#earthquake in puerto rico

[hispanicin]

5 years later, with a less severe hurricane, I hope america doesn't leave Puerto Rico stranded and floundering again.

#democrats or republicans idgaf please send aid to people who are suffering and plrase aid for the reconstruction #puerto rico #i heard of a bridge tht was washed away during maria that was rebuilt and fell because of the 2020 earthquakes has already fallen again #the ppl in that town are fucking stranded now #its just. its less severe. please dont repeat last time goddamn

[teenpunkblack]

Remember, we aren’t just freeing Palestine, we’re freeing:

CONGO 🇨🇩

SUDAN🇸🇩

YEMEN🇾🇪

SYRIA🇸🇾

HAITI🇭🇹

PUERTO RICO🇵🇷

UKRAINE🇺🇦

TIGRAY

KASHMIR 🍁

and HAWAI’I

I’ve been gathering resources for all these countries listed on Twitter, and I will do the same here. I will update this post with more information I find — i encourage everyone to do the same.

The duty of youth is to challenge corruption. Don’t give up, keep on fighting.

🇵🇸:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16hSogPulZskEYNeDQ06VsRxT6XJAwEYsGQCqfrM5hGs/mobilebasic

https://t.co/6wVuzqVCAC

http://gofundme.com/f/careforgaza

🇨🇩:

https://friendsofthecongo.org

https://www.actionagainsthunger.org

🇸🇩:

https://linktr.ee/TalkAboutSudan?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=dafde36f-7ae1-48be-b0fd-0feb7658468b

🇾🇪:

http://gofund.me/3c569d5d

🇸🇾:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-refugee-and-earthquake-victim-children

🇭🇹:

https://theanalysis.news/haitian-ruling-families-create-and-kill-monsters/

🇵🇷:

https://www.directrelief.org/place/puerto-rico/

🇺🇦:

https://t.co/CcL66xDLdO

https://www.jstor.org/stable/48633488

Tigray: TBA

Hawai’i: TBA

#free palestine #free yemen #free haiti #free hawaii #free congo #free sudan #free syria #free ukraine #free puerto rico #ceasefire #stop genocide #free tigray #help palestine #palestine

[pasquines]

#Puerto Rico #Contextomy #earthquakes #Education #Hurricane Fiona #Hurricane Maria #Schooling

[autoapuntes]

Porsche dona más de $1 millón para las víctimas de los terremotos en Turquía y Siria

(Suministrado) Los desastres provocados por los terremotos en Turquía y Siria han dejado a un gran número de personas que requieren ayuda inmediata. Porsche AG está tendiendo su mano a los afectados al donar más de un millón de dólares (un millón de euros) a Aktion Deutschland Hilft E.V., un grupo integrado por agencias alemanas de ayuda humanitaria para este propósito. Además, el Consejo…

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#Aktion Deutschland Hilft #Porsche AG #Porsche Center Puerto Rico #Turkey earthquake

[theobviousparadox]

Review: The Year Without a Summer by Arlene Mark

Review: The Year Without a Summer by Arlene Mark

The Year Without a SummerArlene MarkSparkpressPublished August 16, 2022 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About The Year Without a Summer Explosive volcanic eruptions are cool, really, cool. They inject ash into the stratosphere and deflect the sun’s rays. When eighth grader Jamie Fulton learns that snow fell in June in his hometown because of an eruption on the other side of the world, he’s…

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#activism #Albany #climate change #earthquake #environmental justice #friendship #Hurricane Maria #natural disasters #New York #Puerto Rico #Volcano

[delgado-master]

Idk I just feel like no one on this website fucking cares about Hispanics. They don’t even care about us enough to mention us or talk about shit that goes on in hispanic countries. Did you know Puerto Rico was experiencing major earthquakes from fracking a few years ago? I didn’t see a single post about it on tumblr. People were making fun of a Puerto Rican song as a fucking Hurricane was hitting Puerto Rico. And that’s only my father’s homeland.

[agentsofmarvel]

some of my favorite agents of shield fun facts (season 2 edition)

part two!!! [part one is on my page!]

- to show the difference of coulson as the director of shield instead of an agent, they specially tailored each suit, used expensive slim ties, and even tailored his collar to make it higher. they also only made five suits for clark to wear the entire season.

