The Whole Delivery

Photo from AFP While the focus on this last day of January 2011 is either turned towards Egypt or Florida joining Virginia in declaring The Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, Haiti once again never takes a backseat to the importance of its headlines. And today, it received some rather surprising and rarely awesome news. Another former exiled President maybe allowed back into the country, and it is the good exiled former Pres instead of the awful one. Haiti's government said Monday it was ready to issue a new passport to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which would allow him to return after almost seven years in exile in South Africa. "The government will give assurances that as soon as it receives such a request, it will be swiftly granted," the information ministry said in a statement. Aristide, who fled the Caribbean country in 2004, formally requested earlier that Haitian authorities issue him a diplomatic passport, and provide guarantees for his saf...

Photo from Gallo and Getty You wouldn't be happy too if the aid was so slow to come like it has : It has been six months since a seven magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. As many as a quarter of a million people died and 1.5 million more were rendered homeless. Despite a major reconstruction effort many Haitians fear, not enough is being done to rebuild the devastated island nation. Mother of four Carmen Hypolite said: “We were expecting a change in our situation because they were speaking only about reconstruction, but the way things are going, we could be waiting five or 10 years, even for the rest of our lives and see nothing happen.” So slow, and so little : The technical obstacles to reconstruction are immense. But the political roadblocks are larger. Immediately after the quake $10bn in international aid was pledged. As of June 30, only 10 per cent of the $2.5bn promised for 2010 had been delivered. A lot of it has been held up in political wrangling. The intern...

Photo from the AFP The rest of the world has got to get it together, especially the country that I am from and currently in at the moment : Haiti's president has called on leaders from Europe and the Americas to keep their promises of aid for the Caribbean country as it struggles to rebuild from the January's devastating earthquake. Speaking at a donor conference in the neighbouring Dominican Republic on Wednesday, Rene Preval said that the nation faced an "immense challenge" to rebuild. According to aid experts, Haiti needs about $11.5bn for its anticipated decade-long rebuilding effort. But so far, Haitian government officials say, only Brazil has delivered its entire aid pledge of $55m. We can't even do consistent aid correctly right now. Hopefully that will change soon ladies and gentlemen. To Tevin, Goodnight:

There are still are a lot of idiots in this country that hate on this wonderful woman.

Photo from EPA While in Haiti, the 42nd President highlighted the biggest criticism labeled at him on his Haiti policy : They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton - now U.N. special envoy to Haiti - who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice. "It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else." Oh the pains of free-trade right there and then for you all to see. It is a mistake that no one in the media outside of the great people at Democracy Now have brought up, but at least some kudoos to Clinton for saying th...

It just doesn't dumbfound the soul enough : It just doesn't.

For Haiti indeed.......here is today's wakeup call from Lupe Fiasco feat Kenna and produced by Mike Shinoda. It's called "Resurrection", and Shinoda's directing in this one is jaw dropping. It is a thousand times better than just doing a "We Are The World" remake, that's for sure.

AP's Andres Leighton US troops are leaving Haiti it appears. There are some Haiti citizens here who aren't looking forward to this , seeing the troops as invaluable in their arrival towards the pain they have encountered in Haiti: "I would like for them to stay in Haiti until they rebuild the country and everybody can go back to their house," said Marjorie Louis, a 27-year-old mother of two, as she warmed a bowl of beans for her family over a charcoal fire on the fake grass of the national stadium. More praise for the troops from the locals, an end result a lot of people from different backgrounds didn't predict would happen with the troops. "They should stay because they have been doing a good job," 35-year-old Lesly Pierre said as his family prepared dinner under a tarp at an encampment in Petionville. "If it was up to our government, we wouldn't have gotten any help at all." U.S. soldiers said they had nothing but warm encount...

Photo from Tom Fawthrop You wouldn't know by our media, but it's paramount to give you the whole delivery as always. Playing just as vital a role of any country, if not more, for the treatment of the travesty Haiti has endured has been the Cuban government. You won't here any major news packages on this : "It is striking that there has been virtually no mention in the media of the fact that Cuba had several hundred health personnel on the ground before any other country," said David Sanders, a professor of public health from Western Cape University in South Africa. Continuing their medical pact of helping Haiti since 1998, Cuba's doctors (and Haitian doctors trained at Cuban schools) has been nothing short of immense to the ravished nation. Before the earthquake struck, 344 Cuban health professionals were already present in Haiti, providing primary care and obstetrical services as well as operating to restore the sight of Haitians blinded by eye diseas...

Your international news for the day: The heavily under reported continued Holy Crusade in Nigeria is truly chilling stuff .In fact, it hasn't been reported about over here. Let's hope the G7 countries fulfill their promise to let Haiti debt go. Speaking of which, a "miracle" is the only thing that can describe the man found after spending 27 days underneath the rumble . Little talked about story here, as Kim Jong II met with the Chinese delegation . And with the arrest of Sarath Fonseka , the questions on why the government is being asked. Your international news for the day.

They are doing this for Haiti: Remember when they did a remake to "What's Going On?" and how no one really remembers it . Well, the reason why I even remembered it is because of this. I always cringe at the thought of remakes for songs like that. But if it sounds good and memorable, then good. (To see the rest of the pictures, you can go here .)

Making history for an important cause The "Hope For Haiti Now" charity album debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 171,000 sold according to Nielsen SoundScan, becoming the first digital-exclusive set to top the tally in its nearly 54-year history. The MTV Networks compilation, featuring performances culled from last Friday's (Jan. 22) massive "Hope For Haiti Now" telethon, only reached digital distributors over the weekend, making its sales number all the more impressive. SoundScan's sales tracking week ends at the close of business each Sunday, so "Hope for Haiti's" brisk sales came from no more than two full days. And get this: With "Hope for Haiti's" debut of 171,000 following 100,000-plus starts at No. 1 from Ke$ha's "Animal" (152,000) and Vampire Weekend's "Contra" (124,000), it's the first time since 2005 that the first three tracking weeks of the year had an album that sold at ...

Just a short time ago, both President Obama and Haitian President Preval spoke for about 30 minutes. And Preval express his gratitude to the reaction from around the world for his further devastated country. "From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the Haitian people, thank you, thank you, thank you." Also, the First Lady on Haiti: