Tag: Earthquake

Below are a series of reports from the PBS NewsHour on Jan. 18th 2010 show, the first is of a very heartwarming rescue when all hope should have been gone especially in that pile of rumble once a building. For many the interview with the American Ambassador should be paid close attention to. While everyone would like to see much more rapid rescues and aid supplies to reach those tens of thousands of Haitians who need it so desperately Haiti is one of the many poor countries, not a resort island, where what is needed, like a larger airport or seaport and warehouses, where when extreme devastating natural occurrences aren’t available for such a massive undertaking. Those thousands there as volunteers and more as well as the Haitians understand that.  

As I have already said, I apologize if this is already common knowledge. Tomorrow an international fundraising and solidarity event will be staged. Everyone, everywhere can be involved. If we all step up together, and each of us makes a small contribution, we will make a difference!

Amid accusations that the US Government is using the disaster in Haiti as a pretext to militarily occupy and control the country, and while the deputy commander of U.S. Southern Command, Lieutenant-General Ken Keen, has said that he thinks the eventual Haitian death toll from the earthquake will be between 150,000 and 200,000 people, there are now also video reports from on the ground in Haiti of people there seeing more guns than food as the most visible face of ‘humanitarian’ aid efforts, and of starving people being given food containing ‘bugs and worms’:

After some four decades of activism and advocacy by many, many doing much more then I was able to do especially prior to this technology becoming so widespread, but ignoring by the greater majorities, finally the issues of life, and experiences in living, are becoming better understood and more are paying the much needed and long overdue attention, especially related to the children.

Frederic Podoux/Getty Images

We are on the brink…so we are told and so we will see as the photographs roll in from Haiti, images of death, destruction, survival, conflict, and despair.  

We are ready, as they will paint a whole people as thugs and thieves and we will consume these images with a shake of the head. These descriptions will come from all sources, whether believed to be “left” or “right,” “objective” or Fox.

But we remember Katrina. We remember the power of the photograph and the greater power of seeing behind the image. Experiencing the visual content in light of the context.

Latest video news about Haiti from English Al-Jazeera

(3 very short videos posted at YouTube today January 17, 2010)

The United Nations says Haiti’s earthquake is the worst disaster it has ever had to deal with.

Aid is now pouring in, with a steady flow of relief getting through the nation’s only airport.

The World Food Programme says it expects to feed a million people. But survivors say help is not happening fast enough as dead bodies lie scattered on the capital’s streets.

Tarek Bazley reports.

This is going to be short but might be helpful to some for a wide variety of reasons.

Google has teamed up with GeoEye to bring updated aerial views of the devastation from the Haiti Earthquake.

Google Earth Reveals the Devastation in Haiti    

Haiti and her people have not only been treated to catastrophe by nature, but have also suffered unimaginably at the hands of other countries. Reminiscent of the ten year sanctions war that killed over a million people in Iraq, mostly women and children, Haiti’s people have for a long time been victims of the global trade system, which has forced Haitians to buy imported food staples, despite the existence of a once-robust agricultural economy.

In April 2008 Raj Patel of UC-Berkeley’s Center for African Studies and author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, spoke with Paul Jay of The Real News about Haiti’s suffering. (video on the flip)

Hat Tip to Vox Humana at MyLeftWing for pointing me to this. It should give you an idea of her present circumstances and the relief work our own TheMomCat who is now in Haiti with MSF is doing there…

Médecins Sans Frontières  / Doctors Without Borders

Teleconference on Emergency Response to Haiti Earthquake

January 13, 2010

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams already working on medical projects Haiti have treated hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities. Paul McPhun, MSF’s operations manager for Haiti, described the current situation for MSF teams on the ground during a press conference on January 13.

Download audio

Transcript follows on the flip…