2015 – Page 50

Aerodom has announced that an airplane crash simulation exercise will be held at Las Americas International Airport from 9 to 11:30am today, Wednesday, 11 November 2015. The exercise will include testing the sirens and the use of ambulances and firefighting units in the area. The simulation is taking place to comply with international aviation regulations.

Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito continues to lobby for a bill aimed at creating new legal mechanisms for seizing goods obtained illicitly through organized crime and drug trafficking to pass in Congress. The mechanisms would also be applied in cases of unlawful enrichment through corruption in government. Senators Adriano Sanchez Roa, Julio Cesar Valentin and …

Read more…

Speaking in Santo Domingo yesterday, Tuesday 10 November 2015, international economics and policy expert Moises Naim observed that the high levels of crime in Latin America are directly related to the impunity that exists towards crime and murder and gun ownership. He said that this complacency is one of the greatest threats affecting humanity, the …

Read more…

Professors at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) began a 72-hour strike yesterday, Tuesday 10 November 2015. Their list of demands includes a 40% salary increase and the allocation of 5% of the national budget to the university. UASD Professors Association Federation (Faprouasd) president Santiago Guillermo said that the protest had the support of …

Read more…

It appears that the rope will break where it is thinnest in the latest corruption case at the Office of Supervisory Engineers of State Public Works (OISOE). El Nacional reports that the recent corruption scandal at the OISOE so far has only lead to lower-ranking officials being penalized, without touching the upper echelons. In the …

Read more…

A Santo Domingo judge has sent a Venezuelan man to pre-trial detention for a period of three months on charges of defrauding 14 young people out of money for obtaining United States visas. Kilsi Blanco Mora was sent to La Victoria jail after the court heard that he had promised young men that they would …

Read more…

SB Nation reports that team rookies 20-year old Andrew Wiggins and 19-year old Karl-Anthony Towns have the sports press focusing on the Minnesota Timberwolves. In a match on 9 November 2015 in Atlanta against fellow Dominican national basketball team player, Al Horford of the Atlanta Hawks, Towns saved the day and led Minnesota to a …

Read more…

The Medina administration is pushing ahead to complete the Punta Catalina coal-fired power facility even though the US$632.5 million loan with a group of banks pooled by the Deutsche Bank S.p.A. nor the Brazilian financing have been yet disbursed. As reported in Diario Libre, the work entrusted to the Odebrecht Tecnimont Estrella consortium under the …

Read more…

The country’s three main power distribution companies (EdeNorte, EdeSur and EdeEste) have added 1,338 new workers between them, or 20.8% more employment. The payroll has been increased despite the fact that the government says it has to subsidize the power distribution companies’ losses with US$1 billion a year. As reported in Diario Libre, the number …

Read more…

In an interview with Diario Libre, Public Health Minister Altagracia Guzman Marcelino says that medical training for Dominican doctors needed to be improved with an increased emphasis on tropical diseases. The minister mentions that she has been meeting with deans of medical schools to discuss the need to change the curriculum. “Our universities have to …

Read more…