In this extended interview, he talks about why he believes his nation faces grave danger from climate change — and how the Maldives hopes to set a positive example by becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral country.

Watch our signature story, Creeping seas threaten tiny island chain of Maldives.

Just a few years ago, Iraqi women running for parliamentary seats didn’t show their pictures on any campaign signs because of Iraq’s conservatism. But that’s different now.

Al Arabiya also highlights the story of so-called “forgotten Iraqis” — desert Bedouins.

Worldfocus’ Mohammad Al-Kassim translated this report.

View a montage of Iraqi election advertisements compiled by Al Jazeera English.

The Rosetta Project created this map to highlight the near-extinct languages in Africa and the Americas. They are working to update the map to include the entire world.

View Larger Map

Click below to view UNESCO’s interactive map of endangered languages around the world:

The blog Repeating Islands writes about Berbice Dutch, a language spoken in Guyana that was recently declared extinct:

Berbice Dutch is a mixture of the Zeeland dialect of Dutch, the local Arawak Indian language, and Ijo, which was spoken by slaves from Nigeria… The last speakers of this language were found in the 1970s by Ian Robertson, living on the upper reaches of the Berbice River in and around the area of the Wiruni Creek. The last known Berbice Dutch Creole speaker was Bertha Bell, who was 103 years old when last interviewed by Ian Robertson and a UWI linguistics research team in March, 2004. She died in 2005.

Linguist Hubert Devonish explains the dying language and interviews the last speaker of Berbice Dutch:

Listen to a BBC report on Boa Sr, the last speaker of the Bo language, which was spoken by the Bo tribe of the Andaman islands for up to 65,000 years.

The death of an 85-year-old woman in the Andaman islands, part of India but physically closer to Indonesia, has marked the death of an entire language:

On a recent trip to Israel, Worldfocus associate producer Mohammad Al-Kassim visited the school, where he met several young men who had found a new purpose in life through their studies there.

The branding of U.S. corporations has nothing on some political factions in the Middle East when it comes to advertising and marketing. How can you compare anything to Nasrallah’s head on a plush pillow or the Hezbollah perfume called “Perfume of the Martyrs?”

How about that little throw pillow, doorbell that chimes a Hezbollah speech or leather wallet with Bashars’ head on it?

Saida Zeinab in Damascus, Syria has the areas greatest Shi’a shrine. There is a ton of shopping in a labyrinthine souk, a big hotel, and a surrounding Iraqi area where you can get Iraqi goods fresh from Iraq, sweets, great fresh Iraqi bread made in front of you. The architecture is amazing, and it’s no surprise to find small shops of political souvenirs tucked among the ancient buildings.

In another area of Damascus named Yarmouk there are no pilgrims only refugees and generations of refugees. This is a Palestinian area and the souvenirs from this area are fully behind Hamas and Palestine. The area is considered a slum and the UNHRW provides many of the services.

This neighborhood is also home to what are known as ‘China stores’, where you can buy knockoffs of American products made in China on the cheap

- Cari Machet

Worldfocus compares current marijuana policy throughout the U.S. to policy in Europe and the rest of the world.

The American decriminalization of marijuana has been a gradual process, with New Jersey becoming the 14th state to allow marijuana for medical use in January.

This map shows 15 states that allow medical marijuana, including Maryland — a state not often included because the law there only reduces penalties for medical marijuana use.

Map: Wikimedia Commons.

Following New Jersey’s change, Emily S. Rueb wrote in the New York Times‘ City Room about the potential for medical marijuana in New York:

But though 14 states have now legalized medical marijuana, New York, which has relatively liberal possession laws and actually passed a medical-marijuana law in 1980 but never put it to use, remains forbidden ground for those who seek to relieve their symptoms with cannabis. This year, however, supporters of medical marijuana in Albany and elsewhere hope to harness what they see as growing momentum.

In an October 2009 Gallup poll, 54 percent of Americans said they were opposed to legalizing marijuana, while 44 percent — a historical high — said they were in favor of legalization.

Across the Atlantic, countries such as the Netherlands are famous for allowing the personal use and sale of marijuana, while many other European nations have decriminalized the drug to varying levels.

