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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - A ramshackle church school collapsed in a shanty town on the outskirts of Haiti's capital on Friday, burying dozens in rubble and killing at least 50, many of them children, rescue workers said. The three-story La Promesse school caved in while class was in session, and some of the walls and debris crushed neighboring residences in the Nerettes community near Port-au-Prince, injuring still more, civil protection service official Nadia Blachard told Haitian radio. "There are 50 killed and 124 wounded, including 20 in serious condition," Blachard said.

Last year, when Sen. Barack Obama was making the circuit of conventions for journalists of color, the question was whether the prospective candidate was black enough. This year, when he appeared before the UNITY: Journalists of Color convention in Chicago, the presumptive Democratic nominee joked, “I’m too black.” Obama appeared Sunday at the close of the convention in a session aired live on CNN to talk about his observations from his trip to the Middle East and Europe, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. economy and questions from the journalists about faith, affirmative action, immigration and apologies for...

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Scorned for decades after independence, invaded by U.S. Marines and subject frequently to the whims of Washington politicians, Haiti has endured a difficult history with the United States. Now many Haitians believe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, if he becomes the first black U.S. president, could open a new chapter and help their unstable and impoverished Caribbean homeland... < snip> Many Haitians say they view Obama as an inspiration and a source of pride for black people around the world, and many view him as a kindred spirit. < snip> More recently, powerful U.S. politicians have been...

Haiti facing 'major food crisis' Malnutrition is widespread in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world Haiti faces a "major crisis" if the international community does not increase food aid to the country, the UN's food agency has warned. The World Food Programme director for the region, Pedro Medrano, said Haiti required more help to feed its poor. He appealed for $54m (£27m) in new funding to counter food prices which have risen sharply around the world. At least six people were killed in Haiti last month as protests over rising prices turned violent. The prices of wheat,...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 27 (UPI) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson and several leaders of Florida's Haitian community arrived in Haiti Sunday to study the country's food crisis, Haitian radio reported. Jackson and others are expected to discuss food-price inflation with Haitian leaders, according to officials of his Rainbow Push Coalition. Protests over spiking food prices left at least seven people dead this month and prompted lawmakers to oust Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis. On Sunday, Ericq Pierre, a former senior adviser with the Inter-American Development Bank, was named Alexis' successor.

Haitian senators have called on the Jacques Edouard Alexis, the prime minister, to resign in the wake of violent protests over the cost of the food that left five people dead. A letter signed by 16 of Haiti's 27 senators said government action to address the crisis was "too little too late," despite calm returning to Haiti's streets. "We have advised him to resign in the next 48 hours," said Andris Riche, a senior senator, on Thursday."

Haitians say their hunger is real Thu Apr 10, 2008 4:45pm EDT By Jim Loney PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 10 (Reuters) - Elta Petithomme has been scouring the Haitian capital's garbage-strewn main market street for hours, searching for something to feed her four young children. Today, pickings are slim. Yesterday she sold a cellphone for 50 gourdes, the equivalent of about $1.30, enough to buy some bread, sugar and fried plantains. That's all the children, all under the age of 6, had to eat for the day. "Some days neighbors will cook and give us some food, as little as it is....

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A desperate appeal from the president Wednesday failed to restore order to Haiti's shattered capital, and bands of looters sacked stores, warehouses and government offices. Gunfire rang out from the wealthy suburbs in the hills to the starving slums below as 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers were unable to halt a frenzy of looting and violence that has grown out of protests over rising food prices. Thousands of people were in the streets of Port-au-Prince following President Rene Preval's speech, many looting stores and terrorizing drivers and shopkeepers with rocks. Thousands more took part other in protests across the...

Food riots turn deadly in Haiti At least four people were killed and 20 wounded when demonstrations against rising food prices turned into riots in southern Haiti, officials say. Reports say scores of people went on the rampage in the town of Les Cayes, blocking roads, looting shops and shooting at UN peacekeepers. The UN said its personnel had opened fire at some of the armed protesters. For two days running, parts of Haiti have been erupting into violence triggered by the soaring cost of food. The prices of rice, beans and fruit have gone up by 50% in the...

