Humanitarian Issues

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ALL THOSE FUNDS SENT TO ANGEL EAGLES PAYPAL AT [e-mail], EARMARKED TO HELP HAITI, WILL BE IMMEDIATELY SENT FOR THAT SAME PURPOSE ON TO THE "HAITI CONSULATE GENERAL, IN MIAMI, FLORIDA." (WE HAVE A WAY OF FOLLOWING THE MONEY TO MAKE SURE THE EARMARKED FUNDS REACH THE DESTINATION.)

(ALL OTHER FUNDS, NOT SO EARMARKED AS OF 23:00 01/12/10, WILL CONTINUE TO BE IMMEDIATELY ASSISTANCE GENERATED THROUGH THE NORMAL ANGEL EAGLES OPERATIONS.)

www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/



PLEASE CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK TO ACCESS THESE WAYS TO HELP.

How you can help:
• International Medical Corps
• Direct Relief International
• World Vision
• International Relief Teams
• Yéle Haiti
• American Red Cross
• Operation USA
• CARE
• Catholic Relief Services
• World Food Programme
• World Concern
• Save the Children
• UNICEF USA
• More ways to help victims of NATURAL DISASTERS

THANK YOU.
(DAN)

[ninathedog]

current damage assessment:

Thousands feared dead after powerful Haiti quake

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press Writer – 9 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after a powerful earthquake flattened the president's palace, the cathedral, hospitals, schools, the main prison and whole neighborhoods. Officials feared thousands — perhaps more than 100,000 — may have perished but there was no firm count.

Death was everywhere in Port-au-Prince. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets.

President Rene Preval said he believes thousands were killed in Tuesday afternoon's magnitude-7.0 quake, and the scope of the destruction prompted other officials to give even higher estimates. Leading Sen. Youri Latortue told The Associated Press that 500,000 could be dead, although he acknowledged that nobody really knows.

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," Preval told the Miami Herald. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."

Even the main prison in the capital fell down, "and there are reports of escaped inmates," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva.

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was missing and the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince was dead.

"The cathedral, the archbishop's office, all the big churches, the seminaries have been reduced to rubble," Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the apostolic envoy to Haiti, told the Vatican news agency FIDES.

The parking lot of the Hotel Villa Creole was a triage center. People sat with injuries and growing infections by the side of rubble-strewn roads, hoping that doctors and aid would come.

The international Red Cross said a third of Haiti's 9 million people may need emergency aid and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge.

At first light Wednesday, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff to the hospital on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the military has been detaining suspected terrorists.

President Barack Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, adding that the U.S. commitment to its hemispheric neighbor will be unwavering.

"We have to be there for them in their hour of need," Obama said.

A small contingent of U.S. ground troops could be on their way soon, although it was unclear whether they would be used for security operations or humanitarian efforts. Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said roughly 2,000 Marines as part of an expeditionary unit might be deployed aboard a large-deck amphibious ship. Fraser said the ship could provide medical help.

Other nations — from Iceland to Venezuela — said they would start sending in aid workers and rescue teams. Cuba said its existing field hospitals in Haiti had already treated hundreds of victims. The United Nations said Port-au-Prince's main airport was "fully operational" and open to relief flights.

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, is under way and expected to arrive off the coast of Haiti Thursday. Additional U.S. Navy ships are under way to Haiti, a statement from the Southern Command said.

Aftershocks continued to rattle the capital of 2 million people as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares to sing hymns.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said it was possible that the death toll "will be in the thousands."

"Initial reports suggest a high number of casualties and, of course, widespread damage but I don't have any figure that I can give you with any reliability of what the number of casualties will be," Holmes said.

People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passers-by lifted the sheets to see if loved ones were underneath. Outside a crumbled building, the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile.

The prominent died along with the poor: the body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, said the Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France. He told The Associated Press by telephone that fellow missionaries in Haiti had told him they found Miot's body.

Preval told the Herald that Haiti's Senate president was among those trapped alive inside the Parliament building. Much of the National Palace pancaked on itself.

The international Red Cross and other aid groups announced plans for major relief operations in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

Many will have to help their own staff as well as stricken Haitians. Taiwan said its embassy was destroyed and the ambassador hospitalized. Spain said its embassy was badly damaged and France said its embassy also suffered damage.

Tens of thousands of people lost their homes as buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions collapsed. Nobody offered an estimate of the dead, but the numbers were clearly enormous.

"The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," said Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles.

Medical experts say disasters such as an earthquake generally do not lead to new outbreaks of infectious diseases, but they do tend to worsen existing health problems.

Haiti's quake refugees likely will face an increased risk of dengue fever, malaria and measles — problems that plagued the impoverished country before, said Kimberley Shoaf, associate director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters.

Some of the biggest immediate health threats include respiratory disease from inhaling dust from collapsed buildings and diarrhea from drinking contaminated water.

With hospitals and clinics severely damaged, Haiti will also face risks of secondary infections. People seeking medical attention for broken bones and other injuries may not be able to get the help they need and may develop complications.

Dead bodies piled on the streets typically don't pose a public health risk. But for a country wracked by violence, seeing the dead will exact a psychological toll.

An American aid worker was trapped for about 10 hours under the rubble of her mission house before she was rescued by her husband, who told CBS' "Early Show" that he drove 100 miles (160 kilometers) to Port-au-Prince to find her. Frank Thorp said he dug for more than an hour to free his wife, Jillian, and a co-worker, from under about a foot of concrete.

An estimated 40,000-45,000 Americans live in Haiti, and the U.S. Embassy had no confirmed reports of deaths among its citizens. All but one American employed by the embassy have been accounted for, State Department officials said.

Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated.

An AP videographer saw a wrecked hospital where people screamed for help in Petionville, a hillside district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as the poor.

At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl of about 16 stood atop a car, trying to see inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from rubble. She said her family was inside.

"A school near here collapsed totally," Petionville resident Ken Michel said after surveying the damage. "We don't know if there were any children inside." He said many seemingly sturdy homes nearby were split apart.

The U.N.'s 9,000 peacekeepers in Haiti, many of whom are from Brazil, were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy: Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of their headquarters.

"It would appear that everyone who was in the building, including my friend Hedi Annabi, the United Nations' secretary-general's special envoy, and everyone with him and around him, are dead," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on RTL radio.

But U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy would not confirm that Annabi was dead, saying he was among more than 100 people missing in its wrecked headquarters. He said only about 10 people had been pulled out, many of them badly injured. Fewer than five bodies had been removed, he said.

U.N. peacekeeping forces in Port-au-Prince are securing the airport, the port, main buildings and patrolling the streets, Le Roy said.

Brazil's army said at least 11 of its peacekeepers were killed, while Jordan's official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed. A state newspaper in China said eight Chinese peacekeepers were known dead and 10 were missing — though officials later said the information was not confirmed.

The quake struck at 4:53 p.m., and was centered 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of only 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti.

Video obtained by the AP showed a huge dust cloud rising over Port-au-Prince shortly after the quake as buildings collapsed.

Most Haitians are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of buildings were shoddily built and unsafe normally.

The quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and in eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported in either place.

With electricity out in many places and phone service erratic, it was nearly impossible for Haitian or foreign officials to get full details of the devastation.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official in Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust."