The Czech Republic legalized the cultivation of up to five marijuana plants for personal use on January 1. Here’s a map showing the range of European marijuana restrictions:

The status of marijuana laws in Europe. (Iceland not to scale). Map: Wikimedia Commons

Europeans’ attitudes towards marijuana decriminalization are not as simple as some might assume. In his blog Travel as a Political Act,  travel writer Rick Steves discusses the real Dutch view of marijuana policy:

The Dutch are not necessarily “pro-marijuana.” In fact, most have never tried it or even set foot in a coffeeshop. They just don’t think the state has any business preventing the people who want it from getting it in a sensible way. To appease Dutch people who aren’t comfortable with marijuana, an integral component of the coffeeshop system is discretion. It’s bad form to smoke marijuana openly while walking down the street. Dutch people who don’t like pot don’t have to encounter or even smell it.  And towns that don’t want coffeeshops don’t have them. Occasionally a coffeeshop license will not be renewed in a particular neighborhood, as the city wants to keep a broad smattering of shops (away from schools) rather than a big concentration in any one area.

In Latin America too, drug laws have begun to loosen up, after decades of zero-tolerance policies. Mexico recently decriminalized the possession of up to 5 grams (0.18 oz.) of marijuana for personal use.

Global Voices blogger Issa Villarreal writes about the popular response to Mexico’s shift:

Reactions are mixed, but certainly two things always came up in discussions: the situation of violence and murder in several Mexican cities related to the narco and drug trafficking, and also the haste approval. It can be said that an important part of the distribution of the story was “hand to hand” through social networks and re-publishing in independent media, but not properly from newspapers, which also carries some critique. Among the discussions, the difference between legalization and decriminalization was a frequent one, considering that the latter holds specific limits of use.

Also from Global Voices, Juliana Rincón Parra writes about citizen groups around the world pushing for legalization:

There are groups of people advocating for the legalization of drugs, but what would that actually mean? From Hungary to Colombia, from youth to teachers, from cops and clergy, individuals and groups are taking to citizen media to put forth their arguments regarding this potentially controversial subject.

Now you can take one of the great train journeys of the world without leaving the comfort of your own home.

A new joint venture between Google and Russian Railways provides a virtual gateway to the world’s longest continuous railway.

Look out the window and take in the scenery as you travel more than 5,600 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok. Here’s the portal in English and in Russian.

There are more than 150 hours of footage shot from a moving train, as it winds across seven times zones.

You’ll travel over the Volga, the Yenisei and the Ob Rivers; around Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world; into and out of cities like Novosibirsk, Russia’s third largest; through the Barguzin mountains; and alongside wooden Siberian villages. The 30-minute-stretch from Petrovsk-Zabailkalsky city is particularly picturesque.

To accompany your voyage, you can choose to listen to the hypnotic, natural sound of wheels churning along the tracks. Or, you can select to have Russian radio or traditional balalaika music piping through the “train.”

Riders aren’t able to listen to literary classics like Tolstoi’s War and Peace and Gogol’s Dead Souls, but you can, provided you understand Russian.

If you’re feeling antsy and don’t think you’ll last cooped up on the train for the full six-to-seven days of the voyage, you can stop, jump off and explore fourteen cities en route (a luxury that a Moscow-to-Vladivostok ticket won’t allow).

Through Google maps, you can view video, look at photographs, and read facts and descriptions of historic sites, museums and markets.

Take, for instance, the city of Ulan-Ude — the capital of Russia’s Buryat Republic and major center of Tibetan Buddhism — about three-quarters of the way to the journey’s end.

On a short side trip, you can take a video excursion down Gagarin Street, view photos of the city’s panorama, and read about the Ivolginsky Datsan, where the body of Khambo Lama Itigelov, leader of Russian Buddhists from 1911-1918, is preserved.

View the full Ulan Ude map on Google

While you may not be able to feel the wind on your face, talk to your fellow passengers, or taste the fresh berries and homemade pirozhki sold along route, this virtual train ride will give you a sense of the vastness of the landscape of the world’s largest country.

My weekend plans? I’m finally jumping aboard the Trans-Siberian.

- Christine Kiernan

In our Worldfocus original video, Charity Tooze reports on a family of Iraqi refugees struggling to survive in Syria, where they have no legal right to work.

The father, a gold medal-winning Para-Olympian, was forced to take his family out of Iraq when militia groups moved into their neighborhood in 2006.

This video is an excerpt from a multimediadocumentary project about the plight of Iraqi refugees that freelance journalist Charity Tooze is launching this summer.

Listen to Worldfocus Radio: Iraqi Refugee Crisis.

And see more multimedia work by Charity Tooze.

But some of our viewers commented that most of the electricity that these vehicles use is generated by coal, which increases air pollution and greenhouse gases.

