All posts tagged: Haiti

More USAID Fraud? Billions Of US Tax Dollars Are Missing From Haiti Relief Projects

More USAID Fraud? Billions Of US Tax Dollars Are Missing From Haiti Relief Projects

There are those that say all government aid is a scam in one way or another, and so far the revelations surrounding USAID are proving those people right daily.  Democrats and the establishment media, in a bid to muddy the waters and save face, continue to claim that there was never any fraud at USAID and that the Trump Administration is simply labeling projects they “disagree with” as suspect.  Of course, spending American tax dollars on projects the public never asked for and were never told about is the epitome of fraud, and waste is never a good thing.  Beyond that, the question of billions in missing funds certainly falls into the category of criminality.  Trump has taken a lot of heat from the media with the shut down of USAID and much of the criticism suggests that without US funds people in third world countries will fall back into desperation.  The Washington Post recently claimed that Trump’s cuts to USAID are a “gift to Haitian gangs” terrorizing the locals; a typical leftist appeal to …

Haitian authorities say 28 alleged gang members killed by police, residents | Conflict News

Haitian authorities say 28 alleged gang members killed by police, residents | Conflict News

Armed gangs attacked a wealthy suburb of the capital, police say, as part of an effort to bring down the government. The Haitian National Police have reported that 28 alleged gang members were killed by state security forces and armed residents in the latest clashes in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. A Tuesday attack targeting the upscale suburb of Petion-Ville overlooking the capital had been announced over social media by Jimmy Cherizier, a former elite police officer turned leader of the powerful gang coalition calling itself Viv Ansanm (Haitian Creole for “Living Together”). The latest violence comes in the wake of the collapse of Haiti’s government last week and more than three years of constant turmoil following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. Cherizier has called for the resignation of the Presidential Transition Council (CPT) now leading the country. “The Viv Ansanm coalition will use all its means to achieve the departure of the CPT,” Cherizier said on Monday. The police say that two vehicles carrying alleged gang members tried to enter Petion-Ville …

The Making of the Springfield Working Class | Gabriel Winant

The Making of the Springfield Working Class | Gabriel Winant

In September 1917, Ohio Governor James M. Cox—soon to be the Democratic nominee for president in 1920—marked Labor Day with a lengthy public address. After a few words praising the American Federation of Labor (AFL) for patriotically complying with the war effort, he turned to the then-emerging phenomenon that we now call the Great Migration. “There is one symptom, however, in the present situation which presages serious trouble unless society and the state act together and avert it,” he said: “the large influx of colored people from the southern states.” City life, the governor warned, would transform black southerners from simple rural folk into “vicious types.” Their “importation” threatened “to break down the standards of labor, and to jeopardize the ideals of a progressive state.” A budding media mogul (whose name graces today’s cable and newspaper empire), Cox had launched his political career by buying newspapers in two industrial cities in central Ohio: Dayton and Springfield. By and large, he was the same type of Progressive as the incumbent, Woodrow Wilson: cautiously friendly to workers …

Haitian aid workers worry American Christians donors could worsen crisis

Haitian aid workers worry American Christians donors could worsen crisis

(RNS) — As the security crisis in Haiti continues, the humanitarian aid group Haiti Family Care Network is urging U.S. Christian donors to refrain from worsening the situation by donating to orphanages and to redirect their efforts instead toward initiatives helping parents support their children. “There are actually better ways to care for the needs of children than building and supporting orphanages,” said Heather Nozea, chair of the network, which is part of Better Care Network, based in Guatemala. In 2021, five humanitarian organizations created Haiti Family Care Network to change how relief for children works in the impoverished, often chaotically led nation. In 2011, the year after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killed some 300,000, mostly around the capital, Port-au-Prince, orphanages proliferated from about 300 to 754, despite their failures to provide appropriate care for children. “Everyone assumed that the best way to respond was by building and supporting new orphanages and it became a solution to problems without actually addressing the real problem,” said Nozea, who has worked in Haiti for eight years for …

Transitional Council in Haiti Embraces New Changes Following Turmoil as Gang Violence Grips Country

Transitional Council in Haiti Embraces New Changes Following Turmoil as Gang Violence Grips Country

