International efforts to help Haiti recover from a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated the southern part of the country in 2010 have made significant progress, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) associate administrator Rebeca Grynspan told reporters on Jan. 6. Speaking less than a week before the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010 quake, Grynspan cited the creation of 300,000 temporary jobs, with 40% going to women, and the removal of 50% of the debris, about five million cubic meters--enough to fill five soccer stadiums, according to Grynspan. International aid has now shifted "from the humanitarian phase to the recovery and reconstruction phases," she said. (United Nations News Center, Jan. 6; AlterPresse, Haiti, Jan. 8)

On Dec. 29 Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño signed a measure into law mandating a plebiscite on the island's status, to be held on Nov. 6, the same day as the gubernatorial election. Voters will be asked two questions: whether they want to maintain the current political status, which is subject to the territorial clause of the US Constitution (Article IV, section 3); and whether as a permanent alternative they would prefer independence, incorporation into the US as a state, or the continuation of a "free associated state" status but no longer under the territorial clause. The referendum, which reflects the recommendations of a US presidential task force on Puerto Rico, is nonbinding; any changes would have to be approved by the US Congress and president.

Hundreds of Dominicans of Haitian origin demonstrated near the Supreme Court of Justice building in Santo Domingo on Dec. 8 to protest a court ruling a week earlier supporting a 2007 claim by the Central Electoral Council (JCE) that it can invalidate the citizenship of people born in the country if it believes their parents were undocumented immigrants. Jenny Morón, a spokesperson for the protesters, said some 4,000 Dominicans were now in a "process of denationalization" because the JCE had decided to revoke their citizenship.

According to a report by the Haitian organization National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), Brazilian soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) detained two water delivery workers and a friend in Port-au-Prince in the early morning of Dec. 14 without cause, robbing them and beating them repeatedly. MINUSTAH is a Brazilian-led military and police operation with more than 10,000 members that was sent to Haiti in June 2004 ostensibly to maintain peace between political factions and to control gang violence.

The Montreal-based apparel firm Gildan Activewear Inc. has asked its Haitian subcontractor, Genesis S.A., to reinstate four unionized workers that the plant's managers fired in the last week of September, Gildan senior vice president Peter Iliopoulos told the Montreal Gazette on Nov. 29. The company has "requested the reinstatement of the employees with full back pay dating back to the date of dismissal and also recognition of full seniority for these individuals as though they had never left the company or factory," Iliopoulos said. Another major North American apparel firm, North Carolina-based Hanesbrands Inc., has taken similar action with its subcontractor in Haiti, Multiwear SA, which fired Hilaire Jean-Jacques, a member of the same union, on Sept. 30.

On Dec. 2, heads of state from 33 countries met in Caracas, Venezuela, for the first summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a new regional bloc that excludes the United States and Canada. Unlike the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), the new group includes Cuba. Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez called the summit "historic," and predicted CELAC would soon supersede the OAS as the premier hemispheric bloc. Created as a result of an agreement reached at the Unity Summit held in Cancún in February 2010, the body includes both left-wing governments like Venezuela and Bolivia, and conservative ones like Mexico and Colombia. Chile's conservative President Sebastian Pinera is to be the first rotating leader of the bloc, and Santiago will also host next year's summit. (Politic365, Dec. 5; ISRIA, Dec. 4; BBC News, Dec. 3)

Haitian activists have started an international campaign to force Port-au-Prince apparel assembly plants to rehire six union members who were dismissed in the last week of September, allegedly for their union activities. As part of the campaign, Yannick Etienne, an organizer with the Haitian leftist group Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle"), was in Montreal on Nov. 14 meeting with local labor rights activists and with media to put pressure on Gildan Activewear Inc., a Montreal-based apparel firm that has garments stitched at one of the Haitian plants.

Sylvie van den Wildenberg, spokesperson for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), acknowledged in Port-au-Prince on Nov. 11 that the mission had received a petition for relief filed on behalf of hundreds of thousands of cholera victims. Overwhelming scientific evidence indicates that the cholera epidemic that struck Haiti in October 2010 was caused by poor sanitation at a base operated by MINISTAH, a 10,000-member international military and police operation which has occupied the country since June 2004. Almost 500,000 Haitians have contracted the disease over the past year, and some 6,500 have died from it. MINUSTAH and the United Nations (UN) have refused to accept responsibility for the epidemic. (AlterPresse, Haiti, Nov. 11)