Brief MLS of abandoned prison of Fort Dimanche where many opponents of the Duvalier regime were imprisoned.

NAME: HAI PROTEST 20080426I TAPE: EF08/0439 IN_TIME: 10:15:21:05 DURATION: 00:01:35:05 SOURCES: AP TELEVISION DATELINE: Port-Au-Prince - 26 Apr 2008 RESTRICTIONS: SHOTLIST 1. Wide of protesters marching, carrying banner, reading (Creole): "We continue the mobilisation for the return of Titid (nickname for Aristide)." 2. Various of protesters carrying banners and portraits of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide 3. Woman carrying banner, reading (Creole): "Long live President Titid (Aristide)." 4. Man carrying banner, reading (Creole): "Down with impunity, down with genocide, down with occupation." 5. Pan of protesters carrying banners in support of Aristide 6. Close of protester shouting slogans holding small photograph of Aristide 7. Wide of march, some protesters carrying portraits of Aristide and fake coffins, representing the fatal victims of a 1986 protest 8. SOUNDBITE: (Creole) name unknown, Vox pop, man speaking to crowd: "We are, as always, in a situation of hunger." 9. Mid of protesters marching 10. Man singing with crowd, walking beside another man carrying a coffin 11. Mid of protesters marching 12. SOUNDBITE: (Creole) Vox pop, no name given: "Please, Mr Preval (Haiti's President), ask the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti) to leave the country." 13. Various of protesters marching, some carrying banners and coffins 14. Close of woman marching and singing with fellow protesters 15. Mid of three men carrying coffins 16. Mid of protesters marching STORYLINE: Hundreds of people marched through the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince to demand the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. AP Television footage showed protesters carrying pictures of the ousted President, and banners with slogans such as "Long live President Titid," the nickname for Aristide, and "Down with impunity, down with genocide, down with occupation." "Please, Mr Preval (Haiti's President Rene Preval), ask the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti) to leave the country," said one protester. U.N. peacekeepers came to Haiti after a violent rebellion ousted Aristide in 2004. On Saturday some protesters carried coffins to commemorate the killing of seven protesters on 26 April, 1986, when army troops fired into a crowd outside a notorious prison. Aristide, as then President, shut down the Fort Dimanche prison where dissidents were tortured under the Duvalier family dictatorship. Haitian police and UN peacekeepers said Saturday's protest was peaceful. At least seven people died earlier this month in Haiti during riots over food. Currently, Haiti imports almost 80 percent of its food supply. Haiti's president Rene Preval has lowered rice prices and the Senate has sacked the prime minister. But hungry Haitians who rioted over food prices still want more. The clamour for Aristide's return was deafening during last week's unrest over skyrocketing food prices that left at least seven people dead, hundreds injured and Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis out of a job. Some protesters vowed to press on until they unseat Preval, a former Aristide ally. Preval won the 2006 elections with the support of voters who believed he would bring Aristide home. But he has not called publicly for Aristide's return, and the men's current relationship is unclear. The country is the poorest in the northern hemisphere. Most people live on less than two US dollars a day.

NAME: HAI MUD CAKE 20080129I TAPE: EF08/0116 IN_TIME: 10:07:34:13 DURATION: 00:02:38:22 SOURCES: AP TELEVISION DATELINE: Port au Prince, Recent RESTRICTIONS: SHOTLIST: FILE: Port-au-Prince - December 2007 1. Various of woman placing mud cookies on the floor to dry 2. Various of child looking and eating pieces of mud cookies 3. Various of woman "cleaning" mud cookies 4. SOUNDBITE: (Haitian Creole) Emanuel Virjil, Vox Pop: "Yes, we see this in the villages, the people eat mud because they are in need. If we take a look at every place where they eat these mud cookies we see that they do it because they have no food and that's the reason they eat mud." 5. Various of woman placing mud cookies in plastic bucket Port-au-Prince - 24 January 2008 6. Young girl with her baby 7. SOUNDBITE: (Haitian Creole) Charlene Dumas, Vox Pop: "When my mother has not cooked, I eat them a lot, but if she cooks, I eat them less." 8. Close up of baby 9. Various of market 10. Various of women selling mud cookies 11. Various of girl getting mud cookies and putting them in a plastic bucket 12. Girl showing stained tongue after eating mud cookies 13. Girl leaving with bucket full of mud cookies to sell them 14. Set up shot of Joseline Mahone Pierre, Coordinator for the National Nutrition Programme: 15. SOUNDBITE: (French) Joseline Mahone Pierre, Coordinator for the National Nutrition Programme: "It is bad for people's health. It is not bad in the long term, it is not bad for an unlimited period. It is bad in the beginning, it is bad now, it is bad every time that a person decides to eat the mud." 16. Cutaway 17. SOUNDBITE: (French) Joseline Mahone Pierre, Coordinator for the National Nutrition Programme: "The problem is the quantity that is consumed and also the bacteria that can be found in the mud and during the preparation of the mud cookies." FILE: Port-au-Prince - December 2007 18. Various of man and woman making the "paste" to make the cookies 19. Close up of the cookies with mud 20. Man mixing the mud with water STORYLINE: With food prices around the world being driven up by demand for fuel, many of the world's poorest cannot afford even a plate of rice each day, forcing some to take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Many Haitians have come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made from the dried, yellow dirt of the country's central plateau. "Yes, we see this in the villages, the people eat mud because they are in need. If we take a look at every place where they eat these mud cookies we see that they do it because they have no food and that's the reason they eat mud," one man in the capital Port-au-Prince said. The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as a source of calcium and an antacid. But in places like Cite Soleil cookies made of the dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular source of sustenance as soaring prices put many food staples out of reach. "When my mother has not cooked, I eat them a lot, but if she cooks, I eat them less," said one girl, Charlene Dumas. Merchants coated in a yellow layer of dust truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to a market in Port-au-Prince's La Salines slum. Inside the maze of fly-swarmed tables of meat and vegetables, women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places like Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town. There, they carry buckets of the dirt and water up ladders to the roof of a former prison. After straining out rocks and clumps on a sheet, they stir in shortening and salt, then pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun. The finished cookies are put into buckets and taken to markets, or sold individually on the street. Haitian officials say those who depend on the cookies for nutrition are risking their health. "It is bad for people's health. It is not bad in the long term, it is not bad for an unlimited period. It is bad in the beginning, it is bad now, it is bad every time that a person decides to eat the mud," said Joseline Mahone Pierre, the Coordinator for Haiti's National Nutrition Programme. She added that "The problem is the quantity that is consumed and also the bacteria that can be found in the mud and during the preparation of the mud cookies." An AP reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency - and that it sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered, as if the journalist had licked the ground. But some families say they have no choice. The cost of a quart-sized can of rice in Cite Soleil has gone up about 20 percent in the last year to around 50 US dollar cents (34 euro cents). Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate as production and inventories fall. High oil prices, storms linked to climate change, rising freight costs and demand for agricultural products by the biofuels industry have pushed up the cost of living across the Caribbean, according to a trade negotiator for the nine-nation Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. Even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost 1.50 US dollars to 5 US dollars for a bucket, enough to make 100 cookies, the cookie makers say. Floods and storm damage from the 2007 hurricane season forced the U.N. Food and Agriculture organisation to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. With food prices up as much as 40 percent in some countries, Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports. Rising prices and food shortages threaten Haiti's fragile stability, even if the government makes progress reducing inflation and controlling spending, experts say.