Humanitarian Issues

[ninathedog]

Haiti to resettle 400,000 quake victims to camps

By MICHELLE FAUL and TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press Writers – 46 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Within days, the government will move 400,000 people made homeless by Haiti's epic earthquake from their squalid improvised camps throughout the shattered capital to new resettlement areas on the outskirts, a top Haitian official said Thursday.

Authorities are worried about sanitation and disease outbreaks in makeshift settlements like the one on the city's central Champs de Mars plaza, said Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval.

"The Champ de Mars is no place for 1,000 or 10,000 people," Longchamp told The Associated Press. "They are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities."

He said buses would start moving the displaced people within a week to 10 days, once new camps are ready. Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers were already leveling land in the suburb of Croix des Bouquets for a new tent city, the Geneva-based intergovernmental International Organization for Migration reported Thursday.

The hundreds of thousands whose homes were destroyed in the Jan. 12 quake had settled in more than 200 open spaces around the city, the lucky ones securing tents for their families, but most having to make do living under the tropical sun on blankets, on plastic sheets or under tarpaulins strung between tree limbs.

The announcement came as search-and-rescue teams packed their dogs and gear Thursday, with hopes almost gone of finding any more alive in the ruins. The focus shifted to keeping injured survivors alive, fending off epidemics and getting help to the hundreds of homeless still suffering.

"We're so, so hungry," said Felicie Colin, 77, lying outside the ruins of her Port-au-Prince nursing home with dozens of other elderly residents who have hardly eaten since the earthquake hit on Jan. 12.

A melee erupted at one charity's food distribution point as people broke into the storehouse, ran off with food and fought each other over the bags.

As aftershocks still shook the city, aid workers were streaming into Haiti with water, food, drugs, latrines, clothing, trucks, construction equipment, telephones and tons of other relief supplies. The international Red Cross called it the greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history.

But the built-in bottlenecks of this desperately poor, underdeveloped nation and the sheer scale of the catastrophe still left many of the hundreds of thousands of victims without help. The U.S. military reported a waiting list of 1,400 international relief flights seeking to land on Port-au-Prince's single runway, where 120 to 140 flights were arriving daily.

"They don't see any food and water coming to them, and they are frustrated," said Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

Four ships managed to dock at the capital's earthquake-damaged port, holding out the promise of a new avenue for getting aid to the city. A Danish navy ship was seen unloading crates. But the going was slow, since only one truck at a time could maneuver on the crack-riven pier.

The picture was especially grim at emergency medical centers, where shortages of surgeons, nurses, their tools and supplies have backed up critical cases.

"A large number of those coming here are having to have amputations, since their wounds are so infected," said Brynjulf Ystgaard, a Norwegian surgeon at a Red Cross field hospital.

Food was reaching tens of thousands, but the need was much greater. Perhaps no one was more desperate than the 80 or so residents of the damaged Municipal Nursing Home, in a slum near the shell of Port-au-Prince's devastated cathedral. The quake killed six of the elderly, three others have since died of hunger and exhaustion, and several more were barely clinging to life.

"Nobody cares," said Phileas Justin, 78. "Maybe they do just want us to starve to death."

In the first eight days after the quake, they had eaten just a bit of pasta cooked in gutter water and a bowl of rice each. On Thursday, they had a small bowl of spaghetti and five bags of rice and beans, and cooking oil, were delivered.

A dirty red sheet covered the body of Jean-Marc Luis, who died late Wednesday. "He died of hunger," said security guard Nixon Plantin. On Thursday, four days after The Associated Press first reported on the patients' plight, workers from the British-based HelpAge International visited and said they would help.

One by one, such deaths were adding to a Haitian government-estimated toll of 200,000 dead, as reported by the European Commission. It said 250,000 people were injured and 2 million homeless in the nation of 9 million.

As U.S. troops began patrolling Port-au-Prince to boost security, sporadic looting and violence continued.

At a building in the Carrefour neighborhood where the multi-faith Eagle Wings Foundation of West Palm Beach, Florida, was to distribute food, quake victims from a nearby tent camp suddenly stormed the stores and made off with what the charity's Rev. Robert Nelson said were 50 tons of rice, oil, dried beans and salt. Fights broke out as others stole food from the looters.

At least 124 people were saved by search-and-rescue teams that worked tirelessly since soon after the quake, the European Commission reported. But as hopes faded Thursday, so long after untold numbers were trapped in the debris, some of the 1,700 specialists, working in four dozen teams with 160 dogs, began demobilizing.

Joe Downey, a fire battalion chief from an 80-member New York City police and firefighter unit, said this was the worst destruction his rescue team had ever seen.

"Katrina was bad," he said of the 2005 hurricane. "But this was a magnitude at least 100 times worse."

On Thursday, 18 hospitals and emergency field hospitals were working in Port-au-Prince. But the burden was overwhelming: Some quake victims have waited for a week for treatment, and patients were dying of sepsis from untreated wounds, according to Dr. Greg Elder, deputy operations manager for Doctors Without Borders.

The Pan American Health Organization said hospitals need more orthopedic surgeons and nurses, more supplies, and better sanitation and water.

The Haitian government asked that mobile clinics be set up in all of the more than 280 sites where Port-au-Prince's now-homeless have resettled in tents or in the open air on blankets and plastic sheets.

Doctors warned, too, of potential outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory-tract infections and other communicable diseases among hundreds of thousands living in overcrowded camps with poor sanitation. A team of epidemiologists was on its way to assess that situation, the Pan American Health Organization said.

