Last night, March 8, 2010, three month since Copenhagen, I learned from someone that was among the creators of the US Carbon Market that this market is practically dead. Anything new on climate? No – nothing! Is there hope? Only if you are a continuous optimist!

That exchange brought me to post the following as a reminder of the post-Copenhagen spirit. Further, we are still that optimist that believes with a US health-care bill pushed through there may be a renewed US-China joint effort on climate. Further, we also follow with interest Brazil reasserting itself by putting its foot down on conditions of trade with the US. This push by Brazil may remind the US that it is hard to handle wars in Asia without house cleaning in its attitude in the Western Hemisphere. Brazil and the Latins must become US partners also on Climate and they are right to claim a more open door to US markets.

—————————

Letter to Grist from Europe

Copenhagen blame game is obstacle to 2010 climate deal.

Poverty Predicts Quake Damage Better Than Richter Scale

Emily Schmall
 “It’s not as much the earthquake that kills, it’s the poverty that kills,” said Colin Stark, a geomorphologist and researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who is studying the aftermath of a 1999 earthquake in Taiwan to predict the probability of landslides in Haiti.

Climate Migration in Latin America: A Future “Flood of Refugees” to the North?
by COHA (Council on Hemispheric Affairs) Research Fellow Alexandra Deprez, February 22, 2010.

This COHA research piece synthesizes the current developments regarding environmentally-driven human migration –and more specifically, migration caused by the environmental manifestations of anthropogenic climate change– seeking to expose its potential harmful effects in Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean. Although this region has received less media attention and academic focus than Western Africa, South East Asia or the Pacific Islands, it certainly houses the climate and non-climate factors that could cause mass human displacement.
The first section introduces the concept of environmentally-induced migration, expounding upon the current state of the debate that surrounds it and the challenges it faces. This is followed by an examination of different climate processes and natural disasters as drivers of migration in Latin America. It also addresses non-climate factors such as poor governance, poverty, overpopulation, and unequal land distribution that can compound these migratory pressures.
The second section opens with a case study of Mexico, a country several reports have identified as a potential hotspot for environmentally-induced migration in Latin America, due to the confluence of climate and non-climate migration factors it houses. The relevance of this study is also increased due to Mexico’s position as the largest immigration feeder to the United States. The segment goes on to discuss larger developmental impacts of environmentally-induced migration in Latin America –such as the effects on regions of origin and destination, the health and security issues migrants face, and the debate between environment, migration and national security factors– before ending by speculating which potential actions the United States might eventually take to address what could be a looming problem.

PART 1: Environmentally Induced Migration in Latin America and Beyond;
Climate and Non Climate Drivers of Migration in Latin America
Typhoon Morakot, the unusually strong tropical storm that hit South East Asia in mid-August 2009, displacing more than 1.5 million people in China alone, is only one of the most recent natural disasters that raise questions about environmental change and its link to migration. This link has increasingly attracted attention over the past few years, in particular since 2007, when the 4th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report confirmed that human migration would be one of the most important consequences of anthropogenic climate change. The manifestations of environmental change derived from human activities notably include sea level rise (SLR), intensified drought or rainfall, and the increasing recurrence and strength of natural hazards such as hurricanes.1 Although estimates vary widely and their reliability are questioned by migration experts, the frequently quoted figure of 200 million environmental displacees by 2050 testifies to this phenomenon’s looming importance. The developmental charity, Christian Aid, has increased its figure of estimated victims to a catastrophic 1 billion by mid-century.2
Policy and non-profit actors’ increasing awareness of environmentally-induced migration coincides with recent scientific confirmations that not only is anthropogenic climate change bound to occur no matter what mitigation steps are taken, but moreover it will prove more drastic than previously predicted.3 A paradigm shift in the policy response to climate change –from an exclusive focus on its prevention to a greater importance given to adaptation strategies, which may, inevitably, include migration itself– is a necessary consequence to this state of affairs.
Despite the recent spike of interest in the past few years, human populations have long employed environmentally-induced migration as a coping strategy – with studies indicating that it was commonplace in ancient societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia.4 Although the frequently used term ‘environmental refugee’ was first coined more than three decades ago,5 international organizations and scholars have still not reached a consensus on how to define those populations who migrate by choice or necessity due to environmental modifications in their regions of origin. Divergent expressions such as “environmentally induced migrant,”6 “environmentally displaced person,”7 “climate refugee,”8 or “climate migrant”9 populate international migration reports and journal articles. Most definitions place particular emphasis on those environmental processes and events that may arise or are intensified due to anthropogenic climate change, while broader terms also tend to take into account environmental modifications such as earthquakes, which are less directly related to human activity. In his seminal 1985 definition, Professor Essam el Hinnawi includes case specific human events that may have an impact on the environment – such as large-scale development projects, industrial accidents, and conflicts. He describes environmental refugees as:
“Those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life.”10
Although el Hinnawi’s definition would designate Haitian victims of the January 12, 2010 earthquake as potential environmental refugees, the Haiti case deserves to be addressed in literature exclusively devoted to it. This COHA research memorandum instead will adopt a narrower definition of environmentally induced migration, emphasizing those environmental events and processes which have been linked to anthropomorphic climate change, as well as natural and man-induced land degradation, which holds a particular historic importance in Latin America.
As manifested by the lack of a universal definition and the large variation between predictions, the debate over environmental change (and more particularly climate change) and migration is still at an embryonic phase, riddled with complexities, unknowns, and diverse actors that have yet to work in a more interdisciplinary, cooperative fashion.11 Predictions of extensive migration may have been publicized by environmental scientists like Norman Myers, with the intention of raising awareness and promoting action against climate change, as well as by human rights organizations that jumped at the opportunity to advocate protection for these potential new victims.12 However, these large-scale ominous predictions have also alarmed Western policymakers that a new “flood of refugees”13 would add to the migratory and asylum pressures their countries already face and have been seeking to manage and contain. Reports on different aspects of environmentally induced migration that have been prolifically produced over the past few years by international organisms such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), further demonstrate the heightened importance recently placed upon these issues.
Nonetheless, the recent hype surrounding climate migration may seem disproportionate to the limited amount of visible victims, particularly in light of the sometimes-sparse attention given to many other issues at the forefront of the international migration and refugee organisms’ agendas.14 Although the present number of individuals who fall directly into the category of ‘climate’ migrants or refugees15 might be dwarfed by the large number of international migrants, the UNHCR estimated that in 2002, 24 million individuals around the world were displaced due to natural disasters,16 a figure nearly double that of the current amount of refugees, estimated above 15 million.17 This fact attests to the veritable potential that anthropogenic climate change has in inducing large-scale population displacements, while the numerous legal, developmental and humanitarian consequences of these potential movements underscore the issue’s importance and the urgent attention which it merits.
But what are the implications for Latin America?
Specialists and scholars have determined that environmentally induced migration initially will take place in developing regions around the globe, with South-East Asia, West Africa and low-lying islands being particularly at risk.18 Even though the impact climate change may have on migration in Latin America is rarely mentioned and has yet to be exclusively studied in depth, this region bears a combination of factors that may converge to give rise to ‘hot spots’ for mass population movements. Indeed, not only is it host to a number of environmental processes and events that will most likely be intensified and accelerated due to anthropogenic climate change, but it also possesses conditions such as poverty and an unequal geographical distribution of the population that heighten their vulnerability to these effects, thus compounding the migratory potential.
Predictions of environmentally-induced migration concur that the majority of cases will occur within the same state or region. But, with such well-established migration channels between most Latin American countries and the United States, it is plausible that the manifestations of climate change may have an increasingly stronger impact on South-North human flows in the Western hemisphere. Developed nations such as the United States hold a responsibility vis-à-vis the anthropogenic climate change their industrial activities helped engender, as well as the economic conditions that may have contributed to perpetuate an unequal geographical distribution of the population in Latin America. However, the United States’ present migration policy does not give significant consideration to environmental factors, and this is clearly not likely to change in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, this COHA memorandum seeks to raise awareness of an issue that Western policymakers –and particularly North American policymakers– might one day not have the luxury to continue to ignore.
The current state of the debate over environmentally induced migration
The first and basic point of contention in this debate is how to characterize those affected by environmental change: are they migrants or refugees? The expression ‘environmental refugees’ was first used in the 1970s as a way to depoliticize the displacement of populations within their own country –due, for example, to famines or droughts– prior to the introduction of the term Internally Displaced Person (IDP) in 1998.19 Today, some human rights organizations have reclaimed it as a way to point to the urgency of addressing the issue and providing aid to those mobilized by environmental change. However, it has encountered strong opposition from practically all other actors involved in the debate.
Roger Zetter, the director of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) at Oxford University, notes that the use of ‘refugee’ here is problematic, “not least for its conceptual inadequacy in interpreting the complex structural causes and consequences of flight.”20 It is also legally incorrect, as ‘environmental persecution’ – to term it that way – is not part of the 5 causes of persecution included in the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Using the expression ‘environmental refugee’ may also strongly undermine the scale of the problem at hand as it only refers to those forced to leave their country, thus failing to include the numerous individuals affected by climate change who either have been displaced within their own country or who choose to migrate abroad.21 Western governments are certainly not keen to expand the UN’s definition, for fear that this would exponentially raise the number of asylum applicants to their countries, while refugee specialists oppose the inclusion of the environment as a cause of persecution, predicting it would place unnecessary stress on already strained resources devoted to those fleeing their countries from racial, religious, gender, membership of a particular social group, or political discrimination.22
Other terms have been proposed, but with little overall success, and the UN is still in the process of agreeing on a “phraseology to describe the phenomenon.”23 ‘Environmental migrant’ raises opposition due to its negative implication that those people who are moving are doing so solely out of their own will, while more conciliatory terms, such as ‘environmentally displaced person’ may be criticized by some for being too broad to be of any use. In particular, RSC’s report favored the tripartite definition proposed by Fabrice Renaud – an academic official at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) – composed of “environmentally motivated migrants,” “environmentally forced migrants,” and “environmental refugees.”24 What is certain is that no matter what designation is used, until it is given legal authority, individuals currently displaced by natural disasters and environmental degradation, as well as the future victims of ‘climate migration’ will continue to “fall through the cracks” of international protection and aid distribution.25
The second argument centers on the validity of environmentally-induced migration as a phenomenon. Some scholars have gone as far as to affirm that there is no such thing as environmentally-induced migration and that all migration is necessarily motivated by other reasons. Nonetheless, the description of human displacement presented by Stephen Castles – director of the International Migration Institute at the University of Oxford – as comprising “complex patterns of multiple causality, in which natural and environmental factors are closely linked to economic, social, and political ones,”26 seems to embody the emphasis that has been placed on multi-causality in this ongoing debate. Although there may be relatively limited instances in which environmental change can be seen as the only factor of human displacement – such as when people are forced to leave their homes due to a natural disaster – it is most certainly already influencing an ever larger number of migration cases, and has the potential to induce further unprecedented migration in decades to come.
However, determining the degree of environmental factors in migratory movements, and separating it from other factors, has proven challenging. This difficulty, as well as the lack of a formal definition of the phenomenon that would help delineate which causes would be permissibly included in data collection and future predictions, only hint at the problems inherent in undertaking these measuring processes. Another complication is the lack of reliable and current figures, which must be placed in context with the current situation of data collection in migratory flows at large. Unlike with the populations defined as refugees, for whom the UNHCR produces annual figures, precise data on the extent of international migration worldwide is much more complicated to compile.
According to Hiroyuki Tanaka, research assistant at the Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute, “many industrialized economies don’t collect data on immigration, and those that do, collect data in different ways and apply different definitions for ‘immigrant.’ Reliable comparative data is very hard to come across, given the limited government data we have access to.”27 The fact that up to 50 percent of migration may be irregular (term preferred to ‘illegal’ by migration specialists) further complicates measurement intents.28 Internal displacements of populations remain even less documented, as many countries either do not want to publish these figures or simply lack the capacity to collect them.29
Additional difficulties have also been encountered by attempts to predict the future impact of climate change on migration. The areas – and consequently the populations – at risk vary widely depending on which climate models are used, and there is great uncertainty as to which model will most accurately represent future reality.30 There has also been a tendency to directly equate the number of those populations who will be affected to those who will migrate; this clearly does not take into account the extensive amount of other adaptive measures those populations may instead choose to take.31 However, despite widely varying in number, recent predictions seem to concur that future environmentally induced migration will primarily take place internally, in developing countries, and be mostly temporal in nature.
Better collection of data and the increased accuracy of future predictions are very important to appropriately address environmentally induced migration. This has been rightfully sensed by agencies such as the IOM, who in 2008 released a 100-page report on ways to improve those methodologies currently used.32 However, over the past few years there has been a general shift from a focus on global numerical predictions toward a more empirically based approach. This approach notably emphasizes the analysis, mapping, and monitoring of migration ‘hotspots,’ located at areas of convergence between environmental and non-environmental migration drivers. Although still approximate at best, the RSC states that, “a focused mapping program, which could be conducted by national agencies, is the key to more accurate prediction of the nature, scale and time-scale of environmentally-induced migration crises in the making, and how these might be mitigated.”33

