The UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) director flew to a Haitian city still encased in mud on Friday to draw global attention to the ongoing disaster that has enormously complicated the country’s struggle to feed itself.
The WFP said it has asked for US$54 million to help Haiti recover from four killer storms, but so far has received only US$1 million.
Beginning a two-day survey of the disaster area, WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said “concerted global action” was needed in a country where famine loomed.
PHOTO: AP
“We need more and we are ready,” she said, adding that some previously flooded roads had reopened. “Now we can handle more food and water.”
She urged agriculture officials to buy seeds and other produce from local farmers to revive the economy.
“Haiti wants to grow its own food and to be self-sufficient, not just waiting on food assistance while they recover from this devastating storm,” Sheeran said.
Haitian President Rene Preval also pleaded for help, asking for long-term assistance on Friday in his speech to the UN General Assembly.
Devastation awaited Sheeran in this coastal city, largely cut off from the rest of Haiti because of flooded roads and wrecked bridges.
Gray mud was still piled waist-high in homes, coating prized television sets, books and cooking pots. Tens of thousands still live in shelters and roam muddy streets looking for food.
At least 194 people were killed by the tropical storms in less than a month this summer in Gonaives and the surrounding region, the largest share of a nationwide death toll of 425.
Some of the muck is topsoil — precious in this deforested country — flushed from the mountains above when a river broke its banks, churned through the countryside and sliced through town before emptying into the sea.
Clouds of mosquitoes now breed in Gonaives’ wet ground, raising fears that disease will spread. Children play in the muck. In a hospital, brown mud immobilizes an empty wheelchair.
Some families bail the mud from their houses, soldiering on in the stench. Mothers use muddy rags to wipe off kitchen utensils.
The floods from Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike destroyed an estimated 60 percent of Haiti’s food harvest. The WFP said it has delivered more than 2,200 tonnes of food during this emergency, enough to feed almost 500,000 people.
Speaking in New York, Preval thanked the world for its help, but said emergency aid alone would not solve Haiti’s plight and that long-term solutions were needed.
“Once this first wave of humanitarian compassion is exhausted, we will be left as always, truly alone, to face new catastrophes and see restarted, as if in a ritual, the same exercises of mobilization,” Preval said.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS