BANGKOK, Jan 19 (Bernama) -- Thailand's Cabinet on Tuesday gave a greenlight to provide US$100,000 to quake-hit Haiti, and will also send 20,000 tonnes of rice to help victims there following estimates that two million people urgently need food aid, according to Thai News Agency.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said after Tuesday's Cabinet meeting that the additional aid was approved after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs donated an initial grant of US$20,000 last week.
The foreign ministry earlier sought Cabinet approval of medium-term financial assistance to Haiti as the Thai law does not allow the ministry itself to approve any budget over US$30,000.
The premier said 20,000 tonnes of rice will also be sent there. After detailed discussions with the United Nations, Thailand will also send a medical team into the devastated area.
"Those who want to help the quake victims can donate through Krung Thai Bank, Government House Branch, account number 0057-65-7 or call hotline telephone number 1111," said Abhisit.
The premier added that a donation centre to help Haitians will be set up near Makkawanrangsan Bridge from January 20 though February 3, open every day.
Abhisit assigned Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office Veerachai Veerametheekul to coordinate with the foreign ministry in providing help the quake-hit people in Haiti.
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya earlier said that the ministry is consulting with agencies concerned to provide assistance to benefit a spectrum of victims, and that he has asked the Mexican government to help procure and deliver supplies in need on behalf of the Thai government to affected Haitians with Thailand's financial assistance.
The foreign ministry reported that eight Thais living in Haiti were safe after a 7.0 magnitude quake hit southern Haiti last Tuesday killing some 50,000 people and affected some two million people. There are fears that the death toll could reach 200,000.
Source:bernama.com/
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sandra Bullock Donates $1 Million to Haiti Relief
Golden Globe winner Sandra Bullock has turned anything but a Blind Side to the situation in Haiti – and has donated $1 million in relief aid to the victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake, which is now estimated to have killed 200,000 people and left 1.5 million people homeless.
Bullock's contribution matches those by George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, reports Variety. The trade paper also notes that Gisele Bündchen has pledged $1.5 million to Haiti, while Madonna says she has given $250,000.
The gifts come as the star roster for Friday's multi-network Hope for Haiti telethon, organized and to be co-hosted by Clooney and Wyclef Jean, continues to expand. Among those set to perform now include Christina Aguilera, Bono, Alicia Keys, Sting and Justin Timberlake. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts have already been announced as answering the phones during the telethon.
The special will air live from Los Angeles and New York at 8 p.m. ET on MTV, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, BET, The CW and HBO, among other networks. Donations will benefit Haiti relief efforts by the Red Cross, UNICEF, the Yele Haiti Foundation, Oxfam America and Partners in Health and be divided evenly among the groups.
On Monday, a tearful Jean defended his foundation against allegations that he profited from donations to the Yele.
RELATED: How Telethons Help: Haiti Will Be Clooney's Third
Reaching Out with Help
Others heeding the call to action include Taylor Swift and Ashley Judd, who already helped the University of Kentucky (Judd's alma mater) raise $1 million during a 4½-hour Hoops for Haiti telethon on Lexington's WKYT-TV.
U2 has also penned a song for a separate Haiti relief event being organized by Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz.
Major League Baseball also hopped on the bandwagon, pledging a $1 million starter donation. The New York Yankees came forward with $500,000, and the Toronto Blue Jay owners Rogers Communications gave $250,000 in cash and goods.
And some stars are literally giving the clothes off their backs to help the effort. Meryl Streep, Gerard Butler, Amy Poehler and Olivia Wilde are donating the outfits they wore at Sunday's Golden Globes to Artists for Peace and Justice, which will auction the outfits to the public on eBay next week.
Source:people.com/
Bullock's contribution matches those by George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, reports Variety. The trade paper also notes that Gisele Bündchen has pledged $1.5 million to Haiti, while Madonna says she has given $250,000.
The gifts come as the star roster for Friday's multi-network Hope for Haiti telethon, organized and to be co-hosted by Clooney and Wyclef Jean, continues to expand. Among those set to perform now include Christina Aguilera, Bono, Alicia Keys, Sting and Justin Timberlake. Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts have already been announced as answering the phones during the telethon.
The special will air live from Los Angeles and New York at 8 p.m. ET on MTV, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, BET, The CW and HBO, among other networks. Donations will benefit Haiti relief efforts by the Red Cross, UNICEF, the Yele Haiti Foundation, Oxfam America and Partners in Health and be divided evenly among the groups.