Edwidge Danticat, an award-winning Haitian-American author was unable to contact relatives in Haiti. She sat with family and friends at her home in Miami, looking for news on the Internet and watching TV news reports.

"You want to go there, but you just have to wait," she said. "Life is already so fragile in Haiti, and to have this on such a massive scale, it's unimaginable how the country will be able to recover from this."

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Associated Press contributors to this story: videographer Pierre Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince; and writers David Koop and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City; David McFadden and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Matthew Lee and Julie Pace in Washington; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Tamara Lush in Tampa, Fla.; and Jennifer Kay and Christine Armario in Miami.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100113/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake

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PLEASE CONTINUE GIVING. IF NOT TO ANGEL EAGLES, ONE OF THE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS, OR TEXT "HAITI" TO 90999 TO INSTANTLY GIVE $10 TO THE AMERICAN RED CROSS.

www.mccookgazette.com/story/1602320.html

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS! ANGEL EAGLES IS MOBILIZING! (YOU'LL SEE. )





ANGEL EAGLES: "Just because it's the right thing to do!"

[ninathedog]

Money needed most in Haiti earthquake relief efforts

By Amy Zerba, Jacque Wilson and Christopher Dawson, CNN
January 14, 2010 2:37 p.m. EST

Agencies are asking for donations to purchase supplies for relief efforts in Haiti after Tuesday's earthquake.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Organizations are requesting monetary donations, not material goods
* Agencies have set up phone lines, Web pages and texting for donations
* Donations will go toward medical and basic supplies, depending on agency

RELATED TOPICS
* USGS National Earthquake Information Center
* Better Business Bureau

(CNN) -- The next question on many people's minds after learning about the earthquake devastation in Haiti has been: How can I help? Most organizations are asking for monetary donations. They are not seeking material items, like clothes or food, or volunteers at this time.

These agencies have set up phone lines, online donation pages and even texting for individuals to contribute to their relief efforts. We've compiled a list of a few organizations who are in Haiti helping those in need.

These resources include the highest-rated charities by CharityNavigator.org, which is an independent, nonprofit organization that evaluates charity groups based on effectiveness and financial stability. These sites are vetted by CNN journalists for credibility.

For additional resources, go to Impact Your World

American Red Cross

The American Red Cross' primary focus during the initial response of an emergency is feeding, sheltering and supplying any other basic needs. To donate: Go to RedCross.org, hit donate now button at top and then International Response Fund. You also can text "Haiti" to 90999 to donate $10 to the International Response Fund. The money will go directly to relief efforts in Haiti. Or call 1-800-Red-Cross.

AmeriCares

This nonprofit disaster relief organization delivers medicine, medical supplies and aid to people in crisis around the world. To donate, call 1-800-486-HELP or go to AmeriCares.org. Donations will go toward medicine and medical supplies and for expenses for providing that medical aid.

Care

This humanitarian organization's main focus is to fight global poverty, specifically by empowering marginalized women and girls. To donate to the Haiti relief fund effort, go to Care.org or call 1-800-521-CARE. Money will go toward food, water and sanitation, shelter and emergency health response.

Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services is an aid agency that works with emergency relief, micro-finance, AIDS/HIV relief, agriculture, water and sanitation, among other projects in countries around the world. To donate, go to crs.org, or call 1-877-HELP-CRS. You also can text RELIEF to 30644. You will receive a text message back with instructions on how to donate. You can send a check to Catholic Relief services, P.O. Box 17090, Baltimore, MD 21203-7090. Write "Haiti earthquake" in memo area. The money will go toward immediate needs, which includes water, food, hygiene kits, bedding and basic cooking utensils, among other items.

Direct Relief International

Direct Relief provides medical attention to those in need on an ongoing basis and in emergencies. Monetary donations go toward medical aid, supplies and equipment in Haiti. To donate, go to directrelief.org or call 805-964-4767 and 800-676-1638, or go through Google Checkout.

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity provides affordable, safe shelter for low-income families and people in need. Money donated for Haiti relief efforts will go toward recovery and rebuilding. To donate, go to habitat.org or call 1-800-Habitat.

International Medical Corps

This emergency response agency focuses on health in emergency situations. Monetary donations go toward purchasing medical supplies, medicine and emergency kits and transporting these supplies. 1-800-481-4462 or go to imcworldwide.org

International Relief Teams

The nonprofit organizes volunteer teams to provide medical and non-medical assistance to victims of disasters and poverty. To donate, go to irteams.org or call 619-284-7979. Checks can be made out to International Relief Teams, 4560 Alvarado Canyon Road, Suite 2G, San Diego, CA 92120-4309. The money will be used for medical supplies, medicine and other relief supplies, and to support volunteers heading to Haiti for relief efforts.

Medical Teams International

The Christian global health organization sends volunteer medical teams and supplies to those in the midst of disaster or poverty. Monetary donations will go to supporting the medical teams being sent to Haiti and to the cost of shipping the medical supplies donated by corporations. Donate by going to medicalteams.org and clicking on the "Donate Now" button, or call 1-800-959-HEAL (4325) or send a check to Medical Teams International, P.O. Box 10, Portland, OR 97207.

Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)

The humanitarian organization delivers medical care to people caught in crisis. Donations to its Haiti relief efforts will go toward repairing the obstetrics and trauma hospitals in Haiti that were damaged in the earthquake. They also will go to transporting an additional 70 doctors and medical supplies to the island in an effort to set up makeshift emergency medical response centers. To donate, go to doctorswithoutborders.org or call 1-888-392-0392.

Mercy Corps

The organization provides humanitarian assistance and economic opportunities in the world's toughest places, specifically those dealing with poverty, conflict and instability. To donate, go to MercyCorps.org. Money will go toward immediate humanitarian needs in Haiti, which may include, food, water and temporary shelter.

Operation USA

The international relief agency provides funding for reconstruction and development aid to communities that have experienced disasters, disease and poverty. For its Haiti relief efforts, the agency plans to use donations for health care materials, water purification supplies and food supplements. To donate, go to opusa.org or call 1-800-678-7255, or mail a check to Operation USA, 3617 Hayden Ave., Suite A, Culver City, CA 90232.

Save the Children

The independent organization focuses on children in need in the U.S. and globally through programs for health and nutrition, child protection and education. To donate, go to savethechildren.org, or call 1-800-728-3843 or 203-221-4030. Donations will go toward purchasing relief items, such as hygiene kits, family kits (pots, pans, food preparation items) and tarps.

The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army's mission is to provide food, shelter, clothing and spiritual comfort during disasters. To donate money, go to salvationarmyusa.org or call 1-800-SAL-ARMY. Make sure you designate the donation for "Haiti Earthquake." Money will go to the Salvation Army in Haiti, which will determine the country's immediate needs, including water, food, medicine and transportation.

Shelterbox

The nonprofit delivers boxes of supplies to families of up to 10 people. The boxes contain a tent and essential equipment to use while individuals are displaced or homeless. To donate, call 941-907-6036 or go to shelterbox.org.

U.S. Fund for UNICEF

The national committee for UNICEF is responsible for the organization's fundraising. UNICEF uses the money for health care, clean water, nutrition, education and emergency relief. To donate, go to Unicefusa.org or 1-800-4-UNICEF.

