Le maire de Port-au-Prince, Jean Yves Jason, et quelques membres du comité organisateur du carnaval de Port-au-Prince. (Photo: Francis Concite)

Le carnaval de Port-au-Prince est officiellement lancé. Le maire de la commune de Port-au-Prince, Jean Yves Jason, se prépare à accueillir environ 1 500 000 personnes dans le parcours carnavalesque, du 19 au 21 février 2012.

Haïti: «Le premier citoyen de la ville affirme que Port-au-Prince aura son défilé carnavalesque». C’est en ces mots que le maire de la commune de Port-au-Prince a lancé le «carnaval de Port-au-Prince» le vendredi 3 février. «Ann rekonstwi Pòtoprens ansanm» est le thème retenu pour le carnaval de cette année à Port-au-Prince, qui se tiendra du 19 au 21 février 2012, date prévue pour le carnaval national aux Cayes.

Pour le coordonnateur général du comité responsable de l’organisation du carnaval, Jean Kelly Damis, il est indispensable que le carnaval ait lieu à Port-au-Prince. Selon la tradition, dit-il, le carnaval rentre dans la vie même de la capitale haïtienne et de celle des milliers de gens qui participent à ces festivités tous les ans.

Des préparations sont en effet en cours au niveau des différents ateliers, notamment l’atelier de fabrication et de manipulation de marionnettes géantes, l’atelier de fabrication de masques, l’atelier de percussion pour la realisation de ces festivités. Malgré le faible pourcentage du budget du carnaval qui est disponible aux organisateurs jusqu’ici, on peut voir la tribune de la mairie de Port-au-Prince s’ériger au Champ de Mars. C’est pratiquement parti!
Le coup d’envoi du défilé carnavalesque de Port-au-Prince sera donné par une grande manifestation à la grand-rue, entre Portail-Léogâne et Portail-Saint Joseph, le samedi 18 février, a expliqué Jean Kelly Damis. Le buste de «Mesye Colo» à Martissant sera réhabilité à cette occasion pour un retour à nos habitudes et aux anciennes traditions de nos défilés carnavalesques.

Haïti: L’objectif de cette visite de deux jours, du 3 au 5 février, au Venezuela et au Panama est de renforcer les relations d’Haïti avec ces deux pays de l’Amérique latine. Il s’agit de « …promouvoir les intérêts fondamentaux du peuple haïtien dans la région », a indiqué le chef de l’Etat, vendredi, avant de prendre l’avion.

Au pays d’Hugo Chavez, Michel Martelly participera à la réunion de l’Alliance bolivarienne pour les peuples de l’Amérique (ALBA) dont Haïti est un Etat observateur. Selon le locataire du palais national, Haïti a le droit de se regrouper avec d’autres pays pour le bien-être de son peuple. Il n’a pas voulu dire clairement s’il allait solliciter l’adhésion d’Haïti au sein de l’ALBA. « Il y a des analyses plus profondes à faire, mais s’il y a des avantages, on ne peut les refuser », a-t-il fait remarquer.

« Au cours de cette réunion, Haïti pourra analyser avec les membres de l’ALBA la possibilité d’adopter un protocole d’entente relatif à la régularisation de la situation des immigrants haïtiens qui vivent dans les pays de l’Alliance », a poursuivi le président. Il en profitera pour solliciter l’appui des pays de l’ALBA dans l’établissement d’une banque d’intrants, le renforcement et la relance du projet de cantine scolaire en panne de fonds. Il sollicitera également un appui financier pour le vaste programme « Aba grangou » lancé en mois de janvier.

ALBA est donc un accord commercial signé en avril 2005 visant à faciliter des échanges entre plusieurs pays de l’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes. Les pays membres sont : Antigua et Barbuda, Cuba, la Bolivie, la Dominique, l’Equateur, le Nicaragua, Saint-Vincent, les Grenadines et bien entendu le Venezuela.

