gold

A Montreal-based mining company has announced plans to explore the mountains of northeastern Haiti for gold and copper.

Majescor Resources Inc. will explore the site in a partnership with Simact Mining Holding Inc., a Long Island, New York-based consortium of Haitian American investors.Majescor President Marc-Andre Bernier said Monday the company is encouraged by explorations that Eurasian Minerals Inc. is conducting at a nearby site.

Gold and copper were found in the Caribbean nation decades ago, but Haiti's instability and lack of infrastructure have discouraged investment.A Barrick Gold Corp. ( ABX - news - people ) site about 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast in the Dominican Republic is estimated to contain 20.4 million ounces of gold.

just letting everyone know

We want everyone to have a good experience. Unfortunately, the weather for this weekend doesn't look like it's going to cooperate," said Todd of the "Todd and Erin Morning Show.We realize this is Memorial Weekend.  We're optimistically thinking that with an additional month of promotion, there will be even more people to join us! 

YARD SALE THIS SATURDAY

Todd's Yard Sale

Todd's Yard Sale!

It's the Largest Annual Yard Sale Event in Utah!! FREE to the public!! Todd's Yard Sale returns to the E-Center on Saturday, April 25th! The sale is open to the public from 8:30-1:30. Todd's Yard Sale is brought to you in part by Macey's, Your Families Favorite Grocery Store.

YARD SALE THIS SATURDAY

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Todd's Yard Sale

Todd's Yard Sale!

It's the Largest Annual Yard Sale Event in Utah!! FREE to the public!! Todd's Yard Sale returns to the E-Center on Saturday, April 25th! The sale is open to the public from 8:30-1:30. Todd's Yard Sale is brought to you in part by Macey's, Your Families Favorite Grocery Store.

Haiti will have to wait awhile

Looks like it will be awhile before Haiti knows the results on the election. Even with the low turn out it will take at least eight days before we know the results Ballots are being counted at polling places and tabulated at a warehouse computer center guarded by armed U.N. peacekeepers in an industrial park in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Turnout appeared to be extremely low in the capital, where voter apathy and fear of election-day violence were more common than political interest. President Rene Preval declined to comment on the turnout Sunday until official results are calculated.

U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson, who toured the tabulation center Monday, remarked that "Historically, off-year elections in the United States as well as in other countries tend not to be as well-attended as presidential elections. We'll have to see."

The international community gave at least $12.5 million, including $3.9 million from the United States, to help carry out the election.

Supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — whose still-popular Fanmi Lavalas party was prohibited from running by electoral officials — had also encouraged citizens to stay away from the polls.

The party took credit for the apparently low turnout Sunday.

Voting for a 12th seat from the rural Central Department was halted by Haiti's provisional electoral council after demonstrators ransacked polling places and a poll supervisor was shot in the plateau town of Mirebalais. That race will be rescheduled.

On Monday, Haitian workers guarded by Chinese police in blue U.N. berets examined, scanned and tabulated the results reported by polling places across the country. The original ballots are archived elsewhere.

Since the Port-au-Prince facility is the only place where results are being tabulated, voters will have to wait for ballots to make hours-long journeys over Haiti's washed-out, dilapidated mountain roads and to be brought in by boat from surrounding minor islands.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission issued a statement Monday expressing its hope that the Haitian people and political parties will "await calmly the publication of results ... and that any dispute will be pursued through legal channels."

   

     

Low Turnout

PORT AU PRINCE (AFP) — Haiti's Senate elections were marred by sporadic violence, forcing authorities to cancel polling in parts of the country, as turnout remained low across the impoverised Caribbean nation.
Election council president Frantz-Gerard Verret announced the cancellations after hundreds of demonstrators protested at ballot stations as voting got underway.
Haitian President Rene Preval, who voted after returning from the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, said he would not comment on the election cancellations until polling results were in.
More than 4.5 million Haitians were eligible to appoint 12 senators out of 78 candidates, although voter apathy prompted a low turnout following years of broken political promises.
Haiti, hit hard in recent months by a series of hurricanes and natural disasters, continues to battle chronic poverty and corruption.
Despite advances in some areas, Preval said last week that "stability is still fragile and needs reinforcement," citing drug trafficking, which he called "an enemy of the rule of law, an enemy against the functioning of democratic institutions."
On a whirlwind visit to Haiti, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday she was "encouraged" by an international donors conference in Washington that pledged some 324 million dollars to help the country.
She said the United States will give Haiti 57 million dollars in extra aid this year as part of the aid package announced at Tuesday's conference led by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Haitian government.
"I believe we still have work to do," Clinton said. "Haiti deserves our help."

