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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: The scale of devastation in Haiti is far worse than in Asia after the 2004 tsunami, a study has said, estimating the cost of last month's earthquake at up to 14 billion dollars. The report released Tuesday from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) raised the possibility that the quake could be the most destructive disaster in modern history. Its stark assessment comes with Port-au-Prince still lying in ruins more than one month on, while the bodies of more than 200,000 dead pile up in mass graves outside the capital. The study's release coincided with what would normally be Haiti's annual carnival, an explosion of pulsing music and colorful parades. But this year, the events have been cancelled as no one is in the mood to party. The preliminary IDB report estimated the damage at between eight and 14 billion dollars in what was already the poorest country in the Americas before the catastrophe. Factoring in Haiti...

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: A mudslide in northern Haiti on Monday caused the partial collapse of a school, killing four children and injuring two others, a Haitian civil protection official said. "The accident was caused by four days of rain that caused a mudslide," said the official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give out the information. He said the primary school in Cap-Haitien partially collapsed, leaving "four dead and two injured." All were children, he said, adding the incident occurred in the early afternoon. Firefighters and UN rescue workers called off a search at the school after determining there was no one else inside, the official said. The accident brought further catastrophe to a country already struggling to recover from last month's massive earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. The government began allowing schools outside of areas hard-hit by the earthquake to reopen at the sta...

Sunday, February 14, 2010 SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador police are probing whether a man representing 10 Americans charged with kidnapping in Haiti is the same person sought in the Central American nation for human trafficking, a statement said Saturday. El Salvador police said they were working to determine if Jorge Torres Orellana could be Jorge Anibal Torres Puello, who has been presented as a Dominican lawyer for the Americans. They reopened the case after photos of Puello emerged in international media, the statement said, and police are now comparing them with pictures in their records. The story first emerged in The New York Times. El Salvador police have posted the photos on their website. "For the moment, we cannot confirm that it is the same person until we finish analyzing fingerprints," the statement said. The statement added that they were working with Interpol on the case. On Saturday, the international police organization issued a wanted persons alert for ...

Saturday, February 13, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: A top UN official in Haiti said many of those made homeless by the massive earthquake one month ago are unlikely to be provided "good shelter" before the coming rainy season. While the United Nations and other organizations involved in aid efforts are aiming to provide some sort of shelter material before the rains begin around May, the deputy head of the UN mission here said the challenge will be immense. "I think it's almost certainly going to be the case there are going to be a lot of people without good shelter by the time the rains really come," Anthony Banbury said in an interview. He said officials debated whether to distribute more sturdy shelter that could better withstand the elements but that would take longer to provide and reach fewer people, or work to hand out something to everyone. "I think for obvious humanitarian reasons, the decision was to give something to everyone," Banbury sai...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A judge investigating 10 Americans charged with child abduction in earthquake-ravaged Haiti recommended Thursday that they be released from jail and allowed to leave the country but keep a representative in Haiti to answer any further questions in the case. The Americans must now wait for Haitian prosecutors to decide whether to accept the recommendation. It was not immediately clear when that decision would be made. It remained unclear when the judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, would make a broader ruling on the merits of the charges against the Americans. Earlier, one of the lawyers involved in the case, Louis Gary Lissade, urged their unconditional release. “All 10 Americans need to be freed,” he said in an interview. “They came to help and there was a misunderstanding. They need to go home.” The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation in Idaho, flew here in the chaotic aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake, saying they wanted to rescue childre...

Thursday, February 11, 2010 LONDON: Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has met Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández to discuss the country’s efforts to help the people in its earthquake-ravaged neighbour Haiti. A website reported that the actress flew to Santo Domingo earlier this week to visit patients at Dario Contrera Hospital, where dozens of survivors of the disaster are receiving medical treatment. Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, turned her charity trip into a power meeting when she sat down for talks with President Leonel Fernandez Monday.

Thursday, February 11, 2010 WASHINGTON: Haitian President Rene Preval said Wednesday that his government has buried 270,000 bodies since the Jan. 12 earthquake - many more than the 2004 Asian tsunami killed in a dozen nations - but it remains unclear who's doing the counting. The new death toll, which Preval's office said he announced at a meeting with South American presidents in Ecuador, is 40,000 higher than one released by Preval's communications minister the previous day, even though a gravedigger at the mass graves just north of Port-au-Prince said only two bodies have been buried there this week.

