The World Pledged 9.9 Billion Dollars Today to Rebuild Haiti

Mar 31 2010 Posted in U.S. News by Maggie Romuld with no comments yet.

rebuilding Haiti Earth Times has just reported that Haiti received pledges totalling 9.9 billion dollars today at the day-long Haiti donor conference held in New York City. The pledges will support rebuilding the country after it was devastated by an earthquake on January 12. Of the total pledged, 5.3 billion dollars will be distributed to carry out a short-term, 18-month plan which the Haitian government said is “crucial to jump-start the recovery and reconstruction” of the nation.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the outpouring of generosity for Haiti “good news.” “This is the down-payment Haiti needs for the wholesale renewal,” Ban said. “It is the way to building back better.” Haitian President Rene Preval thanked the international community for the “heartfelt pledges.”

The United States was one of the biggest donors, pledging 1.5 billion dollars. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the money will go toward, “Supporting the government of Haiti’s plan to strengthen agriculture, energy, health, and security and governance.”

The European Union pledged a total of 1.6 billion dollars from the group’s 27 members and the European Commission. An alliance of Latin American countries (ALBA) will contribute up to 1.8 billion dollars, and Japan pledged a further 30 million dollars (in addition to the 70 million already announced.) Many other countries pledged funds.

The World Bank will commit 250 million dollars in new money for Haiti, for a total of 479 million dollars. That includes a cancellation of all outstanding debt that Haiti owes the global lender. Many other governments also promised to cancel Haiti’s debt to help it recover.

The pledges raised on Wednesday will go toward a multi-donor trust fund, which will be entrusted to manage the donated funds. [EarthTimes]

More: [IndyPosted1, IndyPosted2]


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Haiti Will Ask For 11.5 Billion to Rebuild

Mar 17 2010 Posted in U.S. News by Maggie Romuld with 1 comment.

Haiti earthquakeThe Haiti government has estimated that it will need 11.5 billion USD over the next three years to rebuild the country after the devastation caused by the January 12th earthquake, and it will present its reconstruction plan to donors at an international donor conference in New York on March 31.    

The “Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment” (PDNA) was co-authored by the Haiti government, the United Nations and international aid agencies. Published on a government website Tuesday, the plan goes “beyond simple post-quake reconstruction” and calls for a complete overhaul of some institutions, and the building of others from scratch; news-medical.net reported that almost $300 million will be needed just to repair and rebuild 50 hospitals.

More than 220,000 people were killed in the quake, and of the 1.3 million people left homeless, almost 220,000 are living in temporary camps in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The plan emphasizes that the immediate priority is to coordinate efforts to build tent cities for the homeless in time for April’s heavy rains and for the June hurricane season.

The plan also mentions the need to enforce stricter building codes, reinforce the alert and evacuation system, and improve Haiti’s poor environmental record. [AFP, BBC]


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Deadly Floods Swamp Haiti

Feb 28 2010 Posted in U.S. News by Maggie Romuld with no comments yet.

Haiti Les CayesThe traditional rainy season has come early to Haiti, bringing with it floods that have killed 11 people in the south-eastern port city of Les Cayes and the surrounding area.  The city had not been affected by the devastating January 12th earthquake – which killed 230,000 and left a million people homeless – but its population had swelled recently as survivors moved in from the earthquake-hit areas.

Official reports said that the city was swamped by 1.5m (5 ft) of water, and whole areas were flooded. People were fleeing for safer regions, or climbing up on the roofs of houses that hadn’t already collapsed. Patients were moved to higher floors as the local hospital was flooded, and over 400 inmates were evacuated from a local jail by police and UN peacekeepers. [BBC]

Haiti-watchers are keeping a close eye on Port-au-Prince as the Caribbean wet season approaches. The earthquake reduced the city to rubble, and the heavy rains are expected to cause further misery to the “exposed capital and its huddled residents.” [AFP]

Image: [Bayview]


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Twitter Eliminates SMS Fees for Haiti

Feb 22 2010 Posted in Twitter by Dina with no comments yet.

