Humanitarian Issues

[ninathedog]

Jan 20, 2010 4:45:22 GMT 4 Eagles Disobey said:

EE2ASAS- "AEOP EAGLE LOVE" REPORTED SUCCESS. 200K BASIC MEALS + 15K CASES FRESH WATER DELIVERED THROUGH AE. (D. REPUBLIC A/REPS DELIVERED AFTER HAVANA C. TRANSFERRED FUNDS FROM ROMAN C PRIEST TO THEM, AFTER AE DELIVERED FUNDS TO ROMAN C. PRIEST.) P-A-P LANDING ZONE TEAM WITNESSED ARRIVAL AND DEPLOYMENT OF GOODS VIA TRUCKS. DR.DC REPORTS ESTIMATE 200K+ DEAD, SITUATION DEGRADING OUTSIDE OF UN CONTROL ZONES AND SANITATION CONTROL DROPPING, 100 MILLION BASIC MEALS NEEDED IN NEXT 30 DAYS, STATES AE OVERWHELMED BUT DID BEST IT COULD, REQUIRES LG NAT. STATES. P-A-P LANDING ZONE TEAM ASSISTED WITH RECOVERY EFFORTS FOR 20 HOURS. P-A-P LANDING ZONE TEAM SAFE EGRESS AFTER ORDERED TO EVAC BY LOC. AUTHORITIES ONCE DELIVERY COMPLETE. DR.DC REPORTED INJURED/ALIVE DURING OP FROM FALLING DEBRIS AFTER HE AND DR.MC ENTERED COLLAPSED STRUCTURE TO FREE INJURED ANIMAL. HC BIRD 2 (THE OLD ONE) F/B SORTIZ DOWN, ENG FLR, .5 KT/MI WNW MYIG, SAFE, ASHORE IN RECOVSYS, REJOINED MAIN TEAM. SOLD/SALVAGED BY CONTRACT OWL. SORTIZ WIFE/CHILD FLOWN TO MEET. OWL HC BIRD 1 AND FW BIRD 1 REPORTED IN TIE DOWN, FL. TEAM LAST REPORTED IN JACKSONVILLE, FL., AWAITING RETURN TO LAS AIRPORT, NEVADA. DELAYS EXPECTED DUE TO POOR WESTERN U.S. WEATHER. UNCENSORED PHOTOSTREAM TO FOLLOW TO ASAS VIA NODE1 AT 1800 19 JAN 10. DR.MC ORDERED LIMITED PHOTOSTREAM EXAMPLES TO PUBLIC WITH GRAPHIC IMAGERY CENSORED. MORE TO FOLLOW AFTER TEAM HAS DOWN TIME.



Personal message ordered in Marci's notes to J from Dan, on completion-


MESSAGE FROM EAGLES DISOBEY TO PUBLIC:

IF YOU CAN, PLEASE TEXT "HAITI" TO 90999 TO GIVE $10 TO THE AMERICAN RED CROSS HELP OUT IN THIS MONUMENTAL CATASTROPHE. PLEASE SEE EAGLES DISOBEY FOR A LINK TO A LIST OF TRUSTABLE AGENCIES FOR RELIEF DONATIONS.

THANK YOU.

~~ Welcome back, Angel Eagles! ~~
I'm glad you're home safely in spite of the difficulties you all faced.
I feel so proud....

Please get some rest...

Love, Jen.

[ninathedog]

Preliminary 6.1 Magnitude Quake Hits Haiti Wednesday

By Associated Press
Wall Street Journal blogs
January 20, 2010, 6:26 AM ET

UPDATE: A strong earthquake struck Haiti on Wednesday morning, shaking buildings and sending people running into the streets only eight days after the country’s capital was devastated by a previous quake.

WSJ reporter Ianthe Dugan said the quake felt mild but shook a lot of people out of bed. “Many people were running outside, saying, ‘Did you feel that earthquake?’ she said in an emailed message. “They debated whether [the quake] was small or mitigated by distance.”

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.1 magnitude quake hit at 6:03 a.m. about 35 miles northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince. It struck at a depth of 13.7 miles but was located too far inland to generate any tidal waves in the Caribbean.

Wails of terror rose Wednesday from frightened survivors of the apocalyptic quake that struck eight days ago as people as people poured out of unstable buildings. It wasn’t immediately possible to ascertain what additional damage the new quake may have caused.

Last week’s magnitude-7.0 quake killed an estimated 200,000 people in Haiti, left 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million homeless. A massive international aid effort has been launched, but is struggling with overwhelming logistical problems.


blogs.wsj.com/dispatch/2010/01/20/preliminary-60-magnitude-quake-hits-haiti-wednesday/

[ninathedog]

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[ninathedog]

Jan 16, 2010 4:18:22 GMT 4 @nodstar said:

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".
[/quote]


The 'Devil' Writes Pat Robertson A Letter

January 15, 2010
By Frank James
NPR's News Blog

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune published a letter from Satan to evangelist Pat Robertson, responding to his comment that Haiti's persistent troubles, including the earthquake, are due to a pact the nation made with Mephistopheles.

Actually, it wasn't Satan who wrote the letter but Lilly Coyle of Minneapolis writing in the persona of the hellish one.

I think she got it down pretty well. What say you?

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.

But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.

Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan
LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/the_devil_writes_pat_robertson.html

[ninathedog]

For Haiti, Some Neighborly Help From Next Door

by John Burnett
January 20, 2010
National Public Radio — Morning Edition

Listen to the Story (5 min 32 sec)
click link: www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=122733557&m=122755242


Volunteers at work Monday at the Centro Bono, a Jesuit organization in Santo Domingo.
The organization is sending medicine, food, blankets, clothing, shoes and water to Haiti.

In an unprecedented gesture of neighborliness, the Dominican Republic has opened its border to injured Haitians. Traditionally, relations between the two countries are strained at best. Now there are fresh hopes that things could improve.

Many injured Haitians are being treated at the Dario Contreras public hospital in the capital, Santo Domingo. Forlorn Haitians of all ages lie in hospital beds that line the corridors of the hospital, their gruesome wounds bandaged, their arms attached to IV bags.

Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez was the first head of state to visit Haiti after the Jan. 12 quake, and he has pledged his country's support for the reconstruction effort.