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for Haiti is changing the way it operates in a move that surprised many as gang violence consumes the country. Instead of having a single council president, four longtime politicians will take turns leading the council every five months, according to two members who were not authorized to publicly share the changes because they had not yet been announced. The members told The Associated Press late Wednesday that the council also will now consider five members a majority, instead of four. The council is composed of nine members, seven of which have voting powers. “That’s a real switch,” Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said of the changes. “I think it’s a good thing that they’re really going to share power now. … It is something that is very rare in Haitian politics.” The four members who will share power are original council president Edgard Leblanc Fils, ex-senator Louis Gérald Gilles, former presidential candidate Leslie Voltaire and ex-ambassador …

Residents flee as Haitian gangs launch new gun and arson attacks in capital | Haiti

Residents flee as Haitian gangs launch new gun and arson attacks in capital | Haiti

Gunmen have launched a string of fresh attacks in Port-au-Prince, burning homes and exchanging gunfire with police for hours in one of the biggest outbreaks of violence since Haiti’s new prime minister was announced. The attacks, which forced hundreds to flee their homes, began late on Wednesday in neighborhoods including Solino and Delmas 18, 20 and 24, south-west of the main international airport, which has remained closed for nearly two months. “The gangs started burning everything in sight,” said a man called Néne, who declined to give his last name out of fear. “I was hiding in a corner all night.” He and a friend were carrying a dusty red suitcase between them that was stuffed with clothes – the only things they could save. The clothes belonged to Néne’s children, whom he had rushed out of Delmas 18 around dawn during a pause in the fighting. Neighborhoods that once bustled with traffic and pedestrians were like ghost towns shortly after sunrise, with a heavy silence blanketing the area except for the occasional bleating from …

Haiti endures violence, poverty, chaos as world looks elsewhere

Haiti endures violence, poverty, chaos as world looks elsewhere

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Almost all the beds at La Paix University Hospital are occupied. Critical medical supplies, including blood collection tubes, are running low. Doctors are operating without blood; they fear they’ll soon run out of anesthesia, too. The stream of patients, meanwhile, is unrelenting. There are those who have been attacked by the armed gangs that control 80 percent of the capital. Stroke patients. Women in labor. People with kidney failure who need dialysis — and are turned away because it’s not available. Source link

New Haiti PM tasked with stabilising violence-racked country | Conflict News

New Haiti PM tasked with stabilising violence-racked country | Conflict News

Fritz Belizaire put in place as authorities battle gangs for control of the crisis-ridden country. Haiti’s transitional council has nominated Fritz Belizaire as the new prime minister of the crisis-ridden Caribbean country. The council on Tuesday tapped the former sports minister to take over from interim prime minister Michel Patrick Boisvert. The previously low-profile new premier faces a daunting task of trying to stabilise the island nation, which is mired in chaos as it battles violent armed gangs that have taken control of many areas. The council had earlier named Edgard Leblanc Fils, a former senate president, as president of the panel. The appointments follow weeks of political deadlock and in-fighting on the council, which was convened last month after former Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned. Belizaire’s nomination was supported by four of the seven voting members on the nine-member panel. Other members noted that they were unfamiliar with him. The council is also tasked with appointing a cabinet and an electoral council, which should pave the way for Haiti’s first general elections since 2016. However, …

Haiti’s transitional council to elect new president Tuesday

Haiti’s transitional council to elect new president Tuesday

Haiti’s seven-member transitional council will vote for the country’s next president Tuesday, a week after it formally assumed power in the chaotic Caribbean nation. The vote is the next step in efforts to restore stability and order in Haiti, which has been plagued by gang violence since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The island plunged further into instability after a plane carrying then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry was forced to land in the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico when it was denied entry into the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Henry had departed Haiti the week before on a mission to the South American nation of Guyana and the east African nation of Kenya to gain support for the deployment of a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force to Haiti. The gangs used Henry’s absence to attack the National Penitentiary and another prison in Port-au-Prince, killing several people and allowing thousands of inmates to escape into the city. Gangs also staged shooting attacks on Haiti’s main airport. Henry was …

Haiti Transitional Government to Vote for President on Tuesday

Haiti Transitional Government to Vote for President on Tuesday

(Reuters) – Haiti’s transition council on Saturday said it will vote for the country’s next president on Tuesday as part of efforts to bring the Caribbean country under control amid rampant gang violence. The transition council took power in a ceremony on Thursday, formalizing the resignation of former Prime Minster Ariel Henry. The transitional government’s mandate runs until February 2026, by when there are slated to be elections, and cannot be renewed. The council’s installation is seen as a key step toward the deployment of a multinational security mission Henry requested in 2022 and the United Nations approved more than six months ago. The election will take place at the prime minister’s Villa d’Accueil office on Tuesday morning, a statement said. (Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Chris Reese) Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters. Source link