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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...