HAITI-DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: A Fragile Coexistence

The border between Anse a Pitres in Haiti and Pedernales in the Dominican Republic, both seven hours from their respective capitals, is barred only by a chain that pedestrians can easily cross.

HAITI-DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Neighbours, But Not Friends

On a recent trip from Pedernales, the most southern province on the border with Haiti, Dominican officials boarded the bus 12 separate times.

HAITI: Pain at the Pump Spurs Strike Actions

A two-day transport strike last week gripped Haiti's major cities and underscored a mounting crisis over fuel prices, which rose nearly 20 percent in just two weeks.

HAITI-DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Film on Plantations Spurs Backlash

When a man stood up at the Paris screening of director Amy Serrano's "The Sugar Babies", demanding to know how one of the film's subjects, the Belgian priest Pedro Ruquoy, could afford such a large car on his priestly salary, Ruquoy was nonplussed.

LATIN AMERICA-EU: Migration, the Elephant in the Room at Ministerial Meet

The 13th European Union-Rio Group ministerial meeting taking place this week in the Dominican Republic has its attention firmly focused on neighbouring Haiti, but has drawn fire from local activists for ignoring migration issues.

HAITI: A Literary Icon for “Les Damnes de la Terre”

He was born to an affluent family in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in 1907, and spent much of the first 20 years of his life at schools in Belgium and Switzerland.

CANADA: Development Aid as Counterinsurgency Tool

A soon to be completed Canadian Forces counter-insurgency field manual foreshadows the type of interventions that the military in this country is preparing for the coming decades, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS.

CANADA: Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military’s New Face

Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counter-insurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers.

FINANCE: Debt Relief Cleared for Latin Nations

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) said Friday it will cancel 4.4 billion dollars in debt and interest owed by five of Latin America and the Caribbean's poorest countries.

HAITI/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Exhibit Reveals a Bitter Harvest

A month-long programme in France this spring hopes to shine a spotlight on the working conditions of Haitians labouring in the sugarcane fields of the Dominican Republic, a state of affairs which human rights groups have charged in recent years is little better than slavery.

HAITI: Poor Residents of Capital Describe a State of Siege

Nearly two months since U.N. troops began launching heavy attacks that they say are aimed against gang members in poor neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, roadblocks and barbed wire remain in place and the atmosphere is grim.

HAITI: Mysterious Prison Ailment Traced to U.S. Rice

A newly released investigation into the deadly scourge of Beri-beri in Haiti's National Penitentiary uncovered evidence that the clash between the manufacturing process used in U.S. processed rice and the traditional Haitian rice cooking method has been killing poor young men behind bars and leaving others morbidly ill.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007-HAITI: Int’l Promises Yet to Bear Fruit

Take a stroll through downtown Port-au-Prince today and you'll find a city that, even by Haitian standards, is in a desperate state.

ARTS-HAITI: Around the World in Eight Days

Some 100 Haitians squeezed into a sweltering Town Hall to see Al Gore lecture in Creole in "An Inconvenient Truth". Hundreds more gathered before a screen on the beach to hear Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars sing, in Haitian Creole. And many returned a week later for "Sisters in Law", a Cameroonian documentary on domestic violence, again in their own language.

WORLD AIDS DAY: In Haiti, Gender Can Mean Life or Death

For a rare dose of optimism, stop by the oldest private HIV research centre in the world. Fight your way through the chaotic, filthy streets of downtown Port-au-Prince, through a crowd of men, women and children awaiting care, and you'll find Dr. Jean William Pape, smiling in a crisp white medical cloak.

MIGRATION: For U.S. Haitians, Home Is Both Near and Far Away

Roman Catholic Bishop Guy Sansaricq presides over his flock at St. Jerome's Church in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Sitting on a busy, heavily Caribbean stretch of Nostrand Avenue, Sansaricq's office in the brick church is adorned with both a portrait of the Virgin Mary and a naïve painting depicting a lyrical scene of village life from his native Haiti.

DEVELOPMENT: U.S. Teens Take a Virtual Journey to Haiti

Brooklyn's South Shore High School is no walk in the park. Low test scores combined with periodic stabbings, beatings and theft have made it one of New York's most troubled schools. All but two percent of the more than 2,000 students are minority. Many are low-income and almost half never graduate.

U.S./HAITI: Top Republicans Leave Telecom Accused of Bribery

Five nationally prominent U.S. Republicans, the independent board members of a corporation that has been charged with paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to get a sweetheart telecom deal in Haiti, are leaving its board.

HAITI/U.S.: Govt Corruption Suit Stalls for Lack of Funds

The U.S. Justice Department is withholding agreement to share assets seized from Haitian drug traffickers to finance a lawsuit by the Haitian government charging former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide with taking bribes.

HAITI: Rash of Kidnappings Rattles Music Industry

During this year's carnival in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, Hervé "Shabba" Anthénor's small frame loomed large above Djakout Mizik's massive float.

POLITICS: Donors Warned Against “Cheap” Development

International donors and especially powerful multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank have failed to reduce the number of so-called "fragile states", leaving more countries vulnerable to chaos, conflict, disease epidemics and even to becoming breeding grounds for terrorism, the World Bank's own auditing body said Thursday.