title: Haiti

text: Haiti has a highly regulated, predominantly state-controlled economy, ranking 145th out of the 177 countries given a "freedom index" by the Heritage Foundation. Haiti's per capita GDP is $1,800 and its GDP is $19.97 billion (2017 estimates). The country uses the Haitian gourde as its currency. Despite its tourism industry, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, with corruption, political instability, poor infrastructure, lack of health care and lack of education cited as the main causes. Unemployment is high and many Haitians seek to emigrate. Trade declined dramatically after the 2010 earthquake and subsequent outbreak of cholera, with the country's purchasing power parity GDP falling by 8% (from US$12.15 billion to US$11.18 billion). Haiti ranked 145th of 182 countries in the 2010 United Nations Human Development Index, with 57.3% of the population being deprived in at least three of the HDI's poverty measures.


title: Haiti

text: Following the disputed 2000 election and accusations about President Aristide's rule, US aid to the Haitian government was cut off between 2001 and 2004. After Aristide's departure in 2004, aid was restored and the Brazilian army led a United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti peacekeeping operation. After almost four years of recession, the economy grew by 1.5% in 2005. In September 2009, Haiti met the conditions set out by the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program to qualify for cancellation of its external debt.


title: Haiti

text: More than 90 percent of the government's budget comes from an agreement with Petrocaribe, a Venezuela-led oil alliance.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti received more than US$4 billion in aid from 1990 to 2003, including US$1.5 billion from the United States. The largest donor is the US, followed by Canada and the European Union. In January 2010, following the earthquake, US President Barack Obama promised US$1.15 billion in assistance. European Union nations pledged more than €400 million (US$616 million). Neighboring Dominican Republic has also provided extensive humanitarian aid to Haiti, including the funding and construction of a public university, human capital, free healthcare services in the border region, and logistical support after the 2010 earthquake.


title: Haiti

text: The United Nations states that in total US$13.34 billion has been earmarked for post-earthquake reconstruction through 2020, though two years after the 2010 quake, less than half of that amount had actually been released, according to UN documents. , the US government has allocated US$4 billion, US$3 billion has already been spent, and the rest is dedicated to longer-term projects.


title: Haiti

text: According to the 2015 CIA World Factbook, Haiti's main import partners are: Dominican Republic 35%, US 26.8%, Netherlands Antilles 8.7%, China 7% (est. 2013). Haiti's main export partner is the US 83.5% (est. 2013). Haiti had a trade deficit of US$3 billion in 2011, or 41% of GDP.


title: Haiti

text: In 1925, the city of Jacmel was the first area in the Caribbean to have electricity and was subsequently dubbed the "City of Light".


title: Haiti

text: Today, Haiti relies heavily on an oil alliance with Petrocaribe for much of its energy requirements. In recent years, hydroelectric, solar and wind energy have been explored as possible sustainable energy sources.


title: Haiti

text: As of 2017, among all the countries in the Americas, Haiti is producing the least energy. Less than a quarter of the country has electric coverage. Most regions of Haiti that do have energy are powered by generators. These generators are often expensive and produce a lot of pollution. The areas that do get electricity experience power cuts on a daily basis, and some areas are limited to 12 hours of electricity a day. Electricity is provided by a small number of independent companies: Sogener, E-power, and Haytrac. There is no national electricity grid within the country. The most common source of energy used is wood, along with charcoal. In Haiti, about 4 million metric tons of wood products are consumed yearly. Like charcoal and wood, petroleum is also an important source of energy for Haiti. Since Haiti cannot produce its own fuel, all fuel is imported. Yearly, around 691,000 tons of oil is imported into the country.


title: Haiti

text: On 31 October 2018, Evenson Calixte, the General Director of energy regulation (ANARSE) announced the 24 hour electricity project. To meet this objective, 236 MW needs to installed in Port-au-Prince alone, with an additional 75 MW needed in all other regions in the country. Presently only 27.5% of the population has access to electricity; moreover, the national energy agency l'Électricité d'Haïti (Ed'H) is only able to meet 62% of overall electricity demand said Fritz Caillot, the Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Communication (Travaux publics, transport et communication (TPTC)).


title: Haiti

text: Haiti suffers from a shortage of skilled labor, widespread unemployment, and underemployment. Most Haitians in the labor force have informal jobs. Three-quarters of the population lives on US$2 or less per day.


title: Haiti

text: Remittances from Haitians living abroad are the primary source of foreign exchange, equaling one-fifth (20%) of GDP and more than five times the earnings from exports as of 2012. In 2004, 80% or more of college graduates from Haiti were living abroad.


title: Haiti

text: Occasionally, families who are unable to care for children financially may send them to live with a wealthier family as a "restavek", or house servant. In return the family are supposed to ensure that the child is educated and provided with food and shelter, however the system is open to abuse and has proved controversial, with some likening it to child slavery.


title: Haiti

text: In rural areas, people often live in wooden huts with corrugated iron roofs. Outhouses are located in back of the huts. In Port-au-Prince, colorful shantytowns surround the central city and go up the mountainsides.


title: Haiti

text: The middle and upper classes live in suburbs, or in the central part of the bigger cities in apartments, where there is urban planning. Many of the houses they live in are like miniature fortresses, located behind walls embedded with metal spikes, barbed wire, broken glass, and sometimes all three. The gates to these houses are barred at night, the house is locked; guard dogs patrol the yard. These houses are often self-sufficient as well. The houses have backup generators, because the electrical grid in Haiti is unreliable. Some even have rooftop reservoirs for water, as the water supply is also unreliable.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti is the world's leading producer of vetiver, a root plant used to make luxury perfumes, essential oils and fragrances, providing for half the world's supply. Roughly 40–50% of Haitians work in the agricultural sector. Haiti relies upon imports for half its food needs and 80% of its rice.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti exports crops such as mangoes, cacao, coffee, papayas, mahogany nuts, spinach, and watercress. Agricultural products comprise 6% of all exports. In addition, local agricultural products include maize, beans, cassava, sweet potato, peanuts, pistachios, bananas, millet, pigeon peas, sugarcane, rice, sorghum, and wood.


title: Haiti

text: The Haitian gourde (HTG) is the national currency. The "Haitian dollar" equates to 5 gourdes ("goud"), which is a fixed exchange rate that exists in concept "only," but are commonly used as informal prices. The vast majority of the business sector and individuals in Haiti will also accept US dollars, though at the outdoor markets gourdes may be preferred. Locals may refer to the USD as "dollar américain" ("dola ameriken") or "dollar US" (pronounced "oo-es").


title: Haiti

text: The tourism market in Haiti is undeveloped and the government is heavily promoting this sector. Haiti has many of the features that attract tourists to other Caribbean destinations, such as white sand beaches, mountainous scenery and a year-round warm climate. However, the country's poor image overseas, at times exaggerated, has hampered the development of this sector. In 2014, the country received 1,250,000 tourists (mostly from cruise ships), and the industry generated US$200 million in 2014.


title: Haiti

text: Several hotels were opened in 2014, including an upscale Best Western Premier, a five-star Royal Oasis hotel by Occidental Hotel and Resorts in Pétion-Ville, a four-star Marriott Hotel in the Turgeau area of Port-au-Prince and other new hotel developments in Port-au-Prince, Les Cayes, Cap-Haïtien and Jacmel.


title: Haiti

text: The Haitian Carnival has been one of the most popular carnivals in the Caribbean. In 2010, the government decided to stage the event in a different city outside Port-au-Prince every year in an attempt to decentralize the country. The National Carnival usually held in one of the country's largest cities (i.e., Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien or Les Cayes) follows the also very popular Jacmel Carnival, which takes place a week earlier in February or March.


title: Haiti

text: On 21 October 2012, Haitian President Michel Martelly, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn inaugurated the Caracol industrial park, the largest in the Caribbean. Costing US$300 million, the project, which includes a 10-megawatt power plant, a water-treatment plant and worker housing, is intended to transform the northern part of the country by creating 65,000 jobs.


title: Haiti

text: The park is part of a "master plan" for Haiti's North and North-East departments, including the expansion of the Cap-Haïtien International Airport to accommodate large international flights, the construction of an international seaport in Fort-Liberté and the opening of the $50 million Roi Henri Christophe Campus of a new university in Limonade (near Cap-Haïtien) on 12 January 2012.


title: Haiti

text: South Korean clothing manufacturer Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd, one of the park's main tenants, has created 5,000 permanent jobs out of the 20,000 projected and has built 8,600 houses in the surrounding area for its workers. The industrial park ultimately has the potential to create as many as 65,000 jobs once fully developed.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti has two main highways that run from one end of the country to the other. The northern highway, Route Nationale No. 1 (National Highway One), originates in Port-au-Prince, winding through the coastal towns of Montrouis and Gonaïves, before reaching its terminus at the northern port Cap-Haïtien. The southern highway, Route Nationale No. 2, links Port-au-Prince with Les Cayes via Léogâne and Petit-Goâve. The state of Haiti's roads are generally poor, many being potholed and becoming impassable in rough weather.


title: Haiti

text: According to "The Washington Post", "Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Saturday [23 January 2010] that they assessed the damage from the [12 January] quake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and found that many of the roads aren't any worse than they were before because they've always been in poor condition."


title: Haiti

text: The port at Port-au-Prince, Port international de Port-au-Prince, has more registered shipping than any of the other dozen ports in the country. The port's facilities include cranes, large berths, and warehouses, but these facilities are not in good condition. The port is underused, possibly due to the substantially high port fees. The port of Saint-Marc is currently the preferred port of entry for consumer goods coming into Haiti. Reasons for this may include its location away from volatile and congested Port-au-Prince, as well as its central location relative to numerous Haitian cities.


title: Haiti

text: In the past, Haiti used rail transport, however the rail infrastructure was poorly maintained when in use and cost of rehabilitation is beyond the means of the Haitian economy. In 2018 the Regional Development Council of the Dominican Republic proposed a "trans-Hispaniola" railway between both countries.


title: Haiti

text: Toussaint Louverture International Airport, located north-northeast of Port-au-Prince proper in the commune of Tabarre, is the primary transportation hub regarding entry and exit into the country. It has Haiti's main jetway, and along with Cap-Haïtien International Airport located near the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, handles the vast majority of the country's international flights. Cities such as Jacmel, Jérémie, Les Cayes, and Port-de-Paix have smaller, less accessible airports that are serviced by regional airlines and private aircraft. Such companies include: Caribintair (defunct), Sunrise Airways and Tortug' Air (defunct).


title: Haiti

text: In 2013, plans for the development of an international airport on Île-à-Vache were introduced by the Prime Minister.


title: Haiti

text: Tap tap buses are colorfully painted buses or pick-up trucks that serve as share taxis. The "tap tap" name comes from the sound of passengers tapping on the metal bus body to indicate they want off. These vehicles for hire are often privately owned and extensively decorated. They follow fixed routes, do not leave until filled with passengers, and riders can usually disembark at any point. The decorations are a typically Haitian form of art.


title: Haiti

text: In Haiti, communications include the radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet. Haiti ranked last among North American countries in the World Economic Forum's Network Readiness Index (NRI) an indicator for determining the development level of a country's information and communication technologies. Haiti ranked number 143 out of 148 overall in the 2014 NRI ranking, down from 141 in 2013.


title: Haiti

text: Notably, access to public services is very low, their quality is inadequate and public institutions remain very weak despite foreign aid and the government's declared intent to strengthen the sector's institutions. Foreign and Haitian NGOs play an important role in the sector, especially in rural and urban slum areas.


title: Haiti

text: In 2018, Haiti's population was estimated to be about 10,788,000. In 2006, half of the population was younger than age 20. In 1950, the first formal census gave a total population of 3.1 million. Haiti averages approximately 350 people per square kilometer (~900 per sq mi.), with its population concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys.


title: Haiti

text: Most Haitians are descendants of former black African slaves, including Mulattoes who are mixed-race. The remainder are of European or Arab descent, the descendants of settlers (colonial remnants and immigration during the era of the two World Wars).


title: Haiti

text: At the time of the Haitian Revolution, an event that involved the eradication of whites (mostly French) in Haiti, many of the blacks in Haiti were African-born and had no non-African ancestry. This was because the average African slave in colonial Haiti had a short life span and France continuously imported thousands of Africans yearly to keep the slave population up, by 1790 there were nearly 600,000 slaves, outnumbering whites about 20 to 1.


title: Haiti

text: Millions of Haitian descent live abroad in the United States, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Canada (primarily Montreal), Bahamas, France, the French Antilles, the Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil, Suriname and French Guiana. There were an estimated 881,500 people of Haitian ancestry in the United States in 2015, while in the Dominican Republic there were an estimated 800,000 in 2007. There were 300,000 in Cuba in 2013, 100,000 in Canada in 2006, 80,000 in Metropolitan France (2010), and up to 80,000 in the Bahamas (2009). There are also smaller Haitian communities in many other countries, including Chile, Switzerland, Japan and Australia.


title: Haiti

text: The gene pool of Haiti is about 95.5% Sub-Saharan African, 4.3% European, with the rest showing some traces of East Asian genes; according to a 2010 autosomal genealogical DNA testing.


title: Haiti

text: A 2012 genetic study on Haitian Y-chromosomal ancestry has revealed that the population "exhibit a predominantly Sub-Saharan paternal component, with haplogroups A1b-V152, A3-M32, B2-M182, E1a-M33, E1b1a-M2, E2b-M98, and R1b2-V88" comprising (77.2%) of the Haitian paternal gene pools. Y-chromosomes indicative of European ancestry "(i.e., haplogroups G2a*-P15, I-M258, R1b1b-M269, and T-M184) were detected at commensurate levels at 20.3%,


title: Haiti

text: According to a 2008 study examining the frequency of the Duffy antigen receptor for Chemokines (DARC) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), (75%) of Haitian women sampled exhibited the CC genotype (absent among women of European ancestry) at levels comparable to US African-Americans (73%), but more than Jamaican females (63%).


title: Haiti

text: Under colonial rule, Haitian mulattoes were generally privileged above the black majority, though they possessed fewer rights than the white population. Following the country's independence, they became the nation's social elite. Numerous leaders throughout Haiti's history have been mulattoes. During this time, the slaves and the affranchis were given limited opportunities toward education, income, and occupations, but even after gaining independence, the social structure remains a legacy today as the disparity between the upper and lower classes have not been reformed significantly since the colonial days. Comprising 5% of the nation's population, mulattoes have retained their preeminence, evident in the political, economic, social and cultural hierarchy in Haiti. As a result, the elite class today consists of a small group of influential people who are generally light in color and continue to establish themselves in high, prestigious positions.


title: Haiti

text: The 2017 CIA Factbook reported that around 54.7% of Haitians professed to being Catholics while Protestants made up about 28.5% of the population (Baptist 15.4%, Pentecostal 7.9%, Seventh-day Adventist 3%, Methodist 1.5%, other 0.7%). Other sources put the Protestant population higher than this, suggesting that it might have formed one-third of the population in 2001. Like other countries in Latin America, Haiti has witnessed a general Protestant expansion, which is largely Evangelical and Pentecostal in nature.


title: Haiti

text: Haitian Cardinal Chibly Langlois is president of the National Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church.


title: Haiti

text: Vodou, a religion with West African roots similar to those of Cuba and Brazil, is practiced by some Haitians today. It originated during colonial times in which slaves were obliged to disguise their loa ("lwa"), or spirits, as Catholic saints, an element of a process called syncretism. Due to the religious syncretism between Catholicism and Vodou, it is difficult to estimate the number of Vodouists in Haiti. The religion has historically been persecuted and misrepresented in popular media; nevertheless, in 2003 the Haitian government recognized the faith as an official religion of the nation.


title: Haiti

text: Many Catholics and Protestants in Haiti denounce Vodou as "devil worship", but do not deny the power of such spirits. Instead, they regard them as adversaries who are "evil" and "satanic", which they are often encouraged to pray against. Protestants view Catholic veneration of saints as idol worship, and some Protestants would often destroy statues and other Catholic paraphernalia.


title: Haiti

text: The two official languages of Haiti are French and Haitian Creole. French is the principal written and administratively authorized language (as well as the main language of the press) and is spoken by 42% of Haitians. It is spoken by all educated Haitians, is the medium of instruction in most schools, and is used in the business sector. It is also used in ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations and church Masses. Haiti is one of two independent nations in the Americas (along with Canada) to designate French as an official language; the other French-speaking areas are all overseas "départements", or "collectivités," of France, such as French Guiana. Haitian Creole is spoken by nearly all of the Haitian population. French, the base language for Haitian Creole, is popular among the Haitian elite and upper classes. French is also popular in the business sector, and to a far lesser degree, English due to American influence. Spanish is spoken by some Haitians who live along the Haitian-Dominican border. English and Spanish may also be spoken by Haitian deportees from the United States and various Latin American countries. Overall, about 90–95% of Haitians only speak Haitian Creole/French fluently, with over half only knowing Creole.


title: Haiti

text: Haitian Creole, which has recently undergone a standardization, is spoken by virtually the entire population of Haiti. Haitian Creole is one of the French-based creole languages. Its vocabulary is 90% derived from French, but its grammar resembles that of some West African languages. It also has influences from Taino, Spanish, and Portuguese. Haitians often colloquially call Haitian Creole "Kreyòl." Haitian Creole is related to the other French creoles, but most closely to the Antillean Creole and Louisiana Creole variants.


title: Haiti

text: There is a large Haitian diaspora community, predominantly based in the US and Canada, France, and the wealthier Caribbean islands.


title: Haiti

text: Emigrants from Haiti have constituted a segment of American and Canadian society since before the independence of Haiti from France in 1804. Many influential early American settlers and black freemen, including Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and W. E. B. Du Bois, were of Haitian origin.


title: Haiti

text: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, an immigrant from Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti), founded the first nonindigenous settlement in what is now Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States. The state of Illinois and city of Chicago declared du Sable the founder of Chicago on 26 October 1968.


title: Haiti

text: The educational system of Haiti is based on the French system. Higher education, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, is provided by universities and other public and private institutions.


title: Haiti

text: More than 80% of primary schools are privately managed by nongovernmental organizations, churches, communities, and for-profit operators, with minimal government oversight. According to the 2013 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report, Haiti has steadily boosted net enrollment rate in primary education from 47% in 1993 to 88% in 2011, achieving equal participation of boys and girls in education. Charity organizations, including Food for the Poor and Haitian Health Foundation, are building schools for children and providing necessary school supplies.


title: Haiti

text: The January 2010 earthquake, was a major setback for education reform in Haiti as it diverted limited resources to survival.


title: Haiti

text: Many reformers have advocated the creation of a free, public and universal education system for all primary school-age students in Haiti. The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that the government will need at least US$3 billion to create an adequately funded system.


