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WASHINGTON, D.C. —Joel Esquenazi and Carlos Rodriguez, former executives of Terra Telecommunications Corp., have been convicted by a federal jury on all counts for their roles in a scheme to pay bribes to Haitian government officials at Telecommunications D’Haiti S.A.M (Haiti Teleco), a state-owned telecommunications company. The jury reached its verdict yesterday after five hours of deliberations, following a two-and-a-half-week trial.

The crowds were there and the cameras were ready. But when Haiti’s President, Michel Martelly, swept into Miami Saturday, the scene was in keeping with his first month in office: people waiting, some impatiently, for him to get started.

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is planning an expansion of its $6 million submarine fiber optic cables, Guardian Business can confirm — a move set to maximize revenue at the company.

“We are going to make a significant investment into expanding the capacity of the Miami cable,” BTC chief executive Geoff Houston confirmed.  “And we’re looking at investing on expanding the capacity of the Haiti cable.

Haiti's new president is reaching out to the 2 million Haitians emigrants whose earnings abroad have long helped keep the struggling country afloat even while they have been shut out of local politics.

Recently inaugurated Michel Martelly, who lived abroad himself, has vowed to overturn Haiti's long-standing ban on dual citizenship and to build a better relationship with an overseas community that contributes 25 percent of Haiti's gross domestic product with remittances sent to relatives back home.