World Concern

The organization lifts people out of poverty, beginning with disaster response and ending when families can live sustainable lives. To donate to its relief effort, go to Worldconcern.org or call 1-866-530-5433. You can also mail checks to 19303 Fremont Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98133. Please specify that the check is for "Haiti Disaster Response." Money will go toward water supplies, shelter, blankets, distribution of food and long-term needs, such as job training, education, loans and home construction, among other projects.

World Food Programme

The food assistance agency's main focus is to fight hunger worldwide. The organization is working to bring food to Haiti. To donate, go to wfp.org.

Yele Haiti

This organization, founded by Wyclef Jean, creates projects to improve the quality of education, health, environment and community development in Haiti. To donate to to its Haiti relief efforts, go to yele.org or text YELE to 501501 to donate $5.

Other organizations seeking donations

• American Jewish World Service

• Clinton Foundation

• Map International

• Medical Teams International

• Operation Blessing International

• Samatarian's Purse

• Project MediShare

• United Nations Foundation

• World Health Organization


The above article has LINKS -- please go to:
www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/01/13/haiti.earthquake.how.to.help/index.html


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Haiti earthquake in pictures: How natural disaster ripped an island apart

By Liz Hazelton
Last updated at 1:00 AM on 14th January 2010

Distraught, covered in dust and desperate, the people of Haiti appear barely able to comprehend the tragedy that has overtaken them.

Many spent the desolate hours after the earthquake milling around in the streets or constructing the most rudimentary of shelters where they could cower for the night.

The quake itself measured 7.0 on the Richter scale- but some of the 30 aftershocks were almost as strong, leaving the shanty-towns of Port-au-Prince echoing with the heartrending sound of screams and sobs.

Some clustered together for comfort. Others lay prostrate in the street, unable to pick themselves up.

It is still difficult to assess the sheer scale of the devastation. When the earthquake came, buildings crumpled like paper and whole towns were swept down hillsides.

The wretchedly poor country of Haiti simply cannot afford to construct robust buildings to withstand such natural disasters - which is why the death toll is likely to number tens of thousands.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242929/Haiti-earthquake-pictures-How-natural-disaster-ripped-island-apart.html#ixzz0ccTANBQb



www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242929/Haiti-earthquake-pictures-How-natural-disaster-ripped-island-apart.html


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Red Cross: 50,000 May Be Dead In Haiti

by Kevin Whitelaw
January 14, 2010
National Public Radio (United States — NPR)

As many as 50,000 people perished in the earthquake that struck Haiti, according to a new estimate from the Haitian Red Cross, even as aid groups struggled to meet the overwhelming needs of the increasingly desperate survivors.

Planeloads of search-and-rescue teams, medics and supplies were trickling into the devastated capital of Port-au-Prince, but the aid pipeline remains agonizingly slow. U.S. officials said Thursday that they had to suspend all civilian flights from the United States to Haiti for several hours because there was not enough room on the ground for more planes and limited jet fuel for planes to fly back. Aid flights have resumed, but other charter flights remained on hold.

Visions of Chaos After The Quake
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122558589&ps=cprs

President Obama said Thursday that the U.S. government was launching "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" to help the stricken country, but that it would take "hours, and in many cases, days" to get the aid there. As many as 5,500 U.S. infantry soldiers and Marines will be in the Caribbean nation or in ships offshore by Monday, and Obama authorized $100 million in emergency aid for Haiti, while a source has told NPR's Don Gonyea that former President George W. Bush will join former President Bill Clinton in a Haiti relief fundraising effort.

But in Port-au-Prince, there were few apparent signs so far of an organized plan to bring food and water to the 3 million or so Haitians that the International Red Cross estimates need emergency assistance.

"There is no government aid out here bringing anything to the people," said NPR's Carrie Kahn, reporting from Port-au-Prince. "They've been three days now without food and water."

Kahn said survivors were wandering the streets in desperate search of water, food and medical care. "You go into every building, you go down every corner, and there are people wailing, crying, bandaged up, and there are no doctors to help them," she said.

Kahn visited one clinic packed with several dozen patients lying on mattresses on the floor, many of them bleeding and moaning, but there were no doctors in sight. One 8-year-old girl lost her whole family — 11 people — in the quake.

At least eight of Port-au-Prince's hospitals have been heavily damaged. The aid group Doctors Without Borders treated the wounded at two hospitals that withstood the quake and set up tent clinics elsewhere to replace its damaged facilities. Many of the hundreds of Cuban doctors stationed in Haiti also worked to treat the injured in field hospitals.

On The Ground

Death Toll: Haiti's Red Cross estimated that 45,000 to 50,00 people may have been killed in Tuesday's earthquake. U.N. officials said at least 36 employees were killed after the agency's headquarters building fell in Port-au-Prince.

Medical Care: At least eight hospitals in Port-au-Prince were badly damaged. Aid groups are setting up field hospitals and tent clinics.

Relief Supplies: In Port-au-Prince, there are few apparent signs of an organized plan to distribute food and water, both of which are in very short supply.

Infrastructure: The capital's port is too heavily damaged to receive aid deliveries, and the airport is straining to handle dozens of incoming flights of rescue teams and supplies.

"This is much worse than a hurricane," said Jimitre Coquillon, a doctor's assistant who was working at a separate makeshift triage center set up in a hotel parking lot. "There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

But aid will most likely be slow to arrive. Deliveries of supplies by ship to Port-au-Prince were impossible because the capital's port was so badly damaged, according to United Nations officials. The city's airport is open but straining to handle dozens of incoming flights of supplies and rescuers.

Meanwhile, bodies were strewn on almost every street. The body of one mother was covered with the corpses of her children.

"People have nowhere to put them, so they wrap them in sheets and cardboards in the hope that the authorities will pick them [up]. People have also piled bodies in front of the city's main hospitals," Cedric Perus, the humanitarian coordinator in Haiti for Oxfam, an international aid group, said in a statement from Port-au-Prince. "Bodies may stay under the rubble for a long time because it is difficult to access some sites and heavy-lifting equipment is in limited supply."

There was still no concrete estimate of how many people were killed by Tuesday's magnitude 7.0 quake. Haiti's Red Cross on Thursday suggested the toll could reach between 45,000 and 50,000 people, while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told several TV networks that she feared that tens of thousands of Haitians had died. Earlier, Haitian President Rene Preval had said the toll could be in the thousands. Leading Sen. Youri Latortue told The Associated Press the number could be 500,000 but conceded that nobody really knew.

A spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Jean-Luc Martinage, said the estimated death toll was based on figures being used by Haitian government members and on information from the Haitian Red Cross' wide network of volunteers in Port-au-Prince. "This is still a Haitian Red Cross number, but we believe that it is a good estimate of the situation at the moment," Martinage said.

The first American death in the quake was confirmed by a State Department official, who said that at least 164 U.S. citizens have been evacuated. Hundreds more are awaiting flights out on Thursday.

Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort including military and civilian emergency teams from across the U.S. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was expected to arrive off the coast Thursday, and the Navy said the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan had been ordered to sail as soon as possible with a 2,000-member Marine unit. An advance group of more than 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division will leave Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Thursday to prepare for the arrival of about 3,500 more from the division by Sunday.

Speaking directly to Haitians, Obama said, "You will not be forsaken."

There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die.
- Jimitre Coquillon, a doctor's assistant at a makeshift triage center

A U.S. military assessment team was the first to arrive, to determine Haiti's needs.