Climate processes and natural disasters as drivers of migration in Latin America: drought, sea level rise, melting glaciers and hurricanes
Anthropogenic climate change will in part predictably manifest itself discretely, through an intensification of environmental processes such as drought, sea level rise and the melting of glaciers. Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, are not spared from any of these natural phenomena. Climate change will modify rain patterns geographically and temporally, inducing a shift in the start of rainy seasons as well as an increase of precipitation in some temperate areas, and a decrease in other regions, particularly in the tropics. This decline in rainfall may produce an intensification of aridity and a more recurrent drought with a capacity to negatively impact crop yields.34
The exact impact of severe drought on migration has not yet been satisfactorily determined. Sabine Perch-Nielsen, Michèle Bättig and Dieter Imboden, who undertook an in-depth analysis of the link between different climate processes and human displacement, explain that drought is the “most complex and least understood natural hazard,” and that there are a number of adaptive measures households might take before recurring to migration.35
Notwithstanding, new research suggests that the likelihood of migration as an adaptive measure is higher in response to certain selective environmental phenomena, such as droughts. In 2005, the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concluded that the third of the global population that lives in areas already suffering from aridity is most vulnerable to the effects of increased drought.36 Indeed, empirical examples indicate that out-migration is already occurring in some regions affected by it. Northern Mexico, where 60 percent of arid or semi-arid land suffers from erosion, has over the past few decades seen a decrease in precipitation that has been projected to steadily worsen.37 The United Nations University’s (UNU) influential June 2009 report Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face Environmental Migration stated, “based on Mexican Government’s data, approximately 900,000 people left arid and semi-arid areas every year [since the mid 1990s] in part because of their inability to make a living from the land due to excessively dry conditions and soil erosion.”38 Another salient example of the effect of drought on migration in Latin America may be found in Northeastern Brazil. In this primarily agricultural region, spikes in out-migration to the country’s southern regions have been observed following decreases in crop yields during years that suffered from severe droughts.39
Another environmental process that will be intensified by anthropogenic climate change is sea level rise (SLR); differing streams of predictions have posited a change of 50 cm to 1.5 meters by the end of the 21st century. It has been widely assumed to be the ‘climate-process’ with the strongest and most direct push effect on migration. In their Climatic Change article, Perch-Nielsen, Bättig, and Imboden agreed that although the current amount of information available is insufficient to reach a fairly accurate prediction, “the potential extent of migration due to sea level rise is large.”40 Even though the greatest impact is sure to be felt in the very densely populated coasts of South East Asia, media coverage has been almost exclusively been placed upon the fate of low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean. One such island is Tuvalu, where, due to fears of SLR, almost 30 percent of the population has already migrated to New Zealand.41
Although drawing practically no press coverage, several Caribbean islands are also at risk of being partially or completely submerged.42 In absolute terms, the number of potential victims of SLR in the Caribbean may pale in comparison to that in South East Asia. However, as more than 50 percent of the islands’ inhabitants live less than 1.5 km inland from the coast, the relative impact of SLR on the Caribbean population has the potential to be strongly felt.43 But specific predictions researching the future of the SLR in this region – as well as on most of the coastlines of Latin America – and its impact on migration up to now are sparse. The European Commission’s Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR) Project, which has started to map the regions most likely to be affected, has currently undertaken only one case study in the this region – on the island of Hispaniola – with an exclusive focus on deforestation.44
The melting of glaciers is a third process that has been taking place since the industrial revolution, and due to the ever increasing concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it will continue to occur at an accelerated pace. In South America, this translates into concerns about how the Andes Mountain range may now be seeing a reduction of water availability for agricultural and personal consumption, as well as an increased risk of fires during the dry season,45 and a change in rain patterns, all of which could provoke greater flooding during the rainy season.46
The Argentine EACH-FOR case study, which partially focuses on the pre-Andean regions of Patagonia and Cuyo, remarked that while a few years ago the two regions were still the sites of incoming migration, they now started to experience emigration flows linked to justified environmental fears.47 Reduction of water availability is of particular relevance and concern in this region, as it may place even greater economic pressures on the poorer sectors of society, who already have been strongly affected by the wave of provocative water privatizations which have swept over the continent during the past twenty years.48 In short, these economic pressures are likely to translate into stronger migratory impulses.
Climate change is also being manifested through the intensification and increased recurrence of certain natural hazards. Natural disasters – those natural acts of devastation that have intersected infrastructure and human settlements – reportedly have been on the rise over the past decades.49 From 1980 to 2000, inhabitants of developing countries accounted for more than 95 percent of all of those who lost their houses in natural disasters.50 The extremely disproportionate impact that these events have had on the world’s developing regions may be explained by the much higher vulnerability they face in comparison to Western nations. Not only are the tropics –where most of the developing regions are located – at higher risk of experiencing natural hazards, but a combination of political, economic and social factors lower their populations’ resiliency and capacity to respond effectively to these disasters.
Although examples of lack of risk preparation and disaster response can be found in industrialized nations (Hurricane Katrina comes most quickly to mind), these characteristics are significantly more common and recurrent in developing countries. Undeniably, an environmental event of the same scale will have a higher humanitarian cost – and consequently a potential damaging migratory impact – in the latter. The situation of disaster prevention and relief in Central America, where hundreds of thousands of people are periodically left homeless during the hurricane season, may serve as an illustration of the normally low capacity of response present in areas of Latin America. Costa Rica’s disaster response plan, which offered an only somewhat acceptable response to the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit its Central Valley in January 2009, is indeed considered the best in the region.51 Unacceptable delays and insufficient responses, such as those given by ex-president Manuel Zelaya when he declared a state of emergency three weeks after Honduras was shaken by a 7.1 earthquake in June 2009, are much more common in the isthmus. Of course, these examples are now slighted by the incomparable catastrophe the poorest country in the Western hemisphere has been suffering following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti’s capital on January 12, 2010, incurring a death toll of over 200,00052 and the damage or destruction of almost 300,000 residences and commercial buildings.53
An article published in the August 2009 issue of the scientific journal Nature strongly supported the theory that as the oceans’ temperature continues to rise due to climate change, tropical storms will become increasingly recurrent and potent.54 This trend was particularly noted in the Caribbean basin, the region most strongly affected by hurricanes in the Western hemisphere. Studies of the region’s past hurricanes and their responses, particularly in Mexico, indicate that the vast majority of the populations who suffered from the events – and thus those who might have been displaced – intended to remain in their homeland or to return as soon as possible. Although predictions posit that migration will continue to be mostly temporal and internal, it is reasonable to presume that as hurricanes hit the Caribbean with more frequency and strength, households that have repeatedly suffered from these events may increasingly consider permanent or international migration as an adaptation strategy.55 The latter option may be facilitated by the existence of strong migration ties and networks between Latin American countries and the U.S.
Non-climate drivers and the question of unequal land distribution in Latin America
The largest amount of climate migration is most likely to be concentrated in areas where ‘non-environmental’ factors – such as poor governance, political persecution, population pressures, and poverty – are already present and exercise migratory pressures on the local populations. The authors of the RSC’s report assimilate the conjunction of poor governance or political persecution and environmental migration to Amartya Sen’s famous adage that famines are not bound to occur in a democracy.56 Similarly, environmental changes should not induce mass migrations in a country that has an accountable and responsive government.
At the interface of climate and non-climate drivers, UNU’s June 2009 report In Search of Shelter asserts that the loss of ‘ecosystem services’ such as arable soil, clean air, and water, will be the principal cause of mass environmental migration.57 Specialists argue that as climate change – in conjunction with unsustainable human usages and population pressures – starts to overwhelm an ecosystem, it will progressively become less capable to provide ‘its services.’58 Those populations mostly dependent on these ‘services’ for their livelihood – such as farmers, who could suffer from reductions in crop yield s– will be harshly affected by these changes, making them more likely to choose migration or be obligated to resort to it as an ultimate adaptive option.59
General economic pressures, as well as a lack of natural hazard risk assessments and zoning laws, may push those less fortunate populations onto marginal areas, as happened in the case of Typhoon Marakot, and its particularly strong effect on Taiwan’s rural poor. Incidentally, these marginal lands may be at greater risk of suffering from natural hazards as floods or mudslides. But, in a region such as Latin America where, in addition to current economic forces, historical factors have also fatefully contributed to these displacements, it becomes necessary to analyze and include the population’s geographical distribution in this region’s future debate of environmentally-prompted – and more specifically – climate migration.
In his article Roots of Flight: Environmental Refugees in Latin America, York University Professor Andil Gosine explains the processes that forced indigenous populations and small farmers from the rich arable valleys onto marginal arid or mountainous lands, often putting such areas at greater risk of suffering from climate processes or events.60 The arrival of European ‘Conquistadores’ to Latin America marked the installation of a very unequal land tenure system, visible to this day in countries such as Nicaragua, where in 2003 less than 25 percent of the rural population owned almost 85 percent of the country’s land.61 The capitalist systems established in many Latin American countries in the 19th century, exerted economic pressures on the region to produce monocultures for export. According to Gosine, this trend, that was further emphasized by the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) infamous Structural Adjustment Plans of the 1960s – which strongly supported the production of cash crops – has served to perpetuate until the present day an unequal geographical distribution of the population.62
Relegated to less productive lands, small farmers in Latin America face undeniable economic hardships as their produce customarily has to compete against strongly subsidized American and European agricultural goods. The migratory pressures already in place due to these hardships will most likely be cemented by climate change, and the inequality in land distribution only further underscores the disproportionate influence it is bound to have on the poorer sectors of Latin American society.

———————
 http://www.coha.org/climate-migration-in…

Climate Migration in Latin America: A Future ‘Flood of Refugees’ to the North? Part 2
by COHA Research Fellow Alexandra Deprez

The second segment of this research piece identifies Mexico as an environmentally induced migration ‘hotspot,’ discusses development impacts in Latin America, and speculates on potential responses from Washington.
‘Hotspot’ case study: Mexico

Yesterday, WHO reported that there has been no rise in infectious diseases one month on from the disaster, with the finding based on epidemiological surveillance carried out by 52 sites across the Caribbean island nation.

On top of the more than 50 WHO/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) staff on the ground in Haiti, dozens more experts in fields ranging from disaster management to water and sanitation were deployed to the Caribbean nation. “Haiti’s entire health system, from its infrastructure to the very staff and system that operated it, has been deeply affected by the earthquake,” WHO said in its latest update.

Over 200 Haitian medical staff died when the health ministry building collapsed, while many doctors and nurses were also killed or injured.

In total, the  January 12, 2010 quake claimed more than 200,000 lives, leaving over 300,000 others injured and 1 million Haitians homeless.

Henriette Chamouillet, WHO’s Representative in Haiti, paid tribute to the hundreds of Cuban health professionals in the country at the time of the tremors, with some 1,300 additional doctors and other staff being dispatched after the quake.

