Today, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Paris to meet President Sarkozy, and his French counterpart, Minister of Defense Herve Morin. The meeting followed the announcement made today by Tehran of its plan to produce 20 percent enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear reactors.

The new move by the Ahmedinejad administration is in blatant contradiction to the one made late last week when Iran indicated that they would be open to have the uranium enriched elsewhere, either in Russia or France. Six nations are currently dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. The group is composed by the US, China, Russia, the UK, Germany and France. Of this group, the US and France are the ones advocating for the toughest sanctions against Iran.

“The international community has offered the Iranian government multiple opportunities to provide reassurance of its intentions. The results have been very disappointing,” said Secretary of Defense Gates.

During the meeting Gates asked France to submit a new resolution on sanctions against Iran at the United Nations Security Council. France is holding the rotating chair on the UN Security Council this month. The United Nations Security Council has five permanent members which are the US, China, Russia, The UK and France.

“The US and France will push for new UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Secretary Gates and I spoke about our respective positions. We are in complete agreement,” said Minister of Defense Morin.

In order for the new resolution to have a real effect, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council must be in agreement over the term of the resolution. Russia has given indications that they would be on board with the US, the UK and France to get tougher on Tehran. However, China, which has a veto power, could block the resolution or make it noneffective. The recent tensions between Washington on Beijing over the sale of weapons by the US to Taiwan will not be helpful to get a resolution passed. China’s economy relies on Iranian oil, and it is unlikely that Beijing will be willing to go with an international freeze on oil and natural gas export from Iran, which would be the only way to put real pressure on Ahmadinejad regime. If China decides to play ball on Iran, they are likely to ask for something in return.

Editor’s Note: Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

Today, after the Super Bowl win by the Saints  is a day of celebration in New-Orleans. Four and half years after Katrina ran amok on the Crescent City in 2005, New-Orleans is still very much in need not only of a moral boost but also of  an economic one.

When the Saints play in New-Orleans, they play at the Super Dome. In 2005, the very same Super Dome became the symbol of our abject collective shortcomings in dealing with natural disasters. The rest of  the world was shocked by the spectacle of the only world super power inability to deal with the aftermath of Katrina. The hurricane not only exposed government failures at Federal, State and local levels, but it also lifted the veil of America’s best kept secret: Abject poverty and extreme social injustice.

New-Orleans and Port-au-Prince have strong historical ties. Haiti won its independence from France a bit more than 200 years ago by accomplishing what seemed impossible: defeating the mighty troops of Napoleon. In doing so, Haiti became the first Republic set up by former slaves. The French emperor had the strange perception, after losing Haiti, that keeping Louisiana was somewhat  irrelevant. This factor, combined with the great negotiation and diplomatic skills of Thomas Jefferson, drove Napoleon into accepting the offer for what became  known as the Louisiana Purchase in 1804. If the former Haitian slaves would have not defeated the French, the sale of Louisiana could have being postponed or may be not even occurred at all.

If Haiti governance was already on “shaky grounds” before the earthquake on January 12, it did not seem to be the case for New-Orleans in August 2005. Yet, both events exposed similar short comings in dealing with emergency situations. The incapacity of FEMA to step up to the plate in New-Orleans became a tragic joke. As far as Port-au-Prince, the scope of the disaster is defying imagination, but some commentators said that “Haiti’s government was a failed one before the earthquake anyway”. But then what is the excuse for the United States of having performed so poorly in New-Orleans in 2005? It is not by lack of means; America is the richest country in the world as opposed to Haiti which is the poorest in the Western hemisphere.

If Haiti relies almost exclusively on  foreign aid and remittances send by Haitian expatriates to survive, it is certainly not the case for the United States. However, the responses in both cases, after Katrina in New-Orleans and in the aftermath of the quake in Haiti, were not adequate either in scope, coordination or basic efficiency. New-Orleans is very slowly coming back from Katrina’s destruction, but the recovery effort is still a “work in progress”. Port-au-Prince and Haiti will take decades of concerted international efforts to recover.