title: Haiti

text: Upon successful graduation of secondary school, students may continue into higher education. The higher education schools in Haiti include the University of Haiti. There are also medical schools and law schools offered at both the University of Haiti and abroad. Presently, Brown University is cooperating with L'Hôpital Saint-Damien in Haiti to coordinate a pediatric health care curriculum.


title: Haiti

text: In the past, children's vaccination rates have been low , 60% of the children in Haiti under the age of 10 were vaccinated, compared to rates of childhood vaccination in other countries in the 93–95% range. Recently there have been mass vaccination campaigns claiming to vaccinate as many as 91% of a target population against specific diseases (measles and rubella in this case). Most people have no transportation or access to Haitian hospitals.


title: Haiti

text: The World Health Organization cites diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, meningitis, and respiratory infections as common causes of death in Haiti. Ninety percent of Haiti's children suffer from waterborne diseases and intestinal parasites. HIV infection is found in 1.71% of Haiti's population (est. 2015). The incidence of tuberculosis (TB) in Haiti is more than ten times as high as in the rest of Latin America. Approximately 30,000 Haitians fall ill with malaria each year.


title: Haiti

text: Most people living in Haiti are at high risk for major infectious diseases. Food or water-borne diseases include bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, typhoid fever and hepatitis A and E; common vector-borne diseases are dengue fever and malaria; water-contact diseases include leptospirosis. Roughly 75% of Haitian households lack running water. Unsafe water, along with inadequate housing and unsanitary living conditions, contributes to the high incidence of infectious diseases. There is a chronic shortage of health care personnel and hospitals lack resources, a situation that became readily apparent after the January 2010 earthquake. The infant mortality rate in Haiti in 2019 was 48.2 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 5.6 per 1,000 in the United States.


title: Haiti

text: After the 2010 earthquake, Partners In Health founded the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, the largest solar-powered hospital in the world.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti has a rich and unique cultural identity, consisting of a blend of traditional French and African customs, mixed with sizable contributions from the Spanish and indigenous Taíno cultures. Haiti's culture is greatly reflected in its paintings, music, and literature. Galleries and museums in the United States and France have exhibited the works of the better-known artists to have come out of Haiti.


title: Haiti

text: Haitian art is distinctive, particularly through its paintings and sculptures. Brilliant colors, naïve perspectives, and sly humor characterize Haitian art. Frequent subjects in Haitian art include big, delectable foods, lush landscapes, market activities, jungle animals, rituals, dances, and gods. As a result of a deep history and strong African ties, symbols take on great meaning within Haitian society. For example, a rooster often represents Aristide and the red and blue colors of the Haitian flag often represent his Lavalas party. Many artists cluster in 'schools' of painting, such as the Cap-Haïtien school, which features depictions of daily life in the city, the Jacmel School, which reflects the steep mountains and bays of that coastal town, or the Saint-Soleil School, which is characterized by abstracted human forms and is heavily influenced by Vodou symbolism.


title: Haiti

text: In the 1920s the "indigéniste" movement gained international acclaim, with its expressionist paintings inspired by Haiti's culture and African roots. Notable painters of this movement include Hector Hyppolite, Philomé Oban and Préfète Duffaut. Some notable artists of more recent times include Edouard Duval-Carrié, Frantz Zéphirin, Leroy Exil, Prosper Pierre Louis and Louisiane Saint Fleurant. Sculpture is also practiced in Haiti; noted artists in this form include George Liautaud and Serge Jolimeau.


title: Haiti

text: Haitian music combines a wide range of influences drawn from the many people who have settled here. It reflects French, African and Spanish elements and others who have inhabited the island of Hispaniola, and minor native Taino influences. Styles of music unique to the nation of Haiti include music derived from Vodou ceremonial traditions, Rara parading music, Twoubadou "ballads", mini-jazz rock bands, Rasin movement, Hip hop kreyòl, méringue, and compas. Youth attend parties at nightclubs called "discos", (pronounced "deece-ko"), and attend "Bal". This term is the French word for ball, as in a formal dance.


title: Haiti

text: "Compas (konpa)" (also known as "compas direct" in French, or "konpa dirèk" in creole) is a complex, ever-changing music that arose from African rhythms and European ballroom dancing, mixed with Haiti's bourgeois culture. It is a refined music, with méringue as its basic rhythm. Haiti had no recorded music until 1937 when Jazz Guignard was recorded non-commercially.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti has always been a literary nation that has produced poetry, novels, and plays of international recognition. The French colonial experience established the French language as the venue of culture and prestige, and since then it has dominated the literary circles and the literary production. However, since the 18th century there has been a sustained effort to write in Haitian Creole. The recognition of Creole as an official language has led to an expansion of novels, poems, and plays in Creole. In 1975, Franketienne was the first to break with the French tradition in fiction with the publication of "Dezafi," the first novel written entirely in Haitian Creole; the work offers a poetic picture of Haitian life. Other well known Haitian authors include Jean Price-Mars, Jacques Roumain, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Pierre Clitandre, René Depestre, Edwidge Danticat, Lyonel Trouillot and Dany Laferrière.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti has a small though growing cinema industry. Well-known directors working primarily in documentary film-making include Raoul Peck and Arnold Antonin. Directors producing fictional films include Patricia Benoît, Wilkenson Bruna and Richard Senecal.


title: Haiti

text: Monuments include the Sans-Souci Palace and the Citadelle Laferrière, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1982. Situated in the Northern Massif du Nord, in one of Haiti's National Parks, the structures date from the early 19th century. The buildings were among the first built after Haiti's independence from France.


title: Haiti

text: The Citadelle Laferrière, is the largest fortress in the Americas, is located in northern Haiti. It was built between 1805 and 1820 and is today referred to by some Haitians as the eighth wonder of the world.


title: Haiti

text: The Institute for the Protection of National Heritage has preserved 33 historical monuments and the historic center of Cap-Haïtien.


title: Haiti

text: Jacmel, a colonial city that was tentatively accepted as a World Heritage Site, was extensively damaged by the 2010 Haiti earthquake.


title: Haiti

text: The anchor of Christopher Columbus's largest ship, the "Santa María" now rests in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien (MUPANAH), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti is known for its folklore traditions. Much of this is rooted in Haitian Vodou tradition. Belief in zombies is also common. Other folkloric creatures include the lougarou.


title: Haiti

text: The most festive time of the year in Haiti is during Carnival (referred to as "Kanaval" in Haitian Creole or Mardi Gras) in February. There is music, parade floats, and dancing and singing in the streets. Carnival week is traditionally a time of all-night parties.


title: Haiti

text: Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Haiti with hundreds of small football clubs competing at the local level. Basketball and baseball are growing in popularity. Stade Sylvio Cator is the multi-purpose stadium in Port-au-Prince, where it is currently used mostly for association football matches that fits a capacity of 10,000 people. In 1974, the Haiti national football team were only the second Caribbean team to make the World Cup (after Cuba's entry in 1938). They lost in the opening qualifying stages against three of the pre-tournament favorites; Italy, Poland, and Argentina. The national team won the 2007 Caribbean Nations Cup.


title: Haiti

text: Haiti has participated in the Olympic Games since the year 1900 and won a number of medals. Haitian footballer Joe Gaetjens played for the United States national team in the 1950 FIFA World Cup, scoring the winning goal in the 1–0 upset of England.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries. Alphabet is the world's third-largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most valuable companies. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: The establishment of Alphabet Inc. was prompted by a desire to make the core Google business "cleaner and more accountable" while allowing greater autonomy to group companies that operate in businesses other than Internet services. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced their resignation from their executive posts in December 2019, with the CEO role to be filled by Sundar Pichai, also the CEO of Google. Page and Brin remain employees, board members, and controlling shareholders of Alphabet Inc.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On August 10, 2015, Google Inc. announced plans to create a new public holding company, Alphabet Inc. Google CEO Larry Page made this announcement in a blog post on Google's official blog. Alphabet would be created to restructure Google by moving subsidiaries from Google to Alphabet, narrowing Google's scope. The company would consist of Google as well as other businesses including X Development, Calico, Nest, Verily, Fiber, Makani, CapitalG, and GV. Sundar Pichai, Product Chief, became the new CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who transitioned to the role of running Alphabet, along with Google co-founder Sergey Brin.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In his announcement, Page stated that the planned holding company would allow for "more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren't very related" to Google. He clarified that, as a result of the new holding company, Google would be "a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead". He further stated that the motivation behind the reorganization is to make Google "cleaner and more accountable and better" and that that he wanted to improve "the transparency and oversight of what we're doing".


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Former executive Eric Schmidt (now Technical Advisor) revealed in the conference in 2017 the inspiration for this structure came from Warren Buffett and his management structure of Berkshire Hathaway a decade ago. Schmidt said it was he who encouraged Page and Brin to meet with Buffett in Omaha to see how Berkshire Hathaway was a holding company made of subsidiaries with strong CEOs who were trusted to run their businesses.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Before it became a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google Inc. was first structured as the owner of Alphabet. The roles were reversed after a placeholder subsidiary was created for the ownership of Alphabet, at which point the newly formed subsidiary was merged with Google. Google's stock was then converted to Alphabet's stock. Under the Delaware General Corporation Law (where Alphabet is incorporated), a holding company reorganization such as this can be done without a vote of shareholders, as this reorganization was. The restructuring process was completed on October 2, 2015. Alphabet retains Google Inc.'s stock price history and continues to trade under Google Inc.'s former ticker symbols "GOOG" and "GOOGL"; both classes of stock are components of major stock market indices such as the S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On December 3, 2019, Page and Brin jointly announced that they would step down from their respective roles, remaining as employees and still the majority vote on the board of directors. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, is to assume the CEO role at Alphabet while retaining the same at Google.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Beside its largest subsidiary, Google, Alphabet Inc. has several other subsidiaries in several other industries, among others:


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: , their equity is held by a subsidiary known as XXVI Holdings, Inc. (referring to the Roman numeral of 26, the number of letters in the alphabet), so that they can be valued and legally separated from Google. At the same time, it was announced that Google would be reorganized as a limited liability company, Google LLC.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Eric Schmidt said at an Internet Association event in 2015 that there may eventually be more than 26 Alphabet subsidiaries. He also said that he was currently meeting with the CEOs of the current and proposed Alphabet subsidiaries. He said, "You'll see a lot coming."


