HAITI-POLITICS-Taiwan President arrives in Haiti at start of Caribbean tour

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – President Ma Ying jeou arrived in Haiti Tuesday at the start of a visit to several Caribbean countries. He was met on arrival by President Michel Martelly and will later participate in the ground-breaking ceremony for a new Supreme Court building to replace the one destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake that also killed an estimated 300,000 people and left more than a million others homeless. Ma will also visit St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan that China considers a renegade province. He will also visit Paraguay where he will attend the inauguration on Thursday of the new head of state, Horacio Cartes, who was elected on April 21.