Free Republic

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

First there’s a tap on the shoulder. A huge palace-guard policeman in full body armour and a black balaclava uses a riot stick to suggest it’s time to go. Then he swings the truncheon high in the air and it comes down with a sickening thud on the back of a demonstrator. Beside him a man lies groaning as blood drips from a deep hand wound. The President of Haiti, Michel Martelly, stands just yards away, surrounded by a crowd of 10,000 people in the central square of the capital Port-au-Prince. This pop-star leader – a former Creole singer known...

International affairs can be complicated, but sometimes a case comes along that’s so simple it’s almost absurd. In 2010, the United Nations made a horrendous mistake that, so far, has claimed more than 8,000 lives. Its officials tried to cover it up. When the evidence came out anyway, lawyers for victims’ families petitioned the U.N. to end the crisis, pay damages, and apologize. For a year and a half, the world’s leading humanitarian organization said nothing. Then, last week, it threw out the case, saying, “The claims are not receivable.” The background should be well-known by now. But despite the...

Prisons for Haiti: U.S. to Build Two Complexes Near Port au Prince (NEWS BRIEF)By Steve Peacock, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor (Dec. 20, 2012) The U.S. Department of State is arranging the construction of two prison facilities outside Haiti's capital of Port au Prince. The project, with an estimated top-cost of $10 million, includes a 150-bed prison and 200-bed womens prison in Petit Goave and Cabaret, Haiti, respectively. State tentatively scheduled a "pre-proposal conference and site visit" for prospective prison-industry contractors in Port au Prince for February 5-6, 2013. Source document: Solicitation #SAQMMA13R0067. FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES,...

A Travel Channel episode of No Reservations, [..], took viewers to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I had heard that the show offered unique insight into the country and its troubles. I couldn't imagine how. But it turns out to be true. Through the lens of food, we can gain an insight into culture, and from culture to economy, and from economy to politics and finally to what's wrong in this country and what can be done about it. Through this micro lens, we gain more insight than we would have if the program were entirely focused on economic issues. Such an episode...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has attended the launch of a $300m (£187m) industrial park in the Haitian town of Caracol. The project is part of US efforts to help Haiti recover from the devastation it suffered in the 2010 earthquake. The US has invested $124m (£77m) in the project, which it hopes will create thousands of jobs. At a grand opening ceremony Haiti's President Michel Martelly said the country was "open for business".

The government of Haiti is hosting Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton today, along with a delegation of foreign investors and a crowd of celebrities. They're gathering to inaugurate an industrial park that is the centerpiece of the U.S. aid effort since the 2010 earthquake. The Clintons and others hope the facility will transform northern Haiti by providing thousands of jobs. The industrial park is more than a hundred miles from the slowly-recovering quake zone.

Wyclef's Haiti Charity Is Now Defunct After Mishandling $16M In Donations Aly WeismanOct. 12, 2012, 6:52 PMWyclef's Yéle charity is no longer.Wyclef Jean's Yéle Haiti charity, once what the singer said was the country's "greatest asset and ally" is now defunct and in debt. The charity's collapse comes after years of accusations of mishandled funds, which amounted to a reported $16 million following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. "Yéle was small before the earthquake, with only $37,000 in assets," reports The New York Times. "Immediately afterward, money started pouring in. Mr. Jean said he raised $1 million in 24 hours...

Four of Haiti's five Olympians at the London Games have something in common -- they're not from Haiti. With millions of Haitians living on $2 a day or less and hundreds of thousands of people rendered homeless by a devastating earthquake two years ago, the country struggles to produce world-class athletes. But those with Haitian links are still eager to represent the small Caribbean country. "I still feel Haitian even if I wasn't born there," 21-year-old sprinter Marlena Wesh said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Wesh, who will run in the 200 and 400-meter races at the...