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: While many companies or divisions formerly a part of Google became subsidiaries of Alphabet, Google remains the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet-related businesses. These include widely used products and services long associated with Google, such as the Android mobile operating system, YouTube, and Google Search, which remain direct components of Google.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Former subsidiaries include Nest Labs, which was merged into Google in February 2018 and Chronicle which was merged with Google Cloud in June 2019. Sidewalk Labs was absorbed into Google in 2021 following CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff's departure from the company due to a suspected ALS diagnosis.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In January 2021, Loon LLC CEO Alastair Westgarth mentioned in a blog post that the company would be shutting down, citing lack of a scalable and sustainable business model. In July 2021, Alphabet announced Intrinsic, a new robotics software company spun out of X. In November 2021, Alphabet announced a new company named Isomorphic Labs, using artificial intelligence for drug discovery and headed by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In a 2018 talk, Schmidt disclosed that the original inspiration for the name came from the location of the then Google Hamburg office's street address: .


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: Alphabet has chosen the domain abc.xyz with the .xyz top-level domain (TLD), which was introduced in 2014. It does not own the domain alphabet.com, which is owned by a fleet management division of BMW. Following the announcement, BMW said it would be "necessary to examine the legal trademark implications" of the proposals. Additionally, it does not own the domain abc.com, which is the domain of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: The website features an Easter egg in the paragraph where Larry Page writes, "Sergey and I are seriously in the business of starting new things. Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort. We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure." The period after "drone delivery effort" is a hyperlink to "hooli.xyz", a reference to the television series "Silicon Valley".


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: For the fiscal (and calendar) year 2021, Alphabet reported a net income of $76.033 billion. The annual revenue was $257.6 billion, an increase of 41% over the previous fiscal year.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: As per its 2017 annual report, 86% of Alphabet's revenues came from performance advertising (through user clicks using AdSense and Google Ads) and brand advertising. Of these, 53% came from its international operations. This translated to a total revenue of US$110,855 million in 2017 and a net income of US$12,662 million.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On February 1, 2016, Alphabet Inc. surpassed Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company until February 3, 2016, when Apple surged back over Alphabet to retake the position. Experts cited Apple's lack of innovation as well as increasing Chinese competition as reasons for the poor performance.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: , Alphabet is ranked No. 15 on the "Fortune" 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On January 16, 2020, Alphabet became the fourth US company to reach a $1 trillion market value entering the trillion dollar companies club for the first time.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In October 2022, Alphabet recorded the weakest quarterly growth, with fewer sales in nearly a decade. The possible global recession, the strong US dollar, and the pandemics all contributed to the slowed economy.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In November 2017, Alphabet Inc. led a Series A round of $71 million along with Andreessen Horowitz and 20th Century Fox in music startup UnitedMasters, founded by Steve Stoute.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In addition to funding startups, Alphabet also invests in more mature companies, including publicly traded companies like Uber and privately held companies like Medium.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: An analysis of the company's investments in 2017 suggested that it was the most active investor in that period, outdoing the capital arm of Intel and also its own best customer. Alphabet, Inc. acquired seven of its own capital-backed startups in the 2017 financial year, with Cisco second having acquired six of the company's previous investments.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In 2017, Alphabet Inc. sued Uber over technology similar to Alphabet's proprietary self-driving car technology. Alphabet's autonomous vehicle technology had been under development for a decade by Alphabet's Waymo (self-driving vehicle division). The proprietary technology is related to 14,000 documents believed to have been downloaded and stolen by a former Waymo engineer, subsequently employed by Uber. The lawsuit was settled in February 2018, with Uber agreeing not to use the self-driving technology in dispute and also agreed to provide Waymo with an equity stake of 0.34%, equating to around $245 million at the firm's early 2018 value.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In October 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Google and Alphabet due to "non-public" Google+ account data being exposed as a result of a privacy bug that allowed app developers to gain access to the private information of users. The litigation was settled in July 2020 for $7.5 million with a payout to claimants of at least $5 each, with a maximum of $12 each.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In October 2020, the United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet, alleging anti-competitive practices.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On 2 December 2020, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint that claimed Alphabet Inc conducted unlawful monitoring and questioning of several workers at Google. The employees in question were fired for unionization attempts and protesting company policies. The board also alleges that Google unlawfully placed employees on administrative leave in retribution. Alphabet Inc has denied any wrongdoing and said it acted legally.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On 7 June 2021, Alphabet Inc., parent company to Google, announced it had settled an antitrust suit with the French "Autorité de la concurrence" with a payment of $270 million. The settlement amounted to less than 0.7% of Alphabet Inc.'s yearly earnings.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: On 12 June 2021, it was announced that Japan would launch an antitrust probe into Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. to determine whether their dealings with Japanese smartphone makers violate current antitrust measures or could necessitate new ones.


title: Alphabet Inc.

text: In May 2022, the Russian authorities have seized Google's Russian bank account forcing them to file for bankruptcy one month after as they are unable to pay vendors and staff. However, they continue to keep free services such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Android and Play available.


title: Melania Trump

text: Melania Trump ( ; born Melanija Knavs , Germanized as Melania Knauss ; born April 26, 1970) is a Slovene-American former model and businesswoman who served as First Lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021 as the wife of 45th president Donald Trump.


title: Melania Trump

text: Melania Trump grew up in Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia), and worked as a fashion model through agencies in the European fashion capitals of Milan and Paris, before moving to New York City in 1996. She was represented by Irene Marie Models and Trump Model Management. In 2005, she married the real estate developer and TV personality Donald Trump and gave birth to their son Barron in 2006. Later that year, she became an American naturalized citizen. She is the second naturalized woman—after Louisa Adams—and the first non-native English speaker to become First Lady.


title: Melania Trump

text: Melanija Knavs was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, now part of present-day Slovenia, on April 26, 1970. Her father, Viktor Knavs (born March 24, 1944), was from the nearby town of Radeče and managed car and motorcycle dealerships for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer. Her mother Amalija ( Ulčnik) (born July 9, 1945) came from the village of Raka and worked as a patternmaker at the children's clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica. As a child, Melanija and other children of workers at the factory participated in fashion shows that featured children's clothing. She has an older sister, Ines, who is an artist and her "longtime confidant", and an older half-brother—whom she reportedly has never met—from her father's previous relationship.


title: Melania Trump

text: Knavs grew up in a modest apartment in a housing block in Sevnica, in the Lower Sava Valley. Her father was in the League of Communists of Slovenia, which espoused a policy of state atheism. As was common, however, he had his daughters secretly baptized as Catholic. When the Trumps met Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2017, Melania brought her rosary and asked the Pope to bless it.


title: Melania Trump

text: When Knavs was a teenager, she moved with her family to a two-story house in Sevnica. As a high-school student, she lived in a high-rise apartment in Ljubljana. She attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography in the city, and studied architecture and design at the University of Ljubljana for one year before she dropped out.


title: Melania Trump

text: Knavs began modeling at five years old and started doing commercial work at sixteen when she posed for the Slovenian fashion photographer Stane Jerko. When she began working as a model, she adapted the Slovene version of her last name "Knavs" to the German version "Knauss". At eighteen, Knauss signed with a modeling agency in Milan, Italy. In 1992, she was named runner-up in the "Jana Magazine" "Look of the Year" contest, held in Ljubljana, which promised its top three contestants an international modeling contract. After attending the University of Ljubljana for one year, Knauss modeled for fashion houses in Paris and Milan, where in 1995 she met Metropolitan Models co-owner Paolo Zampolli, a friend of her future husband Donald Trump, who was on a scouting trip in Europe. Zampolli urged her to travel to the U.S., where he said he would like to represent her. In 1996, Knauss moved to Manhattan. He arranged for her to share an apartment with photographer Matthew Atanian in Zeckendorf Towers in Union Square.


title: Melania Trump

text: Knauss was featured in a sexually explicit photo shoot for the January 1996 issue of "Max", a now-defunct French men's magazine, with Emma Eriksson, another female model, photos shot by the photographer Alexandre Ale de Basseville. She also posed nude for the January 2000 UK edition of "GQ" magazine, appearing on the cover naked except for diamond jewelry, reclining on fur, aboard Trump's custom-fitted Boeing 727. When asked about the photos in 2016, Donald Trump said: "Melania was one of the most successful models, and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines. [The "Max" photo] was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common".


title: Melania Trump

text: In 2010, Melania launched her own line of jewelry, Melania Timepieces and Jewelry, for sale on QVC. She also marketed a Melania Marks Skin Care Collection at high-end department stores. According to a financial filing in 2016, her businesses brought in between US$15,000 and US$50,000 in royalties that year. In 2017, the two manufacturers of her jewelry and skincare products under license said they had terminated their relationship with her. On inauguration day her companies and products were listed in her official White House biography but were quickly removed. A White House spokesperson said her companies are no longer active and "the First Lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so".


