2008 – Page 274

The Central Electoral Board (JCE) has handed the political parties the database on the 124,688 people who will staff the polling stations on 16 May. The president of the JCE Administrative Chamber, Roberto Rosario, told reporters that 77,339 were female and 42,392 were male. The JCE goal was to garner 103,000 volunteers for election duty. …

Read more…

The DR continues to take an active role in talks for peace and easing of regional tensions. Foreign Relations Minister Carlos Morales will preside over the 25th Consulting Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Relations of the Organization of American States that will take place today in Washington, D.C. The ministers will analyze the report presented …

Read more…

According to the Central Bank, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was down just a fraction in February (0.03%) in relation to January. Inflation for the first two months of the year, according to the Central Bank, was just 1.06%. A major factor in the decrease in the index was a series of lower prices for …

Read more…

The foreign debt of the Dominican Republic has grown by 18.3% during the current Fernandez administration. This contrasts sharply with the first (1996-2000) Leonel Fernandez administration, which saw a -3.3% reduction in the nation’s foreign debt. The current figure is US$7.542 billion, up from US$6.379 billion in 2004. The report from the Ministry of the …

Read more…

Private aviation does not get much play in the Dominican Republic, with less than 4,000 flights a year, according to Airport Authority chairman Andres Vanderhorst. The Bahamas get 69,000 small craft arrivals every year. According to reports in Listin Diario, the authority is submitting a decree for Presidential approval that would eliminate much of the …

Read more…

The Ministry of the Environment has announced that the Seaboard Caribbean, the ship that spilled hundreds of gallons of fuel oil in Punta Caucedo, affecting beaches in Boca Chica, has paid the fines that were levied. The ship paid RD$7,095,314, according to the Diario Libre. The sum was divided between punitive damages and the cost …

Read more…

A press release from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce indicates that if the transport unions, especially the ones that transport hundreds of thousands of workers who flock to Santo Domingo on a daily basis, choose to increase their fares, the government will put an end to the subsidy on diesel fuel. The recent leap …

Read more…

The guilty parties in the Renove fraud case are in custody, at least in theory. Pedro Franco Badia is under house arrest until 2011, and so is Alfredo Pulinario Linares (Cambita). Transport union czars Antonio Marte and Blas Peralta were sent to Najayo Prison in San Cristobal, but a few hours later they were transferred …

Read more…

Minority party presidential candidate Guillermo Moreno criticized that the state prosecutors and the Central Electoral Board (JCE) have not acted to restrain the continuing practice of political patronage. “How is it possible that in the country there is not respect for the law and that a political party can use the national budget to pay …

Read more…

Adriano Miguel Tejada, executive editor of Diario Libre, pinpoints the need for more governmental emphasis in basic education when highlighting that many of the weaknesses of Dominican society today are due to a lack of priority of education in the governmental budget. “Those that still doubt the impact a deficit in funding for education has …

Read more…