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 The article, published jointly with the US weekly magazine The Nation, is based on some of the 1,918 previously unpublished cables concerning Haiti that the WikiLeaks group has released to Haïti Liberté.

The WikiLeaks group is releasing a total of 1,918 previously unpublished US diplomatic cables concerning Haiti to the weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté, which is published in New York and Port-au-Prince.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)

The US Department of Homeland Security announced the week of May 16 that it was extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians for another 18 months, until Jan. 22, 2013. TPS is a program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the US because of temporary conditions in their homelands that would prevent them from returning safely, such as a natural catastrophe. TPS was first granted to Haitians living in the US without documents in January 2010 following an earthquake that devastated much of southern Haiti. (Haïti Libre, Haiti, May 17; Homeland Security announcement, May 19)

Armed with machetes and knives, Haitian national police and local officials destroyed some 200 tents in a homeless camp on a public space in the Delmas 3 neighborhood northeast of downtown Port-au-Prince the morning of May 23. Camp residents, who were living there because they lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in January 2010, ran for cover or protested the action while their temporary shelters were demolished. Wilson Jeudy, the mayor of Delmas, a subsection of the capital, claimed that the operation's target was not the earthquake victims but criminal gangs he said had been using the camp.

Popular Haitian singer Michel Martelly ("Sweet Micky") was sworn in as his country's 56th president on the morning of May 14 in a ceremony attended by outgoing president René Préval, members of Parliament and a group of foreign dignitaries, including Dominican Leonel Fernández, Honduran president Porfirio Lobo, Surinamese president Desiré Bouterse and former US president Bill Clinton. The event was held in a temporary structure set up in downtown Port-au-Prince for the Parliament after a January 2010 earthquake destroyed much of the capital. The actual administration of the oath of office took place without electric lights or a working sound system because of a brief power outage in the building. (AlterPresse, Haiti, May 14; Radio Kiskeya, Haiti, May 14; Radio Métropole, Haiti, May 14)

As of May 12 a group of Haitians left homeless by a massive January 2010 earthquake were facing possible expulsion from their displaced persons' camp at the Palais de l'Art, in Delmas 33 in the northeast of Port-au-Prince. A lawyer for the property's owner said he was asking the Interior Ministry to remove the camp residents within eight days. The residents reported that the owner had already started harassing them: on May 9 they found the doors to the toilets locked, and on May 10 the front gate was locked, trapping them in the camp. More than 150 families have been living at the site, according to the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).

Following up on earlier efforts to highlight human rights abuses in Puerto Rico, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hosted a high-publicity fact-finding delegation in San Juan on May 2 and 3. The group, which included ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero, political scientist Angelo Falcón, actress/choreographer Rosie Perez and recently retired baseball player Carlos Delgado, interviewed University of Puerto Rico (UPR) students, UPR rector Ana Guadalupe, union leaders, journalists, police chief José Figueroa Sancha and others.

On May 3 a panel of four experts presented United Nations (UN) secretary general Ban Ki-moon with their report on the origin of the cholera epidemic that broke out in Haiti last October. As of April 21 the disease had caused 4,575 deaths, according to the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP). Almost 300,000 people have contracted cholera, and the number is expected to rise as the rainy season starts.