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| Haiti |
| Bunnie Jackson-Ransom Public Relations First Class, Inc. 450 Hickory Glen Ln SW Atlanta, GA 30311 www.fclassinc.com fax -- 404-505-8358 phone -- 404-505-8188 Click Here for contact cell- 404-226-8000 |
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Less than a penny of each dollar the U. S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government, according to an Associated Press review of relief efforts. Two weeks after President Obama announced an initial $100 million for Haiti earthquake relief, U.S. government spending on the disaster has nearly quadrupled to $379 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Wednesday. That's about $1.25 each from everyone in the United States. Each American dollar roughly breaks down like this: 42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just less than one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic. The U.S. government money is part of close to $2 billion in relief aid flowing into Haiti — almost all of it managed by organizations other than the Haitian government, which has been struggling to re-establish its authority since the quake. On Wednesday, a defensive President Rene Preval acknowledged his country's reputation for graft, but said aid money isn't lining the pockets of government officials. "There's a perception of corruption, but I would like to tell the Haitian people that the Haitian government has not seen one penny of all the money that has been raised — millions are being made on the right, millions on the left, it's all going to the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)" Preval said, speaking in Creole at a news conference. Relief experts say it would be a mistake to send too much direct cash to the Haitian government, which was already unstable before the quake and routinely included on lists of the world's most corrupt countries. "I really believe Americans are the most generous people who ever lived, but they want accountability," said Timothy R. Knight, a former US AID assistant director who spent 25 years distributing disaster aid. "In this situation they're being very deliberate not to just throw money at the situation but to analyze based on a clear assessment and make sure that money goes to the best place possible." The AP review of federal budget spreadsheets, procurement reports and contract databases shows the vast majority of U.S. funds going to established and tested providers including the U. N. World Food Program, the Pan American Health Organization and nonprofit groups such as Save The Children, which have sent in everything from the $3.4 million barge that cleared the port for aid deliveries to pinto beans at 40 cents a pound. "We are trying to respond as quickly as we can to this catastrophe of biblical proportions by mustering all of the resources that the United States government can bring to bear, first on rescue leading into relief, which is where we are right now, and hopefully seamlessly into recovery," said Lewis Lucke, U.S. special coordinator for relief and reconstruction. Major relief efforts were launched within hours of the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed at least 150,000, devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and affected a third of its 9 million people. Behind each effort has been cash and contracts, airline tickets to be purchased and ocean freighters to be leased. Of each U.S. taxpayer dollar, 42 cents funds US AID's disaster assistance — everything from $5,000 generators to $35 hygiene kits with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste for a family of five. Another 33 cents is going to the U.S. military, paying for security, search and rescue teams, and the Navy's hospital ship USNS Comfort. Just under a dime has already been spent on food: 122 million pounds of pinto beans, black beans, rice, corn soy blend and vegetable oil. When purchased in bulk, the actual food prices are relatively low. Pinto beans, for example, cost the U.S. government 40 cents a pound when purchased in 5 million- pound batches last week. Getting the food to Haitians — paying for freighters, trucks and distribution centers, and the people to staff them, took another nine cents from each dollar. Initial disaster spending was aimed at saving lives; now the spending is shifting to recovery. The Obama administration is putting five cents of each dollar into efforts to pay survivors to work. One program already in place describes paying 40,000 Haitians $3 per day for 20 days to clean up around hospitals and dig latrines. That project also includes renting 10 excavators and loaders, at $600 each, and 10 dump trucks at $50 a load. Just under one penny of each dollar is going straight to the shattered Haitian government, whose president is sleeping in a tent while struggling to organize an administration that was notoriously unstable even before the earthquake. The U.S. rarely gives large amounts of money directly to governments, a practice that is "very defensible from my point of view," said John Simon, who coordinated U.S. responses to international disasters under President Bush's administration. A final half-cent funds three Dominican Republic hospitals near the Haitian border, where refugees have been begging for help. The U.S. is providing the largest slice of a global response that totals more than $1 billion in government pledges. The European Union's 27 nations are contributing $575 million. The U.S. also has long been the largest donor of ongoing foreign aid that Haiti depends on for up to 40 percent of its budget, with more than $260 million in U.S. money last year aimed at promoting stability, prosperity and democracy. The money is flowing through federal agencies that administer $2.6 billion already appropriated in the 2010 budget for foreign disaster relief, said Thomas Gavin, a spokesman at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He said there are no plans to ask Congress for more money. Of the private disaster aid flowing into Haiti, U.S. charities have raised $470 million, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. |
A 16-year-old girl pulled from the rubble more
than two weeks after a deadly earthquake was in
stable condition Thursday, able to eat yogurt and
mashed vegetables to the surprise of doctors,
who said her survival was medically inexplicable.
