Short ‘n’ Stubby: Haiti roundup (and ripoffs), part deuxième

How are things in Haiti? Here’s a small sampling of the news…

Rafael Correa’s cojones are hangin’ out all over the place. He was in Hispaniola recently, first pledging aid to Haiti, then crossing to the Dominican Republic and showing support for Mel Zelaya, who’s now a guest of president Leonel Fernández. He also appears in the following video:

…in which a Haitian government spokesman confirms that the first foreign aid to Haiti came from Cuba, and the first foreign head of state to visit was Dominican president Fernández, who showed up the day after the temblor. Sean Penn also makes a special guest appearance.

The Washington Post is full of predictable, disgusting crapaganda. Did they talk to any Haitians who didn’t want a US invasion, or did they just not feel their voices should count? (For some real perspective on the issue, read this piece in the Jamaica Gleaner.)

John Pilger has nothing but scathing words for how this whole relief business has been handled by those who took over the effort. And who can blame him when the evidence is mounting that this effort is (a) stingy and (b) geared toward putting the bulk of the aid money back in the US’s own pockets? Medevac airlifts have resumed, but no one apparently knows for how long. Somehow, this all just makes me doubt the WaHoPo’s revolting dreck all the more.

The UN’s World Food Program has hit upon a unique way of making sure aid gets to families in need: issuing food coupons to women only. (The National Pest, predictably, takes a panic-stricken, near-racist tone covering the same story–note how high up in the article they mention gangs.)

NASA has flown planes over the quake zone to survey the damage aerially and scan for more danger; the scientific findings, so far, here.

One more reason for Canadians to be pissed off at the prorogation of Parliament: Haitian immigrants desperate to make a home here and reunite with family following the quake are being stymied by our too-tight immigration laws. Don’t look for amendments anytime soon, folks.

Haitian orphans whose adoptions were already in process before the quake, have been fast-tracked for entry to Canada. These youngsters are the lucky ones; those less lucky might find themselves in the clutches of child traffickers. Such as, say, a “personal shopper” website owner from Idaho (!), who has been caught shopping through the rubble for orphans of the quake, on whom she apparently expected to make a tidy profit while convincing herself and everyone else that she was doing the poor little tykes a favor.

And, get this: She was with a group of bible-thumpers looking to convert the little hoodoo heathens*. Nothing like a little opportunism to show the benevolence of Christian capitalism, eh?

*This one’s satire–I think.