“They are absolutely important for the country,” she stressed at a press conference today in Geneva.

Dr. Chamouillet said that Cuba has long been training roughly 80 Haitian doctors per year, most of whom return to their home country following their schooling.

For its part, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today that the humanitarian situation in Haiti is on the upswing, with the port, airport and other essential infrastructure gradually coming back online.

The Office warned, however, that shelter and sanitation needs, as well as rubble removal, are among those that remain unmet.

Tomorrow afternoon, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be launching a revised flash appeal for Haiti, along with his Special Envoy for Haiti, Bill Clinton, and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.

Just three days after the quake, the UN called for $575 million, with a bulk of the funds intended to be directed to urgent needs, including food, water and shelter.

 http://ipsterraviva.net/UN/currentNew.as…

South-South Cooperation Key to MDGs
IPS Correspondents

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 (IPS) – Member states meeting here Thursday called for the immediate implementation of development commitments made during the Nairobi high-level U.N. conference on cooperation between developing countries.

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark highlighted the importance of the Nairobi meeting on South-South cooperation in sharing information, technologies, and experiences across the South. The Nairobi outcome document calls for concrete measures to mainstream support for South-South and triangular cooperation in the U.N.’s work.

“I can assure you that we in UNDP have received that loud and clear message,” Clark said. “We have long proudly hosted the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation and fully supported its work.” On the heels of Thursday’s General Assembly High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation (HLC) meeting, focal points of South-South cooperation at 29 U.N. agencies met Friday at headquarters to discuss follow-up to the Nairobi conference.

“South-South cooperation is an expression of solidarity that has proven its relevance by a rapid growth,” said Ambassador Abdullah M. Alsaidi of Yemen, the chair of the Group of 77 developing countries.

“Cooperation across the South has been transformed by the growth of the emerging economies,” Clark explained.

The share of global GDP generated by low and middle income countries has grown from 15 percent to 25 percent over the last 50 years according to UNDP estimates, and analysts predict that emerging markets will outperform developed markets over the course of the next decade.

“Strengthening of regional integration and improved networking among members of regional blocs and organisations has a multiplier effect to South-South cooperation,” said Ambassador Zachary Muburi-Muita of Kenya, who was elected president of the HLC meeting here.

“The emerging economies in the South are attracting international attention and will increasingly acquire the muscle to influence the course of economic growth and development,” said Ambassador Gyan Chandra Acharya of Nepal, stressing that the recent successes of the developing world are in danger of being reversed and are not being felt equally across countries or regions.

Despite the gains achieved through trade and finance, delegations noted the deepening economic asymmetries among developing countries, particularly in regard to the least developed countries (LDCs) and landlocked developing countries.

The HLC stressed that the current financial, food and energy crises have exacerbated the vulnerabilities of developing countries that lack the capacity to withstand shocks.

There is an “implementation gap” that has been looming over the recommendations of the major U.N. conferences in the economic and social areas, delegates agreed.

It is only with “political will towards fulfilling the commitments that parties have undertaken in Nairobi that we can make real progress,” an Egyptian delegate stressed.

“South-South cooperation is immensely important at this time for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed goals, and for tackling climate change,” said Clark.

Clark urged delegations to take a particularly close look at the gender aspects of achieving the MDGs.

“Progress is lagging behind particularly on MDG5 on maternal health; on MDG3 on empowering women; and on MDG2 with respect to gender parity in access to education,” Clark said, “To achieve the MDGs and indeed other internationally agreed development goals, women have to be an equal part of the equation.”

In order to effectively implement the Nairobi outcome with demonstrable results, stakeholders need to identify “quick wins” whose implementation should be devoid of unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy, said Muburi-Muita.

The government of Brazil and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have signed agreements on South-South cooperation to prevent and combat child labour and to promote good practices and lessons learned in Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and Asia.

“This is an excellent example of how member states are able to engage entities of the U.N. system through a South-South and triangular partnership in support of their national development strategies,” according to the ILO delegation.

The HLC stressed local ownership of solutions as a key component of South-South cooperation.

“Now, as UNDP positions itself to be of the greatest possible relevance and support to developing countries in the 21st century, we see facilitating South-South exchanges of experience and knowledge as absolutely central to what we do,” Clark explained.

A growing priority of the U.N. will be to share experience on climate change adaptation and mitigation. This could include sharing knowledge on growing drought-tolerant crops, on reforestation, or on providing low-cost access to clean energy and transport technology.

Clark emphasised that a very wide range of developing countries make contributions to South-South cooperation. In the recent weeks “we have seen least developed and low-income countries, along with middle-income and net-contributing countries, digging deep into their pockets for Haiti,” she said.

At The Foreign Policy Association, New York, Wednesday, January 13, 2010, in the Grupo Santander building Auditorium, there was a meeting with Dr. Julia E. Sweig who wrote the book: “CUBA: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW.”

Julia Sweig is Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies & Director for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

She has authored several reports on Latin America and American Foreign Policy. Her book “Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground” of 2002 received an award for the best book of the year by an independent scholar from the American Historical Association.

The meeting was chaired by Ambassador Viktor Polgar, Consul General of Hungary in New York City.

Dr. Sweig started out by saying that she was part of the US culture relating to Latin America – that educated in Spanish language also lots of Cuban students  and studies about Cuba but nothing in Portuguese or Brazil, implying that in the US Cuba got much too thigh attention then it deserved – and Brazil much less attention then it deserved. But even so, in effect Cuba was in a dormant state so far as US direct involvement, until the switch from Fidel to Raoul.

The discussion with Cuba was always difficult. Cuba was focusing on history while the US was looking to the future.

2006 – 2007 changes start in Havana and the Miami Cubans find this important – then 2007-2008 Raoul begins to look at domestic issues in Cuba and starts to talk of dirty laundry of the regime. On February 2008 he takes office in a 34 minutes speech – a novelty to who was used to the unending Fidel rhetoric. He skips the gov’t talk to improve the life and says that inefficiency will be removed. He eliminates control of Cubans travel abroad. There seems to be a new government, new people, new ways of doing things – and expectations started to be high. With the changes in the US – President Obama suggested in april 2009 to open a new chapter.

——-

In Miami, the last decade the Cuban Americans shift from the call for embargo to a people-to-people family oriented approach. This in South Florida more then in New Jersey. Miami is now for the first time ahead of Washington asking for change.

Since 2001 there were exchanges with Cuba, but then they were stopped by the Bush Administration – including the remittances. Then came the war on Iraq and the notion of regime change that ruffled Cuba. All what started before Bush years was now suspicious

President Lula and Spanish PM Zapatero are pushing Washington for change in regard to Cuba. Indeed, in Trinidad the US allowed the return of Cuba to the OAS, and in Congress there is now a bill to remove travel restrictions and to take Cuba of the terrorism lists.

Clearly, the US is not the final decider in Cuba – but it has a role to play in Cuba changing.

Former Congressman John Brandemas said that President Bush restricted Microsoft and Google in regards to Cuba, as Cuba also reacted with restrictions. In effect the same day as this meeting at the FPA, the New York Times had an article about a communications contractor who was arested in Cuba, Alan P. Gross, who was working with local groups to make sure they are capable of using internet communication.

Questions abunded about how long will it take to get to “YES WE CAN.” It was pointed out that $9,000 gets a Congressman’s vote and this is a reason for the bottleneck. The Cuban Americans still hold the game, even though they would like to see change.

The facts are that after the US and Canada, Cuba is third on medical issues in the hemisphere. Cuba helped Chavez consolidate his power and they like him to take out oxygen of Latin America.

—————

Further, let us recommens CUBA – La Isla Grande, Edited by Martino Fagiuoli, a 2007, Fall River Press, New York, printed in China, an album about Cuba with photos taken in the 1990s. The country seems to be ready to stick it out until the US changes its attitude towards the island.

Shackleton’s Whiskey Found Buried Near South Pole.

Lauren Frayer
Contributor to aol.com
(Feb. 6, 2010) — It’s probably the most sought-after scotch in history – crates of whiskey buried in Antarctica by the famed explorer Ernest Shackleton a century ago. He abandoned them on a failed attempt to reach the South Pole in 1909, and they’ve been on ice – literally – ever since.

Researchers from New Zealand found the crates while restoring a hut Shackleton built and used during the expedition. He and his team were forced to cut short the trip and abandon supplies, including their booze, to sail away before winter ice trapped them there.

The New Zealand team first spotted two crates underneath the hut’s floorboards in 2006, but they were too deeply embedded in ice to be salvaged. Researchers returned to the site this past week, and finally extracted the crates after drilling into the ice around them. The surprise was that there were three more crates than expected – one more of whiskey and two of brandy.

The second trip was backed by the same Scottish company that distilled Shackleton’s whiskey, Mackinlay’s Rare Old Scotch. It could be the longest booze run in history. The Whyte and Mackay distillery hopes to replicate the whiskey, which hasn’t been made in a lifetime after the original recipe was lost.

“Given the original recipe no longer exists, this may open a door into history,” the company’s master blender, Richard Paterson, said in a release posted on the company’s Web site. He called the find “a gift from the heavens” for whiskey lovers.

“If the contents can be confirmed, safely extracted and analyzed, the original blend may be able to be replicated,” Paterson said.

Experts will try to extract the historic brew delicately. Some of the crates have cracked and ice has formed inside. Icebergs surrounding the crates smelled of whiskey, and there may have been leakage, according to Al Fastier, a restoration expert with the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust who made the find.

He told the BBC he heard the slosh of liquid inside the crates when they were moved, and is confident that much of the liquor is still inside.

Shackleton’s expedition ran short of supplies on a long trek to the South Pole that began in 1907. He had to turn back about 100 miles from the pole in 1909. The team had to move quickly to escape as winter ice began to form, so they were forced to abandon all but essential equipment and supplies – including their whiskey. No lives were lost.

A Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, was first to reach the South Pole two years later, in 1911.

As for what the future holds for Shackleton’s whiskey, there are international treaties preventing the removal of artifacts from Antarctica, but Paterson wrote on his blog that he hopes to get his hands on at least a sample of the whiskey, if not a couple bottles.

“What you all want to know is: How will it taste?” Paterson wrote. “To which the answer is: Cold.”

The problem was the 51 cents/gallon of ethanol from sugar-cane tariff, the US imposes against imports from international producers of bioethanol – so they do not compete with US agro-ethanol.

We are cynics by nature and wonder if the release today has anything to do with Shell Oil Company having announced last weekend that they will invest over a billion dollars in the production of sugar-cane ethanol in Brazil. So, did we have to wait until an oil company steps heavily into this area – so we finally allow US door to be opened to a non-petroleum liquid fuel?

WE ARE VERY PARTIAL TO THIS TOPIC BECAUSE BACK IN 1978 AT UNIDO IN VIENNA, AND IN 1979 IN NEW ORLEANS, I WAS PERSONALLY INVOLVED IN BRINGING THIS SUBJECT TO THE ATTENTION OF THE LIQUID FUEL HUNGRY WESTERN WORLD. IN VIENNA WE SHOWED THE CUBAN EXPERIENCE AT A UN – AUSTRIA – SWEDEN EVENT. IN NEW ORLEANS THIS WAS “THE FIRST INTER-AMERICAN CONFERENCE ON RENEWABLE SOURCES OF ENERGY” THAT I HELPED ORGANIZE. OBVIOUSLY – TO LOUISIANA WE COULD NOT BRING THE CUBANS – BUT BRAZIL, ARGENTINA AND MANY OTHERS WERE PRESENT UNDER THE FRIENDLY EYES OF THE US DEPARTMENT OF STATE. ETHANOL BECAME A RECOGNIZED FUEL, BUT US AGRICULTURE MADE SURE IT WILL BE US CORN AS FEEDSTOCK. WE COULD NOT EVEN GET PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR IMPORTS FROM FRIENDLY COUNTRIES BECAUSE OIL AND AGRICULTURE – SOME OF THE STRONGEST LOBBIES IN WASHINGTON – WOULD NOT ALLOW IT , EVEN AFTER THE INTERVENTION OF US REPUBLICAN SENATORS LIKE FRANK CHURCH, JACOB JAVITS, CHARLES PERCY – SO WHAT WILL IT BE NOW? WILL THOSE TARIFFS COME OFF?

