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(CNN) — Haiti’s most famous filmmaker says he’s uncomfortable that his earthquake-ravaged country has become just a victim in the eyes of the world.

And he hopes his new film, “Moloch Tropical,” which just screened at the Berlin Film Festival, will help change that.

Director Raoul Peck, who was also once the country’s culture minister, says he knows the world is watching — and thinking — about his native country now, following the January 12 earthquake that killed thousands and left the capital city of Port-au-Prince in ruins.

Even though he’s taking advantage of the world’s attention, he wishes there could be a deeper understanding of his country, a more nuanced view of the Caribbean nation.

“It’s very uncomfortable to be in a place of a victim in the eyes of the rest of the world,” Peck told CNN in Berlin. “Showing ‘Moloch Tropical’ shows another side of Haiti.”

He said that it was important for him to be in Berlin to “give a different view of what people might think of Haiti.”

That’s especially true when the only information being spread about Haiti is from news snippets in the wake of catastrophe, he said.

It’s very difficult “for anyone else to understand that this is a normal country — with its problems, with its moments of happiness. It’s a mixture of all of these,” Peck said.

Catastrophes trigger the world’s emotion and solidarity, but “when [they're] not in the news anymore, things don’t get the same support,” he told CNN.

“My fear is that when the lights go out that nobody will still be at their side.”

Relief funds were raised for the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, at the recent screening of the film.

Shot on location in northern Haiti, “Moloch Tropical” is a “political marker” about power in Haiti over the last half-century, he said.

It chronicles a despotic president’s final day in office. Peck called it a fable about what happens to democratically-elected leaders after they assume power.

He said he hopes the film will shine a light “on the struggles for democracy that have been burning” in Haiti for the past three and a half decades.

Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier declared himself president for life in 1964 and ruled Haiti as a dictator until his death. Since then, successive governments have been marred by instability, overthrown and deposed by military coups a number of times.

In the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake, everybody is trying to do whatever they can to help, Peck said.

“I’m active as a filmmaker. I’m active as a person of culture, but I’m active as well as a citizen,” said Peck, who returned to Haiti a few days after the earthquake struck.

Peck has put Haiti on the international film map. His 1993 movie “The Man by the Shore” was the first Haitian movie to be released in U.S. theaters and was the first film from the Caribbean to compete for the top award at the Cannes Film Festival.

He’s lived around the world, including in France, Germany, Zaire and the United States, but served as Haiti’s minister of culture for a brief period in the late 1990s.

His decision to enter politics was part of a collective effort in 1996 among a group of like-minded individuals who wanted to institute much-needed reforms in the country, Peck told CNN.

That government experience is one he hopes will aid in the rebuilding effort.

Peck said he wants to bring together the many individuals he’s been involved with in politics and civil society over the years to “improve communication, coordination.”

“What I know I can do is to bring those wheels together and to try to build something stronger,” said Peck.

Like for many others, the devastating earthquake took a personal toll on the filmmaker. He lost friends as well as an uncle and a cousin.

There is a long road ahead for Haitians, he said, and it will take a united effort to rebuild the ravaged country.

“I hope that we will be able to forge a united Haiti to be able to speak with one voice and that our voices are heard in this huge reconstruction that we will have to face.”

But he also expressed optimism that film would help bring people together and play an important role in Haiti’s future.

Haiti has a very “vivid” cultural life and there are many cinematic projects going on, he said.

“Haiti is not a world aside, a world apart,” Peck said. “Culture and imaginations have always been part of our rebirth.”

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Three people have been charged following a violent anti-Olympics demonstration in downtown Vancouver on Saturday.

Police say about 100 protesters, many dressed in black balaclavas and masks, broke away from a larger group and started smashing shop windows and vandalizing cars along West Georgia Street.

At a news conference in Vancouver on Sunday, the Vancouver Police Department described the group as a “criminal element” among the legitimate protesters.

Many activists who have been working for years on things like affordable housing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside expressed dismay at the actions of those over the weekend.

“I was really disappointed. We’ve done a lot of work around protecting free speech,” said David Eby with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

“If the feedback I’ve been getting from activists is any indication, they’ve not only turned off the public, but a large segment of the activist community with their tactics.”

The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.

The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said this was being refused because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered.

Last week, a parliamentary committee proposed a partial ban on full veils.

It also recommended that anyone showing visible signs of “radical religious practice” be refused residence permits and citizenship.

‘Integration’

In a statement, Mr Besson said he had signed a decree on Tuesday rejecting a man’s citizenship application after it emerged that he had ordered his wife to cover herself with a head-to-toe veil.
“It became apparent during the regulation investigation and the prior interview that this person was compelling his wife to wear the all-covering veil, depriving her of the freedom to come and go with her face uncovered, and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women,” he said.

