UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday urged world nations to foster a “wholesale national renewal” of Haiti as the nation emerges from a devastating earthquake.
“As we move from emergency aid to longer-term reconstruction, let us recognize that we cannot accept business as usual,” Ban wrote in the Washington Post. “What we envision today is nothing less than a wholesale national renewal.”
World leaders will gather tomorrow at UN headquarters in New York for a donors conference that will examine Haiti’s needs. Participants will consider a plan, under which an Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission would channel nearly US$4 billion into specific reconstruction projects and programs during the next 18 months, Ban said.
PHOTO: AFP
Over the next 10 years, Haiti’s reconstruction needs will total an estimated US$11.5 billion, the UN secretary-general said.
“Clearly, this assistance must be well spent and well-coordinated,” Ban said. “It must provide for continuing emergency relief: food, sanitation and, most urgently at this moment, shelter.”
More than two months after the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti, the country is still in a state of mourning.
On Sunday, hundreds of voodoo practitioners chanted, prayed and pounded drums to honor earthquake victims in a public ceremony in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The white-clad voodooists, many with black sashes around their arms, walked from a downtown plaza to the shoreline, where they asked for the spirits of the dead to be cleansed in the ocean and sent on their way to reincarnation.
“Without us, there is no Haiti,” voodoo priest Jean-Claude Bazil said, adding that his religion was the country’s true path. “We have to pull ourselves together to save Haiti.”
The Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people, roused tensions among Haiti’s religions as some of the outpouring of aid has been funneled through Christian groups. A ceremony last month was disrupted by angry crowds that threw rocks at voodoo practitioners.
Organizers of Sunday’s memorial promoted the event with radio advertisements in an effort to increase acceptance of voodoo, which was sanctioned as an official religion in 2003 by the government.
Haitian National Police kept a close watch from pickup trucks, but there was no violence.
“Voodoo is not a secret society,” said Max Beauvoir, the voodoo priest who presided over the UN park ceremony.
Still, the crowd was nowhere near the size of those that turned out for Christian memorials during three days of official mourning last month.
Voodoo, a blend of Christian tenets and African religions fused by slaves, is practiced across the country. Many Haitians consider themselves followers of both voodoo and Christianity.
Voodooists believe in one god, a pantheon of spirits and reincarnation. Voodoo leaders say that although they do not believe in evil spirits, some followers pray for the spirits to do evil.
One voodoo priest, Augustine Saint-Clou, said they were praying for all the quake victims although he does not believe other religions have shown the same consideration for voodooists.
“This is the real religion for all Haitians,” he said.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
RSS