If you are interested in supporting Haiti in this time of need please visit this link: http://www.networkforgood.org/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=NEWS
The Artist is in prayer...
How can we help?!
If you are interested in supporting Haiti in this time of need please visit this link: http://www.networkforgood.org/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=NEWS
The Artist is in prayer...
Haiti update...
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Precious water, food and early glimmers of hope began reaching parched and hungry earthquake survivors Saturday on the streets of this shattered city, where despair at times turned into a frenzy among the ruins.
"People are so desperate for food that they are going crazy," said accountant Henry Ounche, in a crowd of hundreds who fought one another as U.S. military helicopters clattered overhead carrying aid.
When other Navy choppers dropped rations and Gatorade into a soccer stadium thronged with refugees, 200 youths began brawling, throwing stones, to get at the supplies.
Across the hilly, steamy city, where people choked on the stench of death, hope faded by the hour for finding many more victims alive in the rubble, four days after Tuesday's catastrophic earthquake.
Still, here and there, the murmur of buried victims spurred rescue crews on, even as aftershocks threatened to finish off crumbling buildings.
"No one's alive in there," a woman sobbed outside the wrecked Montana Hotel. But hope wouldn't die. "We can hear a survivor," search crew chief Alexander Luque of Namibia later reported. His men dug on. Elsewhere, an American team pulled a woman alive from a collapsed university building where she had been trapped for 97 hours. Another crew got water to three survivors whose shouts could be heard deep in the ruins of a multistory supermarket that pancaked on top of them.
Nobody knew how many were dead. Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies — not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press.
In a fresh estimate, the Pan American Health Organization said 50,000 to 100,000 people perished in the quake. Bellerive said 100,000 would "seem to be the minimum." Truckloads of corpses were being trundled to mass graves.
A U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman declared the quake the worst disaster the international organization has ever faced, since so much government and U.N. capacity in the country was demolished. In that way, Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva, it's worse than the cataclysmic Asian tsunami of 2004: "Everything is damaged."
Also Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Port-au-Prince to pledge more American assistance and said the U.S. would be "as responsive as we need to be." President Obama met with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and urged Americans to donate to Haiti relief efforts.
As the day wore on, search teams recovered the body of Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, the United Nations chief of mission in Haiti, and other top U.N. officials who were killed when their headquarters collapsed.
Despite many obstacles, the pace of aid delivery was picking up.
The Haitian government had established 14 distribution points for food and other supplies, and U.S. Army helicopters were reconnoitering for more. With eight city hospitals destroyed or damaged, aid groups opened five emergency health centers. Vital gear, such as water-purification units, was arriving from abroad.
Thousands lined up in the Cite Soleil slum as U.N. World Food Program workers distributed high-energy biscuits there for the first time. As the hot sun set, the crew was down to just a few dozen boxes left from six truckloads. Perhaps 10,000 people were still waiting patiently, futilely, in line.
Seven months' pregnant, and with two children, 29-year-old Florence Louis clutched her four packets. "It is enough, because I didn't have anything at all," she said.
On a hillside golf course, perhaps 50,000 people were sleeping in a makeshift tent city overlooking the stricken capital. Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division flew there Saturday to set up a base for handing out water and food.
After the initial frenzy among the waiting crowd, when helicopters could only hover and toss out their cargo, a second flight landed and soldiers passed out some 2,000 military-issue ready-to-eat meals to an orderly line of Haitians.
More American help was on the way: The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort steamed from the port of Baltimore on Saturday and was scheduled to arrive here Thursday. More than 2,000 Marines were set to sail from North Carolina to support aid delivery and provide security.
But for the estimated 300,000 newly homeless in the streets, plazas and parks of Port-au-Prince, help was far from assured.
"They're already starting to deliver food and water, but it's mayhem. People are hungry, everybody is asking for water," said Alain Denis, a resident of the Thomassin district.
Denis's home was intact, and he and his elderly parents have some reserves, but, he said, "in a week, I don't know."
Aid delivery was still bogged down by congestion at the Port-au-Prince airport, quake damage at the seaport, poor roads and the fear of looters and robbers.
The problems at the overloaded airport forced a big Red Cross aid mission to strike out overland from Santo Domingo, almost 200 miles away in the Dominican Republic. The convoy included up to 10 trucks carrying temporary shelters, a 50-bed field hospital and some 60 medical specialists.
"It's not possible to fly anything into Port-au-Prince right now. The airport is completely congested," Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said from the Dominican capital.
Another convoy from the Dominican Republic steered toward a U.N. base in Port-au-Prince without stopping, its leaders fearful of sparking a riot if they handed out aid themselves.
The airport congestion touched off diplomatic rows between the U.S. military and other donor nations.
