Local Missionary known around the world killed in Haiti
HENDERSON, Tenn. -- A West Tennessee church mourns the loss of one of their own missionaries, Roberta Edwards, who was killed on a mission trip in Haiti.
"We cannot measure all the lives that she has touched through all the ways she will be missed," Dr. Jessee Robertson said.
An undescribeable tragedy thousands of miles away and is now hitting close to home for a West Tennessee community and church.
"There are thousands of people today who know Roberta and who appreciated her work, who are touched tearful and prayerful," Dr. Robertson said.
Edwards was overseen by the Estes Church of Christ and was on a mission trip in Haiti.
However, on Saturday night, that mission turned violent when she was killed by a group of armed gunman.
"It's been more than once over the years that heartbreaking things have happened in our mission work, and this is the most heartbreaking that we can imagine," Dr. Robertson said.
Edwards was the director at SonLight Children's home in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.
It's a place where church leaders say she was called 'Mom' by 20 foster children.
"The strength of her personality and the strength of her will and her faith produce in her a person to keep going when other people would have quit a long time ago," Dr. Robertson said.
Edwards also ran a nutritional center feeding 160 children two meals a day, 5 days a week in Haiti.
Estes Church of Christ Minister Dr. Jesse Robertson knew Edwards for more than 15 years. He says in the amount of time Edwards was overseen by the church since 2002, she accomplished things that seemed impossible sometimes.
Violinist Romel Joseph, survivor of Haiti earthquake, dies at 56
Buried in the Haiti earthquake of 2010, musician Romel Joseph recalled concertos to keep his sanity.
Superstar Stevie Wonder sent the internationally known musician his keyboard to help the healing process
Joseph, father to two musicians, died Oct. 5 of a stroke in his native Haiti
Romel Joseph, a blind violinist who survived the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti after spending 18 hours pinned under concrete, played the violin at the rehabilitation center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in March 2010, just a few months after treatment. Alexia Fodere For The Miami Herald
BY HOWARD COHEN
Music saved Antoine Romel Joseph’s life. In particular,
My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music.
“That’s the song that saved me,” Joseph told the Miami Herald from Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital in March 2010, two months after he was buried in the rubble of the Haiti earthquake.
BY HOWARD COHEN
Music saved Antoine Romel Joseph’s life. In particular, My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music.
“That’s the song that saved me,” Joseph told the Miami Herald from Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital in March 2010, two months after he was buried in the rubble of the Haiti earthquake.
More than five years after capturing the hearts of the world with his tale of survival and pluck, Joseph, born nearly blind in Gros Mornes, Haiti, has died at 56.
On Oct. 5, his daughter Victoria posted a message on Facebook asking for prayers for her father who had suffered a stroke while in Haiti. Hours later, the social media site turned into a memorial, filled with messages of condolence.
“I think for a lot of people, he kind of became the face of survival,” said Jennifer Piedra, director of communications at Jackson Health System. Piedra befriended Joseph and his children, musicians Victoria and Bradley, who survive him, almost immediately after Joseph was airlifted to the hospital.
“He was one of the first patients I met, and from that first moment I knew that this man was extremely special,” she said. “He had been through this horribly traumatic situation and yet he was so positive. He had lost his wife, but he was already talking about getting better so he could play his music again and rebuild his school. That was his mission in life — to help others.”
Marco Rubio: U.S. Needs to Ensure Fair Democratic Elections in Haiti
From his perch as chairman of the U.S. Senate Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., weighed in on Tuesday as U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry heads to Haiti.
“It’s important Secretary Kerry use this visit to renew the United States’ commitment to assisting Haiti in conducting a free, fair and inclusive presidential and parliamentary election later this month,” Rubio said. “The United States has provided support to Haiti in carrying out its earlier first round of parliamentary elections in August, and now we should provide technical support throughout the upcoming elections to ensure that every Haitian vote is counted.
“The U.S. government should continue working with the Haitian government to guarantee that polls are open and free of violence on election day, and we should encourage the Haitian people to participate in deciding their future,” Rubio added. “The Haitian people deserve to have their voices heard and to be represented by a leader of their choice.”
UN Wants Another Year for Haiti Peacekeeping Mission
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. secretary-general is recommending that the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti stay for another year — which might be its final one.
The head of the mission, Sandra Honore, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that Ban Ki-moon wants the peacekeeping mission to extend for a year to help Haiti complete its upcoming round of elections.
She says the mission also will help the country with an "orderly and sustainable" transfer to having national authorities assume responsibility for future elections.
Honore told reporters that she is urging all parties in Haiti to avoid the kind of violent disruptions that marred legislative elections last month.
The Security Council will consider the mission's mandate later this month. The mission had more than 4,500 uniformed personnel as of late June.
