2003 – Page 40

British Ambassador Andy Ashcroft paid a courtesy visit to the Chamber of Deputies yesterday, where he notified its president, Alfredo Pacheco, that British investment in the Dominican Republic amounted to US$400 million. He stated that this showed that foreign investors had confidence in the Dominican market. Trade relations between the DR and Great Britain are …

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A propane gas storage tanker exploded in the Villa Agricolas district of the capital yesterday, destroying the gas supply depot and injuring seven people. Seven thousand gallons of gas threw 200-meter flames up into the air, causing widespread panic, according to reports. Several cars were also burned as a result of the explosion. The injured …

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President Hipolito Mejia is on the road again, this time to Bolivia and Brazil. He will first attend this week’s Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, also to be attended by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, giving rise to speculation that the two will meet. Hoy’s Emilio Lapayesse writes …

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The news of last week’s appearance by President Hipolito Mejia on the US Spanish-language Univision TV channel is beginning to make waves in the country. During the interview, the President made several controversial comments, including insinuations about the sexual preferences of opposition party members, and used a racist term to refer to a camera operator. …

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Tuesday’s day of protest was a success, is the consensus in today’s newspapers. Even the government is conceding that the strike was irreproachable and represented a legitimate expression of protest. Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch went as far to say that the government owed the people an apology: “It was a protest that revealed a real …

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El Caribe reports on the heartbreak of the bereaved families of those killed on Tuesday. A seventh victim, a woman, died in the northern town of Navarrete, where protests continued into Wednesday. As well as the dead, the newspapers report that 34 were injured and 544 were taken into police custody. The relatives of a …

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“The electric system is between hope and darkness” is El Caribe’s depiction of what it goes on to describe as “the worst stint of power cuts in ten years.” The generating companies continue to wait for the government and the distributors to pay their debts, while supply has sunk to as little as 50% of …

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The two rival blocks of Presidential pre-candidates for the ruling PRD have called on the party’s National Executive Committee (CEN) to convene party conventions that will determine the procedures for the selection of their ultimate Presidential candidate. The two meetings will differ on one key point, however – one will allow Presidential re-election and the …

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At a meeting of opposition PLD party supporters last night, Presidential candidate Leonel Fernandez told the audience that President Hipolito Mejia was their greatest ally, because “he is helping us with his way of handling things, and for this reason we are not offended by his insults.” Fernandez predicted that his party would command support …

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The Economist Intelligence Unit profiles the events in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, putting the strike into political and economic context. It ends with a gloomy prognosis, saying that economic recovery is unlikely and predicting further strikes and possibly more deaths between now and the election in May 2004. For the complete text of the …

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