If I were the leader of Japan, I would tell the United States, thanks but ummmmm no thanks! In a nation whose coast was devastated last Friday by a tsunami spawned by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the Japanese people have begun the cleanup, in spite of the pending dangers of a nuclear disaster. It's been four days. If Haiti is an example of American help.......... pass.
But look closer to home.
The Haitian earthquake struck 14 months ago, killing 316,000
Magnitude: 7.0
3,000,000 people to lose their homes
More than 1,000,000 people STILL displaced
More than a million displaced people STILL live under tents and tarpaulins. International donors promised Haiti $5.3 billion at a March 2010 donor’s conference; but reconstruction, of the build-back-better kind envisioned at the conference, has barely begun.
Officials’ sole point of pride six months after the earthquake — that disease and violence had been averted — vanished with the outbreak of cholera.
As of mid-December, 2010, a cholera outbreak had claimed more than 2,100 lives with over 47,000 hospitalized
Saw something the other day on Haiti.
ReplyDeleteSeems there is lots of money, but it's in scattered groups like the Red Cross and others. RC is holding 70% of those donations in the bank, waiting...... oh probably a rainy day or something.
At any rate the massive challenge in Haiti is infrastructure that got destroyed. Nobody taking a lead in fixing that first. You can't build houses without water, power and sewer service.
They have something like 300,000 porta toilets and they are not being serviced, sewer runs down the streets.
I've not easy answers for them. But save 72 Japanese virgins and keep Klinton out of country!
Where has all the money gone? I wouldn't give 50 cents to the Red Cross - they are theives - first to beg for money and the last to pay it out where it's needed.... Clinton should be raising hell about the foot-dragging in Haiti - it's not HIS fault but his name is at the top of the do-gooder list
ReplyDeleteI got a good laugh out of the "72 Japanese virgins" comment. But, anyway. . .
ReplyDeleteSame thing happened with Katrina. There are blocks upon blocks of empty lots along the Mississippi Gulf coast where houses and thriving businesses once stood. It's been over 5 years since the disaster. Red Cross and the other charities kept people from starving, but what happened to all that money that was raised! Sitting in some Swiss bank I suppose.