The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, which dropped anchor Wednesday outside Port-au-Prince harbor, should help significantly. It was reinforcing its crew to 800 doctors, nurses and medical technicians, increasing its hospital beds to almost 1,000, and boosting its operating rooms from six to 11 in the next few days, the Navy said.

The Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, taking over a small police port as a triage center, were helicoptering injured out to the Comfort on Thursday. "I'm hoping to get nearly 200 out today," said Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Grabus, in charge of the landing zone where more than 30 choppers were in action.

Nervously waiting to be airlifted with her 1-year-old boy to the Comfort, Shamaelle Gelin, 22, said his fractured leg had gone untreated for a week and was badly infected. She was a "bit scared" about her first flight and shipboard experience, "but of course I'll stay with him," she said.

Almost $1 billion in foreign aid has been pledged to help Haiti recover from the quake, and the White House said the U.S. share has climbed to about $170 million.

The U.N. World Food Program said it has delivered at least 1 million rations to about 200,000 people, with each ration providing the equivalent of a daily three meals. In the coming days, it plans to deliver five-day rations to 100,000 people a day, it said. The U.S. military said it was resuming air drops of water and meals on parachute pallets into zones secured by U.S. troops.

On a hillside golf course overlooking Port-au-Prince, where a U.S. 82nd Airborne Division unit set up its aid base, a tent city of tens of thousands grew daily as word spread that the paratroopers were distributing food.

"They are coming from all over the city," said bookkeeper and camp resident Augustin Evans, 30. "They are coming because they are hungry."

Beyond the capital, closer to the quake's epicenter to the southwest, hundreds of Marines and Canadian troops were deploying around Leogane and Jacmel.

More than 2,600 U.S. soldiers, Marines and airmen were on the ground in Haiti, and more than 10,000 sailors and others were offshore. The number on the ground was expected to grow to 4,600 by the weekend.

In view of continuing looting and violence, American forces were expected to reinforce the long-established U.N. peacekeeping force here in escorting aid convoys. The U.N. was adding 2,000 peacekeepers to the 7,000 already in Haiti, and 1,500 more police to the 2,100-member international force.

Haiti accepted an offer from the Dominican Republic to send 150 troops to help secure the crucial main road from the Dominican border to Port-au-Prince, the United Nations announced Thursday

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this story included Alfred de Montesquiou, Mike Melia, Jonathan M. Katz and Kevin Maurer in Port-au-Prince; Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza in Mexico City; Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Pauline Jelinek in Washington.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake

[ninathedog]

Jan 22, 2010 5:37:04 GMT 4 @ninathedog said:

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

Haiti earthquake: aid agencies fear child trafficking

Unicef warns people to avoid adopting Haiti orphans for fear of encouraging child trafficking

Esther Addley
Guardian.co.uk
Friday 22 January 2010 18.56 GMT

Aid agencies continued to warn against adopting children from Haiti today, amid unconfirmed reports that a number of children who had gone missing from hospitals in the devastated country may have been trafficked.

An adviser for Unicef told reporters that about 15 children had disappeared from hospitals, presumed taken.

Jean Luc Legrand was quoted as saying: "Unicef has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti which existed before, and unfortunately many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption 'market'."

A spokesman for the charity said it could not confirm the figures but had referred the reports to the Haitian government, which was investigating. It has stepped up its efforts to ensure all children under five are in a safe place and properly fed by this weekend.

Hannah Reichardt, emergencies adviser for Save the Children, said: "This is why child protection is utmost in our concern at the moment, particularly because we know that child trafficking was already a problem in Haiti before the quake."

She said tracing families was the "primary important thing that we do" at this stage in an emergency, alongside aid distribution. Save the Children is now ­coordinating all family tracing work in Haiti at the request of the UN. Twenty-nine agencies are currently pooling child protection resources in the country.

Both charities have joined other agencies which have warned would-be parents against hasty adoptions of children who would appear to have been orphaned.

Bethany Christian Services, a US adoption agency, said it had received more than 1,000 requests for adoption applications, while the Joint Council on International Children's Services, a US advocacy organisation, said it had received 150 enquiries about Haitian adoption in three days, compared with 10 a month normally.

It said that evacuating children from Haiti at present, even with altruistic motives, was "premature and dangerous".

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/haiti-warning-child-trafficking

[ninathedog]

Sitting in a public place with WiFi access, I was stunned to hear an elderly woman complaining to her elderly male companion about the size of the monetary amount of aid being sent to Haiti. She seemed to think it was far too much. If she were the victim of such a large-scale natural disaster, wouldn't she want, even expect, to be helped?? The insensitivity of some people utterly boggles my brain. As a side-note, her companion did not bother to respond to her complaints.

........

Many flee Haiti capital, govt plans tent cities

By Alfred De Montesquiou And Michelle Faul, Associated Press Writers – 54 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haitians are fleeing their quake-ravaged capital by the hundreds of thousands, aid officials said Friday, as their government promised to help nearly a half-million more move from squalid camps on curbsides and vacant lots into safer, cleaner tent cities.

Relatives said they pulled an 84-year-old woman from the wreckage of her home on Friday, 10 days after the magnitude-7.0 quake, but some teams were giving up the search and efforts focused on expanding aid for survivors. It had been more than a day since the last person was rescued live from the rubble.

Aid officials said some 200,000 people have crammed into buses, nearly swamped ferries and set out even on foot to escape the ruined capital. For those who stay, foreign engineers have started leveling land on the fringes of the city for tent cities, supposedly temporary, that are meant to house 400,000 people.

The goal is to halt the spread of disease at hundreds of impromptu settlements that have no water and no place for sewage. Homeless families have erected tarps and tents, cardboard and scrap as shelter from the sun, but they will be useless once the summer rainy season hits.

The new camps "are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities," Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Doctors, meanwhile, were trying to save the life of 84-year-old Marie Carida Romain, whose relatives said they freed her Friday from the ruins of her house.

Yves Romain, a 58-year-old telephone technician, said he and his family were sleeping in front of the collapsed home when they heard moaning from inside and called neighbors for help. After 20 hours of digging with bare hands, he said, they freed his mother.

The woman, looking skeletal and unconscious, was being treated at the capital's General Hospital. "She is very thin. She is in a state of shock and severely dehydrated," said Dr. Louis Auguste, who works at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York.

He said that while she had been buried for a long time, "there were always people who defy the norm."

Thursday was the first day since the quake in which nobody was pulled alive from the ruins, U.N. mission spokesman David Wimhurst said. "We all hope that others have survived and can be found, but the more days that go by without signs of life, the dimmer these hopes will become."

Armies of foreign aid donors, instead, turned their attention to expanding their pipeline of food, water and medical care for survivors.

With extensive swaths of Port-au-Prince in ruins, more than 500 makeshift settlements with a population of about 472,000 are now scattered around the capital, said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. Getting them to safer quarters could take weeks.

"These settlements cannot be built overnight. There are standards that have to be designed by experts. There is the leveling of the land, procurement and delivery of tents, as well as water and sanitation," said Vincent Houver, the IOM's mission chief in Haiti.

The move will be voluntary and temporary, according to Elisabeth Byrs, the spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva.

"It's to help them in a first move. After, the people will decide if they want to stay," she said.

Many people are just trying to get out of the capital, often back to the farms or provincial homes of relatives.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said Friday that as many as 200,000 Haitians have fled the capital and many more are trying to do so.

Computer teacher Daniel Dukenson walked across the capital and caught a bus to take his family from their collapsed home in a slum to crowd in with a cousin in the seaside town of St. Marc, a two-hour journey away.

"I'd like to go back, but it's going to take a lot of time for Port-au-Prince to get back on its feet. Two years, maybe," the 28-year-old told The Associated Press by telephone. He said he hopes to make a living teaching English.

Still others have tried to flee abroad. The U.S. Embassy on Friday turned away hundreds of people seeking a trip out on the planes that have dropped off aid. Scores of U.S. citizens were given passes, but many were told officials were overwhelmed and they would have to return later.

Haiti's government estimates the Jan. 12 quake killed 200,000 people, as reported by the European Commission. It said 250,000 people were injured and 2 million homeless in the nation of 9 million. Others offer smaller estimates.

The disaster has prompted what the Red Cross calls the greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history. Nations around the world have offered what they can: more than $500 million from European nations, money even from impoverished Chad and Congo, and a ton of tea from Sri Lanka.

The U.N.'s World Food Program said it has distributed more than 1.4 million food rations — each with three meals, and has a fleet of trucks in bringing food and supplies.

"We are planning to flood the country with food," Myrta Kaulard, the agency's Haiti director, told the AP.

To speed that flood, the U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard are trying to patch up the Haitian capital's only functional industrial pier, which is key to getting in large aid shipments as well as to Haiti's long-term recovery.

Only four ships have been able to dock at the pier, where 15-inch-wide (40-centimeter-wide) cracks make it risky to let more than one truck work at a time, and damage is so extensive that military officials say they don't know how long it will take before ships can dock and unload in large quantities.

"I wouldn't even ask my workers to risk it. I don't trust it," said Georges Jeager Junior, a businessman who plans to shift his port operations to the northern city of Cap Haitien, a 12-hour journey over bad roads from the capital. Jeager Junior said that means prices will soar.

Damage at the country's badly damaged main oil terminal has kept any tankers from landing since the quake, so gas stations on fuel trucked in from the Dominican Republic.

On the waterfront Thursday, sporadic rounds of gunfire echoed from the nearby downtown commercial area. Scavengers continued to rampage through collapsed and burning shops. U.S. troops patrolled nearby to protect aid convoys, but were leaving policing to Haitian and U.N. forces.

At a building in the Carrefour neighborhood, where the multi-faith Eagle Wings Foundation of West Palm Beach, Florida, planned to distribute food, stick-wielding quake victims from a nearby tent camp stormed the stores and made off with what the charity's Rev. Robert Nelson said were 50 tons of rice, oil, dried beans and salt. Fights broke out as others stole food from the looters.

At the south of Haiti's main bay, near the earthquake's epicenter, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard — which together have put 20 ships into the relief effort — set up a triage center amid the rusting motorboats, with dozens of military doctors treating the most urgent casualties on the lawn.

"The injured seem to just keep showing up," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chris Worth. "We've been working from dawn to dusk since getting here."

Emergency medical centers almost everywhere were swamped with patients critically injured by the quake. There were dire shortages of surgeons, nurses, medicines and medical tools.

Doctors said patients were dying of sepsis from untreated wounds.

"A large number of those coming here are having to have amputations, since their wounds are so infected," said Brynjulf Ystgaard, a Norwegian surgeon at a Red Cross field hospital.

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this story included Tamara Lush, Mike Melia, Jonathan M. Katz and Kevin Maurer in Port-au-Prince; Martha Mendoza and John Rice in Mexico City; Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Pauline Jelinek in Washington.

(This version CORRECTS woman's arge as 84 sted 69.) (sic....now they need to correct the misspellings in their correction!)