title: Melania Trump

text: Knauss came to the United States from Slovenia in 1996 on a visitor's visa and was paid for 10 modeling jobs during the seven weeks before she obtained an H-1B work visa (this was illegal under the terms of said visa). In March 2001, while she was dating Donald Trump, she was granted permanent residency under the EB-1 program for people with "extraordinary abilities". According to information from the Migration Policy Institute, only 2 percent of people in their field would be expected to qualify. "The Washington Post" in 2018 reported that at that time Knauss's credentials included "runway shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square and—in her biggest job at the time—a spot in the swimsuit edition of "Sports Illustrated", which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale". In the analysis by Joel Gunter of the BBC, "[Melania Trump] does not appear at the time to have excelled in a niche area of modelling, nor won awards or had her work written about in significant publications"; Gunter reports a conjecture that


title: Melania Trump

text: During the months that she campaigned with her husband prior to his successful bid for the presidency, Melania Trump defended his hard-line on immigration practices and laws by stating that her own path and achievement of citizenship had been legal, unlike those of the individuals her husband was campaigning against. However, investigative reporting done by the Associated Press revealed that she had been paid for 10 modeling jobs she had done before she had obtained her H1-B work visa and was still living in the U.S. using her visitor visa. The Associated Press wrote that


title: Melania Trump

text: After she became a citizen in July 2006, Trump sponsored her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, using the "chain migration" immigration process that her husband later repeatedly criticized. The Knavs became citizens in August 2018, five years after they acquired permanent residency.


title: Melania Trump

text: In September 1998, Knauss met then-real estate mogul Donald Trump at a party, and the couple began dating while the latter was in the process of divorcing his second wife, Marla Maples. The divorce was finalized in 1999. Knauss continued her modeling career with her American magazine cover shoots, including "In Style Weddings", "New York" magazine, "Avenue", "Philadelphia Style", and "Vanity Fair Spain." In 1999, the couple gained attention after a lewd interview with shock jock Howard Stern on his show.


title: Melania Trump

text: They appeared together while Trump campaigned for the 2000 Reform Party presidential nomination. When asked by "The New York Times" what her role would be were he to become president, she replied: "I would be very traditional, like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy".


title: Melania Trump

text: The two became engaged in 2004. On January 22, 2005, they married in an Anglican service at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception in the ballroom at her husband's Mar-a-Lago estate. The marriage was her first and his third. The event was attended by celebrities such as Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Heidi Klum, Star Jones, P. Diddy, Shaquille O'Neal, Barbara Walters, Conrad Black, Regis Philbin, Simon Cowell, Kelly Ripa, Senator Hillary Clinton, and former President Bill Clinton. At the reception, Billy Joel serenaded the crowd with "Just the Way You Are" and supplied new lyrics to the tune of "The Lady Is a Tramp". The bride wore a US$200,000 dress made by John Galliano of the house of Christian Dior, and the ceremony and reception were widely covered by the media, including a "Vogue" cover which featured her in her wedding gown.


title: Melania Trump

text: On March 20, 2006, she gave birth to their son, Barron William Trump. She chose his middle name, while her husband chose his first name. She also has four stepchildren, stepsons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and stepdaughter Ivanka Trump from Donald’s first marriage to Ivana Zelníčková. She has another stepdaughter, Tiffany Trump from his second marriage to Marla Maples.


title: Melania Trump

text: In November 2015, she was asked about her husband's presidential campaign and replied: "I encouraged him because I know what he will do and what he can do for America. He loves the American people, and he wants to help them". She played a relatively small role in the campaign, which is atypical of spouses of presidential candidates. According to "Washington Post"s Mary Jordan, however, Melania was one of Trump's biggest supporters and continues to be a sounding board to him.


title: Melania Trump

text: In 2016, Melania told CNN her focus as first lady would be to help women and children. She also said she would combat cyberbullying, especially among children. In July 2016, her official website was redirected to trump.com. On Twitter, she stated that her site was outdated and did not "accurately reflect [her] current business and professional interests".


title: Melania Trump

text: On July 18, 2016, Melania Trump gave a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. It contained a paragraph that was nearly identical to a paragraph of Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. When asked about it, Melania said she wrote the speech herself "with as little help as possible". Two days later, Trump staff writer Meredith McIver took responsibility and apologized for the "confusion". Melania was again accused of plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speeches when, as part of her "Be Best" campaign in 2018, she gave a speech that appeared to closely echo remarks by Michelle Obama in 2016 and also distributed a written pamphlet that was nearly identical to one published by the Obama administration in 2014.


title: Melania Trump

text: In February 2017, she sued Daily Mail and General Trust, the owner of the "Daily Mail", a British tabloid, seeking US$150 million in damages over an August 2016 article that alleged that she had worked for an escort service during her modeling days. The lawsuit stated the article had ruined her "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to establish "multimillion dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world". Her claim raised potential ethical questions with its implication that she intended to profit from being first lady. On February 18, 2017, the lawsuit was amended, removing the language about her earning potential and focusing instead on emotional distress. In April 2017, the parties settled the lawsuit and the "Daily Mail" issued a statement that said, "We accept that these allegations about Mrs. Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them." The "Mail" agreed to pay her US$2.9 million.


title: Melania Trump

text: Five days before the election, she told a crowd of supporters in Pennsylvania: "Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers. It is never okay when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied, or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground. And it is absolutely unacceptable when it is done by someone with no name hiding on the Internet". Regarding the contrast of her platform with her husband's use of Twitter during his campaign, Melania said shortly after the election that she had rebuked him "all the time", but that "he will do what he wants to do in the end".


title: Melania Trump

text: She assumed the role of first lady of the United States on January 20, 2017, continuing to live in Manhattan at the Trump Tower with their son, Barron, until the end of his 2016–2017 school year at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. A 2020 biography by "Washington Post" reporter Mary Jordan revealed that Melania stayed in New York to negotiate more favorable terms in her prenuptial agreement from Trump for her and their son.


title: Melania Trump

text: Of Trump's inauguration, "Vogue" compared Melania's wardrobe to those of Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, writing that Melania closely works with her stylist, designer Hervé Pierre, preferring "strongly tailored pieces" in bold colors and wearing almost exclusively high-end designers.


title: Melania Trump

text: She and Barron moved into the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2017. Her Secret Service code name is "Muse" (beginning with the same letter as Trump's code name, "Mogul", per Secret Service tradition). She is the second foreign-born woman to hold the title of first lady, after Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born in 1775 in London to a father from Maryland and an English mother. She is also the first naturalized citizen (rather than birthright citizen) to hold the title, and the first whose native language is not English. Though it has frequently been reported that Trump speaks up to five foreign languages fluently, evidence has shown that when speaking French or Italian, her speech has been limited to basic greetings.


title: Melania Trump

text: According to an unauthorized biography, she was well-liked by her staffers, is cordial to Ivanka Trump, and is not close to Mike Pence's wife, Karen Pence.


title: Melania Trump

text: On March 8, 2017, she hosted her first White House event, a luncheon for International Women's Day. She spoke to an audience of women about her life as a female immigrant, and about working towards gender equality both domestically and abroad, noting the role of education as a tool against gender inequality.


title: Melania Trump

text: In January 2018, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that during a three-month period when she lived in New York in 2017, she took Air Force jet flights between New York City, Florida, and Washington at a cost of more than US$675,000 to taxpayers. In comparison, former first lady Michelle Obama's solo travel cost an average of about US$350,000 per year.


title: Melania Trump

text: On March 13, 2018, Trump scheduled a March 20, 2018 meeting with policy executives from technology companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snap, and Twitter, to address online harassment and Internet safety, with a particular focus on how those issues affect children. Trump's office has avoided the use of the term "cyberbullying", and Trump has come under criticism for championing Internet civility while her husband's Internet behavior has been noted as uncivil. Trump attended the roundtable event, focusing on how children are affected by modern technology. Trump said: "I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic", but "that will not stop me from doing what I know is right".


title: Melania Trump

text: Melania took an active role in planning the Trump administration's first state dinner on April 23, 2018, to honor French president Emmanuel Macron. With Brigitte Macron, the French president's wife, Trump visited a Paul Cézanne exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington the day before.


title: Melania Trump

text: On June 17, 2018, Melania referred to the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy at the border with Mexico, where children were being separated from their parents. She stated that she "hates to see children separated from their families" and wants there to be "successful immigration reform". On June 21, 2018, she made a hastily planned trip to Texas to one of the locations at which the Trump Administration's family separation policy was being carried out. She attended a roundtable with doctors, medical staff, social workers and other experts at Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter. On the way to the border facility, she caused controversy by wearing a jacket that read, "I don't really care, do u?" After much speculation about the jacket's message, including criticism that she may have been expressing indifference toward the families separated at the border, Trump stated that the jacket was aimed at people and left-wing media who were criticizing her.


title: Melania Trump

text: In October 2018, Trump took a four-nation, solo tour of Africa, without her husband, focusing on conservation and children and families, visiting Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, and Egypt.


title: Melania Trump

text: On November 13, 2018, Trump issued an "extraordinary" public statement calling for the firing of Deputy National Security Advisor Mira Ricardel. She had reportedly been privately pushing for her ouster for weeks. The next day it was announced that Ricardel would "transition to a new role within the Administration". It was described as unusual for a first lady to be publicly involved in White House personnel decisions.


