UN peace troops to land in Haiti

UN peacekeepers are poised to arrive in Haiti to take over from a US-led multi-national force as the country struggles with devastating floods.

A total of 8,000 UN peacekeepers, including 6,700 military officials and 1,622 civilian police officers, are expected by the end of June.

The troops will be responsible for ensuring security and maintaining the country's fragile peace.

But the task of helping flood survivors will be more immediate.

At least 2,000 people are known to have died or disappeared after severe flooding over the past week.

They will replace a multi-national force sent to Haiti to maintain security after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left in February.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 31 - One lesson of life in Haiti is never to say things cannot get any worse. They can, and they have.

People say they have had less money, less food and less hope since the February revolt that toppled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

For most Haitians, this has nothing to do with last week's deadly floods, which left 1,000 dead and 1,600 missing in Haiti, according to the official government estimate on Monday.

It has to do with the price of rice.

The cost of living has soared in the past four months. And as they say in Haiti, "Rice is life."

On the Rue de Miracles, one of the capital's biggest sidewalk markets, where thousands buy and sell the necessities of life, people talk of little else. Every conversation that starts with politics ends with the price of rice.

Many Haitians eat one meal a day. The main course is rice, and the price of a 110-pound sack doubled, to $45 from $22.50, between late January and early May. That price has dropped to about $37 in the past few weeks but is still too high, said Clermathe Baron, 29, who sells the big white sacks across the street from the Haitian customs office near the port. The price was driven up by global, national, political and economic forces.