We take a deeper look at China’s battle against air pollution and highlight more multimedia features produced by the Clearing the Air project by China Green at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations.

To visualize the difference between a smoggy day and a clear day in Bejing, China Green created a photo slider where you can move your mouse across to see the contrast in one frame:

The project has also included a daily photo diary of Beijing’s air quality, listing the best and worst days for air pollution levels.

This project recently expanded to include a Twitter competition BeijingAirPix between photos of Beijing and New York. Beijing defintely does not always lose!

In addition to the visuals, the site explains how air pollution is measured:

Air pollution index (API), published by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, is derived from measurements of five pollutants: Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, PM10, Carbon Monoxide and Ozone. The average concentration for each pollutant is calculated daily and the concentration of the pollutant with the highest API (0-500) will become that day’s major pollutant, recorded as that day’s API figure. In Beijing, PM10–particulate matter 10 microns or smaller–is the major pollutant most days.

And, there is an explanation of what the government has done thus far:

The Chinese have invested about 120 billion yuan ($17.3 billion) over the last 10 years to improve air quality in the capital. Although the levels of many major pollutants like Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Dioxide are now at target levels, the concentration of PM10, or inhalable particulate matter, remains above national targets. During the Olympic Games, Beijing shut down upwind factories, halted construction and imposed strict traffic controls to control emissions.

The site also offers a news feed of recent articles on China’s air quality.

Longing for Blue Skies explains the attempts by China’s government to rein in air pollution during a period of major economic growth:

The Defense Department actually posts its drone attack footage on YouTube via DVidsHub. Some of the videos have caught the attention of millions, but critics ask whether the videos are newsworthy — or just lowbrow entertainment.

And while the drone strikes have undoubtedly taken out militants in many places that soldiers just can’t go, there is disagreement about whether UAVs are an effective anti-terror deterrent.

The military’s Predators and Reapers routinely strike Iraq, Afghanistan — and increasingly in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Additionally, the C.I.A. is using drones to hit al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in northwest Pakistan.

The most watched “drone porn” segments are from Iraq. This video of Baghdad has over 1 million views:

Blogger Keith Thomson writes on Alternet about drone porn’s impact on the news media.

“In researching remotely piloted aircraft, I visited the stretch of Southern Nevada desert that has become to UAVs what Silicon Valley is to the device on which you’re reading this column. In 2007, Creech Air Force Base was made the home of the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing, the first Air Force wing dedicated to unmanned aircraft systems. Its daily missions in Afghanistan and Iraq could provide the military version of a SportsCenter highlight reel.

With an aim of promoting UAVs domestically as well as “enlightening” our enemies, the Defense Department recently began placing the Predator and Reaper mission clips on YouTube. Ranging from relatively detached wide shots of bombings taken by onboard cameras to startlingly graphic close-ups, the so-called “drone porn” has been a smash hit, as it were, tallying over 10 million views.

Perhaps best explaining its popularity are the thousands of YouTube commenters. Some marvel at the new technology and discuss the resulting paradigm shift in warfare. Some raise questions, including whether it’s principled, dignified or otherwise in America’s best interest to post drone prone in the first place. Most comments are along the lines of, “Hell yeah HOOOAH BABY!”

This video shows footage of a drone that destroyed two rocket rails in the Sadr City section of Baghdad:

Now, I don’t want to launch into a “kids these days” diatribe about how the human race is de-evolving into a pack of bloodthirsty, warmongering savages. I don’t believe video games, or violent films, make kids any less human or more prone to attack each other. However, I do blame a disconnection from the consequences of battle for this kind of war fetishism.

The drone footage looks like a video game (admittedly a shitty one), and of course the footage doesn’t show the targets’ lives (if they had a family, what their favorite book is, when they had their first kiss, etc.) The clips don’t even really show their faces. They are anonymous targets. The US military tells us these are The Bad Guys, so they are guilty, and deserve to die. Trials: unnecessary. Evidence: superfluous…

But the drone aspects of war are also clearly appealing to young people. The “point and shoot” video games are all the rage right now, which is partly why drone porn exists. Yet, the moral hazards of such extrajudicial killings are never explored in video games, or drone attacks, and all the usual human safeguards against killing during a ground invasion (namely that you have to look your target in the eye while killing them with your bare hands) are no longer an obstacle. Long ago, hand-to-hand combat gave way to guns, which gave way to better guns, which gave way to human-navigated aerial assault that has now been replaced by robotic drones.