Yay, some help for Haiti!!!

Donors pledge $324m in Haiti aid Storms caused some $1bn in damage to Haiti in 2008 International donors have agreed an aid package of $324m (£218m) for Haiti, to help the country recover from hurricanes and food shortages. The pledge comes after a meeting of more than 20 countries and financial institutions in Washington. The Caribbean island is the poorest country in the Americas, with more than 70% unemployment. Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis had warned that a failure to take action would be "catastrophic". Haiti was hit by a series of hurricanes and tropical storms in 2008 that left some 800 people dead and caused nearly $1bn of damage. Ms Pierre-Louis told the conference that her country was "treading on very fragile ground" and urged them to back a development plan to create some 150,000 jobs and boost the economy. She appealed for $900m over two years for education, health and other services in the country. 'On a brink' The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which organised the conference with the Haitian government, said $41m of the total pledged would go towards filling a $125m shortfall in Haiti's budget. The World Bank agreed to provide $20m in aid, while the US said it would offer a further $57m. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Haiti's growth had been undermined by "the combined winds of hurricanes and the global economic recession" and was "in danger of stalling". "This nation is on a brink of either moving forward with the help of the collective community or falling further back." In addition to the aid pledged, Haiti is also expected to receive about $1bn in debt relief by mid-2009. Ms Pierre-Louis said the money would help Haiti in its "quest for lasting development and democracy". Bookmark with:

Medical care in Haiti

From victims of gunshot wounds and domestic violence to common road injuries, Trinite Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti is inundated with trauma cases dailyGunfire no longer fills the nights the way it did when he was last in Haiti in 2006, but the workload for aid workers hasn't diminished. Instead hospitals like Trinite are dealing with trauma cases the public health system is incapable of handling, Moller tells CNN.

While the security situation in Haiti has improved during the last two years, the public health system remains in disarray, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders.

The organization, which offers free care at three clinics in Port-au-Prince, says basic health services are practically non-existent in the capital city, the result of a public health system marred by mismanagement, strikes and shortages of medical personnel and supplies.

"The Haitian system is at breakpoint," says Moller. The private health care sector has developed in recent years, but most in poverty-stricken Haiti cannot afford to pay the fees charged for servicesMSF is urging the international community to increase pressure on Haiti to improve its health system. The call comes as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Haiti's Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis and representatives of donor countries are set to meet in Washington Tuesday to discuss international assistance for the country.

Spotlight on Haiti

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week turns the spotlight on the poorest country in the Americas: Haiti.

She will attend a Donors' Conference on Haiti tomorrow in Washington to discuss how the world can come to Haiti's aid. That high-level gathering that will include United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a variety of international organizations.

Clinton plans to visit Haiti Thursday, the State Department announced today. "While in Haiti Secretary Clinton will meet with President René Préval to discuss issues of common concern including stability, security and assistance," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Monday.

After visiting Haiti, and a stopover in next-door Dominican Republic, Clinton will join President Obama to attend the Summit of the Americas at the end of the week in Trinidad and Tobago.

Clinton-watchers are wondering if the Tuesday meeting in Washington will produce something that has become a recent rarity: a photo of both Clintons together. Secretary Clinton is expected at the gathering in the morning, and former President Clinton is giving the keynote speech after lunch at the conference.


Before and during her Senate confirmation hearings, Secretary Clinton carefully separated herself from her husband's various international projects and fundraising, including his work with the Clinton Global Initiative that does sponsor projects in Haiti. The former president visited Haiti last month.

The Miami Herald reports that Secretary Clinton is set to pledge $50 million in U.S. aid to Haiti at the Washington conference.

Haiti has been staggering economically after a series of crises last year, including the global spike in oil and food prices and four hurricanes.

President Preval was an early caller on Secretary Clinton after she took up her State Department post. At that meeting February 5, she called him "a longtime friend" and said she and President Obama were committed to helping Haiti "build a vibrant democracy and a growing economy."