In both instances, the problems were and are the ones of systemic  governance incompetence, our common lack of  political will and our very short attention span in regard to what all of us, globally, should be focusing on. We could accomplish a lot globally if we were not wasting our precious resources on military spending, in the case of the US, and put our coordinated efforts into construction instead of destruction. This is not some sort of Utopian dream or a pie in the sky, but should be a common goal which could be actualized if  we, as citizens of the world, really put our minds to it.

Editor’s Note: To view more photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, click here. Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

Reporting from Port-au-Prince

Rain started falling in Port-au-Prince at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday.

The rain is hard at times and it is the first of the rainy season. NGO’s, government agencies, and the UN had been worried about the rain since most earthquake survivors are living in tents.

There dozens of tent cities in Port-au-Prince and across the country. These tent cities can have as few as 50 people to as many as 3,000-5,000.

The tents are makeshift shelters, often made of cardboard or bed-sheets. Most of the tent cities sit on fields of dirt, if enough water falls the soft ground will make the sticks and branches people are using to the raise their tents to collapse.

Only about 20 percent of the survivors have tents that have been donated by NGO’s. Those tents are able to withstand some rain. UN Assistant Secretary General and Interim Head of the Stabilization Mission in Haiti told the NJP last Thursday that his priority was to give proper shelter and tents to survivors due to the looming rainy season.

Light to heavy precipitation is in the forecast for the Western part of Haiti until tomorrow evening.

Editor’s Note: Dolores M. Bernal will continue to file stories from Haiti this week. You can follow her on Twitter.

It’s the biggest game of the year and much of the media coverage is being focused, not at the athletes on the field, but on one who isn’t even in their league.  College football phenom Timmy Tebow is going to get 30 seconds of pad free air time to honor the two most controlling factors in his life: his mother and his god.  The right wing conservative Christian organization, Focus on the Family, is paying an estimated $2.5 million for an ad on CBS to use Tim Tebow’s noteriety as part of their ongoing anti-choice, anti-gay agenda.  The apparent message in this ad is that, when faced with a dangerous medical prognosis, pregnant mothers should ignore physicians advice and put themselves and their child at risk.  Pam Tebow told ESPN that she now has a national platform to spread her message and encourage women to trust her god with their lives.

This religiously charged saga started twenty five years ago when Tim’s father, a seminary graduate and professional preacher, decided that he should move his family to the Philippines and save all the Filipino heathen.  The family’s ministry website(1) states that most Filipinos, approximately 60%, have never even heard the teachings of Christianity and that their mission work is critically important.  Apparently, and once again according to their website, they must hurry and spread their god’s word while the country is still poor and open to their message.  However, The Pew forum(2), as well as a Philippine national web site(3), both state that the countries Christian population is over 92% in a heavily Roman Catholic society.

This is an extremely large discrepancy, certainly more than a statistical anomaly.  The Philippines say that they are a country with a much higher percentage of their population being Christian than the United States yet the Tebow’s would have us believe its a godless wilderness in need of their brand of Christian teaching.  The country has been under catholic influence since Spain was plundering and colonizing there in the sixteenth century.  Do they really need more Christian influence or are the Tebow’s simply funding their family business and their own ideological agenda?  It seems to me that it would be very difficult for the Tebow’s to procure funding from Christians to convert a Christian country to Christianity.  This would be like trying to raise money to promote football to all the season ticket holders.  It’s a little easier to raise that money if other Christian fundamentalists were convinced of a true mission to spread ‘the word’ in a land void of Christianity.  From the outline on their website, this ministry is not a service but simply a spreading of Christian teachings; a spiritual PR firm.  There are five priorities for the Bob Tebow Evangelical Association.   Numbers one through four are evangelizing, building churches, training pastors and training youth to be evangelical pastors and then, priority number five, is a small orphanage in Mindanao where 50 children are cared for by hired helpers.  The orphanage was funded by Richard Fowler, a friend and convert of the Tebow’s, and a beqeathal from his estate.  This orphanage provides some good-works credibility to a family organization that seems driven by theological and doctrinational imperialism.