On Monday, a tearful Jean defended his foundation against allegations that he profited from donations to the Yele.
RELATED: How Telethons Help: Haiti Will Be Clooney's Third
Reaching Out with Help
Others heeding the call to action include Taylor Swift and Ashley Judd, who already helped the University of Kentucky (Judd's alma mater) raise $1 million during a 4½-hour Hoops for Haiti telethon on Lexington's WKYT-TV.
U2 has also penned a song for a separate Haiti relief event being organized by Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz.
Major League Baseball also hopped on the bandwagon, pledging a $1 million starter donation. The New York Yankees came forward with $500,000, and the Toronto Blue Jay owners Rogers Communications gave $250,000 in cash and goods.
And some stars are literally giving the clothes off their backs to help the effort. Meryl Streep, Gerard Butler, Amy Poehler and Olivia Wilde are donating the outfits they wore at Sunday's Golden Globes to Artists for Peace and Justice, which will auction the outfits to the public on eBay next week.
Source:people.com/
Buried in Haiti rubble, U.S. dad wrote goodbyes
But with iPhone info, he treated his injuries and was rescued after 65 hours
The words on the pages of the plain black notebook are written in a semi-scrawl, punctuated by smears of blood — stark evidence of the desperation in which they were written.
Sitting with his wife, Christina, in Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, Dan Woolley showed the notebook to TODAY’s Meredith Vieira via satellite hookup Tuesday. Trapped for 65 hours under tons of wreckage in the lobby of his hotel by Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake and knowing he could die, Woolley had written notes to his two young boys and his wife.
“I always wanted to survive, but I knew that was something that I couldn’t control. So I decided if I had to go, I wanted to leave some last notes for them,” Woolley said. Opening the book and fighting his emotions, he read an entry he addressed to his sons, Josh, 6, and Nathan, 3:
“I was in a big accident. Don’t be upset at God. He always provides for his children, even in hard times. I’m still praying that God will get me out, but He may not. But He will always take care of you.”
‘Boy, I cried’
Woolley had taken refuge in an elevator shaft, where he used an iPhone first-aid app to treat a compound fracture of his leg and a cut on his head. He had already used his digital SLR camera’s focusing light to illuminate his surroundings, and taken pictures of the wreckage to help find a safe place to wait to be rescued — or to die.
Writing the notes to his wife and children wasn’t easy, the deeply religious man said.
“Boy, I cried,” he admitted. “Obviously, no one wants to come to that point. I also didn’t want to just get found after having some time — God gave me some time — to think and to pray and to come to grips with the reality. I wanted to use that time to do everything I could for my family. If that could be surviving, get out, then I would. If it could be just to leave some notes that would help them in life, I would do that.”
Woolley had been working for Compassion International, a mission organization, making a film about the impact of poverty on the people of Haiti. He and a colleague, David Hames, had just returned to the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince from a day of filming when the earthquake struck.
TODAY
Stained with his blood, Dan Woolley’s notes contained messages of faith in God.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I just saw the walls rippling and just explosive sounds all around me,” Woolley told Vieira. “It all happened incredibly fast. David yelled out, ‘It’s an earthquake,’ and we both lunged and everything turned dark.”
Awaiting his fate
Woolley is nearsighted and lost his glasses in the quake. But by using the focusing light on his camera and taking pictures, he was able to figure out where he was and where to go. And thanks to the iPhone first-aid app he’d downloaded, he knew how to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound. The app also warned him not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cell phone’s alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes.
And then for 65 hours, he waited for whatever fate had in store for him.
Video
Hunger spurs violence in Haiti quake aftermath
Jan. 19: U.N. peacekeepers quell looting with tear gas and rubber bullets as survivors grow more desperate and hungry. NBC’s Lester Holt reports from Port-au-Prince.
Today show
Woolley attributes his survival and rescue by a French rescue team to divine providence. One other member of Woolley’s team was also rescued, but as of Tuesday, Hames had not been found.
The Hotel Montana is also where a student group from Florida’s Lynn University was staying. Four of those students remain missing along with two faculty advisers.
“A lot of people were praying for safety for this trip, and I was working for Compassion International,” Woolley said. “A lot of prayers go out for the work that we do, so I believe that God was present with me and He decided he wanted me to survive, and so He was with me and helped me in those moments.”
Moments of despair
While Woolley concentrated on surviving, his wife, Christina, struggled to cling to hope — not always successfully.
TODAY
Trapped under six stories of rubble, Dan Woolley wrote farewell notes to his wife, Christina, and their two young sons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I went through moments of despair,” Christina admitted to Vieira. “I gave up several times, and I thought I’d never see Dan again.”
But, like her husband, Christina said her faith sustained her. She said she had a certain knowledge that “wherever Dan was, God was holding Dan in the palm of his hand. I just didn’t know if that was in Haiti or in heaven. I was begging God that Dan would still be in Haiti.”
On Tuesday, four days after his rescue, Dan and Christina were eagerly looking forward to returning to their Colorado Springs home and reuniting with their sons.
“That’s going to be a very emotional experience,” said Dan, who just a few days ago was writing those blood-smeared notes to the boys. “I’ve spoken to them on the phone several times, but to just hug their heads and touch their curly hair and just love on them and wrestle with them — as long as they don’t hurt my leg — it’s going to be amazing, a dream come true.”
Source:today.msnbc.msn.com/i
The words on the pages of the plain black notebook are written in a semi-scrawl, punctuated by smears of blood — stark evidence of the desperation in which they were written.
Sitting with his wife, Christina, in Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, Dan Woolley showed the notebook to TODAY’s Meredith Vieira via satellite hookup Tuesday. Trapped for 65 hours under tons of wreckage in the lobby of his hotel by Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake and knowing he could die, Woolley had written notes to his two young boys and his wife.
“I always wanted to survive, but I knew that was something that I couldn’t control. So I decided if I had to go, I wanted to leave some last notes for them,” Woolley said. Opening the book and fighting his emotions, he read an entry he addressed to his sons, Josh, 6, and Nathan, 3:
“I was in a big accident. Don’t be upset at God. He always provides for his children, even in hard times. I’m still praying that God will get me out, but He may not. But He will always take care of you.”
‘Boy, I cried’
Woolley had taken refuge in an elevator shaft, where he used an iPhone first-aid app to treat a compound fracture of his leg and a cut on his head. He had already used his digital SLR camera’s focusing light to illuminate his surroundings, and taken pictures of the wreckage to help find a safe place to wait to be rescued — or to die.
Writing the notes to his wife and children wasn’t easy, the deeply religious man said.
“Boy, I cried,” he admitted. “Obviously, no one wants to come to that point. I also didn’t want to just get found after having some time — God gave me some time — to think and to pray and to come to grips with the reality. I wanted to use that time to do everything I could for my family. If that could be surviving, get out, then I would. If it could be just to leave some notes that would help them in life, I would do that.”
Woolley had been working for Compassion International, a mission organization, making a film about the impact of poverty on the people of Haiti. He and a colleague, David Hames, had just returned to the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince from a day of filming when the earthquake struck.
TODAY
Stained with his blood, Dan Woolley’s notes contained messages of faith in God.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I just saw the walls rippling and just explosive sounds all around me,” Woolley told Vieira. “It all happened incredibly fast. David yelled out, ‘It’s an earthquake,’ and we both lunged and everything turned dark.”
Awaiting his fate
Woolley is nearsighted and lost his glasses in the quake. But by using the focusing light on his camera and taking pictures, he was able to figure out where he was and where to go. And thanks to the iPhone first-aid app he’d downloaded, he knew how to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound. The app also warned him not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cell phone’s alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes.
And then for 65 hours, he waited for whatever fate had in store for him.
Video
Hunger spurs violence in Haiti quake aftermath
Jan. 19: U.N. peacekeepers quell looting with tear gas and rubber bullets as survivors grow more desperate and hungry. NBC’s Lester Holt reports from Port-au-Prince.
Today show
Woolley attributes his survival and rescue by a French rescue team to divine providence. One other member of Woolley’s team was also rescued, but as of Tuesday, Hames had not been found.
The Hotel Montana is also where a student group from Florida’s Lynn University was staying. Four of those students remain missing along with two faculty advisers.
“A lot of people were praying for safety for this trip, and I was working for Compassion International,” Woolley said. “A lot of prayers go out for the work that we do, so I believe that God was present with me and He decided he wanted me to survive, and so He was with me and helped me in those moments.”
Moments of despair
While Woolley concentrated on surviving, his wife, Christina, struggled to cling to hope — not always successfully.
