Arcadia Foundation

There are scant signs of help from the Haitian government during the ongoing crisis that has truly shook the world. The government appears scattered by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake Tuesday evening. The streets were filled with beleaguered residents milling about, left with no jobs, no instructions on what to do, and no place to buy food or to take the injured. Many said they felt totally alone and saw no evidence that relief was on the way, as their mournful pleas began to give way to anger.

“The government is mute,” a dismayed young Haitian said while he hurried past a body left on a traffic median. “They do nothing.”

The dead and injured were pushed through the streets in wheelbarrows. At the overwhelmed central hospital, anguished patients lay in a weedy parking lot on gurneys fashioned from wooden doors. Calls for help went unanswered, and no doctors were in sight.

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On Tuesday, Honduras’ Congress approved a decree handed down in December by President Roberto Micheletti to end Honduras’ membership in the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas (ALBA), a regional organization started by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Presidential spokesman Rafael Pineda, in an apparent reference to Venezuela, explained that the decision to leave was taken because “some of the countries in the organization have not treated Honduras with the respect it deserves.” Pineda also cited the constant Venezuelan threats to invade Honduras emanating from the office of Mr. Chávez during the initial stages of the ouster of Manuel Zelaya.

Honduras joined the regional organization on August 25, 2008, during a meeting between former President Zelaya and President Chávez. However, it was not until October 9 that the membership agreement was ratified by the Honduran Congress.

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The Arcadia Foundation and the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative have backed the Ugandan President’s view on the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

The bill, tabled by Ndorwa West MP late last year proposes a death penalty for the offenders. This has caused obvious concern from the developed world.

Addressing the NRM NEC meeting yesterday, Museveni advised MPs to go slow with the Bill saying it may affect Uganda’s Foreign Policy.

The Arcadia Foundation views this as a positive step; this signifies a leader attuned to the views of both the international community and to domestic prosperity, a President who clearly understands the link between the two and how an economy with such heavy ties to trade can be shaken to its foundation over such a bill being passed.

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Zimbabwe’s Radio VOP (Voice of the People) reported that a top Nestlé official, Brinda Chiniah, quietly sneaked into Zimbabwe this week as the Swiss multinational firm resumed production after shutting down its production plant in Harare.

The visit coincided with the re-opening of the food manufacturer’s factory.

Chiniah, who is based in Kenya where her office oversees the food giant’s operations in 20 countries in Africa, told Radio VOP that the visit was a standard visit to one of Nestle’s operations.

“We very often conduct routine market visits and this is the purpose of my current visit to Zimbabwe,” Chiniah stated.

Nestle, which has operated in Zimbabwe for the past 50 years, suspended operations at its Harare factory as normal business was no longer possible and the safety of its employees could not be guaranteed. This was in lieu of the infamous ‘blood milk scandal‘ which has been detrimental to the corporate social responsibility agenda of the corporate giant. Read Full Paper

“Like the emperor in the fairy tale, the Chávez administration now stands naked before the world and is finding it increasingly difficult to cover up the disaster it has created with its ill-named 21st Century Socialism.”

Globalpost’s latest webblog features an intriguing look at the authoritarian’s erratic regime:

In the first 12 days of 2010, it has had to resort to a drastic devaluation of the currency, announced on Friday, January 8, despite its reluctance to take this step for more than four years. And now, on Tuesday, January 12, it has had to make the electricity debacle official with the joint announcement by the Ministry for Electrical Energy and the affiliates of the state-owned National Electricity Corporation of a “special electricity rationing plan that will cover the entire country and will involve suspensions of the service for a maximum of four hours” in each region.

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Google’s dramatic threat to close its business in China unless the authorities allow it to provide uncensored search results throws into stark relief the limits to globalization.

The dream of  google spearheading the initiative to unify the World Wide Web by flattening the Earth into a single cyberspace has been shattered by that governments’ determination to control the information their citizens see.

The search engine and e-mail behemoth yesterday stated that  it had uncovered “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China” aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The level of censorship is of course no surprise. Whilst in Beijing, our Public Relations Director personally found it difficult to access certain news websites, sometimes at such a delay he could “swear someone was picking up the metaphorical reciever along the way to check” on him.

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“Venezuela is going to rack and ruin. Chavez is in serious trouble. The economy is heading for the sewer,” stated Robert Amsterdam today on ‘Montel Across America’ on the Air America Radio Network.

The international attorney explained that Chavez has devalued the currency by 50% in order to “have more money to throw around to keep his movement going”, however, “the man can’t manage his way out of a paper bag and is starting to lose control.”

Corruption in Venezuela is massive and on an unparalled scale, complicated by incompetent management, he explained. Opposition has begun to form against Chavez, including the present mayor of Caracas, but whether Chavez can be toppled is questionable.

As documented on KandyStroud.blogspot.com, “it remains important for the world to recognize how dangerous Chavez is, to understand how he has thrown his lot in with Russia and Iran and is laundering Iranian money and nationalizing banks which want to return to the rule of international law.”

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The foiled Christmas Day bomb attack on a U.S. airliner has raised many questions and arched many eyebrows throughout media pundits and U.S. politicians alike. Out of Nigeria, the attempted attack also brought to light the growing pressure now being put on the ailing Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua to either confirm he is fit to govern or indeed hand over authority to his deputy.

Yar’Adua has been in Saudi Arabia for more than a month being treated for a heart condition and uncertainty over how a succession would be handled if his health worsens risks plunging Africa’s most populous nation into political crisis.

What has gone unnoticed, or only spoken about in smaller circles, has been the fragility of control of the region, the fragility of Nigerian civil discourse, the fragility of Presidential power, issues tied to the health of Nigerian President Umaru Yar Adua.

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Zimbabwe’s attorney general today claimed that the state would move to have its key witness in the terrorism trial of an ally of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai impeached for giving contradicting evidence.

The trial of Roy Bennett -who astonishingly faces a possible death sentence on charges of illegal possession of arms for purposes of committing terrorism, banditry and sabotage -resumed with chief state witness Peter Hitschmann testifying.

Bennett, treasurer-general in Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has repeatedly denied the charges and accuses President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party of political persecution and trying to stop him from taking up the post of deputy agriculture minister.

This is the latest chapter in what many are referring to as the ‘Roy Bennett Saga’, an affair which has paralyzed democracy in the nation, continued to stifle foreign investment, divide the citizenry and further the Mugabe doctrine. Read Full Paper