As Haitians mark the anniversary on Wednesday of the earthquake that flattened much of the capital Port-au-Prince, hopes that a better nation could rise from the rubble have given way to a crushing sense of bitterness and despair.

Reconstruction work has barely begun despite billions of dollars in pledged aid, profiteering by Haiti’s tiny and notoriously corrupt elite has reached epic proportions, and a national cholera epidemic has added to the misery of a country where the magnitude 7 quake killed about 250,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, was in bad shape before the quake. But promises from the international community to “build Haiti back better” now ring hollow to many of the country’s most vulnerable.

Banks, schools and government offices were ordered closed for the anniversary and a national day of mourning was to kick off with a service offered by the papal envoy to Haiti at the quake-shattered remains of the National Cathedral in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the special U.N. envoy for Haiti who heads its main disaster management body, was due to attend the service along with a host of officials including outgoing Haitian President Rene Preval.

Clinton, in an interview with NBC News’ Mara Schiavocampo, said he was not satisfied with the rate of progress, but remained optimistic that this would change.

“Everyday there’s hope and there’s frustration, but I’d say the hope still outweighs the frustration,” he said. “I think there has been some real progress. We got 60 percent of the pledges for the first year distributed.”

Schiavocampo, noting that some of the additions to the tent camps to make them more livable — such as concrete structures and latrines — also made them easier to rely on as permanent housing, asked Clinton if he expects them to still be in use in the next several years.

“If they’re here in five years, I’ll be really diasppointed,” responded Clinton, who co-chairs the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission with Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. “But I have to tell you, I didn’t think we’d get a third of the people out in a year because we knew couldn’t do any comprehensive block-by-block building.”

Clinton continued, saying that those who have left the camps were able to clear rubble from

their existing homes, or get into temporary housing.

“So, where actually that’s the one area where there are more people out of those camps than what I thought would be, but I want to really see a lot of rapid movement.”

‘Continuing spirit’ of Haitians
He said between 40 to 60 exhibitors were expected at a housing expo in spring and the Haitian government would then choose which of them were eligible for aid.

“Then I’ll be surprised if we don’t really start going to town on the housing,” Clinton said. “I think you’ll see big time movement and there’ll be employment and there’ll be new businesses as a result of it. So, we’ll do better on housing this year.”

He said he was “most encouraged by the fact that I can’t find any donor who has given up,” but also by the the “continuing spirit of the people of Haiti.”

Clinton has faced pointed criticism for painfully slow progress in relief and rebuilding efforts so far. He acknowledged disappointment with the commission’s work in remarks to foreign reporters on Tuesday.

“Nobody’s been more frustrated than I am that we haven’t done more,” he said.

In his interview with Schiavocampo, Clinton said he was asked “a lot” by donors about what their money had been spent on.

“If someone wants to know how was their money spent and was it well spent, how do you answer that question?” he said. “Well, I think first of all, to answer how it was spent, I have to know to whom they gave it.

“But, for example, anyone who gave me money … I just raised for about three days $15 million  and we spent 85 percent of it and I can tell you how every penny of it was spent,” he added.

In Champs Mars, Port-au-Prince’s central plaza where thousands of families made homeless by the quake live in a sweltering tent city, residents said the official ceremonies and renewed pledges of aid and progress for Haiti from foreign officials, were like something taking place in another world.

Hundreds of thousands are still living in such camps and are falling victim to the cholera that has already taken some 3,750 lives since mid-October.

Political impasse
A political impasse since a disputed presidential election on November 28 has fueled further instability in the Caribbean country.

“I hear about aid on TV but us in Champs Mars, we’ve never seen it. We have no way to get out,” said 55-year-old Ginelle Pierre Louis.

“The diplomats pass through in the air, in helicopters, but they never come through here on the ground,” said Hyacinthe Mintha, 56, a resident of Champs Mars, which overlooks the heavily damaged presidential palace.

Mintha’s daughter, Hyacinthe Benita, 39, lives in a metal and wood shack with a frayed tarp roof and a thin pallet as the only bed for herself and her four children.

“We are still here in misery,” she said of the quake anniversary. “I hope this year brings serious change because 2010 was hell for us,” she added.

“The president’s right over there,” said Benita, gesturing toward the annex where Preval, who is deeply unpopular, works behind the presidential palace. “He’s never done anything for us, he’s never come to see us at all. They look at us like animals,” she said.

The new chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said Tuesday that real recovery and development in Haiti depended on accountability and strong leadership by the Caribbean country’s government.

“Leadership that is not there,” she said after returning to Miami International Airport. “It will be crucial, critical, necessary for Haiti’s next leader to take every step necessary to institute the needed changes to bring transparency, trust and credibility back to this nation.”