"I never thought the Dominican president would do this," said a 50-year-old Haitian woman who came to the hospital with hopes of finding her mother, who has not been heard from since the earthquake. "He extended his hand to Haitians. He's shown that he loves the people of Haiti."

All over town, Dominicans are bringing relief supplies into collection centers to be loaded onto trucks that will make the six-hour overland journey to Port-au-Prince. At Centro Bono, a Jesuit charity, volunteers pack boxes full of penicillin, canned food, toilet paper, shoes, baby food and water.

No one remembers an outpouring like this before, not even when Haiti got hit by four tropical storms in 2008 and its flooded towns begged for assistance.

But the earthquake is different, said Sonia Adames, director of the Jesuit aid center.

"Truly there is a lot of prejudice toward Haiti in the Dominican Republic. But this earthquake that has physically shaken Haiti has also shaken Dominican society. People have their hearts in their hands," Adames said.

Despite this momentary outbreak of brotherly love, the old fears are there, she said.

Indeed, in the narrow streets of the capital's old Spanish colonial sector, the earthquake has heightened age-old worries of a human stampede from Haiti that could overwhelm the Dominican Republic and dilute its Hispanic culture.

Haitians make up 10 to 20 percent of the Dominican Republic's 10 million people. They do the hard, low-paying labor such as sweeping streets, cutting sugar cane and laying bricks.

"We had lots of Haitian immigrants before, and now we're going to have even more. And for good reason, because what happened was huge," said Julio Cesar Rivera, who sells rosaries in front of the cathedral. "But we can't absorb anymore. Our hospitals don't have any more bed space. We need to help them, but we Dominicans need help, too."

Hispaniola is the only island in the world shared by two countries that are so different, said Dan O'Neil. As director of the Pan American Development Foundation in Santo Domingo for the past 12 years, O'Neil spends equal time in both countries.
Map of Haiti

"Haiti is a poor black country, French-speaking, basically living on subsistence agriculture. The Dominican Republic — Spanish, Latin, export-focused economy, tourism. You couldn't have had two more different worlds and they meet at the border," he said.

At the moment, the Dominican Republic is being transformed into a staging ground for the burgeoning Haitian relief effort, and it will continue to play this role during the long reconstruction process. With gridlock at Haiti's airport, relief workers, journalists and now the U.S. military are streaming into the Dominican Republic's airports.

"Of course, it will benefit the Dominican Republic," said Rosa Maria Garcia, president of the Dominican-Haitian Chamber of Commerce.

"It's already benefiting because everything is coming up through here. All the shops are selling more, all supermarkets are selling more. Because everybody who's buying to help Haiti is buying in the Dominican commerce," Garcia said.

Dominicans have long grimly observed Haiti's seemingly endless misfortunes, but in the past week some have dared to think: Perhaps Haiti can rebuild and get a fresh start, and things will be different this time.

Because in the end, Dominicans know they cannot fully thrive unless their destitute neighbor comes along, too.

As they say here, the island of Hispaniola is a bird with two wings, a marriage without divorce.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122733557

[ninathedog]

Jan 19, 2010 17:24:49 GMT 4 @ninathedog said:

Jan 15, 2010 23:13:50 GMT 4 @ninathedog said:

>>edited for length:

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. (color added 1/19/10 for emphasis)

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....

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

Two crossings open;
Gaza strawberries en route to France

> edited for length

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254920

Israel eases ban on Gaza's strawberry exports

Erin Cunningham, Foreign Correspondent
The National, UAE
Last Updated: January 20. 2010 10:43PM UAE / January 20. 2010 6:43PM GMT


Members of the Abu Halima family harvest strawberries at
their farm in Beit Lahiya. Heidi Levine / Sipa Press

BEIT LAHIYA // In a rare easing of its now 18-month-long economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, Israel is allowing a limited amount of produce and fresh-cut flowers to be exported from the territory this season , including one of its most important cash crops, the Gaza strawberry.

Over the past two harvesting seasons, from late November to early March, Gaza’s approximately 450 strawberry farmers were forced to either allow their crops to rot or feed them to livestock. Some of the fields, grown on hilltops in the north and used by Palestinian militants to fire rockets at Israel, were razed by Israeli forces in last year’s war.

“Last year, we lost seven dunams [0.7 hectares] of strawberries to the blockade,” said Mahmoud Abu Halima, 70, a strawberry farmer for decades in the territory’s northern town of Beit Lahiya. “This was our land for centuries and now we can do nothing with it.”

Israel and Egypt sealed the enclave’s borders to all commercial imports and exports when Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, devastating the economy and crippling Gaza’s historic and once-fruitful agricultural sector.

According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, 17 per cent of Gaza’s 30,000 dunams of cultivable land was destroyed during Israel’s three-week military operation in the territory last winter. Estimates by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) put total losses to the agricultural sector at US$268 million (Dh985m), and farmers cannot recover because of an Israeli ban on the import of such crucial materials as fertiliser, seeds, irrigation pipes and plastic sheeting for greenhouses.

Gaza’s strawberries are grown on 2,220 dunams of land, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, with the industry creating 2,000 direct and indirect jobs.

“The situation for farmers in general is very bad,” said Mohammed al Shatali, the project manager at the FAO office in Gaza. “Fertilisers aren’t allowed in – there is no food security, no income. We need to be able to rehabilitate the land so people can live normal lives. Right now, they are just surviving.”

Gaza rose to prominence as a flourishing agricultural centre under Nabataean rule more than 2,000 years ago, after its leaders developed sophisticated irrigation techniques and created along the coast a shallow, fertile valley from which to grow and export produce.

The enclave maintained its position as strategic distribution centre through the Roman and Byzantine eras and well into the rule of the Ottoman empire, growing, trading and exporting everything from dates, figs, olives and lentils to pine nuts, barley, artichokes and citrus fruit.

Gaza’s farmers were then forced to cease the planting of citrus trees after Israel’s takeover in 1967 because Israel itself is a major citrus producer. With the coastal enclave’s mild Mediterranean climate, the farmers found refuge in the planting and production of fresh-cut flowers and sweet-tasting, low-pesticide strawberries.

“You see the clay in the soil, it is perfect for strawberries. And there is no humidity,” Mr Abu Halima’s son, Ahmed, said, picking up a handful of dirt and moving the soil between his fingers. “The Israelis destroy our land again and again, but it is still here, and it is still good.”

The Abu Halimas admit their fields in Beit Lahiya were razed over the years – and even during the last war – because militants fire rockets from their land, from which you can see Israeli towns. But they are trying to keep the fighters at bay, he said.

Israel’s decision to allow a limited export of strawberries is a result of intense lobbying by the Dutch government, according to local agricultural officials. But the ruling, which allowed exports to begin through the Kerem Abu Salim crossing on January 3, is too little, too late, farmers say.

“In a normal year, we would begin exporting in mid-November, because the season ends in February,” said Yusuf Shaath, the project manager for cash crops at the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (Parc), a local development organisation that works closely with Gaza’s farmers. “So we missed more than a month of exports, meaning farmers lost around 40 per cent in terms of quantity and 70 per cent in terms of income.”

So far, Gaza’s strawberry farmers have exported 42 tonnes out of the 300 tonnes expected to be sent abroad by the end of February. If the borders were open, Mr Shaath said, 750 tonnes would go to lucrative European markets, raking in some US$10 million (Dh36.7m) for the sector.

The Abu Halimas have only exported 250kg of the two tonnes they have ready.

“The highest quality, and therefore the highest price, for strawberries is at the beginning of the season, which we lost totally,” Mr Shaath said. “Nobody is going to make any money from this – farmers will just minimise their losses.”

Now Gaza’s produce is exported to Europe through the Israeli agricultural exporter, Agrexco, partially owned by the Israeli government and which markets the goods as Palestinian under the brand-name Coral.

“We are not grateful to Israel or Agrexco for what they are doing,” Ahmed Abu Halima said. “Why should we? It is our right.”

www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100121/FOREIGN/701209934/1140

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

AFP video:
news.yahoo.com/video/business-15749628/17725405

Fresh-cut flowers from Gaza

Wed Jan 20, 7:13AM PT - AFP 1:46 | 264 views

This time last year Gaza's farmers were feeding their world-class carnations to livestock, their business crippled by an Israeli blockade. Now for the first time since Hamas Islamists seized power in June 2007, the Palestinian territory is once again exporting flowers and strawberries...
link to video -- news.yahoo.com/video/business-15749628/17725405

[nodstar]

Haiti aid gains pace after aftershock[/size]

news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/haiti-aid-gains-pace-after-aftershock-20100121-mmmf.html

ELIANE ENGELER
January 21, 2010 - 10:04

AP

Relief agencies speeded up aid to hundreds of thousands of hungry and homeless Haitian quake survivors on Wednesday, saying they apparently escaped damage from the latest aftershock to hit the Caribbean nation.

The UN's main operations centre in the capital was unharmed by the magnitude 6.1-tremor that shook the city Wednesday, UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said, and the UN food agency also reported no affects on operations.

But the Red Cross warned that Haitians struggling to survive after last week's devastating earthquake would surely be affected.

"It's incredibly traumatic for the people who survived last week to have the ground kind of regularly shaking," Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane said.

He said there appeared to be no new damage near the Port-au-Prince airport, but it was too early to say if the aftershock caused damage elsewhere.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, which says it has been carrying out 130 operations a day in different hospitals, said patients at Choscal Hospital in Port-au-Prince were so alarmed they had to be taken out of the building and put in tents outside.

MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, said the operating theatres continued to work and the number of operations per day is increasing as new surgical teams start to work.

More than 400 Red Cross workers and thousands of national volunteers were scaling up aid distribution, Cochrane said.

"It's getting closer and closer to business as usual," he told The Associated Press. "We're really scaling up in all our activities now."

Red Cross workers are distributing hygiene kits, kitchen sets, tarpaulins, ropes, mosquito nets, buckets and water purification tablets to about 300,000 people in the capital. And 500,000 litres of drinking water are being handed out every day by the Dominican Red Cross.

"They've been a huge ally partner for the Haitian Red Cross," said Cochrane.

Some of the injured who are outside the capital are now getting medical treatment from two mobile health care units, he said.

The International Organisation for Migration said it was trying to bring more plastic sheets, water containers and chemicals to purify water to 250,000 people in Port-au-Prince, but thousands more are in need of help.

Some 370,000 people are still sleeping in the open on blankets, sheets or under trees in disorganised camps across the city, the agency said. Very few have access to water.

"There are entire neighbourhoods that are empty," said Vincent Houver, IOM chief in Haiti. "The poorest of the poor have stayed in the city, but many people have left Port-au-Prince."

The international Red Cross said it has provided 12,000 people with clean water - a drop in the bucket of overall need.

"After the horror and difficulties of recent days, it is a joy to see children drink clean water and wash themselves," said Ugo Mora, a Red Cross engineer.

Other Red Cross workers set up first-aid posts in Petit-Goave, a coastal town 44 miles (70 kilometres) southwest of the capital. A Red Cross team with a surgeon was sent to Leogane, another city southwest of the capital.

"There is as much suffering in Leogane as there is in Port-au-Prince," said surgeon Hassan Nasreddine. "So far, many patients in Leogane could not be treated because the city's main hospital lacks everything."

At a news conference in Paris, Spain's defence minister said a Spanish ship would leave Thursday for Haiti with 450 military troops and 50 doctors and technicians.

© 2010 AP

[nodstar]

Second tremor rumbles across the ruins in Haiti[/size]

From The Times
January 21, 2010

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6995945.ece


The second powerful earthquake to hit Haiti in barely a week filled the streets of Port-au-Prince with terrified crowds yesterday morning, hours after rain had persuaded some people to sleep inside for the first time since the disaster on January 12.

Centred 35 miles (55km) west-southwest of Port-au-Prince, the 6.1 quake struck a few minutes before 6am, weakening structures still standing from last week and rumbling across the city for at least 15 seconds.

There were brief scenes of panic in the parks and squares serving as refugee camps and on the streets where hundreds of thousands have been sleeping without shelter for fear of aftershocks.

UN officials again pledged to speed up the distribution of water, food and medicine to communities that have still not seen any. At the same time two leading charities called for a halt to adoptions of homeless Haitian children while there was still a chance of reuniting them with family members.

