Haiti news stories on Newser

Good News for Haiti: Gold!

Neal Colgrass — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:40:00 CDT

What news for a nation blighted by poverty , disease , and a devastating earthquake : Haiti is home to lucrative gold mines. And copper and silver ones too. Potentially worth $20 billion, the precious metal finds are already creating hundreds of jobs and new roads, the AP reports. What's more, mining by...

How Bickering Aid Workers Brought Cholera to Haiti

Neal Colgrass — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:54:57 CDT

A deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti has killed thousands and triggered protests outside a UN peacekeeping base that first leaked the disease into local water supplies. Now the New York Times looks inside the UN mission, its refusal to accept blame for the outbreak, and the internal bickering that stymied...

Haiti's New Ambassador: Sean Penn

Polly Davis Doig — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:46:38 CST

"Diplomacy" doesn't even make the list of the top million things associated with Sean Penn, but Haiti has gone ahead and named the actor its ambassador at large anyway. Penn, who has long labored for Haitian relief in the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake, was offered the job at...

2 Years After Quake, 500K Homeless in Haiti

John Johnson — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:06:19 CST

The wires are awash with two-year anniversary stories about Haiti's earthquake, which pretty much run the optimism gamut from the Washington Post (Headline: "Two years after quake, signs of progress in Haiti") to the Wall Street Journal ("Two Years After Quake, Haiti Remains in Distress"). Journal : It sees "donor fatigue"...

Hurricane Irene Slams Puerto Rico

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:51:31 CDT

Hurricane Irene cut power to more than a million people in Puerto Rico, downing trees and flooding streets, before heading out over warm ocean water today on a path that could take it to the US mainland by the end of the week. There were no reports of deaths or...

Nicaragua Quake Survivors Get Homes—40 Years Later

Luke Kelly-Clyne — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:27:56 CDT

In the aftermath of a 1972 earthquake that leveled 50,000 buildings and killed 10,000 in Nicaragua's capital city of Managua, many of the country's poor had no place to go. While 250,000 of their middle- and upper-class counterparts migrated to safer, more habitable locales, the less fortunate...

US Report Questions Haiti Death Toll

Rob Quinn — Tue, 31 May 2011 01:20:00 CDT

The number of people killed or made homeless by the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti last year is well below the Haitian government's figures, according to a report commissioned by the US government. The researchers estimate that between 46,000 and 85,000 people were killed in the quake, according...

Martelly Wins Haiti Presidency

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:15:17 CDT

Musician Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly scored a come-from-behind victory today in Haiti's presidential runoff, according to preliminary results from last month's election. Martelly, who has never held political office, received nearly 68% of the vote in the two-way race with Mirlande Manigat, electoral council spokesman Pierre Thibault said in an...

Did Wyclef Jean Lie About Getting Shot?

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:10:05 CDT

Wyclef Jean was shot over the weekend in Haiti—or was he? The hip-hop star claimed he was getting out of a car in a city just outside the capital when he "heard blow, blow, blow" and looked down to see that a bullet had "grazed" his right hand. But...