—————-
EPA Reaffirms Sugarcane Biofuel is Advanced Renewable Fuel with 61% Less Emissions than Gasoline.
Brazil Sugarcane Update – Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Welcomes U.S. EPA’s Renewable Fuels Rules.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that ethanol made from sugarcane is a low carbon renewable fuel, which can contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of today’s announcement finalizing regulations for the implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), the EPA designated sugarcane ethanol as an advanced biofuel that lowers GHG emissions by more than 50%.

“The EPA’s decision underscores the many environmental benefits of sugarcane ethanol and reaffirms how this low carbon, advanced renewable fuel can help the world mitigate against climate change while diversifying America’s energy resources,” said Joel Velasco, Chief Representative in Washington for the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA).

Sugarcane ethanol is a renewable fuel refined from cane that grows typically in tropical climates. Compared to other types of ethanol available today, using sugarcane ethanol to power cars and trucks yields greater reductions in greenhouse gases and is usually much cheaper for drivers to purchase. Brazil has replaced more than half of its fuel needs with sugarcane ethanol – making gasoline the alternative fuel in that country and ethanol the standard.  Many observers point to sugarcane ethanol as a good option for diversifying U.S. energy supplies, increasing healthy competition among biofuel manufacturers and improving America’s energy security.

The RFS2 will help the United States meet energy security and greenhouse gas reduction goals sought by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007 (EISA). The new regulations establish minimum biofuels consumption in the U.S. of more than 12 billion gallons (45 billion liters) in 2010, rising to 36 billion gallons (136 billion liters) in 2022, of which 21 billion gallons per year would have to be one of three types of advanced biofuels: cellulosic, biomass diesel, and “other advanced,” that meet required GHG reduction thresholds as determined by the EPA.

Today, EPA affirmed that sugarcane ethanol meets the “other advanced” category in the RFS2, although with a GHG reduction level that exceeds the requirement for all categories as well.  Specifically, EPA’s calculations show that sugarcane ethanol from Brazil reduces GHG emissions compared to gasoline by 61%, using a 30-year payback for indirect land use change (iLUC) emissions.

“We are pleased that EPA took the time to improve the regulations, particularly by more accurately quantifying the full lifecycle greenhouse emission reductions of biofuels. EPA’s reaffirmation of sugarcane ethanol’s superior GHG reduction confirms that sustainably-produced biofuels can play a important role in climate mitigation. Perhaps this recognition will sway those who have sought to raise trade barriers against clean energy here in the U.S. and around the world. Sugarcane ethanol is a first generation biofuel with third generation performance,” noted Velasco.

Last year, UNICA submitted comments to EPA with abundant scientifically credible evidence showing that – even including indirect emissions – sugarcane ethanol has a reduction of GHG emissions of 73-82% compared with gasoline, on a 30- or 100-year time horizon respectively. The RFS2 requires the use of at least 4 billion gallons (over 15 billion liters) of “other advanced” renewable fuels a year by 2022. In 2010, the RFS requires 200 million gallons of this type of advanced renewable fuels.

“While we are reviewing the final rule, it is clear that EPA has incorporated many of the comments that UNICA and other stakeholders made during the public process. EPA should be congratulated for the way it upheld the Obama’s goals of transparency and scientific integrity in the environmental rulemaking. And we hope that other governments should take note of the manner that EPA has handled this process,” concluded Velasco.

Brazil is a leader in the production of sugarcane ethanol, which is widely considered as the most efficient biofuel available today. In 2009, Brazil produced over 7 billion gallons of sugarcane ethanol, most of which is used in Brazil in flex fuel vehicles. As a result of Brazil’s innovative use of sugarcane ethanol in transportation and biomass for cogeneration, sugarcane is the leading source of renewable energy in the nation, representing 16% of the country’s total energy needs. In fact, gasoline has become the alternative in Brazil, reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels lowering emissions. A recent study in the November 2009 edition of the journal Energy Policy indicated that since 1975, over 600 million tons of CO2 emissions have been avoided thanks to the use of ethanol in Brazil.

———

ABOUT UNICA. The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) represents the
top producers of sugar and ethanol in the country’s South-Central region, especially the
state of Sao Paulo, which accounts for about 50% of the country’s sugarcane harvest
and 60% of total ethanol production. UNICA develops position papers, statistics and
specific research in support of Brazil’s sugar, ethanol and bioelectricity sectors. In 2008,
Brazil produced an estimated 565 million metric tons of sugarcane, which yielded 31.3
million tons of sugar and 25.7 billion liters (6.8 billion gallons) of ethanol, making it the
number-one sugarcane grower and sugar producer in the world, and the second-largest
ethanol producer on the planet, behind the United States.

—————-

Brazil Hopes Shell-Cosan Can Boost Ethanol Exports

Date: 04-Feb-10, Reuters from Brazil
Author: Inae Riveras – Analysis

SAO PAULO – Brazil’s ethanol industry, which invested heavily to boost output of the cane-based biofuel, is counting on a tie-up between sugar and ethanol producer Cosan and Royal Dutch Shell Plc to revive its prospects after exports fell short of expectations.

“Shell chose ethanol as the renewable fuel they want to be in and it chose Brazil. Whether this will mean more exports will depend on a series of circumstances beyond the companies’ control,” said ethanol expert Eduardo Pereira de Carvalho.

The slow rate of growth for ethanol exports has disappointed Brazil, where more than 450 mills joined the ethanol sector’s expansion drive in recent years.

Some analysts say any growth in ethanol exports will depend on oil prices more than other factor.

“The deal itself does not raise or reduce the economic viability of blending anhydrous ethanol in gasoline. This will be determined by the oil market,” said sugar and ethanol analyst Julio Maria Borges, director at Job Economia.

In 2008, when oil prices reached record highs of $147 per barrel, Brazil exported 5.1 billion liters of ethanol, up sharply from 3.5 billion liters the previous year. Countries simply bought more of the fuel to replace gasoline.

But oil prices tumbled as the global credit crisis intensified, and there was a similar decline in foreign interest for the cane-based fuel. Brazilian ethanol exports in 2009 slipped to 3.3 billion liters despite extremely low prices on the Brazilian market.

STEADY SUPPLIES, TARIFFS

If ethanol is economically viable compared to oil, however, Brazilian ethanol exports should benefit from Shell’s global infrastructure, commercial relationships and know-how.

Shell, with distribution centers and 45,000 filling stations around the world, will have access to annual supplies of 2 billion liters of Cosan ethanol.

“Shell will be able to strike long-term deals with clients around the world, something that currently hardly exists, as it will be backed by a big provider,” Borges said.

“It’s difficult to predict (when exports could rise)… but the strategic meaning of a company the size of Shell to invest here is the most important point,” Carvalho said.

As food distribution improves, Haitians want U.S to ‘take over’

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, Monday, February 1, 2010

International relief organizations backed by American soldiers delivered hundreds of tons of rice to homeless residents of the Haitian capital Sunday, laboring to ease a food shortage that has left countless thousands struggling to find enough to eat.

But even as food-aid workers enjoyed their most successful day since the Jan. 12 earthquake, the increasingly prominent role of U.S. troops and civilians in the capital is creating high expectations that the Obama administration is struggling to contain.

The needs are extraordinary, and the common refrain is that the Americans will provide.

“I want the Americans to take over the country. The Haitian government can’t do anything for us,” said Jean-Louis Geffrard, a laborer who lives under a tarp in the crowded square. “When we tell the government we’re hungry, the government says, ‘We’re hungry, too.’ “

Added Canga Matthieu, a medical student whose school was destroyed: “The American government should take care of us.”

“They’re well organized. The United States is the richest country in the world, and they can help.”

But help has its limits, U.S. officials emphasize in their public statements and in their interactions with Haitians. “You will have a friend and partner in the United States of America today and going forward,” President Obama said the day after the earthquake. But U.S. officials here make it clear that the American government is not responsible for rebuilding the ravaged country.

“The military forces . . . are not here to do any reconstruction. That is not our mission,” said Col. Rick Kaiser, a U.S. Army engineer overseeing emergency repairs to the Port-au-Prince docks, the electrical and water systems, and other battered infrastructure in the hemisphere’s poorest country.

Administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, describe virtually every activity here as “Haiti-led,” although the government is barely functioning and its record was checkered even before the earthquake killed more than 110,000 people and leveled an array of government ministries.

Louis Lucke, the senior U.S. Agency for International Development official in Haiti, stood in an American-run medical complex Saturday with President René Préval and told reporters that “the Haitians are leading the process in all the areas that are necessary” — including food distribution, despite strong evidence to the contrary.

U.S. officials are doing what they can to bolster the stature of Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and to promote international assistance efforts for the more-daunting work that lies ahead. In the meantime, they are deploying personnel to support projects from food delivery to the erection of a temporary hospital near Port-au-Prince.

Sgt. 1st Class Jason Jacot, an Army engineer, drove to a critical power station in the Delmas neighborhood Sunday morning to assess repairs made by Haitian and Dominican workers.

Markestre Theolien, a supervisor with Haiti Electricity, the national utility, lamented the condition of the 27-year-old transformers and asked for new ones. Asked where the help should come from, he smiled and said, “U.S.A.”

“So they’re expecting us to take over?” Jacot asked a translator. “No, no, no. How can we assist without completely rebuilding? We’re not here to rebuild.”

The discussion went back and forth cordially. Jacot said he would be talking with the utility’s director to learn what was needed. Theolien defined his bottom line: “What we really want is the United States to rebuild it, to modernize.”

U.S. soldiers, whose numbers within Haiti have risen to 6,500, played a central role in Sunday’s food distributions, working alongside U.N. peacekeepers to prevent the pushing, shoving and occasional melees that have severely hampered deliveries. Where U.S. troops have been present in recent days, relief workers say, deliveries have gone smoothly.

By day’s end, the U.N. World Food Program calculated that roughly 400 metric tons of rice had been delivered to nine sites. Five more locations will be running early in the week, a spokesman said, but increased gang violence in the Cité Soleil slums made deliveries too risky.

The generally smooth deliveries on Sunday, based on a new system of ration cards, were met with pleasure at the Place du Canape Vert, an impromptu settlement where several hundred families received large sacks marked “Product of USA” or “USA Best Rice.” Yet some asked when there would be something more than rice, while others wanted to know why they were left out.

Deliveries will resume Monday as the World Food Program, bolstered by an $80 million U.S. contribution, seeks to reach 2 million people in the next two weeks. The agency hopes the system will lead to distribution of other badly needed food and relief supplies.

At the ramshackle encampment, some residents were boiling water for rice within an hour of the delivery. Some had beans or root vegetables to add, and a few had meat. Those who could afford neither complained that rice alone would not be enough.

“It’s there, but we can do nothing with it. We only got rice. No oil, nothing. And it’s not easy to find water,” said Flore Laurent, who is eight months pregnant. But she had nothing but praise for the role of the American soldiers. “I vote for the help of the U.S., 100 percent.”

A throng of people in the square discussed their lack of faith in Haitian authorities. One after another, they said their only hope is the United States.

“The Haitian government has been here for a while, and they give us nothing. The United States should take over the country,” said Andrelita Laguerre, shepherding four children and a grandchild at the camp. “Most of my friends expect the United States to take over. I wish!”

China is this month’s UN Security Council President.

We learned from Matthew Russell Lee reporting from the UN in New York about China’s deeds in Haiti.

UNITED NATIONS, January 27 — UN peacekeepers have been firing tear gas and, according to eye witnesses, rubber bullets at Haitian aid seekers. Meanwhile, the UN confirmed on Wednesday that the Chinese search and rescue team which appeared so quickly in Haiti left just as quickly, as soon as it recovered the bodies of its own national who had been visiting the UN Mission, MINUSTAH.

