Unanswered questions surround Kenya mall attack

Associated Press

By Jacob Kushner And Jason Straziuso

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The Sept. 21 terrorist attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall produced a raft of questions that haven’t always had clear, complete answers. The answers to some questions about the attack have changed over time. Other questions haven’t yet been fully answered.

How many attackers were there? How many hostages? Were there any hostages at all? The Associated Press attempts to define what is known and not known about the deadly mall attack.

Read the full AP article as it appeared at Bloomberg Businessweek.

MALL ATTACK TO COST KENYA $200 MILLION IN TOURISM

Associated Press

A giraffe eats a food pellet from the mouth of a foreign visitor at the Giraffe Centre, in the Karen neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya Monday, Sept. 30, 2013. The risk to the country’s tourism was one of the first concerns expressed by officials during the initial days of the Westgate Mall siege, but tourists continue to fly to Kenya for safaris and beach vacations seemingly despite a number of foreigners being killed in last week’s attack. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

By JACOB KUSHNER

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — When Ohio resident Bill Haynes heard about the shooting at Westgate Mall by Islamic extremist gunmen last month, he considered canceling his upcoming 17-day safari to Kenya and Tanzania.

“You can’t help but be concerned,” said Haynes, 67. “Here’s a place we’re going to be in about five days and there are some terrorists shooting the place up. That would cause anybody to give some pause.”

Acting on advice from a friend in Nairobi, Haynes went through with his trip except for a stop at Lamu, a coastal city near Somalia where a French woman was kidnapped in 2011.

The risk to tourism was one of the first concerns officials expressed after the attack that left at least 67 dead including 18 foreigners. Tourism generates 14 percent of Kenya’s GDP and employs 12 percent of its workforce, according to Moody’s Investment Services and the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Moody’s predicts the attack will cost Kenya’s economy $200 million to $250 million in lost tourism revenue, estimating it will slow growth of Kenya’s GDP by 0.5 percent. Kenya’s 2012 GDP was $41 billion.

Read the full story as it appeared at the Associated Press.

Al Shabab Attacks Kenya Border Towns, Says Violence Will Continue Until Troops Withdrawn From Somalia

Associated Press

By TOM ODULA and JACOB KUSHNER

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — After almost a week, there is no precise death toll, no word on the fate of dozens still missing and no details on the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who attacked Nairobi’s most upscale mall.

As al-Shabab militants struck two Kenyan border towns and threatened more violence, relatives of the mall victims wept outside the city morgue Thursday, frustrated by the lack of information and a holdup in the release of bodies of the victims.

Roy Sam, whose brother, 33-year-old Thomas Ogala, was killed, said he had been going to the morgue since Monday, but workers there had not prepared his brother’s body, which was mangled by a close-range gunshot wound to the head – an apparent execution.

“They said they were going to prepare the body to make it look nice, but we came back the next day and the next, and it wasn’t any different,” Sam said.

The morgue superintendent, Sammy Nyongesa Jacob, said workers were told not to touch the bodies until post-mortuary studies had been completed.

Kenya’s chief pathologist, Johansen Oduor, said his team was removing bullets and shrapnel from victims to find out exactly how they were killed, then handing them over to police as evidence.

“A lot of them died from bullet wounds – the body, the head, all over,” he said. “Some also died from grenades, shrapnel.”

He refused to reveal how many bodies were in the morgue but said he was told to expect more – though he would not say how many.

It was the largest terrorist attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy, and FBI agents were dispatched to do fingerprint, DNA and ballistic analysis on the bodies.

Clinton panel announces major new Haiti project

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—The Haiti reconstruction panel co-chaired by former U.S. President Bill Clinton announced a major new project Wednesday to rebuild part of the capital damaged by last year’s earthquake.

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission said it plans to spend $78 million to revitalize 16 neighborhoods and remove roughly 30,000 people from six major settlement camps that formed after the January 2010 disaster.

The commission said the project aims to move the 5,239 families living in six particularly vulnerable camps back into the 16 Port-au-Prince neighborhoods where most of them lived before the quake.

“This kind of collaboration will generate the lasting change, the permanent housing solutions that Haitians are depending on,” Clinton said in a speech after the commission’s announcement.

Click HERE to read the full AP story as it appeared at the Boston Globe.

Clinton launches business loan program in Haiti

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Former U.S. President Bill Clinton launched a new business loan program in Haiti on Tuesday aimed at helping bolster an economy that was devastated by the January 2010 earthquake.

