2003 – Page 78

Ana Mitila Lora writes in the Listin Diario today that construction of the huge cathedral being erected through taxpayer money on grounds belonging to the Ministry of Armed Forces was resumed two weeks ago. She reports that the temple is in the final phases of construction and comments that the cost of the cathedral has …

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Hatuey Decamps was declared the winner of last weekend’s PRD convention, in which he contested the pre-Presidential ticket with Ramon Alburquerque and Jose Rafael Abinader. While Decamps obtained 63.45% of the 389,605 votes cast on Sunday, his opponents are alleging “massive fraud”. Nonetheless, it appears that Decamps will be proclaimed the official PRD candidate at …

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Diario Libre’s “ADC – Antes de comenzar” opening editorial comment, by Anibal de Castro, focuses once more on the question of telephone surveillance. It remarks that Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch’s telephone conversations were routinely monitored – and even recorded – when she did her stint as Acting President while President Hipolito Mejia was out of …

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Miriam Brito, the widow of businessman Jose Castro, who was shot dead by a member of his domestic staff, with the support of Castro’s wife and older children in an apparent household mutiny, has been released from jail. Brito, her children, and the servant who fired the shot, all allege that Castro had subjected them …

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President Hipolito Mejia ordered tax exemptions yesterday to key officials in city governments, allowing them to import vehicles costing less than US$30,000 duty-free. President Mejia also ordered that the government make RD$150 million in loans available to municipal governments that have not set aside sufficient reserves for the payment of the 13th Christmas wage. These …

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Diario Libre informs that Cesar Mella, the well-known psychiatrist who is also the medical advisor to the President (but who is politically partial to Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch), had scheduled a conference in El Seibo as part of Ortiz Bosch’s campaign. When the popular Mella arrived to speak in the eastern city of El Seibo, …

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With three quarters of the votes counted, the president of the PRD, Hatuey de Camps, has accumulated 186,838 votes, or 64% of the total of the first of two primaries called by PRD party members. The voting took place nationwide on Sunday, 7 December and 3,000 polling centers were opened. De Camps has a wide-margined …

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Former Santiago senator Jose Rafael Abinader said he would impugn the first primary on grounds that massive fraud took place. He said he detected urns that, when opened prior to the vote, contained ballots favoring Hatuey de Camps, as reported in El Nacional newspaper. El Caribe newspaper says that Abinader estimates the turn-out to have …

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The US will send Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Ambassador Roger Noriega to meet with President Hipolito Mejia, business advocates, leaders of the three main political parties, Central Electoral Board judges, members of Congress and the press during his two-day visit. As reported in El Caribe, Noriega arrives today, 10 December, with the …

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Bear Sterns writes today that the government and visiting IMF mission are reportedly putting the final touches on a revised agreement. Nevertheless, Franco Uccelli states that the question of how to raise revenues by 0.5% of the GDP is still a pending issue. “The government expects to have a final agreement ready by as early …

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