BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

jcharles@miamiherald.com
 Haiti’s presidential campaign is coming to South Florida.
Candidates in the Oct. 25 presidential elections will be presenting their programs to South Florida’s burgeoning Haitian community Sunday when Port-au-Prince-based Radio Television Caraibes (RTVC) and Friends of Haiti diaspora organization sponsor a presidential debate in North Miami.
It is the first such gathering of Haitian presidential candidates in South Florida. Two other similar forums were held in New Jersey on Sept. 12 and Washington, D.C. on Sept. 15.
While the Washington town hall came under fire because candidates were asked to speak in English as opposed to French or Creole, Magalie Theodore said, “this one is going to be in Creole.” It will begin at 4 p.m. at North Miami Senior High, 13110 NE 8th Ave.
TEN OF 54 HAITIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES HAVE AGREED TO DEBATE THEIR PROGRAMS IN SOUTH FLORIDA.
Theodore, a member of Friends of Haiti, said candidates will be questioned by several well-known journalists including Valery Numa of Vision 2000; Jean Monard Metellus of Radio Caraibes and Robenson Geffrard, the lead elections reporter for Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste newspaper.
So far, about 10 of the 54 candidates seeking to replace President Michel Martelly, who is constitutionally barred from seeking back-to-back terms, have confirmed their participation, Theodore said.
 They are: Mario Andresol, Charles Henri Baker, Steven Benoit, Fred Brutus, Aviol Fleurant, Eric Jean-Baptiste, Moise Jean-Charles, Steeve Khawly, Samuel Madistin, and Michelet Nestor.

The debate takes place with less than a month to go before the , and as uncertainty and a lack of trust continue to dog the nine-member Provisional Electoral Council.
On Monday, the council, known by its French acronym CEP, published the long-awaited final results of the first-round final of the violence- and fraud-marred Aug. 9 legislative elections. Despite an earlier announcement that the vote needed to be re-run in certain constituencies, the council announced that two senators and eight deputies were elected of the 139 posts up for grabs. All others will head into a runoff on Oct. 25, CEP President Pierre-Louis Opont said at a news conference.
The decision and an elections tribunal’s method of calculating the winners in the Senate races has been denounced by several candidates and political parties.
“If the [CEP] has applied the same mode of calculation to all of the candidates, Verite would have had two senators and nine deputes elected in the first round,” the Verite political party said in a letter to Opont. As a result of the CEP’s decision, Verite has two candidates going head-to-head for the second Senate seat in the West department, which includes Port-au-Prince. Former government prosecutor Jean Renel “Zokiki” Senatus was declared a Senator for the West in the first round along with lawyer Youri Latortue for the Artibonite.
THE HAITIAN RADIO VERSION OF CNN’S CROSSFIRE, RANMASE IS WHERE POLITICIANS, PUNDITS, CRITICS AND WANT TO-BE KINGMAKERS VIE FOR A CHANCE TO LOB ACCUSATIONS, CROSS VERBAL SWORDS AND DEBATE HAITI’S FUTURE.
The ongoing controversy, and fears over the controversial calculations, which open the door for a messy presidential election, will be among the leading topics Saturday when politicians, pundits and critics show up for Haiti’s most popular political radio talk show, Ranmase. The show will broadcast live with a special elections edition, beginning at 8 a.m. from Moca Cafe and Lounge in North Miami, 738 NE 125th St.
Like the radio taping, the presidential debate is free. Organizers, however, say it will be first-come, first-serve and individuals should bring their event tickets from registering at Event Brite. For further information go to www.foh2010.com or email info@fohaiti2010.com. Doors will open at 2 p.m. It will also be broadcast live by Radio Television Caraibes and relayed by more than 50 Creole-language radio stations throughout the diaspora and Haiti.
Jacqueline Charles: @Jacquiecharles Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article36982800.html#storylink=cpy

