed by the U.S. military camped on the edge of the city, to remove the rubble and clear streets that are clogged with piles of concrete and iron. But the cleanup is just not happening.

Why has so little been accomplished? Why hasn't heavy equipment been brought in? Why hasn't the government depopulated at least some of the worst camps, moving residents to safer locations on the outskirts of the city where proper settlements can be planned, and proper shelters constructed?

ASK AP :: Haiti

" ... I have heard reports from people on the ground in Port-au-Prince that the rubble remains on the ground from the earthquake, tent cities have grown, residents are making housing inside dilapidated buildings, garbage is piled on the streets and the only buildings being built are of government interest.

My question: Where did the charity funds go to rebuild Haiti for the people of Haiti? ... "

Angela Lewis, Avon Park, Fla.

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" ... It's true: Port-au-Prince looks much like it did in February, other than the fact it's now raining every day. Of some 20 million cubic yards of rubble left by the disaster, less than 2 percent has been cleared. Serious reconstruction has not started.

Meanwhile, more people than ever are living under tarps and in tents: 1.6 million and counting. Some who didn't lose their homes can no longer afford rent or are following foreign aid to the camps. And the tarps are falling apart.

It's easy to look at all this and ask where the money went. The answer isn't so simple. A lot of secondary crises that could have happened didn't, or haven't yet, like disease outbreaks, flooding catastrophes or famine - and some of that can be traced to the aid effort.

And the Haitian government, which was severely compromised in the quake and not so capable before, says the slow pace of reconstruction is important for preventing corruption and planning a sustainable city.

But it's also reasonable to ask why more hasn't improved. Presidential elections and hurricanes are both potentially on the way. Once the distraction of the World Cup is over, we may find out just how much frustration the grinding recovery has left behind. ... "

Jonathan M. Katz, AP Correspondent, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

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"Ask AP," a weekly QandA column where AP journalists respond to readers' questions about the news.

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Haiti

Razorbacks Join Haiti Relief Effort

POSTED: 5:42 am CDT June 25, 2010
UPDATED: 5:51 am CDT June 25, 2010

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. --  [SOURCE]

It's been almost six months since the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Now people in Arkansas are joining the relief effort.
Friday there will be a 24-hour marathon of food packing at the Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville. Former hog golfer Rich Morris is coordinating the effort with ESPN's Jimmy Dykes and the University of Arkansas. They're trying to package a record 2 million meals for those in need.
University of Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said, "Here's a chance to really, not only impact a situation in the world. A way to help human beings far away from Northwest Arakanas, and help them with basics, basic food."
Razorback athletes, coaches and 40/29's Mark Lericos will be on hand in an effort to package the 2 million meals to send to Haiti.
Copyright 2010 4029tv.com.

MooPig Site Review :: "This Administration promotes Mediocrity?? -- YIKES!"

Don't you just love how everything follows the "BIG Story" around, abandoning it for the next "BIG Story?" Most effort to follow up on the Disaster like Haiti is chiefly Ignored. For example this Editorial: "Mayors met in Oklahoma and called for a measure to help Haitians. [SOURCE]" is met with Silence.

President Obama could rapidly aid Haitian immigration seekers
A Code of Silence?
Retrieved by Pat Darnell    |    Network News Editorials

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Excerpt  | " ... THE U.S. CONFERENCE of Mayors, meeting at its annual convention this month in Oklahoma City, did something extraordinary. With no dissent, the mayors called on President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to "promptly" grant entry to 55,000 Haitian visa candidates with relatives in the United States, a measure that would result in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in annual cash transfers flowing into Haiti's gasping economy. And what was the response from the administration, which has pledged to do all it can to alleviate the humanitarian suffering that befell Haiti in January's earthquake?
Silence. [SOURCE, op\ed excerpt] ... "

Read the entire article at the SOURCE Link, as it goes on to explain: "The mayors' resolution was remarkable because their cities -- not the federal government, not the states -- might bear the costs associated with an influx of Haitian immigrants. ... "

Haiti

How is it here at MooPig, and every other self-promoting agency, such as Mike Moore and\or Jon Stewart, never fully chews on this "morsel of news" when ever it -- and where ever it -- raises its angry battered head and leers at the world from under a rubble that was once their country ??

Haitis is set up for plunder and slow motion genocide
Haiti Is Open for Business - by Stephen Lendman

In December 1984, Canada's conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, told the New York Economic Club that "Canada is open for business," meaning US companies were welcome, the two countries would work for greater economic integration, America's sovereignty took precedence of his own, and corporate interests from both countries could operate freely at the expense of most Canadians.

That's always been Haiti's curse, now more than ever. Under American militarized control, Haiti is occupied for profit, its pseudo government largely invisible, and predators aim to cash in to the fullest. On January 21, in his article titled, "Securing disaster in Haiti," Peter Hallward explained, saying:

"....the US-led relief operation has conformed to the three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island's recent history. It has adopted military priorities and strategies. It has sidelined Haiti's own leaders and government, and ignored the needs of the majority of its people. And it has proceeded in ways that reinforce the already harrowing gap between rich and poor. All three tendencies aren't just connected, they are mutually reinforcing. (They'll also) govern the imminent reconstruction effort as well, unless determined political action is taken to counteract them."

Is this last part some kind of standard writ of habeas corpus collasum cortex of fascism that must be penned every time the USA Military arrives on the scene with some aid for the broken and ruined folks?


Read entire article here -- [SOURCE]

Post-quake, conditions on the ground are horrific. Three million or more Haitians are affected. Most are displaced and struggling. Essential aid is obstructed and limited. Hundreds of thousands are being removed from the capital, not to help them, to "cleanse" the area for development. The official estimated death toll tops 230,000, over 300,000 are injured, and AP reported (on February 9) that the "Health crisis in Haiti enter(ed) a deadly new phase," the result of "a half-million (or more) people jammed into germ-breeding makeshift camps" where a health emergency is already apparent in the form of malnutrition, diarrheal illnesses, acute respiratory (and other) infections, at least one reported typhoid case, and fears of possible outbreaks of tetanus, measles, TB, malaria, dengue fever, diphtheria, acute flaccid paralysis, meningococcal meningitis, rabies, and other infectious diseases, including water-borne ones, particularly threatening children.

Independent reports cite outbreaks of tetanus, TB, diarrhea, scabies, ringworm and growing depravation, misery and anger, mostly unreported in the mainstream that instead focuses on disease containment and improving conditions. Daily, conditions are worse, not better, threatening a far greater disaster ahead. [ ... ]

IMAGE :: Haiti Presidential Palace Damage

PHOTO Sources Unknown
[NEWS Source HERE]

MooPig Site Review :: Charlie Simpson -- Bona-fide Peddler

Haiti is losing its News Cycle; but Charlie Simpson has an Idea for a Different kind of Haiti Cycle
Review by Pat Darnell


See for yourself -- HERE

Page owner:
Charlie Simpson


Page closes:
18/01/2015


Target: £500.00
Raised so far: £201,898.76


... end of review ... That is All -- that is Enough !!