Clinton said the first loan in the $20 million program is being made to Caribbean Craft, which produces colorful goods such as carnival masks, sculptures and paintings for export and lost its workshop in the earthquake.

The company is receiving a loan of $415,000, with interest to be paid back to the program to help make additional loans in the future, Clinton told reporters as he toured Caribbean Craft’s workshop near the airport in Port-au-Prince. He said the money will help the operation hire 200 more workers. He didn’t say how many employees it has now.

Clinton, who has been active in Haiti reconstruction through his foundation and as co-chairman of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, said he had been “surprised and disturbed” to learn of the difficult loan terms available for even Haitian businesses with solid credit.

“One of the biggest problems in growing the Haitian economy is that there is really no facility that grants small business loans on reasonable terms,” he said.

Click HERE to see the full AP story as it appeared at Yahoo! News.

Dominican crackdown on Haitian migrants sows fear

Associated Press

By JACOB KUSHNER and DANICA COTO, Associated Press

JIMANI, Dominican Republic – The Dominican Republic has deported thousands of illegal immigrants in recent weeks, sowing fear among Haitians living in the country and prompting accusations its government is using a cholera outbreak as a pretext for a crackdown.

In the largest campaign in years to target Haitians living illegally in the Dominican Republic, soldiers and immigration agents have been setting up checkpoints and conducting neighborhood sweeps, detaining anyone without papers and booting them from the country.

Click HERE to read the full AP story as it appeared at the San Diego Union-Tribune.

‘Baby Doc’ adds new twist to Haiti latest woes

Associated Press

By JACOB KUSHNER and JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “BabyDoc” Duvalier ensconced himself Monday in a high-end hotel following his surprise return to a country deep in crisis, leaving many to wonder if the once-feared strongman will prompt renewed conflict in the midst of a political stalemate.

Duvalier met with allies inside the hotel in the hills above downtown Port-au-Prince and spoke publicly only through emissaries, who gave vague explanations for his sudden and mysterious appearance — nearly 25 years after he was forced into exile by a popular uprising against his brutal regime.

Henry Robert Sterlin, a former ambassador who said he was speaking on behalf of Duvalier, portrayed the 59-year-old former “president for life,” as merely a concerned elder statesmen who wanted to see the effects of the devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake on his homeland.

“He was deeply hurt in his soul after the earthquake,” Sterlin said. “He wanted to come back to see how is the actual Haitian situation of the people and the country.”

Duvalier — who assumed power in 1971 at age 19 following the death of his father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier — still has some support in Haiti and millions are too young to remember life under his dictatorship. But his abrupt return Sunday still sent shock waves through the country, with some fearing that his presence will bring back the extreme polarization, and political violence, of the past.

Click HERE to read the full AP story as it appeared at Yahoo! News.

Haiti mourn quake dead, find hope in own resilency

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The air was choked with memory Wednesday in this city where everyone lost a brother, a child, a cousin or a friend. One year after the earthquake, Haitians marched down empty, rubble-lined streets singing hymns and climbed broken buildings to hang wreaths of flowers.

The landscape is much as the quake left it, thanks to a reconstruction effort that has yet to begin addressing the intense need. But the voices were filled with hope for having survived a year that seemed to get worse at every turn.

“We’ve had an earthquake, hurricane, cholera, but we are still here, and we are still together,” said Charlemagne Sintia, 19, who joined other mourners at a soccer stadium that served as an open-air morgue after the quake and later housed a tent camp.

Thousands gathered around the city to be with loved ones and pray. They flocked to the ruins of the once-towering national cathedral, to the soccer stadium, to parks, hillsides and the neighborhood centers.

Presidential candidates lead protest against disputed Haiti election

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)- Frustrated presidential candidates led a march through Haiti’s capital Thursday to demand officials annul an election they say was tainted by fraud.

At least four of 19 candidates on Sunday’s ballot walked with hundreds of supporters to an electoral council office. They denounced electoral officials, President Rene Preval and the ruling Unity party’s candidate, state construction company chief Jude Celestin, chanting: “Prison for Preval, liberty for Haiti!”

“These were not elections. People were not allowed to vote and there was stuffing of the election boxes … We need democratic elections,” candidate Charles Henri-Baker, a factory owner, told The Associated Press.

The presidential hopefuls were part of a group of 12 candidates who called for voting to be canceled while polls were open, alleging the election was rigged in favor of Celestin.