Digicel continues its Haiti recovery charity with Twitter.
Twitter is joining the numerous web and IT industry companies stepping up to help the people of Haiti, devastated by an earthquake in January. They have arranged for all Haitian Digicel customers to receive free access to mobile tweeting, normally costing a per-txt charge, to their mobile number 40404. Eligible users simply text follow @oxfam to Twitter’s mobile number to activate the free service.

The move comes a month after Twitter’s initial, dramatic impact in spreading information in the aftermath of the disaster. Everything from status updates from those affected by the quake but lucky enough to still have cell service to calls for help from charities flooded the site in the days and weeks following.

The hashtag #Haiti continues to be one of the top trending topics on the micro-blogging site, which just celebrated its milestone 50 million tweets per day. [via Mashable]

Related: Hacked Hashtags Offer Twitter Help for Haiti, Other Disasters, 6.1 Aftershock Hits Haiti, Social Networking Shows Support


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Toledo Strippers Take it off for Haiti

Feb 9 2010 Posted in Odd + Funny by Dina with no comments yet.

Toledo strippers take it off for Haiti charity.
Strippers in Toledo, Ohio are doing their part to raise money for Haiti earthquake relief.

Marilyn’s strip club raised almost $1,000 in cover charges at a special dance night – at $10 a pop – all of which was donated to International Services of Hope.

While the event was called “Lap Dances for Haiti”, lap dancing is illegal in Ohio. It didn’t stop manager Kenny Soprano from selecting the oddly misleading name for his long-anticipated charity fund raiser. Before the earthquake hit, Soprano had been brainstorming a way to improve the club’s public profile by gathering funds for charity.

“We’d been racking our brains for about a month or so, thinking about what we could do,” Soprano said. “You don’t hear much about strip clubs giving back to the community.”

Even though their hearts were in the right places, Soprano struggled to find a charity willing to accept the money raised. “It was pretty hard to find an organization that wants to deal with an adult entertainment establishment.”

I’m sure there’s a “Bada Bing” joke in here somewhere, but since it’s for charity, I’ll let this one slide. [via Ananova]


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Stars Out in Force for “We Are The World” Haiti Relief

Feb 3 2010 Posted in Music by Dina with no comments yet.

Bieber and fellow stars flocked to Hollywood to record "We Are The World" for Haiti.
A remake of 1985 Michael Jackson/Lionel Richie charity hit tune “We Are The World” has brought out musical stars in droves. Dozens of music’s biggest names from across a wide range of genres gathered at the Jim Henson Recording Studio in Hollywood to record the song yesterday night.

Included in the impressive roster is 15 year old singing sensation Justin Bieber, who was given the honor of singing the first line of the song. Also present were Pink, Joel Madden, Harry Connick Jr., Barbara Streisand, Akon, Carlos Santana, Brian Wilson, Celine Dion, Jordin Sparks, and more.

Celebrities took the opportunity to tweet about their experience during the recording process. Overcome with awe at the celebrity powerhouse pack, Justin Bieber tweeted, “Singing We Are The World right now with Celine Dion next to me!! Everyone is here!! I’m meeting everyone!! This is insane! Ok ok chill”

Jordin Sparks was similarly moved, sharing with her followers, “Being apart of the We Are The World remake is such an honor. So much talent together for a great cause. I will never forget tonight.” [via Gather]


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Americans Detained Trying to Allegedly Smuggle Children Out of Haiti

Jan 31 2010 Posted in U.S. News by Tamara Woods with no comments yet.

Americans Detainees in Haiti

The 10 U.S. citizens detained in Haiti after allegedly trying to remove 33 children out of the country may be charged with kidnapping and child trafficking, Haiti police and judicial officials said Sunday.

Aides to Renel Costumé, head of Haiti’s special police brigade for the protection of underage minors, said a preliminary investigation showed the U.S. group, composed of five women and five men, had fulfilled none of the administrative procedures necessary for adoption or health-related evacuation of the children, who ranged in age from two months to 12 years.

According to Sky News most of the kids have living family members. Some of the kids were able to give names and addresses.

The detained Americans were part of a nonprofit Christian ministry called the New Life Children’s Refuge out of Idaho. They were attempting to collect as many as 100 Haitian orphans and move them to a new orphanage it was establishing in the Dominican Republic.

