WNU #1032: Haitians Protest “Emergency Law”

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1032, May 9, 2010

1. Haiti: Opposition Protests “Emergency Law”
2. Haiti: Phone Company Privatized--to Vietnamese
3. Mexico: Women’s Groups Call for Cancún Boycott
4. Argentina: Death Flight Pilot Extradited
5. Colombia: FARC Frees Moncayo and Calvo
6. Links to alternative sources on: Mercosur, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate [at] gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/

*1. Haiti: Opposition Protests “Emergency Law”
On the night of Apr. 15-16 the Haitian Senate approved an 18-month extension of the state of emergency that President René Préval decreed after a Jan. 12 earthquake killed some 230,000 people and devastated the capital area. The “emergency law,” which had been approved by the Chamber of Deputies one week earlier, would take effect once Préval had it published in the official government gazette, Le Moniteur.

Thirteen senators voted for the new law, while two opposed it and one abstained; 11 senators boycotted the Apr. 15-16 session, charging that the vote’s outcome was already decided. Sen. Hector Amacacis, who supported the law, said that before the vote a meeting was held at a Western embassy “to push the members of Parliament” to approve the law. “The foreigners put all their weight into the balance to get the law adopted,” he said. [...]

Read the full Update:
http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2010/05/wnu-1032-haitians-protest-emergency-law.html