Photos

Reverend Campion of Our Lady of Fatima Bible Center held a three-day convocation, "Prayer, Penance, and Conversion". Thousands attended a ceremony, which involved being sprinkled with holy water and undergoing exorcisms to cast out evil spirits.

People prayed for visas to leave Haiti and for ailing family members to be cured.

Reverend Campion demanded of people, "You must convert!", or else Port-au-Prince would be permanently destroyed when the next earthquake hit Haiti.

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Godwin Louis, Haitian-American saxophonist, was a finalist at the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.

Louis's uncle introduced him to jazz icons Cannonball Adderly and Sonny Rollins by sending Louis CDs when he was a boy.

Charlie Parker is Louis's biggest influence as well as the Caribbean rhythms he grew up with.

Louis says the fans he has attracted on Facebook and Twitter, and the Monk competition have been "absolutely a dream come true."

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In January, Michel Martelly placed a wreath at the base of a monument to Jose Marti, who gained freedom for Cuba in the 1900s.

Martelly spoke of the alliance between Cuba and Haiti, saying Marti began ". . . the genesis of cooperation between Haiti and Cuba . . . that still develops for the benefit of Haiti and Cuban citizens."

In 1895, Marti inhabited a house in Cap Haitien, which has revered his memory with a marble plaque, marking the historical time he spent there.

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Ti Kabzy is a lively and energetic quartet of new generation Konpa musicians that arrived on the music scene in 1989 in Montreal.

Competent in several Caribbean music styles, they have also experimented with rock, hip-hop, and country genres.

Ahead of the curve, Ti Kabzy is poised to explode internationally, and their mastery of both Caribbean and American pop music styles has set the stage for them to become globally recognized in the music world's Whose Who.

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Rodney Christmas and Roberto Martino of T-Vice have been excluded from the Haitian Compas Festival for four years. A public dispute between the band members and the festival promoter created the rift.

T-Vice has since resolved their differences with the promoter, and will be on stage playing May 17, 2014, at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida, along with special guest Kassav

According to T-Vice's Cecibon, "We found an agreement and we will be there in force."

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The world's wealth distribution is increasingly weighted toward the wealthiest. Oxfam reports just 85 people, or 0.00000001 % multi-billionaires control 50% of the world's wealth, which equates to the poorest 3.5 billion globally.

In the U.S., the top 1% wealthiest people control 95% of economic growth since 2009.

If not contained, the lowest tax rates, elite education opportunities, and premium healthcare will benefit only wealthy children, leaving everyone else deprived.

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The upper house of the bicameral legislature, the Senate, currently holds 30 seats. But, before the 2003 formation of the Nippes Department, the Senate had just 27. In the memorable 2000 elections, the Fanmi Lavalas party, that of the ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, held all but one of those seats. Following his administration's ousting in February of 2004, Senate was not in session and an interim government was installed after the subsequent rebellion. During that period, those Senators who remained were not recognized as such.

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While Haiti has seen some positive shifting in the course of the rate of inflation over the last few months, with the recorded rate, as captured and reported by the Banque de la République dHaiti, at 3.4% in November of 2013, anything lower than the rate at the period following 2010 can be counted as a blessing. The cost of living was then so high that, compared to Americans, Haitians were paying more than three times the amount for a gallon of milk and $5 more for a gallon of gas.

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The Commune of Carrefour benefited from a rehabilitation project that saw interest in the town of Mahotière grow significantly. The turn of tide was due to the fixing of the road which led to better conditions for traffic and saw the number of businesses and the value of homes increase in the area. The rebuilding effort, instigated in the 2010-2011 project by the government, also gave the town a more prolific nightlife.

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If, as the geologists of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) say, the Caribbean is under threat of a tsunami, over 40 countries in the territory could be affected to the tune of hundreds of deaths and millions of dollars lost in infrastructure and livestock. These nations sit on the subduction zones of the region on which two plates meet, forcing one to slide under the other.

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