As US troops mounted foot patrols for the second day in the city centre, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, admitted that there was a risk of a slide towards worse violence if frustration turned to desperation.

Looters are already risking their lives for basic foodstuff. The charred bodies of suspected thieves were left by the crowds that lynched them in at least two places, in the giant Cité de Soleil slum and on a street near the cathedral.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, called yesterday for a “Marshall Plan” for Haiti to ensure that the resources for long-term reconstruction were available.

The Haitian Government’s latest count of those already buried rose yesterday to 75,000, while its estimate of the total death toll crept up to 200,000 — the figure US officials have adopted. Another 250,000 people are estimated to have been injured, many at risk of fatal infections.

After a bitter dispute with US military air traffic controllers, the French charity Médecins sans Frontières announced yesterday that an inflatable hospital was at last being built with supplies that it claimed were diverted several times by US officials to the Dominican Republic. Five people have died as a direct result, the charity said, and many more will perish before the aid that Haitians need and have been promised finally reaches them.

[nodstar]

Port-au-Prince resilience shown as survivors still emerging[/size]

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/20/haiti-earthquake-survivors-rescue-port-prince

Child and several adults pulled from ruins one week after quake to confound rescuers' expectations

Rescuers continued today to extract survivors from the rubble of Port-au-Prince a week after the earthquake, generating rare glimpses of joy amid the desolation in Haiti's capital.

Haitian fire crews and international teams had expected to focus on the recovery of corpses by now but were instead still digging for the living after a child and ­several adults were discovered in remarkably good condition in and near the city.

A young boy named Kiki emerged with a grin and arms outstretched after being extracted from the ruins of his home in the Nazan area of the Haitan capital yesterday.

At least four adults were also pulled from debris in Port-au-Prince the same day and early today, confounding expectations that few if any people could survive more than a week trapped under collapsed concrete.

"The only word is miracle. She is not just alive, she seems in perfect condition," said Dunat Shahin, a member of a Turkish rescue team digging out a 26-year-old woman from the shattered roof of the three-storey Olympic market in Rue Lalu. "She is talking in wonderfully logical sentences," he added, wiping sweat from a face plastered grey with dust.

Scavengers heard the woman's voice at around 1pm yesterday and alerted rescuers. The Turkish team, along with French, Haitian and later US help, used drills and pick axes to widen a hole in what became an 11-hour extraction operation.

Before reaching the woman, who gave her name only as Natalie, they removed the body of a woman who was also wedged between two collapsed floors but in a different compartment. The stench of death suggested other corpses nearby. "Natalie can smell everything but can't really see anything," said Shahin.

Natalie was hauled out shortly before midnight – seven hours and seven days after the magnitude-7 quake. Dusty and weak but apparently unhurt, she greeted her rescuers with a smile and, implausibly, a song. The 26-year-old was the 73rd confirmed "live extraction" made by international teams.

"The fact that people trapped in small spaces with little or no food and water have survived so long speaks to the resilience of the Haitian people," said Rebecca Gustafson, of USAid. "Eventually this will turn into a recovery effort but right now we're looking for survivors. In this response, anything is possible."

Across town two more women were pulled from a collapsed university building, while in another part of the capital a Mexican-led team freed Ena Zizi, a 69-year-old who was attending a meeting at the residence of Haiti's Catholic archbishop when the earthquake struck.

In the darkness she had spoken with a priest who also was trapped but he fell silent after a few days, leaving her alone. "I talked only to my boss, God," she said, lying on a foil thermal blanket, her hair coated in white dust. "And I didn't need any more humans."

Doctors said Zizi was dehydrated and had a dislocated hip and a broken leg.

"I'm all right, sort of," she said.

[nodstar]

Our Basic Human Pleasures: Food, Sex and Giving

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 16, 2010

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17kristof.html

Want to be happier in 2010? Then try this simple experiment, inspired by recent scholarship in psychology and neurology. Which person would you rather be:

Richard is an ambitious 36-year-old white commodities trader in Florida. He’s healthy and drop-dead handsome, lives alone in a house with a pool, and has worked his way through a series of gorgeous women. Richard’s job is stressful, but he spent Christmas in Tahiti. Unencumbered, he also has time to indulge such passions as reading (right now he’s finishing a book called “Half the Sky”), marathon running and writing poetry. In the last few days, he has been composing an elegy about the Haiti earthquake.

Lorna is a 64-year-old black woman in Boston. She’s overweight and unattractive, even after a recent nose job. Lorna is on regular dialysis, but that doesn’t impede her active social life or babysitting her grandchildren. A retired school assistant, she is close to her 67-year-old husband and is much respected in her church for directing the music committee and the semiannual blood drive. Lorna believes in tithing (giving 10 percent of her income to charity or the church) and in the last few days has organized a church drive to raise $10,000 for earthquake relief in Haiti.

I adapted those examples from ones that Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, develops in his fascinating book, “The Happiness Hypothesis.” His point is that while most of us might prefer to trade places with Richard, Lorna is probably happier.

Men are no happier than women, and people in sunny areas no happier than people in chillier climates. The evidence on health is complex, but even chronic health problems (like those requiring dialysis) may have surprisingly little long-term effect on happiness, because we adjust to them. Beautiful people aren’t happier than ugly people, although cosmetic surgery does seem to leave patients feeling brighter. Whites are happier than blacks, but only very slightly. And young people are actually a bit less happy than older folks, at least up to age 65.

Lorna has a few advantages over Richard. She has less stress and is respected by her peers — factors that make us feel good. Happiness is tied to volunteering and to giving blood, and people with religious faith tend to be happier than those without. A solid marriage is linked to happiness, as is participation in social networks. And one study found that people who focus on achieving wealth and career advancement are less happy than those who focus on good works, religion or spirituality, or friends and family.

“Human beings are in some ways like bees,” Professor Haidt said. “We evolved to live in intensely social groups, and we don’t do as well when freed from hives.”

Happiness is, of course, a complex concept and difficult to measure, and John Stuart Mill had a point when he suggested: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

But in any case, nobility can lead to happiness. Professor Haidt notes that one thing that can make a lasting difference to your contentment is to work with others on a cause larger than yourself.