title: Melania Trump

text: After the El Paso shooting in Texas on August 3, 2019, in which a lone gunman killed 23 people and injured 23 others, Melania and President Trump visited the hospital where eight of the survivors were being cared for. The couple met with the families of survivors, hospital staff, and first responders, and posed with a baby who had been orphaned when both of his parents were killed. The White House had asked that the child be brought in and he was accompanied by his uncle.


title: Melania Trump

text: Melania ended her tenure by agreeing with Donald that he was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, despite his loss. She did not contact incoming first lady Jill Biden to make transition arrangements or provide her the traditional tour of the White House. Melania never felt comfortable in Washington, reported "The New York Times", citing people who knew her.


title: Melania Trump

text: On October 1, 2020, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to the first lady released audiotapes, on the CNN show "Anderson Cooper 360°", of Melania allegedly expressing controversial and profane statements regarding her frustration with the media, her image and role as first lady. The Trump Justice Department filed a civil suit against Wolkoff in October 2019, alleging breach of a nondisclosure agreement, which the Biden Justice Department dropped in February 2021. In September 2022, Trump claimed that the audiotapes were edited to strategically make people believe that her duties in the White House were not important to her.


title: Melania Trump

text: On May 7, 2018, Trump formally started the Be Best public awareness campaign, which focused on well-being for youth and advocated against cyberbullying and drug use. The campaign was accompanied by a booklet that was promoted as having been written "By First Lady Melania Trump and the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]", but it was nearly identical to a document first published in 2014 by the FTC. The similarities prompted accusations of plagiarism, to which her office responded by admonishing the press for reporting on the issue. The fact-checking site Snopes found the charge of plagiarism "Mostly False" saying, "Melania Trump did not claim she had written the pamphlet herself, and she contributed an introduction to a slightly revised version of the booklet. The FTC was always credited for the creation of the booklet and supported its inclusion in the first lady's 'Be Best' campaign."


title: Melania Trump

text: In December 2019, Be Best became a trending topic on Twitter, after Melania's husband Donald used Twitter to mock teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg. A week before the incident, Melania had criticized academic Pamela Karlan for making comments about Barron, stating that: "A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics".


title: Melania Trump

text: During her husband's 2016 campaign, Trump was the least popular presidential candidate spouse in modern polling. As First Lady, she managed to improve her favorability ratings from 2016 to mid-2018. She reached a peak of 57% approval in May 2018 per CNN polling, shortly after her first state dinner, and her presence at the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush without her husband Donald. In December 2018, CNN reported that Melania's strongest base of support came from older, white, male Republicans and conservatives, while she had the least approval from women who were young or college-educated.


title: Melania Trump

text: In March 2019, YouGov reported that Melania, with 51% approval, was polling more popularly among the American public than other members of her family: her husband Donald, step children Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, and her stepson-in-law Jared Kushner. In August 2020, Morning Consult, in conjunction with Politico, reported that Melania, with 45% approval, was polling more favorably among the American public than any other Republican figures listed in the survey, including her family members, Vice President Mike Pence, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy.


title: Melania Trump

text: In Gallup's annual poll of the most admired women, Trump ranked in the top ten each of her years as first lady, but never topped the list. She joins Bess Truman and Lady Bird Johnson as the only American first ladies who have never been named the most admired woman in this survey since Gallup began conducting the annual survey in the 1940s.


title: Melania Trump

text: Melania finished her tenure in 2021 as the least popular first lady ever polled, according to polling by CNN, SRSS, and Gallup. Her final approval rating was 42%, and her final disapproval rating was 47%; she was the only first lady who finished with a net disapproval rating. Previous first ladies since the 1970s had final popularity ratings of 71% on average. The second-least popular first lady polled was Hillary Clinton, with a final approval rating of 52% and a final disapproval rating of 39%.


title: Melania Trump

text: When the president and first lady visited Vatican City in May 2017, she identified as Catholic. She was the first Catholic to live in the White House since President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline and was the second Catholic first lady of the United States. When she visited the Vatican, Pope Francis blessed her rosary beads, and she placed flowers at the feet of a statue of Mary at the Vatican's children's hospital.


title: Melania Trump

text: On May 14, 2018, she underwent an embolization, which is a minimally invasive procedure that deliberately blocks a blood vessel, in order to treat a benign kidney condition. The procedure was reported successful and without complications.


title: Melania Trump

text: In October 2020, both Donald and Melania tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and immediately quarantined. Melania experienced only "mild symptoms"


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Over the course of the next three years, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage. In an effort to bring the war to a peaceful end, the Rwandan government led by Hutu president, Juvénal Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords with the RPF on 4 August 1993. The catalyst became Habyarimana's assassination on 6 April 1994, creating a power vacuum and ending peace accords. Genocidal killings began the following day when majority Hutu soldiers, police, and militia murdered key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The scale and brutality of the genocide caused shock worldwide, but no country intervened to forcefully stop the killings. Most of the victims were killed in their own villages or towns, many by their neighbors and fellow villagers. Hutu gangs searched out victims hiding in churches and school buildings. The militia murdered victims with machetes and rifles. Sexual violence was rife, with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women raped during the genocide. The RPF quickly resumed the civil war once the genocide started and captured all government territory, ending the genocide and forcing the government and génocidaires into Zaire.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The genocide had lasting and profound effects. In 1996, the RPF-led Rwandan government launched an offensive into Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), home to exiled leaders of the former Rwandan government and many Hutu refugees, starting the First Congo War and killing an estimated 200,000 people. Today, Rwanda has two public holidays to mourn the genocide, and "genocide ideology" and "divisionism" are criminal offences. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the real number killed is likely lower.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The earliest inhabitants of what is now Rwanda were the Twa, a group of aboriginal pygmy hunter-gatherers who settled in the area between 8000 BC and 3000 BC and remain in Rwanda today. Between 700 BC and 1500 AD, a number of Bantu groups migrated into Rwanda, and began to clear forest land for agriculture. Historians have several theories regarding the nature of the Bantu migrations: one theory is that the first settlers were Hutu, while the Tutsi migrated later and formed a distinct racial group, possibly of Cushitic origin. An alternative theory is that the migration was slow and steady from neighbouring regions, with incoming groups bearing high genetic similarity to the established ones, and integrating into rather than conquering the existing society. Under this theory, the Hutu and Tutsi distinction arose later and was not a racial one, but principally a class or caste distinction in which the Tutsi herded cattle while the Hutu farmed the land. The Hutu, Tutsi and Twa of Rwanda share a common language and are collectively known as the Banyarwanda.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The population coalesced, first into clans ("ubwoko"), and then, by 1700, into around eight kingdoms. The Kingdom of Rwanda, ruled by the Tutsi Nyiginya clan, became the dominant kingdom from the mid-eighteenth century, expanding through a process of conquest and assimilation, and achieving its greatest extent under the reign of King Kigeli Rwabugiri in 1853–1895. Rwabugiri expanded the kingdom west and north, and initiated administrative reforms which caused a rift to grow between the Hutu and Tutsi populations. These included "uburetwa", a system of forced labour which Hutu had to perform to regain access to land seized from them, and "ubuhake", under which Tutsi patrons ceded cattle to Hutu or Tutsi clients in exchange for economic and personal service. Although Hutu and Tutsi were often treated differently, they shared the same language and culture, the same clan names, and the same customs; the symbols of kingship served as a unifying bond between them.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi were assigned to Germany by the Berlin Conference of 1884, and Germany established a presence in the country in 1897 with the formation of an alliance with the king. German policy was to rule the country through the Rwandan monarchy; this system had the added benefit of enabling colonization with small European troop numbers. The colonists favoured the Tutsi over the Hutu when assigning administrative roles, believing them to be migrants from Ethiopia and racially superior. The Rwandan king welcomed the Germans, using their military strength to widen his rule. Belgian forces took control of Rwanda and Burundi in 1917 during World War I, and from 1926 began a policy of more direct colonial rule. The Belgians modernised the Rwandan economy, but Tutsi supremacy remained, leaving the Hutu disenfranchised.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In the early 1930s, Belgium introduced a permanent division of the population by classifying Rwandans into three ethnic (ethno-racial) groups, with the Hutu representing about 84% of the population, the Tutsi about 15%, and the Twa about 1%. Compulsory identity cards were issued labeling (in the rubric for 'ethnicity and race') each individual as either Tutsi, Hutu, Twa, or Naturalised. While it had previously been possible for particularly wealthy Hutus to become honorary Tutsis, the identity cards prevented any further movement between the groups and made socio-economic groups into rigid ethnic groups.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The ethnic identities of the Hutu and Tutsi were reshaped and mythologized by the colonizers. Christian missionaries promoted the theory about the "Hamitic" origins of the kingdom, and referred to the distinctively Ethiopian features and hence, foreign origins, of the Tutsi "caste". These mythologies provide the basis for anti-Tutsi propaganda in 1994.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: After World War II, a Hutu emancipation movement began to grow in Rwanda, fuelled by increasing resentment of the inter-war social reforms, and also an increasing sympathy for the Hutu within the Catholic Church. Catholic missionaries increasingly viewed themselves as responsible for empowering the underprivileged Hutu rather than the Tutsi elite, leading rapidly to the formation of a sizeable Hutu clergy and educated elite that provided a new counterbalance to the established political order. The monarchy and prominent Tutsis sensed the growing influence of the Hutu and began to agitate for immediate independence on their own terms. In 1957, a group of Hutu scholars wrote the "Bahutu Manifesto". This was the first document to label the Tutsi and Hutu as separate races, and called for the transfer of power from Tutsi to Hutu based on what it termed "statistical law".