Spoiled Brats

"The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across
some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be
true given the source, right?

The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are
unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69
percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the
president. In essence 2/3 s of the citizenry just ain't
happy and want a change.

So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, ''What
Are we so unhappy about?''

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week?

Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in
the summer and heating in the winter?

Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any
time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the
last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to
the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification
papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the
hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way
that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands
of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is
just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our
car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help
all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a
home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate
case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in
moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving
you, your family and your belongings.

Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen
TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes , an officer equipped with
a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your
family against attack or loss.

This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or
militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods
where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political
freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?

Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy.

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled
brats the world has ever seen.

No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain
for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most
blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about
what we don't have , and what we hate about the country.

Instead of thanking the good Lord we live here. I know, I
know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The
president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating?

Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark
days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an
economy out of recession?

Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in
the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful
brats safe from terrorist attacks?

The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out
there defending you and me?

Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news
affect you so much. Make you so unhappy you couldn't take a
look around for yourself and see all the good things and be
glad?

Think about it......are you upset at the President because he
actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the "Media" told you he was failing to kiss
your sorry ungrateful behind every day.

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no
draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse
to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an ''other than
honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable''
discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69
percent of Americans? Say what you want but I blame it on the
media. If it bleeds it bleads and they specialize in bad news.
Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How
many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner?

The media knows this and media outlets are" for-profit"
corporations. They offer what sells , and when criticized, try
to defend their actions by "justifying" them in one way or
another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J.
Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but
if he did he would have done it this way......Insane!

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media.
Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage.

Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There
is exponentially more good than bad.

We are among the most blessed peoples on Earth and should
thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and
appreciative."

"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides,
flooding, severe thunderstorms
tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of
bird flu and terrorist attacks,

"Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of
Allegiance?"

There are so many people that need to read this and grasp
the truth of it all.

1990s tried to establish democracy in Haiti

Throughout the 1990s the international community tried to establish democracy in Haiti. The country's first elected chief executive, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest who seemed to promise a new era in Haiti, took office in Feb. 1991. The military, however, took control in a coup nine months later. A UN peacekeeping force, led by the U.S.—Operation Uphold Democracy—arrived in 1994. Aristide was restored to office and René Preval became his successor in 1996 elections. U.S. soldiers and UN peacekeepers left in 2000. Haiti's government, however, remained ineffectual and its economy was in ruins. Haiti has the highest rates of AIDS, malnutrition, and infant mortality in the region.

In 2000, former president Aristide was reelected president in elections boycotted by the opposition and questioned by many foreign observers. The U.S. and other countries threatened Haiti with sanctions unless democratic procedures were strengthened. Aristide, once a charismatic champion of democracy, grew more authoritarian and seemed incapable of improving the lot of his people. Violent protests rocked the country in Jan. 2004, the month of Haiti's bicentennial, with protesters demanding that Aristide resign. By February, a full-blown armed revolt was under way, and Aristide's hold on power continued to slip. The protests, groups of armed rebels, and French and American pressure led to the ousting of Aristide on Feb. 29. Thereafter a U.S.-led international force of 2,300 entered the chaos-engulfed country to attempt to restore order, and an interim government took over. In September, Hurricane Jeanne ravaged Haiti, killing more than 2,400 people. Lawlessness and gang violence were widespread, and the interim government had no control over parts of the country, which were run by armed former soldiers.

Political Turmoil Continues

Help Haiti Hillary!!

WASHINGTON -- Signaling the United States' strong commitment to Haiti, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit the storm-ravaged Caribbean nation next week to meet with Haitian President René Préval.

State Department officials have not yet confirmed the visit, but Haitian officials say they have been told that Clinton plans to make a brief visit to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Thursday while enroute to Trinidad and Tobago to attend the Fifth Summit of the Americas alongside President Barack Obama.

The Haiti visit would come just two days after Clinton leads the U.S. delegation at a critical Haiti donors conference in Washington and three days before Haitians head to the polls on Sunday to choose among 105 hopefuls vying for 12 Senate seats.

The elections are the first of two legislative elections Haiti is expected to hold this year and will be a critical test of the country's fledgling democracy. Like Tuesday's donors conference, which is being hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank, the elections are long overdue.

