By Yvon Janvier, Le Matin | Translated by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Brazilian company Construtora OAS Ltd unilaterally stopped ongoing work on 43 miles of National Road 7 in southern Haiti and abruptly cut short its contracts with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Interamerican Development Bank (IDB).
Continue reading →By Michael Chideme and Daniel Nemukuyu, The Herald Online. An alert truck driver sent to deliver 19 tons of poisonous sodium cyanide — instead of aluminum sulfate — to Harare’s main waterworks averted disaster last Wednesday July 25 when he raised alarm just as he was about to offload the chemical.
Continue reading →By Milo Milford (kft, gp), AlterPresse | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | YouTube. Lac Azuei, also called Etang Saumatre, is Haiti’s main natural lake. With an area of over 110 square kilometers (42.5 square miles), it is a lovely sight. The lake is also a place of feverish activity by child traffickers. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Thirty six commandos from Haiti’s Departmental Unit for Maintenance of Order (UDMO), together with presidentially-appointed regional and local government representatives, arrived in La Visite Park, near the southern city of Jacmel, to evict 142 families by force on July 23, 2012. In the battle that ensued, 4-12 people were killed.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. At a visit to Haiti’s landmark Citadelle Laferriere, Martelly, to emphasize his disgust about the decrepit state of the 300-year old fort, took off in a huff, straight downhill on his motorcycle, leaving his motorcade to scramble after him down a steep and narrow mountain road. The result: an accident that gravely injured seven people and put in critical condition a journalist and a six-year old girl who had been inside her house.
Continue reading →By Nicole Simon, Le Nouvelliste | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The worst thing was to find this French friend, blonde with blue eyes, two days later, who admitted that she has visited the same store on Louverture Street with all her gear, and no one has ever denied her access. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Staff, Radio Metropole | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. With the reactivation of the defunct 2005 Council of Economic and Social Development (Conseil de Développement Economique et Social), Haiti establishes a permanent dictatorship with elections. The CESD replaces the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). (English | French)
Continue reading →Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | Dominique Thomas recipe in A Taste of Haiti, Hippocrene Books Inc., 2002. In Haiti, Mayi Moulin Ak Pwa is peasant fare. The ingredients are cheap, and the value is in the preparation.
Continue reading →By Reynold Aris, Le Matin | Staff, Radio Kiskeya | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Port Market in Port-au-Prince went up in flames early in the morning on June 18, 2012 and again on July 12-13, 2012, about one year after another fire. Traders at the market say they’ve received numerous threats about a fire, and the city’s Chief Prosecutor noted that three attempts to burn this market had recently been aborted. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Frantz Duval and Robenson Geffrard, Le Nouvelliste | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Satisfied with his achievements during his first year, but frustrated about red tape that has his palace band without instruments, Michel Martelly announced that his team has started to think about an emergency law. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Roberson Alphonse, Le Nouvelliste | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. According to Dieuseul Anglade, director of Haiti’s Office of Mines and Energy in Haiti, during the negotiations for mineral exploitation, the Haitian State will keep a close watch to ensure that Haitian citizens benefit from the country’s wealth. Meanwhile, the mayors have been dismissed, and land prices have skyrocketed. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Antoine Roger Lokongo, Pambazuka News. Francophone Africans from 14 countries deposit 65 percent of their hard currencies yearly into the French Treasury, without French nationality or access to the public goods and services available to French taxpayers. Close to 1,500 billion CFA (Communauté Financière d’Afrique common currency) francs generated from the surplus of West African states’ foreign reserves are placed on the foreign stock markets and out of the reach of the Africans who own the money. In addition the French force money payments, like an Ivory Coast compensation for the recent war.
Continue reading →By Christopher Minster, Latin American History/About.com. On May 5, 1862, at the Battle of Puebla, the French attacked Mexico to try to collect a debt after President Benito Juarez declared bankruptcy from a civil war, but the French were soundly defeated by a cavalry led by Porfirio Diaz.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Plans are under way for Canadian and US corporations to mine Haiti’s northeast area near Caracol, which has been discovered to contain a wealth of silver and gold, in addition to copper. As in the Dominican Republic’s Pueblo Viejo project, construction of the mines will involve dynamiting of mountains, and the ore will be extracted by an opencast (or open-pit) mining process that contaminates large volumes of water with cyanide. UPDATES: Attempts to issue mining permits to the US’ VCS Mining LLC and Canada’s SOMINE SA, without any environmental impact assessment (EIA) were thwarted by Haiti’s Senate in January 2013. Plans to dredge a deep-sea port in the pristine Bay of Fort Liberte were scrapped in April 2014.
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