2001 – Page 26

President Mejia is scheduled to speak to the nation on his plans for his second year in government. Press director Luis Gonzalez Fabra said the speech is full of optimism. The country expects to benefit short term from the injection of US$497.5 million as a result of the sovereign bonds. The money comes at a …

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El Caribe reports that on last Thursday, 27 September the government sent to Congress the contracts signed with European investors for the revitalization of the Ozama riverfront. The government signed a contract with Abira Financial Associates based in Athens, Greece for a pool of financing for the US$368 million project and another with Consorcio Rio …

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President Hipolito Mejia has appointed Pedro Russo, deputy minister of Public Works, as consul general in Port au Prince, Haiti. El Siglo reports that the post pays about US$50,000 a month. Russo held the post during the government of Salvador Jorge Blanco (PRD 1982-1986), and is known to be a close friend of President Mejia. …

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The administrator of the government-owned Banco de Reservas, Manuel Lara Hernandez, has confirmed that RD$1.4 billion will be borrowed from a pool of banks headed by the Banco Latinoamericano de Desarrollo de las Exportaciones (Bladex) based in Panama. In El Siglo, Lara defended the loan, arguing that the country has only borrowed 18% of its …

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Ultima Hora, one of two leading afternoon newspapers, has launched its new design. The sister newspaper to the Listin Diario will also be a free paper, following a world trend. The newspaper is expected to compete with Diario Libre, the nation’s first major free newspaper which was launched by a contending financial group.

Writer and politician Juan Bosch (born 1909) is terminally ill, and news reports indicate he is near the end. Medics at the intensive care unit of the Clinica Abel Gonzlaez say he is being kept alive artificially and is heavily sedated. “Now, at the end of the road, as a friend you get closer, even …

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Juan Bosch’s wife, Carmen Quidiello, visited Brunilda Contreras, the mother of an 18-year-old shot to death by a police corporal in Villa Francisca on Sunday. The mother publicly accused police corporal Francisco Reyes Santana, known as Tyson, for the murder of her son as part of brutal methods the police condone in order to reduce …

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President Mejia was to receive the credentials of new ambassadors from Ecuador, Korea, Belgium, Nigeria and Egypt today. They are Eduardo Cabeza Molina (Ecuador), Kim Choy Uck (Korea), Baudoin Vandermuslst (Belgium), Florentino Adenike Ukonga (Nigeria), and Hamdia W. Saleh (Egypt).

Over the weekend, the Armed Forces and the National Department of Investigations (DNI) arrested nine Pakistanis, Arabs and Africans in the DR. They also seized equipment and documents from an Asian person who left the DR at the beginning of September, leaving behind a large amount of property including a vehicle and a computer. As …

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The Migration Department has fired more than one hundred inspectors and supervisors in the last four months, according to Listin Diario newspaper. The department says the fired workers were letting people without proper documentation travel to the US and Europe. The staff worked in airports around the country: Las Americas International, Gregorio Luperón in Puerto …

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