A travers l’accord tripartite Cuba-Venezuela-Haïti, le pays bénéficie déjà de certains avantages de l’ALBA, notamment dans le domaine de la santé.

Parallèlement, suite à une demande officielle du président panaméen, Ricardo Martin Elie, Michel Martelly se rendra au Panama. Le dossier de la migration et de la situation des ressortissants haïtiens sera l’un des points importants de la rencontre entre les deux chefs d’Etat. Le président Martelly compte rappeler aussi aux autorités panaméennes la promesse qu’elles avaient faite de réduire le visa de 1 000 à 50 dollars.

M. Martelly étudiera avec son homologue les possibilités de réaliser en Haïti en juillet prochain le 5e Sommet des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernements de l’Association des Etats de la Caraïbes (AEC).

Pour ce périple au Venezuela et au Panama, le chef de l’Etat s’est fait accompagner des ministres du Tourisme, des Affaires étrangères, et du directeur général du Bureau de monétisation des programmes d’aide au développement, M. Michaël Lecorps.

Robenson Geffrard
rgeffrard@lenouvelliste.com

He told NBC he believed Israel had not yet decided how to deal with the issue, amid reports that Israel may strike Iran as early as spring.

Mr Obama said the aim was to resolve the crisis diplomatically, but added that no option was off the table.

The US and Israel suspect that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Iran says its programmes are for peaceful purposes.

Last November, the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said it had information suggesting Iran had carried out tests “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device”.

Since then, the US and the EU have imposed a series of sanctions against Iran, including measures targeting the country’s lucrative oil industry.

‘Deep alarm’

“I’ve been very clear – we’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating a nuclear arms race in a volatile region,” Mr Obama told NBC in a live interview on Sunday.

He said Washington was working “in lockstep” with Israel, which was right to be very concerned about Iran’s controversial activities.

Asked if he believed the Jewish state could launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran, Mr Obama said: “I don’t think Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.”

He declined to answer directly a question whether Washington would be consulted first, saying only that the US and Israel “have closer military and intelligence consultation… than we’ve ever had”.

Mr Obama also said there was no evidence that the Iranians had “intentions or capabilities” to strike US targets in retaliation.

The US leader was eager to play down tensions between the US and Israel over suggestions that Israel is preparing a military strike against Iran, the BBC’s Jane Little in Washington reports.

But she says that behind the scenes Washington is deeply alarmed by reports that Israel may strike Iran as early as April – in a move that would drive up tensions in the Middle East as well as oil prices, which would threaten the global economy and Mr Obama’s re-election chances.

The group has indicated that it is prepared to admit Haiti and has received membership requests from two more CARICOM states.

The bloc, which was inspired by Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, agreed to establish ECOALBA last night, despite reservations by Vincentian prime minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, one of ALBA’s three CARICOM leaders.

Suriname and St Lucia, whose leaders are attending the summit, have also asked to join the grouping. Haiti was being admitted Sunday as ALBA’s ninth member and the fourth CARICOM member state to join the bloc.

Prime Minister Gonsalves, yesterday, described a plan for creating a “single economic space” as a “possible way forward” through “a dangerous phase” of the world economy. He urged the grouping to work out legal and administrative details before proceeding with ECOALBA.

ECOALBA, which is being projected as an alternative to trade and economic links dominated by the United States and the dollar, emphasises bartering and payments among ALBA members through a virtual currency, the Sucre.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) – Prime Minister Garry Conille will lead a delegation of Haitian officials to Washington, D.C. on Sunday for a five day mission to meet with members of the U.S. congress and international financial institutions.

The delegation will include parliamentarians such as, the President of the Senate, Simon Desras (Centre/Lavni), the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Levaillant Louis-Jeune (Desdunes/Inite), the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Guy Gerard Georges (Torbeck/Inite).