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake

[ninathedog]

Healing For Haiti:
and for Gaza

by Raphael

The other day, while meditating, I happened to be thinking about the people of Haiti and their current strife with not having access to food and being hungry. A thought popped into my head about a very easy way to help which was tied to my past experiences and teachings with the Blackfeet & the Lakota. Let me explain . . .

At certain times in any one's life, we all face uncertaintees and "forks in the road", and we search out to find answers to those pressing questions and situatoins. One of the ways that native americans go about finding their truth is to do a Hunbleceya, or what is commonly known as a Vision Quest. This vision quest involves being put up on a sacred mountain, with no water and no food, from anywhere to 1 to 4 days. There, amongst other things, they will pray to Creator for guidance.

I have been blessed to be a helper at some of these Vision Quests. A helper would help in any way they could for the person going through the Vision Quest, with the excpeption of making physical and eye contact with that person. Ways to help included prayer, drinking water (very important) and . . . eating. Yes, I said drinking and eating. Since the person going through the Vision Quest was not allowed to eat or drink, in order to provide that person with the strength to go through 4 enduring days, the helpers were instructed to eat and drink for that person. This involved being very present when eating and drinking, and to eat and drink with the intent of nourishing the Vision Quester.

Many times when a person came down from the mountain, he/she would ask "Who was eating strawberries? They were delicious! Thank you!" It is all about our intent and being present when eating and drinking. So I ask all of you, when you eat your breakfast, lunch and dinner in the coming days, center yourself and ask your guides to send the nourishing energies of the food that you are eating, and the liquids that you are drinking, to the people and animals of Haiti. Be very present when eating with the intent and the knowledge that this occurring.

I know that this may not fill the hunger and thirst void completely for those starving in Haiti, but it may very well be enough to have them hold on until the food supplies can get to them. So if you are not in the position to send money, clothing or food, or if you are not an experienced healer to send energy healing, you can still send love and nourishment. Just food for thought . . . pun intended

With Love and Blessings,

Raphael

www.iamblessingwater.com/freehealings.html

many thanks to
ॐ नमः शिवाय (rävensärä)

[ninathedog]

Belgium To Ask E.U For A Unified Stance Against
Israel For Preventing Officials From Entering Gaza

by Saed Bannoura
IMEMC & Agencies Report post
Monday January 25, 2010 04:21

Belgium has decided to ask the European Union to make a decision as to whether it will sanction Israel for preventing E.U. officials from entering the besieged Gaza Strip to observe the destruction and suffering that is being inflicted upon the residents.

Belgium said that the Israeli violations are devastating the humanitarian, social, psychological and health conditions of the residents.

Belgian Development Minister, Charles Michel, told the Belgium Radio on Sunday that he decided to officially raise this issue during E.U meetings to demand Israel abide by its obligations to the international community.

The Belgian stance came after Israel prevented Michel from entering the Gaza Strip on Saturday. His intentions were to visit the coastal region to observe the damage and devastation inflicted by Israel.

Michel said he also wanted to observe the damage inflicted on projects financed by his country in Gaza, to note if any were bombarded by Israel during the war last year.

Israel defended its stance and said that such a visit boosts Hamas and the status of its government.

Israeli officials claimed that Israel is allowing the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and that the siege will not be lifted “before the firing of homemade shells stops, and before the captured prisoner of war, Corporal Gilad Shalit, is released”.

On Sunday, Michel held a meeting with Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, and said that “it is unreasonable that I am prevented from entering Gaza while my country finances projects there. "

Ayalon went on to claim that any humanitarian aid that Belgium gives to Hamas would be embezzled by terrorists, instead of reaching its intended targets.

Ayalon prevented the Israeli decision and said that Israel also prevented the Foreign Ministers of Turkey and France who accompanied Michel from entering Gaza.

www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57746

[ninathedog]

Two Danish Banks To Divest From Two Israeli Companies

by Saed Bannoura
IMEMC & Agencies Report post
Wednesday January 27, 2010 02:16

The Danish Bank (Danske Bank) and the Pensioner Bank (PKA) have decided to withdraw all of their investments in two Israeli companies; Elbit Systems and the Magal Security Systems, for their role in the construction of the Annexation Wall in the occupied West Bank.

The decision came after pressure and campaigns from human rights groups and boycott campaigns as the Annexation Wall is illegal and violates an advisory ruling of the International Court at The Hague.

The two Danish banks also decided to divest from Africa-Israel Company, owned by Jewish billionaire Lev Leviev, for its role in financing the construction of settlements and the Wall.

Leviev, also involved in Diamond mining, is one of the wealthiest Jewish individuals in the world; his wealth is estimated by $1.5 Billion.

The National Danish Bank issued a statement revealing that the Elbit Systems and Africa-Israel are two corporations that support the construction of settlements and the Annexation Wall.

The Elbit Systems provides Israel with surveillance equipment installed on the Annexation Wall, while Africa-Israel is involved in the construction of homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Pensioners Bank decided to withdrew its investments in the Magal and the American Detection Systems Inc for their role in the construction of the Wall.

The decisions were made while Israel decided to start the construction of new section of the Wall on Palestinian lands west of Ramallah, in order to annex the illegal settlement of Illit.

Africa-Israel Company is one of the biggest companies that invest in the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank, while the Elbit and Magal provide the Israeli army, occupying Palestine, with special equipment and sensors used in the construction of the Wall.

On the ground, the Israeli army escalated its campaign against the organizers of nonviolent protests against settlements and the Wall in the West Bank. Soldiers kidnapped more than 25 activists since the beginning of this year.