Evangelizing is the Tebow family business.  This is what they do for a living.  All five children, of whom Tim is the youngest, have been co-opted into this work from a very young age and remain involved to this day.  Tims parents are proud fundamentalist zealots.  There has been little doubt regarding what Tim was going to do with his life.  Tim’s success in football has just presented a fantastic PR and fund raising tool.  Bob, Tim’s father, says that while he was preaching in the Philippines 23 years ago, he asked god for a preacher son.  Miraculously, or maybe just because he had sex with his wife, Tim was conceived.  Pam, Tim’s mother, contracted a serious infection and had a placental abruption that threatened both her unborn son as well as her own life.  She refused the doctors advice and insisted on carrying Tim to term.  Fortunately she and Tim both survived his birth on August 14 of 1987 in Manila.  Ever since then, Mr. Tebow has had both his helpmeet wife and his miraculous preacher son to help him evangelize a nation with a higher percentage of Christian devotees than the United States.  With this sort of logic I have to wonder if they had anything to do with sending the solar powered bibles to the earthquake victims in Haiti.

As would any good fundamentalists, Tim’s parents chose to homeschool from kindergarten through grade 12 because they wanted control over his education and his influences and wanted all things to coincide with their doctrine and belief system.  Tim’s father, in an interview with Homeschooling Teen(4), stated “If I could get my kids to the age of 25 and they know God and serve God and had character qualities that pleased God, then I knew God would be happy and I would be happy,…The only way I could do that was to do it myself, commit to God that this is my job…Traditional academics had to take a back seat to God’s Word and character building.”  According to their history and bios, Tim, and all his siblings, seem to be doing a very good job living the lives that their parents have meticulously scripted and controlled.  I’m not sure what pressure his elder siblings may have faced but it would seem that growing up in such a closed and controlled system would not have left many opportunities for investigation and self-discovery.  As for Tim, how could he say no?  His mother risked her life for him and for the glory of her god, and he is reminded of that constantly.

According to his parents, Tim, their youngest little miracle, became a born-again Christian at the age of six.  That’s right, by the age of six little Timmy had a thorough enough grasp of Christian Fundamentalist doctrine that he was able to commit his life.  Through a home schooling program that focused as much on public speaking as it does on biblical education, Tim was prepared and began preaching to large crowds by the age of 15.  These large crowds in the Philippines were arranged through his fathers ministry, the very same ministry through which Tim has done so many of his good works that we hear so much about in the media.  Tim has spent his entire young life in a relatively closed environment being convinced of his mission, his debt to his mother and her god, and his destined role in the family business/ministry.  Isn’t it a wonderful for Tim that he can completely dedicate himself to his parents agenda and offer so much assistance with fund raising.

Every decision in Tims football career has been weighed against his role as an evangelical preacher.  A platform and podium for Tim to speak and proselytize from is very important.  He stayed, or was perhaps persuaded to stay, an extra year in college ball rather than go pro.   In an interview with Jason Fagone of Slate(5), Tim spoke of how he had a larger platform to speak from, staying with the Gators for another season, than if he became a much smaller fish in the ocean of the NFL.  Football is not the goal, it’s only the means.  Tim is to be a preacher.  That is what his father asked for and that is exactly what his father has worked very hard to create.  As Jason Fagone observes, “the (Super Bowl) commercial isn’t a means; it’s the end.”

Tim now has his own foundation(6) that, not surprisingly, works in all the same areas, doing all the same things as his parents Evangelistic Association.  What a coincidence.  The stated mission of the foundation is “to bring faith, hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need”.  Right next to an introductory video of Tim asking for donations is a link so that you can give those donations and help with the important work of brightening peoples days through the spreading of fundamentalist Christian doctrine..  The website outlines many of Tim’s goals for future fund raising and evangelizing.

So, when you are watching the Super Bowl today and Pam Tebow and her son Timmy appear on the screen trying to influence Americans against pro-choice legislation, remember that you are watching a very young, meticulously groomed evangelical fundamentalist who happens to be a great college football player and not a football player who happens to be devoutly religious.  This is what he is has been trained for all his life.  Welcome to prime time Tebow Evangelical Ministries, using football to get your future tithes and offerings and reminding pregnant mothers that they too could make a martyr’s gamble and end up with their very own gratefully subservient and completely controllable miracle child.  That is, as long as they don’t kill themselves and their unborn child in the process. Amen.