Trump Tower: Dictators’ Home Away From Home

Are you a dictator looking to kick back and relax between exiles? Trump Tower has you covered.
Trump Tower may not be a safe space for the undocumented immigrants President Trump plans to deport. But it’s provided cozy shelter for supporters of some of the world’s nastiest regimes—including one of the most brutal dictators of the last half-century.
And while the mogul-turned-aspiring-holder-of-nuclear-codes has promised to be tough on freedom’s foes, he isn’t above selling them a sturdy roof and warm bed at night.
First off, there’s Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the now-deceased former dictator of Haiti who snagged a condo in New York City’s Trump Tower worth upward of $2.5 million. Duvalier was not a particularly nice person. For instance, he sold dead Haitians’ body parts to finance his fancy lifestyle (seriously!). Human Rights Watch’s dossier on Duvalier is as lengthy as it is gut-churning—incarceration of political foes in the horrific “Triangle of Death” prisons, lots of torture, and, naturally, disappearances and executions of dissenters.
The Haitian people eventually deposed Duvalier, and he moved to France. In the meantime, he accrued a variety of valuable assets, including—The Sunday Times of London reported in 1992—a $2 million yacht, at least $1.4 million in London and New York City bank accounts, and, of course, the neat little Trump Tower condo. The New York Times reported in 1989 that the Stroock & Stroock & Lavan law firm—hired by the Haitian government to search out assets Duvalier had stolen from the Caribbean island nation—only found out Duvalier owned Apartment 54-K because the dictator hadn’t paid his phone bill. The Haitian government put a lien on the property after he fled. The Sunday Times noted that Duvalier had trouble finding shelter (which happens when you sell people’s body parts), and that the president of Gabon explained his country would not accommodate the ex-dictator because it was “not a rubbish bin.” Duvalier ended up settling in France, where he managed to live a luxurious lifestyle despite the ocean separating him from his Trump Tower digs.
Then there’s the case of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator whom the United States would use military force against in 2011 because of the bloody Libyan civil war. In 2009, while Gaddafi was in New York City for a U.N. meeting, he sought to set up the large Bedouin-style tent he customarily took with him when traveling. After failing to receive permission to set up the tent in Central Park, he arranged to rent an estate owned by Trump.
The tent, which an ABC News helicopter filmed from the air, came “replete with rugs and patterned wall hangings,” and was set up on the Trump Organization’s 113-acre Seven Springs estate.
The tent was put up and taken down twice on said estate following legal threats from the town of Bedford, N.Y. Town attorney Joel Sachs threatened Trump with criminal prosecution if he and his organization didn’t dismantle the tent, according to the AP. Eventually it was dismantled. Gaddafi never personally came to Bedford.
At the time, the Trump Organization said it was unaware that Gaddafi had been the one behind the rental. But that didn’t stop Trump from bragging, years later, that he “screwed” the Libyan dictator.
“I rented him a piece of land,” Trump told Fox News. “He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn’t let him use the land.”
A representative for Brown Lloyd James, an international public relations firm that reportedly received more than $1.2 million from the Libyan government to help with “logistical support” for the U.N. visit in 2009, declined to comment when reached by phone by The Daily Beast.
This is all in addition to the love that Donald Trump has long showed dictators. He “loves the Saudis,” promised a “great relationship” with Putin, and supported Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea.
“Being a candidate who actually worked with a sanctions buster is going to be super awkward,” said Omri Ceren.
But it’s not just dictators themselves. Trump Tower apartments have also housed people who conspire with despots who don’t give a hoot about human rights.
Individuals like Reza Zarrab, an Iranian businessman who allegedly helped Iranians dodge Western sanctions—and who had office space in Trump Towers in Istanbul.
Zarrab was at the center of a complex scheme that helped the Islamic Republic get around Western sanctions that locked the country out of global financial markets. As the Jerusalem Post detailed in July, Zarrab helped the Turkish government use gold to buy oil and natural gas from Iran—an old-school way to handle financial transactions that the sanctions necessitated. The paper reported that Turkey sold Iran $20 billion worth of gold from 2012 to 2013, in exchange for fuel—violating international sanctions and providing much-need funds to a regime infamous for its nuclear ambitions and abysmal human rights record.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/30/trump-tower-dictators-home-away-from-home.html