Rescuers searched by sea and air today for nearly 70 Haitians after an overloaded sailboat ran aground and capsized in reef-studded waters off the Turks and Caicos Islands, killing at least 15 migrants fleeing the poverty of their homeland.

British union activists will stage a protest outside a UK flagship store of jeans giant Levi’s today over the sacking of hundreds of workers making clothing for the firm at a factory in Haiti.

An opposition coalition, insisting that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resign, rejected a US-backed peace plan to avert all-out civil war as Haiti’s leader urgently appealed to the world for help.