- the cast and crew loved simon kassianides as bakshi so much that they kept his character in the story much longer than planned. he ended up dying five episodes after he was originally supposed to.

- in the episode “Face to Face” where coulson and may are undercover at the party, they made may’s undercover personality based on ming-na wen’s actual personality. a lot of the scenes of may at the party hanging out were unscripted.

- the writers modeled coulson in season two after nick fury, as the new director of shield. the writers made his previous role as a high ranking agent protective of the younger agents more akin to may’s character.

- bobbi wears blue, black, and grey constantly to represent her comic book mockingbird suit. she wears red two twice: while undercover at hydra & when she’s in japan (where she’s pretending to still work for hydra) to show the contrast in her undercover persona and real self.

- the crew and writers modeled the ward family somewhat after the Kennedy’s…what.

- the episode where ward confronts his past is called “The Things We Bury” which is a play on words for a book called “The Things They Carried”, which is a book written about the Vietnam War from the point of view of a soldier (i’ve read the book for a class, it’s a true story).

- the cast (other than adrienne and henry) had no idea mack and bobbi were working for another shield until the episode for the script was sent.

- the day chloe found out that skye would be an inhuman was on the day in season one that an earthquake hit the set. SHE FOUND OUT SHE WOULD PLAY AN INHUMAN WITH QUAKE POWERS THE DAY AN EARTHQUAKE HIT!!

- chloe knew her character existed as a superhero in the comics since she got the role, but she didn’t know which one. at first she thought she could be she-hulk or even mantis but after researching comics she realized she was playing quake a few days before the writers told her she was quake.

- a camera typically films at 24 frames per second. in the scene where skye breaks out of the cocoon in the underground city in puerto rico, the scene was filmed at 1,500 frames per second.

- after trip’s death a lot of the cast thought he would come back again because they said it’s marvel and people come back from dying all the time.

- in the scene filmed on the football field in “One Of Us” it was actually 45° F, which was the record coldest day (at the time of filming) in Los Angeles since 1885.

- lincoln’s character was literally created to give skye a break. they literally realized she’s been through so much in one season that they wrote in a possible boyfriend to make her happy for once.

- one of the writer’s favorite scenes to write was the dinner scene between cal, jaiying, and skye.

- coulson was almost an inhuman. yep. the idea was brought up in the writers room but they decided against it because they liked the idea of coulson being the average man within the craziness that is shield.

this wraps up season two fun facts! i’ll probably post season three when i can!! i don’t really have any plans for the rest of the seasons though :)

#agents of shield #aos #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. #agents of shield season 2 #marvel agents of shield #skye agents of shield #chloe bennet #jemma simmons #elizabeth henstridge #leo fitz #leopold fitz #ian de caestecker #Melinda may #ming na wen #phil coulson #clark gregg #henry simmons #alphonso mack mackenzie #bobbi morse #adrienne palicki #lance hunter #Nick blood #dichen lachman #jiaying Johnson #cal Johnson #kyle mclaughlin

[mariacallous]

On March 5, Haiti’s acting prime minister took off on a chartered Gulfstream jet from a New Jersey airport with nowhere to go.

Ariel Henry—Haiti’s unelected leader since July 2021—had spent weeks traveling in Africa and the Americas trying to rally international support for his country, which has been mired in chronic poverty, political instability, and an insurgency of criminal groups led by a former Haitian police officer turned gang leader, Jimmy Chérizier, known as “Barbecue.”

While Henry was out of the country, Barbecue and his allies coordinated an armed assault calling for Henry’s ouster. They stormed police stations and prisons, released around 3,700 inmates, and attacked the airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, making it too dangerous for Henry to land there.

Instead, Henry tried to negotiate a plan to land in neighboring Dominican Republic, but he was rebuffed at the last minute by the government there, according to U.S. officials, Caribbean officials, and regional experts familiar with the matter. Other Caribbean countries reacted coolly to the prospect of hosting Henry as his support domestically and abroad began collapsing. Finally, he landed in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where he remained in limbo until March 12, when he announced his intention to resign.

The chaos and uncertainty of Henry’s final flight as prime minister underlined the political tumult that has gripped Haiti—and the tepid response to Haiti’s downward spiral by an overstretched international community reluctant to tackle yet another crisis.

If Haiti isn’t yet formally deemed a failed state, it’s well on its way. Government institutions and basic services have broken down and gang violence has sparked one of the worst humanitarian and refugee crises in the Western Hemisphere.

“It’s an extremely dangerous situation,” said Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s former foreign minister who now runs the Haitian Observatory of International Relations think tank. “Without a change, we are facing a possibility of an entire nation becoming a big open-air jail run by gangs.”

Yet what that change should look like—and who might be willing and able to step in to make it happen—remains as unclear now as it has for more than two years.

Haiti’s near collapse has led to frantic meetings among regional leaders in recent weeks and heated debates between the Biden administration and Congress over what role, if any, the United States should play in the unfolding emergency in its own backyard. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Jamaica on Monday to meet with Caribbean leaders on the issue, and he pledged an additional $100 million in U.S. funds to finance the deployment of a multinational force to help stabilize the country.

The Biden administration is urging Congress to unlock even more funds. Two powerful Republican lawmakers—Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee—argue that the administration doesn’t have adequate plans for how it would use those funds. They also charge that the administration let its Haiti policy fester in indecision for too long, exacerbating the country’s current predicament.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has faced chronic instability for decades, fueled in part by devastating natural disasters and international aid mishaps, including a U.N. mission that brought a deadly cholera outbreak to the country as well as sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children by U.N. peacekeepers, and a 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000, followed by bungled international relief efforts that sparked a cycle of mismanagement and stunted development projects.

In 2021, then-President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by a group of gunmen in his home, sparking the current political crisis in the country. (A Haitian judge last month indicted three prominent individuals—Moïse’s widow, an ex-prime minister, and a former Haitian chief of police—for involvement in the assassination, charges they have denied as baseless political reprisals.) Henry took over as acting president shortly after and soon began pleading with foreign powers for a military intervention to address the country’s spiraling instability.

Gangs have taken control of much of Port-au-Prince, and rights groups say the gangs have used rape and torture as weapons against the civilian population. Thousands of Haitians have been killed and kidnapped.

“It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the political, security, human rights and humanitarian situation in Haiti today,” the U.N. mission in Haiti wrote in a report to the U.N. Security Council in January, a copy of which was obtained by Foreign Policy. The violence has led to a surge in Haitians fleeing the country; the report noted that the number of Haitians fleeing to Central America with the aim of making it across the U.S. southern border increased 23-fold in 2023—from 1,550 people in July to 35,500 people in October.

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti this week evacuated some diplomats and nonessential personnel as well as deployed a specialized detachment of U.S. Marines to bolster the embassy’s security. Gen. Laura Richardson, commander of U.S. Southern Command, told lawmakers in a hearing on Thursday that the U.S. military had plans ready to evacuate U.S. citizens if the crisis worsened.

“It’s absolute chaos. People are crying out for even some basic level of security,” said Nicole Widdersheim, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “We need to see the international community doing something very rapid to bring security and stability and protection from the violence.”

The international community, meanwhile, procrastinated on the matter for over two years, officials and experts said.

After Moïse’s assassination, the United States balked at the prospect of leading a multinational force. In 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden privately asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if Canada would take the lead, current and former officials said. Canada declined, but it offered to contribute $100 million to help fund such a force. No other country in South or Central America stepped up. Haiti, coordinating with the Biden administration, then turned to Africa. Kenya agreed to lead a mission and deploy 1,000 police officers to Haiti as part of an effort that would be coordinated and bankrolled mostly by the United States.

That plan stalled when Kenyan opposition politicians challenged the program’s legality. The U.S. government, meanwhile, already overstretched by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, let Haiti fall by the wayside, current and former U.S. officials told Foreign Policy. Biden didn’t nominate a U.S. ambassador to Haiti until May 2023, nearly two years after Moïse’s assassination. Biden’s nominee, career diplomat Dennis Hankins, was confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

“A lot of countries at the beginning were reluctant to take the lead, though Haiti needs urgent help,” Edmond said. But, he added, “At the end of the day, we also need to take our own responsibilities for our own country. I don’t think I will throw the blame only on the international community.”

Henry’s resignation announcement was quietly seen as a relief by some U.S. and regional officials, but it also created new challenges as the region tries to cobble together a temporary governance structure from afar to lead Haiti out of its crisis.