Hundreds of thousands of other survivors hoped
for a breakthrough of another kind — the delivery
of badly needed food aid.
Key players in the Haiti earthquake relief effort, in
what may prove to be a pivotal meeting
Wednesday, decided to better coordinate by
dividing up the shattered capital, giving each
responsibility for handing out food in certain areas.
Food distribution thus far has often been marked
by poor coordination, vast gaps in coverage, and
desperate, unruly lines of needy people in which
young men at times shoved aside the women and
weak and took their food.
"These things should be done in a systematic
way, not a random way," Dr. Eddy Delalue, who
runs a Haitian relief group, Operation Hope, said
Wednesday of the emergency food program. "It's
survival of the fittest: The strongest guy gets it."
Wednesday's rescue of teenager Darlene Etienne
from a collapsed home near St. Gerard University,
15 days after Haiti's great quake killed an
estimated 200,000 people, was the first such
recovery since Saturday, when French rescuers
extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery
store.
Etienne is stable, drinking water and eating
yogurt and mashed vegetables, said Dr. Evelyne
Lambert, who has been treating the girl on the
French Navy hospital ship Sirocco, anchored off
the shore of Port-au-Prince.
Lambert said that Etienne has a 90 percent
chance of survival.
"We cannot really explain this because that's just
(against) biological facts," Lambert told a news
conference. "We are very surprised by the fact
that she's alive. ... She's saying that she has been
under the ground since the very beginning on the
12th of January so it may have really happened —
but we cannot explain that."
Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive
more than 72 hours without water, let alone 15
days. But Etienne may have had some access to
water from a bathroom of the wrecked house, and
rescuers said she mumbled something about
having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.
Her family said Etienne had just begun studies at
St. Gerard when the disaster struck, trapping
dozens of students and staff in the rubble of
school buildings, hostels and nearby homes. "We
thought she was dead," said cousin Jocelyn A. St.
Jules.
Then — a half-month after the earthquake —
neighbors heard a voice weakly calling from the
rubble of a private home down the road from the
destroyed university. They called authorities, who
brought in the French civil response team.
French search and rescue team member Dr.
Claude Fuilla walked along the dangerously
crumbled roof, heard her voice and saw a little bit
of dust-covered black hair in the rubble. Clearing
away some debris, he reached the young woman
and saw she was alive — barely.
Digging out a hole big enough to give her oxygen
and water, they found she had a very weak pulse.
Within 45 minutes they managed to remove her,
covered in dust.
"She was in very bad shape," Fuilla said Thursday.
"We had to rehydrate her for 15 minutes" before
flying her by helicopter to the Sirocco.
Fuilla said Etienne did not suffer a broken leg, as
first reported, but that both legs were trapped
under debris. "Both legs are very sore," he said.
"Now, her condition is stabilized. She ate. She is
speaking ... She is not very lucid, but she is OK."
At least 135 people buried in rubble have been
rescued by search teams since the quake, most in
the immediate aftermath. An Israeli team that
earned international praise for its rescue efforts in
Haiti returned home Thursday with a 5-year-old
boy in need of urgent heart surgery.
