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/ 8 November 2008
A church school collapsed on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital on Friday, burying dozens in rubble and killing at least 50, many of them children.
Haitian lawmakers voted on Saturday to dismiss Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, hoping to defuse widespread anger over rising food prices that had led to days of deadly protests and looting. President Rene Preval immediately said he would a name a new prime minister.
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/ 13 October 2007
At least 45 people have died in the poverty-stricken island of Haiti as homes were swept away in floods triggered by heavy rain, the Interior Ministry said Friday. Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said 23 bodies had been found on Thursday in Cabaret, just north of the capital, and 12 were missing.
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/ 12 October 2007
At least 23 people have died near Haiti’s capital following heavy rains that triggered floods, Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said on Friday. Bien-Aime said 23 bodies were found on Thursday in Cabaret, north of the capital, after flood waters hit their hillside homes, sweeping them away in the current.
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/ 22 February 2007
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s ousted former president, said in an interview published on Thursday that he will return to the Caribbean nation ”once the conditions are right”, but doesn’t plan to go back into government. In a wide-ranging interview published in the London Review of Books, Aristide said he and his family are staying in South Africa ”as guests, not as exiles”.
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/ 17 February 2006
Haitians and their neighbours welcomed Thursday’s election of René Préval as president, amid signs aid was in the pipeline to help restore stability in the hemisphere’s poorest country. Haitians had celebrated in the streets after Préval was declared the winner of the February 7 presidential election early on Thursday following a reshuffling of blank ballots.
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/ 16 February 2006
René Préval, who was declared Haiti’s new President on Thursday, has pledged to tackle the Caribbean country’s rampant poverty and seek a national dialogue, though he was yet to announce a clear programme. During his electoral campaign, Préval had asked voters to judge him on his performance during his 1996 to 2001 presidency.
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/ 15 February 2006
Front-runner René Préval on Tuesday decried ”massive fraud or gross errors” in Haiti’s presidential election, insisted he won outright, and urged supporters to continue protesting. The presidency promptly announced the formation of a commission to investigate the claims and called for final results of the February 7 election to be kept under wraps until the probe is completed.
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/ 14 February 2006
René Préval (63) was expected to appeal for calm in Haiti on Tuesday following protests over a vote count that put him short of the 50% he needs to be elected president in the first round. Tension remained high as Préval’s supporters insisted the frontrunner be declared president, despite the partial results.
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/ 13 February 2006
United Nations peacekeeping troops in Haiti opened fire on demonstrators on Monday near the capital’s international airport, leaving many casualties, according to Haitian police and UN sources. Police said at least one person was killed in the incident, which came after protests grew over the results of last week’s presidential and legislative election.
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/ 13 February 2006
More than 10 000 demonstrators took to the streets of Port-au-Prince on Sunday to demand that former president René Préval be declared the winner of last week’s presidential election. With about 75% of the ballots counted, Préval had 49,1% of the vote from Tuesday’s polls, just short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff election.
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/ 12 February 2006
Haitians on Sunday nervously awaited the final outcome of presidential polls, and authorities called for calm after René Prevál, a champion the poor, fell below the 50% needed to win outright. With one fourth of the ballots still to be counted, Prevál, a former president, dominated the vote, but with 49,1%, he was almost one point short of the majority he needs to avoid going to a second round.
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/ 10 February 2006
René Préval, who took an huge early lead in Haiti’s presidential elections, is a former ally of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, though he has distanced himself from the former president who fled in 2004. Préval took over 61% of the vote with 15% of the ballots counted, more than 48% ahead of his closest rival.
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/ 8 February 2006
Vote counting began in Haiti on Tuesday, in some areas by candlelight, after elections that were free of the political violence many had feared but were marked by stampedes that left four dead. As the counting was under way in some centres late on Tuesday, voters elsewhere still waited their turn to fill ballots out at the small cardboard voting booths.
