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Diallo EWSIS

2010 Haiti Earthquake - 3 views

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    When I think about Haiti it makes me really sad because the earthquake just had to hit an area where most of the residents there are really poor. They can barely support themselves and their family with their jobs, and now they had to deal with this horrendous disaster. They lost their homes, jobs, properties, and family members. It's sad to hear that the Haitian government itself has also broken down and it is not strong enough to give support their own people. They have to rely on foreign organizations to recover. I have also read in a Wikipedia article that even the United Nations feels that the earthquake is one of the worst disasters, because of the lack of help from the national government. Other organizations are giving lots of support to help the victims but they need immediate help in finding shelters, food, and money. I'm wondering when the kids can go back to school. If it's going to be months before they can go back to their education system I think that some sort of help in education children should also be there. What kind of support is the Haitian government giving while the victims are suffering? What is the United Nations doing? How are the victims dealing with the situation? How long before Haiti get on its own feet? How can Haiti be more prepared for future earthquakes?
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    2010 Haiti Earthquake I am a caring person. I sometimes may care too much about certain things that doesn't have anything to do with me. However, this disaster in Haiti touches me deeply. So deeply that I tend to cry sometimes. Its very sad. My mother and step father has donated hundreds of dollars however, to help the victims. Many people have lost their lives and sanity and dignity. Families are destroyed and homes are demolished. The Haitian people may think that their is no more hope, and that their lives are over, but its actually just beginning. They have a chance to make positive changes now in their lives. Start new, fresh and find new beginnings. All hope should not be lost. Many people are doing their best to help these victims. Its because they have hearts and they care so much about humanity. People like that deserve awards and medals even though they may not want it. No one deserves to be crushed alive, or left in indecent places to starve and suffer. It just happens though sometimes. It is life. This was a natural disaster. However, its not about toughing it out though. Its more about believing in your self and that you can overcome this. 5 Questions 1. How many deadly natural disasters has Haiti had for the past five decades? (earthquake,decades,natural disasters) 2. Why hasn't celebrities donated more money to the relief fund? (money,celebrity,help,donate) 3. Why does US owe Haiti billions of dollars, they were always very poor?(poor,broke,Haiti spending) 4. Who else owes Haiti reparations? (money,haiti,bills,reparations) 5. Will Haiti ever bounce back from this destruction? (death,destroy,lives lost)
Nicole EWSIS

Haiti Earthquake 2010 - 0 views

200,000 people dead and more coming in this year's Haiti earthquake. 2010 was devastating for Haitians. When a 7.0 earthquake hit many people were killed, and buried under the rubble of their lost ...

2010 history haiti earthquake opposing newsweek.com latimes.com disaster

started by Nicole EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Hawa EWSIS

2010 Haiti's earthquake - 0 views

Well I didn't know about the Haiti earthquake until a few days later after it happened. At first I didn't realized the severity of the situation and then I started to read articles and see more pro...

Haiti Earthquake 2010

started by Hawa EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Devonrae Jones

Haiti Earthquake - 0 views

I think that the 2010 Haiti Earthquake should be dealt with in a timely fashion. I think that from the previous natural disasters that the our country has learned a lot about interfering into count...

haiti earthquake haitian

started by Devonrae Jones on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Diallo EWSIS

2010 Haiti Earthquake - 0 views

When I think about Haiti it makes me really sad because the earthquake just had to hit an area where most of the residents there are really poor. They can barely support themselves and their family...

earthquake Haiti 2010 haitian history

started by Diallo EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Luis EWSIS

Some thoughts about the earthquake - 2 views

The 2010 Haiti Earthquake caused havoc in this small struggling Caribbean nation. I was very shocked by the pictures and videos presented. Death and the face of tragedy was everywhere to be seen. H...

started by Luis EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Jessica =D

Haiti - 0 views

I think it's terrible about what happened to the Haitians. It's really sad to see a whole country devastated by a natural disaster, especially if it can't be predicted slightly before hand to preve...

