Just over a week ago, CNN aired a report with Sean Penn on the case of Oriel, a 15 year old who contracted diphtheria and eventually died. We wrote then:

The report does a good job describing how - despite its fixation on Penn’s personality – that the boy’s life might have been saved had, first, vaccinations been available, and then, second, the antitoxin to treat diphtheria been more easily accessible once Oriel came down with the disease. Yet, as CNN reported, “it took Penn -- even with his star power -- 11 hours to get his hands on one dose.”

After the report, the World Health Organization responded by saying that it was "just an isolated case and there are no other cases."

Today, the UN News Center reports that an outbreak of the disease over the weekend has prompted health authorities to begin a targeted vaccination campaign, writing:

Cases of the disease were first reported on Saturday in Camp Batimat in Cité Soleil district, one of the settlements housing people displaced by the January earthquake, Christiane Berthiaume, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told reporters in Geneva.

A Miami Herald editorial calls on Haitian political actors to unite in order to hold a credible vote as soon as possible. This is especially important given that:

Haiti's parliament went out of business last Monday because the earthquake forced the cancellation of legislative elections in February. That has left President René Préval as the sole effective constitutional authority in the country, with no preparations undertaken so far to hold new elections.

The Herald states that

Haiti's leaders need to unite in the common interest of organizing transparently free and fair elections in the shortest time frame possible.

Dean Baker
The Guardian Unlimited, May 17, 2010

Dean Baker
Truthout, May 17, 2010

Over five months have passed since the devastating earthquake struck Haiti in January, and although relief organizations say they have reached 100 percent of those in need of shelter, the reality on the ground is still dire. On Saturday, a New York Times editorial raised some of these important points, writing:

Of the more than 1.5 million Haitians left homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake, about 7,500 have been moved from the most dangerous areas of crowded tent cities to new resettlement sites. The conditions in those tent cities are grim. Thunderstorms are fierce, and the plastic sheets and tarps distributed after the disaster are fraying, along with the people’s patience.

Meanwhile, the demand for secure housing keeps growing as people who fled the capital, Port-au-Prince, move back, because that’s where most of the aid is.

May 17, 2010, Dean Baker's Statement to the Bundestag

Markets can be irrational, as Keynes famously pointed out, and the Eurozone/Greek crisis is a classic example. “The markets” for months have been demanding more blood from Greece, as the financial press has continuously and often unquestioningly reported.

As described in a CBS News investigation last night, some of the large NGO’s that have received millions of dollars in individual donations – and, we would note, in some cases, U.S. taxpayer money via USAID – have spent relatively little of it, despite the urgent crises facing many Haitians during the rainy season, and with the hurricane season just around the corner.

CBS investigated 5 major charities: CARE, the American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, and the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund. Of these:

Only the Clinton-Bush fund and Clinton Foundation refused to answer our questions, despite repeated e-mails and phone calls. Their websites say they've received $52 million in donor dollars, and have spent only about $7 million: less than one-seventh.

The Red Cross has raised $444 million and spent about 25 percent ($111 million) of it, including $55 million for "emergency relief," such as food and kitchen items, and $42.9 million for shelter including tarps, tents and blankets.

CARE has raised $34.4 million and spent about 16 percent ($5.75 million), $2.5 million of that on "shelter."

And at Catholic Relief Services: of $165 million committed to Haiti, it spent no more than 8 percent ($12.2 million), including $2.5 million on food $1.28 million on emergency shelter.

(Click on the links above for PDF’s with charts and reports breaking down income and expenditures.)

Upton Sinclair famously used to say that it was "difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on not understanding it." It's also the case that it is difficult to get someone to change a mistaken belief when their deeply held preco

The supplemental funding bill for Haiti has languished in Congress since it was introduced over 6 weeks ago. News accounts this week, however, suggest that the funding will be attached to the upcoming war funding bill that lawmakers hope to pass before the Memorial Day recess. Last week the Latin America Working Group (LAWG) issued a statement which read, in part:

It is urgent that Congress approve a generous aid relief and reconstruction package that supports a sustainable, decentralized, Haitian-led recovery as soon as possible. A delay in approving the supplemental will postpone much needed efforts in Haiti and affect the replenishment of the International Disaster Assistance account, damaging the U.S. government's ability to address humanitarian crises around the globe.

Mark WeisbrotThe New York Times, May 12, 2010

May 12, 2010

May 2010, John Schmitt

May 2010, John Schmitt