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/ 7 February 2006
Voting got off to a rough start in volatile Haiti as angry mobs stormed voting centres that failed to open on time, with one person dying of a heart attack and another of asphyxia. Several more people were injured or fainted as they were trampled or shoved by crowds that rushed voting centres.
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/ 25 October 2005
Alpha, the Atlantic season’s record-breaking 22nd named storm, left at least 10 people dead in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before moving north into the Atlantic Ocean and weakening into a tropical depression, authorities said. The storm also left two dozen people missing in the two countries.
The death toll from Hurricane Dennis rose dramatically on Tuesday with at least 40 reported dead in Haiti, 16 in Cuba and more bodies expected to be found. On Sunday, the storm hit the southern United States, where another five people were killed. Meanwhile, Cuban President Fidel Castro has refused aid from other countries.
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/ 22 September 2004
Haitian authorities on Wednesday said 711 people have died and at least 1 000 others are missing after floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Jeanne, which devastated the north of the country. The international Red Cross has appealed for ,3-million in emergency aid for Haitian flood victims.
More than 5 000 supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched through Haiti’s capital on Friday, calling for his return and accusing the United States government of forcing his departure. The demonstration began in the hilltop slum of Bel Air and wound its way through neighbourhoods near the presidential palace.
The former interior minister under ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide, Jocelerme Privert, was arrested on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince and taken to prison, a police spokesperson said. Privert was wanted in connection with a massacre in the town of Saint Marc in February by forces loyal to Aristide.
Hundreds of people went on a looting rampage on Monday at an industrial park near Port-au-Prince airport, attacking passing cars and threatening journalists with machetes, witnesses said. The latest unrest came one day after at least six peoplewere killed when gunmen opened fire on an opposition rally in the Haitian capital.
Partisans of exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide looted a container port on the northern fringe of Port-au-Prince late on Thursday as United States and French patrols sought to enforce an overnight curfew in its fifth consecutive night. Meanwhile, a meeting took place to start the process of naming a new Haitian government.
Ten years ago, United States Marine Staff Sergeant Mark Hardin arrived in Haiti as part of a US force to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. Earlier this week, after the US had forced Aristide to leave, Hardin was back. ”It looks like nothing’s changed,” he said.
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/ 27 February 2004
Looting and killings were reported in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, on Friday as loyalists of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide manned barricades and vowed to beat back an expected rebel assault. Banks and most other businesses were shuttered and there was virtually no traffic in the city centre.
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/ 20 February 2004
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide declared he is ready to die to defend his country against a bloody rebellion, indicating he plans to cling to power. The United States government, citing continued violence, urged Americans to leave Haiti.
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/ 19 February 2004
Armed opponents of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide were poised on Wednesday to make further territorial gains as a French aid group warned about a potential humanitarian disaster.
Rebels cut off Haiti’s second city
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/ 11 February 2004
Haitian police retook three towns from rebels battling President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the government pledged to win back control of all territory lost during battles that have left at least 42 dead in five days. The United Nations has warned that Haiti faces a major humanitarian crisis.
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/ 11 February 2004
At the Liberty beauty salon in Port-au-Prince, two hairdressers sit in the hope that the electricity will soon return. ”We wait for electricity. We wait for water. We wait for peace. We wait for war,” says one. Worried that she has said too much, she refuses to give her name, fearing the prescience of her throwaway remark and the implications that could come with it.
Bloody rebel uprising spreads in Haiti
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/ 6 February 2004
An armed opposition group seized control of Haiti’s fourth-largest city in clashes that killed at least four people, while the government vowed to restore order. Members of the Gonaives Resistance Front on Thursday set fire to the mayor’s home in Gonaives, then doused the police station with fuel, lighting it while officers fled.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide pledged to help impoverished Haitians as police blocked thousands of anti-government demonstrators during Haiti’s independence celebrations. President Thabo Mbeki said that a ”historic struggle” remains for Africans to overcome poverty and conflict on both sides of the Atlantic.