The next video shows an aerial weapons team, also in Sadr City:

Nick Turse, associate editor of TomDispatch.com, writes about drone attacks in AfPak and modern warfare:

What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration. And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace. In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes — which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike — have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times.

In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized “surge” of ground forces now underway. And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

See our Worldfocus map of U.S. drone attacks in northwest Pakistan.

When the quake struck, Kristensen was in his 3rd floor office preparing for a meeting. He considered trying to run out of the building but instead jumped under a desk. A bookcase fell against a filing cabinet in such a way that he had enough space in the rubble to stretch his arms and legs.

Kristensen, a citizen of Denmark, was without food or water for five days. Since he was largely unharmed, Kristensen chose to stay in Haiti to help with the rescue mission. Mohammad al-Kassim of Worldfocus spoke with him from Port-au-Prince.

Photos are courtesy of the United Nations on Flickr and United Nations television.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Tension was under the surface as we negotiated with the contractor, trying to chip away another $10,000 from his bid. The price to build a school in South Sudan, I have learned, is exorbitantly high.

I am here with Gabriel Bol Deng, who is featured in my new documentary film, Rebuilding Hope. Gabriel Bol, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” has been raising money for three years to build a school in Ariang, his native village. We were not prepared for just how costly such a venture is.

South Sudan came out of decades of devastating civil war only five years ago. Infrastructure was nearly non-existent when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005, and now, five years later, its improvement has been creeping at best.

Students in front of the collapsing tukul that had served as the office of the former Ariang school, which met under trees. Photo: Gabriel Bol Deng

Nearly all the raw materials needed for construction is either imported from Uganda or brought in from Khartoum in the North. The price of the materials reflects the distance it had to travel to reach South Sudan. Located in Warrap state, Ariang’s isolation increases the cost as well.

Transportation to get all the building materials on site will cost almost $70,000. Cutting corners to get the price down is not recommended.

Three years ago, the NGO World Vision built four schools in Warrap State. The iron-sheeting roofs of all four blew off during last year’s rainy season. The climate is harsh and unforgiving in South Sudan.

Perhaps this explains why, as Lino Anyak Kuec, the director general of the Ministry of Education for Warrap state pointed out in our meeting last week, 90 percent of the 344 primary schools are still functioning under trees.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact population of Warrap state that these 344 primary schools serve. According to the 2008 census, there are close to 1 million people. Southerners, however, contest the census results and in fact, Kuec told us, the numbers of people who registered to vote in the 2010 elections surpassed the census results.

Warrap is a “new” state, born out of the signing of the CPA. Kuajok, the capital of Warrap state, was created in 2006. The problems faced by all states in South Sudan are intensified in Warrap, which had no previous experience or even minimal infrastructure to draw on.

The lack of constructed schools is one indicator of the challenges that the state faces. In Kuajok, the state capital, there are 5,220 students divided among only three primary schools, averaging 217.5 students in each classroom.

There are only eight secondary schools in all of Warrap State, which is about 220 miles in length, and only two of them have their own facility. The others use rooms in six of thirty-odd constructed primary schools. This arrangement will end soon; the primary schools are desperate for all their classroom space.

They are asking the secondary school classes to vacate their premises. There are only 2,000 secondary students in all of Warrap state—an indication of the drop-out rate, especially high for girls, as well as a commentary on the lack of education during the war and the subsequent need for Southern Sudanese to catch up. Many of the students studying in primary school are teenagers or adults.

Clearing straw from future Ariang School site. Photo: Gabriel Bol Deng

A school building, of course, is only one step towards a functioning school. Every school needs basic supplies, which schools in South Sudan are sorely lacking, whether they are housed in a building or under trees. Currently, only one-third of the classes in Warrap state have chalkboards.

Last year, UNICEF provided 1 chalkboard for each school. Each school had to decide—which class would be the lucky one to receive the chalkboard?

The quality of teaching in Warrap state is also a grave concern. During the war, there were a handful of scattered “bush schools”, so-called because they operated “in the bush.” The teachers were primarily untrained rebel fighters who gathered children during lulls in the violence to teach them whatever they knew from their own schooling. When fighting resumed, the bush schools stopped.

Many of these former rebel/bush teachers are now teaching in the primary schools. “We cannot ask them to stop teaching,” Kuec said. He suggested two reasons why. One is connected to the Government of South Sudan’s loyalty to those who fought and served with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army during the war. And, Kuec pointed out, there are not teachers with more adequate training to replace them.

The lack of trained teachers is perhaps the greatest challenge to providing an adequate education to children in South Sudan. Teachers lack not only methodology, but basic, general knowledge. Often, those with a sixth grade education level are teaching grade 4.

