Tropical Storm Erika was downgraded Thursday to a tropical depression not far from Puerto Rico, the BBC reports. Poor communities living by the river in Haiti and the Dominican Republic are still at risk, though, of flooding. In Dominica there was some reported flooding and the government decided to close schools and businesses because of Erika. There were not any reports of major damage on the island, the news service reports.

Millions in the Caribbean Survive on Less Than $2 a Day
An eye-opening report revealed that millions of people in five Caribbean nations are surviving on less than $2 a day, Caribbean Net News reports. The affected citizens are from the Dominican Republic (with 15 percent attempting to live on that small wage), Haiti (72 percent), St. Lucia (41 percent), Guyana (17 percent), Trinidad and Tobago (14 percent) and Suriname (27 percent), according to the recent Population Reference Bureau’s 2009 World Population Data Sheet. News from the bureau, based in Washington D.C., doesn’t get much better. It estimates that the population will rise in the Caribbean, as well as poverty-stricken areas in Africa, Latin America and Asia, by a little less than 50 percent between now and 2050, the news service reports. “This scenario assumes that fertility in less-developed countries will decline smoothly to the low levels observed in today’s more developed countries: about 1.8 children per woman,” the report states. “For fertility to fall to those low levels, many factors are key, including significant increases in the use of family planning in many less-developed countries.”
 

Thousands Protest Mali’s Marriage Law
Thousands of people in the west African nation of Mali have been protesting a new law that provides more rights for wives, reports the BBC. The law, which was adopted weeks ago but has not been signed by the nation’s president yet, decreed that married women are no longer required to obey their husbands. In addition, the legislation allows for stronger inheritance rights for mothers and children who are born out of wedlock, the news service reports. “We have to stick to the Koran. A man must protect his wife, a wife must obey her husband,” Hadja Sapiato Dembele, a spokeswoman from the National Union of Muslim Women’s Association, told BBC recently. Only a certain segment of the population supports the law, she says. “It’s a tiny minority of women here that wants this new law – the intellectuals. The poor and illiterate women of this country – the real Muslims – are against it,” she said.

Hurricane Bill Picks Up Steam
Hurricane Bill has morphed into a scary Category 4 storm whose winds could surpass its current 135-mph ruckus before settling down. The residents of the Leeward Islands are the most vulnerable right now, according to officials at the National Hurricane Center, but Bermudians could also feel Bill’s rage before he fizzles out over the next several days. “The wind sheer is light and the waters are warm,” Todd Kimberlain, a forecaster at the center, said Tuesday. “Those are two essential ingredients not just for the formation, but also the maintenance, of hurricanes.” As of early this morning, Bill’s eye swirled about 460 miles east of the Leeward Islands and moving west-northwest near 16 mph. In the flood-ravaged Haiti and the Dominican Republican, residents were happy to hear that another potential killer, tropical storm Ana, would leave the island of Hispaniola, which the two nations share, virtually unscathed this time.

Haiti Sees First Swine Flu Case
Haiti has seen its first confirmed swine flu case. A United Nations peacekeeper who came to Port-au-Prince earlier this month had flu symptoms and was quarantined, a U.N. spokesman said. Soon after, it was confirmed he had swine flu. After he was treated for a week and a half, the soldier returned to work. While this is the first confirmed case, it is believed there might be others that slipped through the cracks of a broken health care system, the BBC reports. Forty-four cases have been confirmed in the nearby Dominican Republic.

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank have cancelled most of the debt from struggling Caribbean nation of Haiti, the BBC reports. That move subtracts $1.2 billion from the country’s total debt of $1.9 billion. The debt relief was given because Haiti has begun to reform its economy and execute new measures to reduce poverty, according to the World Bank and IMF.

Zambian Nurses Still Striking
Despite receiving a government order to return to work or possibly get fired, nurses in the nation of Zambia are continuing their strike, which has been going on for three weeks. Instead of going back to work Monday, the nurses are gathered outside of the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), upset that the government hasn’t done more to work with them, reports the BBC.  The nurses are asking for a 25-percent raise as well as more uniforms, night duty and housing allowances. Zambia’s government proposed a 15-percent raise and says it will negotiate more with the nurses only after the strike ends. The strike has put a burden on the nation’s health services; student nurses are working at the University Teaching Hospital’s out-patient department.
 

The World Bank Approves Millions for Haiti
The World Bank recently approved a $5 million grant for Haiti. The money will go toward improving the impoverished Caribbean nation’s agriculture industry. About half of Haiti’s workers work in agriculture and the industry accounts for more than 25 percent of the gross domestic output. The industry was hit hard last year by devastating back-to-back hurricanes and fluctuating food prices.