"We are going to do everything we can to maintain order," Clinton told CNN.

The global relief effort did pick up some steam Thursday with the arrival of an Air China flight carrying search-and-rescue teams, medics, trained search dogs and aid supplies. But it took six hours to unload the aircraft because the airport lacked the needed equipment, a possible sign of more bottlenecks ahead.

A British flight with a government assessment team and 71 rescue specialists along with heavy equipment arrived in the neighboring Dominican Republic. The crew prepared to head to Haiti. A Los Angeles County Fire Department 72-member search team left for the Caribbean island nation late Wednesday.

The United Nations released $10 million from its emergency funds, even as U.N. forces in Haiti struggled with their own losses. The U.N. headquarters building collapsed in Port-au-Prince, and at least 16 persons are confirmed dead, with up to 150 still missing, including mission director Hedi Annabi of Tunisia and his chief deputy, Luis Carlos da Costa.

"We'll be using whatever roads are passable to get aid to Port-au-Prince, and if possible we'll bring helicopters in," said Emilia Casella, a spokeswoman for the U.N. food agency in Geneva.

Aftershocks continued to rattle the city overnight, jolting people awake.

Doctors stitched up head wounds on several children at a hotel compound where many survivors gathered for the night. "It was just excruciating to hear them screaming out in pain, calling out to their parents for help," reported NPR's Kahn. "You hear moans throughout the night."

At another site, about 200 survivors, including many children, huddled in a theater parking lot using sheets to rig makeshift tents.

Police officers carried the injured in their pickup trucks. Wisnel Occilus, a 24-year-old student, was wedged between two other survivors in the bed of a truck headed to a police station. He was in an English class when the quake struck at 4:53 p.m. and the building collapsed.

"The professor is dead. Some of the students are dead, too," said Occilus, who suspected he had several broken bones. "Everything hurts."

Around the city, ad hoc medical centers sprang up, including one at the airport where U.N. workers, foreigners and Haitians were being frantically treated.

Hundreds of patients were lined up in cot after cot in covered hangars, NPR's Kahn reported. One man arrived in a wheelbarrow; another made it after being trapped in rubble for 16 hours.

Doctors who arrived from Miami on Wednesday evening hustled to treat the injuries, which included broken limbs, spinal damage and internal bleeding. In the space of just a few hours, at least four people died of relatively minor injuries that doctors said would have been treated easily in a more advanced facility.

But calls from other victims seeking help from emergency services weren't getting through because systems that connect different phone networks were not working, according to officials from a telecommunications provider in Haiti.

Calls were being placed sometimes 15 to 20 times from the same phone, which was "painful to watch," said Jyoti Mahurkar-Thombre, Alcatel-Lucent's general manager of wireless voice.

About 3,000 police and international peacekeepers worked to clear debris, direct traffic and maintain security in the capital. But law enforcement was stretched thin even before the quake and was ill-equipped to deal with major unrest.

The U.N.'s 9,000-member peacekeeping force sent patrols across the capital's streets while securing the airport, port and main buildings.

Looting (sic) began immediately after the quake, with people seen carrying food from collapsed buildings, but aid workers say disturbances were rare. Inmates also were reported to have escaped from the damaged main prison in Port au Prince, said Elisabeth Byrs, a U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman in Geneva.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122558589&ps=cprs



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Former Presidents Bush, Clinton to Help on Haiti

By REUTERS
Published: January 14, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have agreed to help the Haiti relief effort at the request of President Barack Obama, sources familiar with the situation said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, editing by Vicki Allen)

www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/14/us/politics/politics-us-quake-haiti-obama.html


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White House Taps Bush, Clinton to Help Lead Haiti Relief

FOXNews.com

President Obama has tapped George W. Bush, a prime target of Democratic criticism during the presidential campaign for his response to Hurricane Katrina, to help lead Haiti relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated the country two days ago.

President Obama has tapped George W. Bush, a prime target of Democratic criticism during the presidential campaign for his response to Hurricane Katrina, to help lead Haiti relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated the country two days ago.

Bush will join up with former President Bill Clinton, who is also the United Nations special envoy for Haiti.

"This is one of those moments that calls out for American leadership," Obama said Thursday, as he committed $100 million toward the recovery and pledged long-term U.S. help for the battered island nation.

He did not comment on the Bush-Clinton effort, but the White House and Bush's office later confirmed that Obama reached out to the two former presidents and is hoping they can replicate the relief effort that Clinton and George H.W. Bush led after the 2004 tsunami that struck Asia.

Obama's Republican predecessor may seem an unlikely candidate for the job considering how Obama and other candidates, even Republican John McCain, wailed on him in 2008 for what was widely seen as a bungled response to Katrina in 2005.

Obama accused the administration of "half-hearted leadership" and "half-measures" during one visit to New Orleans in early 2008. After taking office, Obama continued to criticize his predecessor over the response to the devastating 2005 hurricane blamed for more than 1,600 deaths.

"President Obama will keep the broken promises to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast," the White House Web site says to this day in a brief section on Katrina.

Bush and his top officials in charge of disaster relief became political punching bags after Katrina. They were criticized for what was seen as ineffective evacuation efforts, slow response, the poor and neglected conditions of mass refugee shelters like the New Orleans convention center, and the seeming aloofness of those in charge.

Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown resigned in the aftermath but polls show the public blamed state and local officials for the chaos as well as the Bush administration.

But after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, the United States appears to be summoning all resources to rescue survivors, feed and treat the population, and help rebuild the country.

Clinton wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post Thursday that the reconstruction effort should aim to build "Haiti back better" with better schools, stronger buildings and infrastructure.

"In the coming days, stories of loss and the triumph of the human spirit will be told. They will call us to help -- not just to restore Haiti but to assist it in becoming the strong, secure nation its people have always desired and deserved," Clinton wrote.

Fox News' Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/14/white-house-taps-bush-clinton-help-lead-haiti-relief/

[ninathedog]

Quake aid starts to arrive for desperate Haitians

By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writer Mike Melia, Associated Press Writer – 18 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Desperately needed aid from around the world slowly made its way Thursday into Haiti, where supply bottlenecks and a leadership vacuum left rescuers scrambling on their own to save the trapped and injured and get relief supplies into the capital.

The international Red Cross estimated that 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed in Tuesday's magnitude-7.0 earthquake.

President Barack Obama announced that "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" is moving toward Haiti, with thousands of troops and a broad array of civilian rescue workers flying or sailing in to aid the stricken country — backed by more than $100 million in relief funds.

To the Haitians, Obama promised: "You will not be forsaken."

The nascent flow of rescue workers showed some results: A newly arrived search team pulled U.N. security worker Tarmo Joveer alive from the organization's collapsed headquarters, where about 100 people are still trapped. He stood, held up a fist in celebration, and was helped to a hospital.

There are easily hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people trapped, living or dead, in collapsed buildings. No one knows for certain. Friends and relatives have had to claw at the wreckage, often with bare hands, to try to free them.

Many dead bodies that were recovered still lay in the street, often covered by a white cloth, in 81-degree heat.

Some people dragged the dust-covered dead along the roads toward the morgue, where people came to hunt for relatives in a macabre sea of hundreds of bodies just a few feet from where badly injured victims awaited a doctor from the neighboring hospital.

