Haitian Christian News

Gold! Haiti Eyes Potential $20 Billion Bonanza

2012-05-14T14:28:16Z

Its capital is blighted with earthquake rubble. Its countryside is shorn of trees, chopped down for fuel. And yet, Haiti's land may hold the key to relieving centuries of poverty, disaster and disease: There is gold hidden in its hills - and silver and copper, too.

]]> A flurry of exploratory drilling in the past year has found precious metals worth potentially $20 billion deep below the tropical ridges in the country's northeastern mountains. Now, a mining company is drilling around the clock to determine how to get those metals out.

In neighboring Dominican Republic, workers are poised to start mining the other side of this seam later this year in one of the world's largest gold deposits: 23 million ounces worth about $40 billion.

The Haitian government's annual budget is $1 billion, more than half provided by foreign assistance. The largest single source of foreign investment, $2 billion, came from Haitians working abroad last year. A windfall of locally produced wealth could pay for roads, schools, clean water and sewage systems for the nation's 10 million people, most of whom live on as little as $1.25 a day.

"If the mining companies are honest and if Haiti has a good government, then here is a way for this country to move forward," said Bureau of Mines Director Dieuseul Anglade.

In a parking lot outside Anglade's marble-floored office, more than 100 families have been living in tents since the earthquake. "The gold in the mountains belongs to the people of Haiti," he said, gesturing out his window. "And they need it."

Haiti's geological vulnerability is also its promise. Massive tectonic plates squeeze the island with horrifying consequences, but deep cracks between them form convenient veins for gold, silver and copper pushed up from the hot innards of the planet. Prospectors from California to Chile know earthquake faults often have, quite literally, a golden lining.

Until now, few Haitians have known about this buried treasure. Mining camps are unmarked, and the work is being done miles up dirt roads near remote villages, on the opposite side of the country from the capital. But U.S. and Canadian investors have spent more than $30 million in recent years on everything from exploratory drilling to camps for workers, new roads, offices and laboratory studies of samples. Actual mining could be under way in five years.

"When I first heard whispers of this I said, `Gold mines? There could be gold mines in Haiti?'" said Michel Lamarre, a Haitian engineer whose firm, SOMINE, is leading the exploration. "I truly believe this is our answer to taking care of ourselves instead of constantly living on donations."

On a rugged, steep Haitian ridge far above the Atlantic, brilliant boulders coated with blue-green oxidized copper jut from the hills, while colorful pebbles litter the soil, strong indicators that precious metals lie below.

"Just look down," said geologist John Watkins. "Where there's smoke, there's fire."

Nearby, 8-year-old Whiskey Pierre and his barefoot buddies stared at a team of sweat-drenched men driving a narrow, shrieking diamond bit 900 feet into the ground.

"That is a drill!" shouted Whiskey, bouncing on his toes. "The man drill to get gold!"

The workers periodically pulled up samples and knocked them into boxes. The first 40 feet yielded loose rocks and gravel. About 160 feet down, cylinders of rock came back peppered with gold. At 1,000 feet down, rocks were heavily streaked with copper.

Geologists extrapolating from depth and strike reports estimate at least 1 million ounces of gold at two sites. In April, prospectors found the first significant silver ever reported in Haiti: between 20 million and 30 million ounces. And in the end, it may be copper that is the most lucrative: geologists suspect that more than 1 million tons lay in just one of many areas under exploration.

The prices of precious metals have been volatile in recent years, with copper selling for about $8,000 per ton, silver at $30 an ounce, and gold at $1,600 per ounce.

"Ultimately, I think mining is going to dwarf anything else in Haiti," says Michael Fulp, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based geologist who visited the drill sites. "Usually you've got about a one-in-1,000 chance of making a mine from the exploratory stage, but those odds are much better in Haiti because of the lack of any previous modern-day exploration and very, very promising samples."

Gold was last gathered in Haiti in the 1500s, after Christopher Columbus ran the Santa Maria onto a Haitian reef. Spaniards enslaved the Arawak Indians to dig for gold, killing them off with harsh conditions and infectious diseases. When the Spaniards learned of even more lucrative deposits in Mexico, they moved on.

In the 1970s, United Nations geologists documented significant pockets of gold and copper, but foreigners weren't willing to risk their cash in a country where corruption and instability has long discouraged outside investment.

Ironically, it was only after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake that investors saw real opportunity. Fifteen days after a seismic jolt brought down much of Port-au- Prince, a Canadian exploration firm acquired all of the shares of the only Haitian firm holding full permits for a promising chunk of land in the northeast.