Later, the minister stressed that French law required anyone seeking naturalisation to demonstrate their desire for integration.

Mr Besson’s decree has now been sent to Prime Minister Francois Fillon for approval.

The interior ministry says only 1,900 women wear full veils in France, home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority.

In 2008, a French court denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam was incompatible with French values.

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It’s been 5 days since the earth has rocked my ancestors’ land. Far away, in the Maple Leaf, I feel helpless, restless but also hopeful because I know that like before, Haiti will rise from its ashes.

Over 40 years ago, my parents left this Pearl of the Antilles to start their young lives in Canada. It was the greatest gift they could have given my brother and me who have had every opportunity to thrive in Canada, where we were both born and raised.

The second greatest gift our parents gave us is the constant connection we’ve had with Haiti. During our childhood, our parents made frequent trips with us to Haiti, bringing us closer to its history, its culture, its people: our people. Since then, I’ve returned countless times as teenager, as a granddaughter, as a young adult, as a businesswoman, as a lover and as a Canadian simply running away from sub-zero temperatures.

Still, my Haitian identity is in constant evolution because I‘m a Montrealer. Thanks to the particular partnership that exists between Quebecers and Haitians, it is not only possible for me to live this bi-culture, it is encouraged. And that is what I am most grateful for. I can think in Creole and express myself in French. I can listen to Tabou Combo on my way to a Habs’ hockey game. I can bring griot to a Shabbat dinner. I am Maple Syrup. I am Barbancourt Rum.

My family is safe & sound in Haiti. Still, it’s the collective support of fellow Montrealers and Canadians that has helped me deal with the immense sense of helplessness and for that too, I am grateful. Every Montreal has a friend of Haitian origin and we, are lucky for that.

Internationally known and loved musical group Arcade Fire hails from Montreal, and here’s their gorgeous ode to Haiti:

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Haitian President René Préval says the earthquake that rocked his country has killed thousands of people and left Port-au-Prince, the capital city, in ruins.

“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” he told the Miami Herald. “There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”
Préval told the paper Wednesday he has been stepping over dead bodies and he estimated thousands of people were killed. But he did not provide an official number.

“We have to do an evaluation,” Préval said, describing the scene as “unimaginable.”

“All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe,” he said.

Shattered communication systems in the Caribbean country made it impossible to immediately determine the number of casualties from the Tuesday afternoon quake, but an International Red Cross official estimated that three million people in the impoverished country of nine million may have been affected and could need emergency aid.

UN supplies funding

Paul Conneally said it would take a day or two to get a clear picture of the number of dead and injured, as well as the damage.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed for massive aid for Haiti and announced that the United Nations is releasing $10 million from its emergency funds.

“There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian-assistance emergency and that a major relief effort will be required,” he said.

Ban said the earthquake has had a devastating impact on Port-au-Prince, while other areas of Haiti appear to be largely unaffected.
“Buildings and infrastructure were heavily damaged throughout the capital. Basic services such as water, electricity, have collapsed almost entirely,” he said.

Aftershocks also continued to rattle the capital.

The United Nations said at least five members of its peacekeeping mission were killed as the mission headquarters in Port-au-Prince collapsed and over 100 are missing, including the Tunisian diplomat in charge of the mission.

It was also reported that eight Chinese, four Brazilian and three Jordanian peacekeepers were killed.

At least 55 Canadians, including 50 police officers from Montreal, serve with the UN in Haiti. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said he could not confirm any Canadian casualties, although 6,000 Canadian citizens live in Haiti.
Simon Schorno, a spokesman with the International Committee of the Red Cross, told The Associated Press that finding and rescuing survivors will be a priority, and aid workers will also help hospitals cope with casualties and establish clean water sources.

He said the 7.0 magnitude quake had caused “massive destruction in all the main neighbourhoods” of Port-au-Prince.

“Haitian Red Cross staff are trying to do what they can but are completely overwhelmed, so there’s no structured response at this point.”

Officials feared hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people were killed in the quake. The National Palace was badly damaged and thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.
Worldwide relief efforts have begun in earnest, with countries pledging to provide aid, including rescue workers, doctors and supplies.

U.S. President Barack Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, adding that the U.S. commitment to its hemispheric neighbour will be unwavering.

“We have to be there for them in their hour of need,” Obama said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada “stands ready to provide any necessary assistance to the people of Haiti during this time of need.”

Government officials are also considering whether to deploy the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) — Canada’s team of 200 Canadian Forces personnel, which provides help to areas affected by disaster for up to 40 days.
Other nations — from Iceland to Venezuela — said they would start sending aid workers and rescue teams. Cuba said its existing field hospitals in Haiti had already treated hundreds of victims. The United Nations said Port-au-Prince’s main airport was “fully operational” and open to relief flights.

