fraser. >> well, senator, of course, you and i have spent some time on the road together, including haiti, and it is indeed a nation in extreme distress. it's the poorest nation in the americas. it's one of the poorest four or five countries in the world. it was devastated last summer by three separate major storms, two of them high-level hirks. it has a big problem with soil erosion. i could go on and on. what am i encouraged by there? i'm encouraged by the nation' peacekeeping force which has done a superb job with very little u.s. military engagement. i'm very encouraged with what our ambassador has done down there. and also former president bill clinton. so the situation is desperate but not hopeless is how i would categoryize it at the moment, sir. >> i personally think that president preval is really trying. what faces him is what faces sufficiently motivated elected leaders elsewhere in the world is underneath him is so much corruption. what do you think -- what should we -- what do you want to do, general fraser, with regard to -- since haiti will be in your area of responsibility

aid instituted programs in haiti to turn and under the slogan of a turning haiti into the taiwan of the caribbean, by adhering to the sacred principle of comparative advantage. that is, they should import from the united states while working people mostly women slaved under miserable conditions in u.s. on an assembly

have been incarcerated because of the, if you will, the inconsistency of leadership in haiti. we are delighted to see the president leading out but we visited many who were political prisoners and worked with the then bush administration to try to secure their freedom. i went to -- i want to continue to express my appreciation to chairman conyers for the work that he has continuously done working in haiti when we traveled there together. so there are many aspects of the caribbean that we can celebrate. i'm here to celebrate the great connection that i've had the privilege of having and i'm delighted to be joined on the floor of the house by congresswoman christensen as well as congresswoman clarke and congresswoman -- congressman payne and the chairwoman who is now serving as speaker pro tempore. we do this because we want to ensure that people realize how great america is and it is home great because it relies upon the strength of those who come from different cultures and bring that wonder the to our wonderful nation -- wonderment to our wonderful nation. i want to acknowled

haiti had by then lost the capacity to feed itself. making it highly vulnerable to food price fluctuation. that was the immediate cause of the 2008 food crisis which led to riots and enormous protest but not getting food. the story is familiar. in fact, quite similar in much of the world. so going back to the bangladesh newspaper, it's true enough that the food crisis results from western lack of concern. a pittance by our standards would overcome its worst immediate effects but more fundamentally, it results from the dedication to adam smith's principles of business-run state policy. these are all matters that we too easily evade. along with the fact that bailing out banks is not upper most in the minds of the billion people now facing starvation. not forgetting the tens of millions during hunger in the richest country in the world. also sidelined is an easy way to make a significant dent in the financial and the food crisis. it is suggested by the publication a couple days ago of the authoritative annual report on military spending b

and of course then there's that -- direct relationship between haiti and new orleans, the latter of which in the beginning of the 19th century was considered a minor adjunct to the island which was then considered france's most valuable possession. . it was only after napoleon had failed to conquer the colonies, only then did he decide to sell the louisiana territory. many from the island who had fled that island became early inhabitants of new orleans, contributing to the culture that is so recognized and renowned today. there are also many u.s. virgin islanders today and in the past and from the then danish west indies who have and continue to contribute much to our nation and have spoken of many of them on several occasions. people like casper holstein, congressman payne mentioned raymond jones, emil griffin, tim duncan, many, many others. one, denmark vecsey, was born in st. thomas and settled in charleston, south carolina, one of my favorite cities. settled interest in 1783. 17 years later he brought his freedom and inspired, i'm sure by the 1733 african rebellion of st. john and the

and must be ready to inform haitians in haiti that they should not leave if it is provided. third, it establishes a coordination of funding. merritt is too important to be lost in the bureaucratic shuffle. finally, the bill creates an interagency task force on the prevention of small arms trafficking and the western hemisphere. while recent media attention is focused on the high number of guns, 90% recovered from crime scenes in mexico that are originally from the u.s., this is not just a mexico issue. jamaican prime minister told me that 90% of the guns recovered in jamaica also originate in the u.s. i am glead we are doing something about that in this bill. again, mr. chairman, thank you for your excellent work on the bill and for including these important sections that i urged. i look forward to voting for this bill and i yield back the balance of my time. . the chair: the gentlewoman from florida. ms. ros-lehtinen: we reserve at this time. the chair: the gentleman from california. mr. berman: the gentlelady reserves? the chair: the gentlelady reserves her time. mr. berma

