Six months ago, the world seemed united with commitments to help Haiti recover. Now, half a year later, the rubble remains and misery blankets the refugee camps. July 12th marked the six-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed as many as 300,000 people and left much of the country in ruins. Up to 1.8 million people are living in unlivable tent cities, with inadequate, if any, sanitation, no electricity, and little protection from the intense heat and the worsening rains. Rape, hunger and despair are constant threats to the people stranded in the camps.

I am not surprised that Haitians are angry. I join them in questioning where the billions of dollars donated in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake have gone. The Disaster Accountability Project found that of the 197 organizations that solicited money following the earthquake, only six had publicly available reports detailing their activities.

From the “international donor community,” more than $9 billion was pledged, but to date, only Brazil, Norway and Australia have paid in full. Most of the United States’ pledge of $1.15 billion is held up in Congress.

According to The Washington Post, only 2 percent of promised reconstruction aid has been delivered. The hurricane season is active in Haiti, and millions there are counting on all of us making good on our pledges.

If you want to support Haiti and her people please consider supporting the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund
and to stay up to date please visit Haiti Action

Credit Denis Moynihan and Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now!” who have been providing on going coverage on relief efforts in Haiti and were referenced for this article.

Cross-posted on Ella’s Voice

From Web site of Radio Tele Ginen in Port-au-Prince.

FROM CNN.COM

(CNN) — A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to the United States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

“The only thing I can do now is pray and hope for the best,” the ambassador, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

Witnesses reported heavy damage throughout the capital, Port-au-Prince, including to the president’s residence and century-old homes nearby, and The Associated Press reported that a hospital collapsed. President Rene Preval is safe, Joseph said, but there was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening.

The magnitude 7.0 quake struck about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince shortly before 5 p.m. Joseph said one official of his government told him houses had crumbled “on the right side of the street and the left side of the street.”

“He said it is a catastrophe of major proportions,” Joseph said.

Frank Williams, the Haitian director of the relief agency World Vision International, said the quake left people “pretty much screaming” all around Port-au-Prince. He said the agency’s building shook for about 35 seconds, “and portions of things on the building fell off.”

“None of our staff were injured, but lots of walls are falling down,” Williams said. “Many of our staff have tried to leave, but were unsuccessful because the walls from buildings and private residences are falling into the streets, so that it has pretty much blocked significantly most of the traffic.”

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Many of the homes in Port-au-Prince are concrete-block structures built on steep hillsides. Mike Godfrey, an American contractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said “a huge plume of dust and smoke rose up over the city” within minutes of the quake — “a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 20 minutes until the atmosphere dissipated the dust.”

The quake was centered about 6 miles (10 kilometers) underground, according to the USGS. A magnitude 5.9 aftershock followed soon afterward, about 30 miles further west, followed by a 5.5 aftershock closer to the location of the first quake.

When aftershocks hit, “there is a kind of wail as people are very frightened by it,” Williams said. “But most people are out in the streets and just kind of looking up.”

The Rev. Kesner Ajax, executive director of a school in the southwestern city of Les Cayes, said several people were hurt when they rushed to get out of the building. Two homes in the area collapsed and the top of a church collapsed in a nearby town, he said, but he did not know of any fatalities.

Les Cayes, a city of about 400,000 people, is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince.

Appeals for aid after quake strikes Haiti

Jean Bernard, an eyewitness in Port-au-Prince, told CNN the city had no electricity Tuesday evening. The first quake lasted about 40 seconds, he said.

“A lot of houses [and] buildings went down, and people are still running all over the streets,” Bernard said. “People are looking for their wives, looking for their husbands and their kids. It’s scary.”

Luke Renner, an American staying in Cap-Hatien, a city nearly 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince, said he was sitting at his home when “the whole world started to shake.”

“It felt like our whole house was balancing on a beach ball,” Renner said. “We heard the whole community screaming and in an uproar during that whole 20- to 30-second window.”

“I haven’t seen any structural damage here,” Renner continued. “With the sun setting it may be difficult to tell. In the morning we’ll know for sure.”

Because of the earthquake’s proximity to the capital, and because the city is densely populated and has poorly constructed housing, “it could cause significant casualties,” said Jian Lin, a senior geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Haiti’s government is backed by a U.N. peacekeeping mission established after the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Efforts to contact the U.N. mission were unsuccessful Tuesday evening, but former President Clinton — now the U.N. special envoy for Haiti — said the world body was “committed to do whatever we can to assist the people of Haiti in their relief, rebuilding and recovery efforts.”

The disaster is the latest to befall Haiti, which has a population of about 9 million people and is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Hurricane Gordon killed more than 1,000 people in 1994, while Hurricane Georges killed more than 400 and destroyed the majority of the country’s crops in 1998.

In 2004, heavy rains from Hurricane Jeanne — which passed north of the country — caused landslides and flooding that killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in the northwestern city of Gonaives. Gonaives was hit heavily again in 2008, when four tropical systems passed through.

A tsunami watch for Haiti, the Dominican Republic and parts of Cuba following the earthquake has been canceled, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

Eighty percent of Haiti’s population lives under the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.

From BBC NEWS

A Ugandan government minister has said that a proposed law which includes the death penalty for some homosexual acts is “not necessary”.

Aston Kajara, minister of state for investments, added that the government might put pressure on the MP behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to withdraw it.

The bill submitted last October sparked international condemnation and prompted threats to cut aid to Uganda.

Homosexual acts are punishable by up to 14 years in jail in Uganda.

MP David Bahati’s proposed law would introduce the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” – involving a minor, if the perpetrator is HIV-positive and for “serial offenders”.

The penalties for other homosexual acts would be increased to life in prison.

‘Not representative’

With the cabinet still to discuss the bill formally, Information Minister Kabakumba Matsiko stressed that the government had not yet decided whether or not to back it.

But Mr Kajara’s comments are believed to be the first public sign that some members of the government may not support the bill.

“The government’s position is that the existing provisions in our penal code against homosexuality are strong enough and that this new bill is not necessary,” he told AFP news agency.

Earlier, Uganda’s Daily Monitor newspaper quoted Mr Kajara as saying: “We may talk to the honourable MP to consider withdrawing it.”

However, Ethics Minister James Nsaba Buturo, who has frequently criticised homosexuals, said Mr Kajara was not speaking for the government.

The information minister said that the government could not intervene – even if it wanted to – until after the bill had been debated by parliament.

Sweden has threatened to cut off aid to Uganda if the bill does become law, while other Western countries are believed to have lobbied President Yoweri Museveni to block the bill.

Nigeria MPs have asked the government to investigate the status of Chinese residents in the country, saying some may be staying there illegally.

The demand follows allegations that Nigerians in China, especially those in jail, are being mistreated.

The MPs asked the government to reject a request by the Chinese authorities to cremate the bodies of 30 Nigerians who have died in Chinese jails.

There are an estimated 700 Nigerians currently in prison in China.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8274755.stm