2005 – Page 269

Serumberto Reynoso Mota, a.k.a. “Vantroi”, turned himself in after negotiating with the Police through representatives of the Dominican Human Rights Committee. After dodging the police for several months, Vantroi told reporters that he “could not keep running because (he was) innocent of all this.” The “all this” referred to by the young fugitive are the …

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If you are a Dominican high school graduate and want to become a policeman, no problem. There are 3,500 vacancies for new recruits. The police chief, Major General Manuel de Jesus Perez Sanchez admits that salaries are not at all attractive to young people, and the job is not all that attractive, either. Only young …

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Exciting baseball saw the Aguilas Cibaenas go from half a game back to a one and a half game lead over the Tigres de Licey. The weekend’s games also saw the re-entry of major league stars such as Bartolo Colon and Miguel Tejada in the lineup for the Aguilas.  On Friday night the Estrellas Orientales …

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The Dominican Republic will be switching over to a ten-digit telephone system on 31 January. All local calls will now have to use the 809 area code allocated to the Caribbean many years ago, which was recently re-assigned to the Dominican Republic. Therefore, a local call to a domestic seven-digit telephone number as well as …

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The Dominican Republic could have saved as much as US$300 million in 2004 if it had a better supervision and knowledge of international oil prices. Jose Luis Moreno San Juan, the head of the Energy Institute at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, said that 80% of the petroleum imported into the country is bought …

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A sigh of relief was heard in the hallways of the Ministry of Finance as minister Vicente Bengoa announced that the Paris Club nations had agreed to a rescheduling of the Dominican Republic’s outstanding debt. This step will allow the IMF agreement to move forward without further difficulties. Bengoa said that the rescheduling frees the …

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The picture in the national press showed a flag-draped coffin being carried by a mass of young people. The caption told of a young hoodlum killed in a gang shoot out, and the ceremony surrounding the burial. Today, the sharp reactions of military and police officials at the use of the flag in these circumstances …

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United States ambassador Hans Hertell told reporters that the seizure of the 1,387 kilos of cocaine was a “big and important” operation, which will prove a major test for the Dominican justice system. He confirmed that the United States would try to obtain arrest warrants for the people connected to the armed forces and the …

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An illness that has practically disappeared from most countries is now on the rise in the Dominican Republic. El Caribe is reporting that tuberculosis rates have increased, and that the death rate from TB is also up. The latest figures from the National Program for Tuberculosis Control (PNCT) reveal that the prevalence of tuberculosis in …

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The United States ambassador told reporters that the free trade agreement called “DR-CAFTA” is, in his words, “just around the corner.” At the same time he urged the Dominican legislators to ratify the agreement as soon as possible. Hertell called the agreement “one of President Bush’s most important initiatives in the Western Hemisphere.”  Hertell made …

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