politics | leading the news: haiti's earthquake (Reply)

Haiti beset by series of natural disasters

The Caribbean island nation of Haiti has been beset by a series of natural disasters in recent years, experiencing four devastating tropical storms in 2008.

Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake will only further complicate living conditions for residents of the poverty-stricken country where 80 per cent of Haiti's nearly nine million people live below the poverty line.

Al Jazeera's John Terrett reports. 13 Jan 10

Al Jazeera explains science behind Haiti's earthquake

Al Jazeera's meteorologist, Steff Gaulter, explains what made the Caribbean nation of Haiti so susceptible to such a devastating earthquake.

She says the problems are all due to where the Caribbean plate is situated.

The exercise of human rights should not be contingent on whether or not you think a person’s choices or circumstances are a good way to live or be.

Organizing for Sex Workers’ Rights

Audacia Ray wrote these words after spending time in Sangli, in India, with the International Women’s Health Coalition. While there, she made this short documentary about the sex workers in Sangli and their fight to organize for their own human rights. Thanks to RH Reality Check for the video.

A Vision for Social Housing

The housing crisis was where the economic meltdown started: a bubble popped, and foreclosures spread across the country. Now houses stand vacant while people sleep on the streets in record cold, and in some places public housing is actually destroyed to make way for new development. Cities around the country spend money on housing but the crisis doesn’t go away. Is it time for federal involvement? What’s the solution?
We talk to Catherine Albisa of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, author of Bringing Human Rights Home. Three Volumes Complete, Rob Robinson of Picture the Homeless and the Right to the City Alliance, and David Muchnick of Housing First! and author of Family relocation in urban renewal about public housing, empty homes and homeless people, and what “social housing” would look like.