On the evening of April 9 agents of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) began removing some 1,300 families—about 7,335 people—from Port-au-Prince's Sylvio Cator soccer stadium, where they had camped out since the Jan. 12 earthquake destroyed much of the city, killing as many as 230,000 people and leaving some 1.3 million without homes. "Soccer has to be brought back to life," said stadium director Rolny Saint-Louis. "There are players waiting to be able to play and feed their families from their work." The stadium's managers say the Taiwanese are planning to repair the bleachers and replace the artificial turf, which the earthquake survivors had reportedly damaged.

Speaking at an April 6 press conference at the ruined National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haitian president René Préval expressed his satisfaction with the results of an international donors meeting held by the United Nations (UN) in New York on March 31 to discuss the reconstruction of Haiti after the devastation of the Jan. 12 earthquake. The donors pledged nearly $10 billion in aid and about $350 million in direct support for the government's 2010 budget. During the next 18 months the management of the various projects will be overseen by a commission made up of Haitians and international representatives. Haitian prime minister Jean Max Bellerive and former US president Bill Clinton, now the UN's special envoy for Haiti, are currently the co-chairs of the commission. Préval insisted that the Haitian president would always have the last word on the plans.

Up to 3,000 Dominicans marched in Cotuí in the central province of Sánchez Ramírez on Apr. 3 to protest against the Pueblo Viejo gold mine, which is operated by the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp. Many of the protesters were local, but several dozen youths had walked the 105 kilometers from Santo Domingo, starting on March 31. An encampment was set up in Cotuí by the same young activists that successfully demonstrated last year for a suspension of construction of the Consorcio Minero Dominicano's cement factory near Los Haitises National Park.

Former US presidents George W. Bush (2001-2009) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) visited Haiti for one day on March 22 to call for international aid for the country. The visit helped set the stage for a United Nations (UN) donors' conference which is to be held in New York on March 31. Current US president Barack Obama appointed Bush and Clinton to head up US relief efforts following a Jan. 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people in Port-au-Prince and other parts of southern Haiti. This was Bush's first visit to Haiti, but the third since the earthquake for Clinton, who is also the UN's special envoy for Haiti.

On March 12 several hundred Haitian students and activists gathered at a memorial service for Jean Anil Louis-Juste, a sociology professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH) who was shot dead in downtown Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12 a few hours before a massive earthquake hit the city. A well-known author and activist, Louis-Juste was a strong supporter of the militant student movement that erupted in the spring and summer of 2009.

About 100 Canadian soldiers were scheduled to leave Haiti on March 7 and return to the Valcartier base northwest of Quebec city. An 850-member force deployed to the Port-au-Prince area from the base after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti on Jan. 12. The Canadians indicated that they were planning to withdraw the rest of the troops gradually, but Canadian defense minister Peter MacKay, who was in Haiti on March 7 during a two-day visit, said his government would be doubling the size of its contingent in the 9,000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which has occupied the country since June 2004. (Radio Métropole, Haiti, March 7)

A heavy rain fell on Port-au-Prince for about a half hour in the early morning of Feb. 11, drenching the estimated 1.1 million people who have been sleeping outdoors or in improvised shelters since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake destroyed or seriously damaged their homes on Jan. 12. This was the first heavy rain in Haiti's capital and the surrounding area since the quake, which occurred during the dry season. More frequent rainstorms may come as early as March, and medical experts warn of a great increase in disease if better shelters aren't constructed in time.

On Feb. 3 several hundred Haitians marched in Pétionville, a generally well-to-do suburb southeast of Port-au-Prince, to protest what they said was corruption in the distribution of food to survivors of a Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the capital and surrounding cities. The demonstrators said Pétionville mayor Claire Lydie Parent was illegally charging 150 gourdes (about $3.77) each for the coupons now being used to organize distribution of food. The protest began in front of the military academy on the Route de Frères and then moved to an encampment outside the mayor's office.