Ros-Lehtinen said future U.S. and international support for Haiti depended on concrete eff orts to curb corruption and graft. The congresswoman said she planned to reintroduce legislati on to increase oversight of U.S. funding to Haiti.

Cheryl Mills, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief of staff, has said the U.S. could support throwing out the disputed results of Haiti’s first-round presidential election in November, if that’s what is proposed by a 12-member election team from the Organization of American States.

Fraudulent ballots
A draft copy of the OAS report on the election, obtained by The Associated Press, said the disputed vote should neither be thrown out entirely nor recounted.

But it said enough fraudulent or improper ballots should be invalidated to drop ruling-party candidate Jude Celestin into third place and out of the second-round runoff.

Denis O’Brien, a supporter of Bill Clinton and chairman of the Irish-owned cell phone company Digicel that is Haiti’s biggest foreign investor, told Reuters in an interview this week that the former U.S. leader had a solid understanding of what needs to be done to get Haiti back on its feet.

But one of his big problems, according to O’Brien, is that most members of Haiti’s ruling class have done little to help, seeking only to profit on the back of their nation’s catastrophe.

“There’s very few of the elite families that are actually doing a lot for Haiti,” O’Brien said.

“They’re making massive profits on the importation of goods, products, services, everything … Profiteering at a major scale is going on here,” he added.

Jimmy Jean-Louis, a Haitian-born actor and performer who now lives in Los Angeles but has visited his homeland frequently since the quake, said the ruling class had always benefited from chaos and mayhem in Haiti.

“The more destabilization there is, unfortunately, the more money the elite makes,” he said.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): PURECASHMAGAZINE, OUTBLUSH

Spain’s victorious World Cup squad have landed in Madrid amid scenes of joyous celebration in the country’s capital.

A sizeable crowd chanted and car horns sounded as skipper Iker Casillas, carrying the trophy, led the team down the steps of the plane.

The players will have a brief siesta before a reception hosted by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

More than one million fans are expected to line the streets for an open-top bus parade starting at 1800 BST.

The parade will end about two hours later at the esplanade near the Puente del Rey, where the festivities are expected to continue officially until midnight.

Many fans made the trip to Barajas Airport to greet the returning heroes from South Africa.

The flight landed at 1338 local time with Spanish flags flying from the cockpit windows and two fire engines making a guard of honour with their jet streams.

The plane was emblazoned with the words ‘Campeones’ (Champions) and ‘Orgullosos de nuestra seleccion’ (Proud of our squad).

Casillas, who was in floods of tears after the final whistle in Johannesburg on Sunday night, again appeared to be on the verge of crying as he led his team across the tarmac to a waiting coach.

They were taken to a nearby hotel to eat and rest before they head to the Royal Palace for a reception with the Spanish royal family and then to the Moncloa Palace to be greeted by the prime minister.

European champions Spain won the World Cup for the first time in their history thanks to Andres Iniesta’s extra-time winner against the Netherlands at the Soccer City Stadium.

Source (article): BBCNEWS

Source (picture): CBC.CA

On April 9, 1959, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) introduces America’s first astronauts to the press: Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., and Donald Slayton. The seven men, all military test pilots, were carefully selected from a group of 32 candidates to take part in Project Mercury, America’s first manned space program. NASA planned to begin manned orbital flights in 1961.

On October 4, 1957, the USSR scored the first victory of the “space race” when it successfully launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into Earth’s orbit. In response, the United States consolidated its various military and civilian space efforts into NASA, which dedicated itself to beating the Soviets to manned space flight. In January 1959, NASA began the astronaut selection procedure, screening the records of 508 military test pilots and choosing 110 candidates. This number was arbitrarily divided into three groups, and the first two groups reported to Washington. Because of the high rate of volunteering, the third group was eliminated. Of the 62 pilots who volunteered, six were found to have grown too tall since their last medical examination. An initial battery of written tests, interviews, and medical history reviews further reduced the number of candidates to 36. After learning of the extreme physical and mental tests planned for them, four of these men dropped out.

The final 32 candidates traveled to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they underwent exhaustive medical and psychological examinations. The men proved so healthy, however, that only one candidate was eliminated. The remaining 31 candidates then traveled to the Wright Aeromedical Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, where they underwent the most grueling part of the selection process. For six days and three nights, the men were subjected to various tortures that tested their tolerance of physical and psychological stress. Among other tests, the candidates were forced to spend an hour in a pressure chamber that simulated an altitude of 65,000 feet, and two hours in a chamber that was heated to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. At the end of one week, 18 candidates remained. From among these men, the selection committee was to choose six based on interviews, but seven candidates were so strong they ended up settling on that number.