The Americans were arrested as they attempted to go through the Haiti/Dominican Republic boarder.   [The Guardian]


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Top Stars Broadcast Fund Raiser on TV, Webcast Tonight

Jan 22 2010 Posted in Entertainment by Dina with no comments yet.

George Clooney and MTV team up to present "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon.
Friday, January 22nd at 8:00 pm ET approximately 100 top stars, mostly from the music industry, will entertain viewers in a televised and Internet streamed fund raiser for the victims of last week’s earthquake in Haiti. The telethon is titled “Hope for Haiti Now”.

Slated to perform in the two-hour telethon, which was organized by MTV and George Clooney, are artists Coldplay, Alycia Keys, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Wyclef Jean, Bono, The Edge, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Shakira, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Keith Urban, Stevie Wonder, and many others. The organizational efforts appear to have reached out to musicians, and thereby fans, from a broad range of genres, maximizing their target audience.

The stars will perform live from locations around the globe such as New York, Los Angeles, London, and Haiti. Other major players in film and television will be on hand to give testimonials and answer phones.

Online webcasts will be available courtesy of TV.com, Rhapsody, Bing, Yahoo, MySpace, YouTube, Hulu, Fancast, AOL, VH1, MSN, CBS, BET, and CNN. AT&T, Verizon, Alltel, FloTV, and Sprint will make the broadcast available on their mobile wireless networks. Gigya, in cooperation with MTV, will offer a live chat service for viewers to interact during the telethon. Facebook and MySpace will lend their powerful hands to promoting the event.

Collaborative performances between several of the key stars involved will be available the following day on iTunes for $.99.

On television, the commercial-free event will be viewable on Comedy Central, Bravo, Style, Discovery Health, CBS, FOX, ABC, Palladia, SoapNet, NBC, MLB Network, Epix, CNN, Current TV, Fuse, BET, CW, Oxygen, G4, Centric, HBO, Showtime, VH1, MTV, CMT, PBS, TNT, E! Entertainment Network, National Geographic, and Planet Green. Broadcasts will also be available in Canada and internationally. It will also be the first U.S. telethon to air in China. Overall, “Hope for Haiti Now” will be the most widely-broadcast telethon in history.

All donations raised will go towards Oxfam America, Red Cross, UNICEF, Partners in Health, Wyclef’s Yele Haiti Foundation, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, and United Nations World Food Programme.

Organizer Clooney urged people to get involved in the many efforts to aid Haiti. He said, “I would say, ‘Get involved, whatever you do. This is about compassion. There are times in our lives when people are really without help and in real danger, and this is one of those times. So whatever they can do, give money to one of the organizations that they like the best.” [Mashable via MTV.com]


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Hacked Hashtags Offer Twitter Help for Haiti, Other Disasters

Jan 20 2010 Posted in Twitter by Dina with 1 comment.

Real examples of tweets "tweaked" with new emergency hashtags.
According to ReadWriteWeb, hackers from around the globe have put their heads and skills together to develop a system of Twitter hashtags that can be used in emergency situations to request aid; identify victims; give status updates; broadcast locations; and more. The project is called “Tweak the Tweet”.

Working alongside Project EPIC, programmers are hoping to find a way to organize and display all tweets using the predetermined hashtags and integrate them into existing, widely-used or brand new tools.

The proposed hashtags, already in use on Twitter thanks to word-of-mouth and volunteer campaigns, include:
#closed (to announce something is closed, e.g. school, road)
#contact (to include a username or other contact details)
#imok (to let people know you’re alright)
#injured (to report someone or yourself as injured)
#loc (to report your location or the location of a need/incident)
#need (to broadcast a need like food or water)
#offering/#offer/#have (to broadcast something you have available)
#open (to announce something is open, e.g. hospital, shelter, road, or shop)
#ruok (to inquire someone’s status)
#trapped (to report someone or yourself as trapped)

Project EPIC need more help to implement the systems they envision will make Tweak the Tweet a powerhouse tool in times of disaster. They are currently seeking volunteers to help translate their wiki pages into different languages; contribute to an ongoing word-of-mouth campaign by following @epiccolorado; tweaking and retweeting tweets containing pertinent keywords with the new hashtags included; and programming applications that can collect and distribute information shared via the hashtags. For more information about participating, visit the Project EPIC web site.


