Haiti: Citizens mobilize against corruption
Several hundred people demonstrated in Port-au-Prince last Friday after a call was launched on social media to denounce the corruption and the shady management of funds lent to Haiti by Venezuela for more than a decade.
"When we see the scale of the poverty and the problems of the country regarding health, education, and environment, it is terrible to know that more than three billion dollars were wasted" said Bernard Gotchen, age 33.
In the middle of the crowd gathered in front of an administration building to oversee the management of the public money, Gotchen wears with pride his T-shirt which represented one of many slogasn shared on social media: "Kote kob Petrocaribe la?" (Where is the Petrocaribe money? In Creole)
The movement "Petrocaribe Challenge", launched in the middle of August on Twitter by Haitian personalities, called for Internet users to post photographs of themselves holding a sign requesting accountability.
This campaign of virtual citizens became a reality last Friday when several hundred people, most of them young people who had demonstrated before, took to the streets.
For 12 years, Haiti benefited from the Petrocaribe program, introduced by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The program allowed several Latin American and Caribbean countries to acquire petroleum products at a discounted cost, and to pay their invoices over 25 years at an interest rate of 1%.
"When Venezuela offered this program, it was certainly to help all of the small countries stop undergoing the big interest rates of the IMF and the other international authorities: they gave us a small interest rate so that we could develop. Thus, all those who stole the money have to go to prison," assured Gerdy Ithamar Pierre-Louis, a 23-year-old law student.
Chanting slogans demanding the arrest of corrupt leaders, numerous demonstrators brandished the portraits of former Secretaries and senior officials whom they accused of having badly managed, or otherwise spent for personal use, Petrocaribe funds.
In 2016 and in 2017, the Haitian senate conducted two inquiries on the misuse of about 2 billion dollars of this money. Dozens of former ministers from the party currently in power were investigated, but legal proceedings never followed.
"I am realistic: I know that there is no justice in my country and this is why we are here." Concludes Gerdy Ithamar.
DAVID BONTEMPS DIVES INTO THE ROOTS OF HAITIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC!
The pianist of Haitian origin from Quebec, David Bontemps, helps us discover the music of the " black Chopin " of Haiti.
Indeed, with the album Gede Nibo, he is inspired by a piano composition written by the composer Ludovic Lamothe in 1934. He performs a series of variations which bring quite a new picture of the music stemming from the Pearl of the Antilles.
Bontemps, who is also a pianist and a founder of the group Montreal Creole jazz Makaya, shows himself as an interpreter seriously connected to the instrumental esthetics of classical music. He was trained in a classical piano program.
Bontemps ends the program with his composition Ankh ("life" in Egyptian hieroglyphic language), written just after the earthquake which destroyed Haiti in 2010.
France officially banished smartphones and tablets at schools
By: Amelie B Publié: in August 16th, 2018
Emmanuel Macron kept his promise. The use of smartphones and tablets in elementary schools and French middle schools is now history! The National Assembly recently passed a law forbidding the use of any electronic means of communication within schools, starting this school year.
It’s no secret. The use of smartphones and tablets within schools could be responsible for several problems linked to concentration. It may also have a very negative impact on the academy performance of the pupils that use them. This is why France decided to forbid its pupils in elementary and middle school from using their electronic devices within schools. This strict measure aims at improving the students’ performance, according to specialists.
Starting next month, children and teenagers under age 15 can no longer answer their messages on Facebook, nor glance at Snapchat videos of their friends! The use of smartphones and tablets is forbidden from now on in schools, and those who dare to break this law will receive heavy penalties. Did the French become too strict with their pupils? Not really … when we know all the damage which the addiction to mobile phones can cause.