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Daily News - 31 March 2000
Internet connections announced for all public schools
Tricom announced on 29 March that it has signed a five-year US$25 million contract with the Ministry of Education to provide broadband satellite Internet access and Intranet services to every public high school in the Dominican Republic. Tricom (www.tricom.net) is the second largest communications service provider in the DR. It is owned in part by Grupo Financiero Nacinal Corporation, Ltd. (46%) and Motorola, Inc. (31%).
The Business Wire release says that Tricom will utilize Intellicom's (www.vsat.net) state-of-the-art content caching technology and comprehensive family of value-added services to deliver fast and efficient end-user access to the Internet.
The announcement says this implementation fulfills the promise made by President Leonel Fernandez to provide Internet access to the Dominican Republic's 310 public high schools before the end of his term on 15 August 2000.
Each high school will, for the first time, enjoy the benefits of
Internet and Intranet services, allowing students and teachers at different schools to easily exchange knowledge and obtain distance-learning content that can be effectively customized and readily updated for specific grade levels or types of schools. This venture between commerce and government will enable teachers to complement existing curriculums with the most up-to-date information available.
"We believe the Dominican Republic is the first country in Latin America to provide Internet access to all of its public high schools," said Carl Carlson, executive vice president for Tricom. "This is going to completely revolutionize the way the schools operate. The schools will now have the capability for streaming audio and video. We're not just connecting students and teachers to the Web. All the schools will be interconnected so each school will have e-mail capabilities, and teachers and students will be able to exchange knowledge and share information that would be impossible without the connectivity afforded by the Intellicom system. This agreement marks another step in the current government's administration to position the Dominican Republic as a global information economy."
The Puerto Plata cablecar is back into operation
Minister of Tourism Felix Jiménez visited Puerto Plata yesterday to be present at the restart of operations of the Puerto Plata skylift to the top of Isabel de Torres mountain. Children up to 10 years can ride free, high school students get a 50% discount on the RD$50 fee for adults and tourists. The Ministry of Tourism also announced that weddings, baptisms, birthdays and other social gatherings can now be held at the skylift's mountaintop facilities. The Mt. Isabel de Torres stands 2,565 feet and is crowned with a sculptured Christ figure similar to the Rio de Janeiro statue. The cablecar rides are expected to again become one of the main attractions in Puerto Plata. The best time to go is early in the morning to catch breathtaking views of the Atlantic coast below.
Central Bank governor urges foreign investors to bet on DR
Speaking at the Annual Meeting of the Interamerican Development Bank, Central Bank governor Hector Valdez Albizu extolled the advantages of the Dominican economy for foreign investment.
"Let us be partners in a feasible joint project in which you can trust. You can bet on the future of the DR," he said.
He explained that while year 2000 is an electoral year, the DR has achieved maturity so the elections will not necessarily affect economic activities.
He said the civil society and political parties agree on the importance of maintaining stable economic growth and that the challenge for the next decade is to reduce poverty.
Outlining the Dominican economy, he said that in 1999 registered foreign investment was US$1,352.5 million, up US$650 million from 1998. Foreign companies are expected to invest US$1,000 million this year, and for the next three years projects totaling over US$2,000 million in foreign investment have already been identified, he said when speaking to international financiers. Foreign investment broke down as following in 1999:
Power 46.9%, tourism 23.3%, communications 14.3%, commerce 13.2%, free zones 2.3%.
Inflation in 1999 was 5.1%, with GDP growth at 8.3%. For 2000, inflation is estimated to be 6.1% and GDP growth at 7-7.5%, reflecting the effects of the increase in petroleum prices.
He said in 2000 significant growth is expected in communications, construction, power, water, sugar cane industries and mining.
Making money off the Haitian plight
The director of the Department of Migration, Danilo Díaz said that the controls now in force at the frontier have turned the trafficking of illegal Haitians into a lucrative business. He told El Siglo that his Department ordered the suspension of the hiring and recruiting of Haitians living in the DR after receiving complaints of individuals trafficking with truckloads of Haitians interested in getting a first job in a Dominican sugar cane industry.
The government recently privatized the operation of sugar cane industries in the DR, and these will again be hiring. The newly arrived Haitians are willing to work for less than the Haitians already living in the DR, which move on to better jobs.
The senator for the province of Independencia, Dagoberto Rodríguez Adames denounced on 15 March in Congress that officers of the government are involved with the trafficking of the illegal Haitians that are being brought in by crossing the hills of Barahona and Independencia. The people traffickers reportedly are paid by farms that need the cheap labor.
The government had authorized the private sugar companies, Conazucar, Pringamosa, Caña Brava, Central Romana and Barahona to hire workers from among the estimated 600,000 Haitian adults living in the DR. Contracting in Haiti is banned, but it is hard to distinguish who is a newcomer and who was already here.
After the complaint was received, the Department banned the contracting of Haitians already living in the country.
The idea is that the new companies offer better working conditions so that it is unnecessary to import cheap labor.
Anachronism in Haiti = illegal migration and drug trafficking
Secretary general of the PLD, Jose Tomas Perez alerted that authorities need to redouble the surveillance of the fronter because of the new wave of politically-inspired violence in Haiti. He also urged that the international community support efforts of those in Haiti that want to hold the congressional election. Sectors partial and against former President Jean Bertrand Aristide have stepped up the pressure within Haiti.
Violence in Haiti is said to be politically-inspired as sectors that oppose former President Jean Bertrand Aristide want congressional elections to be held now as scheduled. If congressional elections are held jointly with the presidential elections, it is expected that a congress partial to Aristide will be elected. A congress with opposition members would make it possible to interpellate Aristide as to the source of his vast fortune.
Several sectors within Haiti favor the continuation of the anachronism that has led to that country becoming the region's biggest transit point for Colombian cocaine headed to the United States, despite efforts of the Preval government. See http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20000329/t000029468.html
Supreme Court computerizes judicial information
Supreme Court announced that it has advanced on the installation of its computerized information system. The new system, known in Spanish as, "Gestión de Expedientes" and TeleSuprema makes it possible to find out the status of a case in the Dominican judiciary system. For more information, see the Supreme Court web site at www.suprema.gov.do
President Fernández campaigns for Danilo
President Leonel Fernández, on the campaign trail for his political party's candidate, urged Dominican voters to avoid converting the 21st century into a "scenario of comics" by voting for PLD candidate, Danilo Medina. He was referring to the spontaneous and many times comic expressions that are part of the way of speaking of PRD presidential candidate, Hipólito Mejía. The PRD candidate ranks the highest in the polls.
President Fernández spoke on the present and future of the DR during a conference held at the Santiago Cibao Theater on occasion of the 156th anniversary of the Battle of 30 March. He said that Danilo Medina is the only candidate that guarantees that the agenda of reform, transformation and modernization will continue.
He says that he feels in the moral obligation to pass the torch to another man of his generation, to Danilo Medina, so that he can take Dominican society one more step ahead.
He said the country has to decide whether to continue to advance or to move back.
Danilo Medina happy with his campaign
Danilo Medina said that he will not vary his campaign strategy. He was responding to observations made by Vice President Jaime David Fernández who urged the PLD candidate to find ways to make his the popularity of the Fernández administration. Danilo Medina said that his candidacy is solid in the second place. Two recent polls - Penn, Schoen & Berland and Gallup - placed him in March behind nonagenarian former President Balaguer. "I will continue increasing in voters' preference, as we get nearer to the election date, when Dominicans will become more rational and less passionate," he said.
Nevertheless, his vice presidential candidate, Amilcar Romero told Hoy newspaper that the reason why Danilo Medina hasn't been able to capitalize on the popularity of the government of President Leonel Fernández is that his campaign marketers have not been able to sell the achievements of the PLD administration to the public.
Balaguer's not the enemy, yet, says Raful
The Listín Diario reports that Tony Raful, acting president of the PRD says that former President Joaquin Balaguer is not capable of confronting the changes the country needs. He said that the Reformista Party leader does not represent an electoral threat to for his organization. Nevertheless, he said if Balaguer were to become an electoral threat, they would not doubt in radically varying their rapprochement strategy and good relations with the PRSC and begin to combat that party. "If Balaguer starts to advance by taking votes from the PRD, immediately we will change our tactics," he said.
Two leading polls show that Balaguer is in second place. The PRD sought the rapprochement seeking the support of PRSC voters that could vote for Hipólito Mejía and not necessarily for the PLD candidate, if the later made it to second place.
Parties get three days to remove illegally placed propaganda
Mayor of Santo Domingo and the District attorney agreed to give a period of three days for politicians to remove propaganda placed on city streets in violation of Ruling 46-99 on external advertising. Mayor Johnny Ventura and District Attorney Francisco Domínguez Brito warned the parties that at the end of those three days they would use the armed forces and the police to remove the illegally placed propaganda.
Hail and tornado damage Moca crops
Torrential hailstorm and a tornado that swept through the central province of Espaillat on Wednesday damaged plantain and yucca plantations in Moca. Minister of Agriculture technicians estimated that damages could be over RD$30 million.
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