Dread thats the problem he keeps forgetting to break the Lithium pills in half and someone ripped him off for his thorazine

The nut cases I met of the evil empire while trying to help honest US citizens would say something even more stupid - so what?

Part of the criminal nature of many in the US?

Blut likes, for some reason, to maintain the US's reputation as the World's most hated and evil nation.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/5353416-worlds-most-evil-and-hated-country

S.

S.

A Quake-Scarred Nation Tries a Rural Road to Recovery

Andres Martinez Casares for The New York Times


Lufo Joslyn walked to church in October in rural Haiti.
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: December 24, 2011


PAPAYE, Haiti — For months after the earthquake that struck the capital, Manel Laurore pulled shattered bodies from his neighbors’ homes, hunkered in fetid refugee camps and scrounged for food and water.


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Andres Martinez Casares for The New York Times

A Haitian girl helped cook in a village. Reviving rural Haiti would wean the country off an overreliance on imported food.

Today, his main worries are when his bean, corn and plantain crops will come in.

“I will never go back to Port-au-Prince,” said Mr. Laurore, 32, a former shopkeeper who was sifting soil to plant a tomato garden, referring to the capital. “It left a strong pain inside. Here the work is hard, but you live in total peace.”

His work, on a 15-acre cooperative farm in Papaye, represents a small but promising success for an ambitious program being promoted by aid workers, government officials and international donors: saving the country by developing the countryside.

When the earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010, planners and visionaries here and abroad looked past the rubble and saw an opportunity to fix the structural problems that have kept Haiti stuck in poverty and instability. An idea that won early support was to shrink the overcrowded, underemployed, violence-ridden capital and revive the desiccated, disused farmland that had long been unable to feed the country.

“Decentralization is a critical cornerstone supporting my vision for a new Haiti,” President Michel Martelly told potential investors last month. “We want to strengthen and empower our rural communities and create new ones.”

But the vision has run up against Haitian reality: myriad economic and infrastructure deficiencies, the lack of credible opportunity in rural areas and the fading of international interest and funds.

Reviving rural Haiti would wean the country off an overreliance on imported food while creating jobs in the countryside, helping to discourage mass migration to urban sinkholes like Port-au-Prince. Before the quake, nearly a quarter of the population lived in the capital, where two-thirds of the labor force had no formal jobs and overcrowding was considered a major contributor to the quake’s estimated death toll of 300,000.

Tens of thousands of people fled Port-au-Prince for rural areas immediately after the quake, but most have since returned, American and Haitian government officials said, finding little opportunity and food to be scarce.

“We need to reverse the trend of people in rural areas moving to the city,” said Ari Toubo Ibrahim, the Haiti representative for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The organization says it believes that, with enough training and support, about a tenth of the 600,000 people still in earthquake camps could ultimately move to the countryside.

New factories are also part of the plan. A South Korean-run industrial park in the north, partly financed by the United States, is expected to open next year, providing at least 20,000 jobs.

But experts say agriculture is the nation’s biggest need.

Farming has declined to 25 percent of the economy today from 40 percent a decade ago, making Haiti more dependent on imported food. Today, the government says, 52 percent of the food Haitians eat comes from abroad, compared with 20 percent a few decades ago.

The decline in farming dates primarily to the mid-1980s, when the government encouraged urbanization, and it worsened under a trade embargo during political turmoil in the 1990s. When trade restrictions loosened, the market was flooded with cheap, foreign staples like American rice, Dominican poultry and milk, in powdered form, from as far away as Europe.

A series of storms in 2008 further wiped out farms, and riots over the soaring cost of food, owing to fluctuations in the world market, led lawmakers to oust the prime minister.

Recently, though, there have been signs of a potential turnaround. This month, the World Bank approved $50 million for agriculture projects. “When agriculture grows, gross domestic product grows,” said Diego Arias, an agriculture economist who analyzes Haiti at the World Bank.

Signature Haitian products like mangoes, coffee and cocoa are getting a burst of overseas attention, and BioTek, a Florida company, is awaiting approval from the new government on a long-awaited public-private plan to revive Haiti’s last remaining sugar mill, in Léogâne, one of the areas hit hardest by the quake.

Haitian specialty coffee is in demand in restaurants in New York, Miami and other American cities, and the Inter-American Development Bank, Nestlé and Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers have announced a $3 million effort to help 10,000 coffee farmers replant trees on denuded hills and increase production for both home consumption and export.

The American grocery chain Whole Foods has been selling a variety of mango indigenous to Haiti, and Lèt Agogo, a Haitian organization whose Haitian Creole name means Milk Aplenty, has stepped up a program to give cows and training to farmers and to process the milk into a sweetened drink that Haitian schoolchildren commonly consume.


The New York Times

In places like Papaye, efforts are being made to increase farming.


Taiwanese agronomists have expanded a program to help rice farmers increase their yields, though imported rice, much of it from the United States, is still far cheaper in markets than Haitian-grown rice.

But the challenges are staggering, and most concern money. Irrigation is lacking, and poorly constructed ports and roads disrupt the delivery of produce to domestic and international markets. Government efforts ground to a virtual halt for months last year after a political crisis swirled around a botched election.

Foreign aid has slowed to a trickle. Only 43 percent of the $4.59 billion promised has been received and disbursed, according to the United Nations.

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the body created to coordinate and prioritize aid, closed in October when its mandate expired, with little sign that it will be renewed. The panel, led by former President Bill Clinton, was set up to provide some assurance to international donors, wary of channeling aid to a historically corrupt Haitian government, that their money would be well spent.

Its departure raises questions about whether the remaining pledges will ever be fulfilled.

Haiti’s five-year agriculture plan developed after the quake has received only about half of its nearly $800 million budget. Haitian officials say the government actually needs $1 billion to $2 billion to carry out the plan.

The new agriculture minister, Hébert Docteur, said he hoped to carry out the program with whatever resources he had to help struggling farmers. “Too often they are trying with hand tools to get something from the land, but it is not nearly enough,” he said.

The United States has opened several training centers that aim to instruct hundreds of farmers in rudimentary practices often taken for granted in other countries.

Wansy Jean Poix, 36, a sorghum and corn farmer in La Tramblay, near Port-au-Prince, said he was accustomed to planting by simply tossing seeds on a large patch of ground. Now he plants in rows, to maximize the use of the land.

“We increased production so there is more for ourselves and to sell on market,” he said.

The experimental farm in Papaye, three hours from the capital, at once demonstrates the promise and the pitfalls that face the effort to expand farming beyond the hardiest takers.

The village was created last summer by Mouvman Peyizan Papay, one of the country’s largest peasant organizations, working with the Presbyterian and Unitarian Universalist Churches in the United States and other organizations. Together, they plan to build four more such farms in the central region.

The 10 families here grow their own food and have begun planting crops like corn and plantains to sell. Though the houses lack electricity, they are roomier than those many of them left in Port-au-Prince.

But the project has relied on substantial help to get off the ground. The total cost for the five villages will be $1.6 million, almost all of it from churches and nongovernmental organizations.

The United Nations is studying the project, but it is unclear how well it could be duplicated. Similar villages have been proposed elsewhere, but beyond the money, city dwellers have to believe that it is worth the effort to move their families to spend hours in the hot sun, hoeing and planting.

“If they have water, technical assistance and credit they can survive,” said Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, executive director of Mouvman Peyizan Papay.

Emmanuel Jean Pierre, 30, already has found that subsistence farming is not enough for him and has set up a small side business charging cellphones in the village using a solar battery he acquired in Port-au-Prince.

He complains of the back-breaking work and misses the energy of the city, the parties, the friends. But with work scarce there and his small grocery business destroyed in the quake, for now, he said, he will stick it out here.

“If I saw a big change in economic opportunity in Port-au-Prince I would probably go back,” he said. “But I would rather stay here all my life.”

London 2012: Triple jumper Samyr Laine gives Haiti hope

Page last updated at 06:39 GMT, Thursday, 5 January 2012


By Jimmy Smallwood
BBC Sport Samyr Laine Laine jumped an indoor personal best of 16.91m last season

At six foot two and weighing 185 pounds, triple jumper Samyr Laine seems every inch the all-American New Yorker he is by birth.

Yet Laine, who combines athletic prowess with a university education and qualifications as a lawyer, is fiercely proud of his adopted country of Haiti.

The tiny Caribbean state is still recovering after a huge earthquake left one million Haitians homeless in January 2010, and Laine hopes to play his part in that process by starring at the Olympic Games in 2012.

"Both my parents were born in Haiti, so that's how I'm able to compete for them," Laine told BBC Sport.
Laine on Haiti at London 2012
Continue reading the main story Samyr Laine

I feel I have the ability to make some noise in London. Whether that's as a finalist or top five or just jump far enough to open some eyes even if I don't get a medal, I feel like London is going to be pretty good for Haitian athletics

"I am a US citizen but when it comes to competing or representing Haiti I feel I am an ambassador on an international level. I wear my red and blue on my sleeve and the country is near and dear to me."