His announcement came after quiet pressure from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), officials said, as well as repeated threats from gang leaders should he return to the country. (The White House has denied reports that it also pressured Henry to resign.)

Now, CARICOM is helping craft a new presidential transitional council composed of seven voting members and two observers, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by Foreign Policy. Candidates for the council would be put forward by at least five active Haitian political parties with input from CARICOM-screened civil society organizations. Once appointed, the new council, in theory, would help restore legitimacy to Haiti’s absent government and lead the country on a path toward stability and, eventually, elections. Henry has said he’ll officially step down once the new council is in place.

Almost immediately, though, current and former officials said, those efforts hit a wall as Haitian elites began wrangling with CARICOM officials over who should make the final cut, and some potential member candidates voiced fear for their families’ lives if they joined the council. On Friday, Blinken said that most of the parties have named their representatives for the council but that several still have not.

Edmond said many Haitians are skeptical of the plan and “don’t believe it’s the right solution.” Edmond said he believes a better alternative would be for the Haitian Supreme Court to take temporary control and appoint a technocrat as prime minister to strengthen Haiti’s national police forces and lead the country into elections.

Meanwhile, Henry’s resignation has put on hold the U.S.- and U.N.-backed plan for Kenya to deploy a police force to Haiti to help restore order to the country. Kenyan President William Ruto said he remained committed to the plan but that it would only occur after the transitional council was established. It’s unclear whether Henry’s resignation will create new legal hurdles for Ruto to carry out the deployment.

Biden administration officials also considered offers from Senegal and Rwanda to lead the security assistance force, but those proposals were ultimately rejected in favor of Kenya, current and former U.S. and Haitian officials said. Rwanda faces widespread criticisms over its checkered record on human rights and authoritarian bent, and Senegal is currently mired in its own political crisis over delayed elections. However, Kenya’s police have also been accused of committing abuses at home by human rights groups, including the use of excessive force and the killing of more than 100 people in 2023.

The planned Kenyan operation, even if it is able to commence, faces significant practical and logistical challenges, U.S. officials and congressional aides said. For starters, neither Kenya, the United States, nor other regional powers have stated what the rules of engagement would be for Kenyan forces once they are deployed to the country, where they face the daunting task of quelling powerful and heavily armed gangs and a weakened and embattled local police force.

There is also the broader question of whether adding more police will solve the deeper systemic issues that led to the current situation. “The police cannot make significant inroads against gangs absent a broader political breakthrough,” Pierre Espérance, the executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti, argued in Foreign Policy last July. “In Haiti, gang members are not independent warlords operating apart from the state. They are part of the way the state functions—and how political leaders assert power.”

An unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment released this week predicted that Haitian gangs “will be more likely to violently resist a foreign national force deployment to Haiti because they perceive it to be a shared threat to their control and operations” and that Haiti’s national police have been “unable to counter gang violence and [have] been plagued by resource issues, corruption challenges, and limited training.”

Any deployment of Kenyan forces would also require substantial logistical support from the U.S. military, U.S. officials and congressional aides familiar with the matter said. Administration officials have told Congress that once given the green light, Kenyan police could be deployed to Haiti in a matter of 45 to 60 days in ideal conditions—and without U.S. boots on the ground. But Haiti has no clear base or logistics hub for the Kenyan police to be deployed to, particularly after gangs seized control of major power centers in Port-au-Prince.

Another complicating factor is the funding mechanism. After balking for nearly two years on proposals to deploy their own forces to Haiti, the U.S. and Canadian governments have both pledged to fund the Kenyan-led force, but no funding mechanism has been set up yet to do that. A multinational police mission in Haiti could cost an estimated $500 million to $800 million per year, State Department officials have told congressional oversight committees.

Risch has held up an estimated $40 million of the first tranche of U.S. funding for the Kenya-led mission. “[A]fter years of discussions, repeated requests for information, and providing partial funding to help them plan, the administration only this afternoon sent us a rough plan to address this crisis,” Risch said in a joint statement with McCaul. The administration “owes Congress a lot more details in a more timely manner before it gets more funding,” they said.