2010 haiti earthquake

started by Jessica =D on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
pushpainram

State of the Union: Obama to seek tax raises on wealthy - Blog - 0 views

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    State of the Union: Obama to seek tax raises on wealthy President Obama is to use Tuesday's State of the Union speech to call for tax increases on the wealthy to help the middle class, officials say. The proposals would raise $320 billion (£211 billion) over a decade, to fund benefits such as tax credits. The speech is the centerpiece of the US political diary and may shape both Mr Obama's legacy and the 2016 election. But the president faces resistance to his proposals, with Republicans controlling both Houses of Congress. With the US economy growing, President Obama will stress that it is time for ordinary US families to feel the benefits. According to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the plans include: Closing a loophole allowing the wealthiest Americans to pass on certain assets tax free · Raising capital gains tax on the richest earners from 23.8% to 28% · New fees on US financial firms with more than $50 billion (£33 billion) in assets The revenues would raise more than enough to fund the proposed benefits for the middle class, according to the officials. These include tripling child tax credits, help for families with two working spouses and extra incentives to save for retirement. For more latest news visit www.cutereel.com Lables : watch free videos online, latest videos online, Upload videos online for free.
MelissaB EWSIS

2010 Haiti Earthquake - 1 views

I think that the earthquake in Haiti is something that was unexpected by many people and it is a great tragedy that there should be more help than there is right now. But there is one thing that mo...

started by MelissaB EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Allesia EWSIS

EaRTHQUAKE IN HAITI - 0 views

1. Why is it taking so long for countries to send help to Haiti? 2. Why after the earthquake can we help Haiti but when they were the poorest country in the western Hemisphere we didn't care? 3. W...

started by Allesia EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Alexis EWSIS

2010 Haiti Earthquake - 0 views

Right now I feel a little sad for the Haitians, but not overcome by emotions. I feel angered that it is taking so long for help to reach there, shouldn't countries have some type of earthquake sup...

2010 earthquake haiti people news

started by Alexis EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Adriana EWSIS

What will we do now ? - 1 views

New York 1,Good Morning America,ABC News all had the same headline Earthquake in HAITI ....at first it did not really catch my eye but when i logged on to the int ernet the first thing that po...

started by Adriana EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Dylan EWSIS

First Natural Disaster of the New Year - 3 views

When I think of the people in Haiti I think about how fortunate I am to live in a society where opportunities are thrown at me everyday. The things people take for granted in my society are the sam...

2010 Haiti Earthquake Natural Disaster

started by Dylan EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Masaki EWSIS

Hati sorry dont know dont care - 10 views

@Ammy: It's unfortunate, but there are other horrible things going on in this world. Worrying about everything going on in the world is a waste of time in my opinion. There are better things you ca...

sadist hatred hati 2010 sucks for you

Zhapa EWSIS

My feeling toward the Earthquake in Haiti - 0 views

What I feel about the tragedy in Haiti is that it' so sad. I feel so bad that so many people are dying and dying because of this terrible tragedy. At least people are helping them. Like the USA , t...

earthquake Haiti tragedy 2010

started by Zhapa EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Marine EWSIS

Haiti Earthquake Freewrite/Questions - 0 views

I think that the Haiti Earthquake was a horrible disaster. The fact that no one was prepared for it, and no one had anything they could do to prevent it was unfair. People who were just happily t...

started by Marine EWSIS on 20 Jan 10 no follow-up yet
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Haiti 2010: Exploiting disaster - 0 views