Furthermore, 15 European diplomats accompanied by Palestinian Legislator, Bassam Salhi, Palestinian Minister, Maher Gheim, and Legislator Khalida Jarrar, visited Ni’lin village near Ramallah, to observe the situation and obtain further information after the kidnapping of organizers of nonviolent protests against the Wall and settlements.

They met with Jamal Jom’a, the coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall, and representatives of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Ni’lin.

www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57770

[ninathedog]

Israel to open Kerem Shalom crossing

Published yesterday (updated) 26/01/2010 14:19

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli authorities decided on Tuesday to open the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip to deliver domestic fuel into the coastal strip and to export flowers.

The Karni crossing will remain closed, according to Raed Fattouh, a Palestinian crossings official.

Fattouh said about 95 to 105 truckloads of commercial merchandize and humanitarian aid would be shipped through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

He said two trucks loaded with flowers grown in the Gaza Strip would be exported, and limited quantities of cooking gas and industrial diesel would be shipped through the same crossing.

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=256809

[ninathedog]

USAID to fund project for the disabled in Salfit

Published yesterday 13:29

Salfit – Ma'an – The Salfit Municipality celebrated the signing of an agreement to establish the headquarters of the Disabled Persons Union, funded by USAID.

The union's representative, Nizar Basalat, signed the agreement with the CHF International Partnership and the American Charities for Palestine. The project will be funded by USAID and is estimated at 150,000 US dollars.

Salfit Mayor Tahsin Salimeh praised the continuous support of USAID and the CHF institute for the municipality.

He added "we praise all the steps and efforts made to support the disabled community ..."

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=256846

[ninathedog]

Team of US pediatric doctors arrives in Hebron

Published yesterday (updated) 26/01/2010 17:24

Photo (to be posted later) caption: Palestinians in Ash-Shifa hospital, Gaza [MaanImages]

Bethlehem - Ma'an - A three-member team from the US arrived in Hebron on Tuesday, to begin screening and treating children with urological disorders, sponsored by the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF).

The team included pediatric urological surgeon Dr John Gazak from Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dr Kevin Healy, an anesthesiologist from Ames, Iowa, and scrub nurse Teresa Bubb from Portland, Oregon.

In addition to screening over 140 children on the first day, the team will perform a number of complex surgeries on children from all over the West Bank. Dr Gazak also has treated two Palestinian children for free at his hospital in North Carolina through the PCRF and another child from Gaza will be traveling there for surgery next month.

The same team worked last Spring in the occupied Palestinian territories with the International Volunteers in Urology (IVU).

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=256880

[ninathedog]

Abu Libdeh, Dutch delegation discuss Palestinian economy

Published yesterday (updated) 27/01/2010 10:04

Ramallah – Ma'an – The Ramallah-based Minister of Economy Hassan Abu Libdeh met with a Dutch delegation on Tuesday at the ministry's headquarters to discuss means of improving the occupied Palestinian territories' economy.

The delegation was headed by the Dutch representative to the Palestinian Authority Jack Orford and Tays Digi, second secretary to the Dutch representative.

The agenda included the Dutch initiative to support the Palestinian private sector through the PSI PLUS program, due to be implemented in five developing countries including Afghanistan, Burundi, the occupied Palestinian territories, Sierra Leone and southern Sudan with a fund estimated to be worth 10 million Euros.

The Dutch delegation added that they will undertake a number of investments in the territories, and will sign a memorandum with the Palestinian side.

The Dutch met with 50 Palestinian companies in Nablus and Ramallah and discussed the mechanisms of exporting strawberries from Gaza and the West Bank.

Both sides discussed the need to establish an independent Palestinian economy, free from reliance on international aid. They further discussed relations with Israel, consumer protection and boycotting settlement products. In attendance was Undersecretary Abdul Hafez Nofal.

Israeli obstructions in the development of the Palestinian economy were conferred over as well as the ways to attract Palestinian businessmen from the Diaspora to the territories.

For his part, Minister Abu Libdeh called for the strengthening of economic relations between the Netherlands and the territories, by inviting the Dutch minister of economy and Dutch businessmen to visit and establish a joint work council, as well as organizing MBA program with Dutch universities. He explained that the ministry is working on forming a national fund that works on feasibility studies and solving funding related problems.

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=256935

[ninathedog]

Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010)

Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010)[1] was an American historian and professor emeritus in the Political Science Department at Boston University.[2] He was the author of more than 20 books, including A People's History of the United States (1980). Zinn was active in the civil rights, civil liberties and anti-war movements in the United States, and wrote extensively on all three subjects.

— Wikipedia entry for Howard Zinn —

[ninathedog]

Teenage girl rescued 15 days after quake is stable

By Vivian Sequera And Ben Fox, Associated Press Writers
Thu Jan 28, 3:08 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A 16-year-old girl pulled from the rubble more than two weeks after a deadly earthquake was in stable condition Thursday, able to eat yogurt and mashed vegetables to the surprise of doctors, who said her survival was medically inexplicable.

Hundreds of thousands of other survivors hoped for a breakthrough of another kind — the delivery of badly needed food aid.

Key players in the Haiti earthquake relief effort, in what may prove to be a pivotal meeting Wednesday, decided to better coordinate by dividing up the shattered capital, giving each responsibility for handing out food in certain areas.

Food distribution thus far has often been marked by poor coordination, vast gaps in coverage, and desperate, unruly lines of needy people in which young men at times shoved aside the women and weak and took their food.

"These things should be done in a systematic way, not a random way," Dr. Eddy Delalue, who runs a Haitian relief group, Operation Hope, said Wednesday of the emergency food program. "It's survival of the fittest: The strongest guy gets it."

