Union leaders in Puerto Rico claimed success for a 24-hour general strike held to support students striking against a proposed $100 million budget cut, who have met police repression.
Running battles between police and gunmen of the Shower Posse gang turned part of Jamaica’s capital Kingston into a warzone, with reports of explosions and civilian casualties.
The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti has launched an investigation into the shootings of dozens of prisoners in a jail riot in Les Cayes following the devastating January earthquake.
Several thousand people marched in Port-au-Prince in the latest and largest in a series of demonstrations against the government of Haitian President René Garcia Préval.
Haiti’s agriculture ministry accepted a “gift” of 523.6 tons of hybrid corn seeds and 2,067 kg of vegetable seeds from the Monsanto Company—despite activist fears that they are genetically modified.
Police took control of the entrances to the RÃo Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan in an effort to cut off student protesters on the campus from supporters outside.
The Vietnamese telecommunications company Viettel formally acquired 60% of the shares in Haiti’s state-owned phone company, Télécommunications d’Haiti (Haiti Téléco).
The Haitian Senate approved an 18-month extension of the state of emergency President René Préval decreed after the Jan. 12 earthquake devastated the capital area—sparking opposition protests.
Cuban president Raúl Castro led some 800,000 in the traditional May Day march to Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, saying survival of the socialist system will require “extraordinary sacrifices.”
The Haitian government declared a moratorium on evictions of homeless residents from improvised encampments on private property.
As of April 25 students were continuing an occupation of the RÃo Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in San Juan to protest plans to cut next year’s budget by $100 million.
Former US president Bill Clinton said that the international community needs to stay involved in Haiti if it wants to prevent violence from breaking out there.