France and Brazil both lodged official complaints that the U.S. military, in control of the international airport, had denied landing permission to relief flights from their countries.
Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, who has 7,000 Brazilian U.N. peacekeeping troops in Haiti, warned against viewing the rescue effort as a unilateral American mission.
The squabbling prompted Haitian President Rene Preval, speaking with the AP, to urge all to "keep our cool and coordinate and not throw accusations."
At a simpler level, unending logistical difficulties dogged the relief effort.
A commercial-sized jet landed with rescue and medical teams from Qatar, only to find problems offloading food aid. They asked the U.S. military for help, surgeon Dr. Mootaz Aly said, and were told: "We're busy."
As relief teams grappled with on-the-ground obstacles, the U.S. leadership promised to step up aid efforts. In Washington, Obama joined with his two most recent White House predecessors to appeal for Americans to donate to the cause.
"We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such incredible resilience," he said.
Their resilience was truly being tested, however.
On a back street in Port-au-Prince, a half-dozen young men ripped water pipes off walls to suck out the few drops inside. "This is very, very bad, but I am too thirsty," said Pierre Louis Delmar.
Outside a warehouse, hundreds of desperate Haitians simply dropped to their knees when workers for the agency Food for the Poor announced they would distribute rice, beans and other supplies. "They started praying right then and there," said project director Clement Belizaire.
Children and the elderly were asked to step first into line, and some 1,500 people got food, soap and rubber sandals until supplies ran out, he said.
The aid official was overcome by the tragic scene. "This was the darkest day of everybody living in Port-au-Prince," he said.
"People are so desperate for food that they are going crazy," said accountant Henry Ounche, in a crowd of hundreds who fought one another as U.S. military helicopters clattered overhead carrying aid.
When other Navy choppers dropped rations and Gatorade into a soccer stadium thronged with refugees, 200 youths began brawling, throwing stones, to get at the supplies.
Across the hilly, steamy city, where people choked on the stench of death, hope faded by the hour for finding many more victims alive in the rubble, four days after Tuesday's catastrophic earthquake.
Still, here and there, the murmur of buried victims spurred rescue crews on, even as aftershocks threatened to finish off crumbling buildings.
"No one's alive in there," a woman sobbed outside the wrecked Montana Hotel. But hope wouldn't die. "We can hear a survivor," search crew chief Alexander Luque of Namibia later reported. His men dug on. Elsewhere, an American team pulled a woman alive from a collapsed university building where she had been trapped for 97 hours. Another crew got water to three survivors whose shouts could be heard deep in the ruins of a multistory supermarket that pancaked on top of them.
Nobody knew how many were dead. Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies — not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press.
In a fresh estimate, the Pan American Health Organization said 50,000 to 100,000 people perished in the quake. Bellerive said 100,000 would "seem to be the minimum." Truckloads of corpses were being trundled to mass graves.
A U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman declared the quake the worst disaster the international organization has ever faced, since so much government and U.N. capacity in the country was demolished. In that way, Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva, it's worse than the cataclysmic Asian tsunami of 2004: "Everything is damaged."
Also Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Port-au-Prince to pledge more American assistance and said the U.S. would be "as responsive as we need to be." President Obama met with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and urged Americans to donate to Haiti relief efforts.
As the day wore on, search teams recovered the body of Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, the United Nations chief of mission in Haiti, and other top U.N. officials who were killed when their headquarters collapsed.
Despite many obstacles, the pace of aid delivery was picking up.
The Haitian government had established 14 distribution points for food and other supplies, and U.S. Army helicopters were reconnoitering for more. With eight city hospitals destroyed or damaged, aid groups opened five emergency health centers. Vital gear, such as water-purification units, was arriving from abroad.
Thousands lined up in the Cite Soleil slum as U.N. World Food Program workers distributed high-energy biscuits there for the first time. As the hot sun set, the crew was down to just a few dozen boxes left from six truckloads. Perhaps 10,000 people were still waiting patiently, futilely, in line.
Seven months' pregnant, and with two children, 29-year-old Florence Louis clutched her four packets. "It is enough, because I didn't have anything at all," she said.
On a hillside golf course, perhaps 50,000 people were sleeping in a makeshift tent city overlooking the stricken capital. Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division flew there Saturday to set up a base for handing out water and food.
After the initial frenzy among the waiting crowd, when helicopters could only hover and toss out their cargo, a second flight landed and soldiers passed out some 2,000 military-issue ready-to-eat meals to an orderly line of Haitians.
More American help was on the way: The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort steamed from the port of Baltimore on Saturday and was scheduled to arrive here Thursday. More than 2,000 Marines were set to sail from North Carolina to support aid delivery and provide security.