Thursday, February 11, 2010 WASHINGTON: Haiti's government raised the death toll from last month's killer quake to over 217,000 on Thursday, up from the previous tally of 212,000. Interior Minister Paul Bien-Aime provided the updated figure to media, discounting reports that the toll had reached as high as 230,000. "There are people who put forth the figure of 230,000 but we have counted a bit more than 217,000. These are verified figures," Bien-Aime said.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010 SANTO DOMINGO: Screen star Angelina Jolie visited Haitian children being treated in the neighboring Dominican Republic after the devastating earthquake in their homeland killed more than 200,000 people. Oscar-winner Jolie toured the pediatric wing of Dario Contreras Hospital in Santo Domingo, a leading local trauma hospital, with its director Hector Quezada, the hospital said. Jolie, who serves as a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF, was also joined by Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, a son of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. The actress and her partner, actor Brad Pitt, donated a million dollars to Doctors without Borders in Haiti following the January 12 quake, the worst natural disaster on record in the Americas.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: The struggling aid effort in Haiti was hit by another setback Monday as the UN halted deliveries to some 10,000 quake survivors after discovering that fake coupons were in operation. An agitated crowd of around 100 people continued to wait well into the afternoon at the drop-off site close to the town hall in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville as others clamored to get tickets valid for Tuesday. "We need food!" one old lady shouted at a guard charged with manning the steel bars blocking the entrance to the town hall offices. Others simply pointed to their mouths and stomachs. UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman David Orr said the suspension would affect around 10,000 survivors of the massive January 12 earthquake that killed over 212,000 people and left an estimated one million people homeless. The United Nations agency has set up 16 food distribution points across the city, handing out 25-kilogram (55-pound) sack...

Saturday, February 06, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: PROTESTS over the slow arrival of aid have flared in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. Former US president Bill Clinton pledged to try to get aid flowing here as he was met by angry Haitians protesting the slow arrival of help since last month's quake. Clinton said he was sorry that the aid efforts had been so slow, adding he also wanted to understand why more than three weeks after the January 12 quake supplies were still not getting through to desperate Haitians. Clinton told reporters as he visited a clinic in the ruined capital of Port-au-Prince. But the former president rejected suggestions he had in effect become governor of this small Caribbean nation. Clinton also visited the government's de facto headquarters in a police building in the city, where about 200 people demonstrated outside to protest the lack of shelter. A similar number gathered in front of the US embassy nearby. Participants said they hoped to mee...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it was "unfortunate" that American Christians are suspected of smuggling children out of quake-hit Haiti even if their intentions were good. Haitian prosecutors are due to decide Thursday whether to charge the 10 Christians, who have been held by authorities there since they attempted to sneak a group of 33 children out of the country. "Trafficking of human beings, particularly of children is a problem across the world," Clinton said after holding talks in Washington on Wednesday about the problem of trafficking in persons worldwide. "The Haitian nation acted to protect children who were being removed from their country without appropriate documentation," the chief US diplomat said. "It was unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," Clinton said. "We are engaged in a discussion w...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: More than 200,000 people were killed in the earthquake that shook Haiti on Jan. 12, Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive said. The prime minister said 300,000 people were injured, including 4,000 amputees. The 7.3-magnitude quake has put the country into a total mess. At present, doctors from some countries and international organizations are orchestrating vaccination efforts against diseases that may spread in the tent cities. Children are main vaccination targets and vulnerable adults will also get vaccine shots in temporary residence areas which are mostly large tents in open places.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive said on Tuesday that the death toll of the devastating earthquake that shook the country on Jan. 12, rose to 200,000. Bellerive gave the figure during a report presentation at the Senate and he added that the figure does not include those victims that still are under the rubble and those who were buried by their relatives. During his report, Bellerive also said that the structure of the Haitian government has to change in order to face the crisis aroused by the magnitude-7.0 earthquake. Bellerive proposed to create an Executive Power of crisis, and to redefine the tasks of the ministers or to leave the Cabinet the way it is but to create a National Committee of Crisis. Bellerive added that after the earthquake it was necessary to take urgent measures to reestablish the communications, to pick up the corpses and to re-order the transit in Port-au-Prince. According to him, the Haitian govern...