Chinese search team in Haiti, recovering own and ready to leave, per UN

Wimhurst remained silent when asked to explicitly confirm that the Chinese search and rescue team left immediately after digging out its own national. But when asked twice to name a single other place in Haiti where the Chinese team had dug, he could not. “They went back to China,” he said. Video here, from Minute 10:02.
But on January 28, Chinese diplomats told Inner City Press to check with John Holmes, who they cited as on record about additional Chinese work in Haiti — a country with whose government China has no diplomatic relations, since Haiti recognized Taiwan.

Inner City Press asked Holmes to square this with what Mr. Wimhurt said. “I don’t know what to add,” Holmes said. “That’s my understanding, the Chinese information as well.” But was he a witness? Video here, from Minute 15:34.

The pre-State-of-the-Union Sunday on US TV called to President Obama to stop acting like a Prime Minister and start rather be Presidential.
We guess that this meant a call for him to find ways to achieve goals he set to himself by using the Presidential regulatory powers – given him by the Constitution and by US law. The TV pundits were saying that the President got involved in the minutiae and lost the larger scope – he got involved in the messy legislative sausage making. The last President to have done this was President Johnson when pushing through the Equal Rights Act. He succeeded by getting Republicans on board to replace the reluctant Democrats – and then acted it out as a President
- but Obama did not manage to get any Republicans to his side.

The Republicans have been obstructionist – but the figures show the
public still likes Obama as a leader and the real question the public
has is – “has he effected the way Washington Works”; Fareed Zakharia
asked at the beginning of the CNN/GPS program “WHAT SHOULD HE DO?”

As that was the week with Haiti on our mind – the first question was -
what should the US realistically do about Haiti? We know that after
the immediate crisis is gone – people will go home and what then?

Former Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski said that Haiti is a
National Security Problem to the US and how does it compare to other
security problems? A failed State next door could even bring in
Al-Qaeda. We do not need grand-style visits by leaders – but we need a
Statement of Purpose. We need a US push at the UN to create an
international partnership of Haiti. WE NEED LATIN AMERICA AND CENTRAL AMERICA PARTICIPATION.

The participants reminded us of the history of colonialism and
imperialism and the troubled past US involvement in Haiti. They warned
of an International Trusteeship of the UN and pointed out that Haiti
has an important resource – human capital – that was not utilized. The
Haitians in the US demonstrated they are dynamic and creative – this
potential is terribly underutilized! Brzezinski called for a UN flag
so there is no perception of colonialism and said what we say all the
time – BRAZIL COULD BE INVOLVED.

The Dominican Republic, shares the same Island and is doing fine – how
is it that the two had such a different path? The answer may be in the
deforestation in Haiti that changed its agricultural base. For the
immediate reaction – just drop food from the air – do not worry about
the internal conflicts at this time of need – then start building on
existing institutions like the church and their own local honored
society – I took this as a nod to the Voodoo culture.

Brzezinski also pointed out that Haiti takes US attention away from
the Iraq and AfPak regions and we must focus there.

In Haiti we must create a Nation State – this is a Nation Building issue, but Haiti is not the Germany of 1945. A Marshall plan is a huge commitment and Dominique Strauss-Kahn of the IMF talks of reviving a viable economy "with people building and selling." He says the Haitians must be in the driver’s seat. Calls for US, French, Canadians involved. Edmond Mulet – the French Guatemalan in charge of the UN in Haiti, after the previous French speaking Tunisian leader died in the earthquake, was also brought to the program, but this segment seemed rather like a call back to the old ways of the UN and the US.
I missed there the Latin and Central American true angle, and the evolution of Brazilian leadership – the Brazilians having lost more people in Haiti then other foreigners except the American citizens of Haitian origin. The US was also mentioned in regard to the TPS status that will be allowed for those in the US illegally now – so they surface for an 18 months legal status that allows the closing of the borders for next push by Haitians.

Edwidge Danticat, a successful Haitian-American writer from Miami, was brought to the Program – this as evidence of Haitian success when free to compete and unleash their talents, though fully aware of their close family having undergone oppression back home and here in the US. she Spoke of family loss in Haiti.

Peggy Noonan, with the Haiti topic out of the way, turned to the
President’s loss – just in one year – of the backing of the
Independent voters. She thinks – you must hold the center if you want
to prosper as a President. Even the Conservatives in Red States
(Republican State) are not safe – it is an Independent Vote that wins!
getting something done is another level of government – from here back
to Johnson and the Civil Rights Vote experience. He had George Aiken
introduce the bill – we do not see his legislative genius in action.
Had Obama gone to John McCain for support the legislation would have
been much more acceptable. We lost the probability to get results
because of the squabbling in congress.

Walter Isaacson, the author of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the
World They Made” – this how the Johnson world was made to work – said
that the Massachusetts election to US Senate, that lost the Ted
Kennedy seat to a Republican, might be not so much of a blow as a
Blessing in Disguise! Obama said his Presidency should be
transformational – we need this!

Obama was in a different direction from the people, Reagan was in the
same direction with the people – that is why he succeeded better.
You cannot transform the country on a pure position basis – continued
Isaacson. Republicans produced books against government – but Reagan
did not walk in by saying government was bad! His success required
moving to the middle. It seems that the Isaacson books should be made
required reading in this White House.

The point is that Obama should go to the Republicans and say – we need
a health care bill and I want you on board. The same with other
issues.

As we waited for a week before writing up what was said last Sunday -
that is before the actual State of the Union speech, it is only fair
to note that Friday,last night, and now today, the TV and papers are
full with the news from President Obama being part of the Republican
conclave that met to discuss the State of the Union – and there in the
lyon’s den – Obama defends the truth in the face of Republican and
Democratic distortions. This psychodrama may not have immediate
results – but somewhere it might find its way to the better part of
the milder Republicans so they could help free the President from the
worse Democrats – just like in Johnson’s days – ot is this just my own
imagination’s hope for results of attempts at a mutual consciousness
raising session?

Sam Tanenhaus, who wrote “The Death of Conservatism”; looks at Rush
Limbaugh as the example of the takeover of true conservatism by the
right fringe.

Looking at China – Fareed Zakharia picked up the fact that China
government, with its rule of only 20 films from the West that can be
shown to its people during one year – disallows Avatar in favor of a
Confucius movie. But Fareed reminds the Chinese of the Confucius
Golden Rule: “DON’T DO TO OTHERS WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE DONE TO
YOURSELF” – in his interpretation – don’t become insular because
others might do this to you also.

We say – if they do not really become part of a Climate Change agreement- what is there to hold the rest of the world back from changing WTO rules so there are carbon taxes at the border?

Haiti revival after quake could take generations says UN chief: Bleak outlook for decades to come and fears of health calamity when rainy season starts in May.

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent, and Tom Phillips in Port-au-Prince
guardian.co.uk,     Friday 29 January 2010

Rebuilding Haiti will take generations because the earthquake-shattered country was starting from “below zero” and logistics remained a “nightmare”, the United Nations warned today.

The bleak long-term assessment came as basic medical supplies in Port-au-Prince ran dangerously low and concerns grew of a public health calamity with the onset of the rainy season.

Several hospitals and clinics reported shortages of painkillers and antibiotics for patients with fractures, amputated limbs and infections. Relief agencies said there was also an urgent need for tents.

Edmond Mulet, acting head of the UN mission in Haiti, warned that emergency relief efforts were the start of a commitment that would be much longer than the international community might realise. “I think this is going to take many more decades … this is an enormous backwards step in Haiti’s development,” he told the BBC. “We will not have to start from zero but from below zero.”

Foreign governments this week pledged to back a decade-long rebuilding effort but that timescale could need revising at a donor conference in the coming months.

The US military signalled plans to start transferring authority to the state and aid agencies within three to six months.

The magnitude-seven quake on 12 January caused the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people, left 1.5 million homeless and 3 million in need of aid. It destroyed much of Haiti’s infrastructure.

Some 200,000 heavy-duty tents have been ordered to cope with the rainy season, which typically begins in May, and the hurricane season soon after. Only about a 10th of that number of tents has reached Haiti. Salvage crews have started clearing rubble in Port-au-Prince but with ­three-quarters of the buildings mostly demolished the task is immense. There are plans for “tent cities” outside the capital and suggestions the city could be moved to a site less vulnerable to quakes.

Some relatively unscathed neighbourhoods show a semblance of normality: markets, shops and banks were working today and schools were due to open on Monday. Water, food and medicine is reaching more of the improvised camps.

Mullet, who is also the UN’s assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, said coordination between Haitian police and UN troops was improving aid delivery but relief logistics remained a “nightmare”.

That was apparent in hospitals where doctors and nurses complained of scarce medical supplies as they struggled to treat 200,000 survivors in need of post-surgery medical care as well as an unaccounted number with untreated injuries.

Nancy Fleurancois, a volunteer doctor at Jacmel, told a visiting UN official her team desperately needed antibiotics and surgical supplies. “You see people come here and they are at death’s door,” she said. “More help is needed.”

Kathleen Sejour, a hospital administrator, told AP: “Malaria is becoming a big problem and we don’t have enough anti-malaria drugs. Most of the kids right now have it. We had a good supply but we can’t keep up.”

Large amounts of aid have reached Haiti but the need is so vast, and the infrastructure so ruined, many survivors have been left to cope on their own. The maternal mortality rate was expected to jump.

Unicef said the disaster was likely to have separated thousands of children from their parents or guardians, and the agency repeated warnings about the threat of child traffickers.

Bo Viktor Nylund, Unicef’s senior children protection adviser, said hospitals had been alerted. “We are informing all hospitals that they should not discharge unaccompanied children without getting in touch with us or the government.”

In Port-a-Prince, Solveig Routier, a Canadian child protection specialist from Plan International, said that her group had received reliable reports of at least 15 cases of children being snatched from hospitals.

Aid groups estimate that there were 300,000 orphaned children here even before the recent disaster, and the devastation of Port-au-Prince means things have now become much worse.

Following the earthquake dozens of children were taken to the Sunshine House, a cramped concrete social centre in Pétionville which is home to 44 orphaned or abandoned children.

Sultane Ganthier, the orphanage’s 77-year-old director, said she had had to turn away children for lack of space. “Many people have asked us to take children [since the quake]. But we can’t do it. I can’t handle it,” she said.

Time for the U.S. and Cuba to Talk and More
by COHA Staff, January 29, 2010

The modest collaboration between the State Department and the Cuban government concerning the use of Cuban airspace and cooperation in providing medical relief to the Haitian people represents an opportunity for transition toward a more positive relationship between Washington and Havana. This cooperation demonstrates common humanitarian values that both nations share. The two governments should use these values and this opportunity to open a space for dialogue.
Privately, many U.S. and Cuban officials acknowledge that they are inclined to support steps toward reconciliation, though each side appears to harbor doubts of the other’s sincerity in attempts to move beyond historical rancor.
Although President Obama’s repeal of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans constitutes a step in the right direction, it was hardly enough to signal to Havana its readiness for détente.
The two ancient foes need not strive for a home run; a bunt single will do.

U.N. rights council’s Haiti parley is harmful diversion

January 27, 2010

GENEVA — Today’s 13th emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council, on Haiti, was a harmful waste of the organization’s precious time, resources, and moral capital.

Haiti is certainly a dire emergency, but the council, which is supposed to address human rights violations, has no budget, authority or expertise on humanitarian aid, and is simply the wrong forum.

According to one UN estimate, a day of conference and translation services can cost up to $200,000. Instead of being used for today’s questionable exercise, that money should have gone to Haiti’s needy victims.

Unlike other UN bodies, the Human Rights Council has neither the power of the purse nor of the sword, only the power to turn a spotlight on the worst abusers.

Tragically, however, the council has refused to hold special sessions to try and stop Iran from massacring student protesters, terrorists from killing civilians in Baghdad and Kabul, or China and Cuba from arresting bloggers, journalists and dissidents. Yet today it convened — to do what, exactly? Condemn the earth for quaking? It’s nonsensical.

