On Sept. 9 Haitian riot police and SWAT teams entered the grounds of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (FMP) of the State University of Haiti (UEH) in downtown Port-au-Prince and arrested about 20 students who had been occupying a building there since Sept. 7 to prevent the start of classes. Although police agents are generally not allowed on campuses in Haiti, the authorities said the raid was legal because the school's administration had asked for it and a justice of the peace was present to monitor the operation. Students from the UEH's Faculty of Ethnology responded to the raid by throwing rocks, and demonstrations continued at least through Sept. 11, when some 40 vehicles were reportedly attacked by students.

A series of wildcat strikes that shut down an industrial park on Port-au-Prince's northern outskirts for at least two days in early August continued into the week of Aug. 10 as thousands of Haitian workers, students and activists demonstrated for a law to increase the country's minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 200 gourdes ($4.97). President René Préval has blocked the 200 gourde increase, arguing it would hurt the country's maquiladora sector—the tax-exempt plants that assemble products chiefly for export—and cause the loss of thousands of jobs.

On Aug. 13 leaders of the Dominican Medical Guild (CMD) and the National Union of Nursing Services (UNASED) announced the suspension of a strike they started on July 29 over salaries. The unionists said the suspension was based on what they considered an agreement that Public Health Secretary Bautista Rojas Gómez would drop his efforts to remove seven health professionals—including Rufino Senén Caba Plasencia, president of the CMD's National District (Santo Domingo) branch—for alleged involvement in a violent incident during the strike. The job action was the latest development in an 18-month struggle around a demand for a monthly minimum wage of 58,400 pesos ($1,624) for medical professionals.

The Chamber of Deputies of Haiti's Parliament voted 55-6 late on the evening of Aug. 4 to increase the country's minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 150 gourdes ($3.73). Three deputies abstained, and about 20 walked out before the vote, apparently protesting what they considered irregularities in the secret balloting.

Leaders of the Dominican Medical Guild (CMD) and the National Union of Nursing Services (UNASED) announced on Aug. 7 that Dominican medical workers would continue a strike they started on July 29 for at least another five days, until 6 AM on Aug. 13. The strike is the latest development in an 18-month struggle around a demand for a monthly minimum wage of 58,400 pesos ($1,624) for medical professionals.

Two groups that regularly protest the US ban on most travel to Cuba by making unauthorized trips to the island returned to the US without incident on Aug. 3 after their latest visits, the first since US president Barack Obama took office. About 140 members of the Venceremos Brigade walked from Canada into the US at Buffalo wearing orange T-shirts and chanting for an end to US sanctions, while some 130 members of the US/Cuba Friendshipment Caravan returned to the US at the Hidalgo International Bridge from Reynosa, Mexico. US Customs and Border Protection agents gave the travelers no trouble even though they said they had been in Cuba.

Protests broke out in various parts of the Dominican Republic on the evening of July 16 over electricity shortages that had been plaguing the country for two weeks. Dozens of people took the streets in the Capotillo neighborhood in the north of the National District (which contains the capital, Santo Domingo). Agents of the National Police shot two people dead: Miguel Ángel Encarnación, a 13-year-old who worked shining shoes, and Carlos Francisco Peguero, a 24-year-old blacksmith. After the deaths, heavily armed police in bulletproof vests patrolled the neighborhood. Protests were also reported in other Santo Domingo neighborhoods.

During the week of June 29 Haitian president René Préval and pro-business groups pushed hard to water down a bill Parliament passed in May to raise the minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 200 gourdes ($4.97). Claiming that the wage increase would jeopardize the free trade zone (FTZ) factories—maquiladoras that assemble goods largely for export—Préval has proposed an increase to 125 gourdes for that sector. On June 29 Préval met with journalists to explain his position. Jobs in the FTZ sector have grown from 8,000 in 2007 to 25,000 now, he said, and those jobs would be put at risk by a large wage increase. (AlterPresse, June 29)