"Investors want to get in at the bottom," said Dan Hachey, president of Majescor Resources, the Canadian company, "and I figured after that earthquake, Haiti was as low as it could get."

Hachey was also betting that the $10 billion in foreign assistance promised for earthquake recovery would force change and accountability.

"The eyes of the world will not allow the government to fool around," he said.

Three firms are considering mining in Haiti, but so far only SOMINE has full concessions to take the metals out of the mountains. Those permits, for 50 square kilometers (31 square miles), were negotiated in 1996 under President Rene Preval and require the firm to hire Haitians whenever possible.

In exchange for minimal permit fees, SOMINE committed to spend $2.25 million in the first two years. In addition, it will pay $1.8 million after a feasibility study, according to the contract.

Bottom line: Haitians should get $1 out of every $2 of profits, compared with about $1 out of $3 that most countries get from mining firms.

Discoveries of rich resources, whether diamonds, oil or gold, often prompt great economic booms but come with great risk of environmental, health and social problems. Chile, one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America, is the world's largest copper exporter, deriving a third of its income from the metal. Peru, with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, has privatized most of its mines in recent years, and now gets about 20 percent of its total revenues from the industry.

Though the contractual terms are generous for Haiti, there is plenty to be cautious about. Haiti's government is repeatedly rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. The mines would ostensibly be regulated by government officials responsible for enforcing environmental, mining and corporate laws, but at this point those officials don't exist and there are neither plans nor budgets to hire them.

Further, open pit mines, common around the world, are crater-like holes made up of a series of massive terraced steps that drop thousands of feet into the ground. When the resources are exhausted, usually after about 25 years, the pits can be refilled or converted into reservoirs. In many cases, the mines leave serious problems - environmental contamination, displaced communities and mountaintops torn asunder.

From Papua New Guinea to the Philippines to Brazil, mining accidents have allowed tons of waste to be spilled into rivers and lakes, creating environmental disasters.

"In low-income countries, the dangers are substantial," said UCLA political science professor Michael Ross. "The great irony of mineral wealth is that those countries that most desperately need infusions of mineral revenue - low-income countries with weak governments - are also least likely to manage these resources wisely, for the benefit of the country.

Already, the hundreds of jobs, the new roads and the community investment in a country where two out of three people have no formal employment is much appreciated.

Stone cutter Joseph Bernard, 47, says that before he got a job slicing rock samples, his family was going hungry. They had one cow. Their peanut and bean fields had gone to dust after months without rain.

Today, his wife has launched a business selling seeds, and his son and two daughters have started school.

"I found a job, but many didn't," he said, wiping a trickle of sweat from his deeply lined cheeks after a recent shift. "If more companies come, more people will work."

In a sleepy exploration camp at sunset, Hachey and his competitor, Daven Mashburn of Newmont Mining Corp., met to talk business over bottles of Haiti's Prestige beer, bumping fists in the low-germ "cholera handshake" that has replaced the traditional palm grip after last year's deadly epidemic.

The men talked labor - Newmont got 10,000 applications for 100 jobs when one project started up last month. They talked logistics - core samples are sliced in half, bagged, and flown to Santiago, Chile, where it takes 21 days to find out how much gold, silver or copper they contain. They talked hurricanes, cholera, political unrest and, yes, the earthquake - Mashburn spent four hours buried under piles of rock in Port-au- Prince, eventually pulled out with fractures from head to toe.

But mostly they talked about gold.

"Of all the places we work in the world," said Mashburn, whose company has operations in eight countries on five continents, "it would be really most satisfying to have success here. Haiti has great mineral wealth, and they surely could use it."

SOURCE: The Associated Press

Haitian Leader Makes Modest Gains in First Year

2012-05-14T13:30:49Z

In a country where the news is typically bad, if not catastrophic, many people in Haiti look at the past year under a musician-turned-president with guarded surprise.

]]> Yes, parliament and President Michel Martelly were in a standoff that hobbled government much of the past 12 months. Yes, less than a quarter of the population has a formal job. And yes, cholera and many other problems still haunt the country.

Yet six of the most visible displaced-persons camps that sprang up after the 2010 earthquake have been cleared and several are back to being public plazas; renovations are far along at the international airport; a sprinkling of new hotels and shops have begun to emerge across the capital's otherwise ruined landscape; and in a country where free education is rare, the government, for the first time, has covered school tuition for 1 million children .