Haiti has faced a gloomy prognosis since spiking global food and fuel prices triggered days of deadly riots last April and two tropical storms and two hurricanes battered the country in less than a month last summer. The storms killed nearly 800 people and left nearly $1 billion in damages.

With the the global economic crisis, the country now faces a $125 million budget shortfall, rising double-digit inflation and a slowdown in remittances.

In February, Préval became the first head of state to meet with Clinton following her confirmation as secretary of state. During the meeting, he pleaded for urgent aid support on behalf of his cash-strapped government, which was facing a $125 million budget shortfall.

Those familiar with the bilateral talks told The Miami Herald that at the donors conference, the United States is expected to announce at least $50 million in additional aid for the poverty stricken country, including money for direct budget support.

For months, Haiti supporters have been calling on the international community to help keep the fragile nation from slipping deeper into misery and help keep instability at bay.

Among those who have come to the country's aid is former President Bill Clinton, who along with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, visited Haiti last month and pledged to help garner donor support. Both are scheduled to attend the donors meeting at which Haitian authorities are seeking at least $2 billion toward a three-year poverty reduction plan in the hemisphere's poorest nation.

Ahead of the meeting, Ban has personally written to donors telling them that the conference is ``of fundamental importance for consolidating the fragile stability of Haiti.''

But he warned that while international aid is needed, it ``alone will not provide economic security, and what's required is sustainable social and economic development to enable Haiti to move beyond recurrent crises.''

Just what Clinton's message to Préval will be remains unclear. The day before, she's scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis, who will attend the donors meeting. But Pierre-Louis will first travel to New York, where powerful New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel is hosting a Monday meeting with textile business leaders to take advantage of the U.S. Congress-approved HOPE legislation.

The law has helped inject 11,000 new jobs into Haiti's once ailing textile industry. Nine companies have moved to the country to take advantage of the nine-year window of duty-free access to the U.S. market for textiles.

Following the meeting in New York, Pierre-Louis will be the guest of honor at a dinner hosted by Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno, again aimed at fueling investments into the country.

The United States is Haiti's single largest donor, and the additional aid would bring its commitment to $287 million for the fiscal year.

Some Info On Haiti

The Trouble with Haiti: And why is it so poor?


Q. Who are the Haitians and what divides them?

A. The French first colonised Haiti in 1659, but it became an independent state in 1804 after a successful uprising by African-descended slaves, led by Pierre Dominique Toussaint-l'Ouverture. Tensions persisted between the negro population and the mulattos, those of mixed race.

Class and race go together. The vast majority of the 7 million population are descended from slaves, and are black. These are almost all impoverished. The elite, known as les blancs, are mainly coffee-coloured mulattos. Now the divisions are not quite so cut and dried. There is a black elite too. But few mulattos are poor.

Q. What are Haiti's main products / exports?

A. exports included light assembled goods and baseballs.

Q. How much of Haiti is American-owned?

A. Very little. The industry that does exist is mainly in light assembly. It is controlled by five mulatto families of Syrian and Lebanese origin.

Q. Why is Haiti so poor? Whose fault is it?

A. It used to be rich, because slaves were exploited to grow sugar. That came to an end 200 years ago. According to the most recently available World Bank data, Haiti's gross national product is less than dollars 400 per capita, and falling. Sanctions have made things worse. Three-quarters of the population is out of work. The country has no mineral wealth. It imports twice what it exports. There are also great disparities in wealth.

The poverty worsens with the high annual rate of increase (1.8 per cent) in the population, 75 per cent nominally Catholic.

Much of the natural forest has been devastated by excessive exploitation for charcoal, the main source of energy, which has contributed to soil degradation and erosion. This has further degraded the environment, leaving less and less arable land. Pollution in coastal waters has reduced the fishing catch.

Q. Why have the Americans invaded Haiti so often?

A. Actually, they haven't. Between 1849 and 1913, US warships entered Haitian waters 24 times 'to protect American lives and property'. But they invaded only in 1915, in an attempt to end tensions between the blacks and the mulattos. They left in 1934 after 40,000 died.

U.S. Congressional Representatives get a fill of Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A group of U.S. congressional representatives have wrapped up a visit to Haiti to observe the humanitarian and political challenges facing the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, led the group of U.S. lawmakers, which reviewed operations of agencies involved in drug interdiction efforts, legal immigration and humanitarian and development issues.