Brazil, whose military has commanded the UN forces in Haiti for the past several years, was the one who requested today’s session. The leading power in South America, Brazil is determined to preserve its regional influence, with its rule over Haiti becoming a way to flex its muscles, as well as to gain UN credibility and one day win a seat on the Security Council.

The sudden, post-earthquake arrival of US forces and other actors challenges Brazil’s position. Hence today’s meeting, with Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim given an outsized role at the session. (Click here for summary of speeches.)

Also today, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed wealthy nations for Haiti’s poverty and misery, saying he hoped the quake would shame world leaders into doing what they should have done decades ago.

Beyond Brazil’s use of the special session to jockey for international influence, the larger question is why the session won such wide and easy support, when requests for urgent meetings on massive abuses elsewhere are routinely ignored by the council members.

Dominated by repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, the council majority prefers to waste time on an issue that involves no violation or perpetrator. It’s a public relations exercise that diverts attention from examining genuine human rights abuses, and aids member states that want the world to believe the council is nevertheless doing something.

The council was similarly misused last year with an urgent meeting on the financial crisis, and the year before that on the rise in food prices. Because it’s inherently the wrong forum, both meetings amounted to futile political exercises that produced nothing but paper.

The United States and the European Union should not have lent their names as co-sponsors to this equally futile exercise. It only takes the council further away from its stated mission of protecting individual human rights, and sends the wrong message.
Interestingly, the EU and other Western countries had previously demanded that all special sessions include a specific description of the human rights violations at issue (see par. 64 at p. 17 here). However, many of the same countries who took that position co-sponsored today’s session, despite the absence of any such description or violations.

The UN titled the meeting a “Special Session on Support to Recovery Process in Haiti: A Human Rights approach.”

IDF Haiti Mission: After two weeks, Israel team winds down Haiti mission.

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ, January 26, 2010

The Israel Defense Forces team in Haiti is finishing up its mission and will return home on Thursday.

The decision was based on the recommendation of the Home Front Command, whose senior officers feel hey have fulfilled their role in helping the earthquake victims. In view of the large number of personnel and resources the command is deploying in Haiti and the U.S., it is believed the time has come to wrap up the mission.

Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the head of the Home Front Command, returned to Israel last Friday after spending a few days with the Israelis in Haiti, commanded by Brig. Gen. (res.) Shalom Ben-Aryeh.

The command and the IDF Medical Corps are now preparing for the next stages of their mission: closing up shop and leaving behind a large part of the equipment brought there as a final goodwill gesture to the people of Haiti.

The winding up of the mission involves assisting the members of the team in returning to normal life back home after the complex experiences they they had, as well as drawing the necessary professional conclusions from the Haiti operation.

On the professional level, the IDF learned much about running a field hospital under such difficult conditions and operating rescue teams; and about dealing with a mass disaster that thankfully Israel has never experienced. The up close experience of dealing with an earthquake and its aftermath – a number of aftershocks occurred while the Israel mission was there – increased awareness of the enormous danger of such a natural event, but the upper echelons of the Home Front Command believe the situation in Israel is very different. While the earthquake in Haiti reached a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale, it seems the incredible destruction resulted more from the poor-quality construction there. Two similar strength earthquakes in California in recent decades resulted in only a few dozen killed in each quake.

Members of the rescue team who toured the area were surprised to discover there are almost no buildings built with reinforced concrete in Haiti. “You wander through the ruins and see no iron bars. Everything is made out of simple concrete, which turns into a brittle material in an earthquake of this magnitude. Everything collapses,” said one member of the Israeli mission.

In Israel, by way of comparison, a far stricter building code was adopted in the mid-1970s, making buildings far less vulnerable to earthquakes.

The main conclusion of the Haiti mission from an Israeli perspective, said one senior officer, concerns the “awareness of the citizens and local authorities of the possibility of an earthquake. It is possible that more exercises are needed, but if you prepare properly for a missile attack on the home front, then you have 95% of the tools [needed] at your disposal for dealing with an earthquake,” said the officer.

An analysis of the decision making process on sending the team once again shows that time is the critical factor. Israel moved quickly, in terms of making its decision and making the necessary preparations.

This provided effective help at a very early stage. In the case of Haiti, the rescue operations among the ruins – even though they drew huge media coverage – were downplayed. “It is very exciting to pull out survivors, but it’s a drop in the bucket. We rescued or aided in the rescue of four people, while all the rescue teams from all the countries saved 132 people altogether. It seems almost 200,000 people died in the earthquake,” said the senior officer.

Israel’s main accomplishment was in the quick deployment of the field hospital in Haiti. “For five critical days, it was the best hospital in Port-au-Prince,” said the officer. “We provided timely medical care to about 1,000 people, we conducted 300 operations and delivered 16 babies. In the past few days the Americans arrived and then you can put things in proportion and become more modest in the face of their airlift and the scope of their aid. You need to understand that those who will continue to treat the main suffering there are the Americans,” he added.

For Israel, this is further proof of the importance of field hospitals; the IDF closed the last one five years ago and only reopened them as part of the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War.

Next week the Home Front Command and the Medical Corps will hold a two-day seminar, with the help of psychologists, for those returning from Haiti to prepare them for returning to their routine.

The IDF has praised the cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and El Al during the mission to Haiti.

The good public relations is seen as being of only secondary importance: “Our people went to Haiti to save lives, to provide the best medical care they can and to represent Israel. That is the proper order of priorities. They did not think constantly about the blue and white flag flying overhead,” said the senior officer.

—————–
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dersh…

Alan Dershowitz – Lawyer and author
Posted: January 24, 2010

As most objective observers throughout the world marvel at Israel’s efficiency and generosity in leading the medical aid efforts in Haiti, some bigots insist on using these efforts as an occasion to continue their attack on the Jewish state. Both the neo-Nazi hard right and the neo-Stalinist hard left cannot help but to demonize Israel, regardless of what Israel does.

The neo-Nazi website ReportersNotebook.com features a blog entitled “The Zionization of Disaster Relief.” It accuses Israel of “exploiting the suffering of poor, defenseless Haitians on behalf of Israeli Triumphalism.” It complains that Israel is rendering medical aid to Haiti only to deflect attention from its crimes against the Palestinians.

The hard left, even in Israel, complains that Israel should not be sending medical assistance to such a faraway place. Instead it should be sending it to nearby Gaza.

Even the New York Times, in an otherwise thoughtful analysis of the controversiality of the aid among some Israelis, failed to note the difference between Israel sending its limited resources to faraway Haiti and to nearby Gaza. Haiti is not at war with Israel. Haiti has not pledged itself to Israel’s destruction. Haiti has not fired 8,000 rockets at Israeli civilians. Gaza, on the other hand, has a popularly elected government that has done and continues to do all of the above. Moreover, there is no comparison between the tens of thousands of Haitians who have died from a natural disaster, and the people of Gaza who suffer far less from what is, essentially, a self-inflicted wound.

Nor do the perennial enemies of Israel emphasize the comparison between tiny and resource-poor Israel, on the one hand, and the enormous and resource-rich Arab and Muslim nations, on the other hand. While Israel digs deeply into its treasury and manpower to send medical assistance a quarter of the way around the world, Arab and Muslim nations are generally missing in action when it comes to relief efforts. This is true not only in Haiti, which is a Catholic nation, but it was equally true when tsunamis and other natural disasters have devastated Muslim nations.

For those who argue that Israel is sending this aid to Haiti for its own selfish reasons, there are two answers. First the realpolitik answer: All nations have interests; and all act, at least in part, out of self interest. When the United States government is asked by Americans to justify its multibillion dollar foreign aid grants, it generally responds by arguing that these grants are serving the interests of the United States. When it comes to Israel, however, a double standard is always applied. Israel must act only out of altruistic motives, while all other countries are entitled to leaven altruism with self interest. The second answer is that Israel is doing far more in Haiti than would be required to satisfy its self interests. It is sending more aid per capita than any country in the world. It is doing it with extraordinary efficiency and real impact. Isn’t it at least possible that the millennia-long Jewish tradition of tzadakah — that is, charity based on justice — is at least part of the explanation for Israel’s generosity?

The fact that so many Israelis are advocating medical and other assistance to Gaza certainly supports this latter theory. Has any other country in the history of the world ever provided medical and other assistance to a people with whom it is at war — to people who continue to support rocket attacks and other forms of terrorism against its own civilians? Again, a double standard. The reality is that Israel will be extremely generous to the people of Gaza if and when they stop supporting attacks on Israeli civilians, stop making martyrs of their suicide murderers, and stop encouraging their children to don suicide vests. Contrast Gaza with the West Bank, which today has an improving economy, better travel conditions and among the best health care available in any Arab or Muslim country in the area. The peace dividend the Palestinian people will reap from making peace with Israel is incalculable.

So continue to criticize Israel when it fails to live up to generally applicable international standards, but praise it when it exceeds those standards in rendering aid that has saved and will continue to save many lives. Israel will continue to send disaster relief regardless of how the world reacts to it because Israelis understand how it feels to be subject to disasters. But fairness requires that Israel not be condemned for its humanitarian efforts, and that its rendering of aid to Haiti not be used as yet another occasion for applying a double standard to its actions.

Exporting Misery to Haiti.
By James Ridgeway, Reader Supported News
Monday, 18 January 2010

“Le ou malere, tout bagay samble ou,” says one of the Creole proverbs that are a staple of Haitian popular culture. When you are poor, everything can be blamed on you. It’s a truth we can see played out in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

Exporting Misery to Haiti: How Rice, Pigs, and US Policy Undermined the Haitian Economy.

è ou malere, tout bagay samble ou, says one of the Creole proverbs that are a staple of Haitian popular culture. When you are poor, everything can be blamed on you. It’s a truth we can see played out in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. While many Americans are reacting to the disaster with genuine compassion and generosity, there’s another kind of response afoot as well – one that extends well beyond the sickening remarks made by Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh.

Why can’t the Haitians ever seem to take care of themselves? ask the denizens of web chat rooms and radio call-in shows. The place was a mess before the earthquake, and nothing we do ever seems to help – so why bother? In more elevated circles, the comments are more subtle: “Development efforts have failed there, decade after decade,” noted a piece in Sunday’s Washington Post, “leaving Haitians with a dysfunctional government, a high crime rate and incomes averaging a dollar a day.” With rescue efforts still underway, it said, “policymakers in Washington and around the world are grappling with how a destitute, corrupt and now devastated country might be transformed into a self-sustaining nation.”

You’d never guess, from this discourse, how much US policy has actually undermined Haiti’s ability to be a “self-sustaining nation,” especially its ability to feed itself. America’s history of invasion, occupation, and intervention into Haiti’s political and economic life stretches back two centuries, with plenty of help from homegrown Haitian despots. But since the 1980s, in particular, the United States has helped turn a nation of low-tech subsistence farmers into a dumping ground for American agribusiness.

The most glaring example of this trend is rice, which was once a staple crop. Today, little rice is grown in Haiti; instead, the nation is a market for the subsidized rice crop grown in the United States. Human Rights lawyer Bill Quigley, now at the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote about this trend in the spring of 2008, as food riots shook Haiti and other parts of the developing world:

In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce tariff protections for their Haitian rice and other agricultural products and some industries to open up the country’s markets to competition from outside countries. The US has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF. “American rice invaded the country,” recalled Charles Suffrard, a leading rice grower in Haiti, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2000. By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that many stopped working the land.

Quigley interviewed Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest and human rights advocate. “In the 1980s, imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could produce it,” Fr. Jean-Juste said. “Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of cheap imported rice, local production went way down.” By 2008, Haiti was the world’s third largest importer of US rice, receiving some 240,000 tons that year alone.

US rice growers are heavily subsidized by the government. Between 1995-2006 they received $11 billion. The American rice industry is also protected by tariffs – the same sorts of tariffs the IMF demanded Haiti remove. With the average family income standing at about $400 a year, most Haitians couldn’t afford to pay international prices for a product they once grew for themselves – so they had to have aid. The US sponsored the aid, but half the money didn’t go to buy the food; it went to US farmers, to processors and to shipping companies, because the food had to be transported in US ships. A good part of the so-called handout to Haiti actually went to US agribusiness, which needed markets for its overflowing bins of farm products.

