2003 – Page 288

With the market having shifted to a rate of RD$23 to US$1, President Hipolito Mejia says that he would like the dollar to be set at a rate of RD$20 to US$1. President Mejia, nevertheless, said that the Monetary Board would determine at what price the rate is set.  Meanwhile, business sectors have criticized the …

Read more…

Superintendent of Power Julio Cross told El Caribe that as of this month users should begin to receive credits on their bills for hours of blackouts suffered. He said that the Superintendence has installed a system called ?escada? that permits it to determine the origin and cause of a blackout. Cross also says that power …

Read more…

In two consecutive readings on Friday, the Senate approved the 2003 National Budget of RD$83 billion, the same total requested by the government, without any major changes.  El Caribe newspaper reports that to get the congressmen to approve the budget, the Executive Branch nevertheless had to redistribute RD$62 million among non-governmental agencies mostly belonging to …

Read more…

At the start of government, the Mejia administration shortened from 30 days to 15 days the payment period for public employees to increase the cash flow of the workers. But for many it is not a matter of getting paid twice or month or once a month, but of getting paid at all. Diario Libre …

Read more…

The Corporacion de Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Santo Domingo (CAASD) says that aside from wasteful water habits and leaks in cisterns and pipes, which greatly account for inordinate levels of water consumption, one may also attribute the excessive waste to the inefficiency of toilets. Julio Suero Marranzini, director of the city water and sewage department, …

Read more…

El Caribe reports on the recent births of a second generation of the Ashy-faced Barn Owl species at the Santo Domingo Zoo. The Ashy-faced Barn Owl is in danger of extinction on the island of Hispaniola, due to the encroachment of human populations on its habitats and the menace of the bigger and stronger North …

Read more…

Diario Libre reports that the amount of drugs confiscated in Dominican jails would be enough to serve a portion of marijuana, crack or cocaine to one out of every six inmates in the total jail population of 17,000. Last year, the authorities confiscated 2,552 portions of drugs from 35 inmates. The newspaper reports that the …

Read more…

President Hipolito Mejia said there is no reason to fear that the Pan American Games will be prevented from being held in the Dominican Republic. He again promised that the government would meet all the original commitments it had made in connection with the Games. ?Here, everyone is afraid of everything. We have the syndrome …

Read more…

The Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper is running a five-part series on the Major League Baseball academies operating in the Dominican Republic. These academies have been established as the teams seek to find the next Sammy Sosa and Pedro Martinez, while securing their services at bargain prices. The Star Tribune series, written by Jim Souham, reports …

Read more…

In an induction ceremony attended by celebrities such as merengue bandleader To?o Rosario, President Hipolito Mejia swore in his new attorney general, the virtually unknown Victor Cespedes. Cespedes replaces Virgilio Bello Rosa, who resigned after publicly referring to lack of will within the government to fight corruption.  El Caribe newspaper describes Victor Manuel Cespedes Martinez …

Read more…