Former Rwandan Official Arrested
Rwanda’s former deputy interior minister was sentenced to 30 years in jail for participating in the country’s 1994 genocide. Callixte Kalimanzira, 54, who was arrested in 2005, allegedly tricked thousands of Tutsis into going to Kabuye Hill where they thought they would receive food and shelter. Instead, they were murdered by militias, the BBC reports. Kalimanzira, who was tried by the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, also is accused of supervising massacres in the region of Butare. He pleaded not guilty at the time of his arrest. In 1994, 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in a period of 100 days. The tribunal, created to bring the genocide leaders to justice, has entered 38 judgments in total, reports Reuters.

Haiti to Receive $120 Million in Grants
Haiti, one of the world’s poorest nations, is slated to receive $120 million in grants from the Inter-American Development Bank, reports the BBC. The grants, which will be disbursed in 2010, will assist the Caribbean nation with improving its transportation infrastructure and water services, among other projects. The IADB gave Haiti $100 million for 2009 and $50 million in 2007 and 2008.

Did Liberia Charity Workers Steal $1 Million in Aid?
An official from World Vision, a U.S. based charity, claims that over 90 percent of aid sent to Liberia was lost due to fraud, reports the BBC. Workers are believed to have stolen more than $1 million in aid, the group’s Vice-President George Ward, told the news service. Three World Vision workers have been charged in connection to the fraud. They have been charged with 12 counts, including theft, fraud, lying to investigators and witness tampering, reports the news service. The group allegedly sold donated food in markets and hung on to the profits and used charity resources to build themselves homes. The charity was tipped off about the fraud in 2007, two years after it allegedly began. That year, World Vision sent auditors to the Liberian towns that supposedly received aid. According to Ward, they found only 9 percent of the food aid had gone to the needy. And, according to The Associated Press, 34 of the towns didn’t exist. In wake of such scandal, Ward promises that the organization has taken steps to prevent such fraud from taking place in the future. “We can guarantee that we make every effort to ensure that every dollar, every pound sterling, every euro contributed to World Vision is sued in the best possible way and we have an excellent track record in that regard,” he told the BBC. 
 

World Bank to Lend Haiti $121 Million
Last week, the World Bank approved a $121 million four-year lending plan for Haiti, reports Reuters. The money will go towards helping the nation’s struggling economy and assisting with the recovery effort from last year’s devastating tropical storms. “With this new strategy, we are supporting Haiti’s own efforts to put the difficult events of last year firmly behind it, and return to a path toward longer term growth and development,” a World Bank official told Reuters. “The country faces great opportunities, as well as huge challenges, and it needs strong and sustained support from the World Bank Group and other international partners.” The International Finance Corporation, a World Bank Group, tapped the agricultural and textile manufacturing sectors as areas for possible growth in Haiti.

Nigerian Soccer Fan Runs Over Rival’s Fans Local police say a Manchester United football fan in Nigeria killed four people when he plowed his minibus into a group of Barcelona fans following his team’s loss, reports the BBC. There were also 10 people wounded in the tragedy. “The driver passed the crowd, then made a U-turn and ran into them,” a police spokesman told Reuters. United lost the European Champion League Final to Barcelona 2-0. Bitterness over the loss is a likely motive. “The man confessed to doing it on purpose. He now says he doesn’t know why he did it, but it was an intentional act,” a police spokeswoman told the BBC.  European soccer teams are popular in the west African nation, and the league often snags Africa’s best players.

 
Haitian Activist Dies Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian Roman Catholic priest and activist, died in a Miami hospital Wednesday following a stroke. He was 62. After leaving his native Haiti for the United States, Father Jean-Juste founded the Haitian Refugee Center in the late 1970s. When Haitians were being deported from the country, he tried to make sure they at least were properly considered for asylum. After returning to Haiti in the 1990s, he became a supporter of former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is now exiled

International Donors Promise $324 Million to Haiti
Foreign countries and lending institutions pledged to give Haiti $324 million as part of a two-year aid package set to stimulate the nation’s struggling economy, reports Agence France Presse. About 70 percent of the country’s population is unemployed and currently ranks as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The Haitian government, along with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), organized the conference, where the nation’s officials also presented their plans for the money. The plan “could generate as many as 150,000 jobs over the next two years” with infrastructure and energy projects that will make the nation more agriculturally self-sufficient, said the statement. About 20 countries and institutions came to the conference. Among the major contributors were the United States, which pledged $57 million aid money for Haiti; France, which will give $40 million this year; and the World Bank, which is set to give Haiti an extra $20 million this year and is looking to cancel out the nation’s debt. A breakdown of each nation’s contributions was not provided. The aid pledged, according to the IDB, is on top of what donors worldwide are providing the country. “This fresh assistance complements the financing previously committed by international community partners, who are currently supporting projects totaling three billion dollars in Haiti,” the group said in a statement. Haiti saw a very difficult 2008, suffering four back-to-back tropical storms, food protests and school collapses.
China Names First Black Olympic Athlete

Ding Hui, a 19-year-old volleyball player, has become the first Black athlete to be asked to play for China in the Olympics, reports London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. The athlete was named one of 18 men on the national team’s training squad and would make his Olympic debut in London’s 2012 games. Click for more.