Haiti

An inside look at the dangerous conditions inside Haiti's collapsing national penitentiary.

Kira Kay and Jason Maloney report on what is being hailed as a moment of hope for Haiti, as a confluence of security, brought by a large and aggressive United Nations presence, and relative political stability, under the tenure of President Rene Preval, has kept the country calm for a long-enough period that investors are tentatively starting to return to the Caribbean nation.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere; over half the population lives on less than a dollar a day and public services, like healthcare, education, even garbage collection, are scarce. But it is also a country of great beauty and opportunity, made more viable by a recent confluence of political stability and security through the presence of a large United Nations Peacekeeping force. Kira Kay and Jason Maloney of the Bureau for International Reporting recently spent a week filming in Haiti as part of their Fragile States series airing on PBS NewsHour.

In the realm of the video news reporter, if you don't have it on tape, it didn't happen. OK, it's not always so extreme, you can narrate the occurrence of an event and use vaguely relevant or generic images -- say a compression shot of people walking on the street -- to cover that narration. But if the element is highly specific, then no video equals no event.

When Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas docked in Haiti yesterday, history was made. First, it marked the inaugural passenger sailing of the vessel, the largest in the world with capacity for 6,300 cruisers. Second, it was the first visit hosted by the newly renovated port at Labadee, Haiti's greatest hope for jumpstarting its fledgling tourist industry, representing an investment of 55 million dollars. Labadee has welcomed many Royal Caribbean ships over the years but until yesterday they did not dock and passengers were instead ferried in on launches.

"Sex Workers Confront HIV" aired on Foreign Exchange the week of January 24, 2008.

Watch the video on the Heroes of HIV interactive website.

Past air dates: week of November 8, 2007

Antigone Barton was interviewed on South Florida's local PBS station, WPBT Channel 2.

Watch the interview on the Heroes of HIV interactive website.

Watch the video on the Heroes of HIV interactive website.

It was 1982 when Dr. Jean Malecki examined a dying 9-month-old baby and made the first pediatric AIDS diagnosis in Palm Beach County.

The parents, who had arrived recently from the Caribbean, were sick, too.

"Within six months, the child had died," Malecki said. "The whole family got wiped out by the disease."

Malecki states this flatly because in the past 25 years, the Palm Beach County health director says, she has seen that flinching from the truth accomplishes nothing.

Australia's needle exchange program aims to prevent injecting drug users from sharing dirty needles.

This video takes you inside the walls of one of the worst prisons in the Western hemisphere. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a general lack of funding in Haiti's National Penitentiary have led to exorbitant HIV and Tuberculosis rates. Reporter Antigone Barton and videographer Stephen Sapienza take a first-hand look at these conditions and an American doctor working to correct them. After this video was taken, USAID authorized $200,000 in emergency funding for health and sanitation improvements.

Aired on Foreign Exchange November 2007.

These are good times in this embattled capital.

Kidnappings are down and trash is picked up.

Brightly-painted trucks that serve as buses drive through bustling streets where vendors supply cheap wares and workers repair ancient machines with obsolete tools.

United Nations trucks patrol the streets, too, but after years of outside intervention, the people of this impoverished republic are running their own government.