Click HERE to read the full Associated Press story as it appeared at the Star Tribune.

Hurricane Tomas floods quake-shattered Haiti town

Associated Press

A man walks in a flooded street during the passing of Hurricane Tomas in Leogane, Haiti, Friday Nov. 5, 2010. (AP / Ramon Espinosa)

LEOGANE, Haiti – Hurricane Tomas flooded the earthquake-shattered remains of a Haitian town on Friday, forcing families who had already lost their homes in one disaster to flee another. In the country’s capital, quake refugees resisted calls to abandon flimsy tarp and tent camps.

Driving winds and storm surge battered Leogane, a seaside town west of Port-au-Prince that was near the epicenter of the Jan. 12 earthquake and was 90 percent destroyed. Dozens of families in one earthquake-refuge camp carried their belongings through thigh-high water to a taxi post on high ground, waiting out the rest of the storm under blankets and a sign that read “Welcome to Leogane.”

“We got flooded out and we’re just waiting for the storm to pass. There’s nothing we can do,” said Johnny Joseph, a 20-year-old resident.

The growing hurricane with 75 mph (120 kph) winds battered the western tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula and the cities of Jeremie and Les Cayes.

At least three people died trying to cross swollen rivers, Haiti civil protection officials said. The hurricane had earlier killed at least 14 people in the eastern Caribbean.

Click HERE to read the full Associated Press article as it appeared at the Boston Globe.

Health workers fight to contain Haiti cholera outbreak

Associated Press

By Jacob Kushner

The Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI—A spreading cholera outbreak in rural Haiti threatened to outpace aid groups as they stepped up efforts Saturday hoping to keep the disease from reaching the squalid camps of earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince.

Health officials said at least 208 people had died and 2,394 others were infected in an outbreak mostly centred in the Artibonite region north of the capital.

But the number of cases in towns near Port-au-Prince were rising, and officials worried the next target will be hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by January’s devastating quake and now living in camps across the capital.

Click HERE to read the full AP story as it appeared at TheStar.com

Cholera epidemic spreads in rural Haiti; 150 dead

Associated Press

By JACOB KUSHNER

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ST. MARC, HAITI — A cholera epidemic was spreading in central Haiti on Friday as aid groups rushed doctors and supplies to fight the country’s deadliest health crisis since January’s earthquake. At least 150 people have died and more than 1,500 others are ill.

The first two cases of the disease outside the rural Artibonite region were confirmed in Arcahaie, a town that is closer to the quake-devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.

Officials are concerned the outbreak could reach the squalid tarp camps where hundreds of thousands of quake survivors live in the capital.

“It will be very, very dangerous,” said Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association. “Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already.”

Click HERE to read the full article as it appeared at Yahoo! News.

Haiti opens 2 mango processing plants in northwest

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Haiti on Thursday launched two new mango processing factories that will help farmers export more of the juicy tropical fruit that is a $10 million-a-year business in the impoverished country.

Located in two rural towns in the mango-rich northwest, the plants aim to improve packaging and cleaning to decrease the number of mangoes bruised by poor handling and transport on rutted, sun-baked roads.

The two processing plants will employ 62 people to train mango farmers about cleaning and packaging and to better document the origin of their crops to meet standards in the United States, where most Haitian mangoes are sold.

Haiti grows dozens of different varieties that are indigenous to the country. The only type exported to the U.S. is the “Madame Francis,” which is juicy, sweet and a bit fibrous.

Last year, Haiti exported $10 million worth of mangoes, accounting for one-third of the country’s total agricultural export revenue, according to the U.S. Embassy.

With more processing plants, fruit industry leaders think they have the potential to blossom into a $90 million-a-year export business.

The new mango processing centers will increase profits for 9,500 farmers by as much as 20 percent, predicts CHF International, the U.S.-financed group that organized the project. -Jacob Kushner

At least 54 dead from disease outbreak in Haiti

Associated Press

By JACOB KUSHNER

The Associated Press

ST. MARC, Haiti — An outbreak of severe diarrhea in rural central Haiti has killed at least 54 people and sickened hundreds more who overwhelmed a crowded hospital Thursday seeking treatment.

Hundreds of patients lay on blankets in a parking lot outside St. Nicholas hospital in the port city of St. Marc with IVs in their arms for rehydration. As rain began to fall in the afternoon, nurses rushed to carry them inside.

Click HERE to read the full article as it appeared at Salon.