(Miami Herald) - The musical chairs in Haiti's government continued Friday as the prime minister's office announced after midnight replacements for two cabinet posts left vacant by resignations within days of one another.
Haiti
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Communications Minister Regine Godefroy became the second woman in as many days to quit the Haitian government.
While there has been no official communication as to the reasons why Godefroy joined former finance minister Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie in leaving the cabinet of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, media reports spoke of allegations of various types of government corruption.
The Office of the Prime Minister has already warned that it would not tolerate corruption.
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Haiti’s Finance and Economy Minister Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie resigned Wednesday with immediate effect. Jean-Marie, who has been in the post for a year, sent her letter of resignation to Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe. Her resignation comes amidst constant reports that she no longer feels she has the support of her colleagues in her effort to manage the local economy.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- A new report on American aid to Haiti in the wake of that country's devastating earthquake finds much of the money went to U.S.-based companies and organizations. The Center for Economic and Policy Research analyzed the $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010 quake and found that the "vast majority" of the money it could follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half in the Washington area alone. Just 1 percent went directly to Haitian companies.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- George Corvington, a prominent Haitian historian best known for his exhaustive study of the Caribbean nation's capital of Port-au-Prince, died Wednesday at age 88, a close friend said. Fellow historian and longtime friend Georges Michel said that Corvington died peacefully in his sleep at his home in the capital he wrote so much about. Michel said Covington had recently spent a few weeks in the hospital and the cause of death was heart failure. "He's a giant that has fallen," said Michel, who is also a physician.
Sixteen months after Haiti was supposed to hold a critical round of elections, the voting procedure remains on hold. The country’s warring political factions can’t agree on a date or the membership of the panel that would supervise the process. Even the U.N. Security Council is reaching the end of its tether with Haiti’s political leaders. It’s not as if the beleaguered Caribbean nation doesn’t have enough problems.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - An expert with respect to disaster management in the Caribbean is suggesting that Haiti is an excellent example of how a disasters can create an opportunity for enhancing coping capacity.
Retired head of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore, told the media recently that it has been a lesson for the entire region as prior to the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, which claimed the lives of thousands of people, a simple tropical storm would result in significant loss of life.
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – A growing number of people in Haiti are at risk of malnutrition after heavy rains damaged food crops last year, according to the United Nations.
In its monthly bulletin, the UN mission here said that as much as 90 per cent of the food crops had been destroyed during the rainy season last year and as a result there has been an increase in the number of people not getting enough food to eat.
The first U.S. brand — and Haiti’s second luxury hotel to open in three months — will welcome its first guests Thursday.
Designed for the business traveler, the Best Western Premier, a 106-room seven-story hotel in tony Petionville is finally making its debut. A soft-opening is planned for April 4, but guests will get their first glimpse before then.
“It feels amazing,” said Haiti-born Chris Handal, who had planned the hotel before the country’s monstrous Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. “It’s really gorgeous.”
GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- Haiti President Michel Martelly has urged the United Nations to divert some of the billions of dollars it spends yearly on peacekeeping efforts to infrastructure projects, job creation and poverty alleviation.
Officials need to think about sustainable development instead of security in the impoverished country that is still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2010, Martelly said late Thursday while visiting Caricom's headquarters in Guyana as the Caribbean trade bloc's current chairman.