Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti after nearly 25 years in exile, a surprising and perplexing move that comes as his country struggles with a political crisis and the stalled effort to recover from last year’s devastating earthquake.

SINGING and praying sounded across Haiti yesterday as ceremonies marked the moment a year ago to the day when the earthquake struck and left over 250,000 dead.

HAITI began two days of remembrance ceremonies yesterday in honour of the nearly quarter million people who died in an earthquake that levelled the impoverished country a year ago.

A second-round vote to choose Haiti’s president will not be possible until late February, after the constitutional end of current President Rene Preval’s term, the electoral council says.

More than 100 protesters angered by a dysfunctional election commemorated Haiti’s Independence Day today by burning tyres and demanding that President Rene Preval be arrested.

Furious supporters of eliminated candidates set fires and put up barricades in the streets of Haiti's capital after officials announced that government protege Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat would advance to a second round run-off in presidential elections.

Haiti’s election ended in discord with nearly all the major presidential candidates calling for it to be disallowed over fraud and claims that large numbers of voters were turned away across the quake-stricken country.

HAITIANS faced growing concerns of voter fraud ahead of presidential elections tomorrow as the desperately poor nation gripped by cholera struggles to rebuild after a devastating earthquake.

Anti-UN riots spread to several Haitian cities today as protesters blaming foreign peacekeepers for a deadly outbreak of cholera exchanged gunfire with soldiers.

Protesters who hold UN soldiers from Nepal responsible for a deadly outbreak of cholera which has killed nearly 1,000 people have barricaded Haiti’s second-largest city, burned cars and stoned a peacekeeping base.

AT LEAST 142 people have died in a cholera outbreak, and aid groups were rushing in medicine and other supplies yesterday to combat Haiti’s deadliest health problem since its devastating earthquake.

Hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean has a new song blasting Haitian officials for rejecting his presidential bid.

Hip hop star Wyclef Jean’s Haiti presidential bid was in limbo today after the country’s electoral commission said it was postponing its ruling on who will be allowed to run for office in November

Hip hop star Wyclef Jean submitted the paperwork to run for president of Haiti, thrusting himself into what is expected to be a highly competitive race and ending years of speculation about his political ambitions.

Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean stepped down today as leader of the aid group he founded as he prepared to formally declare his candidacy for the country’s presidency.

Singer Wyclef Jean is to run for president of earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Singer Wyclef Jean is considering a run for president of Haiti but has not decided whether to seek a five-year term as leader of the quake-ravaged nation.

Haitian President Rene Preval set November 28 as the date voters will choose his successor as leader of the earthquake-shattered Caribbean nation.

Police fired tear gas outside the ruins of Haiti’s national palace to control 2,000 demonstrators calling for President Rene Preval’s resignation in the largest political protest since the January 12 earthquake.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon promised Haitians that the world has not forgotten the quake-torn nation as it suffers from a shortage of shelter and growing violence in teeming camps for the homeless.

IT will take three years to clear the rubble left by Haiti’s devastating earthquake, said President Rene Preval, who admitted even he’s still afraid to sleep under concrete in case another quake strikes.

Haiti's president predicts that it will take three years just to clear the rubble from the shattered capital Port-au-Prince.

Haiti issued wildly conflicting death tolls for the January 12 earthquake, adding to confusion about how many people actually died – and to suspicion that nobody really knows.

The UN warned today that Haiti was sinking into potential violent chaos as people grow frustrated at the slow pace of aid getting through.

QUAKE-HIT Haiti will need at least a decade of painstaking reconstruction, aid chiefs and donor nations warned, as homeless, scarred survivors struggled yesterday to rebuild their lives.

THE race is on to get much-needed aid to Haiti’s struggling survivors amid concern over riots for food and the development of malnutrition among the starving population.

The rescues of two more people from beneath the rubble in Haiti’s stricken capital 10 days after the devastating earthquake have revived fading hopes that others may have survived, officials said today.

Haitians fled their quake-wrecked capital in the hundreds of thousands today amid government promises of refuge in safe, clean tent cities.

Haiti's government said today it would move 400,000 people made homeless by the devastating earthquake from the shattered capital to new resettlement areas on the outskirts.

US MILITARY helicopters swooped down on Haiti’s wrecked presidential palace to deploy troops and supplies yesterday as a huge international relief operation to earthquake survivors gained momentum.

Thousands of US Marines were expected off the shore of Port-au-Prince today to help relief organisations get supplies to Haitian earthquake survivors.

DRUMBEATS called the faithful to a Sunday Mass praising God amid a scene resembling the Apocalypse – a collapsed cathedral in a city cloaked with the smell of death, where aid is slow to reach survivors and rescue crews battle to pry anever-smaller number of the living from the ruins.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew into the Haitian capital today to confer with President Rene Preval and receive an update on earthquake relief efforts.

Haitian President Rene Preval today implored the international community to better co-ordinate the massive aid effort for his country and not to squabble over how to provide it.

Pushed to the far edge of desperation, earthquake-ravaged Haitians dumped decaying bodies into mass graves and begged for water and food amid fears that time is running out to avoid chaos and to rescue anyone still alive in the wreckage.

The UN chief said 16 UN personnel were confirmed dead in the earthquake that shook Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, with 100-150 UN workers still unaccounted for, including the mission chief and his deputy.

Dazed survivors wandered past dead bodies in rubble-strewn streets, crying for loved ones, and rescuers desperately searched collapsed buildings as fears rose that the death toll from Haiti's devastating earthquake could reach into the tens of thousands.

THOUSANDS died in a major earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti, the country’s president said yesterday as nations across the world geared up for a big relief operation.

The people of Haiti were tonight still reeling from the earthquake that killed thousands of them and left the fate of millions more hanging on aid supplies.

A powerful earthquake has struck in Haiti, toppling everything from simple shacks to the ornate National Palace in the capital.

The largest earthquake ever recorded in the area has rocked Haiti, collapsing a hospital and damaging other buildings.

A UN Security Council delegation praised the party of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for fighting to overturn the disqualification of its Senate candidates, saying it could help avert a potentially dangerous crisis.

The death toll in a school collapse on the impoverished island of Haiti now stands at least 75.

ROADS were blocked and sustained gunfire rang out in upscale neighbourhoods in the mountains above Port-au-Price yesterday, as protests and looting over soaring food prices paralysed the Haitian capital.