Category Archives: government

Haiti — in numbers…

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The following is compiled and presented by CNN:

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — Two weeks after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti, the numbers have mounted. The numbers tell stories of death and destruction, as well as a global outpouring of aid. CNN has compiled the latest, most reliable figures available as the devastation continues to unfold:

THE TOLL
150,000: Latest estimate of the death toll, from the Haitian Health Ministry. The European Union and the Pan American Health Organization, which is coordinating the health-sector response, have estimated the quake killed 200,000 people.
194,000: Number of injured
134: Estimated number of people rescued by international search teams since the quake

THE EFFECT
9 million: Population of Haiti
3 million: Estimated number of people affected by the quake
1.5 million: Homeless people living on streets, including the thousands who lived in slums or makeshift homes prior to the quake
235,000: People who have left Port-au-Prince using free transportation provided by the government. The number who left by private means is undetermined.
At least 50: Aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or higher that have hit Haiti since the January 12 quake

THE CHILDREN
300,000: Children younger than 2 who need nutritional support
90: Percentage of schools in Port-au-Prince that have been destroyed
497: Haitian orphans who have been evacuated

THE RESPONSE IN DOLLARS
$1.12 billion: International aid pledges
$783 million: Funds received as of Tuesday
$317 million: U.S. assistance as of Monday

THE RESPONSE IN MANPOWER
17,000: U.S. military personnel in and around Haiti
8 million: Meals the World Food Programme has delivered to nearly 400,000 people
300: Aid distribution sites that are up and running
130 to 150: Flights arriving every day at the single-runway Port-au-Prince airport with aid

EFFECT ON FOREIGNERS
12,000: U.N. workers in the country at the time of the quake
53: U.N. workers still missing
At least 82: U.N. workers confirmed dead
27: U.N. workers injured or hospitalized
11,500: Americans and family members who have been evacuated
4,800: Americans unaccounted for
60: Americans confirmed dead

Sources: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Red Cross, the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. State Department and the World Food Programme, Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive

What’s more important, human rights or climate change?

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Just as President Obama’s domestic agenda disturbs many, comes word of his misguided – if not shameful – foreign policy agenda….

A Christian professor and author of note, wrote a short blog post on On Not Speaking Truth to Power —

Obama refuses to meet with the Dali Lama and 1143237_little_girlfigures opposed to tyranny. This is typical of the hard left. They refuse to support those who speak truth to tyrannical power; instead they curry favor from the powerful, as long as they are hostile to the West. This is unjust, perverse, and ungodly in the extreme. Wake up, America. Your president is a no friend of freedom, democracy, or “hope.”

Beyond the shiny spectacle of this “historic” president is an empty suit, political mantras (meaningless), a magic teleprompter, and a man who is putting America and its deepest ideals at risk for the sake of his neo-Marxist ideology.

What had triggered this?? He’d read an article by one of the senior statesmen of evangelicalism, Chuck Colson, on human rights (here). That article begins with some shocking revelations….

What’s more important to the administration’s foreign policy—climate change or human rights? The disturbing answer.

Many were shocked last February when Secretary of State Clinton said that pressing China about its human rights abuses “can’t interfere” with more important things — like “the global 1053013_great_wall_chinaeconomic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.”

Even the Washington Post was shocked; its editors said Clinton’s comments were “misguided.” But now it seems that Clinton was only stating what was to be official Obama administration policy.

We saw this same attitude last month when Barack Obama declined to meet with the Dali Lama. The snub was an apparent effort to curry favor with Chinese leaders — leaders who deny religious liberty and human rights, not only to their own citizens, but also to Tibetans.
(read the rest here)

Friends, the need to pray for our country, and for those in power, has seldom been greater than in our own time…
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