President Leonel Fernandez is traveling to Santiago today to inaugurate the remodeling of the Cibao Stadium, where the 50th Anniversary Caribbean Series will begin on Saturday, 2 February. He will also attend an inauguration ceremony for the recently revamped historic center of Santiago, the second largest city in the Dominican Republic. As reported in Listin Diario, President Fernandez will also use the opportunity to formally open his re-election campaign headquarters in Santiago.
Starting this weekend and all through next week, Santiago will be the capital of baseball, with one of the most enthusiastic crowds ever to follow the game. Two teams will be representing the Dominican Republic in the championship this year, after Puerto Rico failed to hold a winter professional championship this season. Also competing are teams from Venezuela and Mexico. The Dominican teams are considered the teams to beat.
To follow the Caribbean Series over the weekend, see the thread at http://www.dr1.com/forums/dominican-baseball/
Last night President Leonel Fernandez handed out the 12th Annual Youth Awards during a ceremony at the Presidential Palace. In all 13 young people received acknowledgement for their achievements. La Esquina Joven, a youth oriented section published by Hoy newspaper and Jose Ignacio Morales (El Artistico) were also awarded prizes for their work in benefit of young people. The night's biggest award was given to Roosevelt Montas, a professor at Colombia University who was born in San Cristobal. Award recipients included businessman Jose Luis Corripio, Mauricio Brito Sanchez, Julio Lluberes, Crucito Ovalles Restituyo, Angel Mora, Laurentino Genao, Yudelkis Contreras, Cesar Alberto Dargam and Fernando Quiroz.
In related news, Fernandez handed out 2,600 scholarships to Dominican students. According to Higher Education Minister Ligia Amada Melo, this is the largest set of scholarships handed out by the current administration out of a total of 11,950 scholarships awarded to date, of which 7,700 have been for domestic study and 2,250 have been for study opportunities abroad. Melo also said that 51% of scholarship students study at the state UASD University and Las Americas Technical Institute (ITLA), while the remaining 49% are dispersed among the country's other universities.
President Leonel Fernandez and the Ministry of Youth awarded the National Youth Award to 30-year old Roosevelt Montas, a Dominican who lives in New York City. Born in San Cristobal, Roosevelt Montas moved to the US as a young teenager and learned English at the age of 12. He is currently a lecturer at the Columbia University Core Curriculum, where he teaches the history of Western moral and political thought and 19th century American cultural and intellectual history.
He received his doctoral degree in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His dissertation, "Rethinking America: Abolitionism and the Antebellum Transformation of the Discourse of National Identity," won the 2004 Bancroft Award.
Montas graduated from John Bowne High School in Flushing, Queens in 1991. He received a master's degree in English from Columbia in 1996, and followed it with a master's in philosophy in 1999. Montas received Columbia's Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student in 2000. He served on the University Senate for four years.
The DR has seen a 54% reduction in the infant mortality rate in children under five years old. The DR is now sixth on the list of 18 underdeveloped countries in this category. Malnutrition is blamed for at least 50% of infant deaths, while pneumonia was the cause in 19% of deaths and childhood illnesses were responsible for 17% of deaths.
The Dominican mission that went to Haiti earlier this week was unsuccessful in convincing the Haitian government to lift the ban on Dominican chicken and egg imports. Haiti announced it would be sending a second mission of technicians to study the situation in the DR. Agriculture Minister Salvador Jimenez was accompanied in Haiti by Dominican Republic Center for Exports and Investment (CEI-RD) head Eddy Martinez, deputy Foreign Minster Jose Manuel Trullols, Livestock Director Angel Faxas and Dominican Agrarian Institute Director Quilvio Cabrera.
The Social Security Treasury (TSS) has begun the process of giving the Health Risk Administrators (ARS) RD$933,393,000 for services rendered in January. The payment was made to 1,511,121 affiliates for a sum of RD$620 per affiliate. El Caribe writes that RD$18,826,000 was paid to the National Traffic Accident Fund. ARS vice president Jose Cruz confirmed that the TSS was disbursing the money.