Back in Haiti, the United Nations World Food
Program urgently appealed to governments for
more cash for Haiti supplies — $800 million to feed
2 million people through December, more than
quadruple the $196 million already pledged.
The WFP, partnered with local and international
organizations, had delivered 3.6 million food
rations to 458,000 people by Tuesday, U.N.
officials said Thursday.
But food remains scarce for many of the neediest
survivors. Relief experts said the scale of this
disaster and Haiti's poor infrastructure are
presenting unprecedented challenges, but Haitian
leaders complain coordination has been poor.
The WFP also noted that rising tensions and
security incidents — "including people rushing
distribution points for food" — have hampered
deliveries. Desperation boiled over earlier this
week and Uruguayan peacekeepers retreated as
young men rushed forward to grab U.S.-donated
bags of beans and rice. A pregnant woman
collapsed and was trampled.
Since the relief effort's first days, however, other
problems have also delayed aid — blocked and
congested roads, shortages of trucks, a crippled
seaport and an overloaded Port-au-Prince airport.
The south pier near Port-au-Prince — the fastest
route for moving large pallets of food and medical
supplies into Haiti — was more badly damaged
than U.S. officials realized and won't be repaired
for another eight to 10 weeks, Gen. Douglas
Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command, said
Thursday.
In the meantime, troops are only able to move
200 containers a day from ships anchored
offshore using connectors, landing craft and
helicopters, Fraser said. He said the military
should be able to increase that workload to 800
containers a day by mid-February, while repair
work continues at the port.
In a bid to improve food distribution,
representatives of the U.N., the U.S., the Haitian
government and private aid groups met
Wednesday to discuss coordination. Afterward,
Donal Reilly of Catholic Relief Services said they
decided to divide Port-au-Prince into zones,
designating a major aid agency to be responsible
for delivering food to each sector.
Meanwhile, looting remained a constant threat in
Port-au-Prince. A block away from U.S. troops who
were knocking down the remaining walls of
otherwise collapsed buildings, thieves armed with
sledgehammers smashed what was left of
destroyed shops Thursday, making off with
everything from candy to perfume.
With the country still barely functioning, Haitian
President Rene Preval canceled legislative
elections scheduled for next month. The
Parliament building partially collapsed in the
earthquake, killing one senator, and other
candidates also died in the disaster.
than two weeks after a deadly earthquake was in
stable condition Thursday, able to eat yogurt and
mashed vegetables to the surprise of doctors,
who said her survival was medically inexplicable.
Hundreds of thousands of other survivors hoped
for a breakthrough of another kind — the delivery
of badly needed food aid.
Key players in the Haiti earthquake relief effort, in
what may prove to be a pivotal meeting
Wednesday, decided to better coordinate by
dividing up the shattered capital, giving each
responsibility for handing out food in certain areas.
Food distribution thus far has often been marked
by poor coordination, vast gaps in coverage, and
desperate, unruly lines of needy people in which
young men at times shoved aside the women and
weak and took their food.
"These things should be done in a systematic
way, not a random way," Dr. Eddy Delalue, who
runs a Haitian relief group, Operation Hope, said
Wednesday of the emergency food program. "It's
survival of the fittest: The strongest guy gets it."
Wednesday's rescue of teenager Darlene Etienne
from a collapsed home near St. Gerard University,
15 days after Haiti's great quake killed an
estimated 200,000 people, was the first such
recovery since Saturday, when French rescuers
extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery
store.
Etienne is stable, drinking water and eating
yogurt and mashed vegetables, said Dr. Evelyne
Lambert, who has been treating the girl on the
French Navy hospital ship Sirocco, anchored off
the shore of Port-au-Prince.
Lambert said that Etienne has a 90 percent
chance of survival.
"We cannot really explain this because that's just
(against) biological facts," Lambert told a news
conference. "We are very surprised by the fact
that she's alive. ... She's saying that she has been
under the ground since the very beginning on the
12th of January so it may have really happened —
but we cannot explain that."
Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive
more than 72 hours without water, let alone 15
days. But Etienne may have had some access to
water from a bathroom of the wrecked house, and
rescuers said she mumbled something about
having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.
Her family said Etienne had just begun studies at
St. Gerard when the disaster struck, trapping
dozens of students and staff in the rubble of
school buildings, hostels and nearby homes. "We
thought she was dead," said cousin Jocelyn A. St.
Jules.
Then — a half-month after the earthquake —
neighbors heard a voice weakly calling from the
rubble of a private home down the road from the
destroyed university. They called authorities, who
brought in the French civil response team.
French search and rescue team member Dr.
Claude Fuilla walked along the dangerously
crumbled roof, heard her voice and saw a little bit
of dust-covered black hair in the rubble. Clearing
away some debris, he reached the young woman
and saw she was alive — barely.
Digging out a hole big enough to give her oxygen
and water, they found she had a very weak pulse.
Within 45 minutes they managed to remove her,
covered in dust.
"She was in very bad shape," Fuilla said Thursday.
"We had to rehydrate her for 15 minutes" before
flying her by helicopter to the Sirocco.
Fuilla said Etienne did not suffer a broken leg, as
first reported, but that both legs were trapped
under debris. "Both legs are very sore," he said.
"Now, her condition is stabilized. She ate. She is
speaking ... She is not very lucid, but she is OK."
At least 135 people buried in rubble have been
rescued by search teams since the quake, most in
the immediate aftermath. An Israeli team that
earned international praise for its rescue efforts in
Haiti returned home Thursday with a 5-year-old
boy in need of urgent heart surgery.
Back in Haiti, the United Nations World Food
Program urgently appealed to governments for
more cash for Haiti supplies — $800 million to feed
2 million people through December, more than
quadruple the $196 million already pledged.
The WFP, partnered with local and international
organizations, had delivered 3.6 million food
rations to 458,000 people by Tuesday, U.N.
officials said Thursday.
But food remains scarce for many of the neediest
survivors. Relief experts said the scale of this
disaster and Haiti's poor infrastructure are
presenting unprecedented challenges, but Haitian
leaders complain coordination has been poor.
The WFP also noted that rising tensions and
security incidents — "including people rushing
distribution points for food" — have hampered
deliveries. Desperation boiled over earlier this
week and Uruguayan peacekeepers retreated as
young men rushed forward to grab U.S.-donated
bags of beans and rice. A pregnant woman
collapsed and was trampled.
Since the relief effort's first days, however, other
problems have also delayed aid — blocked and
congested roads, shortages of trucks, a crippled
seaport and an overloaded Port-au-Prince airport.
The south pier near Port-au-Prince — the fastest
route for moving large pallets of food and medical
supplies into Haiti — was more badly damaged
than U.S. officials realized and won't be repaired
for another eight to 10 weeks, Gen. Douglas
Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command, said
Thursday.
In the meantime, troops are only able to move
200 containers a day from ships anchored
offshore using connectors, landing craft and
helicopters, Fraser said. He said the military
should be able to increase that workload to 800
containers a day by mid-February, while repair
work continues at the port.
In a bid to improve food distribution,
representatives of the U.N., the U.S., the Haitian
government and private aid groups met
Wednesday to discuss coordination. Afterward,
Donal Reilly of Catholic Relief Services said they
decided to divide Port-au-Prince into zones,
designating a major aid agency to be responsible
for delivering food to each sector.
Meanwhile, looting remained a constant threat in
Port-au-Prince. A block away from U.S. troops who
were knocking down the remaining walls of
otherwise collapsed buildings, thieves armed with
sledgehammers smashed what was left of
destroyed shops Thursday, making off with
everything from candy to perfume.
With the country still barely functioning, Haitian
President Rene Preval canceled legislative
elections scheduled for next month. The
Parliament building partially collapsed in the
earthquake, killing one senator, and other
candidates also died in the disaster.
| Teenage girl rescued 15 days after quake is stable |
| Haiti govt gets 1 penny of US quake aid dollar |