TODAY
Trapped under six stories of rubble, Dan Woolley wrote farewell notes to his wife, Christina, and their two young sons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I went through moments of despair,” Christina admitted to Vieira. “I gave up several times, and I thought I’d never see Dan again.”
But, like her husband, Christina said her faith sustained her. She said she had a certain knowledge that “wherever Dan was, God was holding Dan in the palm of his hand. I just didn’t know if that was in Haiti or in heaven. I was begging God that Dan would still be in Haiti.”
On Tuesday, four days after his rescue, Dan and Christina were eagerly looking forward to returning to their Colorado Springs home and reuniting with their sons.
“That’s going to be a very emotional experience,” said Dan, who just a few days ago was writing those blood-smeared notes to the boys. “I’ve spoken to them on the phone several times, but to just hug their heads and touch their curly hair and just love on them and wrestle with them — as long as they don’t hurt my leg — it’s going to be amazing, a dream come true.”
Source:today.msnbc.msn.com/i
Senegal: President Wade rethinks aid to Haiti
Last weekend, President Wade announced his government’s offer of repatriation and land to Haitians who wants to settle in Senegal. He said his government will build housing estates for the Haitians if they ‘come in small numbers or an entire region if they come en masse’.
After intense criticism from the Senegalese people, President Wade told RNW that his offer was just ‘a proposition and not a decision’. He said he will present his proposition to the African Union (AU) and that members of the union will discuss and make final decision.
Most Senegalese people are without a plot of land and they live in abject poverty. Many described the president’s land offer to Haitians as an insult to the poor Senegalese.
President Wade is known for retracting his statements.
Source:rnw.nl/
Haitian gang members profit from disaster and confusion, re-establish presence in slums
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — "If you don't kill the criminals, they will all come back," a Haitian police officer shouts over a loudspeaker in the country's most notorious slum, imploring citizens to take justice into their own hands.
The call for vigilantes comes as influential gang leaders who escaped from a heavily damaged prison during the country's killer earthquake are taking advantage of a void left by police and peacekeepers focused on disaster relief.
In the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, gangsters are settling into the haunts they dominated before being locked up and resuming struggles for control that never really ended once they were inside the walls of the city's notorious main penitentiary.
"The trouble is starting," said Jean-Semaine Delice, a 51-year-old father from Cite Soleil. "People are starting to leave their homes to go to others."
As police urged residents to fight criminals themselves, Delice said, "I think it's a message we should listen to."
There is the potential for violence in any disaster zone where food and medical aid are unable to keep up with fast-growing hunger and mass casualties. But the danger is multiplied in Haiti, where self-designated rebels and freedom fighters - or simply neighbourhood toughs - have consistently threatened the country's fragile stability with a few weapons, some spare money for handouts and the ire of disaffected throngs.
"Even as we are digging bodies out of buildings, they are trying to attack our officers," Cite Soleil police inspector Aristide Rosemond said, surrounded by officers wielding automatic weapons.
Neighbourhood residents say three people died and several women were raped in a small-scale turf war that gangsters nicknamed "Belony" and "Bled" launched in the seaside slum in the days following last Tuesday's quake.
People who live here have been told not to count on security forces for help.
The Brazilian peacekeeping unit assigned to Cite Soleil lost 18 of its 145 soldiers in the earthquake. Ten perished when the "Blue House" - a landmark concrete tower converted into a U.N. post near the slum's entrance - collapsed, leaving weapons and equipment readily available to fast-acting looters.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission also lost its chief, deputy chief and acting police commander.
The police lost an uncounted number of personnel and equipment, leaving a group of officers who in large part are just recently recruited and trained.
"The problem is they have weapons ... so we cannot send the population or (just) any policemen" to capture them, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press on Monday.
Bob Perito, co-ordinator of Haiti programs for the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace think-tank , said concerns about the gangs are legitimate - in the long run.
In the more immediate future, "the gangs may be more of a nuisance," Perito said in an interview from his Washington office.
"They are not going to challenge the U.S. military," he said. "But when the U.S. decides the emergency is over and goes home, will the reconstituted U.N. peacekeeping force have the coherence necessary to suppress the problem?"
There are 1,700 U.S. troops on the ground in Haiti and 2,000 Marines off shore.
Security has always been precarious in Cite Soleil, although it is far calmer then the days when it became a war zone, during the 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
On Monday, Brazilian peacekeepers drove from one food-distribution point to another as women, children and older men jockeyed to fill their buckets from a spouting broken water main. The gang members stayed out of sight.