  • If the 1980s were marked by the rising flood that became Lavalas, by an unprecedented popular mobilisation that overcame dictatorship and raised the prospect of modest yet revolutionary social change, then the period that began with the military coup of September 1991 is best described as one of the most prolonged and intense periods of counter-revolution anywhere in the world. For the last twenty years, the most powerful political and economic interests in and around Haiti have waged a systematic campaign designed to stifle the popular movement and deprive it of its principal weapons, resources and leaders. The January earthquake triggered reactions that carried and that are still carrying such measures to entirely new levels.
  • For the time being, at least, it looks as if the threatening prospect of meaningful democracy in Haiti has been well and truly contained.
  • When Aristide then won a second overwhelming mandate in the elections of 2000, the resounding victory of his Fanmi Lavalas party at all levels of government raised the prospect, for the first time in Haitian history, of genuine significant political change in a context in which there was no obvious extra-political mechanism – no army – to prevent it. In order to avoid this outcome, the main strategy of Haiti's little ruling class all through the past decade has been to redefine political questions in terms of 'stability' and 'security', i.e. the security of the wealthy, their property and their investments.
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  • During these years, the UN authorities behind this extraordinary 'stabilisation mission' have resorted to levels of violent coercion without parallel in UN operations anywhere else in the world. They have been reinforced by thousands of re-armed and re-trained Haitian police, along with thousands more private security guards hired to protect wealthy families, their businesses, and the foreign contractors and NGOs they do business with. Dozens of anti-occupation demonstrations held on the streets of Port-au-Prince during these years have had little or no political effect.
  • In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, few tried to counter arguments in favour of allowing the US military, with its 'unrivalled logistical capability', to take de facto control of the relief operation. Weary of bad press in Iraq and Afghanistan, US commanders also seemed glad of this unexpected opportunity to rebrand their armed forces as angels of mercy. As usual, the Haitian government was instructed to be grateful for whatever help it could get. That was before US commanders actively began, the day after the earthquake struck, to divert aid away from the disaster zone.
  • The earthquake took place on Tuesday; among many others, World Food Program flights were turned away by US commanders on Thursday and Friday, the New York Times reported, 'so that the United States could land troops and equipment, and lift Americans and other foreigners to safety.'[7] Many similar flights met a similar fate, right through to the end of the week. Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) alone had to watch at least five planeloads of its medical supplies be turned away.[8] Late on Monday 18 January, MSF 'complained that one of its cargo planes carrying 12 tonnes of medical equipment had been turned away three times from Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday,' despite receiving 'repeated assurances they could land.' By that stage one group of MSF doctors in Port-au-Prince had been 'forced to buy a saw in the market to continue the amputations' upon which the lives of their patients depended.[9]
  • 'Together with geopolitical control', observed Camille Chalmers a few weeks later, 'we believe that the militarization of Haiti responds to what Bush called a "preventive war" logic. The U.S. fears a popular uprising, because the living standards in Haiti have for so long been intolerable, and this is even more so the case now; they are inhumane. So the troops are getting ready for when the time comes to suppress the people.'[17]
  • No foreign rescue workers, for instance, were dispatched to the site with perhaps the single highest number of casualties, the Carrefour Palm Apparel factory contracted to the Canadian company Gildan Activewear, which collapsed with hundreds of workers still inside.[22] (Gildan responded to the disaster, within hours, with a reassuring announcement that it would be shifting production to alternative sewing facilities in neighbouring countries.[23]).
  • Haiti can be proud of its survivors. Their dignity and decency in the face of this tragedy is itself staggering.'[28] As anyone can see, however, dignity and decency are no substitute for security. No amount of weapons will ever suffice to reassure those 'fortunate few' whose fortunes isolate them from the people they exploit.
  • 'We see throughout Haiti the population themselves organizing themselves into popular committees to clean up, to pull out the bodies from the rubble, to build refugee camps, to set up their security for the refugee camps. This is a population which is self-sufficient, and it has been self-sufficient for many years.'
  • While Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade offered 'voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return to [the land of] their origin', American officials confirmed that they would continue to apply their long-standing (and thoroughly illegal) policy with respect to all Haitian refugees and asylum seekers – to intercept and repatriate them automatically, regardless of the circumstances.[31]
  • When US ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten paid a visit to Washington in mid February he declared himself satisfied with the work in progress. 'I believe that this will be something that people will be able to look back on in the future as a model for how we've been able to sort ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake.'[35]
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Haiti 2010: Exploiting disaster - 0 views