John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesperson, said the situation is getting worse in the meantime. “The violence has been increasing, not decreasing, as well as the instability. And, of course, the Haitian people are the ones that are suffering as a result,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Edmond said that even if the Kenya-led mission gets underway, the United States has a “moral obligation to consider, before the arrival of the Kenyan forces, a way to help the national police forces that are now being overwhelmed by the gangs.”

“The United States is the leader of the free world. Haiti is a member of that world, one of the closest neighbors to the U.S. There is a moral obligation here to step in.”

Widdersheim said the United States can’t dodge responsibilities. “Half measures won’t be good enough this time,” she said. “The U.S. government hasn’t in the past seemed to care enough to truly invest in Haiti’s long-term development, and it’s to our detriment because nothing ever sticks; we just get stuck doing half measures that always fail.”

[beardedmrbean]

Haiti is fast descending into anarchy.

Over the weekend, the violence in the capital Port-au-Prince ramped up once again. Heavily armed gangs attacked the National Palace and set part of the Interior Ministry on fire with petrol bombs.

It comes after a sustained attack on the international airport, which remains closed to all flights - including one carrying Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

He tried to fly back to Haiti from the United States last week, but his plane was refused permission to land. He was then turned away from the neighbouring Dominican Republic too.

Mr Henry is now stuck in Puerto Rico, unable to set foot in the nation he ostensibly leads.

Among those who did manage to get into the stricken Caribbean nation, though, was a group of US military personnel.

Following a request from the US State Department, the Pentagon confirmed it had carried out an operation to, as it put it, "augment the security" of the US embassy in Port-au-Prince and airlift all non-essential staff to safety.

Soon after, the EU said it had evacuated all of its diplomats, fleeing a nation mired in violence and facing its biggest humanitarian crisis since the 2010 earthquake.

Millions of Haitians, however, simply don't have that luxury. They're trapped, no matter how bad things get.

The situation is dire at the State University of Haiti Hospital, known as the general hospital, in downtown Port-au-Prince. There is no sign of any medical staff at all.

A dead body, covered by a sheet and swarming with flies, lies in a bed next to patients waiting in vain for treatment.

Despite the overpowering stench, no-one has come to remove the body. It is rapidly decomposing in the Caribbean heat.

"There are no doctors, they all fled last week," said Philippe a patient who didn't want to give his real name.

"We can't go outside. We hear the explosions and gunfire. So, we must have courage and stay here, we can't go anywhere."

With no prime minister and a government in disarray, the gangs' power over the capital is near absolute.

They control more than 80% of Port-au-Prince and the country's most notorious gang leader, Jimmy "Barbecue" Chérizier has again told the prime minister to resign.

"If Ariel Henry doesn't step down and the international community continues to support him," he said last week, "they will lead us directly to a civil war which will end in genocide."

Meanwhile, the police, outnumbered and demoralised, are struggling to keep looters at bay. The Salomon police station in Port-au-Prince was attacked and burnt out, and charred police vehicles lie outside the still-smouldering building.

US evacuates Haiti embassy staff amid gang violence

Haiti's main port closes as gang violence spirals

Haiti gangs demand PM resign after mass jailbreak

Nevertheless, even in the face of the total collapse of law and order, people must still venture out to make a living.

At a nearby market, several street hawkers told the BBC they had no other option but to leave their homes, even with gunmen roaming the streets.

"I have three kids, and I'm all they have - I'm their mother and their father," said Jocelyn, a market trader who also didn't want to give her real name.

"So, I'm obliged to take to the streets. Yesterday gunmen came here and stole all our money. A lot of vendors lost all their money. But there's no way to stay at home when you have three mouths to feed."

"The anxiety is killing me when I'm in the street," echoed an older woman selling fruit. "I keep thinking what if I get shot dead? Who will take care of my children then? I have no family to support me."

To the west, in one of Haiti's nearest neighbours, Jamaica, the dignitaries, diplomats and heads of state of the Caricom regional group are gathering for an emergency summit.

The instability in Haiti is a problem for the entire Caribbean community, and for Washington too. The idea of a nation of some 11 million people being run by gangs is of huge concern, particularly the potential impact on outward migration during an election year in the US.

It's clear Caricom favours seeing Mr Henry resign as soon as possible, from outside of the country if necessary.