In a radio ad sponsored by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, Grammy Award-winning musician Wyclef Jean is asking his fellow citizens to give up crime and work to improve the country. "If you love Wyclef, that means you love Haiti. So you should not be raping women, kidnapping people and children, because there can be no excuse for doing so," Jean said in Creole in a short ad run several times a day by local stations in Haiti. "I reject these evil practices," said the 35-year-old Jean, who also urged Haitian men to respect and protect women's rights. Haiti,...

Excerpt - PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) — In a Haitian dance hall transformed into a temple, dozens of voodoo practitioners dressed all in white, scarves around their necks in red, yellow or green, came Friday to pay homage to their first-ever "supreme master". "Open the barriers," a sole voice intoned in Creole. "The master has arrive," answered the crowd of men and women, as they rose to greet Max Beauvoir, 72. Until recently, the priests of voodoo, the heavily spirit-focused, African-rooted belief of many Haitians, operated autonomously without a formal hierarchy or rules. But through the associations of followers, they decided to...

ISSUE: Haitian president wants temporary protective status for Haitians in America. Haitian President René Préval has finally asked the U.S. government to extend temporary protective status to Haitians. The designation is long overdue, and President Bush would do well to grant Préval's request. Haiti, already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was further devastated by last year's Tropical Storm Noel, the latest in a string of natural disasters that have rocked the country in recent times. TPS would temporarily protect Haitians already in the United States -- many of them parents of U.S. born children -- from deportation. TPS...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene...

GRAND COLLINE, Haiti (AP) - Far from the spreading slums of the Haitian capital, past barren dirt mountains and hillsides stripped to a chalky white core, two woodcutters bring down a towering oak tree in one of the few forested valleys left in the Caribbean country. Fanel Cantave, 36, says he has little choice but to make his living in a way that is causing environmental disaster in Haiti. And these days, he and his 15-year-old son, Phillipe, must travel ever farther from their village to find trees to cut. "There is no other way to get money," the father...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene...

GONAIVES, Haiti (AP) - Calling for an uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of protesters, some armed, hurled stones at outnumbered Haitian police and blocked streets with flaming tires. "We're going to feed Aristide to the fire!" people once loyal to the former slum priest yelled Monday night, standing near a smoldering barricade in the western port of Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city. Demonstrators spoke bitterly against the president, accusing him of orchestrating an attack in December that ultimately left 10 people dead, saying he staged the apparent coup himself as an excuse to silence the opposition. "He betrayed us," said...

The political and constitutional turmoil in Haiti deepened yesterday as the country's parliament ceased to function and President Jean-Bertrand Aristide began in effect to rule by decree while mass protests against him continued. With a general strike entering its fifth day, President Aristide delivered a speech at the airport in Port-au-Prince in which he failed to mention the clamour for him to step down. Amid tight security, the President then left on his private jet to attend the Summit of the Americas in Mexico. His address was dedicated to honouring the founding fathers of Haiti, which became the world's first...

Before Haiti became the world's first black republic, it was a slave nation. On the island, there were quarantines, where a new slave was broken down, beaten physically, informed of his inferiority and told to be thankful to his captors — because it was the work that the slave would do for his masters that would lead to forgiveness and acceptance into heaven. Now, more than 200 years after the slaves revolted, a former Colorado couple wants to commemorate the quarantine, which they believe is the source of the Western world's violence, racism and greed. "Our culture, our society did...

Sri Lanka has promised to look into allegations that 108 of its UN peacekeepers in Haiti paid for sex, in some cases with underage girls. The men are being sent home after being accused of sexual misconduct and abuse. Officials say the law will take its course once the soldiers arrive back in Sri Lanka, but warn that little tangible evidence has been produced. In the past, UN peacekeepers have been involved in a series of sex scandals, including this year in Ivory Coast. 'Zero tolerance' Sri Lanka has sent four senior officers, including a female brigadier, to Haiti to...

New scientific finding that AIDS came to the United States from Africa via Haiti, probably arriving in Miami as early as 1969, stoked controversy among researchers and Haitians on Tuesday -- reopening deep wounds over the medical community's role in perpetuating a stigma against people from the island. Published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study aims to better explain the origin of AIDS, whose history involves a virus with a sketchy story line that began in Africa in the 1930s and emerged in Los Angeles in 1981. The findings were based, in part, on...