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6.1 Aftershock Hits Haiti, Social Networking Shows Support

Jan 20 2010 Posted in Social Media by Dina with no comments yet.

Twitter users tweet support and news about the Haiti aftershock.Eight days after the city of Port-au-Prince was flattened by a devastating 7.0 earthquake, and after enduring a number of aftershocks in the mid-Richter Scale range, Haiti has once again been hit by a massive tremblor – an aftershock measuring 6.1.

The quake erupted near Port-au-Prince, further complicating an already impossible situation for survivors struggling for shelter, food and water; rescue workers still hoping to find the living trapped amongst the rubble; and military and law enforcement fighting to keep order in the streets, where rioting has already begun.

With no official reports of additional damage to the areas hardest hit by last Tuesday’s earthquake available, concerned social networking enthusiasts took to Twitter to unleash an outpouring of support. However, Twitter itself was experiencing problems most of the morning; access and functionality were unpredictable. Facebook became the new Twitter while the micro-blogging site worked through its “fail whale” errors. Facebook users “tweeted” their brief messages about the event in status updates and walls across the network.

All week terms like “Haiti” and “Port-au-Prince”, as well as a term trending during Larry King Live’s fund raiser for the impoverished country, “CNNHelpHaiti”, have remained the hottest subjects discussed on Twitter. Today, despite the difficulties in accessing the site, Haiti remains the top trending term in tweets around the globe.

The majority of Haiti-related messages have contained words of support, shock, prayers, sympathy, worry, and news. [Mashable]


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Pat Robertson Is A Moron. Haiti Comments Show His Disrespect For Human Life

Jan 14 2010 Posted in U.S. News by James Johnson with 1 comment.

Pat Robertson - Haiti Comments Show He's A Moron

Televangelist Pat Robertson this week called Haiti “cursed” after the recent earthquake in the country claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, while adding that they had “made a pact with the devil” because of their countries distant past actions, a claim the White House is even now trying to separate themselves far away from.

(more…)


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Haiti Earthquake Death Toll Could Top 100,000 As Relief Pours Into Port-Au-Prince

Jan 14 2010 Posted in U.S. News by James Johnson with no comments yet.

Haiti Relief Pours in up to 100,000 dead

Two days ago Haiti was hit by an earthquake that rocked the island nation, now estimates are putting the death total in the hundreds of thousands, possibly bottoming out at over half a million people. Much like disasters in the past thousands of people are still missing and relief efforts have largely been slowed due to the state of the nations runways and roads.

Countries from Brazil to China and Britain to the U.S. have begun to offer their support, flying in large relief cargo planes into the Port-Au-Prince, while U.S. troops have been working to clear damaged runways and setup a temporary air traffic control system so more aid can be rushed into the country, aid which includes food, water, medical supplies and even aid workers.

Over 40 tons of food has already been delivered to the country, while Cuba sent 30 doctors to help with the relief effors. Even U.S. firefighters are getting in on the relief, sending 70 search and rescue experts from Fairfax County, Va.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC Thursday morning:

“There are about 3 million people affected. Thousands and thousands – I don’t want to put a number, but tens of thousands we fear are dead, many thousands more are injured.” Officials from Haiti put those numbers much higher, around the 100,000 mark.

The efforts have truly become an international effort, with the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) also announcing that they are getting ready to fly in 86 metric tons of food to the area, enough to feed 30,000 people for one week.

Good luck to the people of Haiti and a special thanks to all of the emergency relief volunteers who have entered the area.


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Haiti Hit Hard by Earthquake

Jan 12 2010 Posted in U.S. News by Dan Evon with no comments yet.

Just before 5 pm today, eastern time, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti ten miles south of its capital, Port Au Prince. The force has caused an enormous amount of damage. And although no numbers are officially known, it is sadly expected to have a high death toll. (more…)


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