The Biden administration in the US has publicly said the unelected prime minister - who had promised to hold an election in February - should return to Haiti, but only in order to stand down and begin a transition to a new government.

Privately, though, US diplomats are increasingly aware that it might now be impossible for him to return, and that even attempting to do so could further destabilise Haiti.

A UN-backed plan for a Kenyan-led rapid reaction force to tackle the gangs is still far from becoming a reality.

To add to the lawlessness, a week ago, around 4,000 inmates escaped after the gangs attacked the main prison in Port-au-Prince.

Those prisoners are now back on the streets and bolstering the ranks of their gangs.

In the aftermath, the cell doors are now wide open, the facility is virtually abandoned and there are blood stains on the ground after gunmen overpowered the guards.

A prime minister unable to return, violent gangs in control of the capital and dead bodies piling up on the streets: Haiti is currently a nation about as close to a failed state as it's possible to be.

#nunyas news

[fortunelowtier]

I love how canonically there have been like 7 marvel projects set after this and it has been mentioned a grand total of once on the scroll bar of a local news station

Like there's just a statue the size of Puerto Rico sticking out of the pacific that just appeared one day, likely causing tsunamis and earthquakes across the entire pacific plate, so large it pierces into the upper atmosphere, and the only time we’ve seen it mentioned is on the local news station where like 10 minutes later they were probably talking about the days weather

#marvel #mcu #i hate mcu writing #so much #marvel cinematic universe #the eternals

[reasoningdaily]

A long-simmering crisis over Haiti’s ability to govern itself, particularly after a series of natural disasters and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency, has come to a head in the Caribbean nation, as its de facto president remains stranded in Puerto Rico and its people starve and live in fear of rampant violence. 

The chaos engulfing the country has been bubbling for more than a year, only for it to spill over on the global stage on Monday night, as Haiti’s unpopular prime minister, Ariel Henry, agreed to resign once a transitional government is brokered by other Caribbean nations and parties, including the U.S.

But the very idea of a transitional government brokered not by Haitians but by outsiders is one of the main reasons Haiti, a nation of 11 million, is on the brink, according to humanitarian workers and residents who have called for Haitian-led solutions. 

What is happening in Haiti and why?

In the power vacuum that followed the assassination of democratically elected President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, Henry, who was prime minister under Moïse, assumed power, with the support of several nations, including the U.S. 

When Haiti failed to hold elections multiple times — Henry said it was due to logistical problems or violence — protests rang out against him. By the time Henry announced last year that elections would be postponed again, to 2025, armed groups that were already active in Port-au-Prince, the capital, dialed up the violence.

Even before Moïse’s assassination, these militias and armed groups existed alongside politicians who used them to do their bidding, including everything from intimidating the opposition to collecting votes. With the dwindling of the country’s elected officials, though, many of these rebel forces have engaged in excessively violent acts, and have taken control of at least 80% of the capital, according to a United Nations estimate. 

Those groups, which include paramilitary and former police officers who pose as community leaders, have been responsible for the increase in killings, kidnappings and rapes since Moïse’s death, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program at Uppsala University in Sweden. According to a report from the U.N. released in January, more than 8,400 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2023, an increase of 122% increase from 2022.

Armed groups who had been calling for Henry’s resignation have already attacked airports, police stations, sea ports, the Central Bank and the country’s national soccer stadium. The situation reached critical mass earlier this month when the country’s two main prisons were raided, leading to the escape of about 4,000 prisoners. The beleaguered government called a 72-hour state of emergency, including a night-time curfew — but its authority had evaporated by then.

Aside from human-made catastrophes, Haiti still has not fully recovered from the devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless, many of them living in poorly built and exposed housing. More earthquakes, hurricanes and floods have followed, exacerbating efforts to rebuild infrastructure and a sense of national unity.

Since the earthquake, “there have been groups in Haiti trying to control that reconstruction process and the funding, the billions of dollars coming into the country to rebuild it,” said Beckett, who specializes in the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. 

Many armed groups have formed in recent years claiming to be community groups carrying out essential work in underprivileged neighborhoods, but they have instead been accused of violence, even murder. One of the two main groups, G-9, is led by a former elite police officer, Jimmy Chérizier — also known as “Barbecue” — who has become the public face of the unrest and claimed credit for various attacks on public institutions. He has openly called for Henry to step down and called his campaign an “armed revolution.”

