Haiti gets more IMF money
WASHINGTON (CMC) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it has approved US$2.4 million for Haiti after the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country successfully completed its final review of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme.
The IMF said the new disbursement brings to US$60 million the amount of funds provided to Haiti under the facility that was first approved in July this year.
Haiti: IDB Grants $36 Million for Haitian Tourism Development
Haiti’s burgeoning tourism industry received a significant boost this week via approval of a $36 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The grant will support initiatives to “foster tourism around Haitian historic, cultural and natural resources” on the country’s southern coast, said IDB officials in a statement.
The grant will also create tourism employment for Haiti’s low-income residents, said officials. “Given its inviting beaches, rich tropical landscape, unique cultural history as the world’s first black republic, and its proximity to the United States, Haiti has much to offer tourists,” said IDB.
“But they’re not likely to flock there until they perceive the environment is clean, excursion leaders are well-trained and equipped with safe equipment and vessels, and security is not a concern.”
The grant will enable Haiti’s government to implement “a well-planned tourism program featuring a combination of infrastructure development, job training and government capacity building,” officials said.
Haiti faces well-documented economic challenges, notes IDB. “More than 80 percent of rural inhabitants scrape by as subsistence farmers and just 60 percent work in the formal job sector,” said officials. Moreover, the country struggles to “combat the effects of climate change and other natural disasters, environmental degradation from deforestation, overfishing, and improper disposal of solid waste,” said IDB.
As a result, environmental cleanup will account for 71 percent of grant expenditures, IDB officials. E grant will also fund rehabilitation of historic sites and construction of artisan markets and other cultural spaces.
In addition, 12 percent of grant funds will fund the training of hospitality, excursion, and entertainment workers and local tourism authority development.
While Haiti’s southern coast features potentially popular area including the beachfront towns of Port Salut and Aquin, these districts offer few hotels for contemporary leisure travelers , while some have beaches that are “heavily eroded,” according to IDB. The group estimates that only 10 percent of Haiti’s southern coast historic sites and protected areas offer adequate tourist facilities.
Meanwhile the ministry of tourism’s effort to rebuild Haiti’s leisure visitor arrivals is reporting some early success. Tourist arrivals Haiti increased 21.1 percent increase in 2014, according to the ministry’s third-quarter data.
The country has hosted 362,890 overnight visitors to date in 2014 versus 299,686 in 2013. The increased 2014 totals follow Haiti’s 20.3 percent arrivals increase in 2013. Haiti has also hosted 477,128 cruise passengers at its Labadee cruise port to date in 2014.
A government study reports most tourists spends an average of three days in Haiti and spend $160 per day. Overnight visitors contributed $174.2 million to Haiti’s economy.
New housing solution for Haiti’s seminarians
Tom Tracy
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
Jean Moise Zetrenne still remembers that horrible afternoon in January of 2010 when life radically changed for the Catholic seminarians of Haiti, and in many ways is only just starting to improve.
“I was in a prayer moment in a philosophy class when the earth started to shake,” said Zetrenne,” now a third-year theology student studying for the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince.
“I didn't know what it was but we heard a lot of noise outside, and I didn’t have time to run outside so sat down in a chair; four of us were lost because there was a part of the seminary that fell down.”
Several other seminarians in Haiti, he said, were left amputees but have since gone on to priestly ordination.
In the week before Christmas, Zetrenne was among 140 other theology seminarians studying for the church in Haiti who -- along with another 140 minor seminarians at another location -- have for five years been living in ad hoc housing arrangements and in some cases emergency tents provided by U.S. donations.
The tent dormitories are now empty after a new two-story, yellow and lime-green building a forty minutes-drive out of the city of Port-au-Prince became the provisional campus for the Notre Dame Grand Seminary, the major seminary for the 140 seminarians studying for Haiti.
That building, originally constructed with the support of unrestricted parish collections within the Archdiocese of Miami in the months following the magnitude 7 earthquake, had been conceived as a medical clinic or possible guest/mission house for visiting U.S. volunteers.