The quake struck at 4:53 p.m., centred 16 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of eight kilometres, the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti, on the island of Hispaniola.

The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, said Tom Jordan, a quake expert at the University of Southern California. The quake’s power and proximity to Port-au-Prince likely caused widespread casualties and structural damage, he said.

“It’s going to be a real killer,” he said.

Most of Haiti’s people are desperately poor, and after years of political instability, the country has no basic construction standards.

Tuesday’s quake was also felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but no major damage was reported. In eastern Cuba, houses shook, but there appeared to be no significant damage.

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Photos of Afghanistan >>

http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/news/2009-War-in-Afghanistan/2160/32

This month we begin a new decade with a big economic question: Where are the jobs?

The first decade of this century ended as a disaster for employment. Since the recession began two years ago, the U.S. has lost more than 7 million jobs.

Just to regain the jobs we’ve lost will be a huge challenge, says Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz. “We would need well over 300,000 [jobs] a month for four years in a row just to make up what we’ve lost in the last couple of years,” Katz says.

He says there are very few periods in U.S. history when job growth has been that strong.

“So we’re in a very deep hole,” Katz says. “A normal recovery will not get us there for a very long time.”

Jobs On The Horizon

Katz thinks it could take half a decade or more just to get to the employment levels we had two years ago. Still, he expects that during this new decade, the U.S. economy will eventually create 15 million new jobs, with the unemployment rate falling to around 5 percent.
The real question, he says, is what kind of jobs they’ll be. “The worrisome trend is something I’ve called the polarization of the labor market.”

Katz says the U.S. has experienced this for the past 15 years or so. It results in strong job growth for the high-paying jobs and the low-paying jobs at both ends of the labor market, but less growth in the middle to replace the well-paying manufacturing jobs the U.S. is losing.

Projections for the next decade from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that elements of that basic trend will continue.

Top 10 List

Dixie Sommers, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recites a list of the 10 occupations that the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade. These include:

1. Registered nurses

2. Home health aides

3. Customer service representatives

4. Food preparation and serving workers

5. Personal and home care aides

6. Retail salespersons

7. Office clerks

8. Accountants

9. Nursing aides, orderlies and attendants

10. Postsecondary teachers

Six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs.

Katz says the challenge is to move those jobs up the skills ladder. There’s no reason, he says, that home health care workers couldn’t be better educated to provide patients with greater value and, as a result, command higher wages to improve their own living standards.

“So [by] professionalizing those types of jobs, we could have a very optimistic vision of an economy,” Katz says.

How that might square the goal of spending less on health care isn’t clear.

Katz argues it wouldn’t necessarily require spending more on education, but rather changing what’s taught to focus more on different skills like problem solving, interpersonal relations and teamwork.

Leading Sectors

Once again this decade, the BLS is projecting that the health care sector will be a leader in producing new jobs: 4 million of them, including high-skill, high-paying jobs like doctors and nurses. The service sector, which includes health care, is expected to produce a whopping 96 percent of all new jobs, while manufacturing employment continues to shrink.

For job seekers, Sommers says nursing combines a huge number of openings with high pay — a median wage of more than $62,000 a year.

“Accountants [are] another one that’s expected to grow pretty rapidly and pays around $59,000 on an annual average,” Sommers says.

Less Training Required

For those who want to spend less time in school than accountants and nurses, but still make good money, Sommers suggests firefighting or becoming a sales representative for a manufacturer — especially one making technical and scientific products. Sales representatives can make about $70,000 a year, she says.

Finally, over the next decade, the best-paying, fastest-growing job that also requires little training is truck driving. According to the BLS, the folks driving the big tractor-trailer rigs earn about $37,000 a year on average.

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New images of Mars suggest the Red Planet had large lakes on its surface as recently as three billion years ago.

The evidence comes from Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which spied a series of depressions linked by what look like drainage channels.

Scientists tell the journal Geology that the features bear the hallmarks of being produced by liquid water.

But they appear to have formed much later in Mars’ history than many thought possible, the researchers add.

The team, from Imperial and University Colleges London, studied pictures of several flat-floored depressions located above Ares Vallis, a giant gorge running some 2,000km across Mars’ equator.

The hollows are about 20km in diameter.

Scientists had previously ascribed their formation to the slumping of the ground as ice in the soil was lost to Mars’ thin atmosphere almost four billion years ago in the process of sublimation (in which the ice turns directly from a solid into a vapour).

But the detail in the MRO pictures has allowed the Imperial-UCL team to trace a series of channels that connect the depressions.

