Haiti MPs reject new PM candidate

This report from the BBC suggests that there may be more unrest in store for Haiti:

The parliament of Haiti has rejected the president’s choice for a new prime minister, prolonging the country's period without a government. Haitian lawmakers rejected President René Preval’s candidate for prime minister on Monday, undercutting his efforts to establish a stable democracy in the deeply impoverished Caribbean country.

Ericq Pierre’s nomination failed by a vote of 51-35, with nine members abstaining in the vote in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. He had won overwhelming approval in Haiti’s Senate last Wednesday and had been widely expected to succeed Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was fired by the Senate on April 12 after a week of food riots that killed at least six people. Senators said Alexis had not done enough to increase national food production and lower the cost of living in the poorest country in the Americas.

The rejection, on grounds that Pierre had failed to provide proof required under the constitution that he was descended from native-born Haitians, will force Preval to select another nominee in a process that could drag out for days or weeks. Slum leaders in Les Cayes, the southern city where last month’s food riots began, have threatened more violent protests if parliament did not install a new government by early this week.

There was speculation Pierre’s rejection was organized by Alexis supporters seeking revenge for his dismissal. It also seemed aimed at Preval himself, who took office two years ago this week and has been widely criticized for moving too slowly to address the overwhelming needs of a country where most people live on less than $2 per day.

“He’s been a disappointment to a lot of people,” said Colette Lespinasse, the head of a U.N.-backed Haitian human rights organization. The government has had its head in the clouds while the country is stuck on the ground,” she added, saying Preval had done little to fight poverty and make adequate use of international aid since taking office in May 2006. At least 20 members of Preval’s own political party, Lespwa, voted against Pierre, who is a former adviser to the Inter-American Development Bank.

“Those who voted against Ericq Pierre should be held responsible for any trouble or unrest that may take place in the country in the coming days,” said Saurel François, a deputy loyal to ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haitians say the cost of some staples such as rice, beans and flour has doubled in the past few months.

The whole article may be found here.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for May 4

In case you hadn’t figured it out already, here at last is the solution to last week’s cryptic. Sorry for the tardiness. I’ve been busy!

London Times Cryptic Crossword for May 11

Here is this week’s cryptic from the Sunday London Times. Just click on it to bring up the full-sized version. Enjoy!

Suddenly … the blowing of a violent wind

These words were written almost exactly a century ago by G.K. Chesterton, yet they still have an uncanny contemporaneity.

I remember a little boy of my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under … torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew in his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his hat, of which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about four. After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at last to his mother, “Well, why don’t you take away the trees, and then it wouldn’t wind.”

Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age in which we live. My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal modern thinkers; only much nicer.

In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the spirit lists…

The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to say that the material circumstances have alone created the moral circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious change.

From Tremendous Trifles, chapter 12

Haitian senate ratifies candidate for prime minister

The latest on Haiti from Reuters:

Haiti took a step toward installing a new government on Wednesday as the Senate ratified nominee Ericq Pierre for prime minister, more than a month after violent protests over rising food prices that led to the ouster of the old government.

The Senate voted 17-0 with two abstentions to approve Pierre, an adviser with the Inter-American Development Bank. His appointment will not become final until he is approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house in Haiti’s Parliament.

Pierre would replace Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was fired by the Senate on April 12 after a week of food riots that killed at least six people. Senators said Alexis had not done enough to ramp up national food production and lower the cost of living in the poorest country in the Americas.

The Senate’s ratification of Pierre came just two days after slum leaders in Les Cayes, the southern city where the food riots began, threatened more violent protests if parliament did not install a new government within one week…

There was no immediate word on when the lower house would take up the ratification of Pierre, a 63-year-old agronomist and agricultural economist picked by Preval to succeed Alexis.

Preval, who took office in 2006, also served as president from 1996 to 2001 and is the only elected Haitian leader to serve a full term and successfully hand over power to a democratically elected successor. In his first term, it took Preval 21 months to put a new government in place after then-Prime Minister Rosny Smarth resigned in June 1997.

“We have made a step forward, so now it is up to the Chamber to do its part,” Sen. Rudy Heriveaux said after the vote. “We believe that Ericq Pierre can help bring solutions to the current problems.”

The whole story is here.

Bishop Venables: Communion “Breaking Up Because Nobody is Leading”

From The Living Church a report on Bishop Greg Venables’ recent visit to the Diocese of fort Worth:

“The Anglican Communion in the United States has been hijacked,” Bishop Venables said, by an Episcopal Church leadership that doesn’t “mind what happens as long as they control it. I am astounded that in America, the land of the free, so many people have been robbed of their freedom,” he said.

Bishop Venables visited the Diocese of Fort Worth at the invitation of its bishop, the Rt. Rev. Jack Iker. In late April, Bishop Venables also visited with Anglicans who have left the Anglican Church of Canada and with the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin in California. Prior to his arrival in Fort Worth, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote a public letter to Bishop Venables. She asked him to cancel his visit in part because it was “an unprecedented and unwarranted invasion of, and meddling in, the internal affairs of this province,” and because it would prevent “needed reconciliation from proceeding” within The Episcopal Church.

“This is not about schism,” Bishop Venables said. “Schism is separation on secondary issues. This is [a question of] essentials. You [in the Diocese of Fort Worth] must decide whether or not you can stand with a group of people who have denied that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is the Word of God.”

Should clergy and lay delegates to the annual convention in Fort Worth next November vote a second time to amend the diocesan articles of incorporation and leave The Episcopal Church, the Province of the Southern Cone has invited the diocese to affiliate on an “emergency and pastoral basis” despite the fact that the Southern Cone’s constitution currently limits member dioceses to those geographically located in the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay…

Bishop Venables said he felt compelled to act so that brother and sister Anglicans can “get on with their ministry. If we don’t do something,” he said, “we are complicit.” This was the same motivation behind his recent decision to attend the Lambeth Conference in July, he said. “Somebody’s got to go and say the house is on fire,” he said. “Things are breaking up because nobody is leading, and that really worries me.”

In each venue, Bishop Venables told those present that the troubles in Anglicanism can be traced to doubt of the word of God (beginning with the words of the serpent in Genesis 2) and doubt that Jesus is the Son of God (the tempter in the wilderness in Matthew 4).

“I believe that the division at the present moment is about how we define Christianity: that God has spoken, that [the Bible] is the word of God, that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, and that he is the only means of reconciliation with God. That marks the foundational truth of true Christianity.”

The whole report is here.

Haiti riot instigators set deadline to install PM

Here is some recent news from Haiti, as reported by Reuters:

Slum leaders in the southern town of Les Cayes who started Haiti’s recent food riots handed lawmakers an ultimatum on Monday to install a new government within a week or face more protests. Jean René Frazil, an organizer of last month’s street demonstrations, told Haitian President René Preval and parliament that renewed protests could be more violent than last month’s unrest across the impoverished Caribbean country.

“Preval and parliament have no more than one week to install a new prime minister and a new government,” Frazil, 28, told Reuters. “Otherwise, we’ll take to the streets again and it will be much worse than what happened during the past protests.” Parliamentary leaders were not immediately available for comment on the threat.

At least six people were killed in April in a week of unrest that spread from Les Cayes to the capital, Port-au-Prince, and other cities. Five of the deaths occurred in Les Cayes, where rock-throwing protesters clashed with U.N. peacekeepers and looted businesses and food warehouses.

I had been part of a planned church trip to visit Haiti until the unrest began to break out nearly a month ago. Both the US State Department and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs continue to warn their nationals not to travel to Haiti. The rest of the story is here.