2010 – Page 206

There will be three women senators and 35 women deputies among the 215 legislators in the 2010-2016 Congress, reports El Nacional. This is 9% of the Senate and 19% of the Chamber of Deputies. There are 183 deputies and 32 senators in total. The women senators are Cristina Lizardo (Santo Domingo Province), Amarilis Santana (La …

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Political analyst Juan Bolivar Diaz comments on the results of the 16 May election in Hoy. “No matter how much one thinks about the results of the Sunday 16 election, one can only find one winner, President Leonel Fernandez, who threw himself into the campaign with all the power of the state behind him in …

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The organization that groups shopping malls in the DR, ONEC, has called on the government to put the brakes on taking on public debt. He said that the public debt is already more than 40% of the Gross Domestic Product. Pedro Perez Gonzalez, president, Antonio Ramos, vice president and Ernesto Martinez, treasurer attended a discussion …

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The Dominican Telecommunications Institute (Indotel) warns that the quality of cell phone services in the Dominican Republic is declining. Jose Rafael Vargas, president of Indotel, said the office plans to conduct an in-depth study with foreign consultants to examine the quality of mobile communications and the Internet networks to establish what actions and corrections are …

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Right after the 16 May election, blackouts are once again being felt in Santo Domingo. Listin Diario explains why. The government has defaulted on its promise to keep arrears with power generators to 45 days. The newspaper says that after making a payment of US$287 million in March in order to pass the first evaluation …

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The Ministry of Economy and Planning says that 31.4% of the Dominican population “lives together”, 18.5% of the population is married, and 1.5% (104,873) is divorced. The statistics in the report on the System of Social Indicators of the DR show that 2,155,144 people are living as couples without being married, as reported in Diario …

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7dias.com.do announces that the Listin Diario Communications Group has been purchased by the Corripio and Vicini business groups. Listin Diario was in considerable debt following the collapse of Baninter. 7dias.com.do said the Grupo Corripio is now controlling the Listin’s operations. Pepin Corripio, who now heads the media group board, said that all employees would continue …

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The French government will channel loans for US$25 million for the medium and long-term financing of private business in the DR through Proparco and the Banco Popular. The Promotion, Participation for Economic Cooperation (Proparco) is a development financial institution partly held by the French Agency for Development (AFD) and private shareholders. The Banco Popular will …

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Journalist Corey Dade reports in the Wall Street Journal on how Dominican beauty salons have displaced African-American hairdressers. The Dominican stylists have been successful in styling and straightening hair, and do this for better prices, less time and longer-lasting styling techniques. “Armed with a blow dryer and brush, deft wrist action and shrewd promotional tactics, …

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Dominican Junot Diaz will help choose future Pulitzer Prize winners. On 20 May, Columbia University announced the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose work explores the Dominican-American immigrant experience, has been elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board. Diaz works as a creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2008 he won the Pulitzer Prize …

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