2004 – Page 252

In two separate editions El Caribe presents some original solutions to the money problems we are all going through. In an article on Saturday, El Caribe revealed that shopping at Chinese markets is cheaper than at most of the supermarkets in the country. Meat was cited at RD$20 less a pound at the Chinese markets. …

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The Dominican Republic won its first game against Mexico, 6-5, making it the favorite to win the series. For details, see http://www.lidom.com/ Licey seeks to win the 15th victory in Caribbean Series for the Dominican Republic in the tournament’s 46th year. The DR’s Aguilas Cibaenas were crowned last year’s champions in Puerto Rico. The DR …

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The 48-hour protest strike that brought the country to a virtual standstill on Wednesday and Thursday came to an end at 6:00am today – not 6:00pm yesterday as was reported in Thursday’s DR1 news. Friday’s newspapers are reporting up to eight dead, dozens injured and 500 detained during the strike period. The dead range from …

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The Diario Libre’s editorial says that no one should regard this strike as successful. The street battles and preventive detentions were reminders of past authoritarianism, and, says the editorialist, strikes achieve nothing while entailing a high cost. The column ends by saying that those who really want to protest should do so with their vote …

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El Caribe newspaper focuses on the upsurge of the so-called “bandas blancas”, or paramilitary gangs, that according to Capotillo slum barrio community leaders are financed by well-known drug dealers operating within the barrio and other hotspots across the country. Capotillo community leader Abel Rojas attributed much of the violence that shook the district during the …

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President Hipolito Mejia reiterated his position on this week’s strike, saying that the ones who suffer most are the poor. “I regret this situation, because those who suffer are the most needy,” he told reporters yesterday. The President claimed that the organizers had not been interested in meeting with him, “neither before nor after” the …

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The controversial Ley de Lemas, or Preferential Presidential Vote, went through a preliminary phase of being made into law with a first reading by the senators yesterday evening. Of those 25 present, 19 voted in favor, and the remaining 6 voted against. The sense of urgency awarded to the occasion was truncated, however, by no …

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One of the driving forces behind the proposed electoral reform bill, Tirso Mejia Ricart, who also heads the Governmental Committee for State Reform (Conare), hit back at the law’s detractors, saying the law represented “a step forward in the process towards democracy” because it would “do away with the dominance of party oligarchies” in government. …

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Diario Libre’s Adriano Miguel Tejada says that political parties are unable to settle their own differences and incapable of listening to the voice of the people, as expressed through this week’s two-day protest strike. “If the voice of the people is the voice of God, then the senators and deputies are atheists.” He ends by …

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Central Electoral Board (JCE) president Luis Arias revealed yesterday that he has been receiving calls from his counterparts in other parts of the world, who are expressing surprise at the imminent and apparently inevitable approval of electoral reform, in the shape of the Preferential Presidential Vote (Ley de Lemas), with less than four months to …

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