Criminals in Haiti are preying on vulnerable earthquake survivors, even raping women, in makeshift camps set up in Port-au-Prince after the disaster. "With the blackout that's befallen the Haitian capital, bandits are taking advantage to harass and rape women and young girls under the tents," Haiti’s police, chief Mario Andresol, said yesterday. "We have more than 7,000 detainees in the streets who escaped from the national penitentiary the evening of the earthquake ... It took us five years to apprehend them. Today they are running wild." Rachelle Dolce, who is living at a large makeshift camp on the Petionville Club...

Can Any of These House Underdogs Survive? Stuart Rothenberg June 8, 2012 · 1:48 PM EDT Remember their names: Reps. Charles Bass (R-N.H.), John Barrow (D-Ga.), Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.), Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Robert Dold (R-Ill.). If any of these five House incumbents survive, it will surprise most dispassionate observers (including some in their own parties). But upsets happen, and each of these candidates has a scenario for victory. Moments after Bass was declared the winner in November 2010, most political insiders figured he would be doomed in 2012. But considering his past electoral success, reports of his political demise...

Orlando Morel was 6 years old when he and his mother left Haiti on a crowded small wooden boat destined for America. Now 24, Morel remembers the blue of the ocean everywhere. And the hunger. When a piece of bread fell into the water, Morel quickly scooped it up. "I will never forget that taste," he said, recalling the salty, soggy bread. Nor will he forget when the Coast Guard showed up in a white boat and rescued him, his mother and other passengers. Eternally grateful, the rescue led Morel to join the Coast Guard, and on Wednesday he will...

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to allow Syrians who are already in the United States to stay, at least temporarily, out of concern it would be "too dangerous" for them to return home. The senators want President Obama to invoke what's known as "temporary protected status" for thousands of Syrians in the U.S. The designation typically is given to foreign nationals whose home countries are beset by war or natural disaster and who could face harm should they return. The senators argued that Syrians in the U.S. are in just that kind of predicament, as Syrian...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A small band of protesters called Tuesday for Haitian President Michel Martelly to prove he's eligible for office as they destroyed posters that bore images of the leader. The 100 or so demonstrators said Martelly should heed requests by lawmakers to show his travel documents in an effort to dispel allegations that he holds dual nationality, which would bar him from office under Haiti's constitution. "We are taking to the streets to tell Martelly to show his passport," protester Ronald Jean-Charles said as others burned posters of the president. "If not, he should step down." The...

When burglar Kesler Dufrene became a twice-convicted felon in 2006, a Bradenton judge shipped him to prison for five years. And because of his convictions, an immigration judge ordered Dufrene deported to his native Haiti. That never happened. Instead, when Dufrene’s state prison term was up, Miami immigration authorities in October 2010 released him from custody. Two months later, North Miami police say, he slaughtered three people, including a 15-year-old girl in a murder case that remains as baffling today as it did the afternoon the bodies were discovered.

On Jan. 12, for the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake, thousands of people flocked to the Shalom Church in Port au Prince, Haiti. The "church" is just a plywood stage under a patchwork of tattered tarps. The crowd was so large that it spilled down a muddy hill toward a tent camp for earthquake victims. Most of the singing, swaying congregation were so far away they couldn't even see the podium. The evangelical mission now claims to have more than 50,000 members and one of the most popular radio stations in Haiti. This church is a product of the...

Sean Penn Appointed Haitian Ambassador LOS ANGELES, USA (defend.ht) - Sean Penn has accepted the job of Ambassador for Haiti, where he has spent the last two years managing a tent camp for displaced Haitians after the earthquake. Sean Penn will now be the "ambassador at large" for the Caribbean nation. Penn was offered the position by Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laurent Lamothe, while at the Cinema for Peace benefit in Los Angeles on Saturday night. Picking up a humanitarian award for his work in Haiti, he told the crowd: "I do accept [the job]," before adding it would...

Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time. The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School and elsewhere told ABC News that, despite UN denials, there is now a mountain of evidence suggesting the strain originated in Nepal, and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who came to Haiti to serve as UN peacekeepers after the earthquake that ravaged...