The AIDS virus entered the United States via Haiti, probably arriving in just one person in about 1969, earlier than previously believed, according to new research. After the virus, HIV-1, entered the U.S., it flourished and spread worldwide. "Our results show that the strain of virus that spawned the U.S. AIDS epidemic probably arrived in or around 1969. That is earlier than a lot of people had imagined," said senior author Michael Worobey. The research is the first to definitively pinpoint when and from where HIV-1 entered the United States and shows that most HIV/AIDS viruses in the U.S. descended...

AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: study By Will Dunham 2 hours, 28 minutes ago The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday. Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed. The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS...

Haiti's 'Baby Doc' seeks forgiveness By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 2:38am BST 26/09/2007 Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the exiled former dictator of Haiti, has asked his countrymen to forgive "wrongs" committed by his regime. His plea is being seen as a bid to soften opposition to him returning there. In a radio speech recorded in Paris and broadcast across the impoverished Caribbean country, Duvalier urged supporters to rally around his small National Unity Party. It was his first public address in years. Duvalier, 56, took over as ruler of Haiti from his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier,...

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is a private, nonprofit organization, was founded in the early 1980's under the influence of Ronald Reagan for "supporting democracy abroad". So we've had that going on for years. The NED basically does overtly what the CIA used to do covertly. It funds civil society groups and organizations that fit within U.S. strategic interests in various countries.

Real or fake? Click the link to watch the video. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread296021/pg1

The debate is growing on the YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up5jmbSjWkw

The Racist Arab Control also in... Haiti Just when you thought you know all about Arab racism, like; against Jews, against Africans such as in Sudan, Chad & in Egypt, against Asians residing in Saudi Arabia, against Kurds, etc. Haiti? nah, you wouldn't think... Well, We spoke lately to Haiti refugees, as you know, Haiti is the poorest country in that region, even poorer than neighbouring Dominican Republic. They explained it bluntly, greedy Arab business owners, mainly from Syria, CONTROL the entire country, and will NOT let any Haitian native have any opportunity in establishing a business. Their words, not...

Fear, persecution, prejudice, families divided. This is the reality of thousands of immigrants - legal or not - who left behind country, culture and friends to search for the American Dream. But more and more Americans are repelled by the harsh tactics being used against them - and are raising their voices. "A lot of children have been brutally separated from their families," said the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. "This is un-American; family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." She is one of the founders of the New Sanctuary...

NEW YORK -- Most of Haiti's under-17 national soccer team apparently deserted the squad during an airport stopover hours before a planned Wednesday trip to South Korea to prepare for the upcoming U17 World Cup. Thirteen of the team's 18 players, all under age 17, went missing from John F. Kennedy International Airport between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, and their whereabouts were not immediately known, Haiti's consul general in New York, Felix Augustin, told The Associated Press. "We don't know exactly where they are, but we're making calls to people [in the Haitian community] to try and get them...

The recent surge of Haitians taking to the seas to flee their destitute country resulted last week in a terrible calamity -- a capsized sailboat and 61 souls lost, some of them chopped up by sharks. Then came even-worse stories from survivors, alleging a crime of indescribable inhumanity. Survivors said that a Turks and Caicos patrol boat had rammed their sailboat, towed it into deeper water and abandoned all aboard the crippled vessel to the sea and sharks. Several investigations are under way by local authorities and the British government. What is needed, though, is a thorough, independent investigation by...

Excerpt - MIAMI (Reuters) - The bodies of 54 people have been recovered following Friday's capsize of a Haitian sailboat that was being towed by police in the Turks and Caicos islands, the British territory's government said on Monday. Seventy-eight migrants survived the accident and were expected to be returned to Haiti, the government said in a statement. Rescuers continued the search for survivors and victims. On Friday, officials had said 20 people died and 58 were missing in the accident. A Royal Turks and Caicos Police patrol boat intercepted the sloop -- which may have been carrying as many...

(CBS4) HALLANDALE BEACH -- Haitian-American protesters were outside the U.S. Border Patrol office in Pembroke Pines to highlight the disparity in U.S. immigration policy. Many of them had loved ones aboard a rickety boat that came ashore in Hallandale Beach Wednesday morning. They know that many of their fellow countrymen and loved ones who took the dangerous journey will be deported. The migrants were brought to the US Border Patrol facility at North Perry airport in Broward. Haiti's consul general, Ralph Latortue, told CBS4 the men, women and children were being well cared, and customs officials have already taken some...