Planes from China, France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince's airport, carrying searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies — with more promised the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. The Red Cross has estimated 3 million people — a third of the population — may need emergency relief.

The flow into the capital's damaged airport was so great that the Federal Aviation Administration halted all civilian flights from the United States to Port-au-Prince for a time Thursday because there was no room on the ground for more planes and not enough jet fuel for planes to go back, an official at the FAA said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. Civilian relief flights were later allowed to resume.

It took six hours to unload a Chinese plane due to a lack of equipment — a hint of possible bottlenecks ahead.

"We don't have enough handling equipment or the people to run it," said U.S. Air Force Col. Ben McMullin, part of the team handling traffic at the airport. "We're trying to control the flow of aircraft."

In Geneva, Red Cross spokesman Jean-Luc Martinage said the Haitian Red Cross estimated 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed, based on reports from its volunteers in Port-au-Prince.

There seemed to be little official Haitian presence in much of the capital — or at the airport, where the U.S. Southern Command was controlling flights from a fenced-off building at the end of the runway. The facility's usual tower had collapsed.

McMullin said about 60 planes carrying 2,000 people had landed between Wednesday, when the airport reopened, and noon Thursday.

U.S. military forklift operators helped unload some foreign flights as well as U.S. cargo, and Haitian staff were far outnumbered by foreign aid workers and military. No senior Haitian officials were visible.

Since the earthquake, President Rene Preval has maintained his typical low profile, granting only a couple of media interviews and making few public appearances. His official palace and home were damaged in the quake and the Parliament building collapsed, along with some other ministries and departments.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. had been in touch with Preval, and added: "We're not taking over Haiti. We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them lifesaving support."

The often-chaotic capital was surprisingly calm, despite the devastation, though journalists occasionally heard the sound of isolated gunfire. It was not clear if it was aimed at people. Even in normal times, guards sometimes fire shotguns in the air to keep people away from stores.

There has been widespread looting of collapsed buildings since the earthquake hit, but rarely of undamaged shops, said Matt Marek, Haiti country representative of the American Red Cross.

"There is no other way to get provisions," he told The Associated Press. "Even if you have money, those resources are going to be exhausted in a few days."

But some other aid groups expressed increasing concern about security.

"It is dangerous at night. Lootings were widespread and some markets were ransacked," Oxfam spokesman Cedric Perus said in a statement.

Some people buried loved ones in shallow graves on the side of a road. A woman was strapped to a board and covered with a sheet before burial, as the mourners lit fires to keep away flies and cover the stench.

Others tried to carry the dead to nearby hills for burial, prompting Brazil's military — the biggest contingent among U.N. peacekeepers — to warn that the practice could lead to an epidemic. It said it asked authorities to create a new cemetery.

The Brazilian military said it also was worried that bodies could be left too long because many Voodoo followers in Haiti do not allow the dead to be touched before all their rituals are concluded.

There was damage outside the capital, too. In the port of Jacmel to the south, about 3,000 people forced from their homes slept overnight on the runway of an airstrip, said Yael Talleyrand, a high school student interviewed by e-mail and instant message.

"I almost cried, because so much people were crying, praying and I had never seen this in my entire life," said Talleyrand, whose parents run an economic development and health foundation.

Aid workers reported confusion over how to cope with the sudden flood of aid from scores of places.

"Donations are coming in to the airport here, but some are coming without notice from very well-meaning groups," said Save the Children spokeswoman Kate Conradt. "There is not yet a system to get it in" to those who need it.

Obama promised Haitians an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, including the military and civilian emergency teams from across the U.S., adding that America — and the world — "stands with you."

As many as 5,500 U.S. infantry soldiers and Marines will be on the ground or on ships offshore by Monday, a Defense Department official said. More than a half-dozen ships were en route or preparing to get under way, said spokesman Bryan Whitman. They included the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, to arrive Friday, and a hospital ship with 12 operating rooms, the USNS Comfort, expected by Jan. 22.

The U.S. Army said more than 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were heading out from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, looking for locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for the arrival of another 800 personnel Friday.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that 91 injured French nationals were evacuated to the Caribbean island of Martinique.

About 3,000 police and international peacekeepers cleared debris, directed traffic and maintained security. But law enforcement was stretched thin even before the quake and would be ill-equipped to deal with major unrest. The U.N.'s 9,000-member peacekeeping force sent patrols into the streets while securing the airport, port and main buildings.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said 36 of his organization's personnel were confirmed dead and nearly 200 were missing — 100 in the rubble of its headquarters alone.

The State Department announced one American had died in Haiti, saying that at least 164 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the quake.

Coast Guard C-130 planes have airlifted 42 American officials and their families and another 72 private citizens to safety, Crowley said.

Another 370 Americans were awaiting flights out, he said. There were about 45,000 Americans living in Haiti at the time of the earthquake.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it set up a Web site to help Haitians find missing loved ones. Robert Zimmerman, deputy head of the group's tracing unit, said people in Haiti and abroad can register missing relatives on the site.

___


Associated Press contributors to this story: Jonathan Katz, Jennifer Kay, Gregory Bull and Tamara Lush in Port-au-Prince; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Frank Jordans and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Jenny Barchfield in Paris; Pauline Jelinek in Washington; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo; and Adam Geller in New York.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100114/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake

[vishvasattva]

Those in Canada on the Rogers and Fido wireless networks can send a text message with the word "HELP" to shortcode 1291 to donate $5 to the relief effort.

[vishvasattva]

As well, please pray/meditate/dream about Light and Love for the people of Haiti. Your efforts count.

[enki]

Jan 15, 2010 2:59:49 GMT 4 @vishvasattva said:

As well, please pray/meditate/dream about Light and Love for the people of Haiti. Your efforts count.

Agreed... they could use all the positive energy we can send them. We have a special group of people that post here on this forum, with our help and the help of others I believe we can help these people heal from this event. Nothing will take away the burned in pshycology of the event, or the loss of loved ones they are enduring but maybe just maybe through our positive energies and prayers, meditations, and the aid that is pouring in we can make this situation at least physically, mentally an easier thing to deal with.

I saw on the news that they are in need of clean water, without it they propose more deaths in the coming days.

[enki]

Quake-battered Haiti hotel offers refuge for all

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Crumbled walls cover priceless works of Haitian art. There are dead bodies outside the entrance. Food will run short soon.

Following the devastating earthquake that wrecked Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, the once-elegant Hotel Villa Creole, set on a hillside with lush tropical vegetation, is still, astonishingly, open for business.

The establishment is operating a hospital in its front entrance and allowing scores of aid workers, journalists and others to camp out on its grounds.

"A hotel has to be like a father, mother, everything at the same time," said its Haitian general manager, Frantz Rimpel, who began at the establishment washing dishes 42 years ago.

He and the Villa Creole staff have lived through their fair share of crises in the poor Caribbean state -- the fall of governments and devastation of hurricanes -- but nothing quite like this.

Tens of thousands of Haitians are feared dead after Tuesday's powerful earthquake, and countless more are hurt or homeless.

"When (President Jean-Bertrand) Aristide was thrown out in 2004, it was tough. An Italian journalist had toothache, and when I took him to see a doctor, they nearly killed us at a roadblock," he said. "But this earthquake overshadows everything. We were totally unprepared."