Conyers praised Haiti's improving security at a brief news conference in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday.

The U.S. lawmakers said they met with President Rene Preval and conducted site visits to an orphanage, hospital, and shelter during their trip.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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U.N. urges generosity

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS, April 6 (Reuters) - The United Nations pressed rich nations on Monday to aid impoverished Haiti at a donor conference next week, and won a pledge from the United States that it would be generous.

The Caribbean state is the western Hemisphere's poorest nation, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon believes it is poised to grow rapidly if it makes internal reforms and receives help from the outside world.

In a letter last week to donor countries, released by the United Nations on Monday, Ban said the April 14 Inter-American Development Bank conference in Washington was of "fundamental importance for consolidating the fragile stability of Haiti."

"I wish to enlist your assistance in making a special effort to support Haiti through renewed technical and financial engagement so that Haiti is firmly on the path to lasting stability and sustainable development," he added.

Ban, who visited Haiti last month along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, appealed for high-level attendance at the conference.

In a report to the Security Council on Monday, U.N. envoy to Haiti Hedi Annabi said international assistance was vital for Haiti to build up its infrastructure and meet a $125 million requirement for budget support in this fiscal year.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told the council Washington was encouraged by progress Haiti had made despite devastating hurricanes last year, adding, "We look forward to participating actively and generously" in the April 14 conference.

The hurricanes caused an estimated $1 billion of damage, while the global financial crisis brought a 14 percent reduction in February in remittances vital to many Haitian families.

Ban has been influenced by a report by British academic Paul Collier which said that if Haiti could improve its roads and ports it was well-placed to benefit from low labor costs and duty-free access it currently enjoys to the U.S. market.

Haiti has a troubled history of dictatorship and political violence. But Annabi's report said the country "now has its best chance in decades to break from the destructive cycles of the past, and to move toward a brighter future."

He said, however, that Haiti needed to move further on moves begun by President Rene Preval to resolve political differences through dialogue if it was to advance in other areas. A key test of stability would be Senate elections due just five days after the Washington conference.

"At this critical time, Haiti cannot afford the kind of discord that paralyzed the country for almost five months last year," Annabi said.

He also noted that despite improvements in Haitian security forces, the 9,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops and police there remained "indispensable when a real crisis erupts."

Rice, who went on a Security Council trip to Haiti last month, said much more needed to be done in key economic areas. "Desperate poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, and other socioeconomic problems continue to bedevil Haiti," she said. (Editing by Jackie Frank)

Pregnant and Poor

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti For all the American and international efforts to fight global poverty, one thing is clear: Those efforts won’t get far as long as women like Nahomie Nercure continue to have 10 children.

Global family-planning efforts have stalled over the last couple of decades, and Nahomie is emblematic both of the lost momentum and of the poverty that results. She is an intelligent 30-year-old woman who wanted only two children, yet now she is eight months pregnant with her 10th.

As we walked through Cité Soleil, the Haitian slum where she lives, her elementary-school-age children ran stark naked around her. The $6-a-month rental shack that they live in — four sleep on the bed, six on the floor beside it — has no food of any kind in it. The family has difficulty paying the fees to keep the children in school.

There’s simply no way to elevate Nahomie’s family, and millions like it around the world, unless we help such women have fewer children. And yet family-planning programs have been shorn of resources and glamour for a generation now.

Nahomie is one of 200 million womenworldwide who, according to United Nations estimates, have what demographers call an “unmet need” for safe and effective contraception. That is, they don’t want to get pregnant but don’t use a modern form of family planning.

This “unmet need” results in 70 million to 80 million unwanted pregnanciesannually, the United Nations says, along with 19 million abortions and 150,000 maternal deaths.

The push for contraception was at the center of development efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, but then waned. In part, it was tarnished by its own zealotry, including coercion in China and India. Another reason was abortion politics, which led to a cutoff in American financing for the United Nations Population Fund — even though the upshot was more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.

In addition, family planning turned out to be harder than many enthusiasts had expected, for it requires far more than condoms or the pill. Haiti has family-planning clinics, spending on contraception is fairly high, and women say they want fewer children — yet only one-quarter of Haitian women use contraceptives.