Wednesday's rescue of teenager Darlene Etienne from a collapsed home near St. Gerard University, 15 days after Haiti's great quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, was the first such recovery since Saturday, when French rescuers extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery store.

Etienne is stable, drinking water and eating yogurt and mashed vegetables, said Dr. Evelyne Lambert, who has been treating the girl on the French Navy hospital ship Sirocco, anchored off the shore of Port-au-Prince.

Lambert said that Etienne has a 90 percent chance of survival.

"We cannot really explain this because that's just (against) biological facts," Lambert told a news conference. "We are very surprised by the fact that she's alive. ... She's saying that she has been under the ground since the very beginning on the 12th of January so it may have really happened — but we cannot explain that."

Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the wrecked house, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.

Experts say it's unclear how long people can survive with little or no water.

"It depends on so many variables — on temperature, on how hydrated she was when she got into this situation," said Randall Packer, a biology professor at George Washington University and an expert on salt and water balance. Packer also said Etienne's youth was likely to have helped her survive.

Even when fluids are withdrawn for terminally ill patients, "it can take a week or a little bit more for them to die," he said.

Her family said Etienne had just begun studies at St. Gerard when the disaster struck, trapping dozens of students and staff in the rubble of school buildings, hostels and nearby homes. "We thought she was dead," said cousin Jocelyn A. St. Jules.

Then — a half-month after the earthquake — neighbors heard a voice weakly calling from the rubble of a private home down the road from the destroyed university. They called authorities, who brought in the French civil response team.

French search and rescue team member Dr. Claude Fuilla walked along the dangerously crumbled roof, heard her voice and saw a little bit of dust-covered black hair in the rubble. Clearing away some debris, he reached the young woman and saw she was alive — barely.

Digging out a hole big enough to give her oxygen and water, they found she had a very weak pulse. Within 45 minutes they managed to remove her, covered in dust.

"She was in very bad shape," Fuilla said Thursday. "We had to rehydrate her for 15 minutes" before flying her by helicopter to the Sirocco. "Now, her condition is stabilized. She ate. She is speaking ... She is not very lucid, but she is OK."

At least 135 people buried in rubble have been rescued by search teams since the quake, most in the immediate aftermath. An Israeli team that earned international praise for its rescue efforts in Haiti returned home Thursday with a 5-year-old boy in need of urgent heart surgery.

Back in Haiti, the United Nations World Food Program urgently appealed to governments for more cash for Haiti supplies — $800 million to feed 2 million people through December, more than quadruple the $196 million already pledged.

The WFP, partnered with local and international organizations, had delivered 3.6 million food rations to 458,000 people by Tuesday, U.N. officials said Thursday.

But food remains scarce for many of the neediest survivors. Relief experts said the scale of this disaster and Haiti's poor infrastructure are presenting unprecedented challenges, but Haitian leaders complain coordination has been poor.

The WFP also noted that rising tensions and security incidents have hampered deliveries. Desperation boiled over earlier this week as young men rushed forward to grab U.S.-donated bags of beans and rice. A pregnant woman collapsed and was trampled.

Since the relief effort's first days, however, other problems have also delayed aid: blocked and congested roads, truck shortages, a crippled seaport and an overloaded airport.

The south pier near Port-au-Prince — the fastest route for moving large pallets of food and medical supplies into Haiti — was more badly damaged than U.S. officials realized and won't be repaired for another eight to 10 weeks, Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command, said Thursday. At the moment, troops are only able to move 200 containers a day from ships anchored offshore using connectors, landing craft and helicopters, Fraser said.

Meanwhile, looting remained a constant threat in Port-au-Prince. A block away from U.S. troops who were knocking down the remaining walls of otherwise collapsed buildings, thieves armed with sledgehammers smashed what was left of destroyed shops Thursday, making off with everything from candy to perfume.

With the country still barely functioning, Haitian President Rene Preval canceled legislative elections scheduled for next month. The Parliament building partially collapsed in the earthquake, killing one senator, and other candidates also died in the disaster.

"We don't need elections right now," said 37-year-old store clerk Martine Poulard. "Elections cost a lot. They should use the money to feed the people who are starving in the streets, and they need to build houses for the homeless as well."

__

Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Michelle Faul, Carolina Correa, Ben Fox, Gregory Bull, Pierre Richard and Jean-Baptiste Rommel in Port-au-Prince; Anne Flaherty in Washington; and medical writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100128/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake

[ninathedog]

Thank your Congressperson for standing up for Gaza

Thursday, January 28, 2010 6:39 PM
From: "Jewish Voice for Peace" <[e-mail]>

Dear Jennifer,

Last December, we asked you to make one phone call to Congress for the sake of Gaza. Many of you did, and 54 Congresspeople heard you loud and clear. That's the number of Congressional Representatives who signed onto the Jim McDermott and Keith Ellison letter to President Obama -- sent this week -- which criticizes Israel's blockade of Gaza as "de facto collective punishment" leading to the "unabated suffering of Gazan civilians." The letter addresses all aspects related to the siege of Gaza, including movement of people and access to clean water, food, medicines, commercial and agricultural goods, construction materials, and fuel.

We are sending you this email because you live in one of the states represented in the letter.

Would you send a quick email thanking your Congresspeson and insisting on a full lifting of the siege on Gaza?

