DR1 Daily News - Friday, 5 August 2016

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May 3, 2000
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Santo Domingo celebrates its 518th anniversary
US Labor Secretary to represent US at Medina inauguration
Brookings: DR ranks low in affordable financial services
No more bail for speeding and drunk driving
UK Embassy and Unicef donate system to combat child pornography
Two little girls rescued from kidnapper
Sports scholarships for Dominican baseball players
Flor de Azucar opens in Dominican cinemas
Dominicans in the Olympics
Tono Rosario and Yiyo Sarante at JetSet Club



Santo Domingo celebrates its 518th anniversary
Friday, 5 August 2016, marks the 518th anniversary of the founding of the capital city of the Dominican Republic, officially known as Santo Domingo de Guzman. The city government (ADN) has planned an early morning celebration in Columbus Park adjacent to the Palacio Consistorial. The event includes the ringing of the bells of the Palacio Consistorial and the raising of the flags of the Dominican Republic and the city of Santo Domingo. As part of the ceremony, the Fireman?s Band will be playing music associated with Santo Domingo as well as the national anthem.
The city of Santo Domingo was founded by Bartolome Colon, brother of Great Admiral Christopher Columbus, on 5 August 1498, on the eastern side of the Ozama River. It is the only city in the Western Hemisphere where the Columbus family ever lived.

US Labor Secretary to represent US at Medina inauguration
The United States announced that Thomas Perez, whose parents are Dominicans, will represent the US Government at the inauguration of President Danilo Medina on 16 August 2016. He will be accompanied by Mari Carmen Aponte, recently appointed Acting Assistant Secretary in the Department of State's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Aponte is of Puerto Rican descent.

Brookings: DR ranks low in affordable financial services
The 2016 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) report indicated that Dominican Republic is ranked 20th out of a selection of 26 countries around the world in providing financial services aimed at low income households.
The report, released by the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution of Washington, D.C., indicated that the DR received an overall score of 62%, barely beating Haiti?s score, which was 60%.
Financial inclusion is defined as the delivery of financial services at affordable costs to disadvantaged and low-income segments of society. The 2016 report focused on ?Advancing Equitable Financial Ecosystems?, and included efforts made to provide formal financial services to all socio-economic groups in a given country.
Financial inclusion is deemed a key factor in strengthening the household level finances of low income residents and is seen as a mechanism to broaden the impacts of government economic development policies and strategies.
This year?s report, the second in an annual series, measured countries on four ?dimensions? of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and the adoption of traditional and digital financial services.
The Dominican Republic received 62% of the total possible points across all four dimensions, meaning it ranked 20th out of 26 countries on overall score.
Other interesting findings pertaining to the country include:
?The Dominican Republic is the only new 2016 FDIP country in the Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) region in which women either exceeded or equaled men in terms of the percentage of individuals who held accounts with a formal financial institution.
? In 2014, the Dominican Republic was one of six markets that launched mobile money deployments for the first time. Considering how recently these mobile money services were deployed, mobile money usage in the Dominican Republic is quite robust compared with economically and geographically similar countries.
? With respect to consumer protection, recent revisions to financial consumer protection regulations in the Dominican Republic included provisions for disclosure of financial services costs and consumer rights.
The report recommended creating a national financial inclusion strategy that could help the Dominican Republic better identify the roles of key stakeholders in promoting financial inclusion, locate any gaps in existing regulation, and facilitate coordination among the public and private sectors. It recommends that a comprehensive electronic money regulatory framework be developed. Also that the country engage with multinational financial inclusion networks to foster knowledge-sharing.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fdip_20160803_country_summaries.pdf