It's hardly a Golden Age. But it's not bad either for a leader who had never held political office and was best known for often-raunchy musical performances before he took office a year ago Monday. The achievements have come with a parliament so dominated by the party of the man Martelly defeated in his run for president that lawmakers stonewalled his attempts to appoint a prime minister and Cabinet for three-quarters of the year.

"Things with Martelly are working for the most part," said Yrinen Jean-Baptiste, a 34-year-old mother of two children who voted for the musician and says that, so far, she would be willing do so again. "I hope he can do more."

Asked to grade himself on a 1-10 scale, the president, who isn't known for modesty, grades himself high.

"I would give myself an eight, eight-and-half, a nine, because everything I did I did without a government," Martelly said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Everything I did, I did at a time when I had so many problems, when so many people tried to stop me. Everything I did, I did whether the money was there or not."

Asked to name his accomplishments, the president pointed out the school-tuition program, to be paid for with a tax on incoming international phone calls, as well as the clearing of major camps, largely achieved through rental subsidies, the repair of damaged homes and, most controversially, outright evictions from the flimsy shelters of the overcrowded temporary settlements.

In the interview on Friday, he also noted the construction of a public hospital in Mirebalais, north of the capital, and start of construction of an industrial park near Cap Haitien that will host textile factories and other enterprises, bringing badly needed jobs to the northern part of the country.

"I'm not saying that I'm doing miracles, but I'm surely sending signals that things are being done in another manner now," Martelly said from his office on the grounds of the ruined National Palace. "The state wants to serve. We want to be close to the people."

Still known to many by his stage name "Sweet Micky," Martelly said governing was easier than he had thought and he has no regrets from the first year.

But it's clear there were some major blunders.

Police ignored a law granting legislative immunity by arresting a lawmaker who had escaped from jail. The justice minister took the blame and resigned, but the episode infuriated parliament and lawmakers became bent on thwarting him at every turn, opening an investigation into Martelly's eligibility for office. Instead of dispelling rumors that he was a citizen of another country, which would have barred him from office, he let the allegations fester. It took him several months to put the matter to rest. When he did, he held aloft eight old passports in a performer-like flourish.

"He could have done a lot better if he wanted people to rally around him, gotten consensus and not go his own way as an artist," Sen. Francois Anick Joseph said by telephone. "He caused (a lot of problems) by his way of doing things and his way of doing things is not a democratic way."

Added Joseph: "He wasn't able to look for consensus because he's an artist. The lights must be on him."

Martelly also has struggled to disband a group of military veterans who have tried to hold him to his campaign pledge of restoring the army. They had been training before he took office, but his victory emboldened them and they have paraded throughout the capital and countryside, toting side arms and sporting military uniforms, despite government orders for them to stop. Their paramilitary-like presence has embarrassed not just the government but also the United Nations peacekeeping mission.

Martelly also suffered for the lack of a strong political party. Only three members of his party hold seats in the 99-member Chamber of Deputies and none in the 30-member Senate, though he's found allies in both chambers.

His political base remains tiny and he counts a tight-knit circle of longtime friends as his advisers, many of them fellow alumni of an elite Catholic high school and many of them foreign to politics. Even then, infighting has been a hallmark of the administration.

"They are too close and they don't open up," said Claude Beauboeuf, an economist and radio talk show host. "Even those on the inside are crushed sometimes."

Despite the clashes with parliament, anger seldom spilled into the street as it has in past administrations. There have been no major signs of disgust with Martelly aside from a few demonstrations.

Disappointment might seem justified for someone like Jean-Baptiste, the mother of two. She voted for Martelly to get her out of a park-turned-encampment. But her forced removal at the hands of city officials was not what she had in mind.

Martelly condemned evictions, but they happened anyway. Yet Jean-Baptiste still holds out hope for the candidate who promised change. She offered this unsolicited message to the president: "I hope he can bring down the price of tap-taps," the brightly colored pickups that transport people for about 40 cents.

The signature project of the Martelly administration has been the school program that aims to double the number of children in school. His plan to fund it through a tax on incoming international phone calls and wire transfers upset Haitians abroad who use such services. The $22 million collected is on hold with the Central Bank until Parliament approves its release. The government paid for this year's tuition by taking money from other parts of the budget, said Miloody Vincent, director of the education ministry's press bureau

Vincent acknowledges that the quality of the education may not have improved yet. "The most important thing is to put the kids in school," he said. "We're working later to improve the quality of the education."

