“What A Friend We Have In Jesus” puts the spotlight on life on everyday Haiti, where Jacobs now lives. What we get is a compilation of short stories or “vignettes,” as Jacobs puts it, which spotlights on universal issues like love, parenting and police brutality.

“The first story, “Black Woman And Child,” tells of a black woman in Haiti beating/threatening to beat a child while ‘Madame’ speaks to love.
The other vignettes are short incisive reflections, moments in time about Jacob’s own experiences in Haiti, about police who beat people and police who give people a lift on the road and about magic and about reality.

Some of the 17 stories are funny, but the laughter is a type of alternative reaction to anger.

Copies of the book are available for sale at US12 each online at www.lulu.com/shop/mark-jacobs/what-a-friend-we-have-in-jesus/paperback/product-17288757.html and in digital version at www.amazon.com/What-friend-have-Jesus-ebook/dp/B00BRVUDOY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364343290&sr=8-1&keywords=what+a+friend+we+have+in+jesus+mark+jacobs

Jacobs will be hosted at a book launch and reading on Sunday April, 2013 from 5:30 p.m. at Night Cap Café, (Russian Embassy Compound), Pere Street, Kitty, Georgetown.

The media is also invited to cover the event. For details, contact Mark Jacobs on emarkjacobs@gmail.com.

Democratic NYS Senator, Malcolm Smith.

Democratic NYS Senator, Malcolm Smith, whose district includes the Caribbean immigrant populated areas of Hollis, St. Albans, Cambria Heights, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens and parts of Jamaica, and Haitian-American Mayor Of Spring Valley, Noramie Jasmin, were both charged in what federal prosecutors say was a scheme to bribe New York City Republican Party Committee Leaders.

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara and the FBI, say Smith allegedly arranged for cash bribes totaling $40,000 to be paid to Vincent Tabone and Joseph Savino, two New York City Republican county leaders, as part of an effort to appear on the Republican primary ballot as a mayoral candidate in the 2013 election.

Senator Malcolm Smith, speaking at Senator John Sampson's, Spirit of Essence Awards, at the El Caribe, in Brooklyn, NY in 2008. (Hayden Roger Celestin image)

All six defendants were arrested On tuesday, April 2, 2013, and appeared in White Plains federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith. They were released on $250,000 bail each and will return to federal court in White Plains on April 23rd.

Halloran is alleged to have received approximately $20,500 in cash bribes to act as an intermediary with Tabone and Savino on Smith’s behalf. In the second scheme, Halloran allegedly received approximately $18,300 in cash bribes and $6,500 in straw donor campaign contribution checks in exchange for agreeing to steer up to $80,000 of New York City Council discretionary funding to a company he believed was controlled by those who paid him the bribes.

The final scheme involved Jasmin and Desmaret, the mayor and deputy mayor of the Village of Spring Valley in Rockland County, and their alleged receipt of financial benefits, including Jasmin’s receipt of a hidden interest in a real estate project and Desmaret’s receipt of approximately $10,500 in cash bribes, in exchange for official acts.

On Feb. 10, Smith met with the undercover agent and the cooperating witness and discussed how to structure the payments to Savino and Tabone, the complaint says.

“I wouldn’t give them more than, like, 10,” Smith suggested. “Just to start out.”

The charges against the defendants arise from an undercover investigation of three distinct but related bribery schemes involving public corruption.

“Today’s charges demonstrate, once again, that a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “The complaint describes an unappetizing smorgasbord of graft and greed involving six officials who together built a corridor of corruption stretching from Queens and the Bronx to Rockland County and all the way up to Albany itself. We will continue pursuing and punishing every corrupt official we find, but the public corruption crisis in New York is more than a prosecutor’s problem.”

Under New York State law, a person seeking to run for a citywide position in New York City may not have his or her name listed as a candidate on the ballot if he or she is not a registered member of the party having the primary contest unless he or she receives the approval of at least three of the five chairmen of the county committees for that party. The approval is given in the form of what are known as Wilson Pakula certificates, which are signed by the approving chairmen.

Senator Malcolm Smith, 2nd from r. at Senator John Sampson's, r.,, Spirit of Essence Awards, at the El Caribe, in Brooklyn, NY, 10-11-08. NYS Senator Kevin Parker is at l. (Photo: Hayden Roger Celestin)

Jasmin, previously a trustee and deputy mayor of Spring valley, was sworn in as mayor on Monday December 7, 2009. She is the first woman to hold the title of “Mayor of Spring Valley NY” since the incorporation of the village in 1902 and is the first Haitian American woman to hold the post.

NBC Weekend Today show anchor, Jenna Wolfe. (NBC image)

Several Caribbean countries still fail to recognize same sex unions and in at least six, same sex sexual activity is illegal. Gay life in the region is still fairly secretive.