But caught in the crossfire are the residents of Haiti. In just one week, 15,000 people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince, according to a U.N. estimate. But people have been trying to flee the capital for well over a year, with one woman telling NBC News that she is currently hiding in a church with her three children and another family with eight children. The U.N. said about 160,000 people have left Port-au-Prince because of the swell of violence in the last several months. 

Deep poverty and famine are also a serious danger. Gangs have cut off access to the country’s largest port, Autorité Portuaire Nationale, and food could soon become scarce.

Haiti's uncertain future

A new transitional government may dismay the Haitians and their supporters who call for Haitian-led solutions to the crisis. 

But the creation of such a government would come after years of democratic disruption and the crumbling of Haiti’s political leadership. The country hasn’t held an election in eight years. 

Haitian advocates and scholars like Jemima Pierre, an associate anthropology professor at Columbia University, say foreign intervention, including from the U.S., is partially to blame for Haiti’s turmoil. The U.S. has routinely sent thousands of troops to Haiti, intervened in its government and supported unpopular leaders like Henry.

In fact, the country’s situation was so dire that Henry was forced to travel abroad in the hope of securing a U.N. peacekeeping deal. He went to Kenya, which agreed to send 1,000 troops to coordinate an East African and U.N.-backed alliance to help restore order in Haiti,but the plan is now on hold. Kenya agreed last October to send a U.N.-sanctioned security force to Haiti, but Kenya’s courts decided it was unconstitutional. The result has been Haiti fending for itself. 

“A force like Kenya, they don’t speak Kreyòl, they don’t speak French,” Pierre said. “The Kenyan police are known for human rights abuses. So what does it tell us as Haitians that the only thing that you see that we deserve are not schools, not reparations for the cholera the U.N. brought, but more military with the mandate to use all kinds of force on our population? That is unacceptable.”  

Now that Henry is to stand down, it is far from clear what the armed groups will do or demand next, aside from the right to govern. 

“It’s the Haitian people who know what they’re going through. It’s the Haitian people who are going to take destiny into their own hands. Haitian people will choose who will govern them,” Chérizier said recently, according to The Associated Press.

Haitians and their supporters have put forth their own solutions over the years, holding that foreign intervention routinely ignores the voices and desires of Haitians. 

In 2021, both Haitian and non-Haitian church leaders, women’s rights groups, lawyers, humanitarian workers, the Voodoo Sector and more created the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. The commission has proposed the “Montana Accord,” outlining a two-year interim government with oversight committees tasked with restoring order, eradicating corruption and establishing fair elections.

#What to know about the crisis of violence #politics and hunger engulfing Haiti #Haiti #Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis

[lobuenodepuertorico]

Roberto Clemente Full Documentary

On December 31, 1972, Roberto Clemente, a thirty-eight-year-old baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates, boarded a DC-7 aircraft loaded with relief supplies for survivors of a catastrophic earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua. Concerned over reports that the Nicaraguan dictatorship was misusing shipments of aid, Clemente, a native of nearby Puerto Rico, hoped his involvement would persuade the government to distribute relief packages to the more than 300,000 people affected by the disaster. Shortly after takeoff, the overloaded aircraft plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, just one mile from the Puerto Rican coast. Roberto Clemente’s body was never recovered.

ROBERTO CLEMENTE is an in-depth look at an exceptional baseball player and committed humanitarian who challenged racial discrimination to become baseball’s first Latino superstar. Featuring interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors David Maraniss and George F. Will, Clemente’s wife Vera, Baseball Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, and former teammates, the documentary presents an intimate and revealing portrait of a man whose passion and grace made him a legend.

#youtube #Roberto Clemente Full Documentary #Roberto Clemente Documentary #roberto clemente #puertorriqueños #puerto rico #lo bueno de puerto rico #boricuas #yo soy boricua #deportistas de puerto rico #leyendas de Puerto Rico #esto es puerto rico #baseball in puerto rico #december 31 #december 31 1972 #70s #puerto ricans #mlb baseball #mlb

[longlistshort]

Frederic Leighton’s 1895 painting Flaming June is currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is on loan from Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, which is currently undergoing earthquake-related renovations.