Sunday, January 31, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haitian police were holding 10 US citizens Sunday on suspicion they tried to slip out of the country with 31 Haitian children in a trafficking scheme, a government minister said. Haitian Social Affairs Minister Yves Christallin said the police arrested five men and five women with US passports, and two Haitians, as they tried to cross into the Dominican Republic with the children Friday night. He said two pastors were also involved, one in Haiti and one in Atlanta, Georgia. "This is an abduction, not an adoption," said Christallin. Christallin said the US citizens did not have the proper documents to take the children out of Haiti, nor letters of authorization from their parents. The children were aged two months to 12 years and had come from different places, he said. "What is important for us in Haiti is that a child needs to have an authorization from this ministry to leave the country," he said. US embassy offic...

Sunday, January 31, 2010 PROVIDENCIALES: Scores of Haitians have been picked up in a boat off the Turks and Caicos Islands, the first group known to have fled since the devastating January 12 earthquake, police said Saturday. A rickety boat crammed with 126 people, including children as young as eight, was intercepted early Wednesday five miles from the island of Providenciales, Marine police chief Neil Hall said. "The amount of people on board is indicative of the problem we may now face," Hall said, adding that he feared it would be the first in a wave of many to set sail in coming weeks. "People are desperate -- they will be trying to get away," he said. Assistant police commissioner Dave Ryder said some of the boat passengers had been taken to the country's sole detention center, which can accommodate around 25 people, and the rest were being held in a nearby sports complex. Local doctors and Red Cross volunteers treated many of the survivors for...

Friday, January 29, 2010 WASHINGTON: US researchers said they feared almost half of all those injured by the devastating Haiti quake may be children, urging relief agencies to plan accordingly. A statistical study by a specialist group at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California showed that those hurt in the January 12 quake will likely "include an extraordinarily high number of children, more than 110,000, nearly half of the estimated total." The study was conducted by Jeffrey Upperman and Robert Neches PhD, who have developed a software tool to help medical service providers plan their responses in the case of disasters and accidents involving children. Using existing data, the Pediatric Emergency Decision Support System (PEDSS) uses statistical methods to estimate how many of the victims of a disaster may be children and what care they might need. "Such needs in Haiti are particularly intense, because fully 35 percent...

Friday, January 29, 2010 DAVOS: Former US president Bill Clinton appealed for big business to help Haiti "rise from the ashes" on Thursday as a rising Chinese leader made his biggest international appearance yet at the Davos forum. While Greece's prime minister attacked currency speculators, Clinton told the political and business elite at the World Economic Forum that real money could be made in the Caribbean nation where nearly 170,000 people died in the January 12 quake. "They need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster," said Clinton, a UN special envoy on Haiti, a country he said had been "punished by either being ignored or abused". "They've got the best chance they've ever had in my lifetime ... to escape that past and we have the best chance we've ever had to be a part of that," he said as he launched an initiative at the World Economic Forum to get private sector help for the stricken nation. Clinton...

Thursday, January 28, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti President Rene Preval said Wednesday "nearly 170,000" bodies had already been counted since the January 12 earthquake, substantially higher than previous toll estimates of 150,000. "In 15 days many efforts have been made. The National Equipment Company (NEC) has made great efforts in removing nearly 170,000 dead from the streets and clearing the roadways to facilitate traffic," Preval told a press conference. On Monday, Health Minister Alex Larsen said he expected a final death toll of about 150,000 from the earthquake, the worst disaster ever recorded in the Americas.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: US troops pulled a man alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Haiti's destroyed capital on Tuesday, two weeks after a massive earthquake rattled the country. The 35-year-old man, covered in dust and dressed only in underpants, was carried out from the ruins of a building in downtown Port-au-Prince and was driven off for medical treatment. He did not appear to have any serious injuries. The rescue, exactly 14 days after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake killed as many as 200,000 people, came as the US-led relief effort was focused on getting help to hundreds of thousands of survivors left homeless, hungry and injured.