What's old is new again - or vice versa

US-installed Prime Minister Gerard Latortue of Haiti has announced his new 13-member cabinet.

Not a single member of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Party was included.

In an interesting and perhaps revealing divergence of coverage, AP (a more American source) made much of the fact that members of Convergence, the opposition political coalition, likewise were not among those chosen to be ministers - but Reuters (a more European source) noted that among that number are "several members of the groups that led anti-government protests in the months before Aristide's fall," adding that

"the impression is that there is a concerted attempt to marginalize Lavalas," said Robert Fatton, chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia.

On the other hand, AP did note that new defense minister Gen. Herard Abraham

said a commission will study how to recreate the army - a corrupt and brutal force before Aristide disbanded it in 1995.

Not if, how. Haiti's future is increasingly looking like its past.

Meanwhile Dept.: Not everything is going according to plan.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said: "We don't recognise Haiti's new government. The president of Haiti is named Jean-Bertrand Aristide and he was elected by his people."

Haiti's Caribbean neighbour, Jamaica, also said it would not recognise Mr Latortue's authority, at least until after a regional summit of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) scheduled for next week.

CARICOM has called for an investigation of Aristide's claims that he was kidnapped by US forces and made to leave. The US denies any such thing and strongly opposes any investigation that would validate it's position.