I see that all the time. I interview people who were busy but reluctantly undertook some good cause because (sigh!) it was the right thing to do. Then they found that this “sacrifice” became a huge source of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Brain scans by neuroscientists confirm that altruism carries its own rewards. A team including Dr. Jorge Moll of the National Institutes of Health found that when a research subject was encouraged to think of giving money to a charity, parts of the brain lit up that are normally associated with selfish pleasures like eating or sex.

The implication is that we are hard-wired to be altruistic. To put it another way, it’s difficult for humans to be truly selfless, for generosity feels so good.

“The most selfish thing you can do is to help other people,” says Brian Mullaney, co-founder of Smile Train, which helps tens of thousands of children each year who are born with cleft lips and cleft palates. Mr. Mullaney was a successful advertising executive, driving a Porsche and taking dates to the Four Seasons, when he felt something was missing and began volunteering for good causes. He ended up leaving the business world to help kids smile again — and all that makes him smile, too.

So at a time of vast needs, from Haiti to our own cities, here’s a nice opportunity for symbiosis: so many afflicted people, and so much benefit to us if we try to help them. Let’s remember that while charity has a mixed record helping others, it has an almost perfect record of helping ourselves. Helping others may be as primal a human pleasure as food or sex.

[cosmicstar]

As I was looking at various websites to see what they might be doing to help the recovery in Haiti I came across this blog piece at Bioneers.org. They are all about creating sustainability etc.

connect.bioneers.org/profiles/blogs/haiti-earthquake-recovery


Haiti Earthquake Recovery

* Posted by Esther on January 15, 2010 at 2:25pm
* View Esther's blog

My heart goes out to all the people who have been affected by the earthquake in Haiti. And, I'm even more saddened by the many hoaxes related to relief efforts. We all know that the Haitian communities need help, but where will our assistance really be of the greatest use?

A friend of mine sent me a link to the Lambi Fund of Haiti Earthquake Recovery effort. And, to me, this really makes a lot of sense. The Haitian people will be dealing with the after-effects of the earthquake for years to come.

Here's what the Lambi Fund plans to do:

* We expect a tremendous outmigration from Port au Prince back to the rural villages. This will stretch the capacity of peasant organizations with which Lambi Fund partners. We will help members of peasant groups get food and essentials for their families to re-establish their lives.
* Provide seeds, tools and equipment for peasant groups to plant more crops to feed local communities.
* Rebuild grain mills, sugar cane mills, and other economic development community enterprises lost in the earthquake. These buildings are the centers of communities’ economic livelihoods.
* Recapitalize micro–credit funds run by peasant organizations so that people can replenish and continue their small businesses.


I'd love to hear more about what you all are doing to support the Haitian people. I know some people are traveling to the area to offer what assistance they can. And, we've sent money... There's such an outpouring of support! But, I also want to be a part of a sustainable future for the Haitian people.

Tags: aid, earthquake, haiti, seeds, support

[ninathedog]

With their trunks holding donation baskets, elephants walk through Bangkok, Thailand, as part of the Red Cross appeal for victims of the Haiti earthquake.

BBC News—Day in Pictures
Page last updated at 18:03 GMT, Thursday, 21 January 2010

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8472188.stm

[nodstar]

What is delaying Haiti's aid?[/size]

Thursday, 21 January 2010

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8472670.stm

The earthquake in Haiti has left an estimated 1.5 million people homeless and tens of thousands without access to food, water and medical supplies. The UN says the scale of the disaster is "historic", with its staff confronting devastation and logistical problems on a scale never seen before.

Here is a look at some of the issues agencies say have hampered the aid effort and how they are being dealt with.

SCALE OF DISASTER

Damage to Port-au-Prince, Haiti
The devastation has been described as 'historic' in scale

Aid agencies say Haiti is quite simply one of the worst disasters they have ever handled.

"In every direction the task is huge, it is an historic challenge" UN spokesman Elisabeth Byrs told the BBC.

"We are trying to run an operation for three million people, the task is huge and the coordination is immense."

They say that while images of the misery in Haiti can spread rapidly around the world, aid supplies and skilled people cannot travel so fast.

"Haiti is definitely the most complex emergency to date," said Jean Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

He said it was difficult for those not involved in emergency aid to understand how difficult the operations can be.

"The fact that the reporting is immediate might give the impression that aid can be sorted out in such a fashion, but you can't do that because of the scale of the operation and complexity."

AIRPORTS AND PORTS

Aid at the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (18 Jan 2010)
Aid groups say supplies have been stuck at the airport

While the main airport in Port-au-Prince was not put out of action by the quake, it is not equipped to deal with the volume of flights arriving.

There have been complaints of huge backlogs, with some aircraft circling for hours or being diverted to the Dominican Republic. Paul Peachy of Christian Aid said it had difficult even getting emergency staff to Haiti.

The UN says 150 planes are now landing daily in Port-au-Prince but the US Army, which has taken over control of the airport, says 1,500 planes are still scheduled to arrive.

To speed up the process, aid flights are also coming into and out of the neighbouring Dominican Republic and in smaller airports in Haiti.

Port-au-Prince's main port was also badly damaged by the quake and other ports in the area could only accept smaller vessels. One of the two piers in the capital's docks reopened on Thursday, allowing bulkier shipments to be delivered by sea.

But on Thursday, Haiti's President Rene Preval joined several aid agencies in saying it is what happens when aid arrives in the country that is the problem.

"People say to us: Where are the trucks to transport the aid? Where are the depots to store what arrives?" said Mr Preval.

"What's important is coordination of the aid, so that we know what we receive, in what quantity, when and how it's distributed."

DAMAGE TO ROADS

Damaged road in Leogane, Haiti (20 Jan 2010)
Damaged roads make it harder to move resources around the country

Moving aid to where it is needed has been hampered by damage to roads, piles of rubble in the streets or by the sheer volume of people trying to move out of or around the capital.

"Road corridors are heavy with traffic, so travelling takes hours," said Ms Byrs of the UN.

Aid agencies also report a lack of trucks and a lack of fuel but said supplies were now starting to arrive. They also hope to start employing local people soon in rubble clearing so reconstruction can begin.

