A 24-hour national general strike on July 11 against the economic policies of Dominican president Leonel Fernández was "95 to 100%" effective, according to the organizers. After the first 12 hours, Fidel Santana, a spokesperson for the National Strike Committee, congratulated the Dominican people, calling them "the basic protagonist of this day's success." He claimed that an important element in the strike was the absence of efforts to force the productive sectors, commercial enterprises and transportation companies to observe the strike call; he said protesters were showing respect for people who chose not to honor the work stoppage.

Residents of Caracol, a village in Haiti's Northeast department, say they were never consulted or even warned about plans to build a huge new "free trade zone" (FTZ, a complex of assembly plants) on land where many of them have been farming for some 20 years. "It's the most fertile area we have at Caracol," resident Renel Pierre told journalist Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus. "It's inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park."

During the last week of June several Haitian social organizations called on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to pay reparations to the victims of a cholera epidemic that appeared to originate at the international occupation force's base near Mirebalais in the Central Plateau. Representatives of Haitian Women's Solidarity (SOFA), the Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA) and other groups said MINUSTAH should pay out to the Haitian people 25% to 30% of its annual operating budget of $853 million. SOFA made similar demands in January. The epidemic, which started in October, has killed some 5,500 people to date and sickened about 300,000. (AlterPresse, Haiti, July 1)

The distribution of international aid after the devastating January 2010 earthquake in southern Haiti has been slow and in some ways counterproductive, according to a United Nations (UN) report released in June of this year. "Has Aid Changed? Channeling assistance to Haiti before and after the earthquake" was prepared by the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Haiti; the office was set up in May 2009 "to assist the Haitian government and people in carrying out their priorities with the help of the international community," according to a UN press release.

Thousands of Haitian peasants marched in the city of Hinche in the Central Plateau region on June 21 to demand that the government promote food sovereignty, the restoration of the environment and the development of an agriculture "adapted to the reality of our country." "There needs to be a real agricultural policy," protesters said, in distinction to current policies that encourage the importation of food, seeds and other agricultural commodities.

A group of Haitians left homeless by a January 2010 earthquake demonstrated in Port-au-Prince on June 10 to demand action on the housing situation and an end to forced evictions from the displaced persons camps. "We've had enough of living in tents, we want decent housing" was one of the slogans. The protest followed violent evictions from camps in the Delmas section of Port-au-Prince carried out on May 23 and May 25 by Delmas municipal authorities and agents of the National Police of Haiti (PNH).

Leaked US diplomatic cables show that "[t]he US embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners contracted by Levi's, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers" in 2009, according to an article in the New York and Haiti-based weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté. The article, published jointly with the US weekly magazine The Nation, is based on some of the 1,918 previously unpublished cables concerning Haiti that the WikiLeaks group has released to Haïti Liberté.

The WikiLeaks group is releasing a total of 1,918 previously unpublished US diplomatic cables concerning Haiti to the weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté, which is published in New York and Port-au-Prince. The cables cover a period of seven years, from April 17, 2003 to Feb. 28, 2010, shortly after the January 2010 earthquake that shattered much of southern Haiti. The newspaper is planning a series of articles based on the cables. The first article, which appeared in the May 25-30 edition, details US diplomats' unsuccessful efforts to keep former president René Préval (2006-2011) from having Haiti join PetroCaribe, a program through which Venezuela supplies oil to Caribbean Basin countries on favorable terms. Later articles are to show how the US government backed assembly plant owners fighting an increase in the minimum wage and how the US militarized the distribution of aid after the earthquake. (Haïti Liberté, May 25-May 30; AlterPresse, Haiti, May 31)