No more bail for speeding and drunk driving
Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said he has instructed prosecutors to request pre-trial custody for those caught violating Traffic Law 241-67.
During a press conference in the presence of the Supreme Court of Justice president Mariano German, Dominguez said that they have agreed on these more drastic measures in the cases also in the cases of motorists who are found to be driving under the influence or speeding. Likewise, if the vehicle is not insured, prosecutors may no longer request pre-trial custody for the offender.
An editorial in Diario Libre says that the government just needs to enforce compliance with Traffic Law 241-67. The law already calls for jail sentences of 2-5 years for those driving under the influence and without insurance. The editorialist asks: ?Do the judges comply with the law??
The editorial also observes: ?How is it possible that alcoholic beverages are sold at gas stations? That it is allowed to drink and drive? Where are the breath testers??
http://www.noticiassin.com/2016/08/...ley-de-transito-fiscales-solicitaran-prision/
http://www.listindiario.com/la-repu...-conductores-ebrios-y-por-exceso-de-velocidad
http://elnacional.com.do/allanan-en-busca-de-dos-ninas-raptadas-higuey/
http://www.diariolibre.com/opinion/am/empecemos-por-cumplir-la-ley-CD4566631

UK Embassy and Unicef donate system to combat child pornography
As part of a world effort to stop child pornography, the United Nations Children?s Fund and the United Kingdom Embassy in the Dominican Republic are providing funding for the installation of a system to combat child pornography. The system will be implemented by the Specialized Prosecution against Delinquency and High Tech Crime (PEDATEC).
Speaking for Unicef, adjunct representative of the agency Sayo Aoki said that statistics show that children and adolescents ages 12 to 19 years, make up the majority of users of the Internet in the Dominican Republic and their access to the internet without parental supervision exposes this group to great risks.
Twenty-four local prosecutors and law enforcement officers participated in the course entitled, ?Techniques to combat online child pornography?. Nicholas Fowler, liaison of the Criminal Investigation Agency of the UK in Santo Domingo, said that the system detected that up to 21,000 persons may have participated in child pornography in the DR. He said most of the people who exchange pornographic images end up seeking out children for sexual relations. He said this kind of abuse is not limited to foreign tourists.
The Ambassador of UK in the country, Chris Campbell highlighted that the new system will be a powerful tool to find the people that are committing these types of crime.
Judge John Henry Reynoso, director of Pedatec, said that the new system will help identify these predators.
Unicef reports that the Internet and mobile phones are increasingly exposing children to the risk of sexual violence as adults turn to the Internet to pursue sexual relationships with children. There has also been an increase in the number of images of child abuse being on the internet. Reynoso pointed out that children themselves also send each other sexualized messages or images on their mobile phones, so called ?sexting?, which puts them at risk for becoming victims of abuse.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-repu...intercambiaron-pornografia-infantil-en-un-ano
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias...rnografia-infantil-en-el-ultimo-ano-GA4552866

Two little girls rescued from kidnapper
The police have returned two girls who were kidnapped to their families.
The case, which involved the abduction of two small children in Higuey, was first made known on El Gobierno de la Tarde talk show on Z101.3 FM. The mother of one of the two three-year old girls appealed to the radio station for help in locating the girls, cousins Steicy Morillo Hernandez and Daisy Severino Hernandez. The Police used a surveillance video of a neighborhood colmado that showed the suspect walking hand in hand with the two girls near Calle Orlando Martinez in Villa Cerro, Higuey near where he kidnapped the girls. The suspect was said to be an acquaintance of the family. The girls were taken from their home in Brisas del Duey in Higuey.
The girls went missing when the kidnapper visited the family home of the girls prior to the kidnapping. As the mother of one of the girls prepared lunch, the suspect disappeared with the two girls.
The Police launched an intense search in Higuey to find the girls.
Once found, the police officer sent a Twitter message with a photo of the two girls.
The girls were taken to the Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia public hospital in Higuey to be checked.
http://www.noticiassin.com/2016/08/encuentran-ninas-fueron-raptadas-en-higuey/
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias...biendo-con-el-padre-de-una-de-ellas-GD4555091

Sports scholarships for Dominican baseball players
U-League in the Dominican Republic and Home Field Hunter from Puerto Rico are working together to help Dominican students get US university sports scholarships for academic and athletic development. Carlos Miguel Diaz Torres, of Home Field Hunter, seeks to connect English-speaking Dominican students with the study programs abroad. He is working closely with the Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy to facilitate Dominicans studying abroad. He told Diario Libre that to date he has helped arrange for 263 scholarships.
He explained that those student athletes in college who participate in the program can still be recruited by the teams in Major League Baseball. But, if this doesn?t happen, the scholarships open doors for the players to develop their academic careers.
A first recruitment event was held this week at the UNPHU university baseball field, were U-League has its base operation.
http://u-league.net
http://homefieldhunter.com