Aside from his track and field ability, Laine is a highly intelligent and driven individual.

For many years he combined training with studying at first Harvard University and then the University of Texas in search of legal qualifications. Last autumn Laine passed the New York bar exam, allowing him to practise as a professional attorney.

"My legs have an expiration date and my legal qualification and bar admittance don't," said Laine, explaining that at present his sporting career is the priority.

In such a competitive industry, Laine has had to combine his studies with continuing his development on the track. For many years he competed at Diamond League events against rivals who were able to commit to the sport full-time.

Only in the last 18 months has triple jumping taken over his life.

"Track and field wasn't a detriment to my law studies. Law school did detract from track and field for a little bit," Laine conceded.

"I'm fortunate now to be on the same level as the people I'm competing against. Now I consider myself a full-time triple jumper on a par with my competitors, I feel I have the ability to make some noise in London."
Laine on visiting Haiti
Continue reading the main story Haitian earthquake

I wanted to go and help out and answer the helplessness I felt when the earthquake occurred. I visited an orphanage in northern Haiti, just outside of Port-au-Prince where the earthquake was. We spent some time with the kids and taught them some athletics drills, which was fun. I also brought supplies and colouring books and things the kids could use and enjoy. We just let them know that we were thinking about them and that we wanted to help as much as possible

Although Laine's performance at the 2011 Pan American Games was disappointing - he failed to make the final - he still has high hopes for the year ahead.

As such a big part of a small Olympic team - "when London comes around I might be the only Haitian athlete" - Laine knows his individual endeavours can shine a light on the serious plight suffered by his countrymen in recent times.

"My family was affected by the earthquake," he said. "I have grandparents in Haiti and aunts and uncles too. It was a pretty nerve-wracking time for us. Fortunately everyone was OK and everyone survived, which was a blessing."

Not every Haitian was so fortunate. The massive quake - measured at 7.0 on the Richter scale - and the 52 major aftershocks in the days that followed, killed 316,000 people, injured 300,000 and left one million homeless, according to government estimates.

Feeling a sense of solidarity as well as responsibility, Laine travelled to the poorest nation in the Americas two months after the natural disaster struck.

"I visited in March of last year because, competing for Haiti and the impact I can have and the good I can do for the country, it's a duty of mine to help and give back as much as I can.

"I wanted to go and help out and answer the helplessness I felt. I wanted to go down there and do some good."

"Doing some good" involves representing his adopted nation at the biggest sporting party on the planet this summer.
Haiti's Olympic fact file
Continue reading the main story

1920: Fencer Leon Thiercelin, the first Haitian Olympian, competes in the individual masters foil and epee
1924: Haiti send nine athletes to Paris and return with a bronze in shooting
1928: In Amsterdam long jumper Silvio Cator wins silver
1976: Haiti send a record 13 athletes to Montreal but win no medals
2008: 10 Haitians travel to Beijing but again return empty-handed

It's true to say that when, in 2007, Laine opted to compete for Haiti at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, he did not expect to develop so quickly. There's a school of thought that the athlete of 2011 could have qualified for the far larger United States team.

Laine understands the point, but wouldn't have it any other way. "We definitely don't have a team like the United States where you have 500 or 600 athletes.

"We are able to have a lot larger impact in terms of what we can do for Haiti, the children of Haiti, the people back in Haiti. Even our small successes become big news in Haiti, which means a lot."

The 27-year-old's sights are set on London and he cannot wait to compete on the global stage, saying: "The Olympics is the pinnacle of achievement.

"Getting there is the best of the best. The notion of the Olympic movement and the role athletics plays in the movement makes the Olympics that much more special and that much more to strive for."

Laine hopes to achieve personal bests in his quest to win Haiti's first Olympic medal since 1928. However, he has broader aspirations and a message for the Haitians back home.

"My goal is to make them proud out there next summer," he said.

"Just going there, competing well, being in the final, so that people can look at me and smile and know that I put my best foot forward for the country."

The concept of "stateless" is baseless, no such thing while Haiti still exists. If Haiti disappears and is gone as country, nation or sovereign state, then we can talk, in the meantime to all those alarmists which are up in arms about this so called Statelessness and make claims of wrongdoing on behalf of the DR

PLEASE SHUT THE F..... UP........................

And just head on over to the Haitian consulate, pull your number/ticket, wait in line, get the forms, fill them out and wait for service with a smile.....................

PS: Don't forget to bring deodorant. It will be crowded, the weather is hot and there is no A/C