There are no independent studies of the program so far, but education specialist Mohamed Fall of UNICEF said he believed at least 70 percent of the targeted children had received their aid.

While ever-inefficient Haitian government has still not completely funded the schools, the aid is a significant sum for many in Haiti, where about half the children didn't go to school before the quake

Take Dania Nerius, the 38-year-old mother of four children, ages 6 to 17. Her husband lost his right leg in the earthquake, and his job as a mechanic. They nearly had to pull their children from the school. But the tuition program helped her save $360 a year - a lot in a country where most get by on $2 a day - so she can pay rent and invest money in her business as a roadside peddler of minutes for a cellphone company.

"That helped me," Nerius said one afternoon, "because the money would've otherwise come out of my pocket."

Source: The AP

Calei Clark, 6, Ships Thousands of Shoes to Haiti

2012-05-13T06:17:36Z

Since last October, 6-year-old Calei Clark and her mom have been collecting, packing and shipping shoes to Haiti.

"Well, we're donating all these shoes for Haiti and just for Haiti. For those kids and moms and dads and for the boys and girls," Calei said.

There are still more than a million homeless people in Haiti. They have lost everything: their homes, their clothing their everythings.

]]> "Calei and I were overwhelmed by the devastation in Haiti and she really bugged me for a good couple of months and she really wanted to do something for the Haiti people. So I researched some way we could help -- and shoes came up," Jeni Clark, Calei's mom, said.

And the shoes came up in amazing numbers. The Lockport mother and daughter team has collected more than 2,000 pairs now that ultimately will end up on the feet of those who need them more than we do.

"They have no shoes so ... and they need shoes. They go through garbage dumps to find food with no shoes," Calei said.

Click here to continue reading.

SOURCE: ABC News Local

Frank Mathie

International Adoptions Drop Amid Fraud Crackdowns

2012-05-13T06:15:25Z

The number of international adoptions has fallen to its lowest point in 15 years, a steep decline attributed largely to crackdowns against baby-selling, a sputtering world economy and efforts by countries to place more children with domestic families.

In this March 31, 2012 photo, Sharon Brooks shows a room meant for a child she was planning to adopt in New York. Brooks, 56, waited three and a half years for the release of a little girl in Vietnam after the U.S. froze adoptions there in 2008 amid serious fraud concerns. Finally, in January, Brooks learned the child she had named Akira-Li would instead be adopted by a Vietnamese family. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

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Globally, the number of orphans being adopted by foreign parents dropped from a high of 45,000 in 2004 to an estimated 25,000 last year, according to annual statistics compiled by Peter Selman, an expert on international adoptions at Britain's Newcastle University.

Some adoption advocates argue the decrease is also linked to a set of strict international guidelines known as the Hague Adoption Convention. Devised to ensure transparency and child protection following a rash of baby-selling and kidnapping scandals, critics say the guidelines have also been used by leading adopting nations, including the U.S., as a pretext for freezing adoptions from some countries that are out of compliance.

"It should have been a real step forward, but it's been used in a way that's made it a force for shutting down" adoptions in some countries, says Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard law professor who promotes international adoptions. "That affects thousands of children every year."

She says places where international adoptions are stopped may ultimately see more children stuck in orphanages or on the street where they could fall prey to sex traffickers.

U.S. adoption officials and international agencies such as UNICEF say the Hague rules, which require countries to set up a central adoption authority and a system of checks and balances, are necessary to safeguard orphans and keep profit-driven players from corrupting a system that should be purely about helping children.

Alison Dilworth, adoptions division chief at the U.S. Office of Children's Issues and a strong supporter of the Hague guidelines, says they shield adoptive parents from everyone's worst nightmare: "God forbid, that knock on the door ... saying your child that you have raised and loved and is fully integrated into your family was stolen from a birth parent who is desperately trying to look for them."

Much has changed from a decade ago, when busloads of would-be foreign adoptive parents flocked to orphanages in poor countries such as China, Vietnam and Guatemala to take babies home following a relatively quick and easy process.

Waits have become longer and requirements stiffer, with some countries now refusing obese or single adoptive parents and requiring proof of a certain amount of cash in the bank. Countries embroiled in scandals have pulled the plug on their programs, or been cut off by the U.S. and other countries, leaving hundreds of children in bureaucratic limbo.

Sharon Brooks, 56, of New York, knows the story all too well. She waited three and a half years for the release of a little girl in Vietnam after the U.S. froze adoptions there in 2008 amid serious fraud concerns. In January, Brooks learned the child she had named Akira-Li would instead be adopted by a Vietnamese family.

