Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Earth Science News .




DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Haiti PM to donors: please honor aid pledges
by Staff Writers
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) July 04, 2014


Japan PM to honour quake dead on New Zealand trip
Wellington (AFP) July 04, 2014 - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will honour the 28 citizens from his country who died in the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake during a visit to New Zealand next week, officials said Friday.

Abe will make a brief visit to New Zealand on Monday as part of a swing through the Pacific that also includes a stop in Australia, and reportedly Papua New Guinea.

Japan is New Zealand's fourth largest trading partner and Prime Minister John Key said Abe would hold discussions with business leaders in Auckland before heading to Christchurch.

"Prime Minister Abe has been spearheading a revival of Japan's economy and diplomacy," Key said.

"His visit is an opportunity to mark New Zealand's long-standing links with Japan through government, business and personal ties."

From there, Abe will head to the South Island city of Christchurch, large swathes of which were flattened in a February 2011 quake that claimed 185 lives.

Among the dead were 28 Japanese students who were in an English-language school located in the CTV building, which collapsed then burst into flames after the 6.3-magnitude tremor, killing 115 people.

A memorial has been erected on the site of the six-storey 1980s-era office block, which a subsequent investigation found was so badly designed it should never have received a building permit.

Japan sent search and rescue teams to comb through the rubble after the disaster and has been involved in the city's rebirth through the so-called "cardboard cathedral, designed by award-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.

The structure, which is a temporary replacement for the 1881 Anglican cathedral destroyed in the quake, is an A-frame building constructed with weather-proofed cardboard tubes.

Only half of the nine billion dollars in international aid promised to Haiti after a devastating earthquake in 2010 has been delivered, the prime minister told AFP.

So far, 48 percent of that amount has been handed over, mainly in emergency and humanitarian aid, while the country faces colossal rebuilding needs after the 7.0-magnitude quake, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, in power since 2012, said Thursday in an exclusive interview.

He called on the members of the international community to "continue to honor their commitments."

The quake killed between 200,000 and 250,000 people and displaced another 1.5 million from their homes in one of the world's poorest countries.

But Lamothe said some countries had in fact financed reconstruction projects to resurrect entire neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince that were flattened by the quake.

After the quake, "40 percent of the population of the capital, or 1.5 million people, lived in tents. Today there are only 125,000 people remaining in these camps," he said.

By 2015, Haiti will build 10,000 subsidized housing units with the help of international donors.

With its own "meager resources", he said, Haiti has already constructed 3,000 homes and rebuilt another 4,000.

Lamothe also said long-delayed legislative elections, which he announced earlier this month, will go ahead. The voting has been delayed for three years as the country struggled to get back on its feet after the earthquake.

The long wait has triggered a political crisis marked by anti-government streets rallies.

"Haiti today is enjoying a certain degree of stability which it did not have before," Lamothe said. "We must preserve it." The voting is scheduled for October 26.

The opposition wants a new election commission less biased toward President Michel Martelly than what it says the current one is.

More than 114 parties are registered. But major ones are threatening a boycott unless the election commission is reformed.

"We are going to continue to talk with all the sectors concerned. But holding elections on the scheduled date is essential and non-negotiable for the stability of the country," said Lamothe, seen as an heir to Martelly, whose term ends in 2016.

But Lamothe would not talk about the future, saying he preferred to concentrate on the day-to-day running of the country.

.


Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
A world of storm and tempest
When the Earth Quakes






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








DISASTER MANAGEMENT
With climate change, heat more than natural disasters will drive people away
Princeton NJ (SPX) Jul 03, 2014
Although scenes of people fleeing from dramatic displays of Mother Nature's power dominate the news, gradual increases in an area's overall temperature - and to a lesser extent precipitation - actually lead more often to permanent population shifts, according to Princeton University research. The researchers examined 15 years of migration data for more than 7,000 families in Indonesia and ... read more


DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Haiti PM to donors: please honor aid pledges

Accidents raise safety questions on Hong Kong waters

Malaysia to deploy more equipment in MH370 search

AW139 helicopters to perform emergency medical missions

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Nine killed in landslide at Indonesian gold mine

ELASTx Stretches Potential for Future Communications Technologies

Does 3D printing have the right stuff?

Ghost writing the whip

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Zone tropical coastal oceans; manage them more like land resources

Dramatic decline of Caribbean corals can be reversed

Rethinking the Reef

Lessons from the West: Great Barrier Reef in danger

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Changing Antarctic winds create new sea level threat

Ancient ocean currents may have changed pace and intensity of ice ages

One-well program in arctic waters starts for Gazprom division

Study links Greenland ice sheet collapse, sea level rise 400,000 years ago

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Why does Europe hate GM food and is it about to change its mind?

Payback time for soil carbon from pasture conversion to sugarcane production

Internet crowd bites big into potato salad project

The long, slow march of 'biofortified' GM food

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
At least two dead as quake hits Mexico, Guatemala

Rewriting the history of volcanic forcing during the past 2,000 years

Japan issues highest alert over super typhoon Neoguri

Weakened Tropical Storm Arthur heads to Canada

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Somali capital one step short of famine: UN

Clash between army, 'tribal gunmen' leaves 65 dead in Uganda

Clashes between Nigeria army, Islamists kill 59: official

UN determined to help Africa fight terrorism: Ban

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Researchers say hormonal mechanism responsible for left-handedness

Adaptations of Tibetans may have benefited from extinct denisovans

Extinct human cousin gave Tibetans advantage at high elevation

Insect diet helped early humans build bigger brains




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.