How career of Upstate Medical's new president was shaped by Haitian roots,
Syracuse, N.Y. -- Dr. Danielle Laraque-Arena, Upstate Medical University's incoming president, says the bitter poverty of Haiti and her family's political exile from that Carribean country shaped her career.
Laraque-Arena, 60, who will become Upstate's first woman president in January, was born in Haiti and came to the U.S. at age 7 when her parents fled Haiti for political reasons.
Upstate Medical President Dr. Danielle Laraque-Arena on health care (video)Dr. Danielle Laraque-Arena, who will become the new president of Upstate Medical University in January 2016, talks about health care in the United States.
Paul Laraque, her late father, was a noted Haitian poet and outspoken critic of former Haiti dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, whose regime terrorized political opponents and murdered about 30,000 Haitians.
Her father tried to inspire change by writing poetry that explored the suffering of the Haitian people.
Laraque-Arena, a pediatrician, said during an interview at Upstate today she decided at age 12 to change peoples' lives in a different way -- through medicine and research.
After they came to the U.S., Laraque's family lived in Queens. She said she grew up in a house filled with books and spoke French, Creole – the languages of Haiti -- and English. Her parents did now allow English to be spoken at home so Laraque-Arena and her two brothers would preserve their culture. Laraque-Arena said she learned her work ethic from her mother, who was a clerk at the United Nations.
"My parents were an incredible influence on my life," Laraque-Arena said. "That mission to serve the poor, not in a charity way, but in a way that people have the right to health care, and live OK and send their kids to school, that's a message I got from the very beginning."
Laraque-Arena is chair of the pediatrics department at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City and a pediatrics professor at Yeshiva University. She will take over Jan. 14 from Upstate's interim president Dr. Gregory Eastwood, who filled the role after Dr. David Smith resigned under fire two years ago after being accused of padding his pay.
Laraque-Arena is an expert in child abuse, injury prevention and providing care to underserved communities. SUNY appointed her to the Upstate post last month. Her annual pay will be $600,000.
Laraque-Arena's decision to take the job at Upstate also stems from the lesson she learned from her parents. "This is an incredibility opportunity to bring the best of science and technology to look at how to improve both individual health and population health," she said.
Laraque-Arena is married to Dr. Luigi Arena, a radiologist. They have two children, one in law school and one in medical school.
As a leader, Laraque-Arena says, "I'm never indecisive."
"I like collaboration and I like a diversity of input. I think we are stronger if we can see things from different perspectives," she said. "Fairness is important. And not losing sight of the reason I'm coming here is important."
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Dominican merchants shutter biggest border market to protest Haiti ban on overland imports
October 9, 2015 4:22 PM
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Merchants in the Dominican Republic have shuttered the biggest border market for trade with Haiti amid that country's ban on some goods entering overland.
Haiti has banned 23 products from crossing by land its border with the Dominican Republic, seeking to improve tax collection and ensure better quality control. As of Oct. 1, such things as drinking water, flour and construction materials can arrive only by air or sea.
On Friday, Dominican traders in the market town of Dajabon began a strike to pressure Haiti to scrap its ban. Union leader Freddy Morillo says the work freeze at Dajabon is "indefinite."
The banned goods represent $500 million in annual sales and make up 6 percent of all Dominican exports. The Dominican government has complained to the World Trade Organization.
Against the restrictions from Haiti, DR gets support from several countries
The Dominican Chancellor Andrés Navarro and José Del Castillo Saviñón, the Dominican Minister of Industry and Trade reiterated the discriminatory nature of the decision of the Haitian government to prohibit entry by land of 23 Dominican products.
Andrés Navarro stressed that this decision came into force on 1 Octoberhttp://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-15156-haiti-notice-import-ban-by-road-of-certain-products-from-dr.html violated among others, the MoU signed between the two countries in July 2013, recalling that this unilateral decision had not been previously notified to the relevant Dominican authorities, while Article 12 of the Memorandum stipulates that "the parties must notify all rules and legal instruments concerning trade before their implementation and timely to the ministry in charge of industry and commerce."
The two Ministers also reiterated that the decision of the Haitian Government, has been submitted for prior notice, on 29 September, before the Committee of access to the markets of World Trade Organization (WTO), which gave them its support , agreeing that the prohibition by the Haitian government of land transport of Dominican products, represented a commercial limitation between the two countries.
Note that in its efforts, the Dominican Republic has received the support of several countries in the region which include: Panama, Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia.
Chancellor Navarro said on the other hand, he had sent a diplomatic note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Haiti, through the Dominican Embassy, in which the right of the Republic of Haiti to establish controls on imports is recognized, but he challenges the unilateral measure applied for infringement including of the MOU with the Dominican Republic and the fact that this decision is discriminatory de facto, against Dominican products.