Like many of the buildings in the upscale Petionville district of Port-au-Prince, the hotel has taken a big hit from Tuesday's disaster, its central structure crushed.

Beautiful paintings and carvings lie covered in dust and cement blocks.

No staff members were hurt in the destruction, although like all Haitians at this time of national disaster, most have lost relatives and friends.

In the first few days, the hotel simply -- and generously -- left its doors open, allowing foreign aid workers, correspondents and others with nowhere to go to come in for free. A generator kept power up, and an Internet service was occasionally conjured up from somewhere.

When one aid group started handing out medicine and bandages to the injured, word spread, and soon scores of Haitians began to gather outside the front entrance. Some died, and their bodies were left lying in the road.

Overwhelmed by the scale of the injuries coming to them -- gashes, internal bleeding, trauma, broken limbs -- workers from aid groups Hope for Haiti and the International Medical Corps, both based at the hotel, went out on Thursday in search of facilities to carry out operations.

SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR

"My grandparents founded this hotel," said co-owner Melissa Padberg. "We have lost priceless works of art. But this is nothing to do with money now. We are just trying to keep open to give basic services to our clients, and allow ourselves to somehow help."

The hotel's once peaceful swimming pool area is now filled with the chatter and clicks of satellite phones and computers as the world's foreign media use it as a forward base.

"Yes sweetie, that is the hotel I'm staying in, I'm not joking," said one American reporter, as he chatted with his daughter on the Skype Internet telephone service, a Web cam allowing her to see the destruction behind her dad.

"I'm OK -- don't worry about me -- but a lot of other people aren't."

Hotel rooms are shared (this reporter is with six others), but that does not matter as everyone sleeps in the open air due to aftershocks still hitting Haiti and shaking the Villa Creole every few hours.

In the night air, a melee of sounds floats across the hotel grounds from the streets below: dogs barking, women singing religious chants, coughs and cries of pain, and sudden shrieks and cries of grief as another earthquake victim succumbs.

With the poor and injured lying on the floor outside, and privileged guests inside -- albeit sleeping on the lawn and the concrete floors -- the Villa Creole has some echoes of Rwanda's famous Mille Collines hotel where many took refuge during the 1994 genocide in that African country. That story inspired the film "Hotel Rwanda."

Rimpel is not thinking of such comparisons, just fulfilling what he considers a patriotic duty. "We all want to get Haiti back on its feet. This is just our way of helping."

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Peter Cooney)
(taken from Reuters)

[enki]

Aid groups struggle to get food, water to Haitians
Members of a Dominican rescue team attempt to save a victim trapped amid the rubble of a destroyed building in Port-au-Prince. Anger and despair mounted in quake-hit Haiti with rotting bodies littering the streets and little sign of desperately needed international aid for the hundreds of thousands of victims.
(AFP/Juan Barreto)

By JONATHAN M. KATZ and TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press Writers Jonathan M. Katz And Tamara Lush, Associated Press Writers – 50 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Aid workers hoping to distribute food, water and other supplies to a shattered Port-au-Prince are warning their efforts may need more security Friday as Haitians grow increasingly desperate and impatient for help. Hundreds of U.S. paratroopers arrived overnight to back up the relief effort.

Hard-pressed government workers, meanwhile, were burying thousands of bodies in mass graves. The Red Cross estimates 45,000 to 50,000 people were killed in Tuesday's cataclysmic earthquake.

More and more Friday, the focus fell on the daunting challenge of getting food and water to millions of survivors. United Nations peacekeepers patrolling the capital said people's anger is rising that aid hasn't been distributed quickly, and the Brazilian military warned aid convoys to add security to guard against looting.

"Unfortunately, they're slowly getting more angry and impatient," said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the Brazilian-commanded U.N. peacekeeping mission. "I fear, we're all aware that the situation is getting more tense as the poorest people who need so much are waiting for deliveries. I think tempers might be frayed."

The U.N. World Food Program reported Friday that its warehouses in the Haitian capital had been looted since the devastating quake. It didn't know how much of its pre-quake stockpile of 15,000 tons of food aid remained.

A spokeswoman for the Rome-based agency, Emilia Casella, noted that regular food stores in the city also had been emptied by looters. Casella said the WFP was preparing shipments of enough ready-to-eat meals to feed 2 million Haitians for a month.

More than 300 troops of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division arrived at the Port au Prince airport overnight and others have arrived in nearby waters on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen told ABC's "Good Morning America."

"We have much more support on the way. Our priority is getting relief out to the needy people," he said.

About 5,500 U.S. soldiers and Marines are expected to be in Haiti by Monday. Their efforts will include providing security, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Hundreds of bodies were stacked outside the city morgue, and limbs of the dead protruded from the rubble of crushed schools and homes. A few workers were able to free people who had been trapped under the rubble for days, including a New Jersey woman, Sarla Chand, freed by French firefighters on Thursday from the collapsed Montana Hotel. But others attended to the grim task of using bulldozers to transport loads of bodies.

Haitian President Rene Preval told The Miami Herald that over a 20-hour period government crews had removed 7,000 corpses from the streets and morgues and buried them in mass graves.

For the long-suffering people of Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, shock was giving way to despair.

"We need food. The people are suffering. My neighbors and friends are suffering," said Sylvain Angerlotte, 22. "We don't have money. We don't have nothing to eat. We need pure water."

From Europe, Asia and the Americas, more than 20 governments, the U.N. and private aid groups were sending planeloads of high-energy biscuits and other food, tons of water, tents, blankets, water-purification gear, heavy equipment for removing debris, helicopters and other transport. Hundreds of search-and-rescue, medical and other specialists also headed to Haiti.

The WFP began organizing distribution centers for food and water Thursday, said Kim Bolduc, acting chief of the large U.N. mission in this desperately poor country. She said that "the risk of having social unrest very soon" made it important to move quickly.

Governments and government agencies have pledged about $400 million worth of aid, including $100 million from the United States.

But into the third day following the 7.0-magnitude quake, the global helping hand was slowed by a damaged seaport and an airport that turned away civilian aid planes for eight hours Thursday because of a lack of space and fuel.

Aid workers have been blocked by debris on inadequate roads and by survivors gathered in the open out of fear of aftershocks and re-entering unstable buildings.

"The physical destruction is so great that physically getting from point A to B with the supplies is not an easy task," Casella, the WFP spokeswoman in Geneva, said at a news conference.

Across the sprawling, hilly city, people milled about in open areas, hopeful for help, sometimes setting up camps amid piles of salvaged goods, including food scavenged from the rubble.

Small groups could be seen burying dead by roadsides. Other dust-covered bodies were being dragged down streets, toward hospitals where relatives hoped to leave them. Countless dead remained unburied, some in piles. Outside one pharmacy, the body of a woman was covered by a sheet, a small bundle atop her, a tiny foot poking from its covering.

Aid worker Fevil Dubien said some people were almost fighting over the water he distributed from a truck in a northern Port-au-Prince neighborhood.

Elsewhere, about 50 Haitians yearning for food and water rushed toward two employees wearing "Food For The Poor" T-shirts as they entered the international agency's damaged building.

"We heard a commotion at the door, knocking at it, trying to get in," said project manager Liony Batista. "'What's going on? Are you giving us some food?' We said, 'Uh-oh.' You never know when people are going over the edge."

