Haiti

Days after Haitians watched an exiled dictator come home, a former president issued a statement on Wednesday that fueled rumors that he, too, was angling to return.

On the one-year anniversary of the earthquake which devastated Haiti, the United Nations today remembered the disaster’s victims in memorial events in Port-au-Prince, New York and elsewhere around the world.

The report of the United Nations in Haiti 2010 launched today summarizes the efforts undertaken by the United Nations system and its partners, in support to the Haitian people and their government, to answer the multiple humanitarian crises, to accompany the electoral calendar and to advance on the road to recovery.

… Under pressure from various scientific and news reports pointing to MINUSTAH Nepalese troops as being the most likely source of the epidemic, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on January 6th named four top medical experts to an independent panel to investigate the cause of the epidemic in Haiti. The outcome of this investigation will be key to the future of MINUSTAH.

UN relief agencies on Friday defended their role in the much criticised aid effort after Haiti's devastating earthquake nearly a year ago, saying they had faced "apocalyptic" scenes.

Haiti will not be able to hold a second round of its disputed presidential election before February as it awaits a report from regional experts on contested preliminary results from the Nov. 28 first round, a senior electoral official said on Tuesday.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon … announced the creation of an independent scientific panel to investigate the source of the outbreak amid widespread media reports that Nepalese peacekeepers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) are the likely source, with infected water spreading from their base into a nearby tributary of the Artibonite River.

The United Nations is exploring the establishment of an international scientific panel to look into the source of the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Haiti's President Rene Preval turned to the international community Tuesday to resolve a tense election stalemate that has imperiled earthquake and cholera relief efforts. Preval asked the Organization of American States to send experts to help with a vote recount and deal with legal challenges arising from the first round of Haiti's presidential elections on November 28, which sparked violent protests.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today appealed for an end to violence in Haiti following the announcement of preliminary election results in a country that has already been ravaged this year by a devastating earthquake and a raging cholera epidemic.