Another infamous “aid” story involves the destruction of native pig farming in Haiti, following an outbreak of swine fever in the late 1970s. As described by Paul Farmer, the physician and anthropologist legendary for his work among Haiti’s poor, pigs were once a centerpiece of Haiti’s peasant economy, providing a reliable source of income and an insurance policy against hard times. The hardy Haitian creole pigs seemed to be remarkably resistant to swine fever. But American agriculture experts feared that Haiti’s pigs could spread the disease to the United States and destroy its massive hog business, and bankrolled a $23 million “extermination and restocking program.”

By 1984, all of Haiti’s 1.3 million pigs had been killed. USAID and the Organization of American States thereupon announced a plan to replace the Creole pigs with brand new Iowa pigs – provided that the peasants committed to building pigsties to US standards and demonstrate they had enough money to buy feed. Even the peasants who could afford these “free” pigs found that they couldn’t flourish under Haitian conditions. The fragile kochon blan (“foreign” or “white” pigs) frequently fell ill and had to go to the vet; they wouldn’t eat scraps and required expensive feed; and they had few litters. Soon, the project was abandoned – leaving Iowa hog farmers enriched, and hundreds of thousands of Haitian families without a key means of survival.

These changes in many ways served US economic interests in the Caribbean, which since the 1980s have been oriented towards knitting the area into a common free trade zone, first in the Caribbean Basin Initiative and then under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Forced out of small-scale farming by the elimination of two basic staples, Haitians moved to the cities, where they were available to work in sweatshops producing panties, bras, and dresses for such places as Sears, WalMart, and JC Penney. US aid programs have supported the effort to turn countries such as Haiti into low wage assembly platforms that supply a cheap, easily exploitable workforce for American and international business – and at the same time, relieve pressure on immigration by keeping the desperate Haitians working at home for what is barely a living wage.

After coming to Haiti en masse in the 1980s and 1990s, some of these companies moved on to even cheaper – and more “stable” – countries. Yet recent development initiatives, including the US’s HOPE II program to encourage duty-free trade with Haiti, continued to emphasize the low-wage, export-oriented garment industry over sustainable agriculture or other projects that would build Haiti’s self-reliance. At the same time, Western companies looked toward the prospect of an expanded tourist industry, owned by foreigners and once again exploiting cheap labor. The purported return of the luxury tourist hotels targeted such places as Jacmel, which now lie in ruins.

Even before the earthquake, these economic actions, driven by outside economic forces, offered little promise of restoring and reinvigorating indigenous farming, or providing any sort of real, homegrown economic base for Haiti. Such has been the nature of the US’s “help” to its impoverished Caribbean neighbor.

As the Haitians say, Bel dan pa di zanmi. A beautiful smile doesn’t mean he’s your friend.
————–
James Ridgeway, an investigative journalist, is senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones. His books include “The Haiti Files,” an anthology of history, politics and culture.

UN Dodges on Search and Safety, 278 National Staff Unaccounted For, Blames Media

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 — As UN officials in Haiti lash out at the media for reporting on looting, they are unable or unwilling to answer Press questions about the safety of their building, rescue efforts made or a helicopter “crash” that they themselves reported.

Top UN Peacekeeper Alain Leroy on Tuesday morning told Inner City Press he had heard the same reports of a helicopter crash in Haiti, but to ask his deputy Edmond Mulet, who was appear at noon by video link for Haiti.

When he did, Mulet said “I’ve heard about this crash” but that “the UN and MINUSTAH have nothing to do with it.” But the UN says it is playing the central coordinating role. Inner City Press asked for an update on MINUSTAH’s inquiry into the safety of its 1200 national Haitian staff, on whom at first it did not report. Mulet responded that 278 are still unaccounted for, adding that perhaps some are “dealing with their own grievances.” Video here, from Minute 21:26. Speaking of grieving, Inner City Press asked what had been done to try to find and save staffer Alexandra Duguay, an energetic Canadian who until recently worked at UN headquarters, as well as running marathons.

During Sunday’s whirlwind tour of Port au Prince by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and some hand selected media, complaints were made that not enough was done to find Ms. Duguay. Since then, the National Post quoted her parents that she had been found, dead. Still, MINUSTAH spokesman David Wimhurst replied that he had no information, “I don’t have” ID’s, while mentioning another building that collapsed with ten people inside. Video here, from Minute 32:20. On Monday evening, Inner City Press directed to Mr. Wimhurst a question about the helicopter crash on which UN sources were reporting, without any further information being given. Rather, the UN’s communications strategy appears to be to attack media which reports on looting or rioting in Haiti.

Ruins of UN’s rented Hotel Christopher, with copter in background

Mr. Mulet calls such reports “irresponsible” — he also called looting “normal” — while Mr. Wimhurst, pointing out that he attended Columbia School of Journalism and was “well trained,” chided media for “looking for conflict,” for trying to blame the UN for things. One wonders what Mr. Wimhurst, and others in the UN, thought of the media’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina and responses in New Orleans. It is known that the Secretariat and Spokesman have reacted angrily to this comparison. Mulet said he wasn’t aware if the UN’s headquarters in the Christopher Hotel, for which it paid out $94,000 a month, had been brought into MOSS compliance. Mulet said all the records were destroyed. It seems strange that records on a contract and lease of this size were stored in the building itself. Mulet said this would be followed up on. We will be following up.

At UN on Haiti, Ban Dodges on Immigration, Armenians Rebuffed, No Copter
Update

By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 19 — As the UN Security Council voted to authorize 3500 more peacekeepers for Haiti, including 1500 more police, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on member states to step forward with offers of troops.

Inner City Press asked about the Dominican Republic’s offer of a battalion, said to number 800, and whether Ban and the UN think that countries should be less stringent with their immigration restrictions after the Haitian earthquake. Mr. Ban replied by praising the Dominican Republic for its troop offer — which some see as simply blue helmeting a border guarding force — and for its help with the humanitarian effort. He is aware, he said, of the Dominican Republic’s attempt to accommodate Haitians within the Republic’s “rules and regulations.” Inner City Press asked Ban about reports that the UN had run out of fuel for its trucks to deliver aid. Top humanitarian John Holmes passed a note to Ban Ki-moon, who read out that last night 10,000 gallons of fuels had arrived. When Holmes himself took to the custom made podium brought out for Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked him about a reported complaint by Armenia’s Mission to the UN, that they had offered a rescue team last Thursday but were never told of any UN acceptance or decision.

Holmes replied that he was unaware, but that there are always issues of matching needs with offers. But from member states? Inner City Press, which reported exclusively Monday evening about what UN sources said
was a helicopter crash in Haiti, asked chief Peacekeeper Alain Leroy for an update. I’ve seen those reports, he said, but I have no new information this morning. He said to ask Edmond Mulet, who will be appearing later on Tuesday by video link from Haiti.

UN’s Ban and former spokeswoman, answers on immigration not shown

The Ambassador of China Zhang Yesui , this month’s Security Council president, came out at announced the Council’s vote. While usually he leaves the stakeout without taking any questions — on Monday he walked away as Inner City Press asked about the attacks in Afghanistan — this time he called on Xinhua, and offered a long answer on camera, in Chinese. It concerned the UN’s role in responding to Haiti. Asked if China would offer any more troops — its 125 member contingent is, as Inner City Press has reported, a “riot squad” that when rotated has flown back to Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region — Zhang Yesui said it would be taken under advisement. The last speaker at the stakeout was U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, who came prepared with an answer to Inner City Press’ question of Monday, whether the $100 million of aid announced by President Barack Obama would be part of the UN’s flash appeal.

No, Ambassador Wolff said, the $100 million is “bilateral.” But he said that the US will be contributing generously to the UN’s flash appeal, in the coming days. We’ll see. Footnote: because the UN and even Security Council has become all Haiti, all the time for now, Inner City Press asked the U.S.’s Alejandro Wolff about reports of bombing in Darfur, requests to protect civilians, and Chad’s statement it does not want the mandate of the Darfur related MINURCAT peacekeeping mission renewed. Wolff said the U.S. is concerned and is seeking more information. Inner City Press has asked the UN too, and hopes to be able to write more on this topic shortly. Watch this site.

From the UN’s January 19 transcript:Inner City Press: Mr. Secretary-General, the Dominican Republic has offered a battalion – it has been said publicly – they’ve also said that they are very concerned about immigration and people crossing the border. Does the UN have anything to say whether countries should loosen their immigration restrictions on Haitians, or otherwise, after this crisis? And also, does the UN still have gas to run its trucks? There was a report in USA Today that the UN was running out of gas for its food distribution trucks.

SG Ban Ki-moon: From the beginning of this crisis, the Dominican Republic Government has been providing very generously and swiftly all possible assistance to their neighbouring country, Haiti, and we are very much grateful to them. I am also aware of the Dominican Republic’s intention to dispatch troops there – that is also welcome. For the immigration issues, I am also aware that the Dominican Republic Government is trying to accommodate as many as possible, those people within the existing rules and regulations of their country, but they have been very generous. Of course, this fuel is quite limited in Haiti. Ten thousand gallons of fuel, I think, arrived last night from the Dominican Republic. That will help more, as we continue our operations.

=======

Among UN P-5, France and UK Talk Secret, US Fetes New Diplomat, Russia Dubious on Yemen, China Flew in 3 Hours

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 — Amid the Haitian earthquake emergency, attacks on Kabul, in Yemen and in Darfur, the US Mission to the UN on Tuesday night welcomed a diplomat into the fold, on the 42nd floor of the Waldorff Towers.

As U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative Alejandro Wolff put it in his introduction, Rick Barton has represented the US in 30 countries in ten years. And on his family vacation, he went to post-Katrina New Orleans to build homes. The well attended reception, complete with miniature grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies, began with somber statements for Haiti. In the crowd, many asked Inner City Press if the coverage of the UN was too negative, unfair, sensational. CNN’s Anderson Cooper showed looters; the Washington Post’s new Turtle swung for the fences dubbing Haiti “Ban’s Katrina.” At a UN Foundation luncheon on Tuesday, Ban Ki-moon took that author to task for several minutes, publicly. This, apparently, is the new take-charge Ban, more general than secretary, at least for now. From Haiti via video link Ban’s former spokesman Michele Montas also said the media is being too negative. Ban envoy Edmond Mulet called the Press irresponsible. The Missions to the UN of the UK and France take a different approach to the media. Each has an off the record briefing scheduled January 20 for selected reporters. The two used to hold such briefings on different days, but then even the “Western diplomat” moniker was too transparent.

Now they hide behind each other, only because few file stories between the UK’s early morning briefing and France’s 5 p.m. follow up. Call them the taciturn twins. One knows what was said but it not supposed to report it. What then is the point?

Here’s one the UK Ambassador should be asked: is it true, as Middle Eastern sources say, that the UK is trying in the Security Council to bring up the conflict in Yemen, specifically targeting Iran’s support for some parties?

UK’s Lyall Grant and US in Council, Yemen and secret briefings not shown

In this account, the Russians balked, saying as Missourians do, Show me. Or at least wait until the conference on Yemen in London on January 27. Before that, on January 25 in Montreal, there’s a conference on Haiti. France’s Ambassador Araud — who initially put the date at February 25 — took a decidedly different stance on the U.S. in Haiti than did his foreign minister and Cooperation minister.

The ministers questioned U.S. domination, while Araud stepped back and said, we are grateful, we live here. But what will he say behind closed doors?

A French journalist, while suggesting to Inner City Press that Araud was being diplomatic — imagine that! — also lambasted the Obama administration’s resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine. “They have spoken with the Brazilians and the Canadians,” he said, “as if that is enough.” So the US hardly briefs anymore, and the UK and France do so mostly on deepest background. What has happened, some wonder, to these P-2, P-3, even P-5? Chinese Ambassador Liu on Tuesday night told Inner City Press that China had its search and rescue team in the air to Haiti three hours after the earthquake. He asked, of disaster forecasting, “But why didn’t they have notice?” Why indeed.

