The Huffington Post is reporting that one year after a devastating earthquake toppled homes and killed roughly 250,000 people in Haiti, the road to recovery is perilously slow. Despite billions of dollars of donations and aid pledges from some of the world's most powerful leaders, a 12,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping presence and an army of relief workers, a million homeless people are still living in tents. Toss in a cholera epidemic, lack of leadership, a corrupt elite and the failure of global relief efforts to actually be implemented, and Houston, we've got a problem. For example, even though the U.S. spent $1.1. billion in humanitarian aid after the quake, we have failed to deliver promised long-term aid. GOP Rep. Tom Coburn single-handedly blocked the delivery of that additional aid to Haiti back in September.
According to an Oxfam report, close to 1 million people are reportedly still displaced, less than 5 percent of the rubble has been cleared, only 15 percent of the temporary housing that is needed has been built, and relatively few permanent water and sanitation facilities have been constructed. Clearly, there is more work to be done in this struggling nation.
Read more at Huffington Post.
In other news: Virginia Gov. McDonnell and Republicans Reveal Controversial Plan.