2000 – Page 36

On the front page of today?s sports section, Listin Diario speculates that Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs, Alex Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners, and Manny Ramirez of the Cleveland Indians, could very soon become the first Big League baseball players to win US$20 million a year contracts. The newspaper states that Alex Rodriguez 8-figure …

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The governing body of the Santo Domingo Autonomous University (UASD) voted to suspend instruction and close the campus until Friday as a response to the violence that erupted there yesterday. Members of militant student organizations, some of whom had been previously suspended for similar incitements, confronted university security members, and later police. Four were reported …

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The Director of Customs, Vicente Sanchez Baret, announced that a new schedule of customs duties would go into effect in order to conform the DR to standards imposed by the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), to which the DR is a signatory. Sanchez Baret said that the new tariffs would go into effect …

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If the Chamber of Deputies follows the lead of the Senate, Congress will extend the current legislative session by sixty days. The measure to extend the session, submitted to the upper chamber by its President, Ramon Alburquerque, was passed unanimously yesterday. The Deputies will vote on the issue later this week. The current congressional session …

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The Chamber of Deputies approved the bill that would mandate an expenditure on municipalities equal to 7% of the annual national budget. The bill modifies the existing law, dating from 1997, which assigns 4% to municipalities. The new bill provides that no municipality would receive less than DR$400,000 per month. It also provides that no …

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The senate issued a subpoena to Juan Francisco Benoit, Director of the Essential Medicines Program (PROMESE), who has charged that senators had taken bribes. Benoit went on the TV program ?Hoy Mismo? recently and stated that the proposed new law on social security would be beneficial to bankers. Accordingly, they have paid bribes to certain …

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The head of the Justice Ministry?s anti-corruption office confirmed that the former internal auditor of the National Lottery (LN) and an uncle of his who supplied the LN with ?scratch-and-win? lottery cards have been ?detained? since Monday. Jesus Feliz, the special anti-corruption prosecutor stated that Frank Lopez and his uncle, Ismael Lopez Sanchez, are in …

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Officials of the Foreign Affairs and Armed Forces Ministries escorted two Haitian police officers to the VIP Salon of Santo Domingo?s Las Americas Airport to await departure of the Copa Airlines flight that would carry them first to Caracas, and then on to Quito, and political asylum in Ecuador. The pair, Seide Didier and Fritz …

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Education Minister Milagros Ortiz Bosch met yesterday with subordinates in charge of the school breakfast program, as well as suppliers, Agriculture Ministry officials, school district officers, and local government representatives. The group had been assembled to work out some of the problems that have been reported in the program that is supposed to provide a …

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