Nahomie’s story helps explain the enigma. She tried injectables, but she says they caused excess bleeding that frightened her. The clinic had little counseling to explain and reassure her, so she stopped after nine months.

A sexually transmitted infection at the time meant that she couldn’t use an IUD just then, and a doctor told her that the pill would be inappropriate because she has vascular problems. Reluctant to return to a clinic that seemed scornful of poor women, she drifted along with nothing.

A couple of babies later, her first husband left her, and her next husband wanted to have children with her, so she acquiesced. A few children later, she began to push back, but in Haiti’s social structure she felt she had to accede to her husband’s whims. “I asked to use condoms,” Nahomie said, “but he refused.” Last fall, shortly after she became pregnant with her 10th child, her husband ran off.

A book published a few years ago, “Reproducing Inequities,” notes that we are, painstakingly, learning what does work. The effective strategies go beyond the contraceptive devices themselves to include better counseling, more dignity for women in clinics, a greater choice of methods that are completely free — and a broad effort to raise the status of women.

The best way to elevate women, by far, is to educate girls and to give them opportunities to earn income through micro-loans, factory jobs or vocational training. It is sometimes said that the best contraceptive isn’t the pill or the IUD, but education for girls.

(A side note: Whenever I write about efforts to save children from malaria or diarrhea, I get cynical letters from neo-Malthusians who argue that saving children’s lives is pointless until birthrates drop. That’s incorrect. There’s abundant evidence that when parents are confident that their children will live, they will have fewer and invest more in each of them.)

In any case, the mounting academic evidence underscores what is intuitively obvious in Haiti: unless family planning is more successful in poor countries, they won’t be able to overcome poverty. “There’s no other way,” says Tania Patriota, the representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Haiti. “It’s indispensable.”

President Obama has already lifted the ban on aid for the Population Fund, and we now have an opportunity to lead a global effort to regain lost momentum for family planning. And while Nahomie’s story shows that this won’t be easy, it also underscores that there’s simply no alternative.

•

AIG BONUSES WOULD HAVE WENT FAR!

What the G-20 Can Do for Haiti




While President Obama and the other most powerful leaders in the world meet at the Group of 20 summit this week in part to decide the roles of new players such as China and Brazil, they should remember that Haiti, which is the poorest and least developed country in the Western Hemisphere and lies just 500 miles from the United States, remains teetering between failure and the possibility of development and progress.

I hope this opportunity at the G-20 summit to make a real difference to Haiti is not lost. Cancellation of Haiti's roughly $1.5 billion in foreign debt would strengthen the elected government, allowing it to improve health care, education and other essential services, thereby allowing for greater economic development, which would bring jobs and reduce poverty. Further, the United States would benefit through a reduction in illegal immigration, greater regional stability and homeland security, and reduced importation of illegal drugs.

U.S. taxpayers have given $180 billion to bail out American International Group (AIG), but AIG will give $1.2 billion in bonuses company-wide this year. The money spent by AIG to pay bonuses would nearly wipe out Haiti's debt. Similarly, U.S. taxpayers have spent $45 billion on the bailout of Citigroup, with a further debt guarantee up to $306 billion.



In light of the relatively small amount of money needed to relieve Haiti's debt, and with the benefits that Americans, Haitians and the world would receive, Mr. Obama should make cancellation of Haiti's debt a top priority at the G-20 summit.

LINNEA NILSEN CAPSHAW

Washington

Temporary Protected status

MIAMI - Miami Mayor Manny Diaz sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano yesterday March 31, 2009, urging Temporary Protected status for Haitians in the wake of the multiple hurricanes that devastated the island during the Fall of 2008

Mayor Diaz has been a long standing advocate and supporter of equitable treatment for the Haitian community. In 2003 and 2004 he cosponsored policy resolutions at the U.S. Conference of Mayors calling for equal treatment and due process for Haitian immigrants. More recently, Operation: Hope for Haiti was launched in September of 2008 to support the Haitian people following the devastation of several hurricanes in the country last year. Over $70,000 was raised and through a World Vision grant from USAID’s Food for Peace program. Each of those dollars was leveraged to more than $200,000. This donation drive is still in effect and gifts can be online at www.worldvision.org.