From The Met’s website about the work-

According to Leighton, the composition was inspired by the posture of a tired model. He elaborated her sinuous pose and then added sheer orange draperies. Her skin flushed by the sun, she is transformed into a personification of summer heat. The image reflects Leighton’s allegiance to artistic ideals that emphasized harmonious color and form over narrative. This and Lachrymae (hanging nearby) were the last great pair of paintings he exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, in 1895. Critics raved, but tastes soon changed; Flaming June did not regain its fame until the Museo de Arte de Ponce acquired it in the 196os. The frame is a reconstruction of the lost original designed by the artist.

This work will be on view until February of 2024.

#frederic leighton #flaming june #the metropolitan museum of art #the met #museo de arte de ponce #famous paintings #painting #june vibes #summer vibes #sunday vibes #nyc art museum

[pacificaisstillpacifica]

i've been thinking about the fate of the caribbean islands in the world of cyberpunk 2077. because of the earthquake that tragically sank the island of hispaniola/quisqueya (haiti/dominican republic), my headcanon is that borikén (puerto rico), also sank due to proximity—or at least most of it. according to the ttrpg, borikén was canonically rife with civil war, although it supposedly stabilized after 2020. (it was also home of some of the most twisted bds known to man). and what do you think the civil war was about? the same shit as always, i bet. as a (n)usa colony, there are those who are pro-independence and those who are pro-statehood (plus the pro-status quo/"commonwealth" i.e., colony). and guess which megacorp would be there, fanning the flames? yep. fuckin' militech.

ANYWAY, i was thinking about this because of bgb x reed. i don't think they would stay in the nusa, but i want bgb to stay somewhere warm and also close to her heritage. however, haiti and borikén seem to be out of the question. and then phantom liberty gave us the mysterious assassin aguilar (which, i had no idea their gender changed depending on your v! ) who works contracts for the cuban cartel. which means cuba—or at the very least, havana—is still around. it makes sense, since cuba is so very large in comparison to quisqueya and borikén.

but maybe some of quisqueya and borikén survived the earthquakes and floods? idk. we got mountain ranges that could still be above water, but if so i'm betting the militech fuckers pulled a vieques and built a military base there.

i'm rambling, sorry, but... maybe reed x bgb can settle down in cuba. (that is, if doña aguilar doesn't pop a cap in bgb's head for impersonating her lmaoooo).

it's not the same group of taíno (aside from the non-taíno guanahatabey people, cuban taíno were called "western" taíno, whereas those from quisqueya and borikén were called "classic" but you know it's all colonizer bullshit terms noway) but it's the closest bgb will ever be able to get to her grandma's homeland and culture. plus, there is no doubt diaspora from ayiti and borikén who sought refuge there.

...i don't even know what point i was tryna make 💀 but if you've read all this nonsensical rambling, i hope you get great news this week lol.

#cyberpunk ttrpg #cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty spoilers #ship stuff #ship: short change heroes #bizu blah blah blah

[david6of7]

Guanica, Puerto Rico

Mostly where the earthquakes that started end of December 2019 and have not stopped are centered.

Photography by David Velez

#davidvelez #david6of7 #guanica #pr #puertorico #travel #bay  #tsunamizone

[daughterofthesandandthesea]

Victorian Masterpieces from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico

This special installation will feature five Victorian masterpieces from the collection of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. The exceptional loans include the iconic Flaming June by Frederic Leighton, John Everett Millais’s The Escape of a Heretic, 1559, and Edward Burne-Jones’s Small Briar Rose series (The Prince Enters the Wood, The King and His Court, and The Sleeping Beauty, all painted 1871–73).

The paintings will be displayed in the galleries for 19th- and early-20th-century European paintings and sculpture, presented in dialogue with other works by artists at The Met. Most notably, the presentation will bring together Leighton’s Flaming June with Lachrymae (1894–95, The Met), two of his last monumental oil paintings. Although the two works have been in several exhibitions together, this is the first time that they will be displayed side by side.

Since the Museo de Arte de Ponce has been closed for repair following devastating earthquakes in 2020, this partnership allows the public to continue viewing their most important artworks while also showcasing meaningful connections with The Met's collection. …

For more inf check the website provided …