There are many qualified teachers among Southerners, but a large percentage of them received their schooling in Khartoum, following an Arabic language curriculum. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) has determined that the language of instruction is English.

Educated Southerners fluent in Arabic cannot teach an English language curriculum. GoSS, strapped with budget deficits all around, pays teachers approximately $100/month. Subsequently, teachers often take second jobs to supplement this income. It is not uncommon for a teacher to send a friend to take over his class a few days a week while he is busy working as a driver.

Despite the constant uphill struggle, improvement has been made. 150 out of Warrap’s 3,000 teachers are currently in a training course and in February, 240 more will begin a three-month course.

Gabriel Bol teaches children in the Ariang school, which continues to meet under trees until he constructs their school building. Photo courtesy of Rebuilding Hope

In 2007, teachers complained that their salaries arrived months late if they came at all, and teachers had to travel to Kuajok to receive them, sometimes closing school for a week each month or two in order to make the journey on foot and return.

The salaries in 2010, though inadequate, are at least paid regularly. Teachers receive payment in their own district rather than having to travel to Kuajok. The system is computerized, enabling much better record keeping. Baby steps, but important ones.

Gabriel Bol continued to negotiate with the contractor, trying to convince him to reduce the cost of building the school without reducing the quality.

Even after the contractor agreed to shave off the $10,000, Gabriel Bol will have to raise an additional $50,000 when he returns to the U.S. in order for the construction to be completed. And he is well-aware, even as he negotiates the transport for gravel, cement, and iron sheeting, that building this school is only the first step. Gabriel Bol’s goal is not only that the children of his village have a school building, it’s that they have an education.

There is much work to be done.

- Jen Marlowe

In the aftermath of last week’s earthquake in Haiti, the Dominican Republic has expressed solidarity with its neighbor.

Though Haiti and the DR share the island of Hispaniola, their histories, cultures and economies greatly differ. Racial tensions, stateless children and immigrant violence have created tensions along the border.

Martin Savidge hosts Marselha Gonçalves Margerin of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights and Michele Wucker of the World Policy Institute to discuss these unequal neighbors.

Dominicans of Haitian descent.

The show explores:

• the intertwined but distinct histories
• Haitian migrants in the DR and Dominicans of Haitian descent
• migration and trade along the border
• the statelessness of children born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian migrants
• the role of the Dominican Republic, the U.S. and international community

GUESTS:

Marselha Gonçalves Margerin is the advocacy director at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights working with RFK Human Rights Award Laureates from Latin America and North Africa. She works directly with Sonia Pierre of the Dominican Republic on issues of race and discrimination facing Dominicans of Haitian descent. She has also worked with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, as well as other non-governmental, academic and international organizations.

Michele Wucker is the executive director of the World Policy Institute in New York City and the author of “Why Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians and the Struggle for Hispaniola.” She also was a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow working on evolving notions of citizenship, belonging and exclusion. Her work involves the politics and economics of immigration and integration, transnational political processes, the politics of culture, Latin America and the Caribbean and international finance.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Soon afterward, General David Petraeus visited the Yemeni capital of Sana’a for a meeting with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, where he delivered a message of support from President Barack Obama.

The U.S. is pledging military aid to Yemen, a close U.S. ally and one of the world’s poorest countries, which is facing a civil war in the north and a separatist movement in the south.

Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a conference to be held in London on January 27, 2010, to assist Yemen in its fight against al-Qaeda.

Mohammad al-Kassim interviews Abdullah Alsaidi, Yemen’s Ambassador to the U.N., about the Yemen’s battle against al-Qaeda in light of its own internal difficulties, as well as the Christmas day bomb attempt.

Also, listen to Worldfocus Radio: Yemen’s Multiple Wars.

The threat of aftershocks has kept most inhabitants of Port-au-Prince out of their homes. People still left in the city spend the nights in makeshift sleeping compounds. Our German partner Deutsche Welle reports on the strong aftershock that hit early this morning.

Photo: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Michael Blanpied, USGS Earthquakes Hazards Program coordinator, gives an update on the current situation in Haiti. He talks about the expectations for continued aftershocks in the coming weeks. To listen to the U.S. Geological Survey’s latest podcast on Haiti with Blanpied click here.

Mark Turner, author of Dispatches from a Fragile Island shares his thoughts and personal experiences during the aftermath of the crisis.

Another awful day of bad news.

