Haiti Telethon Develops As Cruise Ship Arrives

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Actor George Clooney, musician Wyclef Jean and journalist Anderson Cooper are set to host a global telethon from MTV called "Hope for Haiti," to air commercial-free across ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1, and CMT on Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. The telethon will also be available to MTV Networks International, CNN International and National Geographic channels worldwide.

On the two-hour special, Clooney will broadcast from Los Angeles, Wyclef Jean from New York City and CNN's Anderson Cooper from Haiti, per MTV.

The network says all proceeds will be split evenly among Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF and Yele Haiti Foundation. Facebook and MySpace have also signed on as official social media partners to help drive donations and tune-in to the telethon.

Royal Caribbean Cruises -- which had planned to make Labadee on the northern coast of Haiti a berth for the "Oasis of the Sea" as part of a plan to make that region of Haiti, an area far from Port-Au-Prince, a tourist destination -- is giving at least $1 million. The company says it will also be delivering goods and supplies to Haiti via its cruise ships.

The company said it plans to continue making Labadee a port of call for its ships. Royal Independence of the Seas made port at Labadee on Friday with supplies loaded on the ship during its call in San Juan, P.R.

Over the next two weeks, per the company, three more ships will dock with supplies. The company said guests aboard Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises will be able to make a donation to Food for the Poor's Haiti Relief Fund, via a charge to their onboard account.

Spirits, beer and wine company Diageo, which also has a stake in Haiti, delivered more than 45,000 pounds of food and emergency supplies to Haiti on Friday in 727 aircraft. The mission is part of Diageo's Spirit of the Americas Humanitarian Aid program The Washington Redskins NFL team is partnering with Diageo to deliver a second round of aid workers and of emergency supplies to Haiti. Redskins owner Dan Snyder has donated use of his private airplane for this effort.

Diageo holds a minority stake in Brasserie Nationale d'Haiti S.A., a brewery located in Port Au Prince. The Haitian company has more than 1,300 employees, locally brews Guinness beer and distributes Diageo products, including Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Baileys and Tanqueray.

Procter & Gamble, one of the first companies to get involved in relief efforts, is adding more to its pledge of three million packets of PUR Purifier of Water, which a spokesperson says amounts to about 30 million liters of clean water, and donations of about $400,000 to several disaster relief groups. P&G says it will match employee contributions up to $250,000.

Continental Airlines says members of its OnePass frequent flyer program are eligible to donate miles, in the amount of their choosing, to two major charitable organizations involved in the Haiti relief effort, the ARC and AmeriCares.

Continental is also offering transport to U.S. government agencies. Continental does not fly to Haiti but does serve three cities in the neighboring country of the Dominican Republic -- Santo Domingo, Punta Cana and Puerto Plata.

Also, the Independent Pilots Association -- the UPS pilots union -- is supporting the relief effort by establishing an electronic volunteer database for its members. "This is not the first time our members have stepped up and volunteered their services to move aid to a disaster area," said IPA president Capt. Robert Thrush, in a release.

Nissan has announced an immediate $30,000 cash donation to the Red Cross to assist with earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. The cash donation is part of a multi-faceted relief program by Nissan in the Americas. The company says $25,000 is a cash donation from Nissan North America; and $5,000 comes from Nissan Canada, Inc.

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