Government pledged over $1 billion only to spend most of the money on itself. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - US relief to Haiti totaled more than $3 billion. Actual Haitian people, the victims of the disaster who needed the most help - got less than 1 percent of that money. That means 99 of every 100 dollars sent to relieve the suffering of the Haitian people and rebuild the country, ended up in the hands of people for whom it was never intended. Instead, the US government has used the disaster to pay itself.   Most will be quick...

Two years after a devastating earthquake, Haiti is struggling to rebuild its ravaged buildings and hundreds of thousands of victims remain homeless. The 7.0 magnitude quake on January 12, 2010, lasted only a few seconds but killed around 300,000 people and left more than 1.5million without homes. Since then, however, reconstruction has been painfully slow, with squalid tent camps housing more than a half a million people in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

More than 500,000 people in Haiti are still living in makeshift tents two years after an earthquake devastated the country. The Caribbean state was hit by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12, 2010, which led to more than 220,000 deaths and left 1.5 million homeless.

HAITI wasn’t always the “poorest nation in the Western hemisphere,” though it’s almost impossible to read about the country today without coming across that phrase. In the two years since the earthquake that devastated it, Haiti has experienced political conflict and its first ever cholera epidemic; hundreds of thousands of the displaced are still living in makeshift tents strewn like dusty flags by the sides of highways. It is easy to forget that, for most of the 19th century, Haiti was a site of agricultural innovation, productivity and economic success.

Clinton Foundation facilitates $45 million Haiti hotel dealNovember 28, 2011 | By the CNN Wire Staff Two years after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled Haiti's capital, a deal brokered by former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation will add new lodging for aid workers and other travelers to Port-au-Prince -- in the form of a $45 million hotel. With only about 500 operable hotel rooms, the city has limited space to house aid workers, potential investors and other visitors, according to a news release Monday by the future hotel's owner and its operator. Caribbean cell phone provider Digicel will own the hotel,...

In the months following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, a charity run by hip-hop star Wyclef Jean spent a pittance of the money it took in on disaster relief and doled out millions in questionable contracts. Yele Haiti’s coffers swelled to $16 million in 2010, the most the charity had ever received. But less than a third of that went to emergency efforts, and $1 million was paid to a Florida firm that doesn’t seem to exist, The Post has learned. Jean’s charity, which he founded in 2005 with his cousin Jerry Duplessis, was already troubled when the earthquake struck...

LEOGANE, Haiti (AP) - Haiti hasn't seen many homes built for the poor following a devastating earthquake almost two years ago, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday. In a 10-minute interview with The Associated Press, Carter said he noticed little housing reconstruction for struggling Haitians as he drove from the international airport to the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Port-au-Prince to Leogane, a coastal city 18 miles (29 kilometers) west of the capital that was largely flattened in the earthquake because of its proximity to the epicenter. He added that there may be construction in other parts of...

(CNS/Paul Jeffrey) Thousands of Haitians stricken with cholera during the last 13 months are seeking compensation and an improved response to ending the epidemic from the United Nations, according to a petition filed with the world agency.The petition filed by lawyers with Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti in conjunction with the Office of International Lawyers on behalf of more than 5,000 Haitians charges that cholera was introduced into the country by Nepalese troops serving with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti — MINUSTAH — and that the world body has done little in response to the spread...

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...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- The United States has no plans to halt aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in spite of a crisis over who will be the nation's next leader but does insist that the president's chosen successor be dropped from the race, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is flying to Haiti to mediate in a political crisis there while other administration officials are keeping watch on violent protests halfway across the world in Egypt. Clinton will meet Sunday with President Rene Preval and the three candidates vying to succeed him during her visit. She will also see a treatment center for the cholera epidemic that has killed almost 4,000 people.

A year after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the American government has received more than 53,000 applications from Haitians seeking temporary legal status in the United States, and it has approved the vast majority, a top immigration official said Wednesday. Enlarge This Image J.B. Reed for The New York Times A Haitian immigrant, back to camera, being helped last January in a clinic to apply for temporary legal status. Most of the 53,000 Haitians who applied by the deadline Tuesday gained the status. The official, Alejandro Mayorkas, director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, said his agency’s response to...