The full extent of the losses to our community is finally hitting home, as hope disappears.

This morning we learned of the death of the wonderful, vivacious Alexandra Duguay, whose house we visited only a couple of weeks ago. Also at that house party was Andrew Wyllie and family. Andrew survived, but we have learned his family did not…

It’s devastating. Everyone we met, every party we attended, everyone we had a meal with or invited over has either perished, or lost someone very close. And there is so much we still don’t know.

The fact that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has received a lot of attention since the earthquake. Haiti’s lack of resources and widespread poverty before the quake have made the current situation even more grave.

However, a more nuanced view of Haiti is often lacking. Richard André, a guest blogger for Americas Quarterly, discusses the culture and resilience of Haiti beyond the poverty. André was born in Queens, New York to Haitian parents.

Then, as now, the world and its news agencies are turning their attention to Haiti: a small country in the Caribbean that goes almost entirely unnoticed on a daily basis. That is, unless a crisis requiring foreign aid and intervention emerges, as most do. It is no surprise that upon hearing that my family is from Haiti, most Americans respond in an apologetic tone, saying that my country is sad and vulnerable and with an unfortunate past.

The “Haiti = poor” perspective, despite being a gross oversimplification, can be explained and exemplified by the coverage on every news channel immediately following the earthquake. Second to the fact that the earthquake happened, the most memorable piece of information that was repeated over and over is that “Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” Though the poverty that has plagued Haiti and exacerbated these disasters is part of the country, it is also just that—only a part of a complex history and identity that is both proud and rich.

Experts give their views on how Haiti should rebuild the country and the best ways to supply aid in Foreign Policy.

In Haiti, neither relief nor reconstruction will be enough: Restoration should not be the goal. The earthquake is not the first natural catastrophe that Haiti has faced. In 2008, four hurricanes wreaked devastation. Since 1994, five major natural catastrophes, an average of one every three years, have hit Haiti’s population centers. Worse, these spikes of disaster have punctuated a long-term downward drift. To exit from this spiral, relief is not enough: A coordinated and targeted multibillion dollar Haiti fund now has to bring real hope of change to the country’s youth.

For raw, aerial footage of the devastation in Haiti watch the Associated Press report here:

Read what some people are saying about today’s aftershock on Twitter:

LeChantdOiseau Been another quake in #Haiti?

thatgirl_hannah Pray for haiti- big aftershock this morning, 6.1

blackmediascoop Its only been 8 days & HAITI gets hit AGAIN! A 6.1 mag “AFTERSHOCK” struck this morning. Experts say these aftershocks could last for MONTHS

-Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Aid workers are struggling to provide healthcare and safeguard against crippling disease as the aftermath of the disaster drags into its second week.

Photos: IMC and the United Nations Photo’s Flickr photostream.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.
(View full post to see video)

Keen also estimated that as many as 200,000 Haitians may have died after last week’s devastating 7.0 earthquake.

Although European nations today pledged another $500 million in aid, not nearly enough food or water is getting to residents of Port-au-Prince in desperate need.

Former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. Special Envoy for Haiti, arrived in the capital city today to help with the relief effort, as local authorities struggled to maintain control.

Worldfocus speaks with Dominic MacSorley, who is in Port-au-Prince with aid organization Concern Worldwide:

Photos courtesy of the United Nations on Flickr.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Professor Sree Sreenivasan (@sreenet) of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and contributing editor at dnainfo.com discusses the impact of new media with Daljit Dhaliwal.

He explains that new media proved vital in two major areas in the aftermath of the earthquake: information-gathering and coordinating an international response.

People locating friends and relatives in Haiti have used citizen journalism sites such as CNN’s iReport, as well as Twitter and Facebook. And fundraising via text messages and social media has earned millions.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

In this phone interview, she describes the scene there, as their team works to provide medical care in an environment of extreme hardship that includes piles of corpses 50 feet away from their command post.

Photos are from the International Medical Corps and UNPhoto on Flickr.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

A growing international rescue effort struggles to save the injured from dying, and aid organizations say that as many as three million people — a third of Haiti’s population — may be in need of help.

Port-au-Prince’s airport is the hub for humanitarian aid arriving from overseas — supplies as well as rescue teams. Worldfocus spoke with Laura Blank, who just arrived in Port-au-Prince to work with the relief group World Vision.

Watch our audio slideshow with Laura’s observations about the situation and photos from around the capital:

Images courtesy of UNPhoto and Coast Guard on Flickr, as well as Gwenn Goodale Mangine and Agencia Brasil.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.