The group says these channels could only be formed by running water, and not by ice turning directly into gas.

The scientists’ ageing of the region, which on bodies like Mars is done by counting craters, suggests the features formed during the so-called Hesperian Epoch on the Red Planet.

“The exciting thing is that this occurred at a time when Mars is thought to have been cold and dry and [liquid] water wasn’t stable at the surface,” Dr Sanjeev Gupta from Imperial College London told BBC News.

The researchers propose that Mars may have experienced bouts of short-lived warming during this epoch that were caused perhaps by volcanic activity, meteorite impacts, or even shifts in the planet’s orbit.

This could have provided both the warmth to melt ice in the soil and the pressure needed in the atmosphere to maintain liquid water on the surface.

“We don’t really understand what caused this transient episode,” Dr Gupta explained. “We have different hypotheses. Maybe local conditions generated an atmosphere creating a minor greenhouse effect that allowed these lakes to exist. We don’t know how long they existed for, but it’s exciting nonetheless that we see [evidence of] liquid water.”

The conditions would have made it possible for the depressions to fill with meltwater and even overflow, cutting channels as the liquid ran from a higher basin to a lower one.

“This provides another environment - another place to go and look for microbial life,” said Dr Gupta.

“This would be fossil life. This is somewhere we hadn’t perhaps considered as a place to go.”

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has welcomed a pledge by Nato allies to send at least 7,000 extra troops to support the US surge in Afghanistan.

She said beating the Taliban insurgency there was a “crucial test” for Nato.

She spoke in Brussels after talks with Nato foreign ministers and other partners with forces in Afghanistan.

Nato’s top official, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said at least 25 countries had promised more forces in 2010, providing at least 7,000 more troops.

He suggested there would be “more [troops] to come” over and above that number once other nations had reached decisions on deployments.

The US has called on allies among the 43 nations with troops in Afghanistan to send about 10,000 extra soldiers.

Some major countries are holding back, however. France and Germany, for instance, have not yet committed themselves to sending extra troops.

‘Lives and treasure’

Mrs Clinton welcomed what she described as a “significant commitment” by Nato allies, saying she was extremely heartened by their positive response.
“This is a crucial test for NATO, which has been the greatest and most successful military alliance in history,” she said.

“It is crucial that we remain firm in our resolve and see this mission through.”

She also acknowledged the sacrifices made by Nato allies “in lives and treasure”, as they promised military forces and civilian resources to back the new US Afghan strategy.

Earlier this week, US President Barack Obama announced he was sending an additional 30,000 troops to help battle the Taliban insurgency.

Speaking earlier in the day Mrs Clinton had said the need for additional forces was “urgent, but their presence will not be indefinite”.
However, she stressed that the US would continue to provide civilian assistance to Afghanistan long after the military mission ended, saying the US and its allies had an “enduring commitment” to the region.

Speaking to the BBC in Washington, US National Security Adviser Gen James Jones echoed that message, saying the US did not intend to withdraw fully from Afghanistan in 2011 - the date set by Mr Obama for troops to start pulling out - and leave Afghans to their fate.

He said: “It’s very important that people in Afghanistan hear this very clearly, this is not a withdrawal of the United States in Afghanistan in 2011.

“It is a decision to turn over to the Afghans some of the responsibility when they are ready to accept that responsibility, and in no manner, shape and form is the [United] States leaving Afghanistan in 2011.”
Earlier, Mr Rasmussen told delegates at Nato HQ that the coming year would “see a new momentum in this mission”.

The BBC’s Nick Childs, in Brussels, says the main thrust of Mr Rasmussen’s speech was to insist on a message of solidarity, despite the challenges, and of unity behind the mission.

“In addition to the clear pledges already tabled, we have heard indications… that other allies and partners will probably be in a position to announce contributions in the coming weeks and months,” Mr Rasmussen said.

“Isaf [International Security Assistance Force] will have at least 37,000 more soldiers in 2010 than it did this year. That is solidarity in action.”

Warning for Kabul

But many Nato governments face publics even more sceptical about the mission than those of the US and Britain.
Even if more public announcements are forthcoming, turning these into firm pledges of the right troops at the right time and for the right missions may take longer, our correspondent adds.

Mr Rasmussen said several countries had pledged additional funds for development assistance as part of the mission’s new approach in providing basic services to benefit the local people in Afghanistan.

But he warned that Kabul had to play its part in the reconstruction process.

Meanwhile more than 1,000 Nato soldiers, most of them from the US, as well as Afghan troops, launched a major offensive in southern Afghanistan on Friday.

A US military spokesman said Operation Cobra’s Anger in the northern part of Helmand province was aimed at cutting off insurgent supply and communication lines.

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