Caribbean quake shakes Dominican Republic

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Wednesday March 16, 2011 – A 5.3 magnitude earthquake shook the Dominican Republic this morning just days after experts warned that the country is at risk of experiencing a quake similar to the one that hit neighbouring Haiti last year.
There were no immediate reports of major damage or injury, however.
The quake, which hit around 9:37 am about 77 miles east north east of La Romana, Dominican Republic at a depth of 0.6 km (0.4 miles), was measured at 5.3 magnitude by the Santo Domingo State University’s UASD Seismology Institute. The US Geological Survey initially put it at 5.0.
The Associated Press last week reported that Columbia University researchers had warned that the Dominican Republic could be hit by an earthquake similar to the 7.0 magnitude tremor that devastated Haiti in January 2010.
“The next event of this type will probably occur on the other side of the island (Hispaniola)," said the university’s Urban Design Lab director Richard Plunz, who led the investigation. "It could generate very serious damages in the long term.”
Plunz and the rest of the researchers are to meet with President Leonel Fernandez at the end of next month in Santo Domingo to apprise him of their findings.
Worries of earthquakes in the region and calls for the Caribbean and Latin America to get themselves earthquake ready have been heightened since last Friday’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
“Tragedies of this magnitude, triggering tsunami warnings across the entire Pacific and numerous other countries, underscore the importance of like-minded states collaborating in the vital area of disaster mitigation and preparedness,” acting CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite said after the disaster that killed thousands and damaged a nuclear plant.

Roberto and mom and band robbed at gunpoint in Domican Republic

Roberto Martino just got rob at gun point in DR. The Tvice lead singer guitarist just left  a restaurant with his mom, Jay Brooklin, Ti tambou when a guy on a motorcycle draw a gun on them. Roberto was robbed of his 16G  rolex watch and cash, La madre's purse with credit card money and cash wasp taken. T Tambou and Jay Brooklin also was search also at gun point. " he happened so fast that no one could nit even react " said Roberto. He said he is grateful that no harm was done and he is alive. Ironically, Roberto was the one warning his bandmade James Cardozo to be careful the night before because he was wearing his Cariter late at night. A police report was filled
                        From Haitianbeatz.com

Deportees struggle in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti | With his gold teeth, shiny earrings and a life spent mostly in Florida, Serge Michel Dorval is afraid he looks like a rich American to some of the desperate Haitians who live near him in a shantytown alongside a trash-clogged drainage ditch.

It’s a fear that keeps him up at night.

But the 25-year-old is not an American, at least not to the U.S. Government , which deported him and 26 others back to the country of their birth in January in the first wave of forced removals since an earthquake last year destroyed much of the Haitian capital.

Twenty-six of the deportees have been convicted of crimes, and one was judged a national security threat.

Dorval speaks passable Creole, but he left Haiti as an infant and still is learning how to make his way in a devastated country where the vast majority of people have no job nor prospects of finding one.

Living in a tent, he misses hot showers and air conditioning. He misses his young son back in Fort Myers, Fla. He worries that his status as a deported criminal, imprisoned two years for cocaine possession, will make him a target of the police. And he wonders how he will survive.

“I wouldn’t wish Haiti on my worst enemy,” Dorval said outside the tent he shares with two others in a Port-au-Prince camp populated by thousands left homeless by last year’s cataclysmic earthquake. “I’m used to being treated like a human being, but a human life has absolutely zero value in Haiti.”

Dorval’s misery will soon have company. The U.S. government, which halted deportations to Haiti for a year after the earthquake, plans to deport another 700 convicted criminals back to the country this year, said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She declined to say when they would be deported, citing security rules.

Hundreds of thousands of people from Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador,Jamaica and other nations have been deported to homelands they barely knew since 1996, when Congress mandated that every noncitizen sentenced to a year or more in prison be booted from the country upon release.

Immigration advocates have pleaded for a halt to the Haiti deportations, citing “inhumane conditions” in the country, where a cholera epidemic has killed more than 4,000 people since October.

                                                                                                              All credit to the Washington Times