Msgr. Jean Pierre, pastor of St. James Parish in North Miami, was instrumental in leading the local fundraising and had been frequently shuttled between Miami and Haiti following the earthquake. He envisioned a new mission center complex with a medical clinic in his native Haiti that would be a special outreach project of the Miami community.
Nationally, Catholics contributed some $100 million to the Haiti relief effort, with 70 percent of that designated for immediate humanitarian needs and in concert with Catholic Relief Services, while the rest ($30 million) was designated for church and pastoral needs -- a number which was even then was seen as a shortfall and unrealistic for church rebuilding in Haiti.
While the full and exact extent of the damage is not known, the Haitian government estimates 230,000 people were killed in the 2010 catastrophe, 300,000 were injured and 2 million were displaced.
Archbishop John Favalora, head of the archdiocese at that time, supported the idea that some $1 million of unrestricted funds and Miami parish collections after the quake would best be used for church reconstruction projects such as Msgr. Pierre’s proposed building; some of those funds allowed for smaller grants to each of the dioceses of Haiti.
But more recently the local church in Haiti saw another urgent need: for better seminarian housing which was has been a lingering problem. And so on Nov. 7 the theology students moved in to the new building, allowing younger philosophy students to abandon the dormitory tents and move into other housing structures at the minor seminary, itself a temporary situation.
At the Miami-funded campus, new mattresses, still in their wrappers, lined an upstairs hallway at the center, which features a chapel, dining room, kitchen ample classrooms, student and faculty residential space and a garden.
“We like it, because before we were in a difficult situation and I think now we will be able to study better, to sleep better and to become priests for the people of God,” Zetreene said of the new seminary space. “We thank everybody for this and we will pray for them.”
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski came here to celebrate Mass in the chapel on Dec. 16, the final week before the Christmas holiday break, and to talk further with faculty and administration about how the new facility was serving the seminarians.
The Miami archbishop, who traveled with Trinitarian Father Juan Molina, director of the U.S. bishops’ Office for the Church in Latin America, said he was happy that a new building, which began as a Miami project but was finished with some $800,000 of local church funds, has found a good purpose.
“The building had not been designed to be a seminary but I think the hand of God was in whoever made that design because it fits the purpose of a seminary very well,” the archbishop said.
As the five-years anniversary of the Haiti earthquake approaches, Archbishop Wenski noted there is wide recognition in the church globally that new energy and focus need to be put back on the church infrastructural rebuilding efforts in Haiti. And that the overall funds have fallen short of the task.
To that ends the Vatican is sponsoring a one-day international conference in Rome Jan. 10 in concert with the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican's office for distributing and encouraging Catholic charitable giving, and many of the key reconstruction international partners including key representatives of the U.S. bishops.
Michel Martelly played a role in the release of Alan Gross
The Miami Herald Jacqueline Charles
Haitian President Michel Martelly declined Wednesday to reveal details of his intervention with Cuban leader Raúl Castro on behalf of the United States for the release of USAID subcontractor Alan Gross.
But he said no one knew when he left Haiti with an adviser and his oldest son, Olivier, in early 2013 what he was up to. He had been asked to intervene by Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who thought his relationship with Cuba and the U.S. could be of use.
On Tuesday, Cuba released Gross and the U.S. and Cuba announced sweeping efforts toward normalizing relations that have been frozen for more than a half-century.
After Martelly discussed the Gross case with Cuban officials, Vice President Joe Biden later called to thank him on behalf of the United States, he said.
“Haiti is proud to have played a role in what happened today,” Martelly told the Miami Herald in an interview, preferring to give all the credit to Nelson. “It’s making it better for people on both sides.”
During his visits to Cuba, Martelly said he saw how “heavy other investments were by other countries, and the United States, which is just 45 minutes away from Cuba, was losing opportunity in business investments.”
Martelly said he always spoke to people, whether it was presidents or ambassadors about bettering relations between Cuba and the U.S.