But for the estimated 300,000 newly homeless in the streets, plazas and parks of Port-au-Prince, help was far from assured.
"They're already starting to deliver food and water, but it's mayhem. People are hungry, everybody is asking for water," said Alain Denis, a resident of the Thomassin district.
Denis's home was intact, and he and his elderly parents have some reserves, but, he said, "in a week, I don't know."
Aid delivery was still bogged down by congestion at the Port-au-Prince airport, quake damage at the seaport, poor roads and the fear of looters and robbers.
The problems at the overloaded airport forced a big Red Cross aid mission to strike out overland from Santo Domingo, almost 200 miles away in the Dominican Republic. The convoy included up to 10 trucks carrying temporary shelters, a 50-bed field hospital and some 60 medical specialists.
"It's not possible to fly anything into Port-au-Prince right now. The airport is completely congested," Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said from the Dominican capital.
Another convoy from the Dominican Republic steered toward a U.N. base in Port-au-Prince without stopping, its leaders fearful of sparking a riot if they handed out aid themselves.
The airport congestion touched off diplomatic rows between the U.S. military and other donor nations.
France and Brazil both lodged official complaints that the U.S. military, in control of the international airport, had denied landing permission to relief flights from their countries.
Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, who has 7,000 Brazilian U.N. peacekeeping troops in Haiti, warned against viewing the rescue effort as a unilateral American mission.
The squabbling prompted Haitian President Rene Preval, speaking with the AP, to urge all to "keep our cool and coordinate and not throw accusations."
At a simpler level, unending logistical difficulties dogged the relief effort.
A commercial-sized jet landed with rescue and medical teams from Qatar, only to find problems offloading food aid. They asked the U.S. military for help, surgeon Dr. Mootaz Aly said, and were told: "We're busy."
As relief teams grappled with on-the-ground obstacles, the U.S. leadership promised to step up aid efforts. In Washington, Obama joined with his two most recent White House predecessors to appeal for Americans to donate to the cause.
"We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such incredible resilience," he said.
Their resilience was truly being tested, however.
On a back street in Port-au-Prince, a half-dozen young men ripped water pipes off walls to suck out the few drops inside. "This is very, very bad, but I am too thirsty," said Pierre Louis Delmar.
Outside a warehouse, hundreds of desperate Haitians simply dropped to their knees when workers for the agency Food for the Poor announced they would distribute rice, beans and other supplies. "They started praying right then and there," said project director Clement Belizaire.
Children and the elderly were asked to step first into line, and some 1,500 people got food, soap and rubber sandals until supplies ran out, he said.
The aid official was overcome by the tragic scene. "This was the darkest day of everybody living in Port-au-Prince," he said.
The Artist heart goes out...
Late afternoon, Tuesday 12 January, the Caribbean. The sun is subsiding in the west, and, for some, it's lazy time. On his terrace in Santiago de Cuba, Eduardo Machin is sitting on a lounger, and down at the United States base on Guantanamo Bay, it's towards the end of a nothing-special kind of day.
Some 160 miles across the sea, soldiers are patrolling more purposefully. They're part of the 11,000-strong United Nations force whose task is to bring some semblance of stability to Haiti, the land of voodoo, gang-law dictators and poverty so dire that three-quarters of these, the poorest people in the Western hemisphere, live on less than £1.30 a day. Yet, street by street, bit by corrupted bit, small victories are being won by the UN and aid agencies. And that's why, as the sun dips a little lower, and the clocks in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, nudge round to 4.30, it has the feel, even here, of just another Tuesday.
At a college in the Morne Hercule area, Alex Georges is in a meeting with 30 other students and their professor. At an orphanage outside the capital, Susan Westwood, a nurse from Stirling, is tending children. Over at Notre Dame Cathedral, the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Mgr Joseph Serge Miot, is in his office, working at his papers. Jillian Thorp, an American aid worker, is at home in the capital, looking forward to her husband's return from a trip up country. In Haiti's parliament building, Senate President Kelly Bastien is at his post; the white presidential palace, looking like a Brighton Pavilion that's just come out of the wash, gleams across its watered lawns; US reporter Jonathan M Katz potters at home – after all, there's nothing much happening in Haiti at the moment. And, at the 12-storey UN headquarters, the head of the mission, Hedi Annabi, and more than a hundred of his staff are coming to the end of the working day. They have authority here. But not as much, it's about to turn out, as the geology on which Haiti sits
Artist of the week
Even though there isn't an artist every week, the artist that I present you with, deserve recognition for there brilliance and unique approach to making a difference in our world and leaving there mark on the American fabric.
This is actually the first artist of this kind, which is surprising to me because we share an interest that consumes my life; making movies.