"That was my one shot," says Brooks, who now believes she is too old to qualify for most international adoptions. "Everything in my life has been at a standstill."

Vietnam joined the Hague convention on Feb. 1, and U.S. officials say they are hopeful adoptions will resume within the next year.

Shutdowns in countries such as Guatemala, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan have coincided with efforts to promote domestic adoptions in countries like Russia and China, where foreigners now face tightened restrictions.

China, for instance, stopped allowing single women to adopt. In the late 1990s, a third of U.S. adoptive parents fell into this category, Selman says. Advances in fertility treatments and the growing number of couples turning to surrogacy have also contributed to the global drop.

The U.S., which historically has received about half of the world's annual international adoptions, saw a decline of more than 60 percent from 2004 to just over 9,000 last year.

Dilworth, the U.S. adoption official, says the economic downturn is at least partly to blame, with foreign adoptions typically costing between $20,000 to $40,000.

But the U.S. freeze on adoptions from some countries also means there are fewer children available to adopt.

Guatemala used to provide up to 4,000 children a year for international adoption at its peak in 2006. But the U.S. will not accept further adoptions from the country until it has fully revamped its system to root out corruption, Dilworth says.

"They have incredible problems with fraud," she says.

In one recent high-profile case, a Guatemalan court ruled that an American family must return their 7-year-old adopted daughter to her birth mother after allegations surfaced that the girl was snatched from her home five years ago. The child remains in the U.S.

Other countries that have seen large drops in the adoption of foreign babies include Spain and France, where international adoption fell 48 percent and 14 percent respectively from 2004 to 2010. Canada remained the same and Italy actually saw a 21 percent increase during that period, according to Selman, who analyzed data from 23 countries that are primary receivers of adopted orphans.

Last year's 25,000 international adoptions were the lowest since 1996, Selman said.

The global numbers could decline further as South Korea, one of the top providers of orphans for foreign adoption, works to phase out its long-running program.

Since the 1950s, more than 170,000 South Korean children were adopted by families overseas, with the majority going to the United States. Despite having one of the world's fast-growing economies and domestic concern about falling birth rates that are already among the world's lowest, South Korea continues to rank as a top destination for international adoption. Experts blame this on a strong cultural stigma against both unwed motherhood and adoption.

But pressure has been mounting to reverse the trend. In recent years, South Korean lawmakers have created new incentives to help promote domestic adoption, while quotas have allowed fewer children to leave.

If the decline in global adoptions is to be reversed, says Selman, Africa is likely to lead the way. Ethiopia has emerged in recent years as a top source of orphans available for foreign adoption, though it's unclear whether other African countries will follow.

"If it's going to go up, it'll be from Africa," he says. "It could be that they set their pace against adoption, and that could have a profound effect."

SOURCE: The Associated Press

Margie Mason

Gold! Haiti Hopes Ore find will Spur Mining Boom

2012-05-13T06:10:38Z

Photo credit: AP | Geologist John Watkins shows rock samples extracted from the SOMINE mine exploration camp in the department of Trou Du Nord, Haiti. (April 9, 2012)
TROU DU NORD, Haiti - Its capital is blighted with earthquake rubble. Its countryside is shorn of trees, chopped down for fuel. And yet, Haiti's land may hold the key to relieving centuries of poverty, disaster and disease: There is gold hidden in its hills -- and silver and copper, too.
A flurry of exploratory drilling in the past year has found precious metals worth potentially $20 billion deep below the tropical ridges in the country's northeastern mountains. Now, a mining company is drilling around the clock to determine how to get those metals out.
In neighboring Dominican Republic, workers are poised to start mining the other side of this seam later this year in one of the world's largest gold deposits: 23 million ounces worth about $40 billion.

]]> The Haitian government's annual budget is $1 billion, more than half provided by foreign assistance. The largest single source of foreign investment, $2 billion, came from Haitians working abroad last year. A windfall of locally produced wealth could pay for roads, schools, clean water and sewage systems for the nation's 10 million people, most of whom live on as little as $1.25 a day.

"If the mining companies are honest and if Haiti has a good government, then here is a way for this country to move forward," said Bureau of Mines Director Dieuseul Anglade.

"When I first heard whispers of this I said, 'Gold mines? There could be gold mines in Haiti?'" said Michel Lamarre, a Haitian engineer whose firm, SOMINE, is leading the exploration. "I truly believe this is our answer to taking care of ourselves instead of constantly living on donations."