“I’m happy today that this was a success, and about the little role I was able to play,” he said.
The Cuban people, he said, “have definitely suffered from that embargo. We had an embargo for three years, and up to this day, we have not recovered.
“I wish for the embargo to be over for Cuba, and all I can do is wish success to both countries in having better relations.”
Martelly said in today’s global environment, it’s important for countries to accept differences, and to dialogue.
Health Minister Named as Haiti's New Interim Prime Minister
Haitian Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume was named interim prime minister on Sunday to replace Laurent Lamothe, who resigned a week ago following several weeks of protests.
The announcement is part of an effort to resolve a mounting political crisis over long-delayed elections. Under Haiti's constitution, Guillaume can hold the interim position for up to 30 days before a permanent choice is nominated for approval by parliament.
Lamothe was forced to resign after President Michel Martelly accepted the recommendations of a special commission appointed to defuse the crisis, including calling for the prime minister to go.
It also came after international warnings from the United States and the United Nations that the impoverished Caribbean nation was on the brink of political chaos again.
Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is still recovering from an earthquake five years ago that levelled much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. In recent weeks, demonstrators in several cities have accused the government of corruption.
If elections are not held before Jan. 12, the fifth anniversary of the earthquake, parliament will shut down, leaving the country without a functioning government until presidential elections in late 2015.
A career health worker whose official title is minister of public health and population, she is seen as close to Haiti's First Lady Sophia Martelly, and has overseen efforts to rebuild the country's fragile medical services, including by starting new hospitals and handling a cholera epidemic and long-running HIV-AIDS treatment.
Named health minister in 2011, she is widely respected by international aid agencies. She previously was deputy chief of management science for Health in Haiti, an organization working with government and private groups across a wide range of medical problems.
She told a Harvard Kennedy School forum last year that her biggest challenge is reaching the 40 percent of Haitians not covered by basic health care, according to the official Harvard Gazette.
Martelly still has to find a permanent replacement for prime minister, who must be approved by parliament before it expires. Former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, former Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and current Finance Minister Marie-Carmelle Jean-Marie are mentioned as possible candidates.
New York: a man shoots down two policemen then commits suicide
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man shot down on Saturday two policemen in New York before committing suicide, announced the head of the city’s police department. A message left by the gunman on the Internet evoked an act of vengeance for the death of an unarmed black man during an incident this summer with the New York law enforcement.
The shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a 28-year-old black man, fired a semiautomatic pistol at both policemen as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn, said William Bratton, accompanied with Mayor Bill de Blasio, during a press conference.
He then rushed into a subway station, where he shot himself in the head.
The two deceased policemen were called Rafael Ramos, age 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32 years old.
Before going to Brooklyn, Ismaaiyl Brinsley had shot and seriously injured his girlfriend, in Baltimore, Maryland, said William Bratton.
American media showed a message broadcasted on Saturday on Instagram and emanating apparently from the suspect, who uttered insults against the police: "I give wings to the pigs today. They take one of ours (...) Let us take two of theirs."
This message is accompanied with hashtags evoking Eric Garner and Michael Brown, the two black men who died this year in incidents involving white policemen, the first one in New York, and the second to Ferguson in the Missouri.
In both cases, Grand Juries decided not to charge the policemen.
These decisions provoked demonstrations in New York and in other cities of the United States to denounce the treatment of Blacks by the police and the apparent impunity enjoyed by law enforcement.
Suspended North Miami Mayor Convicted Of Mortgage Fraud
December 16, 2014
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A jury has convicted suspended North Miami Mayor Lucie Tondreau guilty on all counts of federal mortgage fraud.
Prosecutors say Tondreau and others conspired before she became mayor to defraud lenders using straw buyers, who obtained inflated loans for 20 properties. The scheme allegedly involved recruiting buyers through a radio program catering to Haitian-American listeners.
Tondreau’s business partner, Karl Oreste, previously pleaded guilty in the case.
Tondreau faces up to 30 years in prison during sentencing which is set for March 20th.