Untold Stories

News Points: HIV-AIDS in the Caribbean: Facing the Epidemic Just Off US Shores

This Saturday, December 1, is World AIDS Day, a moment each year for special focus on the epidemic. Two hours away from American shores people face this epidemic daily.  The Dominican Republic and Haiti boast the highest rates in this hemisphere of the virus that leads to AIDS. And it is a story that has been overlooked in the American mainstream media.

For the last three weeks, the Pulitzer Center has taken an in-depth look at HIV-AIDS in the Caribbean, and especially on the island of Hispaniola through the reporting of Antigone Barton, a staff reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Antigone now has put together a shorter overview of her reporting that will be available beginning this Sunday, December 2 – just a day after World AIDS Day - to any of the 600 newspapers subscribing to the New York Times/Cox Newspapers wire services.

Antigone’s overview focuses in on two critical elements of her more extensive reporting — sex workers in the Dominican Republic and inmates in Haiti’s national penitentiary in Port au Prince — and highlights the impact of U.S. restrictions on the use of AIDS funds.

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India: Into the Wild

No story on the Naxalite conflict would be complete without meeting the insurgents themselves. From Delhi to Dantewada I’d been alternately told they were: a) champions of the powerless, ready to talk b) scheming profiteers who would take me hostage for ransom if given the chance c) thugs sure to slit my throat.

But only a handful of journalists in recent years have actually met any Naxalites face-to-face. The Indian media has for the most part kept its distance, prone as ever to sensationalism. And even fewer stories have appeared overseas. It’s little wonder. Getting to South Bastar is difficult enough, establishing contact far more tricky.

India: Camping by the Road

Dantewada lies at the axis of three roads. Today each of these roads are lined with government-run refugee camps, home to at least 50,000 villagers -- mostly tribals -- that have been relocated since Salwa Judum began. Far from a sign of state control, the camps exist because authorities have defaulted control of vast swathes of the backcountry where Naxalites roam.

Of the 22 official camps throughout the south Bastar region, Dornapal is by far the largest. Row upon row of mud and sheet metal barracks shelter more than 17,000 people, though there are surely many more.