This is the seventh article in a new daily series on News Junkie Post known as the Progressive Unity Project. Each day, there will be a new article published from the perspective of the environment, labor, LGBT, immigration, science, legalization, or secularity. About the weekly contributor on SecularSunday:

Secular Sunday

Liam Fox Is a Secular Humanist active as a Human Rights Advocate, Social Justice Activist, and Climate Justice proponent. He is a Social Service Worker and Community Program Organizer as well as Musician and Public Speaker. Liam can be found in most places the web connects and also writes for IrreverenceCafe and his home site, and can be found on Twitter.

“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god.” – Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Citations:

(1) –  http://btea.org/
(2) –  http://pewforum.org/world-affairs/countries/?CountryID=163
(3) –  http://www.philippines.hvu.nl/culture1.htm
(4) -  http://homeschoolingteen.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/homeschooled-teen-profile-tim-tebow/
(5) –  http://www.slate.com/id/2242960/
(6) -  http://www.timtebowfoundation.org/

Note: On the second photograph you can see Sarah Palin’s “key talking points” written on her left hand. Energy, Tax Cuts & Lift America Spirit.

This week-end, Sarah Palin was crowned queen of the so called “Tea Party Movement”. It seemed so real that the respectable BBC reported on it tonight. From a US perspective, it doesn’t seem to be a completely real political movement,  but instead a manufactured one coming from Fox News.

Palin wants a smaller government, lower taxes and she also wants to deal with the soaring budget deficit. Or also, and for good measure, she said  tonight that we need a new “revolution”. Now this is quiet surprising considering where she is coming from.

Sarah Palin went on to call President Obama’s 2011 budget “immoral”.

“It is easy to understand why Americans are shaking their heads when Washington has broken trust with the people that these politicians are to be serving” Sarah Palin told a cheering Tea Party convention.

And then she criticised strongly the Obama administration on foreign policy issues.

“We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America’s friends from her enemies, and recognizes the true nature of the threats that we face,” said Palin. This one sounded very similar to the stand made by George W. Bush shortly after 9/11/2001: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists”.

Let’s be perfectly clear here; Sarah Palin is nothing but a sexy facade in charge of recycling the message of the former administration. The so called “tea party grass root movement” has been manufactured all along by Fox News. For some reason they managed to derail the Obama administration health care reform by pretending that the “grass root” movement in question was a lot bigger than it actually is.

But then one has to wonder who is really running the political agenda of Fox News. Is it the clowns such as Glen Beck, Bill O’ Reilly etc, or the real guys, the ones that are called in to do the heavy ideological lifting? I am sure you know  exactly who they are: It is former VP Dick Cheney and Bush’s “brain” himself AKA Karl Rove. The former Bush administration did not completely leave the political arena, they just moved to Fox News.

So when Sarah Palin calls for a “revolution”, what does she has in mind exactly? Let me take a guess, what she calls revolution is actually a counter-revolution to set the clock back to the “good ol’ days” of the Bush era with the same puppet masters in the background. If Sarah Palin would be elected in 2012, she would be Teflon President part 2: a Ronald Reagan wearing a  skirt with the “usual suspects” pooling the strings in the background.

The G7  group, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, announced late today that they will cancel Haiti’s $ 1.2 billion outstanding unilateral debt. Increasing pressure to do so were coming from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and also from various NGOs, notably UK based Oxfam, for the international community to help Haiti recover from the catastrophic earthquake of January 12.

British PM Gordon Brown enthusiastically and eloquently endorsed  the pledge made by the G7.

“It must be right that a nation buried in rubble must not also be buried in debt. The UK has already canceled all debts owed to it by Haiti and I strongly welcome today’s G7 commitment to forgive Haiti’s remaining multilateral debt. We will work with others to make sure this is delivered,” said UK’s  PM Gordon Brown.

On Friday, the Obama administration expressed it support for a similar plan. The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was pushing the rich nations on the issue of debt relief for Haiti. Stauss-Kahn committed himself to provide full relief of Haiti’s debt due to the IMF, which includes a $102 million emergency loan granted to the country in January.

US Treasury Secretary Geithner added that the US would seek to reach a similar agreement with multilateral donors.

“The earthquake in Haiti was a catastrophic setback to the Haitian people who are now facing tremendous emergency humanitarian and reconstruction needs, and meeting Haiti financial needs will require a massive multilateral effort,” said Treasury Secretary Geithner.