If Wolf and her girlfriend of three years, NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk, were to go to any Caribbean country, including Jamaica where she was born, and Haiti where she grew up; or even Puerto Rico where her father grew up, their union would not be recognized.

Infact, only Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean recognizes same sex relationships. Should the couple decide to get married and move to the Caribbean to raise their baby daughter, that marriage would not be recognized anywhere in the region.

Further, Wolfe, 39, and Gosk, 40, could not engage in same sex, sexual activity in six Caribbean countries.

Homosexuality – both male and female – is illegal in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Dominica, Grenada and Barbados.
However, Wolfe could actually have sex in Jamaica, which along with, Saint Kitts and Saint Lucia, only makes male homosexuality illegal but not female.

In several of the British dependent territories, however, as well as Haiti or Puerto Rico and the U.S.V.I., homosexuality is very legal. San Juan is, however, hailed as the “gay capital of the Caribbean” and offers gay guesthouses, nightclubs, bars, and dance clubs.

Grenadian sociologist Claude Douglas argues that the wider Caribbean’s attitude to homosexuality is changing.

Douglas, a lecturer at St George’s University, says tolerance has increased significantly in recent years and partly blames the United States’ cultural invasion of the Caribbean.

Douglas makes his case in his 60-page book, Homosexuality in the Caribbean – Crawling Out of the Closet, which examines the rise of this alternative lifestyle in the region and says he envisages “homosexuality is becoming an alternative and acceptable form of human sexuality in the Caribbean.”

AudioNow, a leading call-to-listen mobile phone platform in the United States, said its multilingual survey among U.S. Haitian Creole speakers on the issue found that 9 out of 10 listeners favor stricter gun control laws in the United States.

Interestingly, the survey done by Hart Research Associates in Washington for AudioNow, found that Creole-speaking listeners concerned with crime and violence support stricter gun controls almost unanimously. Nearly 90 percent favor a ban on assault weapons, the poll, done with Radio Kiskeya’s U.S.audience between February 14-21st, found.

The survey comes just months after the Sandy Hook shooting that took place on December 14, 2012, when Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Of 405 interviews conducted, nearly 60 percent of the Haitians were eligible to vote in 2012, and a full 81 percent of the respondents reported actually voting – approximately 10 percent higher than the national average in recent presidential elections.

Meanwhile, asked the community was split about the issue of greatest concern to them. One third reported immigration as their community’s top issue, followed by more than a fourth of listeners, (28 percent), said it is the lack of jobs, and 16 percent said crime.

Radio Kiskeya, based in Port-au-Prince, broadcasts to mobile phones in the U.S. through the AudioNow platform.

Meanwhile, Reid last night said: “Later tonight, I will start the process of bringing a bill to reduce gun violence to the Senate floor. This bill will include the provisions on background checks, school safety and gun trafficking reported by the Judiciary Committee. I hope negotiations will continue over the upcoming break to reach a bipartisan compromise on background checks, and I am hopeful that they will succeed. If a compromise is reached, I am open to including it in the base bill. But I want to be clear: in order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks.”

Desiline Victor is applauded at the State of the Union on Feb. 12, 2013.

News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Weds. Feb. 13, 2013: Few people are lucky enough to get a Presidential spotlight cast on them and on Tuesday night, during his State of the Union, President Obama took time out to pay tribute to a lucky few, including a 102-year-old Caribbean migrant.

Desiline Victor, a Haitian migrant, took the spotlight as many strained to see her sitting in the audience after President Obama told the world of her three hour wait in line to vote last November.

Victor, a former farm worker who only became a U.S. citizen in 2005 and cast her first vote in the 2008 Presidential election, waited for hours to cast her ballot on Oct. 28 at a public library in Miami-Dade county for the 2012 Presidential election.

“I’m very happy, very proud,” she said of her moment in the spotlight.

On Tuesday night, the President said the country should follow the example of this Caribbean immigrant turned naturalized U.S. citizen and voter.

“We should follow the example of a North Miami woman named Desiline Victor,” said the President. “When she arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours. And as time ticked by, her concern was not with her tired body or aching feet, but whether folks like her would get to have their say. Hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line in support of her. Because Desiline is 102 years old. And they erupted in cheers when she finally put on a sticker that read, ‘I Voted.’”

GetConnectiD this week released data to show that the Spanish Caribbean countries lead in Internet users as well as time spent being on the social network site. Data culled by the agency’s Social Caribe arm, shows that the Dominican Republic with over 2.7 million FB subscribers as of last December, takes the top prize for most Caribbean users on the social network. The total number of DR islanders on line is put at over 4.6 million by GetConnectiD analysts.

