News stories by Elizabeth Eames Roebling

From a small office inside a public school on the eastern side of the Rio Ozama in the capital Santo Domingo, a programme operated by a local NGO, Ce-Mujer, has been leading a quiet revolution to empower women in the workplace for the last 13 years.

A project to help reforest after the devastation of Hurricane David 32 years ago has grown into a plan to lift small coffee farmers out of poverty, all by the introduction of a gourmet ice cream.

Two years ago, Knights Apparel, based in the U.S. state of South Carolina, decided to lead the race to the top by opening a factory that not only paid its employees a living wage but guaranteed their rights to a union.

The government of the Dominican Republic, where one-third of the population of is under 14 years of age, is facing a well- organised and growing citizens' campaign to increase the amount spent on public education.

At first glance, the Dominican Republic appears to be a bastion of free information, with seven print dailies and seven national television stations. But journalists here say that more subtle means of coercion have become the norm.

The cholera epidemic ravaging Haiti has affected even this small southern border town, which lived primarily from the trade with its neighbour even though it counts for less than five percent of the cross-border market trade.

In the spacious lobby of the Nuestra Señora de Altagracia maternity hospital, more than a hundred people wait quietly in chairs, overlooked by a 20-foot-high coloured mosaic inset portraying the patron saint of the Dominican Republic.

Despite a history of often tense relations, the first nation to render assistance to Haiti after last month's devastating earthquake was its island neighbour, the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic, which has historically regarded its Haitian neighbour with suspicion, has turned toward Haiti with a tremendous outpouring of aid and love since a devastating earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince on Tuesday.

Dominicans have an extraordinary passion for baseball. All young boys play the game, sometimes with uniforms and equipment on a town baseball diamond, sometimes using coconut shells and old planks as ball and bat on an empty street or sand lot.