The fact that many roads were damaged also meant that survivors have tended to gather in small groups, rather than in larger camps, he said.

"It is very difficult to reach out systematically when you've got hundreds of groups of people in Port-au-Prince and the vicinity," he said.

"If you manage to get tens of thousands of displaced people in one place you obviously streamline the distribution."

The US has carried out air drops of basic supplies in some areas, but this is considered a last resort as it is considered inefficient and can lead to unrest on the ground as people compete for the few supplies.

INFRASTRUCTURE
Camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (21 Jan 2010)
Aid groups were unable to broadcast information to camps

Phones and internet links were down in many areas of Haiti for some time after the quake, making it harder for agencies to coordinate their efforts.

Mr Peachy of Christian Aid said it had been impossible to contact his colleagues in Haiti for the first 48 hours after the quake.

But Mr Chauzy of the IOM said the lack of communications also meant it was hard to tell people needing aid where they could go to collect it.

"Now the media is up and running, local radio station have started broadcasting and the UN's Radio Minustah has started broadcasting in Creole," he said.

Many NGOs based in Haiti lost staff and equipment in the disaster, which meant the systems they had in place could not be used. Christian Aid was one of many to lose its entire building.

Aside from the practical losses, many aid workers are also dealing with grief as they carry out their work.

"For the moment we are concentrating - and I would say escaping - with the work. After, we will experience the emotions," said Ms Byrs at the UN.
SAFETY ISSUES

Armed police confront looters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (20 Jan 2010)
Armed police have been deployed to deter looting and violence

There has been concern about the security situation in Haiti, with fears that people not receiving aid would turn to violence.

John O'Shea of Irish charity Goal told the Guardian newspaper he could not allow aid workers to move into Haiti from the Dominican Republican because he had "no guarantee that the people driving them are not going to be macheted to death on the way down".

But while there have been reports of looting and some incidents of violence, other agencies say they have been impressed by how Haitians have responded to the disaster.

Ms Byrs said the capital was "tense but calm" and that the few examples of violence were not representative of Haitian people.

"We are seeing a huge solidarity between Haitian people. They resilient, they taken their fate into own hands from the very beginning," she said.

Jean Philippe Chauzy of French agency Acted said the security issues in Haiti should neither be over-played nor used as an excuse to prevent aid deliveries.

"The needs are there, people are desperate, if you don't distribute the assistance, people will be even more desperate and ready to resort to anything."

On Thursday, a truck run by the US-based Catholic Relief Service was reported to have been overrun by desperate people when it arrived at a makeshift camp in the town of Leogane.

But Adrien Tomarchio of Acted says the main safety concern has been for those people receiving aid.

"The best process is not to start distribution at once and announce it so everyone comes," he says.

"We make sure we can set up a proper secured distribution point, where people can come one-by-one. The aim is to deliver to the most vulnerable people first, then we also can focus on other groups."


CO-OPERATION

The US Army has been deployed in vast numbers in Haiti, both to help with the aid effort and to help maintain law and order.
US troops sort aid in Haiti (19 Jan 2010)
The US has tens of thousands of troops in the country

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has complained that the rush to get troops into the country has been at the expense of the delivery of humanitarian supplies.

"Everything has been mixed together and the urgent and vital attention to the people have been delayed while military logistics - which is useful but not on day three, not on day four, but maybe on day eight - has really jammed the airport and led to this mismanagement."

MSF say one of its planes carrying 12 tonnes of medical supplies was repeatedly turned away from the airport despite having prior permission to land.

John O'Shea of Goal said the failure of the UN and US to work together was leading to "a situation of utter chaos".

The UN has dismissed such criticism, saying it "underestimated the logistical difficulties" and that the US was the only country in the region capable of providing logistical support on the scale needed.

"We are not talking about politics, this is humanitarian. Our goal is to delivery assistance as soon as possible and co-ordination is vital - without it you can't get the right aid to the most vulnerable," said spokeswoman Ms Byrs.

RESPONSIBLE AID

Aid agencies are keen to stress that the response to a disaster such as Haiti must be responsible and durable. The last thing they want is for the mechanisms they put in place to lead to long term harm for the people they are trying to help.
People reach for aid in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (19 Jan 2010)
Badly managed distributions can mean the most needy go without

Adrien Tomarchio, of French agency Acted, told the BBC the aim when distributing food is to get it to the right people quickly, rather than just get it out quickly.

"If we distribute food all at once, some people will take more then they need and there is the risk of them selling food items, rather than it reaching the people that need it," he said.

"The aim is to deliver to the most vulnerable people, then we can focus on other groups."

In the case of shelter, there is little point in building a camp for displaced people without confirming they will be able to stay there, possibly for many months.

Agencies have had to work with the local authorities to determine whether the land is suitable, whether it can be properly equipped with shelter and sanitation.

Land rights issues also do not disappear after a disaster, so agencies have to establish who owns the land on which they hope to build.

"You can't just go there and get land, level it and start building," says Jean Philippe Chauzy of IOM.

Haiti's rainy season begins in May or June, so camps cannot be placed in areas which are likely to be flooded in the next few months.

IOM, working with troops from Minustah, have started clearing a patch of land in a suburb about 10km out of Port-au-Prince, but say further camps will almost certainly be needed.

As recovery begins, it is important that as many Haitians that can return to work do. A camp which is too far away from the capital for them to be able to travel in for work will benefit no one.

[ninathedog]

Jan 18, 2010 6:38:50 GMT 4 @ninathedog said:

Jan 18, 2010 0:37:07 GMT 4 @iris said:

DEAR DR DAN, MARCIA AND THEIR WONDERFUL TEAM!

WE PRAY FOR YOU AND FOR THE PEOPLE IN HAITI.

THE CANADIAN PEOPLE COLLECTED MORE THEN $25 MILLION AND OUR GOVERNMENT PROMISED TO MATCH THIS AMOUNT. BOTTLED WATER, FOOD ETC. WATER PRUFICATION SYSTEM ALREADY ON ITS WAY.

PLEASE TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF AND EACH OTHER!

LOTS OF LOVE ,
Iris

(just because it bore repeating)


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

The following is a tough read and I'm posting it here even though I'm not able to read through it myself, in the hopes that maybe these people can be helped??? Thank you, Eagles, for all you do! BE SAFE. Love, Jen.


