Free Republic

A visual history of the West's misguided attempts to send its hand-me-downs to the developing world.Most of us don't have billions of dollars to give away like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. But the charitable impulse is still strong: combined, Americans gave away almost $300 billion in 2010. Sometimes, though, good intentions have questionable results. In the rush to help after a crisis, public and private donors from around the world sometimes give without quite realizing what the needs on the ground are. Do Haitians really need your used yoga mat? Do the Balkans lack for clowns? Above, a young...

WYCLEF’S BIG ON PALIN: On Monday night, at about the time the Republican presidential hopefuls were onstage to debate in Tampa, Wyclef Jean was at the Urban Zen Center in the West Village talking the future of the American right. Donna Karan was hosting an after party for her Donna Karan Collection show which earlier that day doubled as the opening of an exhibit of the Haitian artwork that had inspired the show. When the Haitian-born Jean arrived, Karan made sure to point out that both she and he are Libras. Despite his recent failed presidential bid in Haiti, the...

Max Hardberger, a maritime repo man who recovers stolen ships from lawless Caribbean ports, has set his sights on the notorious Somali pirates 'I don’t know why I like Haiti so much,’ Max Hardberger says, as we battle and swerve through the choking dust and chaos of Port-au-Prince traffic. 'The Haitian people are wonderful, sure, but sometimes they do bad things, especially when they get in mobs, and the country is obviously frustrating. One thing I do like is that it’s lawless here, which makes it much easier for me to operate.’ Hardberger is a 62-year-old adventurer from Louisiana who...

In Haiti, a lack of markets means little profit and virtually no wealth, no progress, no resilience against uncertainty, and thus no hope. Haiti is the second oldest autonomous state in the Western Hemisphere. It was a French colony, her richest, but the Haitians overthrew the French in a bloody revolution. In the 1790′s, led by such fascinating characters as Toussaint L’Ouverture, a free black slave owner, Haiti seized independence. Then Toussaint’s successors systematically slaughtered the French minority in what today would be termed genocide. Haiti’s wealth was quickly squandered as a national slave state. She remains mired in hopelessness...

The creation of market demand for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves in Haiti is one of the latest endeavors to emerge from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which says the Caribbean nation’s reliance on coal to cook food is contributing to “climate change” and leaves the country vulnerable to catastrophic weather conditions. Besides, Haiti’s use of the fuel is not in its best economic interests, USAID has declared. Although USAID admittedly met with “limited success” in previous pilot projects, that is not stopping the agency from launching yet another effort to encourage the use of LPG and other...

A Wikileaks post published on The Nation shows that the Obama Administration fought to keep Haitian wages at 31 cents an hour. (This article was taken down by The Nation due to an embargo, but it was excerpted at Columbia Journalism Review.) It started when Haiti passed a law two years ago raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. According to an embassy cable: This infuriated American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. They said they would only fork over a seven-cent-an-hour increase, and they got the State Department...

CHURCHVILLE, VA—My colleague Bennie Peiser, of Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, offers some of his latest man-made global warming news: The Sunday Times noted on May 22 that the UK government has agreed to cut its greenhouse emissions 50 percent by 2027. As a result, “Tata Steel last week announced it was cutting 1,500 jobs at its Scunthorpe and Teeside plants. The company, which employs 21,000 in Britain, has held high-level talks with government in recent weeks over its energy plans. . . . Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe warned that he could be forced to shut the firm’s Runcorn chlorine...

The Obama administration is extending temporary protected status for Haitians who fled to the United States following last year's earthquake. The move will allow them to stay in the country for an additional 18 months. The temporary status was originally granted in January of 2010, just days after Haiti was hit with a massive quake. However, it would have expired in July. The extension will allow those who are eligible to stay in the U.S. through the end of January 2013. It also extends the program to Haitians who have been living in the U.S. since January 12, 2011.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Michel Martelly, a popular singer known by the stage name "Sweet Micky," was officially declared the next president of this earthquake-devastated country, election officials said.

In 35 seconds, the city of Léogane was almost entirely destroyed by last year’s earthquake. A year after, 80% of the victims are still living in camps surrounded by rubble, without water or electricity. Despite millions in international aid, the rebuilding process is at a standstill.

The United Nations has admitted that it lost at least $600,000 after it canceled its controversial rental of a comfortably appointed cruise ship for U.N. staffers in the early stages of rescue operations last year in earthquake-shattered Haiti. The world organization abruptly backed out of the deal after a Fox News exclusive analysis showed that the boat rental for the 11,000-ton ship called Ola Esmeralda, which cost $72,000 per day, was vastly overpriced compared to going commercial rates. Overall, the U.N. contracted to spend $13 million on rental of the Esmeralda, and another $3.6 million on a companion vessel, the...