Flor de Azucar opens in Dominican cinemas
Lauded by critics for its spectacular photography, the film ?Flor de Azucar? opened last week at cinemas in the Dominican Republic. It is an adaptation of the seven-page short story ?La Noche Buena de Encarnacion Mendoza,? by former Dominican President and famous story-writer Juan Bosch. Producer Fernando Baez says the film is a cry out for freedom, love and justice. It is a grassroots snapshot into life in the countryside, and the Dominican-Haitian situation. He said it focuses on what unites Dominicans and Haitians instead of at what divide us. The main roles are played by Dominican actors Laura Lebron and Hector Anibal.
Flor de Azucar is being shown at movie theaters at the Agora Mall (4:30pm), Galeria 360, Downtown Center, Fine Arts Novocentro in Santo Domingo.

Victor Estrella to match Fabio Fognini in Rio
For the first time in history, a Dominican tennis player will participate in an Olympic Games. Dominican Victor Estrella, ranked 87th in the world, will face Fabio Fognini of Italy, ranked 41st. Estrella?s match in the men?s tennis singles competition is scheduled for Sunday, 7 August 2016.
https://www.rio2016.com/en/tennis-standings-te-mens-singles

Dominicans in the Olympics

The Dominican sports delegation to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics includes 29 athletes competing in 11 sports. The Dominican athletes are competing in: archery, athletics, boxing, cycling road, equestrian, judo, shooting, swimming, taekwondo, tennis and weightlifting.
Luguelin Santos, winner of the silver medal in the 400m dash in the London 2012 Olympics, is the flag-bearer in the opening ceremony on 5 August 2016.
Mark these dates to follow the Dominican athletes. Diario Libre shares a summary of when Dominicans will be competing in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics:
5 August 2016:
Archery. Yessica Camilo. Women?s individual ranking round.
6 August:
Cycling. Diego Milan. Cycling Road
7 August:
Tennis. Victor Estrella. Men?s singles.
Judo. Wander Mateo (66kg)
Weight lifting. Luis Garcia.
Weightlifting. Beatriz Piron (48kg)
8 August:
Weightlifting. Yuderqui Contreras (48kg)
9 August:
Johnny Perez (100 freestyle swimming)
10 August:
Yvonne Losos, equestrian
12 August:
Athletics. Luguelin Santos (400 meters)
Swimming Dorian McMenemy (50 m freestyle)
13 August:
Athletics. Yancarlos Martinez
13 August:
Boxing. Leonel de los Santos (52kg)
14 August:
Boxing. Hector Luis Garcia (56 kg)
Athletics. Ana Tima (triple jump)
15 August:
Athletics. Mariely Sanchez (200 meters)
Athletics. Jaunder Santos (400 meters hurdles)
16 August:
Athletics. Stanly del Carmen (200 meters)
Athletics. Yancarlos Martinez.
17 August:
Taekwondo. Luisito Pie (58 kg)
18 August:
Track and field. 4 x 100.
19 August:
Katherine Rodriguez (67kg)
Judo: Moises Hernandez (80 kg)
Track and field 4 x 400.
Athletics. Mayobanex D?Oleo (Men?s 4 x 100 relay)
Shooting: Eduardo Jose Lorenzo (Shooting Trap Men)
Athletics: Luis Enrique Charles (Men?s 4 x 400 relay)
https://www.rio2016.com/en/dominican-republic
http://www.diariolibre.com/deportes...canos-y-sus-fechas-asignadas-en-rio-FA4516744

Tono Rosario and Yiyo Sarante at JetSet Club
Merengue band star Tono Rosario will be performing live at the JetSet Club at Av. Independencia on Monday, 8 August 2016 from 10pm. He is famous for his songs, ?Tu amor fue diferente, ?Que se sepa,? ?Disculpame,? Beso a beso?, among many others.
Salsa Singer Yiyo Sarante will share the stage with Rosario. He will be performing his hits ?Terco coraz?n,? ?Maldita primavera,? ?Quedate,? among others.
Tickets at the door are RD$1,000-RD$1,300.