. >> five years ago, when president aristide of haiti was overthrown by the military, the previous administration recognized a new government by the chief justice. under the haitian constitution, he was an extensive section. -- next in secession. in honduras, their president is ousted. the new president is in accordance with honduran law. >> what we saw over the course of the week and was is the fear -- was a severe this function in a democratic norms. we haven't changed the recognition of who we believe is the president of the country. >> my other question is on the calls the president has made to members of congress as to cap and trade, is the promise to it -- did he promise campaign help for people in trouble in their districts? >> i was not a participant in those calls, but i can assure you the president's affirmed his commitment. the policy position that they were taking in helping to explain to their constituents and to the american public that this bill will create jobs and lessening our dependence on foreign oil, which is a national-security problem and an informal problem, he is a strong

. >> five years ago, when the president of haiti was overthrown by the military, the previous commission recognized the new government by the chief justice because under the haitian constitution, he was next in this succession. now with the president leaving honduras, the congress elected their president. >> that is one way of putting it. >> ousted. they elected their president as the new president to the country, which is in accordance of honduran lot. why doesn't the admonition simply follow the president? >> i think what we saw was a severe disruption in any sort of democratic norm. we are seeking to restore that democratic norms in honduras. >> my other question is on the calls the president made to members of congress. did he promise any political or campaign assistance to some of the democrats who were on the fence? >> i think the president said -- i was not a participant in those calls. i can assure you that the president affirmed his commitment to support the policy position that they were taking in helping to explain to their constituents and to the american public a great benef

our journalist haiti year the story. we are journalists hate to hear this story. we can change the product, but we have to be careful how we change it. the that we are making is that there is an appetite for quality news and no matter what the platform and that there will always be an appetite for quality news. we also know we have two audiences with a distinctly different desires. first is the local community. readers come to our coverage from everything from the local school system to with the obama administration is doing. second, we have a large and growing national audience. 90% of our page views are outside the market and we have never spent $1 marketing ourselves out of this market. our job is to serve these two audiences and to do it on multiple platforms at the same time the cut costs and explore new -- new ways to invest in technology trade is a tall order, but that is what we're doing great we were one of the first papers to invest heavily in building a web site. our reporters are on facebook and twitter. we won an emmy for a video. we're trying to enha

that did not drive him to become an anarchist, what drove him to be an anarchist was living in haiti than 20 of area among the best people he had ever known. the anarchism who was in italian anarchists and one who was long dead but anarchism at that time was in the newspaper published and he gradually became an anarchist in those days. the places he lived helped create this hatred. as i said he lived in an area of the streets that don't matter now but they did to him. there is an underappreciated novel from 1898 in which a priest who like to the r.e.m. song is losing his religion and he goes onto the roof to try to help the repoire. he has a brother who was an anarchist to probably left and lived in an area where there aren't many anarchists. but this priest losing his religion played soccer corps which is truly one of the most miserable of the churches in paris and the most important thing in was built in penance after the communists and more of 1870's paris commune and was billed on the place with a drag iran and china tests before they blew their brains out during bloody week in 1

but we still see in a lot of places the -- in haiti, the practice of restofic. it is acceptable to give a child a chance to be in the city, maybe to be able to go to school and be raised as a foster child by a wealthy family. but all too often, the cultural factor is excused for child slavery as a domestic servant. you can say cultural is good. there is a line we cannot tolerate anybody crossing. host: call from baltimore, maryland, you are on the line for democrats. caller: how are you doing? host: turn your radio or television down so you don't get the feedback. caller: is that good? host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: when they bring -- when these traffickers bring these people into the country, they not only upset the standard of civil rights and things like that, but the workplace and industrialization of the nation would take these people and put them in jobs, which would take the productive job away from the americans. then, when you make a complaint about this, it's like it never even happened or nobody does anything about it. but on yo

somalia, haiti, bosnia, east timor. afghanistan is the latest example of a country that is said to struggle to remain cohesive with american peace operations coming as a result. so we look quite closely to see if there are countries that are fragile states, that could require an american security response. so far there has been no major government that is toppled the to the recession. there have been peaceful changes of government. there have been reactions, strong reactions within countries to economic events. durbin policy changes within countries but we really haven't seen anything yet for example like the fall of this the part of government in the late 90's which was caused by the asian financial crisis. nonetheless, the recession continues, it's the worldwide gdp goes down the way it is predicted to next year and a trade continues to decline, protectionism raises barriers we can already see pressure countries coming under greater pressure that might result in internal instability and be subject to meddling from out