After they were announced, the “Mercury Seven” became overnight celebrities. The Mercury Project suffered some early setbacks, however, and on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in the world’s first manned space flight. Less than one month later, on May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard was successfully launched into space on a suborbital flight. On February 20, 1962, in a major step for the U.S. space program, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. NASA continued to trail the Soviets in space achievements until the late 1960s, when NASA’s Apollo program put the first men on the moon and safely returned them to Earth.

In 1998, 36 years after his first space flight, John Glenn traveled into space again. Glenn, then 77 years old, was part of the Space Shuttle Discovery crew, whose 9-day research mission launched on October 29, 1998. Among the crew’s investigations was a study of space flight and the aging process.

Source (article): THISDAYINHISTORY

Source (picture): LIBRARY.THINKQUEST

On this day in 1959, the first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City.

Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features. The woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945. After seeing her young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future.

Barbie’s appearance was modeled on a doll named Lilli, based on a German comic strip character. Originally marketed as a racy gag gift to adult men in tobacco shops, the Lilli doll later became extremely popular with children. Mattel bought the rights to Lilli and made its own version, which Handler named after her daughter, Barbara. With its sponsorship of the “Mickey Mouse Club” TV program in 1955, Mattel became the first toy company to broadcast commercials to children. They used this medium to promote their new toy, and by 1961, the enormous consumer demand for the doll led Mattel to release a boyfriend for Barbie. Handler named him Ken, after her son. Barbie’s best friend, Midge, came out in 1963; her little sister, Skipper, debuted the following year.

Over the years, Barbie generated huge sales–and a lot of controversy. On the positive side, many women saw Barbie as providing an alternative to traditional 1950s gender roles. She has had a series of different jobs, from airline stewardess, doctor, pilot and astronaut to Olympic athlete and even U.S. presidential candidate. Others thought Barbie’s never-ending supply of designer outfits, cars and “Dream Houses” encouraged kids to be materialistic. It was Barbie’s appearance that caused the most controversy, however. Her tiny waist and enormous breasts–it was estimated that if she were a real woman, her measurements would be 36-18-38–led many to claim that Barbie provided little girls with an unrealistic and harmful example and fostered negative body image.

Despite the criticism, sales of Barbie-related merchandise continued to soar, topping 1 billion dollars annually by 1993. Since 1959, more than 800 million dolls in the Barbie family have been sold around the world and Barbie is now a bona fide global icon.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-03-09

In Russia, the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar) begins when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupt in Petrograd. One week later, centuries of czarist rule in Russia ended with the abdication of Nicholas II, and Russia took a dramatic step closer toward communist revolution.

By 1917, most Russians had lost faith in the leadership ability of the czarist regime. Government corruption was rampant, the Russian economy remained backward, and Nicholas repeatedly dissolved the Duma, the Russian parliament established after the Revolution of 1905, when it opposed his will. However, the immediate cause of the February Revolution–the first phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917–was Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War I. Militarily, imperial Russia was no match for industrialized Germany, and Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and moderates joined Russian radical elements in calling for the overthrow of the czar.

On March 8, 1917, demonstrators clamoring for bread took to the streets in the Russian capital of Petrograd (now known as St. Petersburg). Supported by 90,000 men and women on strike, the protesters clashed with police but refused to leave the streets. On March 10, the strike spread among all of Petrograd’s workers, and irate mobs of workers destroyed police stations. Several factories elected deputies to the Petrograd Soviet, or “council,” of workers’ committees, following the model devised during the Revolution of 1905.

On March 11, the troops of the Petrograd army garrison were called out to quell the uprising. In some encounters, regiments opened fire, killing demonstrators, but the protesters kept to the streets, and the troops began to waver. That day, Nicholas again dissolved the Duma. On March 12, the revolution triumphed when regiment after regiment of the Petrograd garrison defected to the cause of the demonstrators. The soldiers, some 150,000 men, subsequently formed committees that elected deputies to the Petrograd Soviet.

The imperial government was forced to resign, and the Duma formed a provisional government that peacefully vied with the Petrograd Soviet for control of the revolution. On March 14, the Petrograd Soviet issued “Order No. 1,” which instructed Russian soldiers and sailors to obey only those orders that did not conflict with the directives of the Soviet. The next day, March 15, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Michael, whose refusal of the crown brought an end to the czarist autocracy.

The new provincial government, tolerated by the Petrograd Soviet, hoped to salvage the Russian war effort while ending the food shortage and many other domestic crises. It would prove a daunting task. Meanwhile, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik revolutionary party, left his exile in Switzerland and crossed German enemy lines to return home and take control of the Russian Revolution.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-03-08