Everywhere, this giving...

If you donated to the relief effort in Haiti, you will most likely qualify to claim your donation on your tax return as an itemized deduction this season. The Internal Revenue Service said in order to be eligible for the special tax relief provision, which was enacted Jan. 22, taxpayers must have made cash contributions (as opposed to property) between Jan. 11, 2010 and March 1, 2010.

In response to the Haitian relief effort, Starbucks Corp. has committed support and funding to the growing international relief effort. Starting Jan. 29, participating Starbucks stores in the U.S. and Canada will take monetary donations from customers at store registers, with no purchase necessary, to benefit the American and Canadian Red Cross organizations for a limited time. The Starbucks Foundation also will donate $1 million from The Starbucks Foundation to the American Red Cross efforts to help Haiti.

One illusion that the technology of motion pictures dissolved was the passivity of the plant kingdom. With time-lapse, the stillness was shattered and leaves, roots, flowers, branches, rotting came to life. This thriving and dying activity was the truth, and the passivity was revealed to be the untruth. Now if we could do something like a time-lapse on the kingdom of the penniless, the slums of Third World cities, we would see not passivity but a massive catastrophe—indeed, a catastrophe such as the one that has induced all of this giving and concern.

Business leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland have called for greater investment to help in the rebuilding of Haiti.

According to the Guardian newspaper, ministers and financial experts held key talks on how to restore the country's economy and limited infrastructure in wake of the devastating earthquake which struck earlier this month.

The Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said the long-tern reconstruction of Haiti represented a chance for the World Trade Organisation to show it was committed to causes other than the prosperity of the west.