Elderly and abandoned, 85 Haitians await death

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer – 20 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The old lady crawls in the dirt, wailing for her pills. The elderly man lies motionless as rats pick at his overflowing diaper.

There is no food, water or medicine for the 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home, barely a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from the airport where a massive international aid effort is taking shape.

"Help us, help us," 69-year-old Mari-Ange Levee begged Sunday, lying on the ground with a broken leg and ribs. A cluster of flies swarmed the open fracture in her skull.

One man had already died, and administrator Jean Emmanuel said more would follow soon unless water and food arrive immediately.

"I appeal to anybody to bring us anything, or others won't live until tonight," he said, motioning toward five men and women who were having trouble breathing, a sign that the end was near. Hours later, an elderly woman succumbed.

The dead man was Joseph Julien, a 70-year-old diabetic who was pulled from the partially collapsed building and passed away Thursday for lack of food.

His rotting body lies on a mattress, nearly indistinguishable from the living around him, so skinny and tired they seemed to be simply waiting for death.

With six residents killed in the quake, the institution now has 25 men and 60 women camped outside their former home. Some have a mattress in the dirt to lie on. Others don't.

Madeleine Dautriche, 75, said some of the residents had pooled their money to buy three packets of pasta, which the dozens of pensioners shared on Thursday, their last meal. Since there was no drinking water, some didn't touch the noodles because they were cooked in gutter water.

Dautriche noted that many residents wore diapers that hadn't been changed since the quake.

"The problem is, rats are coming to it," she said.

Though very little food aid had reached Haitians anywhere by Sunday, Emmanuel said the problem was made worse at the nursing home because it is located near Place de la Paix, an impoverished downtown neighborhood.

The hospice, known as "Hospice Municipal," is near a rundown soccer stadium, stuck between the port and Bel-Air, traditionally one of Haiti's most violent and dangerous slums.

Thousands of homeless slum dwellers have pitched their makeshift tents on the nursing home's ground, in effect shielding the elderly patients from the outside world with a tense maze of angry people, themselves hungry and thirsty.

"I'm pleading for everyone to understand that there's a truce right now, the streets are free, so you can come through to help us," said Emmanuel, 27, one of the rare officials not to have fled the squalor and mayhem. He insisted that foreign aid workers wouldn't be in danger if they tried to cross through the crowd to reach the elderly group.

Violent scuffles erupted Saturday in the adjacent soccer stadium when U.S. helicopters dropped boxes of military rations and Gatorade. But none of this trickle of help had reached the nursing home residents, who said some refugees have robbed them of what little they had.

Dautriche, who was sitting on the ground because of her broken back, held out an empty blue plastic basin. "My underwear and my money were in there," she said, sobbing. "Children stole it right in front of me and I couldn't move."

The area was an eery corner of silence within the clamor of crying babies and toddlers running naked in the mud. Guarding the little space was Phileas Julien, 78, a blind man in a wheelchair who shouted at anybody approaching to turn back.

During moments of lucidity, Julien said he was better off than other pensioners because the medicine he was taking provided sustenance. A moment later, he threw his arms out to hug a passer-by he mistook for his grandson.

Also trying to guard the center was Jacqueline Thermiti, 71, who couldn't stand because of pain but who brandished her walking stick when children approached.

"Of all the wars and revolutions and hurricanes, this quake is the worst thing God has ever sent us," Thermiti said.

Initially, Thermiti and others believed their relatives would come to feed them, because many live in the slums nearby. "But I don't even know if my children are alive," she said.

Thermiti was surprisingly feisty for someone who hadn't eaten since Tuesday. She attributed that to experience with hunger during earlier hardships.

"But I was younger, and now there's no water either," she said.

She predicted that unlike other pensioners, she could still hold out for at least another day.

"Then if the foreigners don't come (with aid)," she said, "it will be up to baby Jesus."

One of the struggling residents had died by nightfall Sunday, when Associated Press journalists returned to the nursing home. Tsida-Edith Andre, about 90, had been too old and too weak to hold out through the afternoon heat, said Nixon Plantain, a hospice cleaner who was planning to spent the night there.

Next to him, Michel Lina, 22, was spoonfeeding boiled rice to her paralyzed grandfather in a wheelchair. Plantain said she was the first relative to have come with food. He helped Lina give out tiny mouthfuls to others.

That food, along with a carton of water bottles brought by an AP reporter, was the only aid the residents received Sunday, Plantain said.

The cleaner-turned-caretaker tried to pour a trickle of water into the mouth of Mesalia Joseph, one of a small group he said probably wouldn't make it through night.

"Don't give me any," Joseph mumbled, saying she was too hungry to drink.

Curled in a fetal position, she seemed to have already given up.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100118/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_waiting_to_die

Help finally starts to get to Haiti nursing home

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 50 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The nursing home where she lived is in ruins. So Merzelia Joseph stood up next to her bed in the open and urinated on the ground.

"I'm so weak, I can't walk," said Joseph, a blue plastic rosary strung around her neck. "We are all very, very hungry. Somebody brought us some spaghetti today, but I am still hungry and we have nothing to drink."

Another elderly woman, Elmina Joseph, broke in to shout: "We're not hungry. We're starving! We're dying here and nobody is helping us."

Four days after The Associated Press first reported on more than 80 elderly Haitians begging for food and medicine in a downtown Port-au-Prince slum, aid was finally trickling in Thursday. A nun distributed small bowls of spaghetti to the old people, and two aid workers arrived from HelpAge International, a London-based organization that helps the elderly.

But it wasn't nearly enough, and the pensioners continued to suffer just a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from the international airport where aid is pouring in. Their plight underlined the Darwinism in the aftermath of last week's 7.0-magnitude earthquake: As survivors scramble for food and water, it is the weakest who go without.

"What can you say?" said Louis Belanger, a spokesman for Oxfam Great Britain. "It is very often the case that the strongest and fittest get help. ... Those left behind are the elderly and the women with children, so we are working hard to make sure aid is coordinated."