Accompanying executives include the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Georges André Lemercier, Minister for Women, Yanick Mézile, the Executive Secretary for the Prime Minister, Jean Max Bazin and Counselo Tatiana Wah.

Jourlists from Le Nouvelliste will accompany the delegation, Frantz Duval and Gary Cyprian.

Meetings are expected to be held with Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) .

As well, meetings with financial institutions will be with Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, Christine Lagard, CEO of the International Monetary Fund, Tuluy Hasan, Vice-President of the World Bank for Latin American and the Caribbean, Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank and Paulo Noguiera Batista, Administrator for the International Monetary Fund, Haiti.

The delegation will lastly meet with a community of non-governmental organizations at the OXFAM headquarters.

Venezuelan soldiers take part in a military parade (AFP, Juan Barreto)

CARACAS — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presided over a military parade Saturday marking the 20th anniversary of his failed coup attempt and affirmed that the country’s armed forces are loyal “Chavistas.”

The firebrand leader rode in an open car as he marked the 1992 rebellion which he led against then-president Carlos Andres Perez. The coup failed but thrust Chavez into the political spotlight for his criticism of the government as “subordinate” to the United States.

Also in attendance were Presidents Raul Castro of Cuba, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Michel Martelly of Haiti, who were in Caracas for a summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.

Chavez, who is recovering from cancer treatment and readying his re-election campaign this year, brushed aside criticism from his opponents who have said the armed forces should be cleansed of Chavez loyalists.

The opposition Coalition for Democratic Unity claimed Chavez was trying to force ideology on the armed forces.

But Chavez said the military is “an essentially professional institution, not political.” On Friday, he said the armed forces “have Chavez in their heart, in their core, in their soul.”

More than 12,000 people took part in the parade, which was broadcast by all Venezuelan TV networks. Some 8,000 watched from the stands, dressed mostly in red, the color of the ruling party.

Chavez’s relationship with the military has been under scrutiny in recent weeks following the appointment as defense minister of General Henry Rangel Silva, accused by Washington of links to drug traffickers and the FARC leftist rebels in Colombia.

The event showcased Venezuela’s mostly Russian military equipment including T-72 tanks and anti-aircraft equipment.

Chavez said the display showed “tanks for the people, for revolution, not the bourgeoisie or to serve imperialism.”

The parade marked the failed rebellion after which Chavez served a prison sentence of three years before being pardoned, but it catapulted him to a popular victory in the 1998 presidential election.

Chavez is seeking a third six-year term in elections on October 7.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Thu Feb 2, 2012 1:7:32PM GMT presstv.ir

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for a new world order of justice-seeking nations, to replace the existing Western-dominated liberal status quo.
President Ahmadinejad made the remarks at the inauguration ceremony of the 2nd International Conference on Hollywoodism and Cinema in Tehran on Thursday.

The Iranian chief executive stated that the world’s dominant powers deliberately bully the smaller nations, who are not in conflict with one another, thereby creating artificial problems between them.

President Ahmadinejad also pointed out that this new world order needs to be all-inclusive, and not be dominated by any particular single nation.  He mentioned that negotiations with   Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs are in the final stages for the historic March 9 presidential visit to Haiti. Venezuelan  President Chavez will send a security team to back the one  accompanying President Ahmadinejad.

This will be the coup des grace to America’s weakened Monroe Doctrine.

President Ahmadinejad will also visit other Caribbean leaders, including those of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Ecuador. These governments are working to create an organization that will replace the OAS and dilute the influence of the Unites States and Canada in this region.

The event kicked off in the Iranian capital, as part of the 2012 Fajr International Film Festival.

SF/GHN/MF/IS

presstv.ir

By Reza Kahlili

The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.

Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

The article, written by Alireza Forghani, a conservative analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned conservative sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.

Because Israel is going to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran is justified in launching a pre-emptive, cataclysmic attack against the Jewish state, the doctrine argues.