Batista said he and others tried to calm the crowd, which eventually dispersed after being told food hadn't yet arrived.

"We're not trying to run away from what we do," Batista said, adding that coordinating aid has been a challenge. "People looked desperate, people looked hungry, people looked lost."

Engineers from the U.N. mission have begun clearing some main roads, and law-and-order duties have fallen completely to the mission's 3,000 international troops and police.

Wimhurst, the mission spokesman, said Haitian police "are not visible at all," no doubt because many had to deal with lost homes and family members. The first U.S. military units to arrive took on a coordinating role at the airport.

Batista, the Food For The Poor project manager, went back to the Dominican Republic late Thursday and awaited the arrival of 100 shipping containers loaded with rice, canned goods and building supplies.

"I don't think that a word has been invented for what is happening in Haiti," he said. "It is total disaster."

___

Associated Press contributors to this story: Mike Melia, Jennifer Kay and Gregory Bull in Port-au-Prince; Alexander G. Higgins in Geneva; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Danica Coto and David McFadden in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Adam Geller in New York; Matthew Lee and Pauline Jelinek in Washington.

[enki]

I am posting a link to a site with images from Haiti. Some of these you have seen on the news and around the internet, others are a bit graphic. The graphic nature of some of these images are why I am not posting them here but instead just ading a link. This is the severity of the disaster. This is why we must help as much as we can. I read a report that Google has now sent $1m to help in the aid and an aid releif is slowly banding together. They need all the help they can get and these pictures will show you how much is needed...


www.cracktwo.com/2010/01/haiti-earthquake-horrifying-images.html

[ninathedog]

Hello all,

The earthquake victims in Haiti deserve our undivided attention but I need to post these articles as they are pertinent now. I'm sorry for getting off-topic.

Love, Jen.

...........

Lift Gaza Blockade Now

By M.J. Rosenberg
January 15, 2010, 10:04AM

For me, it's impossible to look at the horrific footage coming out of Haiti and not think about Gaza. Especially when I see the faces of the children.

Both are scenes of horrific suffering. But there are two significant differences. The first is the scale of the suffering. The second is that the Haitian catastrophe is a natural disaster, which humans could not prevent but are now trying to relieve. The suffering in Gaza is inflicted by people, while other people look away.

The bottom line is that there would be quite enough human suffering even without man-made disasters. Relief agencies would have their hands full even if armies and militias did not kill and maim innocents.

In fact, more innocent people have died at the hands of man in the last hundred years than through "Acts of God." And the 21st century, already only a decade old, seems unlikely to be much different.

Look at the Middle East, again on a violent spiral downward.

In an editorial this week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz called on the government to "rethink its Gaza strategy before it's too late."

The editorial was written in response to the resumption of missile fire by Hamas against southern Israel. Though no one has yet been injured in these attacks, that is just a matter of time. So is another retaliatory Israeli bombardment of Gaza unless Hamas ceases and desists.

But Hamas won't. It won't for the same reason Israel insists on hitting back.

A few months ago, I was on a panel at the University of Alaska in Juneau with, among others, the Israeli consul based in the Pacific Northwest. The consul defended the bombardment of Gaza on the grounds that any country has the right, even obligation, to defend its people from bombardment.

A Palestinian answered him. He conceded the diplomat's point but flipped it. He pointed out that Gaza has been under Israeli occupation for 42 years. Yes, Prime Minister Sharon removed the settlers, but Israelis control Gaza's borders, sea lanes and the air above it.

By any definition, Gaza is occupied. After all, if it wasn't, Gaza would be able to import the necessities of life for its people. It can't do that. And the result is the strangulation of Gaza's people. The rockets are Hamas' brutal way hitting back.

Israelis say that last year's war stopped the rocket fire. It did, for a while. But the cease-fire that preceded it was equally effective at stopping the rockets - without killing innocent people in the process.

Of course, Israel's goal goes beyond an end to the rockets. It wants to bring down the Hamas government in Gaza (a fine goal, but best not attempted by Israelis).

Nonetheless, the Israeli media reports that there are plans on the table for another Gaza invasion soon with the purpose of achieving "regime change." Israel has been intent upon that ever since Hamas won a Palestinian election deemed "free and fair" by international observers.

That election, of course, was the brainchild of the neocons in the Bush administration who thought that an election, if not democracy, was the cure for everything.

So the United States pushed the election on the Palestinians, Hamas won, and both the United States and Israel immediately set out to subvert the results.

The blockade is part of that strategy and few in the United States (and far fewer in Israel) much care that this immoral policy is punishing children.

(note: OVER HALF of the population in Gaza are CHILDREN.)

For instance, mothers can't heat their infants' formulas because of gas shortages; not to mention the lack of hot water in general. Schools are unable to replace the windows blown out by the Israelis during the war because they cannot import the glass or plastic. 10% of children under 5 are suffering from malnutrition. Locked in on all sides, Gaza is a ghetto of misery, pain and hunger.

Ha'aretz again: "The time has come to rethink Israeli strategy in Gaza. The economic embargo, which has brought severe distress to the inhabitants of Gaza, has not brought down Hamas, not has it freed kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The siege has only damaged Israel's image and led to accusations that it has shirked its humanitarian responsibilities in Gaza under international law.

Yes, as hard to believe as it is, Israel - the occupying power - has humanitarian responsibilities in Gaza. Ha'aretz says it has "shirked them." I'd use stronger language - like that of the Goldstone Report, which called Israeli actions in Gaza "war crimes." So what should Israel do?

It should negotiate a full-cease-fire with Hamas in exchange for lifting the blockade.

In 2008, a cease-fire lasted 26 weeks. It ended because Israel did not live up to its commitment to lift the blockade and continued, despite the cease-fire, to target and kill Hamas militants in Gaza.

Following an Israeli attack that killed six supposed terrorists inside Gaza and the tightening of the siege, Hamas resumed its rocket fire. The cease-fire was abandoned, and Israel launched its long-planned bombardment and invasion.

It is impossible to defend Hamas's attacks on Israeli civilians in Sderot and other towns. Hamas makes no distinction between a military target and a school, or between territory inside Israel and settlements in areas under occupation.

No nation would tolerate such murderous thuggery for long, if at all.

But it is equally impossible to defend Israel's siege of Gaza or the war it launched that took 1400 lives (mostly civilians, including 320 children) while itself losing nine.

I cite the number of casualties to illustrate the disparity in force available to the two sides and also because it suggests that the Gaza operation was less a war than an act of collective punishment against a civilian population.

There must be no second Gaza war.

The United States needs to tell the Netanyahu government, in no uncertain terms, that we will not sit silently by if it launches another war using weapons we supply. Nor will we use our UN vetoes to deter resolutions condemning the use of disproportionate force.

Simultaneously, we must use our influence to help achieve a deal that will end the blockade and the shelling of southern Israel simultaneously.

Those who say Hamas cannot be trusted to honor a cease-fire are wrong. Hamas, like most authoritarian groups, is very good at enforcement through intimidation. In general, that is not to its credit but in the case of enforcing a cease-fire, it is.

As the New York Times reported in December 2008, "It took some days but...Hamas imposed its will and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets. Israeli and United Nations figures show that while more than 300 rockets were fired into Israel in May, 10 to 20 were fired in July....In August, 10 to 30 were fired, and in September, 5 to 10.