Treasury Secretary Geithner’s statement echoed the approach of IMF’s head Strauss-Kahn. Shortly after the earthquake, Strauss-Kahn had mentioned the need of an effort of similar scope than the Marshall Plan.

This is very promising but it doesn’t explore the additional need of funding for Haiti’s reconstruction. Not only Haitians need to have their debt, both unilateral and multilateral cancel, but they are in desperate need for additional capital. Oxfam came up with an interesting suggestion on the matter: International transactions from bank to bank would be tax a small amount ,with no effect on the consumers, and the tax proceeds would be allocated to Haiti’s reconstruction.

Editor’s Note: Our co-founder/co-editor in chief, Dolores M. Bernal is covering Haiti on the ground for another week, and will keep NJP’s readers updated on the situation. For immediate updates on all of our articles, please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

In the days of the Roman Empire, “Panen Et Circenses” (literally ” bread & circuses”) was the formula for the “well being” of the population or more exactly a political strategy implemented by Rome’s rulers to keep the populace quiet if not fully satisfied.

The “Panen Et Circenses” formula offered a variety of pleasures and entertainment such as the distribution of free food, public baths, gladiator fights, chariot races and theater representations. It was an effective political instrument in the hands of the Emperors to keep the population reasonably peaceful, and at the same time it gave the people a controlled arena to express themselves without challenging the social orders.

Originally the Forum area was the venue for Gladiators combat. Such gatherings began at the rise of 122 BC, at first reserved stands were built around the Piazza ( the town central public square) of the Roman Forum to accommodate Rome’s ruling class at the exclusion of the poor classes. Eventually these exclusive stands were destroyed which in return won the favor of the common citizens.

The provinces of the Empire also had their games which took place in the amphitheaters built by the Romans. France, Spain, Britain and all of Italy had such arenas, but on a much smaller scale than Rome’s extravagant one. The majority of Gladiators were prisoners of war and slaves. They were obligated to fight in order to survive. This recruitment strategy had a strong political significance: Using the defeated enemy to entertain the public was a “triumph in victory”, and a celebration of the “glory of Rome”.

On Sunday, Americans who can afford it will be in Florida to watch our modern day Gladiators display their great athletic abilities. A majority of Americans will still be able to enjoy the Super Bowl circus in the comfort of their own home, providing they still have one. An estimated 100 million will be the watching America’s biggest sporting event of the year. Most will side for a team, wear the jersey of their favorite players and feast on the obligatory pizza.

The comparison between football players and gladiators is quiet obvious even so some important differences are at play. Gladiators were coerced into fighting, and by doing so brought  a sadistic pleasure to Romans, our top athletes are not. They are not only handsomely rewarded for giving us the spectacle they provide, but  they also receive the benefit of a high social status.

Professional sports, and for that matter shows such as American Idols and “reality” TV shows, have the social function to provide an opportunity for people, usually coming from a modest background, to rise above their conditions, achieve success, and climb very quickly America’s social status latter. Further, it has the critical function to sale the American dream of success. The subliminal message is simple  in both instances of American Idols and the Super Bowl: Anything is within reach in America as long as you have the talent and work hard to maintain it. It also has an even more important role in America’s politics and culture which is to keep people distracted, at least for a moment, from reality and things which truly matter.

If America is arguably the new Rome, then football players are today’s gladiators giving us a substitute form of pleasure. “Panen Et Circenses” is an old political formula to keep people distracted from reality, it worked for the Roman empire, at least  for a while, and it is still at play more than 2,000 years later. The more human nature changes, the more it stays the same. However, I do have to admit that I have a “dog in this fight”. New Orleans is still struggling and a victory of The Saints would certainly give a much needed moral boost to our beloved  Crescent City. So go Saints, and to plagiarized Roman emperors: “Let the game begin”!

Editor’s Note: Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

A remarkable scenario played out in the American media recently, and beyond the import of the story itself is the quantum shift in public perception that it illustrates.

A pro-cannabis group based in Colorado called for a nationwide boycott of coffee giant Starbucks after activists spotted a Starbucks logo on the website of a virulently extremist anti-drug organization. After intense negative publicity ensued, Starbucks actually felt moved to issue a denial.

