7PM IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW
Anyone feel free to join me here. Im thoroughly disgusted with tv. Ill post a few links from some online sources Ive been perusing.
Video from Miami Herald… Haitians react to Robertson’s idiotic remarks. My advice: skip past the replay of Robertson (about the first minute) or just turn down the volume while you get your kleenex.
Big News: Obama Grants Haitians Illegally in U.S. ‘Protected Status’ for 18 Months (ABC News) h/t thank you Dexter!
The announcement to grant “temporary protective status,” or TPS, to Haitian nationals allows immigrants already in the U.S. to live and work freely here until conditions in Haiti improve. After 18 months the status could be revoked.
“This is a disaster of historic proportions and this designation will allow eligible Haitian nationals in the United States to continue living and working in our country for the next 18 months,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced late today on a conference call. “Providing a temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who are currently in the United States and whose personal safety would be endangered by returning to Haiti is part of this Administration’s continuing efforts to support Haiti’s recovery.”
Napolitano estimated that there are 100,000 to 200,000 Haitian nationals currently in the country illegally.
“TPS gives them sort of an intermediate immigration status,” said the secretary. “It allows them — only for a period of 18 months, while Haiti gets back on its feet — to remain in the United States and authorizes them to work during that period, among other things.”
Im wandering all over the place.
I thought some of you might find this old (2005) article from Naomi Klein interesting: Aristide in Exile.
A few weeks ago I visited Aristide in Pretoria, South Africa, where he lives in forced exile. I asked him what was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington. He offered an explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics–actually, he offered three: “privatization, privatization and privatization.”
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Im very annoyed at the media buzz about looting and violence. Taking food is not looting.
AP: Struggle to get aid to Haitians as looters roam.
It’s the Framing.
This sucks:
Looters roamed downtown streets, young men and boys with machetes. “They are scavenging everything. What can you do?” said Michel Legros, 53, as he waited for help to search for seven relatives buried in his collapsed house.
This is more like it:
“People who have not been eating or drinking for almost 50 hours and are already in a very poor situation,” U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva. “If they see a truck with something, or if they see a supermarket which has collapsed, they just rush to get something to eat.”
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Miami Herald: Port-au-Prince airport `chaos’ keeps relief supplies on ground in Miami
Man, what a logistical nightmare.
Two military planes from Washington, D.C., landed in Port-au-Prince overnight, as did six passenger jets, according to computerized flight data and interviews. But the bulk of the planned airlift of relief supplies — much of it scheduled to leave Miami International — had yet to begin Friday, cargo executives said.
The main problem: a logistical mess at the Port-au-Prince airport, which was left with working runways but a severely damaged control tower and terminal. While the U.S. military is now guiding in planes, the damaged terminal facilities make unloading cargo extremely tedious, the executives said.
Because cargo planes sit so high off the ground and bring in massive freight pallets, workers need industrial equipment to unload the holds. But the Haitian airport, which typically receives only a few cargo planes a day, saw its small collection of equipment damaged in the quake, executives said.
The U.S. military has been bringing in fork lifts and other equipment, but the influx has not been enough to meet the dozens if not hundreds of flights lined up by relief agencies and their corporate sponsors.
Along with unloading the planes, there’s also concern about how to transport the material to Haitians. A big worry: attacks on food convoys by criminal elements or the desperate.
snip
On the pallets: red and black beans, fortified rice, cooking oil, infant formula, syringes, bandages and other medical equipment.
OH. Look. Another diary at GOS re TPS, please go rec it if thats your thing. h/t Robert Naiman, theres an editorial at WaPo and also NYT urging Obama admin to grant temporary protected status for Haitians here.
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of the death and destruction.
There seems to be a logistical nightmare–between the damaged infrastructure, including at the airport; and the lack of one definitive, easily identified leader to coordination between the multitude of relief groups responding to the disaster.
Despite all the roadblocks, help does seem to be slowly getting to the people.
Though the waiting is painful and frustrating for those of us watching far from the scene, it must be excruciating for those who are there in the midst of the disaster. Yet, they are showing such fortitude in the face of this latest tragedy to befall them.
Hopefully, the glitches can be ironed out very soon, and help–including medical care, shelter, food and water, etc.–will get to the people quickly.
Good job. It is hard to get a handle on this catastrophe, no matter where you are.
has good info and had a blog up. We drove to NN09 together. She has done relief work in Haiti and had a diary up at Dkos.
that seems to be abundant, as shown on some of the news reports.
On CNN, they have been, and are currently reporting on the way the dead have been left lying in the streets, and/or taken to a mass dump site. Appallingly, still–into day three of this nightmare, no one seems to have established any method of attempting to documenting the identity of these individuals for the sake of their surviving family members. Reporters with cameras show this horror, yet none of them seem to realize that they could, after making their public report–film the faces of the dead, and document the date, and the location, then turn the video over to the American embassy, and/or the Haitian government, so that at a future date their families could review the pictures, if they wish to–just so they will know what happened to their loved ones.
Maybe some of them are doing more than just reporting publicly, but I’d hope that after the many disasters that have happened in recent years, we’d have examined the failures of the previous events, and try to have a better plan for the next one. I realize that each event has unique issues–geographical, government entities, etc., but how sad that five years after Katrina, so many families will still have to face the fact that their loved ones are missing, but not ever knowing exactly where their bodies are.
WTF!
5.6 magnitude quake hits the State owned oil refinery!
Just heard something to the effect that doctors and nurses are being located in a specific area?????? (Looking for more on it!) TMC — know anything about this?
Sec Napolitano announced at 5pm est that they are extending TPS to Haitians. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
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Been awol most of today and havent read/seen much (except for the unfortunate experience of waking up to my husband telling me to come watch the Three Stooges this morning on TV)… anyway… heres this.
Haiti: MSF Surgical Activities Are Non-Stop; Needs Remain Huge
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Logistics of MSF’s Intervention 01/15/10
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not a news update, something else. a blogpost. makes sense.