President Hipólito Mejía appointed Miguel Pichardo Olivier, Elías Brache, José Alejandro Ayuso and Mercedes Cabral de Arcalá to the posts of deputy ministers at the Ministry of Foreign Relations. He also confirmed Mercedes Cabral de Arcalá as Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs. The present Minister is Hugo Tolentino Dipp, who replaced Eduardo Latorre on 16 August. Decree 495-00 establishes that Miguel Pichardo Olivier, a career diplomat, will be the new Deputy Minister for Foreign Policy. Exterior. He has worked for several years in the Ministry, having been in charge of the legal department, and the United Nations and OAS department. He has also served in diplomatic posts in Spain and Colombia. Elías Brache was appointed Deputy Minister of General Affairs (administrative matters). A graduate of the UNPHU Law School he has worked with the Messina y Asociados and Pereyra y Biaggi law firms. He is a businessman whose company distributes and sells cellular phones. Jose Alejandro Ayuso, a lawyer and expert in international economics, is the new Deputy Minister for Consular Affairs. He has a masters in international law from the Universidad Aix Marseille and was consultant for the United Nations Program for the modernization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is an associate researcher at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. Mercedes Cabral de Arcalá was confirmed in her post as Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs. She is a lawyer with specialty in international law and speaks six languages.
