Clinton puts off deporting Haitians

The White House says President Clinton is to postpone the deportation of about twenty-thousand Haitian immigrants threatened with expulsion under tougher immigration laws.

The announcement appears to confirm a report in The New York Times saying all Haitians who sought political asylum by the end of 1995 or were admitted to the US through its base at Guantanamo bay in Cuba would be temporarily allowed to stay.

Haitians in the United States had reacted angrily when the Congress approved legislation allowing around half a million Latin Americans - described as victims of communism - to stay in the country but not them.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service