Tag: Open Thread

“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,” Interior Minister Paul Bien-Aime said.

The government also declared a day of mourning for Friday to mark one month since the quake struck, bringing death and destruction on an unprecedented scale to the desperately poor Caribbean nation.

Sparks lit up the night as workers used heavy-duty saws to cut through tangled steel and concrete in an attempt to reach up to eight people believed to have entered the damaged Caribbean Market building before it came crashing down on Tuesday.

Rescuers earlier thought they had detected at least one person alive inside, and at one point asked for silence so they could listen for survivors using ultra-sensitive listening equipment.

The missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were arrested last month trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border to the Dominican Republic 17 days after a magnitude 7 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

They were charged last week with child abduction and criminal association. Hearings that could lead either to their release or a decision to move ahead with prosecution were scheduled to resume on Tuesday and a judicial source said a ruling was unlikely before Wednesday.

While officials say food distribution has finally moved into high gear, more Haitians protested Sunday, saying the government had done nothing for them as the one-month anniversary of the January 12 devastating earthquake approached.

Meanwhile, the case of 10 Americans charged with kidnapping children in the wake of the disaster here took another turn, with their Haitian lawyer saying he had quit after being accused of seeking to bribe the judge.

Colonel Gregory Kane, the US Joint Task Force Haiti operations officer, said US involvement in the earthquake-shattered country would last as long as their presence was required.

But he said military operations could end as little as 45 days after they began in the aftermath of the January 12 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.

“I’m sorry it’s taken this long,” Clinton said, adding he and other relief workers were working hard to ease the suffering.

But the country’s Justice Minister Paul Denis insisted they should be brought before Haitian courts, instead of being returned to the United States.

“It is Haitian law that has been violated,” Justice Minister Paul Denis told AFP. “It is up to the Haitian authorities to hear and judge the case. I don’t see any reason why they should be tried in the United States.”

More than three weeks after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake, Bellerive said his tiny Caribbean nation had been ravaged by “a disaster on a planetary scale” and detailed the tragic toll suffered by his people.

“There are more than 200,000 people who have been clearly identified as people who are dead,” he said in an interview with AFP, adding that another 300,000 injured had been treated, 250,000 homes had been destroyed and 30,000 businesses lost.

The move underlined the impotence of the Haitian government in the wake of the 7.0-magnitude January 12 quake that killed an estimated 170,000 people and left many official buildings, including the presidential palace, in ruins.

“The electoral council has decided to postpone the legislative elections of February 28 and March 3, 2010, to a later unspecified date,” the authorities announced on Tuesday, giving no further details.