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Haiti: Seven places where the earthquake money did and did not go
January 12, 2012
The U.N. estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in relief aid since the earthquake – about $155 per Haitian – and over $2 billion in recovery aid – about $173 per Haitian – over the last two years. Yet Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago, not two years.
Report from Haiti: Where’s the money?
December 28, 2011
Broken and collapsed buildings remain in every neighborhood. Men pull oxcarts by hand through the street. Women carry 5-gallon plastic jugs of water on their heads, dipped from manhole covers in the street. Women carry 5-gallon plastic jugs of water on their heads, dipped from manhole covers in the street.
Katrina Pain Index 2011: Race, gender, poverty
September 7, 2011
Six years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. The impact of Katrina and government bungling continue to inflict major pain on the people left behind. It is impossible to understand what happened and what still remains without considering race, gender and poverty. The following offer some hints of what remains.
Six years after Katrina, the battle for New Orleans continues
September 1, 2011
As this weekend’s storm has reminded us, hurricanes can be a threat to U.S. cities on the East Coast as well the Gulf. But the vast changes that have taken place in New Orleans since Katrina have had little to do with weather and everything to do with political struggles.
Wave of illegal, senseless and violent evictions swells in Port au Prince
August 26, 2011
Mathias O is 34 years old. He is one of about 600,000 people still homeless from the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He lives with his wife and her 2-year-old under a homemade shelter made out of several tarps. They sleep on the rocky ground inside. The side tarp walls are reinforced by pieces of cardboard boxes taped together. Candles provide the only inside light at night. There is no running water. No electricity. They live near a canal and suffer from lots of mosquitoes.
MLK Injustice Index 2011: Racism, materialism and militarism in the U.S.
January 17, 2011
“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values … when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” – Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967
Million plus remain homeless and displaced in Haiti one year after quake
January 12, 2011
One year after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, more than a million people remain homeless in Haiti. People are living under plastic tarps or sheets in concrete parks, up to the edge of major streets, in the side streets, on the sides of hills, literally everywhere. One year later, it is critically important for the international community to assist Haitians to secure real housing. The million homeless Haitians are our sisters and brothers and still need our solidarity and help.
Eight homeless youth die in New Orleans fire: What does it say about US?
December 30, 2010
Eight young people, who the Fire Department said were “trying to stay warm,” perished in a raging fire during the night of Dec. 28 in New Orleans. Will we look into our abandoned buildings and look into the eyes of our abandoned daughters and sons and sisters and brothers? Will our nation address unemployment, high housing costs and low wages? Or will the fires continue and the lives end?
Why WikiLeaks is good for democracy
December 11, 2010
Since 9-11, the U.S. government, through Presidents Bush and Obama, has increasingly told the U.S. public that “state secrets” will not be shared with citizens. Candidate Obama pledged to reduce the use of state secrets, but President Obama continued the Bush tradition. The courts and Congress and international allies have gone meekly along with the escalating secrecy demands of the U.S. executive.
Haitian elections neither free nor fair
November 26, 2010
Obama denounced the recent “elections” in Burma as “neither free nor fair.” The Haitian “elections” are also neither free nor fair. The largest party, Fanmi Lavalas, is excluded, as it has been in every election since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004; 1.3 million earthquake victims are displaced; and cholera has already taken 1,600 lives.
Nine months after the quake, a million Haitians slowly dying
October 11, 2010
There is no food. The children are terribly hungry. The food aid program was terminated in April and nothing took its place. The authorities cut off the food so people would leave the camps, but where is there to go? Not a single cent of the U.S. aid pledged for rebuilding has arrived in Haiti. Don’t miss Randall Robinson discussing ‘An Unbroken Agony’ with Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee and Walter Turner of KPFA’s Africa Today on Saturday, Oct. 16, 5 p.m., Black Repertory Theater, 3201 Adeline St., Berkeley.
Five years later: Katrina Pain Index 2010 New Orleans
August 6, 2010
It will be five years since Katrina on Aug. 29. The impact of Katrina is quite painful for regular people in the area. This article looks at what has happened since Katrina not from the perspective of the higher ups looking down from their offices but from the street level view of the people.
Taking back homes from the banks: Exercising the human right to housing
June 5, 2010
Foreclosures are soaring. Some housing experts say 4 million foreclosures are possible in 2010. To fight back, organizations across the U.S. are engaging in “housing liberation” and “housing defense” to exercise their human rights to housing. Here are a few examples.
Fire on the bayou: Non-stop river of oil heads to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida
May 4, 2010
The Coast Guard estimates 5,000 barrels of crude oil a day, 210,000 gallons a day, are pouring out of a damaged British Petroleum well in the Gulf of Mexico. Plans to set parts of the Gulf on fire have been pushed back by bad weather. In 1975, the New Orleans group, The Meters, released their album, “Fire on the Bayou.” In 2010 the idea of a fire on the bayou may well be coming true.
Mercenaries circling Haiti
April 17, 2010
Triple Canopy, a private military company with extensive security operations in Iraq and Israel, is advertising for business in Haiti. Jeremy Scahill reports on a number of bloody incidents involving Triple Canopy, including one where a team leader told his group, “I want to kill somebody today … because I am going on vacation tomorrow.”
Haitians seek shelter and survival, New Orleanians send bargeloads of aid
April 12, 2010
We have learned the lessons of Katrina, and we seek to work for the accountable reconstruction that New Orleans never had. The Louisiana-Haiti Sustainable Village Project seeks to support the Haitians in leading their own recovery.
Time for a U.S. revolution: 15 reasons
March 7, 2010
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
Three in a million: Voices from the Haitian camps
February 18, 2010
I think it is going to get worse for us in the camps. We need tents and food. We need water and school and jobs. We need help to find a place to stay. The rain is coming soon. Water is going to come and our babies will lose their lives.
U.S. brags Haiti response is a ‘model’ while more than a million remain homeless in Haiti
February 14, 2010
Despite the fact that over a million people remained homeless in Haiti one month after the earthquake, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Ken Merten is quoted at a State Department briefing on Feb. 12, saying: “In terms of humanitarian aid delivery … frankly, it’s working really well. And 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.”
Haiti numbers – 27 days after the quake
February 10, 2010
A million people are still homeless or needing shelter in Haiti. A million have been given food by the U.N. World Food Program in Port au Prince – another million in Port au Prince still need help.