LONDON (AFP) - A top ranking United Nations official admitted that the abuse of locals by peacekeepers was "going on" and expressed her "outrage" in an interview with the BBC. UN Assistant Secretary General for peacekeeping operations, Jane Holl Lute, speaking to the BBC after it aired a probe into allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in Haiti, said abuse "is going on ... and I don't challenge the facts as they were presented". She said that "at every level, I'm outraged. I'm outraged that this goes on." Lute insisted, however, that the United Nations was working to deal with...

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- Iraq, racked by violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and impoverished Haiti, Myanmar and Guinea are ranked as the most corrupt countries in the world in a new survey.Finland, Iceland and New Zealand are ranked as the least corrupt, with Denmark, Singapore and Sweden just behind.Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) ranks 163 countries based on perceived levels of corruption among public officials and politicians in its 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, was ranked last, just below Iraq, Myanmar and Guinea, reflecting what TI said was a high correlation between...

Berlin. - Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti are considered to be the countries where corruption is most widespread, according to Transparency International (TI) in its 2006 report published Monday. Venezuela and Ecuador appear both in positions number 138 and Haiti in 163 according to AFP. Chile, in 20th place along with the US and Belgium, continues to be the least corrupt country in Latin America. Spain is further down, on 23rd place, followed by Portugal (26) and Uruguay (28). Brazil (70), Mexico (70) and Argentina (93) are located in the middle of TI’s new listing. Finland… is the country where corruption...

THREE years into the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, everyone from slicksleeved privates fighting for survival in Ramadi to the echelons above reality at the Pentagon still believes that eliminating insurgents will eliminate the insurgency. They are wrong. There is a difference between killing insurgents and fighting an insurgency. In three years, the Sunni insurgency has grown from nothing into a force that threatens our national objective of establishing and maintaining a free, independent and united Iraq. During that time, we have fought insurgents with airstrikes, artillery, the courage and tactical excellence of our forces, and new technology worth billions of...

Thousands demand Aristide return   Mr Aristide fled an armed revolt in 2004 Thousands of people have demonstrated in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, demanding the return of exiled former President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.Supporters chanted "Aristide or death!" and "Aristide's blood is our blood!" as they marched to the National Palace on the ex-leader's 53rd birthday. Mr Aristide fled an armed revolt two years ago and is in South Africa. President Rene Preval had said during this year's election campaign he would consider allowing him to return home. However, the US has warned this could destabilise the country. Political prisonersSaturday's march was...

(AP) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- U.N. peacekeepers on Friday found the bodies of 16 people believed killed in a surge of gang violence, the latest sign the Caribbean nation's capital may be slipping back into disorder after months of relative calm. The troops from Sri Lanka the bodies in the southern Port-au-Prince slum of Martissant, a U.N. statement said. The slum was the site of a recent spate of gunbattles between warring gangs. The victims apparently were shot to death in an hours-long gunfight among Haitian gang members fighting for control of the area, said Pierre Esperance, a local human...

Drug probe targets Aristide Haiti's ex-president is main focus of investigation of bribes from dug traffickers, but paper trail is lacking. BY JAY WEAVER AND JACQUELINE CHARLES • This is the first of two parts. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was a modern-day Moses to Haiti's poor masses, a former Catholic priest who rose to the presidency by promising to wash away the country's bloody and corrupt past. But since his ouster as president in 2004, U.S. authorities have been investigating detailed accounts alleging that Aristide and several top aides sought and took millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers in Haiti,...

A report published today paints a grim picture of retired Mountie Mark Bourque's dying moments in Haiti after he was gunned down in an ambush last December. An article published in Toro magazine says Bourque lay dying with blood pouring from his bullet wound as a group of soldiers from the same United Nations mission took photos of the critically injured Canadian. But none of the troops in a nearby armoured personnel carrier responded to the frantic appeals for help from Bourque's friend and colleague, says the article. Bourque was driving with his colleague Pierre Perreault, both retired RCMP officers,...