On the grounds of the Municipal home for the elderly Thursday, old people lay listlessly in beds out in the open with sheets smeared with excrement, surrounded by hundreds of people living in makeshift tents. One man wore just a T-shirt, hsi private parts exposed. A woman, just skin and bones, held her head. A body lay in the debris of the nearby nursing home.

Six pensioners died in the Jan. 12 earthquake, part of an estimated 200,000 victims. Another three have since perished of hunger and exhaustion. Two are buried 10 feet (three meters) away near the walls of a destroyed chapel. A dirty red sheet covers the body of the third. Several more are barely clinging on after days of slow agony.

Of the 329 living camps that have sprung up around Port-au-Prince, 10 are full of old people, according to HelpAge International. The group said it is working with the Haitian charity CARPA to help the residents from several homes fopr the elderly.

On Thursday, HelpAge workers brought tarpaulins to the Municipal home, which they tied to the branches of trees to provide some shade in the tropical heat. Emergency programs coordinator Margaret Chilcott said the group will hire someone to do some cooking and get water points set up. Chilcott also noted that more caregivers were needed, and said she saw one man not eating despite his hunger, apparently because he couldn't eat without help.

"There are a whole lot of issues here — protection issues, health issues," Chilcott said. "Now that we have seen what the need is, we can move very quickly."

A young Haitian caretaker on the scene was grooming the old ladies' hair.

"They haven't eaten for days because we don't have anything to give them," said Celires Jean-Baptiste, 49. "We have no water. We have no soap to bathe them. We have no food. We have nothing.

"I just have to do what I can," she said, as she tried to comb the knots out of the hair of Anacia Aleius, who banged her fist on the bed in pain.

The pensioners have had little help in the past week. On Sunday, refugees pulled their beds out into the open so they wouldn't sleep in the dirt among the running rats. Some relatives and volunteers have since offered what tiny food portions they could, or helped clean and medicate the worse-off patients.

On Monday, the Brazilian aid group Viva Rio brought a large tanker of drinking water, the first large-scale aid to arrive.

John Lebrun, one of the nursing home's former cleaners, also carried in a bag of rice that was cooked the same day. "I found it in a storage house nearby," he said. He wouldn't elaborate on how he secured such a costly good — a 110-pound bag of rice now costs $60 amid the shortages — but grinned evasively and said it came from a "broken" store.

It was the pensioners' first meal in four days, and their last until a nun delivered spaghetti on Thursday.

The food did not come in time for Jean-Marc Luis. He died Wednesday night.

"He died of hunger," said security guard Nixon Plantin.

___

Associated Press writers Alfred de Montesquiou in Port-au-Prince and John Rice in Mexico City contributed to this report.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100121/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_waiting_to_die

[ninathedog]

Haitian orphans: Americans fight red tape to hasten adoptions

The US government has expedited orphan transfers after the earthquake in Haiti. But aid groups worry about trafficking children whose parents or other relatives still may be alive.

By Patrik Jonsson Staff writer
The Christian Science Monitor
January 21, 2010

Atlanta--A shy girl named Dania cradled a doll during her “homecoming,” and an extroverted boy named Jimmy sang for a crowd of reporters – among the first of some 900 Haitian orphans expected to be airlifted out of the earthquake-damaged island nation and brought to America.

The State Department’s expedited transfer of Haitian orphans to adoptive parents in the United States has become one of the most ennobling, but also potentially controversial, moments of the Haitian earthquake tragedy, which has reportedly killed tens of thousands of people and left thousands of children orphaned.

The image of Haitian children arriving in the arms of new US parents is part of a massive outpouring of concern. Americans are now bombarding adoption agencies with offers to help care for the children. Some US aid organizations, including Roman Catholic groups in Miami, are urging the State Department to go well beyond expediting some 900 already-approved adoptions and bring thousands of earthquake orphans to the US as soon as possible.

“This is a battle between the gut and the mind: The gut wants to go get all the kids, and the mind has to be persuaded that, as good as the motives are, that may not be the right answer for all these kids,” says Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonpartisan think tank on global adoption policy.

Visa requirements waived

The unprecedented new US policy, announced Monday night by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, involves waiving visa requirements for kids already in the adoption pipeline, including some children who had been paired with US parents but whose adoptions had not been approved by Haitian officials.

But even as American communities welcome new adoptees into their midst and would-be parents come forward, international aid groups are urging US authorities to tread carefully to make sure children aren’t adopted away from living parents or relatives, and to keep smuggling rings from expanding on the poverty-ravaged island, once occupied by the US.

"Any hasty new adoptions would risk permanently breaking up families, causing long-term damage to already vulnerable children, and could distract from aid efforts in Haiti," the aid groups Save the Children, World Vision, and the British Red Cross said in a joint statement.

There are more than 200 orphanages in Haiti, but the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that not all the children are real orphans – and that smugglers in some cases buy children from poor parents to be sold to white adoptive parents in the US and elsewhere.

Lessons from Indonesia and Sri Lanka

Even as international adoption demands grow, countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka have crafted stricter adoption policies to shield children from being torn from their own cultures. Critics say those policies reflect political interests and extend the amount of time children spend in institutions or on the streets.

That tension has already become evident as the orphan crisis grows in Haiti.

A delegation led by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell flew the first group of children out this week, but only after a protracted battle with Haitian officials, who under pressure from US officials finally relented and approved the transfers of all 54 children. The airlift appeared to buck the new US policy, since seven of the children had no adoptive parents lined up in the US.

One of those who did have a home waiting was 7-year-old Dania, adopted by Nathan and Catrina Brock of Toccoa, Ga. The disaster has left the girl, already shy, even more subdued, Mr. Brock said at a press conference this week in Pittsburgh. “I want to get her into dirt bikes, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” her new brother, Austin, told reporters.

Not knowing if big-eyed Dania was all right after the earthquake, “I had moments of madness,” Ms. Brock told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, explaining that the girl’s paperwork had already been lost twice as they went through a four-year process of getting a Haitian adoption approved.

The Brocks thanked state and US officials for shifting national policy to help Haiti’s struggling children.

“The world’s eyes are on Haiti,” said Ms. Brock. “There are so many orphans. Taking care of widows and orphans is God’s greatest calling for our lives.”


www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0121/Haitian-orphans-Americans-fight-red-tape-to-hasten-adoptions