Japan's world-class transportation infrastructure couldn't withstand this month's 9.0-magnitutde quake, but their construction teams are still amazing. This stretch of highway was repaired in just six days by a Herculean road crew. This is the triumph of Japanese engineering. The March 11th quake and tsunami crushed roads, destroyed bridges, twisted trains tracks, and otherwise did to Japan what your little brother did to your ideal Sim City creation when you weren't looking. A stretch of the Great Kanto Highway in Naka, Japan looked like the huge crater above on March 11th. The shaking left a 150-meter crack along the main...

January 12, 2010 A 7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes approximately 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It kills anywhere from 92,000 to 220,000 people, injures 300,000, and leaves approximately 1.5 to 1.8 million homeless. Led by the United States, the international community launches a massive rescue operation to save the survivors, and puts helicopters into the air and ships to sea to distribute hundreds of thousands of meals and bottled waters to the victims. World governments, NGOs, multinational corporations, and private individuals raise billions of dollars for the Haitian relief effort. The World Bank waives Haiti's debt repayment schedule for five...

Haitians headed to the polls to pick a new president Sunday among conflicting reports that former candidate wannabe Wyclef Jean was shot. Jean said a bullet grazed his hand as he stepped out of a car to make a phone call, but local police claim he was only injured by glass. "The way I can explain it is that the bullet grazed me in my right hand," said the hip-hop singer, who has been in Haiti campaigning on behalf of Michel (Sweet Micky) Martelly. "I heard blow, blow, blow and I just looked at my hand." Jean said he was...

Actor Danny Glover has taken on a new role - as international statesman. The "Lethal Weapon" star traveled to South Africa late Wednesday to escort exiled former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide back home. Aristide has been issued a diplomatic passport after seven years in exile but has encountered resistance to his return to Haiti before a presidential run-off election on Sunday. Glover questioned why former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier would be allowed to return, but the twice-elected Aristide would not. "People of good conscience cannot be idle while a former dictator is able to return unhindered while a democratic leader...

Japan is not Haiti .... Here is what to expect in the coming months out of the disaster that has affected Northeast Japan: How do I know .... I was living just outside of Kobe when the monstrous jishin (earthquake) hit in January 1995 and virtually destroyed the center of a major Japanese City killing 6,600 people covering a 20 mile swath. I was right in the middle. Down the street from where I lived a 7 story apartment building ended up being 4 stories. My next door neighbor died from a collapsed roof. When the quake hit, I...

The budget cuts, if they stand, do great damage to our foreign policy. Congressman Jim McGovern recently condemned the cuts, stating, "This isn't a question of charity. It's an issue of national security -- of what happens when desperate people can't find or afford food, and the anger that comes from people who see no future for their children except poverty and death." ...Whether it is hunger in the U.S. or far away in Afghanistan, it can be dealt with if there is the will. Fighting hunger is also one of the most relatively inexpensive investments that can be made.

Charlie Sheen continued his media blitz Friday, telling Access Hollywood he plans to travel to Haiti next week with fellow actor Sean Penn. The “Two and a Half Men” star told “Access” host Billy Bush, “we’re going to do a couple things first and then it looks like we’re heading down [to Haiti].” Sheen said he hopes to bring awareness to the earthquake-ravaged nation. “I’m excited as hell because, you know, if I can bring the attention of the world down there, then clearly this tsunami keeps cresting,” he said.

In 1915, the US Marines invaded Haiti, occupying the country until 1934. US officials rewrote the Haitian constitution, and when the Haitian national assembly refused to ratify it, they dissolved the assembly. They then held a "referendum" in which about 5% of the electorate voted and approved the new constitution – which conveniently changed Haitian law to allow foreigners to own land – with 99.9% voting for approval. The situation today is remarkably similar. The country is occupied, and although the occupying troops wear blue helmets, everyone knows that Washington calls the shots. On 28 November an election was held...

On January 12, 2010, an earthquake reaching a magnitude of 7.0 rocked Haiti. Over the next two weeks, 52 aftershocks measuring a magnitude of 4.5 or greater had added to the devastation. The city of Port-au-Prince was littered with rubble and death as impromptu tent cities sprang up everywhere. By July, an estimated $1.3 billion in funds had been raised by U.S. relief organizations. Charity is one of the most selfless, noble activities in which a person can participate; however, good intentions do not always beget good results. A year later the bodies are gone. The tent cities have upgraded...