title: Rwandan genocide

text: On 1 November 1959 Dominique Mbonyumutwa, a Hutu sub-chief, was attacked close to his home in Byimana, Gitarama prefecture, by supporters of the pro-Tutsi party. Mbonyumutwa survived, but rumours began spreading that he had been killed. Hutu activists responded by killing Tutsis, both the elite and ordinary civilians, marking the beginning of the Rwandan Revolution. The Tutsi responded with attacks of their own, but by this stage the Hutu had full backing from the Belgian administration who wanted to overturn the Tutsi domination. In early 1960, the Belgians replaced most Tutsi chiefs with Hutu and organised mid-year commune elections which returned an overwhelming Hutu majority. The king was deposed, a Hutu-dominated republic created, and the country became independent in 1962.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: As the revolution progressed, Tutsis began leaving the country to escape the Hutu purges, settling in the four neighbouring countries: Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire. These exiles, unlike the Banyarwanda who migrated during the pre-colonial and colonial era, were regarded as refugees in their host countries, and began almost immediately to agitate for a return to Rwanda. They formed armed groups who launched attacks into Rwanda; these were largely unsuccessful, and led to further reprisal killings of 10,000 Tutsis and further Tutsi exiles. By 1964, more than 300,000 Tutsis had fled, and were forced to remain in exile for the next three decades.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Grégoire Kayibanda presided over a Hutu republic for the next decade, imposing an autocratic rule similar to the pre-revolution feudal monarchy. He was overthrown following a coup in 1973, which brought President Juvénal Habyarimana to power.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Pro-Hutu and Anti-Tutsi discrimination continued in Rwanda itself, although the indiscriminate violence against the Tutsi did decrease somewhat. Habyarimana founded the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) party in 1975, and promulgated a new constitution following a 1978 referendum, making the country a one-party state in which every citizen had to belong to the MRND.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: At , Rwanda's population density is among the highest in Africa. Rwanda's population had increased from 1.6 million people in 1934 to 7.1 million in 1989, leading to competition for land. Historians such as Gérard Prunier believe that the 1994 genocide can be partly attributed to population density.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In the 1980s, a group of 500 Rwandan refugees in Uganda, led by Fred Rwigyema, fought with the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA) in the Ugandan Bush War, which saw Yoweri Museveni overthrow Milton Obote. These soldiers remained in the Ugandan army following Museveni's inauguration as Ugandan president, but simultaneously began planning an invasion of Rwanda through a covert network within the army's ranks. In October 1990, Rwigyema led a force of over 4,000 rebels from Uganda, advancing into Rwanda under the banner of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Rwigyema was killed on the third day of the attack, and France and Zaire deployed forces in support of the Rwandan army, allowing them to repel the invasion. Rwigyema's deputy, Paul Kagame, took command of the RPF forces, organising a tactical retreat through Uganda to the Virunga Mountains, a rugged area of northern Rwanda. From there, he rearmed and reorganised the army, and carried out fundraising and recruitment from the Tutsi diaspora.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Kagame restarted the war in January 1991, with a surprise attack on the northern town of Ruhengeri. The RPF captured the town, benefiting from the element of surprise, and held it for one day before retreating to the forests. For the next year, the RPF waged a hit-and-run style guerrilla war, capturing some border areas but not making significant gains against the Rwandan army. In June 1992, following the formation of a multiparty coalition government in Kigali, the RPF announced a ceasefire and began negotiations with the Rwandan government in Arusha, Tanzania. In early 1993, several extremist Hutu groups formed and began campaigns of large scale violence against the Tutsi. The RPF responded by suspending peace talks and launching a major attack, gaining a large swathe of land across the north of the country. Peace negotiations eventually resumed in Arusha; the resulting set of agreements, known as the Arusha Accords, were signed in August 1993 and gave the RPF positions in a Broad-Based Transitional Government (BBTG) and in the national army. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), a peacekeeping force, arrived in the country and the RPF were given a base in the national parliament building in Kigali, for use during the setting up of the BBTG.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In the early years of Habyarimana's regime, there was greater economic prosperity and reduced violence against Tutsis. Many hardline anti-Tutsi figures remained, however, including the family of the first lady Agathe Habyarimana, who were known as the "akazu" or "clan de Madame", and the president relied on them to maintain his regime. When the RPF invaded in October 1990, Habyarimana and the hardliners exploited the fear of the population to advance an anti-Tutsi agenda which became known as Hutu Power.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Tutsi were increasingly viewed with suspicion. A pogrom was organised on 11 October 1990 in a commune in Gisenyi Province, killing 383 Tutsi. A group of military officers and government members founded a magazine called "Kangura", which became popular throughout the country. This published anti-Tutsi propaganda, including the Hutu Ten Commandments, an explicit set of racist guidelines, including labelling Hutus who married Tutsis as "traitors". In 1992, the hardliners created the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) party, which was linked to the ruling party but more right-wing, and promoted an agenda critical of the president's alleged "softness" with the RPF.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: To make the economic, social and political conflict look more like an ethnic conflict, the President's entourage, including the army, launched propaganda campaigns to fabricate events of ethnic crisis caused by the Tutsi and the RPF. The process was described as "mirror politics", also known as "accusation in a mirror" whereby a person accuses others of what the person himself/herself actually wants to do.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Following the 1992 ceasefire agreement, a number of the extremists in the Rwandan government and army began actively plotting against the president, worried about the possibility of Tutsis being included in government. Habyarimana attempted to remove the hardliners from senior army positions, but was only partially successful; "akazu" affiliates Augustin Ndindiliyimana and Théoneste Bagosora remained in powerful posts, providing the hardline family with a link to power. Throughout 1992, the hardliners carried out campaigns of localised killings of Tutsi, culminating in January 1993, in which extremists and local Hutu murdered around 300 people. When the RPF resumed hostilities in February 1993, it cited these killings as the primary motive, but its effect was to increase support for the extremists amongst the Hutu population.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: From mid-1993, the Hutu Power movement represented a third major force in Rwandan politics, in addition to Habyarimana's government and the traditional moderate opposition. Apart from the CDR, there was no party that was exclusively part of the Power movement. Instead, almost every party was split into "moderate" and "Power" wings, with members of both camps claiming to represent the legitimate leadership of that party. Even the ruling party contained a Power wing, consisting of those who opposed Habyarimana's intention to sign a peace deal. Several radical youth militia groups emerged, attached to the Power wings of the parties; these included the "Interahamwe", which was attached to the ruling party, and the CDR's "Impuzamugambi". The youth militia began actively carrying out massacres across the country. The army trained the militias, sometimes in conjunction with the French, who were unaware of their true purpose.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: To what extent the Rwandan genocide was planned in advance of the assassination of Habariyama continues to be debated by historians. Prosecutors at the ICTR argued, but were unable to prove, that the defendants planned the genocide prior to Habariyama's assassination.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In 1990, the army began arming civilians with weapons such as machetes, and it began training the Hutu youth in combat, officially as a programme of "civil defence" against the RPF threat, but these weapons were later used to carry out the genocide. In particular, the Hutu Power leaders organized a paramilitary or militia force known as the "Interahamwe" ("those who stand together") and the "Impuzamugambi" ("those who have the same goal"). These groups served to provide auxiliary slaughterhouse support to the police, the gendarmerie and the regular army. These militias were primarily recruited from the vast pool of Hutu internally displaced persons driven from their homes in the North, and claimed a total membership of 50,000 on the eve of genocide Rwanda also purchased large numbers of grenades and munitions from late 1990; in one deal, future UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in his role as Egyptian foreign minister, facilitated a large sale of arms from Egypt. The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) expanded rapidly at this time, growing from less than 10,000 troops to almost 30,000 in one year. The new recruits were often poorly disciplined; a divide grew between the elite Presidential Guard and Gendarmerie units, who were well trained and battle ready, and the ordinary rank and file, respectively.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In March 1993, Hutu Power began compiling lists of "traitors" whom they planned to kill, and it is possible that Habyarimana's name was on these lists; the CDR were publicly accusing the president of treason.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The Power groups believed that the national radio station, Radio Rwanda, had become too liberal and supportive of the opposition; they founded a new radio station, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). The RTLM was designed to appeal to the young adults in Rwanda and had extensive reach. Unlike newspapers that could only be found in cities, the radio broadcasts were accessible to Rwanda's largely rural population of farmers. The format of the broadcasts mirrored Western-style radio talk shows that played popular music, hosted interviews, and encouraged audience participation. The broadcasters told crude jokes and used offensive language that contrasted strongly with Radio Rwanda's more formal news reports. Just 1.52% of RTLM's airtime was dedicated to news, while 66.29% of airtime featured the journalists discussing their thoughts on different subjects. As the start of the genocide approached, the RTLM broadcasts focused on anti-Tutsi propaganda. They characterized the Tutsi as a dangerous enemy who wanted to seize the political power at the expense of Hutus. By linking the Rwandan Patriotic Army with the Tutsi political party and ordinary Tutsi citizens, they classified the entire ethnic group as one homogeneous threat to Rwandans. The RTLM went further than amplifying ethnic and political division; it also labeled the Tutsi as "inyenzi", meaning non-human pests or cockroaches, which must be exterminated. Leading up to the genocide, there were 294 instances of the RTLM accusing the Rwandan Patriotic Army of atrocities against the Hutu, along with 252 broadcasts that call for Hutus to kill the Tutsis. One such broadcast stated, "Someone must... make them disappear for good... to wipe them from human memory... to exterminate the Tutsi from the surface of the earth." By the time the violence began, the young Hutu population had absorbed months of racist propaganda that characterized all Tutsis as dangerous enemies that must be killed before they seized control of the country. The RTLM's role in the genocide earned it the nickname "Radio Machete" as it related to their incitement to genocide. One study found that approximately 10% of the overall violence during the Rwandan genocide can be attributed to this new radio station. However, a recent paper questions the findings of that study.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: During 1993, the hardliners imported machetes on a scale far larger than what was required for agriculture, as well as other tools which could be used as weapons, such as razor blades, saws and scissors. These tools were distributed around the country, ostensibly as part of the civil defence network.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In October 1993, the President of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, who had been elected in June as the country's first ever Hutu president, was assassinated by extremist Tutsi army officers. The assassination sparked the Burundi Civil War between Burundi's Hutu and Tutsi and the Burundi genocide, with 50,000 to 100,000 people killed in the first year of war. The assassination caused shockwaves, reinforcing the notion among Hutus that the Tutsi were their enemy and could not be trusted. The CDR and the Power wings of the other parties realised they could use this situation to their advantage. The idea of a deliberate and systematic genocide, which had first been suggested in 1992 but had remained a fringe viewpoint, was now top of their agenda, and they began actively planning it. They were confident of persuading the Hutu population to carry out killings, given the public anger at Ndadaye's murder, as well as RTLM propaganda and the traditional obedience of Rwandans to authority. The Power leaders began arming the "interahamwe" and other militia groups with AK-47s and other weapons; previously, they had possessed only machetes and traditional hand weapons.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: On 11 January 1994, General Roméo Dallaire, commander of UNAMIR, sent his "Genocide Fax" to UN Headquarters. The fax stated that Dallaire was in contact with "a top level trainer in the cadre of Interhamwe-armed ["sic"] militia of MRND." The informant—now known to be Mathieu Ngirumpatse's chauffeur, Kassim Turatsinze, a.k.a. "Jean-Pierre"—claimed to have been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali. According to the memo, Turatsinze suspected that a genocide against the Tutsis was being planned, and he said that "in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1000 Tutsis". Dallaire's request to protect the informant and his family and to raid the weapons caches he revealed was denied.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The ICTR prosecution was unable to prove that a conspiracy to commit genocide existed prior to 7 April 1994. The supposed mastermind, Théoneste Bagosora, was acquitted of that charge in 2008, although he was convicted of genocide. André Guichaoua, an expert witness for the ICTR prosecution, noted in 2010:


title: Rwandan genocide

text: On 6 April 1994, the airplane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu president of Burundi, was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, killing everyone on board. Responsibility for the attack was disputed, with both the RPF and Hutu extremists being blamed. In 2006, an eight-year investigation by the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière concluded that Paul Kagame had ordered the assassination. An investigation by the Rwandan government made public in 2010 blamed Hutu extremists in the Rwandan army. In January 2012, a French investigation was widely published as exonerating the RPF, but according to Filip Reyntjens, the report did not exonerate the RPF. In November 2014, Emmanuel Mughisa (also known as Emile Gafarita), a former Rwandan soldier who said he had evidence that Kagame had ordered Habyarimana's plane shot down, was abducted in Nairobi hours after he was called to testify at the French inquiry. He was reportedly "join[ing] a long list of Mr Kagame's opponents who have disappeared or died". Despite disagreements about the perpetrators, many observers believe the attack and deaths of the two Hutu presidents served as the catalyst for the genocide.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Following Habyarimana's death, on the evening of 6 April, a crisis committee was formed; it consisted of Major General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, and a number of other senior army staff officers. The committee was headed by Bagosora, despite the presence of the more senior Ndindiliyimana. Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana was legally next in the line of political succession, but the committee refused to recognise her authority. Roméo Dallaire met with the committee that night and insisted that Uwilingiyimana be placed in charge, but Bagosora refused, saying Uwilingiyimana did not "enjoy the confidence of the Rwandan people" and was "incapable of governing the nation". The committee also justified its existence as being essential to avoid uncertainty following the president's death. Bagosora sought to convince UNAMIR and the RPF that the committee was acting to contain the Presidential Guard, which he described as "out of control", and that it would abide by the Arusha agreement.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: UNAMIR sent an escort of ten Belgian soldiers to Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana, with the intention of transporting her to the Radio Rwanda offices to address the nation. This plan was canceled because the Presidential Guard took over the radio station shortly afterward and would not permit Uwilingiyimana to speak on air. Later in the morning, a number of soldiers and a crowd of civilians overwhelmed the Belgians guarding Uwilingiyimana, forcing them to surrender their weapons. Uwilingiyimana and her husband were killed, although their children survived by hiding behind furniture and were rescued by Senegalese UNAMIR officer Mbaye Diagne. The ten Belgians were taken to the Camp Kigali military base, where they were tortured and killed. Major Bernard Ntuyahaga, the commanding officer of the Presidential Guard unit which carried out the murders, was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a court in Belgium in 2007.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In addition to assassinating Uwilingiyimana, the extremists spent the night of 6–7 April moving around the houses of Kigali with lists of prominent moderate politicians and journalists, on a mission to kill them. Fatalities that evening included President of the Constitutional Court Joseph Kavaruganda, Minister of Agriculture Frederic Nzamurambaho, Parti Liberal leader Landwald Ndasingwa and his Canadian wife, and chief Arusha negotiator Boniface Ngulinzira. A few moderates survived, including prime minister-designate Faustin Twagiramungu, but the plot was largely successful. According to Dallaire, "by noon on 7 April, the moderate political leadership of Rwanda was dead or in hiding, the potential for a future moderate government utterly lost." An exception to this was the new army chief of staff, Marcel Gatsinzi; Bagosora's preferred candidate Augustin Bizimungu was rejected by the crisis committee, forcing Bagosora to agree to Gatsinzi's appointment. Gatsinzi attempted to keep the army out of the genocide, and to negotiate a ceasefire with the RPF, but he had only limited control over his troops and was replaced by the hardline Bizimungu after just ten days.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Genocidal killings began the following day. Soldiers, police, and militia quickly executed key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders who could have assumed control in the ensuing power vacuum. Checkpoints and barricades were erected to screen all holders of the national ID card of Rwanda, which contained ethnic classifications. This enabled government forces to systematically identify and kill Tutsi.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: They also recruited and pressured Hutu civilians to arm themselves with machetes, clubs, blunt objects, and other weapons and encouraged them to rape, maim, and kill their Tutsi neighbors and to destroy or steal their property. The RPF restarted its offensive soon after Habyarimana's assassination. It rapidly seized control of the northern part of the country and captured Kigali about 100 days later in mid-July, bringing an end to the genocide. During these events and in the aftermath, the United Nations (UN) and countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Belgium were criticized for their inaction and failure to strengthen the force and mandate of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) peacekeepers. In December 2017, media reported revelations that the government of France had allegedly supported the Hutu government after the genocide had begun.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: The large scale killing of Tutsi on the grounds of ethnicity began within a few hours of Habyarimana's death. The crisis committee, headed by Théoneste Bagosora, took power in the country following Habyarimana's death, and was the principal authority coordinating the genocide. Following the assassination of Habyarimana, Bagosora immediately began issuing orders to kill Tutsi, addressing groups of "interahamwe" in person in Kigali, and making telephone calls to leaders in the prefectures. Other leading organisers on a national level were defence minister Augustin Bizimana; commander of the paratroopers Aloys Ntabakuze; and the head of the Presidential Guard, Protais Mpiranya. Businessman Félicien Kabuga funded the RTLM and the Interahamwe, while Pascal Musabe and Joseph Nzirorera were responsible for coordinating the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi militia activities nationally.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: Military leaders in Gisenyi prefecture, the heartland of the "akazu", were initially the most organized, convening a gathering of the Interahamwe and civilian Hutus; the commanders announced the president's death, blaming the RPF, and then ordered the crowd to "begin your work" and to "spare no one", including infants. The killing spread to Ruhengeri, Kibuye, Kigali, Kibungo, Gikongoro and Cyangugu prefectures on 7 April; in each case, local officials, responding to orders from Kigali, spread rumours that the RPF had killed the president, followed by a command to kill Tutsi. The Hutu population, which had been prepared and armed during the preceding months, and maintained the Rwandan tradition of obedience to authority, carried out the orders without question. On the other hand, there are views that the genocide was not sudden, irresistible or uniformly orchestrated, but "a cascade of tipping points, and each tipping point was the outcome of local, intra-ethnic contests for dominance (among Hutu)". The protracted struggles for supremacy in local communes meant that a more determined stance from the international community would likely have prevented the worst from happening.


title: Rwandan genocide

text: In Kigali, the genocide was led by the Presidential Guard, the elite unit of the army. They were assisted by the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, who set up road blocks throughout the capital; each person passing the road block was required to show the national identity card, which included ethnicity, and any with Tutsi cards were killed immediately. The militias also initiated searches of houses in the city, killing Tutsi and looting their property. Tharcisse Renzaho, the prefect of Kigali-ville, played a leading role, touring the road blocks to ensure their effectiveness and using his position at the top of the Kigali provincial government to disseminate orders and dismiss officials who were not sufficiently active in the killings.