On Friday, in a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the “cancerous tumor” of Israel. Though his statement was seen by some in the West as fluff, there is substance behind it.

Iran’s Defense Ministry announced this weekend that it test-fired an advanced two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile and boasted about successfully putting a new satellite into orbit, reminding the West that its engineers have mastered the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles even as the Islamic state pushes its nuclear weapons program.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Seyyed Mehdi Farahi, stated in August that the Safir missile, which is capable of transporting a satellite into space, can easily be launched parallel to the earth’s orbit, which will transform it into an intercontinental ballistic missile. Western analysts didn’t believe this would happen until 2015. Historically, orbiting a satellite is the criterion for crediting a nation with ICBM capability.

Forghani details the Islamic duty of jihad as laid out in the Quran for the sake of Allah and states that “primary jihad,” according to some Shiite jurists, can only occur when the Hidden Imam, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, returns. Shiites believe Mahdi’’s return will usher in Armageddon.

In the absence of the hidden Imam, Forghani says, “defensive jihad” could certainly take place when Islam is threatened, and Muslims must defend Islam and kill their enemies. To justify such action, Alef quotes the Shiites’ first imam, Ali, who stated “Waging war against the enemies with whom war is inevitable and there is a strong possibility that in near future they will attack Muslims is a must and the duty of Muslims.”

The article then quotes the Quran (Albaghara 2:191-193): “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers] … and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.”

It is the duty for all Muslims to participate in this defensive jihad, Forghani says. A fatwa by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made it clear that any political domination by infidels over Muslims authorizes Muslims to defend Islam by all means. Iran now has the ICBM means to deliver destruction on Israel and soon will have nuclear warheads for those missiles.

In order to attack Iran, the article says, Israel needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the current passive climate in the United States, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks Iran.

Under this pre-emptive defensive doctrine, several Ground Zero points of Israel must be destroyed and its people annihilated. Forghani cites the last census by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics that shows Israel has a population of 7.5 million citizens of which a majority of 5.7 million are Jewish. Then it breaks down the districts with the highest concentration of Jewish people, indicating that three cities, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, contain over 60 percent of the Jewish population that Iran could target with its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, killing all its inhabitants.

Forghani suggests that Iran’s Sejil missile, which is a two-stage rocket with a trajectory and speed that make it impossible to intercept, should target such Israeli facilities as: the Rafael nuclear plant, which is the main nuclear engineering center of Israel; the Eilun nuclear plant; another Israeli reactor in Nebrin; and the Dimona reactor in the nuclear research center in Neqeb, the most critical nuclear reactor in Israel because it produces 90 percent enriched uranium for Israel’s nuclear weapons.

Other targets, according to the article, include airports and air force bases such as the Sedot Mikha Air Base, which contains Jericho ballistic missiles and is located southwest of the Tel Nof Air Base, where aircraft equipped with nuclear weapons are based. Secondary targets include power plants, sewage treatment facilities, energy resources, and transportation and communication infrastructures.

Finally, Forghani says, Shahab 3 and Ghadr missiles can target urban settlements until the Israelis are wiped out.

Forghani claims that Israel could be destroyed in less than nine minutes and that Khamenei, as utmost authority, the Velayete Faghih (Islamic Jurist), also believes that Israel and America not only must be defeated but annihilated.

The radicals ruling Iran today not only posses over 1,000 ballistic missiles but are on the verge of ICBM delivery and have sufficient enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs even as they continue to highly enrich uranium despite four sets of U.N. sanctions.

The Iranian secret documentary “The Coming Is Upon Us” clearly indicates that these radicals believe the destruction of Israel will trigger the coming of the last Islamic Messiah and that even Jesus Christ, who will convert to Islam, will act as Mahdi’s deputy, praying to Allah as he stands behind the 12th Imam.

See the video:

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and author of the award-winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy.