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 — New surveys suggest that the global AIDS epidemic has begun to slow, with a decline in new H.I.V. infections in about 10 countries, the leader of the United Nations AIDS program said Tuesday. Outside of those countries — which include Haiti, Cambodia, Kenya and Zimbabwe — the number of new AIDS infections continues to rise or hover at its current pace. Meanwhile, public health efforts are reaching only a small proportion of people at risk, Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of Unaids, said at a news conference here on Tuesday. "It's a very complex...

Caribbean-based mobile operator Digicel is expanding again -- this time the Denis O'Brien-owned firm has rolled out operations in Haiti, with an investment of over US$130 million. The investment is reportedly the largest corporate investment ever made in troubled Haiti by an international company. The launch of Digicel Haiti follows the completion of Digicel's purchase of Bouygues Telecom Caraibe on Tuesday. The firm currently has operations in 20 Caribbean countries and has invested USD1 billion in the region since its launch in 2001. Digicel expects its current staff of more than 1,500 to increase 33 percent by 2007.

Much of the congressional debate over illegal immigration has focused on the millions of Mexicans who slip into this country looking for work and a better way of life. That's understandable, since Mexicans make up the majority of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country. And television has been full of images of Mexican-flag-waving demonstrators agitating for a law that would make it easier for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. But it is the fate of Haitians trying to enter this country, not that of Mexicans, that cries out the loudest for a remedy. If it's truly the...

A woman who faced up to 15 years in prison for bringing a human skull into the United States now faces only a maximum of one year in jail. A federal prosecutor changed the charges from three felonies to one misdemeanor in a hearing in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale today. Myrlene Severe now faces a misdemeanor charge of improper storage of a human body part. Severe spoke little during the hearing which lasted about two minutes, however she did quietly voice a concern to Magistrate Judge Lurana S. Snow: ``I don't have my privacy.'' The 30-year-old Miramar woman...

On the heels of a private meeting yesterday with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Haiti's unelected prime minister, Gerard Latortue, is to meet today with Quebec Premier Jean Charest. News of the two visits outraged anti-Latortue activists, who say the 71-year-old politician is guilty of crimes against humanity for arbitrary jailings and killings by police and paramilitary forces under his watch. Bused in from Montreal, opponents picketed a diplomatic event Latortue attended last night at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. They also plan to demonstrate in Montreal today at 4 p.m., when Latortue is to visit Charest's offices on Sherbrooke...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Haiti's electoral council said on Tuesday it would launch an investigation after burned ballots, many cast a week ago for former president Rene Preval, were found still smoldering in a state dump. Preval, a one-time ally of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Aristide from power two years ago, said on Tuesday that only "massive fraud" had prevented him from winning a first-round victory in the Feb. 7 election. A few hours later, reports that hundreds and maybe thousands of ballots had been found discarded in a...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — U.N. peacekeepers opened fire Monday on Haitians protesting election results, killing at least one and wounding four, witnesses said as flaming roadblocks paralyzed the capital. Hundreds of screaming demonstrators elsewhere stormed into an upscale hotel housing an electoral office in the hills above Port-au-Prince and helicopters landed on the roof to evacuate guests. Associated Press journalists saw the body of a man in the street in the Tabarre neighborhood, a T-shirt bearing the image of leading candidate Rene Preval soaked in blood. Witnesses said Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers opened fire on them, killing two and wounding four....

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A woman was charged with smuggling after federal security screeners found a human skull in her luggage at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport late Thursday. The woman had flown into Fort Lauderdale on Lynx Air International Flight 210 from Cap Haitien, Haiti. Her bag was being searched at the U.S. Customs counter when the grisly discovery was made. Agents said she did not disclose the skull -- complete with teeth and hair -- was in the luggage. Myrlene Severe, a Haitian-born permanent U.S. resident, said the skull -- a male's -- was to be used in rites as...

Airport baggage screeners found a human head with teeth, hair and skin in the luggage of a woman who said she intended to ward off evil spirits with it, authorities said Friday. Myrlene Severe, 30, a Haitian-born permanent U.S. resident, was charged Friday with smuggling a human head into the U.S. without proper documentation. Customs and Border Protection officials found the head Thursday, after Severe arrived at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on a Lynx International Airlines flight from Cap Haitien, Haiti, said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami. "It still had teeth, hair and...