Posted on
5/29/2010 10:20:48 AM
At the Iron Market, Haitians shopped for everything from vegetables to Voodoo flags. One side was destroyed in a 2008 fire. The January 12 earthquake leveled the rest.
By year's end, workers hope to restore the Port-au-Prince landmark to its original splendor.
Destined for Egypt in 1889, the market's French-built minarets became Haiti's when the sale to a Cairo train station fell through and President Florvil Hyppolite bought the massive cast iron structures as part of his plan to modernize the city.
It is the post-earthquake project that most excites Michael Gay, a Port-au-Prince engineer and co-owner of Haiti's largest supplier of concrete.
It's inspiring to see the historical structure rise again amid the rubble, Gay said. But even more, the Iron Market restoration provides hope to those who live and work in its shadow -- especially because everyone knows Haiti's rebuilding process is sure to be slow.
By some estimates, it will take three to five years just to clear t
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Posted on
5/29/2010 10:17:04 AM
Muddy water flows under the tent and pools around the electric studio lights. Actors sitting at the mock-kitchen table lift their feet away from a very real, growing flood.
This is the set of Haiti's new comedy soap opera, "Under the Sky," filmed in the capital's earthquake survivor camps for the hundreds of thousands of people who live in them. The episode was supposed to be about securing makeshift shelters against the strengthening rainy season. Then things got too realistic.
After an hour of rising water and several blackouts, shooting was canceled for the day.
That's one of the dangers of filming episodes in a camp on the flood-prone outskirts of Port-au-Prince. But Haitian-American director Jacques Roc said it's the only way to make sure the series' message will resonate with the hundreds of thousands for whom floods and insecurity are now just daily life.
"There's a lot that's going on in the camps right now, and when you stay in the camp you learn about it," Roc sai
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Posted on
5/29/2010 10:15:12 AM
Even by the grim standards of Haiti, the prison massacre in Les Cayes after the Jan. 12 earthquake is chilling. According to an investigation in The Times by Deborah Sontag and Walt Bogdanich, a dozen or more prisoners were killed and up to 40 were wounded after police stormed the prison to put down a riot.
The government claims that a prison ringleader slaughtered other inmates before escaping. The Times found witnesses who told a different story — of days of abuse after the earthquake and then the murder of inmates by police.
Many of Haiti’s prisons were shattered during the quake, allowing inmates to flee. In Les Cayes, in western Haiti, the walls held. When prisoners panicked, guards beat the noisiest men, shoving them into cells that were already brutally crowded. A week later, a few dozen men tried to escape and set off a riot. Inmates rampaged loose for hours inside as the Haitian federal police and United Nations troops surrounded the prison.
When the police stormed
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Posted on
5/29/2010 10:13:13 AM
The World Bank said on Friday it has written off $36 million of Haiti's remaining debts to the lender with the help of contributions from 13 countries.
With the decision, Haiti has nothing further to pay to the World Bank, the institution said. The debt was owed to the World Bank's fund for its poorest borrowers, the International Development Association, or IDA.
Canceling the debt will free up funds -- which would have been spent on servicing the IDA debt -- for rebuilding after Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.
The Bank said funding to write off the debt was received from Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
"Relieving Haiti's remaining debt is part of our effort to pursue every avenue to help Haiti's reconstruction efforts," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.
Since the earthquake, the World Bank has committed $479 million in grants for Haiti's recovery through June 2011.
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Posted on
4/13/2010 5:26:30 PM
Michelle Obama made an unannounced visit to earthquake-hit Haiti on Tuesday at the start of her first solo international trip as first lady.
The 46-year-old wife of President Barack Obama made the stopover in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince en route to an April 13-15 visit to Mexico. She arrived with Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden.
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Posted on
4/11/2010 10:05:53 AM
You start somewhere. You keep going. Such are the underpinnings of accomplishment, whether you're looking to rebuild a country or score a goal, and Jean-Baptiste Joseph has both in mind as he turns upfield, into a stiff wind in Brooklyn.
The sun is about to set over Field 8 in the Parade Ground, just off Caton Ave., in East Flatbush. Gregory Mervilus, a cab driver, store manager and coach of one of the city's newest soccer clubs, is putting his team through practice. One field over, men from a dozen or more countries are playing a pickup game. In front of Mervilus, all the players are from one country: Haiti. Most of them live in the Flatbush neighborhood clustered around Nostrand Ave., called Little Haiti, including Jean-Baptiste Joseph, a 28-year-old midfielder and former star at St. Francis College, a man with fast feet and uncanny vision, and big plans for the new team, unofficially called NYC Haiti.
Joseph grew up in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, playing soccer in t
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Posted on
4/11/2010 9:57:52 AM
Miami police are searching for whoever opened fire on a Little Haiti street, killing a 7-year-old girl and wounding a 25-year-old woman.
PERSON OF INTEREST: Miami Police Sgt. Confesor Gonzalez holds up a flier showing person of interest Israel `Zako' Jean.
Whenever school let out, Jahnya Ware would lace up her blue Hannah Montana high-top sneakers and sing along to the pop star's CD.
The 7-year-old knew all the words.
``She would dance and sing,'' her cousin Michael Georges, 21, recalled. ``She made us all smile. She brought us happiness.''
But on Friday night, Jahnya's life was cut short when a car she was riding in was riddled with bullets on a Little Haiti street.
``My baby, she's innocent,'' her mother, Estelle Voltaire, said sobbing at Miami police headquarters Saturday afternoon. ``They took my baby. My only girl.''
Throughout the day, detectives searched for answers in the senseless killing of the young girl, as her family grieved. Police say the car wa
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Posted on
4/11/2010 9:55:47 AM
Andre Berto's life has changed quite a bit in the 11 months since his last fight, a lopsided decision against Juan Urango.
Since then, Berto prepared to fight the biggest bout of his career against fellow welterweight titleholder Shane Mosley on Jan. 30. And then Berto endured the life-changing event that forced that fight to be called off less than two days ahead of time: the devastating 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti, the Caribbean island nation where his parents are from and where he has many family members.
Eight members of Berto's family were killed in the disaster that claimed more than 200,000. His sister and niece were missing for days before being located.
After Berto and his brother, Cleveland, went to Haiti on a relief mission, working among the dead and dying to do what they could, Berto vowed to do whatever he could to keep attention on his ravaged homeland.
That brings us to Saturday night, when Berto knocked out former titleholder Carlos Quintana in the eig
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