It would seem that nothing, not even a devastating earthquake that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, can deter the American vacationer's drive to unwind. To prove the point, one cruise ship from Florida-based Royal Caribbean International landed in Haiti on Friday, the Guardian reports, and three more are due in this week.

Royal Caribbean cruise passengers visit Labadee Beach, a walled resort only 60 miles from the epicenter of the quake. On its Web site, the company advertises "pristine beaches," "breathtaking scenery" and "native charm." Armed guards patrol the perimeter, even under normal conditions.

Caribbean vacations have always provided a stark contrast between decadent resorts and the impoverished countries that house them, but not even the magic of the cruise ship could hide the horror at this uncommon port of call.

Royal Caribbean is continuing to ferry passengers to its Haitian resort at Labadee despite the misery wrought by the earthquake in Port-au-Prince.

"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue and enjoying a cocktail while there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets," one commenter wrote on an Internet forum about cruises.

While Royal Caribbean's decision to cruise on to the destroyed country might seem callous, the company defends its decision, saying its ships are transporting not just cruise passengers but also foodstuffs for Haitians. The company has promised to use 100 percent of the proceeds from its cruise visits to Labadee to benefit victims of the quake.

"In the end, Labadee is critical to Haiti's recovery; hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood," Vice President John Weis told The Guardian. "In our conversations with [Haiti's special envoy to the U.N.] Leslie Voltaire, he notes that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each call."

Cruises and resorts suffer from the same moral difficulties as sweatshops. On one hand, the symbolism behind impoverished workers slaving to provide luxuries to Western consumers is repulsive, while on the other hand, those industries are vital to the economies of developing nations. Guardian columnist Gwyn Topham points out that Friday's visit was really just business as usual -- the only difference was scale.

"Tourism provides a microcosm of modern globalized inequality, with all the advantages or injustices it bestows on those on different sides of the divide," he wrote. "From the Caribbean to Southeast Asia, cheap labor and land allow holidaymakers to relax in style for less."

Some passengers are determined to make the best of their sunny day in hell. "I'll be there on Tuesday, and I plan on enjoying my zip line excursion as well as the time on the beach," one told The Guardian.

Royal Caribbean says it is providing "at least $1 million in humanitarian relief" to Haiti

It seemed like a solid strategy for Bill Hudak, Republican candidate for the state’s Sixth Congressional seat and a political novice: latch on to the sudden popularity of Scott Brown.

A day after Brown’s improbable election to the US Senate, Hudak announced that the victorious Wrentham Republican had endorsed his candidacy. Hudak released a video featuring him and Brown campaigning together. In it, he mentions the name Scott Brown six times in just over a minute.

The strategy has backfired. Badly.

And the aftermath has inserted an unfortunate wrinkle into an otherwise glorious week for Brown, whose defeat of Democrat Martha Coakley brought him national fame as a candidate for the people and a barrier-breaker in a state that almost always votes Democrat. It also served as a harbinger of challenges Brown faces as politicians attempt to draw on his sudden status as the face of the Republican Party.

The brouhaha began Thursday, when Brown denied he had made an endorsement. That came as several political blogs cited news reports from the 2008 presidential campaign, when Hudak erected a poster on his lawn in Boxford that depicted Barack Obama as Osama Bin Laden.

According to the reports, Hudak voiced an argument popular among far-right Republicans at the time that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore could not serve as president.

Hudak initially brushed aside the reports and denied he was a birther, as supporters of the argument are called. He insisted that Brown had endorsed him, and accused the senator-elect’s advisers of backpedaling.

But Hudak issued an apology yesterday and retracted his statement about the endorsement, saying things were “misinterpreted.’’

There are some political ties between the two. Brown had used Hudak’s campaign office as a telephone center, and the two appeared at events together. But Hudak evidently hoped to parlay that into much more, particularly now that Brown’s star is soaring.

It is something Brown is going to have to get used to and deal with.

“There’s going to be a lot of people saying, ‘We helped you win, and we want you to help further our cause,’’ said Dan Mulcare, a political science professor at Salem State College who specializes in American government. “He has a lot of political capital, a lot of legitimacy, and he’s inspired a lot of people in Massachusetts.’’

The US president plans to ask congress for an extra $33bn to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq this year, defence officials say.

The money, mainly for the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and other war costs in the 2010 fiscal year, would come on top of Barack Obama's expected request to increase the Pentagon's overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708bn, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Fiscal 2010 defence department funding, including war costs in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as military construction, already comes to $660bn without the $33bn emergency funding request.

The budget for fiscal 2011, which begins on October 1, is expected to be released by the White House only next month, but military officials have suggested it would top $700bn for the first time.

Despite the proposed increase for next year, analysts say Pentagon procurement is likely to remain under pressure, and more weapons-buying programmes may be cut, because personnel and healthcare costs are taking up an increasing chunk of the overall Pentagon budget.

Vital national interest

Last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he expected Pentagon funding to begin to drop within a couple years because of the country's economic woes.

Despite that, Obama and his defence secretary, Robert Gates, face a major challenge trimming even a limited number of weapons programmes over the objections of legislators who see them as a source of skilled manufacturing jobs.

After more than two months consulting military leaders, ambassadors and national security advisers in a review of US strategy in Afghanistan, Obama announced last month that he would send an extra 30,000 troops to the war.

The deployment, he said, was in the "vital national interest" of the US, and would create a situation allowing the US to start withdrawing its troops in mid-2011.

He said the additional troops "are the resources that we need to seize the initiative" and bring the eight-year long war to a "successful conclusion".

The increased deployment will increase the US military presence in Afghanistan to around 100,000.

The number of civilians killed in war-related violence in Afghanistan touched 2,412 last year, the highest number since the 2001 US-led invasion, the UN has said.

A report by the UN mission for Afghanistan pointed to the "intensification and spread of the armed conflict" in what was also the deadliest year for foreign forces, with 520 troops killed.

It said 70 per cent of civilian deaths were caused by Taliban attacks, while 25 per cent were killed by pro-government and foreign forces - a 28 per cent reduction in deaths caused by Western forces since 2008.

The remaining 135 civilians were killed in violence not attributable to the conflicting parties, the UN said in its report.

'Excessive use of force'

The UN found most deaths attributed to pro-government forces were killed in air raids as well as search and seizure operations.

"These often involved excessive use of force, destruction to property and cultural insensitivity, particularly towards women," it said.

But it said that a change in Nato command structure had helped reduce the number of non-combatant deaths by coalition troops.

US General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the foreign forces in Afghanistan, has made minimising civilian deaths and injuries a central tenet of his counter-insurgency strategy, ordering reduced air attacks as one way of achieving this objective.

The UN report said the change in Nato forces' command structure, "specific steps to minimise civilian casualties" and "a new tactical directive" by the force contributed to the reduction in non-combatant deaths.

Civilian casualties are a source of tension between the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and the international forces fighting the insurgency.

Recent incidents, such as the deaths of 10 civilians including eight teenagers in eastern Kunar province in an authorised but non-military US operation, have seen Afghans take to the streets to protest against the presence of foreign troops.