The DR was followed by Puerto Rico with over 1.2 million FB members as of this February 6, 2013. That’s almost all of the 1.7 million Internet users of the island.
No other Caribbean country broke the six figure mark as of this month. Jamaica grabbed the third spot for with 690,000 FB users, the highest, however, for the English-speaking Caribbean. Overall, there are over 1.5 million Internet users in the land of reggae and Bolt!

Trinidad & Tobago was fourth in the top five most users on Facebook with over 485,000 of its 650,000 plus online users while Haiti grabbed the fifth spot with over 400,000 FB users.

The number, however, is almost 50 percent of the 800,000 plus total Haitian Internet users in the French Caribbean nation.
For more see getconnectid.com/2013/02/07/top-5-most-social-caribbean-countries-and-3-questions-caribbean-brands-must-ask-themselves/

The hotline will help fight corruption and promote accountability in aid programs in Haiti and
is widely advertised on radio, television, and vehicles used by USAID’s implementing partners. The
24-hour hotline accepts allegations in English, French, and Creole and has been receiving complaints since it launched in December 2012.

Developed as part of USAID OIG’s ongoing partnership with LFHH, the hotline models the approach of the Pakistan Anti-Fraud Hotline run by Transparency International-Pakistan and the OIG. Both hotlines cover not only USAID projects and implementers, but also receive complaints across the spectrum of international and local assistance programs in their respective countries.

USAID Deputy Inspector General, Michael G. Carroll, said, “This new hotline gives the Haitian people a way to help fight corruption in the programs and services meant to benefit them. OIG remains firmly committed to rooting out fraud and corruption in assistance programs across the country, and to help improve donor assistance in Haiti.”

The anti-corruption hotline in Haiti is funded by USAID in coordination with USAID OIG through a three-year, $168,000 cooperative agreement with and LFHH.

Complaints can be made to the hotline by:

Telephone, at (509) 3701-7089 or (509) 2513-7089, toll free
Text message, at *550 in Haiti
Email (anticorruptionhotline@hushmail.com), or
Mail, at:

La Fondation Heritage pour Haiti
Section Haitienne de Transparency International (TI)
Boite postale 16136
Bureau Postal de Petion-Ville
Petion-Ville, Haiti NT 6140

The Congresswoman at a recent fundraiser hosted by Harold E. Doley, Jr. at his home, Villa Lewaro, the former Madame C.J. Walker estate, in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York . Congressman Eliot L. Engel, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and New York State Senate Democratic Conference Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins were special guests.

The congresswoman, who recently took the oath of office for another term, made the disclosure on the third anniversary of the 2010 earthquake on Jan. 12th.

“In the coming weeks of the 113th Congress, I will re-introduce the Haitian Emergency Life Protection (H.E.L.P.) Act which will allow applicants with family-sponsored petitions that were approved on or before January 12, 2010 to work in the United States and send remittances back home as they wait for their green cards,” she explained.

The bill was introduced on November 1, 2011, in a previous session of Congress, but was not enacted. It calls for an amendment of the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to V-visa for non-immigrants (spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents who come to the United States to wait for completion of the immigrant visa process) to include certain Haitian nationals whose petition for a family-sponsored immigrant visa was approved on or before January 12, 2010.

It also calls for the authorization of the Secretary of State to use secondary evidence to verify eligibility for such status or for immediate relative status.

That is the question Prosecutor Lucmane Delille wants answered. Delille on Jan. 9th questioned Aristide at his home on the outskirts of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince even as thousands of the former President’s supporters marched outside his residence in a show of support.

Some claim the investigation is politically motivated. But a small group of people have filed a complaint against Aristide alleging they are former street children who were rescued by Fanmi se Lavi, an organization Aristide created in the late 1980s to house and educate homeless orphans. They claim they were physically abused and used to raise money.

Aristide became president of Haiti in 1991 but was later ousted in a military coup. He was elected again in 2000, but driven from power four years later in a rebellion led by former soldiers. Aristide returned to Haiti in 2011 after seven years in exile in South Africa.

That’s the word from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The group, continues to manage four hospitals, including one in Léogâne, that were built to replace temporary structures the organization set up immediately after the initial disaster, says it is unlikely that MSF will be able to hand over the management of these hospitals to Haitian authorities any time soon.

“The transition process is much too slow,” says Joan Arnan, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti. “That’s because Haitian institutions are weak, donors have not kept their promises, and the government and the international community have failed to set clear priorities.”

MSF says it goal is still to handover these activities to the Ministry of Public Health in Léogâne but the hospital is drawing increasing numbers of patients, some from as far away as Port-au-Prince—a clear indication of the profound lack of adequate care available.

“Most Haitians did not have access to medical care before January 12, 2010, whether this is because of the lack of available services or because they didn’t have enough money. We came in response to the catastrophe and intended to stay until reconstruction could get underway and the public health facilities could take over. Unfortunately, it’s been three years and almost nothing has changed in terms of access to care,” Arnan added.