  • Almost every credible observer agreed about many of the most urgent things that needed to happen.[36] The recovery had to be Haitian-led. The priority had to be measures that would empower ordinary Haitian people to regain some control over their lives, to gain or regain access to an education, an income, a place to live, a future for themselves and their families. The internationally-imposed neoliberal policies that for decades have devastated the agrarian economy and reduced the state sector to an impotent façade had to be dropped and then forcefully reversed. There had to be massive and systematic investment in essential public services, in all parts of the country. Genuine Haitian sovereignty, popular, economic and political, had to be restored.
  • The strategic plan drafted in early 2009 by neoliberal 'development' economist Paul Collier and subsequently adopted by the UN's reconstruction team remains geared above all to the exploitation of Haitian poverty, as the most reliable means of generating new profits for the benefit of elite and multinational corporations. The political framework that will force implementation of this plan remains one in which the autonomy of Haiti's people and government is reduced more or less to zero.
  • In early March, Préval called on the United States to 'stop sending food aid' to Haiti 'so that our economy can recover and create jobs.'[41]
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  • he key decision, however, involved the creation of a mainly foreign body to decide on the allocation of these promised billions, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). The commission is jointly chaired by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, and former US President (and former Haiti occupier) Bill Clinton. (Original plans for a 24-member board – 11 Haitians along with 13 foreigners representing international financial institutions and the larger donor nations – had to be revised, in the face of subsequent protests, to allow for numerically equal Haitian/foreign representation). Once plans are approved by this IHRC, another group of foreign technocrats and World Bank officials will then supervise the subsequent spending.[44]
  • Today, Patrick Elie notes, 'Haiti is the most privatized country in the world. Almost everything that could be privatized here has been, and the only reason prisons have not been privatized is because it is not yet profitable for them to do so.'[49]
  • With modest job creation and credit facilities in the countryside, with small amounts of money for seeds and fertiliser, Jeffrey Sachs pointed out in late January, 'Haiti's food production could double or triple in the next few years, sustaining the country and building a new rural economy.'[53] But as usual, Haiti's small farmers received little or nothing. Only a paltry US$23 million of the UN's initial request for emergency funds was intended for the agrarian sector, and by the end of February the UN admitted that even this money still hadn't been received. 'In the countryside', Reed Lindsay observed in early March, 'there is no evidence of any humanitarian aid, much less for agriculture.'[54] As a result, confirms Mark Schuller, 'with no jobs, no aid, no prospects of rural development, nothing to keep people in the provinces, the bulk of this reverse migration was undone, and Port-au-Prince is once again a magnet for those seeking jobs.'[55]
  • In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, up in the higher, wealthier and mostly undamaged parts of Pétionville everyone already knew that it's the local residents 'who through their government connections, trading companies and interconnected family businesses' would once again pocket the lion's share of international aid and reconstruction money.[56] At the same time, their counterparts in the US, represented by powerful think tanks and lobbyists like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or the RAND Corporation, were quick to see that (as RAND's James Dobbins, one of Clinton's former special envoys to Haiti, put it) 'this disaster is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms', including 'breaking up or at least reorganizing the government-controlled telephone monopoly. The same goes with the Education Ministry, the electric company, the Health Ministry and the courts.'[57]
  • Foreign investors and foreign NGOs, needless to say, also tend to need foreign protection to guarantee their security. True to form, once the initial wave of foreign troops began to subside, private, neomilitary security companies like Triple Canopy (which took over the Xe/Blackwater security contract in Iraq in 2009 and Overseas Security & Strategic Information began promoting their services.[71] As an Al Jazeera report on a 9-10 March meeting of security companies in Miami explained, firms like GardaWorld, DynCorp and their ilk naturally 'see new disaster areas as emerging markets.'[72]
  • There are currently around 25,000 garment-sector workers in Haiti, making T-shirts and jeans for labels like Gildan, Hanes, Gap and New Balance. Factory profit margins average about 22 per cent.[74] Canadian garment manufacturer Gildan is one of several companies that expanded production in Haiti after the 2004 coup, reassured by a post-democratic regime that promised a tax holiday and a moratorium on wage increases.
  • As some investors and their advisors are candid enough to admit, Haiti's most significant 'comparative advantage' remains the stark fact that its people are so poor and so desperate that they are prepared to work for no more than a twentieth of the money they might receive for comparable employment in the US.[78]
  • Given his commitment to this old agenda, notes Richard Morse, UN envoy Bill Clinton isn't bringing change or hope to Haiti. 'Clinton, along with USAID, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations are bringing more of the same to Haiti: More for the few and less for the many.'[80]
  • as Schwarz demonstrates in convincing detail in his 2008 book ‘Travesty in Haiti’, food aid has been deployed systematically and deliberately, from the beginning of its intensive use in the 1980s, to 'destroy the Haitian economy of small farmers.'
  • Today, Isabeau Doucet writes, 'tens of thousands of families are subject to a relentless cycle of exodus, dispersal, and brutality at the hands of the Haitian National police and privately hired armed groups, in violation of Haitian and international law.' In some places, 'rather than clearing rubble from the streets, bulldozers are plowing over the tents of undesired "squatters" only to resettle IDPs expelled from elsewhere.'[95]
  • As you might expect, there is no such sense of loss among people more directly concerned by the disaster. Perhaps the most striking feature of the whole post-quake period has been the extraordinary hardiness and discipline of the hundreds of thousands people who have lost their relatives, homes and possessions, and who from day one began to organise themselves into new communities.
  • Grassroots organizations still meet regularly to develop their strategies for political change, as they have throughout history. Across the country on any given day, small groups perch on broken chairs under tarps in refugee camps, huddle amidst rubble in the courtyards of earthquake-destroyed schools, or sweat under thatched-roof gazebos […]. They are developing pressure points for housing rights and protection against rape for those in camps. Some plan information campaigns aimed at sweatshop workers, others programs to politicize youth. The agendas are seemingly endless.’[106]
  • In the election year of 2010, as in the previous elections of 2000 and 1990, the key political difference remains the division between (a) critics calling merely for a more efficient deployment of reconstruction resources and more 'reasonable' forms of cooperation with the occupying troops and aid workers, and (b) activists working to rekindle popular mobilisation for fundamental political change as the only viable means of regaining national sovereignty and establishing social justice.
  • Patrick Elie, likewise, stakes everything on a renewal of the popular movement that opened the door to political change in the late 1980s: 'I put all my money on our ability, at the level of the grassroots movement, to remobilise the Haitian people, to make them believe, once more, that they are the key players in politics.'[114]
  • Unfortunately, the main institutional legacy of the Lavalas mobilisation – Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas (FL) party – is itself both divided and largely excluded from the political process. After its landslide election victory in 2000, opposition politicians anticipated that FL might remain hegemonic for 'sixty years'.[115] The second anti-Lavalas coup and its aftermath have helped level the political playing field.
  • The FL leadership has made matters worse by indulging in years of sterile post-Aristide in-fighting.
  • In the election of 2010, as in the last four presidential elections in Haiti, everything will depend on whether this unity and this consciousness are strong enough to prevail over the vast and diverse array of forces drawn up to oppose them. The earthquake has sharpened and accelerated the basic political choice facing Haiti: Either renewal of the popular mobilisation in pursuit of equality and justice, or long-term confirmation of the island's current status as a neocolonial protectorate.
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    Almost every credible observer agreed about many of the most urgent things that needed to happen.[36] The recovery had to be Haitian-led. The priority had to be measures that would empower ordinary Haitian people to regain some control over their lives, to gain or regain access to an education, an income, a place to live, a future for themselves and their families. The internationally-imposed neoliberal policies that for decades have devastated the agrarian economy and reduced the state sector to an impotent façade had to be dropped and then forcefully reversed. There had to be massive and systematic investment in essential public services, in all parts of the country. Genuine Haitian sovereignty, popular, economic and political, had to be restored.
corey stanley