In other words, it is possible, in Margaret Thatcher's famous words about Mikhail Gorbachev, "to do business" with Hamas. It is also possible to do business with Binyamin Netanyahu. We just have to be clear that when we do business, we mean business.

And that means Hamas must stop the rockets. And Israel must terminate the blockade. Enough is enough.

***

I (M.J. Rosenberg) tweet at mjmediamatters
This is crossposted at Media Matters Action Network where I (M.J. Rosenberg) work.

tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/15/lift_gaza_blockade_now/

.......................


EU parliamentary delegation visits blockaded Gaza

www.chinaview.cn
2010-01-16 00:41:47

GAZA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A high-ranking European parliamentary delegation Friday arrived in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to express solidarity with the Gaza people.

The delegation, which includes 55 parliament members of 12 European countries and the European Union, crossed into Gaza on Friday afternoon through Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Hamas said it is the first ever visit of such high-ranking European parliamentary delegation to Gaza since Hamas seized the control of the impoverished enclave in June 2007.

Hamas lawmakers received the delegation at Rafah crossing. The European parliamentarians called for the immediate end of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

British member of parliament Sir Gerald Kauffman told a news conference at Rafah crossing that the visit of the delegation "is a message of solidarity with Gaza to end the Israeli siege."

"Our suffering to arrive here is nothing compared with the longsuffering of Gaza Strip population due to the suffocating unfair Israeli siege imposed on them," said Kauffman.

As for the major Israeli offensive on Gaza last winter, he said "anyone (who) uses the white phosphoric against civilians must be taken to court for war crimes."

Meanwhile, Arafat Madi, chief of the European Campaign to challenge the Israeli blockade told reporters that the delegation "has a common goal, which is expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people."

Deputy Speaker of the Hamas-dominated parliament, who received the delegation, told reporters that the visit of the European parliamentarians "is an opportunity to show them the suffering of 1.5 million (Gaza) people."

Israel has been imposing a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control of the enclave by force and routed moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security forces.]

Editor: yan

news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/16/content_12818214.htm

.........................

Israel opens Gaza crossing, allows limited export

Published 11/01/2010 10:54
maannews.net

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli authorities on Sunday opened the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza to allow the transfer of aid and limited exports, a Palestinian border official said.

Between 93 and 103 truckloads of humanitarian aid will be permitted through the Kerem Shalom crossing, said the crossings official, Raed Fattouh.

Only one truckload of flowers and three of strawberries will be allowed out via Kerem Shalom, to be exported to Israel and abroad, he added.

The Karni crossing in northern Gaza will remain closed, Fattouh added.

The Kerem Shalom crossing was suddenly closed on Thursday after mortar shells fired by the militant wing of the Popular Resistance Committees hit near the crossing site.

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=253140

............................


The following article was written last year, but unfortunately, it is just as pertinent this year. Posted by request:

No Lovers Got These Flowers

By Mohammed Omer


Where the flowers are going / Credit:Mohammed Omer

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Feb 14, 2008 (IPS) - After generations of occupation, Valentine's Day has meant little in the Gaza Strip. But the flowers that lovers presented in Europe have.

Majed Hadaeid, 43, knows that better than most, as he watches livestock make a meal of the flowers he had hoped to export to Europe.

"I have 130 dunams (32 acres)," he says. "All carnations, in 30 different colours, and varieties yielding 16-17 million blossoms per year."

In all, about 480 dunams of plantation produce on average 60 million flowers a year in Gaza between mid-November and mid-May. The seasonal export brings five million dollars in revenue, and means 4,000 jobs.

Hadaeid's nursery is one of the largest. Farmers like him usually sell to the European floral exchange in the Netherlands for distribution. Valentine's Day on Feb. 14 brings the largest sales.

This year, it did not.

Once Israel closed the border crossings, it also ended access to markets outside of Gaza. Israel requires all of Gaza's produce to go through Israel first.

Gaza is permitted to export 75 million flowers to the EU duty free. "This year we managed to export only five million flowers to the Netherlands," says Mahmoud Khlaiel, chairman of the Flowers Producers Benevolent Association in Gaza.

Hadaeid has had to lay off all 200 of his workers. Now his millions of blossoms serve as feed for goats, donkeys, camels and sheep. He says Israel's collective punishment will cost him more than a million dollars this season.

Hadaeid, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the area, has now taken to day labour to feed his 13 children, aged six months to 20 years. The land on which he grows his flowers is on lease, and he risks losing his entire business. The profits he would normally use to pay for fertilizer, seeds, back wages and supplies are simply not there.

In Gaza, people unable to pay their debts often end up in debtor's prison, as in feudal era Europe. Hadaeid's future appears precarious. "I am not with Hamas or Fatah," he said. "I didn't vote for any party. Israel is to blame for this collective punishment for us all."

As with Hadaeid, so with others. Ayman Okal, a veteran of the industry for 14 years, stands feeding red carnations to a goat at a nearby nursery. "Every season I produce 8-9 million carnations for Christmas and Mothers Day," he says. "But Valentine's is the biggest." Except of course, this year.

Okal says the blockade has cost him around 600,000 dollars. He too has laid off his entire staff, and faces a dark future with six children to feed and a debt to pay off. Fortunately for him, he owns his land.

Producers have been asked to sign papers at the borders saying the flowers are not being exported "because Palestinian producers have decided not to continue shipping."

"This is not true," says Khlaiel. "Israel returns the flowers to Gaza after they are destroyed waiting at the crossings. It costs each grower four dollars to send each bouquet's pots, in addition to the cost of the flowers. Once destroyed through the delays, the grower still must pay the costs."

Flowers from Gaza are marketed in Europe under the brand name Coral. With Valentine's Day past, Mothers Day (May 11) is the last opportunity for growers to recoup a portion of their costs, regain their businesses - and feed their families.

Farmers are appealing to the EU and to the Netherlands to pressure Israel to open the crossings. (END/2008)

ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41198

...........


Please continue the thread with news from Haiti.
Thanks,
Jen.

[ninathedog]

First Lady Michelle Obama Supports Survivors of
Earthquake in Haiti

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-GuVuYC38

[iris]

Dear GG and Jen,

Keep up the good work with your posting. People need to know both side of the coin.

Lots of Love,
Iris

[nodstar]

White House calls Robertson's Haiti comment 'stupid'[/size]

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8460520.stm

The White House has dismissed as "stupid" comments by evangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson suggesting that quake-struck Haiti was cursed.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said he was amazed by the remarks.

During a broadcast on his Christian Broadcasting Network, Mr Robertson suggested the Haiti's earthquake was divine retribution.

He said Haiti had sworn a pact with the devil when it freed itself from French colonial rule.

The White House said the comments were completely inappropriate.

"It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid," Mr Gibbs said.

"But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity."

Mr Robertson, an 80-year-old former presidential candidate, made the comments on Wednesday on his programme, "The 700 Club".

"They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal," the televangelist said during the broadcast.

"Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other," he added, comparing Haiti to its more prosperous neighbour, the Dominican Republic.

In a statement on his network's website, spokesman Chris Roslan said Mr Robertson never said the earthquake - which is feared to have left tens of thousands dead - was God's wrath.

He added: "History, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed".