The quick arrival of Tropical Storm Alpha crossed Dominican territory over the weekend leaving three missing, one reported injured, and several thousand refugees. The tropical storm was named Alpha because this has become the most active storm season on record, with over 23 named storms, and the United States National Weather Bureau ran out of names with Hurricane Wilma. Tropical Depression #25 grew in the eastern Caribbean and quickly became Tropical Storm Alpha on Saturday. The fast moving storm crossed the Dominican Republic from south to north over Saturday night and Sunday morning, before moving out into the Atlantic. As expected, the worst damage was reported in the southern regions of the Dominican Republic. San Pedro de Macoris, Santo Domingo East and the towns in the south, Bani, Azua, Barahona and San Juan de la Maguana were worst affected. The Center of Emergency Operations, (COE), reported flooding in some areas and maintains its red alert for all low-lying areas.
The Minister of Agriculture has announced that the government will allocate RD$150 million to fund the recovery efforts after the passing of Alpha. Amilcar Romero said that the damage to the south of the country will be repaired and that there are plans in place to prevent food shortages. The Minister said that the Agriculture Bank has a special loan portfolio for short cycle crops for just these occasions. Romero said that they would be closely monitoring the supply of plantains, onions, beans and potatoes.
One of the key figures in the RENOVE corruption case, Sam Goodson, a.k.a. Shlomo Ben-Tov, will be extradited back to the Dominican Republic to stand trial for his part in the RD$1.8 billion scandal. Readers may remember that last spring Goodson left the Dominican Republic as the magistrate was still reading his decision to send the case to trial. In August, judge Esther Agelan Casasnovas declared Goodson to be a fugitive from justice. As reported in Diario Libre, this is the first time that a United States citizen will have been extradited to the Dominican Republic, although two Dominican residents of the United States have been extradited in the past. The Southern District of Florida Federal Court accepted the Dominican request for extradition last Friday. Goodson figured as the head of the Hyundai Americas Corporation. In April, while magistrate Alfredo Rios Fabian was reading the restraining orders that consisted of a RD$50 million bail bond and no exit permit, Goodson walked out of the courtroom with his lawyers. The presiding judge had indicated that there were enough indications about Goodson's participation to hold him for trial.
During a speech celebrating the 58th anniversary of the Central Bank, Hector Valdez Albizu revealed that the Dominican economy had grown by 10.3% during the third quarter and brought the overall average GDP growth for the first three quarters to 7.3%. Central Bank governor Valdez Albizu said that the nation's GDP should show a 7% growth by the year's end. The official was emphatic as he told his audience that "we have gone beyond the predictions for economic growth (set by the IMF) and all indications are that the economy is heading towards a recovery of the growth rate similar to the last five years of the previous decade." The Central Bank's chief officer also said that as from 2006 the bank would change the data base for calculation the national accounts in a effort to still negative comments each time the Central Bank presents quarterly results. According to El Caribe, the governor also pointed out that the certificates of deposit held by the bank are totally backed by the hard currency monetary reserves. Valdez Albizu said that the bank used this tactic in order to avoid an increase in the value of the peso due to the large injection of capital into the economy.
Presidential Palace press director Rafael Nunez has told reporters that the government's economic team headed by Temistocles Montas is continuing its work to lighten the Dominican Republic's debt load. The government said that the Paris Club had "forgiven" US$137 million of the debt carried with the Paris Club group of nations. This brings the debt owed to the Paris Club to US$222 million. Japanese ambassador Okamoto told reporters that he was negotiating the Dominican debt with Japan, but he did not specify the total amount. The ambassador met with the president of the Chamber of Deputies last Friday to lobby for the approval of two loans that would allow the Japanese International Cooperation Agency to function independently.
The exchange market for hard currencies and Dominican pesos has handled over US$61 billion over the past 14 years. This money has been exchanged by commercial banks and money exchange houses all over the country. Part of the whole process was the legalization of exchange houses that before 1997 were considered to be a parallel or informal market, and outside the law. In 1997, just a little over US$2,01 billion was exchanged, but when the exchange houses were legalized, the numbers jumped to US$4.01 billion in 1998. In 2004, the exchange market handled US$8.639 billion and 49.9% was handled through the commercial banks. For the first nine months of 2005, the commercial banks have exchanged US$4.8 billion (56% of the total) and the exchange houses have dealt with US$3.7 billion (44% of the total).
Bishop Timothy Broglio, the Papal Nuncio to the Dominican Republic, called the false birth certificates facilitated by a Haitian priest in Mao, Valverde, "dishonest and immoral". At the same time, Bishop Tomas Abreu Herrera, the head of the Mao-Montecristi dioceses, justified the work Vigny Bellerive carried out 18 years ago as being "charitable". Broglio said that priests should respect the law, and act when there are situations of human rights abuses that need addressing, but without disregard for the rules and regulations that govern the working of Dominican institutions. The Papal Nuncio said that "the Church does not want to say that the end justifies the means." Monsignor Abreu Herrera told reporters that Bellerive did what he did because in the bateys (workers's quarters in sugar cane fields) and villages around Mao there was a whole generation of Haitian children that could not attend school because they had no birth certificates. Abreu said that "if Father Bellerive's charitable work was illegal, the civil registry official would have rejected these birth announcements, and he never did this." El Caribe reports that Abreu Herera said that everyone "has the right to a nationality" and that he hoped that the accusations against father Bellerive "are not just to distract attention from the passport scandal in Santo Domingo."
A front-page picture of a Native American Indian, with full headdress, selling gewgaws in Santo Domingo's Colon Park is certainly eye catching. The story reported by El Caribe says that the Dominican Republic does not have the necessary controls to know who is residing in the country. While Haitian nationals are still at the forefront of official concerns at the Migration Department in Santo Domingo, Minister of the Interior and the Police Franklin Almeyda still insists on a national census of foreign residents. There are no mechanisms for controlling the number of undocumented foreign nationals living in the Dominican Republic. Many illegal aliens residing in the country walk freely around the cities with nobody bothering them, because, according to El Caribe, the Migration department only worries about undocumented Haitians. The case of a Spaniard who has lived in the DR for 35 years shows the authorities' inaction when it comes to pursuing other foreign nationals with the same intensity as they go after Haitians. This Spaniard came to the Dominican Republic in 1971 and has never taken out any of the required papers. He told reporters, "I am here because of the relations between this country and Spain." A German man reported that he had been living here for 15 years and nobody has ever bothered him about his residence papers. When asked about this, an official from the legal department of the Migration office told reporters that "it is not the same to buy a ticket to come here from Europe, Asia or any other continent, as it is to walk across the frontier that divides us from Haiti." According to Immigration Department figures, Americans make up the largest foreign population with 10,027 documented residents. There are over 4,500 Cuban residents, and nearly the same number of Spanish legal residents.
New National Police chief Bernardo Santana Paez has told reporters that during his first month in office crime fell by 4.7% as the government put into motion its Plan for Democratic Security. He said that his investigators had solved 338 cases of homicide, rape, shootings, car theft and robberies. Santana Paez gave this news to a meeting of Ibero-American Police chiefs in Madrid, Spain. Santana Paez compared major crimes for the two months of 20 July - 19 August and 20 August - 19 September of 2005. During the former period there were 836 major crimes (52.7%) and in the latter period there were 762 major crimes or just 47.6%.
The National Milk Council has reached an agreement with milk suppliers to the government's breakfast program that will allow local farmers to sell at least 50% of the milk needed for the program. According to Cesareo and Pablo Contreras, the presidents of the Cattle Farmers and Farmers Association and the Federation of Cattle Farmers Associations, the agreement with CONALECHE came after a series of meetings with Conaleche officials last week. The cattle farmers also said that they had asked the Minister of Agriculture not to issue any import permits for powdered milk to the School Breakfast Program unless the suppliers had complied with the Law of Government Purchasing. Currently only 10% to 15% of the milk used in the school breakfast program is purchased locally.
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