NPR People: Jason Beaubien

All of the 33 children that U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the deadly January earthquake have been returned to their parents. But at least one mother says that she would consider giving up her children for a better life elsewhere than subject them to the desperate living conditions in Haiti.

In Haiti, heavy rains are expected to begin soon, and aid groups and the government are in a race against time to move hundreds of thousands of tent-camp residents who could be at particular risk. Yet the process of relocating the quake victims has been extremely slow.

In the throes of a vicious drug war, Mexico's border city of Juarez — with its endless wave of kidnappings and executions — has become one of the most violent places on earth. The city is shouldering unfathomable sorrow, and its mothers are the most public face of that suffering.

Chile is on the verge of a political transition. Outgoing President Michelle Bachelet is trying to preserve her reputation after the earthquake, while the president-elect, Sebastian Pinera, is trying to establish his reputation as a man who can rebuild the damaged country.

The outcry from the late January deaths of 15 young people in Juarez has led President Felipe Calderon to pledge to pump millions of dollars into civic programs in what's become one of the deadliest cities in the world.

Chile was hit by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded more than a week ago. Chile's strict building code, its long experience with earthquakes, its wealth and resources have all allowed it to cope well with a quake that could have devastated the country. Many have noticed the differences between Chile and Haiti's quake in January.

Chile is dealing with one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, just as President Michelle Bachelet's term is set to expire. She has been strongly criticized in Chile for her response to the quake, and some say the impending transition has complicated relief efforts.

Mexicans have few qualms about buying knockoff products. A recent study says sales of pirated CDs, DVDs and other goods in Mexico — worth $75 billion a year — cut into government tax revenues, discourage foreign investment and fund organized crime.

The lagging U.S. economy continues to take its toll on Mexican migrant workers, who are sending less money home — 16 percent less in 2009. The decrease in remittances is affecting the economies of many Mexican states, especially rural areas. In Hidalgo, abandoned houses and half-finished projects reflect the downturn.

NPR's Jason Beaubien has been covering the aftermath of the massive earthquake that decimated Haiti on Jan. 12. He says corpses are so common both on the street and oozing out of the wreckage, that it's the living who haunt him. For the country to be reborn, and to avoid becoming a wasteland kept alive on international aid, he says the living need to heal — and dream of a new future.

Haiti's government has announced plans to relocate 400,000 people made homeless by the earthquake to tent camps it plans to erect outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. The camps will have facilities such as water and sewage that many Haitians now lack.

It's been more than a week since the devastating magnitude 7 earthquake flattened large sections of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. There have been frequent aftershocks. Assistance is arriving, and the General Hospital is functioning again. Still, hundreds of thousands of people are living on the streets without access to even tents.

Relief supplies are flowing in to Port-au-Prince to help hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by last week's earthquake. Food deliveries have been sporadic and have only been reaching a small portion of the people in need. The U.S. military is now the largest single-food provider in the devastated Haitian capital.

After waiting for more than a week for relief deliveries that still haven't reached many in the capital, hundreds of desperate Haitians scoured stores in the main commercial district searching for food and items they could sell.

Even before last week's deadly earthquake, Haiti was overrun by orphans. Now tens of thousands of children have been orphaned in the disaster.