Ironically the Chinese mission can be more open than the UK or France. With decided irony, a Chinese diplomat told Inner City Press that the Council first Press Statement on Haiti was only unobjectionable because of the UN presence there. Otherwise, he said with a wink, it would be an internal matter.

Meanwhile the UN Missions of the UK and France, while espousing free press, play a more elite game, casting aspersions on background, what some call a secret club of slander and others call diplomatic. They want their positions put in a positive light, but provide only selective illumination.

Tuesday night Rick Barton, after a stirring speech of the type that perhaps shouldhave been deployed earlier in Massachusetts, ended with a folksy talefrom his childhood. He lived in Bronxville — connected he said toworld affairs by one who died with Dag Hammarskjold in his Central African plane crash — and visited the UN. His mother ran across First Avenue, causes taxi after taxi to screech to a stop.

“Heylady,” the last cabbie shouted, addressing his mother as he had never heard before. “Next year, the Olympics!” Barton related this challenge to his UN work, a marathon of plenary speeches. But that’s only the onthe record part. Watch this site.

* * *

AtUN, It’s “All Hail” to US in Haiti, While Elsewhere Franceand Brazil Are Critical

ByMatthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 18 — As the UNSecurity Council emptied out Mondayat noon, sources told Inner City Press that in closed consultations,the U.S. said that to strengthen the mandate of the UN Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, would “send the wrong message… that the Haitian government is weak.”Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, who represented the U.S. in the meeting and spokeafterwards to the Press, said that the U.S. is supporting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s request for a vote authorizing 2000more troops and 1500 more police for MINUSTAH. InnerCity Press asked Ambassador Wolff if it is true that the U.S. thinking strengthening the mandate would send some wrong message. Wolffr eplied that the UN, including chief Peacekeeper Alain Leroy, has not identified any deficiency in the mandate. AsBrazil’s A mbassador left the Council, Inner City Press asked her about publicquotes from Brazil that MINUSTAH’s mandate should, in fact, bebolstered. She, however, called the mandate “sufficient.”

When askedabout any difficulties Brazilian NGOs have had gettinginto Haiti through the airport, now run by the U.S., she said therehave been “no such problems.”

French Ambassador Gerard Araud, too, was over the top in his praise of the U.S.,telling the Press that “we are living in the US after all.” Inner City Press asked if, as reported, France supported Medecins Sans Frontierescomplaints about having planes blocked by the Americansfrom the Portau Prince airport.

French Ambassador Araud, ministers’ critiques of U.S. not shown

Araudquickly answered (video here)that the Americans are doing a good job, that the airport is small by international standards, and that “we are living inthe US after all.” Infact, French Cooperation Minister AlainJoyandet made a complaint about the blocking of MSF’s plane. And Araud’s boss Bernard Kouchnerhas said the airport has become an “annex or Washington,” according to France’s Ambassador to Haiti Didier Le Bret.

So what is France’s position — these two statements, or Araud’s?

From the French Mission’stranscription, of question dubious, ofanswer less so:

Inner City Press:Médecins sans frontières complained that its planes couldn’t get in to the airport and blamed the Americans. Does France confirm that?

Amb. Araud: Of course, no.I think we areextremely grateful and personally I said it in the Council, extremely grateful for what the US government is doing, and especially managing the airport. You know, frustrations are understandable. You have asmall airport, in international terms, which was devastated by the earthquake and you have hundred of planes which want to land. So it’s totally normal that there are delays, but I think that the situation has dramatically improved. Yesterday, you know, it was possible tohave sixty planes landing and today it will be one hundred planes landing. But the most important will be to work on the port. We have to rehabilitate the port where we can bring most of the aid.

Once again, we are living in the US after all, and we want to express our gratitude for the mobilization of the US administration and the US people.

From the US Mission’s transcript:Inner City Press: Someone said on this idea of strengthening the mandate that the U.S. had a concern that this would send a message some how that the Government of Haiti was too weak. I just want to know whether you think there is a danger in that type of message being sent. And also whether the U.S. will be participating in the UN’s Flash Appeal that was announced on Friday, whether the $100 million announced by President Obama in any way is related to that or should be counted towards that.

Ambassador Wolff: I’ll get back to you on the later question, I want to make sure I have the right information for you, exactly how that $100 million fits into that,into the Flash Appeal. As to the mandate issue, there is no indication, indeed neither the Secretary-General nor Undersecretary-General Le Roy mentioned any deficiency in the current mandate. And so, if the UN is satisfied and the troop contributors are satisfied and the force commander is satisfied then we should focus on what we need to do under the current mandate. Of course, asyou indicate, we will need to look and evaluate over the longer term,as we assess the long term impact of this tragedy on the country andon the UN’s ability to function, and whether the requirements for the UN have to be adapted in any way. That is something that we dowith any mandate and we will obviously do it with particular attention in this case.

Watch this site.

Footnote: Since the Security Council has other matters on its agenda, Inner City Press tried to ask this month’s Council president, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui, if and when heexpects the Council to address Afghanistan. But having been asked if the Chinese search and rescue team stopped after finding the Chinese delegation who’d met with Hedi Annabi, Zhang Yesui just walked away. Who will replace him as China’s Ambassador is not yet known.

OK, there are disputes among Indian scientists and Indian officials who have connections to Indian oil industry. We knew this all the time and where not happy when under US President G.W. Bush the US pushed out under US business interests push, the scientific head of the IPCC and put in place the proxy Indians. But then, obviously, India is also not homogeneous – so we see internal Indian disputes.
YES – THE GLACIERS ARE MELTING AND NOBODY CAN PREDICT ACCURATELY THE YEAR OF THEIR FUTURE DEMISE – so what? The melting of these glaciers causes floods in the valleys – we know it because we see it. Yes, after they melt there will be draught – that is logic – it is implied in future shortage – that is clear. Those that love oil do not want to let go of it, and those that own refineries do not want to lose their investment – that is clear.
When lots of ice from above earth sites melts it will cause floods on coast line communities – that is clear. The melting of glaciers and the Antarctic ice will cause sea-level rise and floods – that can be sworn by – that is clear. Which island will disappear before 2013 or after – OK – that is not quite clear.
So what all this noise and only the UN can sound retreat – we do not. We also said that the relief of pressure on the tectonic plates because of the melting away of ice can cause earthquakes in areas where the plates meet – like the recent Tsunami belt over the earthquake belt shows. There are no scientific statements on this – only plain logic statements – so what? Yes we stopped short of our statement after the Haiti quakes and said – this one we do not exactly sense how it happened as we do not know of faults in that area. This is our lack of knowledge in this case that calls for help but it does not negate the prior statements. Science is not instantaneous – it requires further thinking and theories and proof if possible – not plain squabbles by industry-backed deniers and knee-jerk reactions by the UN. (our comments to the following news)

——————

SCIENCE, SPHERE, aol, January 21, 2010.

UN Climate Body Eats Crow Over Glacier Warning.

from Theunis Bates, a Contributor.

LONDON (Jan. 20) — It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie: Central and Southern Asia are hit by biblical floods when the Himalayan glaciers suddenly melt. After that cataclysm, water no longer flows from the mountains, leaving rivers like the Mekong and Ganges dry and millions facing permanent drought. That was the picture painted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report, which said there was a “very high” chance that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 if the world kept warming.

But the IPCC, the U.N. body charged with investigating climate change, has retracted that claim after it emerged that its predictions of a sudden melt weren’t based on peer-reviewed evidence, but instead on an article that appeared in the popular science magazine New Scientist in 1999.

Subel Bhandari, AFP / Getty Images

While the Khumbu Glacier near Mount Everest is shrinking, the United Nations admits it overstated the threat of a total glacial meltdown in the Himalayas.

Climate change skeptics have lapped up the scandal, which they’ve already dubbed “Glaciergate,” saying that it further erodes the credibility of climate science already damaged by last year’s Climategate e-mail scandal. Global warming denier Peter Foster, writing in Canada’s National Post, said the error showed how the “IPCC’s task has always been not objectively to examine science but to make the case for man-made climate change by any means available.”

But Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chairman of the IPCC, said the mistake did not undermine the report’s key conclusions: that the warming climate is accelerating glacial melt and that this will affect the supply of water from the world’s major mountain ranges, “where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.”

“I don’t see how one mistake in a 3,000-page report can damage the credibility of the overall report,” van Ypersele told the BBC. “Some people will attempt to use it to damage the credibility of the IPCC; but if we can uncover it and explain it and change it, it should strengthen the IPCC’s credibility, showing that we are ready to learn from our mistakes.”

The argument over the IPCC’s melt date went public last November, when a paper written by Indian geologist Vijay Kumar Raina revealed that there was little consistency in the behavior of the Himalayan glaciers. Some were shrinking, he found, some expanding, and others were stable. If global warming were to blame, he asked, why weren’t they all following the same pattern? “A glacier … does not necessarily respond to the immediate climatic changes,” he wrote. “For if it be so then all glaciers within the same climatic zone should have been advancing or retreating at the same time.”

India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, endorsed the paper and accused the IPCC of being “alarmist” in its predictions. But IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri shot back that Raina’s findings were “voodoo science” and accused Ramesh of repeating the claims of “climate change deniers.”

Embarrassingly, it’s now the IPCC that stands accused of sloppy science, as a rigorous system of fact checks would have kept the controversial assertion out of the 2007 report. The claim first appeared in a 1999 interview between a New Scientist journalist and the Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, who speculated that the mountain range’s glaciers could vanish by 2035.

Environmental group the World Wildlife Fund then repeated Hasnain’s prediction in its 2005 report, “An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China.” As this was only was a campaigning paper, it had not undergone a thorough scientific review. But its lack of scientific rigor didn’t stop the IPCC using the WWF document as a source.

In chapter 10 of its 2007 report, the IPCC concluded: “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world, and if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”

But many glaciologists believed those claims were overheated. As most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick, only a sudden, huge spike in global temperatures could cause them to disappear before 2035. “The reality, that the glaciers are wasting away, is bad enough,” Graham Cogley, a glaciologist at Canada’s University of Trent, who played a key role in exposing the flawed claim, told the United Kingdom’s Sunday Times. “But they are not wasting away at the rate suggested by this speculative remark and the IPCC report. The problem is that nobody who studied this material bothered chasing the trail back to the original point when the claim first arose.”

Indian glaciologist Murari Lal, the lead author of that section of the IPCC report, last week rejected claims that the U.N. group had made a serious error. “We relied rather heavily on gray [not peer-reviewed] literature, including the WWF report,” Lal told New Scientist. “The error, if any, lies with Dr Hasnain’s assertion and not with the IPCC authors.”

Unsurprisingly, Hasnain has refuted that attempt to pass the blame. “The magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures,” he said to New Scientist. “It is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers.”

That’s a tough but obvious lesson, and one the IPCC is unlikely to forget.

nbsp;Avaaz.org is working with strong local organisations in Haiti mobilising community-based relief efforts. They say – let’s send a worldwide wave of donations to the front lines, to save lives now and help people recover and rebuild. Avaaz  partners to make sure the help reaches those who need it most.
 https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_h…

Based on expert advice from leading humanitarian NGOs who have been working in Haiti for over 20 years, we’re offering donations to trusted local organizations, including:

Honor and Respect for Bel Air, a big community-based network in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, which is also supported by our friends at the respected Brazilian NGO Viva Rio.

Coordination Régionale des Organisations de Sud-Est (CROSE), which brings together some of the most active community groups in the South of Haiti where the earthquake struck hardest. These groups include: women’s groups, schools networks and local cooperatives.

Zanmi Lasante, sister organization of Partners in Health (PiH) in Haiti. PiH and its partners have been among the first to respond with emergency medical services to the most vulnerable.

In 2008, Avaaz members donated over $2 million for Burmese monks to respond to the devastating Cyclone Nargis. Our money made an incredible difference there — because it went directly to local people on the front lines of the aid effort.