For your information, here is a link to the signed letter, and here is the list of the members of Congress who signed it:


Jim McDermott (D-WA)

Keith Ellison (D-MN)

Lois Capps (D-CA)

William Delahunt (D-MA)

Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)

Bob Filner (D-CA)

James McGovern (D-MA)

John Conyers (D-MI)

Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA)

Betty McCollum (D-MN)

Barbara Lee (D-CA)

James P. Moran (D-VA)

Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)

Adam Smith (D-WA)

David Price (D-NC)

Peter DeFazio (D-OR)

Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)

Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)

Yvette Clarke (D-NY)

Donald Payne (D-NJ)

Michael Capuano (D-MA)

Andre Carson (D-IN)

Sam Farr (D-CA)

Peter Welch (D-VT)

John Tierney (D-MA)

Chaka Fattah (D-PA)

Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

Gwen Moore (D-WI)

Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH)

John Olver (D-MA)

Stephen Lynch (D-MA)

James Oberstar (D-MN)

Bruce Braley (D-IA)

Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)

Rush Holt (D-NJ)

Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)

Joe Sestak (D-PA)

Jim Himes (D-CT)

Nick Rahall II (D-WV)

John Yarmuth (D-KY)

Michael Honda (D-CA)

Jay Inslee (D-WA)

Donna Edwards (D-MD)

Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)

John Dingell (D-MI)

Brian Baird (D-WA)

Paul Tonko (D-NY)

Jackie Speier (D-CA)

Diane Watson (D-CA)

George Miller (D-CA)

Glenn Nye (D-VA)

Eric Massa (D-NY)

Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI)

Sincerely,


Sydney Levy

Jewish Voice for Peace

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Contact us directly at Jewish Voice for Peace. 1611 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 550. Oakland, CA 94612 510-465-1777 [e-mail]


JewishVoiceforPeace.org

[ninathedog]

Jan 6, 2010 12:01:34 GMT 4 @ninathedog said:

EDIT:


www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdFVHlcxDGM

2 August 2009
Israeli security forces have forcibily evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem after a court rejected an appeal against their eviction. The al-Ghawi and al-Hanoun families who were evicted on Sunday have been living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood since 1956. Israel has reportedly set aside the land their houses were built on for a planned hotel project. The eviction comes amid international calls for Israel to halt settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land. A large police force was involved in the operation in Sheikh Jarrah, one of the most sensitive and upmarket Arab neighbourhoods closest to the so-called Green Line which separates east and west Jerusalem.

Violent scuffles
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeeras correspondent in East Jerusalem, said: According to the Hanoun family, the members that I have spoken to, at about 6am as they were sleeping inside the house, Israeli police officers broke in and we can see the shattered glass all over the floor outside. They say that the police were armed and they forcibly evicted both the international activists that were staying at the house and members of the family themselves. Members of the family say the police officers beat them with batons and children as young as six were man-handled scuffles were seen and heard between the police and the two families trying to get back into their houses, she said. Tadros said the international activists were arrested and personal items belonging to the families such as cameras, laptops and computers have all been confiscated.

english.aljazeera.net/news/mid...

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


Land sales row mars Orthodox Christmas
in Bethlehem

Palestinian Christian groups are boycotting celebrations of
Orthodox Christmas in Bethlehem, accusing their Church of selling land to Israelis.

BBC.com
Page last updated at 10:50 GMT, Wednesday, 6 January 2010


farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4250976825_0176732546_o.jpg

At least 100 protesters gathered with banners saying: "The Holy Land is not for sale," ahead of festivities to mark Christmas Eve for the Orthodox Church.

They accuse the Greek Orthodox Church of selling and leasing land in the West Bank to Israeli organisations.

The Church said it would not comment, on such a festive occasion.

The Council of Arab Orthodox Institutions and Organisations in Palestine said the current patriarch, Theophilos III, had continued to allow Israeli investors to lease Church land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The area was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, and is where the Palestinians want their future state.

Riot gear

The Christian groups mentioned one specific strategic piece of land, in the Bethlehem area, near the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, but said it was part of a wider pattern of deals set up under the previous patriarch.

Patriarch Irineos was ousted in 2005 over his alleged involvement in the leasing of Church land in Jerusalem's heavily contested Old City to Jewish investors.

There were remarkable scenes as the current patriarch arrived escorted by Palestinian security guards clad in riot gear, reports the BBC's Jon Donnison in Bethlehem.

The Scout groups' marching bands who would usually welcome the patriarch with bagpipes were silent as the church leader arrived.

Reprisal attacks

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who would also usually be present, is travelling overseas and it is unclear whether he is officially boycotting the event.

Palestinian owners of land in the West Bank, particularly in East Jerusalem where the Palestinians want their future capital, are often offered large sums of money to sell to organisations seeking to expand the Jewish presence in the area.

Palestinians who sell are at risk of reprisal attacks.

About 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in settlements illegal under international law.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8443290.stm

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



www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdz2Dsr2X4w

Ta'ayush along with other Israeli peace groups have been marching from West Jerusalem to Sheikh Jarrah to protest the actions of the current Israeli government in the neighborhood. This is video from the march on New Year's day 2010.

For more information www.taayush.org and www.josephdana.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSaG8m0ymmI

Some 500 demonstrators gathered at the top of the street that Jewish settlers are taking over in Shiekh Jarakh in East Jerusalem. The demonstrators organized march from West Jerusalem, sang songs and beat their drums in solidarity with the Palestinians kicked out of their homes by the settlers.The good policemen of Jerusalem, who have probably not read the editorial in this morning's Ha'aretz, decided that a demonstration with no arrests would be unworthy of its name, even though the march and demonstration were coordinated with it ahead of time. Police started arresting people who were already arrested in the past, claiming that they were in violation of their parole. To their great shame a member of the Jerusalem municipality was present with a copy of the appeals' court ruling, canceling the activists' ban from the area, and so most detainees were later released.