Haiti’s President Michel Martelly departed for Caracas Friday to attend of a summit of leftist Latin American leaders hosted by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

Martelly said he was attending the summit of the Bolivarian Alliance, known as Alba, “to explore opportunities for my country.”

“Some might see it as taking a position, but I don’t see it like that,” Martelly told reporters.

“Haiti is not at war with anyone. It has the right to get together with other countries for the good of its people.”

Haiti is still struggling to recover from a massive earthquake in January 2010 that killed an estimated 220,000 people, and left much of its capital in ruins.

Founded by Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro in 2004, the group was formed as a counter-weight to a U.S. initiative to create a free-trade area encompassing the Americas.

Besides Venezuela and Cuba, member states include Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Haiti has observer status with the group.

Cuban President Raul Castro was attending the summit at the head of a large delegation, Cuban television reported from Havana.

Mosquitoes carry the parasite which causes malaria in humans.

Worldwide malaria deaths may be almost twice as high as previously estimated, a study reports.

The research, published in the British medical journal the Lancet, suggests 1.24 million people died from the mosquito-borne disease in 2010.

This compares to a World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate for 2010 of 655,000 deaths.

But both the new study and the WHO indicate global death rates are now falling.

The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It used new data and new computer modelling to build a historical database for malaria between 1980 and 2010.

The conclusion was that worldwide deaths had risen from 995,000 in 1980 to a peak of 1.82 million in 2004, before falling to 1.24 million in 2010.

The rise in malaria deaths up to 2004 is attributed to a growth in populations at risk of malaria, while the decline since 2004 is attributed to “a rapid scaling up of malaria control in Africa”, supported by international donors.

While most deaths were among young children and in Africa, the researchers noted a higher proportion of deaths among older children and adults than previously estimated. In total, 433,000 more deaths occurred among children over five and adults in 2010 than in the WHO estimate.

A lab technician analyses a blood sample to check for malaria in a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone

“You learn in medical school that people exposed to malaria as children develop immunity and rarely die from malaria as adults,” said Dr Christopher Murray of the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the study.

“What we have found in hospital records, death records, surveys and other sources shows that just is not the case.”

The researchers also concluded malaria eradication was not a possibility in the short-term.

“We estimated that if decreases from the peak year of 2004 continue, malaria mortality will decrease to less than 100,000 deaths only after 2020,” they write.

Disturbing numbers

The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, told the BBC: “Right now we don’t actually have any reliable primary numbers for malaria deaths in some of the most malarious regions of the world, so what numbers we have come from estimates.

“What this paper reports is a new way of estimating the number of malaria deaths, where they’ve used additional data sets and improved mathematical models from calculating mortality.”

But despite what he calls the “disturbing” number of deaths recorded, he believes the underlying message of the report is that the disease can and is being controlled.

“Since 2004, the number of malaria deaths has dropped by about a third, and that’s really been the time when the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has swung into action” he said.

“Over the past decade, 230 million cases of malaria have been treated and the same number of bed nets have been distributed to people at risk of malaria, and the result of that has been this huge downturn. So what we know is that we’re actually able to turn off malaria with our existing interventions.”

Commenting on the new study, Professor David Schellenberg of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the researchers had “gone to great lengths to assemble information from a range of sources and to make adjustments for the inadequate data quality”.

“We can argue about the strengths and weaknesses of their approach but should not be distracted by the details of the methods: however you look at it, far too many people are dying from malaria.

“The introduction of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, recommended by the WHO in 2010 and increasingly available in endemic countries, affords an unprecedented opportunity to take the guesswork out of malaria diagnosis and to improve the reliability of information,” he added.

The new survey involved a range of measures to try and obtain a better estimate of global malaria deaths. New data sets were examined and computer models built which factored in a host of elements such as transmission rates, healthcare access, drug resistance and bednet coverage.

The work also involved trying to judge the impact of the misclassification of deaths in the affected regions. This readjustment alone generated a rise of 21% in the number of malaria deaths.