‘Tezen Nan Dlo’: An Ecological Folk Tale from Haiti
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | News Junkie Post. “A long time ago, in a thatched house snuggled in a valley between the flamboyant-covered hills of Haiti, there lived a girl whose greatest ambition was to bring home the cleanest water in all the world….” (English | Portuguese)
Haiti’s Opposition Parties Draft a Manifesto
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Convention of Political Parties, headed by former senator Turneb Delpe, held a national conference of 30 political parties and civilian organizations in Cap Haitien on Monday and Tuesday October 15-16 to formulate solutions to Haiti’s current crises and counter the Martelly-Lamothe regime as a united front. Together the political parties and civilian organizations drafted The manifesto of Cap-Haitien. UPDATE: Full text of manifesto included in French and English.
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Creole was certainly the tongue spoken at the 1791 Bwa Cayiman Vodou ceremony that launched the Haitian Revolution. Nevertheless, it was French that served as the text of Haiti’s Independence Declaration and as the country’s only official language until 1987. Why?
Mountains Behind Protests
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haiti’s most populous cities erupted in protest in early September, and some areas remain more or less in a state of continuous protest against human rights abuses, soaring food prices, 80 per cent unemployment, crashing agriculture, government corruption and racism, and many other severe political and economic ills.
With MINUSTAH Up for Renewal, ‘Legal Bandits’ on Rampage
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Dr. Serge L. Bernard, Professor and Vice-Chair of the board of directors of the University of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was shot dead by five gunmen on motorcycles around midday on Friday August 31, within sight of police. Dr. Bernard is the latest victim of the traditional Spring-to-October insecurity that has preceded the renewal of MINUSTAH’s mandate every year since 2005.
By Staff (spp), Radio Kiskeya | By Stephen Ralph Henry, AlterPresse. Translation and editorial note by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said Friday August 3, during a working session in the Parliament, that the new school year originally set to start on September 3 would be postponed until October 1 because of economic difficulties facing the population. Parents and teachers’ organizations criticize the postponement and say they were not consulted. (English | French)
By Staff, AHP | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Medical School of the Dr. Aristide Foundation University (UNIFA), in the neighborhood Tabarre in Port-au-Prince, opened its enrollment on Wednesday August 1 for the new class in the coming academic year. The University’s Director of Studies Dr. Peter Gaetchen announced that registration for the first year will run until August 14, and the entrance examination will be held on August 20. (English | French)
By Amelia Duarte de la Rosa, Granma | YouTube. Twenty-two new graduates from Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), originating from Peru, El Salvador, Bolivia and Ecuador, have arrived in Haiti on an internationalist mission. A total of 387 ELAM graduates have undertaken medical missions in Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake. They will work alongside the Cuban Medical Brigade to provide medical attention and preventive and rehabilitation services for Haitians, while specializing in comprehensive general medicine.
A Little Dictatorship to Make the Band March in Time
By Frantz Duval and Robenson Geffrard, Le Nouvelliste | Translation and editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Satisfied with his achievements during his first year, but frustrated about procedures that have kept his palace band without instruments, Michel Martelly announced that his team has started to think about an emergency law. (English | French)
By David Moberg, In These Times. Overcoming the classic town-gown social divide, students at various ivy-league universities have formed labor-action movements to win major victories for hotel workers in their fight against appalling working conditions at a set of university-financed hotels.
By David Moberg, In These Times | Haiti Chery. Nurses around the world are calling for a tax on financial sector speculation, which caused the ongoing crisis, so the proceeds may be used to reduce inequality, provide for health and other public needs, and create a healthy economy with full employment. At a Friday May 18 rally in Chicago kicking off the no-NATO protests, the nurses wore Robin Hood attire — red shirts and green caps — to demand the Financial Transaction Tax, also called the “Robin Hood Tax.”
By Amos Cincir, Le Nouvelliste | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A tripartite agreement of collaboration was signed at Haiti’s National Palace on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 between Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Lamothe, Deputy Foreign Minister of Venezuela Temir Porras, and Ambassador of Argentina to Haiti Marcelo Sebaste. The aid will consist of agricultural tools, an identification system, and literacy education. (English | French)
Press Release, Prometheus Radio Project | FCC. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided to open the airwaves to Low Power FM (LPFM) stations; this will allow for the first new urban community radio stations in the U.S. in decades. The FCC will start to accept applications as early as Fall 2012.
By Kanya D’Almeida, IPS. Metal detectors, teams of drug-sniffing dogs, armed guards and riot police, forbiddingly high walls topped with barbed wire: such descriptions befit a prison or perhaps a high-security checkpoint in a war zone. But in the U.S., these scenes of surveillance and control are most visible in public schools, where in some areas, education is becoming increasingly synonymous with incarceration. Children as young as 6 years old have been arrested for ‘crimes’ like trespassing.