The massive demonstration went on with great energy for two hours, and enjoyed the presence of the media.. It is believed that these demonstrations will keep growing in the coming future.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfXDzyzkUVA

On Friday 18-12-09, 6 musicians were arrested by Israeli police, in a well prepared ambush. They were arrested while walking and drumming peacefully down Hanevi'im st. (in West Jerusalem) to the Palestinian Neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah (in East Jerusalem). At a non- violent demonstration against the occupation of Palestinian houses by Israeli settlers 21 more people were violently arrested by Israeli police.

Israeli Police To Use Maximum Force Against
(Israeli) Protestors

by Saed Bannoura
IMEMC & Agencies
Friday January 29, 2010 00:24

The Israeli Police decided, this Thursday, to use maximum force against Israeli left-wing activists to force an end to their protests against Israeli settlement of Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood occupied East Jerusalem.


Israeli police officer demands a halt to protest, Sheikh Jarrah
Photo by Circare Parrhesia, IMEMC

The decision came [gold=Red]despite a ruling by Israel’s Magistrates Court[/color] stating that public protests are legal as long as they do not disrupt traffic and public order. Thus far, the Israeli police have arrested more than 70 protestors.

Israeli activists said they were not granted a permit for their last protest in Sheikh Jarrah, as an event took place in the neighborhood the previous day. The event included music by a number of Arab hip-hop artists.

Meanwhile, the police requested that the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court issue restraining orders against 18 persons who were arrested in previous protests. The court denied the appeal but also said that they cannot participate in future protests that are deemed “illegal”.

The Israeli court censored the police twice for illegal conducts against the peaceful protestors in Sheikh Jarrah.

But the legal advisor of the Israeli Police in Jerusalem sent a letter to the head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, on Thursday, and informed him that from 3:30pm, the police would use force to disperse the protestors. The upcoming protest is scheduled to start at 3:00pm.

By court order, Israeli settlers were allowed to occupy Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah. The takeover is part of a larger plan to occupy more Palestinian and Arab homes in East Jerusalem, to replace the residents with Jewish settlers.

www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57799

[enki]

HAITI faces long, difficult road to recovery:


PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haiti's leaders can point to progress since a powerful earthquake devastated the country but just surviving the first weeks' chaos, hunger and overwhelming loss may be the easiest part of a long recovery.
Since the January 12 catastrophe killed up to 200,000 people and left around 1 million homeless in the nation of 9 million, authorities and aid workers have cleared tens of thousands of bodies from the rubble, provided water supplies for makeshift refugee camps and developed a system of food distribution.
Some police are back in the streets, schools in unaffected areas will open on Monday, communications are working and some businesses have reopened their doors.
"On the 13th of January, we woke up without telephones, with thousands of dead on the streets, and today telephones are working, there are no more bodies in the streets. We have collected more than 150,000, but there are still bodies under the rubble and we'll see how we can get them," President Rene Preval told Reuters this week.
"Gas stations are working normally, commercial activities have resumed ... A lot of progress has been made."
But Haiti faces massive hurdles ahead, and it was already the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation before the quake, grappling with widespread hunger and illiteracy, weak infrastructure, corruption and decades of political turmoil.
The government, with international assistance, must provide long-term shelter, food supplies, healthcare and sanitation for the legions left homeless, and do so in the few months before the hurricane season -- and its risks of deadly winds and flooding -- hits its stride in July.
Security is one of the biggest challenges. The earthquake weakened Haiti's security forces, triggered looting and left many people more vulnerable than ever to criminal gangs in the capital. The post-quake exodus of residents to the countryside could also contribute to the spread of urban problems.
DECENTRALIZE
"While the international community begins the long road to coordination and collaboration of assistance, daily life in Haiti will require a secure and stable environment if the tasks of rebuilding the nation are to happen," said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a former adviser to the U.N. mission in Haiti and now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"If ordinary Haitians again feel they cannot return to some level of normalcy because of increasing crime, or looting, then we may see a much longer deployment of U.S. forces and those of other friendly states augmenting U.N. forces in the short run."
If Haiti is unable to guarantee security or prevent corrupt officials from stealing or misusing aid, foreign donors whose help will be needed for years could quickly lose interest in bankrolling ambitious recovery efforts.
The capital, dubbed the Republic of Port-au-Prince because so much of the country's life was centered there, is largely destroyed.
Money has poured in for the recovery effort, but rebuilding will require billions of dollars, few of the lost businesses were insured, and the disaster has shown that the shoddy building standards of the past are not good enough in a city that sits on an earthquake faultline.
Preval says Haiti must decentralize by having businesses -- and their workers -- set up outside the capital city, which experts said was home to more than 2 million people before the earthquake and had an infrastructure suited for just 200,000.
He also wants to continue rural infrastructure projects that had begun before the disaster. Experts agree that Haiti's recovery program cannot focus exclusively on the capital.
"A big win for Haiti would be to ensure that finally citizens move away from the Republic of Port au Prince and move toward building a decentralized nation with adequate infrastructure, thus creating more jobs for people as the roads are repaired," Forman said.
Schools will reopen in areas unaffected by the earthquake on February 1, and authorities will also begin to assess what is left of schools in the areas that were hit. Most schools in Port-au-Prince were reduced to rubble.
As with so many of the challenges ahead, Haiti's education system was struggling even before the catastrophe. The illiteracy rate is estimated at just under 50 percent and most students receive only basic education.
(Editing by Kieran Murray)