Bill Quigley: Why the U.S. Owes Haiti Billions - 8 views

    • corey stanley
       
      This is the same thing i want to know, how do we owe them billions if they are the poorest country in the world?
    • corey stanley
       
      This makes no sence that they only make 2$ a day, this is not like old times, why dont they have regular paying jobs like we do?
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    For this week, my "English" class has been researching both Haiti's history and current situation. As you all may know, Haiti has suffered 7.0 and 6.0 recorded earthquakes as well as strong tremors. The country has lived in poverty and is known to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Bill Quigly writes an article about the economic relationship between the United States and Haiti. Basically, America has bullied the small country into ruins. At first, France charged Haiti to pay reparations at the cost of nearly 150 million francs. When Haiti could not pay that off, it had to take loans from both French and American banks. They nearly owe the United States over $20 billion dollars. However, this is just plain bullying. It is unfair for America to support dictators, especially when the reason is to stabilize economic interests. And also, they forced Haiti to go into the world economic market. We owe this little country a lot more to make up for the years of damage we caused. And I'm surprised people are more willing to help Haiti more than other country America imperialized.
Helen EWSIS

The right testicle of hell: History of a Haitian holocaust | San Francisco Bay View - 19 views

  • 11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent – there are two fire stations in the entire nation – and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for “nature” to finish it off? Don’t blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80 percent of world aid into their own pockets – with the complicity of the U.S. government happy to have the Duvaliers and their militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers’ death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
    • Paul Allison
       
      This is part of the important history that we need to remember now.
  • 4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. U.S. bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
    • AndreaLee EWSIS
       
      Great job, United States!
    • Jose EWSIS
       
      Holy Moly! That is just plain sad. It amazes me how just when you thought things can't go any more unbelieveable you read things like this.
    • Helen EWSIS
       
      I remember watching a report on this on TV. [Chinese TV that is...]
  • 8. But don’t worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with 10 metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They’re from Iceland.
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  • Send in the Marines. That’s America’s response. That’s what we’re good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed – without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
  • Gates wouldn’t send in food and water because, he said, there was no “structure … to provide security.” For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it’s security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina.
    • Luis EWSIS
       
      it seems that the United States is incompetent or it just dont want to help
    • Helen EWSIS
       
      Agreed. We lack effort.
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    This article makes me hate being an American even more than I usually do D=
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