The scene was drastically different Sunday, when a man robbed a motorcyclist's bag of rice with a .38-calibre pistol in broad daylight and residents swapped stories of gangs equipped with heavy automatic weapons coming out of hiding even as U.S. military cargo planes rumbled overhead.
Bellerive said he has met with U.N. peacekeepers, police and the newly arrived U.S. Army to discuss ways of combating the escaped convicts. Tactics thus far have included distributing photos and tracking the gangsters, which has led to some arrests.
But it is not a top priority, even though officials estimate as many as 4,000 prisoners escaped from the main prison.
"We are not worried about one or two guys," Brazilian battalion spokesman Col. Alan Sampaio Santos said. "Later on we can go after them."
Until then, much of the neighbourhood's security will be in the hands of local populations, who are forming night brigades and machete-armed mobs to fight bandits across the capital.
Source:AFP
The call for vigilantes comes as influential gang leaders who escaped from a heavily damaged prison during the country's killer earthquake are taking advantage of a void left by police and peacekeepers focused on disaster relief.
In the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, gangsters are settling into the haunts they dominated before being locked up and resuming struggles for control that never really ended once they were inside the walls of the city's notorious main penitentiary.
"The trouble is starting," said Jean-Semaine Delice, a 51-year-old father from Cite Soleil. "People are starting to leave their homes to go to others."
As police urged residents to fight criminals themselves, Delice said, "I think it's a message we should listen to."
There is the potential for violence in any disaster zone where food and medical aid are unable to keep up with fast-growing hunger and mass casualties. But the danger is multiplied in Haiti, where self-designated rebels and freedom fighters - or simply neighbourhood toughs - have consistently threatened the country's fragile stability with a few weapons, some spare money for handouts and the ire of disaffected throngs.
"Even as we are digging bodies out of buildings, they are trying to attack our officers," Cite Soleil police inspector Aristide Rosemond said, surrounded by officers wielding automatic weapons.
Neighbourhood residents say three people died and several women were raped in a small-scale turf war that gangsters nicknamed "Belony" and "Bled" launched in the seaside slum in the days following last Tuesday's quake.
People who live here have been told not to count on security forces for help.
The Brazilian peacekeeping unit assigned to Cite Soleil lost 18 of its 145 soldiers in the earthquake. Ten perished when the "Blue House" - a landmark concrete tower converted into a U.N. post near the slum's entrance - collapsed, leaving weapons and equipment readily available to fast-acting looters.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission also lost its chief, deputy chief and acting police commander.
The police lost an uncounted number of personnel and equipment, leaving a group of officers who in large part are just recently recruited and trained.
"The problem is they have weapons ... so we cannot send the population or (just) any policemen" to capture them, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press on Monday.
Bob Perito, co-ordinator of Haiti programs for the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace think-tank , said concerns about the gangs are legitimate - in the long run.
In the more immediate future, "the gangs may be more of a nuisance," Perito said in an interview from his Washington office.
"They are not going to challenge the U.S. military," he said. "But when the U.S. decides the emergency is over and goes home, will the reconstituted U.N. peacekeeping force have the coherence necessary to suppress the problem?"
There are 1,700 U.S. troops on the ground in Haiti and 2,000 Marines off shore.
Security has always been precarious in Cite Soleil, although it is far calmer then the days when it became a war zone, during the 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
On Monday, Brazilian peacekeepers drove from one food-distribution point to another as women, children and older men jockeyed to fill their buckets from a spouting broken water main. The gang members stayed out of sight.
The scene was drastically different Sunday, when a man robbed a motorcyclist's bag of rice with a .38-calibre pistol in broad daylight and residents swapped stories of gangs equipped with heavy automatic weapons coming out of hiding even as U.S. military cargo planes rumbled overhead.
Bellerive said he has met with U.N. peacekeepers, police and the newly arrived U.S. Army to discuss ways of combating the escaped convicts. Tactics thus far have included distributing photos and tracking the gangsters, which has led to some arrests.
But it is not a top priority, even though officials estimate as many as 4,000 prisoners escaped from the main prison.
"We are not worried about one or two guys," Brazilian battalion spokesman Col. Alan Sampaio Santos said. "Later on we can go after them."
Until then, much of the neighbourhood's security will be in the hands of local populations, who are forming night brigades and machete-armed mobs to fight bandits across the capital.
Source:AFP
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