Listen to how God works in mysterious ways. This young man posted his 4 minute short on Youtube and received a 30 million dollar contract for it! Since being posted in early November the video has gone viral, currently approaching 2 million views, and has resulted in Alvarez signing a $30 million deal with Sam "Spiderman" Raimi's Ghost House Pictures to make a full-length sci-fi thriller.
AMAZING! Check out the $300 4 min. short that will be coming to a theatre near you!
This is actually the first artist of this kind, which is surprising to me because we share an interest that consumes my life; making movies.
Listen to how God works in mysterious ways. This young man posted his 4 minute short on Youtube and received a 30 million dollar contract for it! Since being posted in early November the video has gone viral, currently approaching 2 million views, and has resulted in Alvarez signing a $30 million deal with Sam "Spiderman" Raimi's Ghost House Pictures to make a full-length sci-fi thriller.
AMAZING! Check out the $300 4 min. short that will be coming to a theatre near you!
Change is coming...
Mexico City moves to legalize same-sex marriage
Reporting from Mexico City - In a move that may put Mexico City at odds with the rest of the country, the local legislature approved a far-reaching gay rights bill Monday, voting to allow people of the same sex to marry and to adopt children.
The leftist-dominated legislature of this massive city of about 20 million people turned aside opposition from the influential Roman Catholic Church and ended lively debate to approve the measure by a 39-20 vote. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard is expected to sign the bill into law.
"Mexico City has put itself in the vanguard," said legislator Victor Hugo Romo. "This is a historic day."
Mexico City's initiative goes further than any other in Latin America by rewriting the law to redefine marriage as a "free union between two people," not only between a man and a woman. It gives homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual pairs, including the right to adopt, inherit, obtain joint housing loans and share insurance policies.
Several countries, most of them in Europe, and a handful of U.S. states have legalized same-sex marriage in recent years, and the issue is being hotly debated in parts of predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America. Uruguay was the first Latin American nation to recognize same-sex unions, as well as adoptions by gay couples, and some cities in Argentina have adopted similar laws.
Proponents praised the bill as helping remove the stigma and discriminatory practices that hurt gays, while opponents decried what they called an affront to the institution of family.
"This is wonderful," gay rights activist Judith Vasquez said from the noisy legislature floor, where proponents chanted, "Yes, we could!" and waved rainbow flags. Gay "couples have effectively been together for years, decades, centuries," she said. "But now it is our right."
Most of the opposition in the city's legislature came from President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, which has threatened to take the city to court if Ebrard does not veto the measure.
Also opposed was the Roman Catholic Church, which labeled the proposal immoral, saying marriage must hold the promise of procreation. Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera said the law created the "perverse possibility" that "innocent children" would be adopted by gay couples.
"It is an aberration," said activist Jorge Serrano Limon. "Marriage cannot be between men. That is absurd."
Mexico City, as a rule, is less conservative than much of the rest of the country, relatively open to sexual freedoms and expressions.
Under Ebrard and his Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which controls the legislature, Mexico City has been at the forefront of social policy, often taking stances a far distance from other parts of the country.
The city, for example, legalized abortion in 2007, a decision that has since backfired and prompted states across Mexico to dig in their heels against abortion.
"They have given Mexicans a very bitter Christmas," Armando Martinez Gomez, president of the College of Catholic Attorneys, told The Times. "They have eliminated the word 'father' and 'mother.' "
It was unclear when Ebrard planned to sign the gay rights bill into law, and Martinez called on the mayor to veto the bill.
He noted that it went even further than the city executive had intended when legislators removed a clause that would have forbidden adoption. PAN lawmakers also demanded that Ebrard exercise his veto.
Martinez and other opponents had sought a citywide referendum on the issue, similar to the one California held last year, instead of a vote in the legislature. He said surveys taken by his organization showed overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage. (Another survey published last week by the Reforma newspaper showed opinion more evenly divided.)
He also predicted a backlash against gays. "There will be repercussions, the unleashing of homophobia. Ours is not a very tolerant society."
Before Monday's vote, Mexico City already had on the books a law that allowed a kind of legal union between unmarried people, under which they could avail themselves of a limited number of services and benefits. Only 680 couples have done so since the law took effect in 2007.
It was unclear how many gays and lesbians might be expected to rush to the altar (or, as required in Mexico, the judge's chambers).
"For centuries, unfair laws prohibited marriage between whites and blacks, between Europeans and Indians," legislator Romo, of the PRD, said. "Today, all the barriers have disappeared."
Artist of the week
There is no better feeling than turning on the TV and seeing talented women artist. She gave me fuel for the week!
Melanie Fiona everybody...
Melanie Fiona everybody...