World IN BRIEF : HAITI : New President Starts Task of Rebuilding

With inaugural celebrations over, Haitian President Rene Garcia Preval began the serious job of trying to rebuild his country’s shattered economy. Political analysts say naming a Cabinet, defining economic policy and streamlining the bloated bureaucracy will require Preval’s immediate action. Preval has said he will have to decide immediately between laying off 14,000 federal workers or accepting the terms of a lending agency’s reform package that includes privatization of nine state-owned industries. His first act of government was to meet a delegation of Haitians living in the United States. The estimated $300 million that expatriates send home each year is the largest component of the nation’s economy.