Once Mason Tvert of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recation (SAFER) called for the boycott, it took only a couple days until Starbucks denied funding the Colorado Drug Investigators Association (CDIA). Starbucks further said they officially took no position on the marijuana issue, one way or the other.

That doesn’t sound so remarkable until you realize that the very nonchalance, the need to be noncommital, is emblematic of the change, the bedrock reality in the politics of marijuana that has already occurred under our feet.

For those of us who can remember the zeitgeist of two or three decades ago — when anything anti-marijuana could expect a warm corporate embrace while anything pro-pot was anathema to any self-respecting company – this is an exhilarating change of atmosphere.

What has happened is that we are now so near the tipping point where the majority will favor legalizing marijuana, that change has begun to acquire a sweet whiff of inevitability.

In fact, some recent polls have already indicated majority support for legalization. Even larger majorities – in the 70 to 80 percent range nationwide – favor the legalization of marijuana for medical use.

Granted, one reason the Starbucks drama played out the way it did is undoubtedly the clumsiness of the anti-marijuana messengers involved.

The CDIA website, which was taken off the net just about an hour before Tvert’s news conference, was pretty ugly. It featured the slogan “Death On Drugs” and a Grim Reaper rappelling from a helicopter.

The problem was it also featured several corporate logos, including the familiar Starbucks symbol — apparently being used without corporate permission.

Sure, it’s pretty sad for an organization to claim corporate sponsorship where none exists. But the fact that now it’s anti-marijuana organizations doing this – and being brushed away by the corporations themselves – is part of the unfolding drama of marijuana’s ascendancy in public perception.

This is the sixth article in a new daily series on News Junkie Post known as the Progressive Unity Project. Each day, there will be a new article published from the perspective of the environment, labor, LGBT, immigration, science, legalization, or secularity. About the weekly contributor on LegalizationSaturday:

Legalization Saturday
Steve Elliott, a journalist since the 1980s, is based near Seattle, Washington.

He worked for newspapers in Alabama and Mississippi before moving to the West Coast in 1999. While living in the Los Angeles area, Elliott edited two trade magazines, Business Fleet and F&I Management and Technology, until 2004.

Steve Elliott has written extensively for the S.F. Weekly, Eyes On Obama, and OpEd News. He now edits the Village Voice Media cannabis site, Toke of the Town. Steve online:   Twitter Digg

Editor’s Note: Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

Photo by NJP

Reporting from Port-au-Prince

President Bill Clinton has promised 100 new pick up trucks for Haiti. The new vehicles will help distribute the aid to neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince and outside the city.

Clinton was visiting Gheskio, a medical clinic in Port-au-Prince on Friday. He admitted to “bottlenecks” in the distribution of aid since the earthquake.

“That’s why I came here today, I’m trying to get to where the bottlenecks are,” Clinton told the NJP. “Part of it is just getting the volume of food here. Part of it (also) is that with 16 food distribution centers, it’s an enormous stretch for the World Food Program, but how many people need food? One million, two million…keep in mind most Haitians still don’t have cars and can’t find a cab. It’s not easy for them to get around to 16 food distribution centers.”

Haitians are growing desperate for the need for food, water and shelter. There was another mass demonstration in Port-au-Prince Friday; people were demanding that the aid be distributed.

Many Haitians are talking about corruption — some claim that sacks of rice are being sold at markets and that coupons for food distribution are being forged. The fake coupons are selling on the streets for as much as $30 for a sack of rice.

The US Military is struggling to distribute the aid, it is doing so at 16 distribution centers throughout the country, four in Port-au-Prince. The troops arrive once a day for about an hour to give food to people who wait in long lines under the hot sun. Many walk away with nothing, never making it to the front of the line.

Stampedes of people that want to get food are also causing many injuries. Haitians are being crushed by crowds and turning out with open wounds.

RAIN IS ANOTHER DANGER

As the rainy season approaches the UN is trying to hurry in providing tents to the survivors living in tent cities.

UN Assistant Secretary General Edmond Mulet said on Thursday at the Brazilian Minustah that the priority is in the distribution of tents and other temporary housing for the survivors.

Follow Dolores M. Bernal on Twitter.

Dolores M. Bernal will continue reporting from Haiti this week.