donaldduke
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Not sure if i want to send these people any money
Bit Judgmental fella.. must be mayhem there.. also all the prisoners have escaped!..remember beneath a thin veneer of civilization we are animals.Not sure if i want to send these people any money
dick_dastardly
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Judgmental you say?
“Say: ‘He has power to send torment on you from above or from under your feet, or to cover you with confusion in party strife, and make you to taste the violence of one another.’” [al-An’aam 6:65]
dd
“Say: ‘He has power to send torment on you from above or from under your feet, or to cover you with confusion in party strife, and make you to taste the violence of one another.’” [al-An’aam 6:65]
dd
B
Black Swan
hmmm...as someone reminded me over the weekend; "we never behaved like that during the blitz".
My 2p worth, $5bl to re-build basic infrastructure, $30bl to build new (shock proof) buildings... not withstanding the 'governing' costs the whole re-build bill would be in the region of $50bl. They have nowt to offer up in return, never gonna happen. The media and govts. will turn the page on this quickly, it'll get tidied up then left to its own devices. A few media journos are attempting to fly the; "this could be the making of Haiti, look what happened to Acer after the Tsunami..." nonsense, this has happened at a terrible time in terms of the mis-managed global economic cycle, notwithstanding that if you go to islands such as Phi Phi you'll find that, despite $400ml of aid, housing projects still lie in tatters 4 years later...
Haiti is fooked, they should emmigrate, which is why the US forces are really there in numbers by land and by sea, to keep them on their prison island...still, nice to see a few cruise liners still parking up to let their guests enjoy unspoilt parts of the island...
Sixty miles from Haiti's devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.
The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean International, disembarked at the heavily guarded resort of Labadee on the north coast on Friday; a second cruise ship, the 3,100-passenger Navigator of the Seas is due to dock.
The Florida cruise company leases a picturesque wooded peninsula and its five pristine beaches from the government for passengers to "cut loose" with watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market before returning on board before dusk. Safety is guaranteed by armed guards at the gate.
The decision to go ahead with the visit has divided passengers. The ships carry some food aid, and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to help stricken Haitians. But many passengers will stay aboard when they dock; one said he was "sickened".
"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.
"It was hard enough to sit and eat a picnic lunch at Labadee before the quake, knowing how many Haitians were starving," said another. "I can't imagine having to choke down a burger there now.''
Some booked on ships scheduled to stop at Labadee are afraid that desperate people might breach the resort's 12ft high fences to get food and drink, but others seemed determined to enjoy their holiday."I'll be there on Tuesday and I plan on enjoying my zip line excursion as well as the time on the beach," said one.
The company said the question of whether to "deliver a vacation experience so close to the epicentre of an earthquake" had been subject to considerable internal debate before it decided to include Haiti in its itineraries for the coming weeks.
"In the end, Labadee is critical to Haiti's recovery; hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood," said John Weis, vice-president. "In our conversations with the UN special envoy of the government of Haiti, Leslie Voltaire, he notes that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each call …
"We also have tremendous opportunities to use our ships as transport vessels for relief supplies and personnel to Haiti. Simply put, we cannot abandon Haiti now that they need us most."
"Friday's call in Labadee went well," said Royal Caribbean. "Everything was open, as usual. The guests were very happy to hear that 100% of the proceeds from the call at Labadee would be donated to the relief effort."
Forty pallets of rice, beans, powdered milk, water, and canned foods were delivered on Friday, and a further 80 are due and 16 on two subsequent ships. When supplies arrive in Labadee, they are distributed by Food for the Poor, a longtime partner of Royal Caribbean in Haiti.
Royal Caribbean has also pledged $1m to the relief effort and will spend part of that helping 200 Haitian crew members.
The company recently spent $55m updating Labadee. It employs 230 Haitians and the firm estimates 300 more benefit from the market. The development has been regarded as a beacon of private investment in Haiti; Bill Clinton visited in October. Some Haitians have decried the leasing of the peninsula as effective privatisation of part of the republic's coastline.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/cruise-ships-haiti-earthquake
chilltrader
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Look... if you want to donate, just do it. If not then STFU... no need to get on a high horse (which is full of fleas anyway).
hmmmm... Tell us. How did you behave in the blitz?
I was in the blitz, although I was very young.
People did not behave, then, in the same way that they behave in London, today.
People have changed a lot. And not for the better.
B
Black Swan
Yep, fully realise it's not a great comparison but got me thinking how *we'd* react in the UK or Europe...are we one part removed from acting like that, would the thin veneer of respectability evaporate as the house came down? Not so sure we'd descend into mob rule lynching as readily, but then again most of these poor fookers have nothing to lose or gain. 'tis a bit disconcerting watching so many able bodied lads wandering around shell shocked and not getting stuck in, but really we have no idea what's going on in their heads and they are 'shell shocked'...
Just reckon the media coverage will shift by the weekend, sadly the politicos are using it as a bad event to bury bad news (no sad pun intended). Images I've seen that sickened me aren't just of the dead, the US/UN staff slipping quietly off the isle (i-pod earphones in, wearing deck shorts carrying their perfect kids) whilst troops arrived was bad, the UN doing a military send off for their dead in *'beautiful* wooden coffins giving it the milatary salute whilst 70,000 are dumped in a hole in the ground was sickening, but perhaps the worst images are from Leogane, right at the epicentre and largely ignored..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...493976627772.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories
This situation has been going on in Haiti since they threw the French out. Nothing seems to have improved there and they have never had the opportunities that Americans and Europeans have enjoyed. They are on a par, (and forgive me, Africans) with most of Africa. Zimbabwe, Ruanda, you name it.
These people can only change by living under the influence of their more fortunate brethren and I mean Russians, Japanese, Chinese as well as us.
You mentioned the British and the Blitz, but the French and German and most of the populations on the European mainland suffered as much, if not more, and they did not comport themselves like Haitians, either.
However, this has to be taken in context. What happened in Haiti occurred within a matter of hours and, apart from the horrors of the buried alive, 250 prisoners escaped at the same time.
I can't remember enduring water shortages during the blitz and we, always had food, a cup of tea and coal to keep us warm in winter. Public transport operated.
These people can only change by living under the influence of their more fortunate brethren and I mean Russians, Japanese, Chinese as well as us.
You mentioned the British and the Blitz, but the French and German and most of the populations on the European mainland suffered as much, if not more, and they did not comport themselves like Haitians, either.
However, this has to be taken in context. What happened in Haiti occurred within a matter of hours and, apart from the horrors of the buried alive, 250 prisoners escaped at the same time.
I can't remember enduring water shortages during the blitz and we, always had food, a cup of tea and coal to keep us warm in winter. Public transport operated.