The European Union, under the newly signed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will guarantee preferential treatment for the DR for 30,000 metric tons of its sugar. EU country spokesman Jonathan Pitts said that the DR has become extremely competitive in the area of sugar. The CARICOM block, as part of the agreement, will have preferential treatment for a total of 60,000 metric tons of its sugar, of which 30,000 metric tons has been reserved for the DR.
The president of the Dominican Medical Association says that physicians working at the country's public hospitals plan to campaign for the authorities to increase their wages to RD$58,400, up from the maximum RD$24,000 that a specialist currently earns. The campaign comes on the tails of complaints of high wages for legislative, municipal and central government officials who carry out less intense and important work than the physicians.
In true political fashion PLD officials answered a question with a question. At a press conference yesterday leading party members, including Senate president Reinado Pared Perez and Fernandez campaign manager Francisco Javier Garcia asked the PRD presidential candidate Miguel Vargas Maldonado to explain his connection with a money laundering and drug trafficking case currently being heard in the Miami courts.
On Wednesday, the PRD had challenged President Leonel Fernandez to explain his links with Nelson Solano Guzman, after a Supreme Court of Justice document authorizing Solano's extradition to the US on drug trafficking charges in 2006 linked him to several major construction projects in the DR.
During a press conference that was called to respond to PRD secretary general Orlando Jorge Mera's accusations, PLD party spokesmen vehemently denied that Fernandez had any ties to Solano or that the government had awarded the accused drug trafficker lucrative public works contracts.
Temistocles Montas, the Economic, Development and Planning Minister, who also acts as the PLD's strategy director, challenged Vargas to explain why his name appears in court papers in a money laundering and drug trafficking case in the US. He said that if Vargas didn't provide an explanation, then the PLD would reveal more information about this case.
Continually shifting the conversation, the PLD responded to pictures taken of Solano and Fernandez as being "fake and irresponsible." The PLD explained that President Fernandez was visiting the home of a Puerto Plata businessman, Juan Carlos Morales while Solano also happened to be there. The party officials explained that business proposals were made during meetings with the Puerto Plata businessmen, but nothing was ever awarded.
The ruling party also claims that Vargas is trying to divert attention from the way in which he turned RD$1 million into RD$900 million. PLD officials said that Fernandez had signed Solano's extradition papers as he had in the case of former military captain Quirino Ernesto Paulino, who was seen in photos with former President Hipolito Mejia.
The PLD says that Vargas is trying to draw attention to the fact that he hasn't been able to explain how he purchased the Hispaniola Hotel and the El Limon property, as well as building himself a lavish home in La Romana. Vargas is also being questioned about the Malaya-Marbella money laundering scandal in Spain. For background, see this Spanish TV report at http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=NX6OzWXknpU
Eight of the police officers who were injured earlier this week when an elevator at the Malecon Center dropped seven floors have been sent home from the hospital. El Caribe reports that the officers with the more serious injuries were two officers who are being treated for fractures in their legs. Malecon Center administrator Porfirio Rodriguez said that the accident occurred due to excess weight in the elevator, which could have caused the brakes to fail. Rodriguez says that once the investigation is finished, the results would be made public.
Business owners are defending the use of signs that absolve establishments from liability in case of damage or theft of a vehicle, on the grounds that there would be an increase in car theft without them. Malecon Center administrator Porfirio Rodriguez, quoted in Listin Diario, said that if businesses didn't put up these signs people would damage their own cars in order to receive compensation from the businesses. Marcos Alvarez of the Plaza Andalucia II administration company says that the vehicle owner is responsible in the event of theft.
Super Pola is advertising sales in its fish and seafood department and super-sales in its poultry products, with a pound of frozen chicken reduced to RD$16.95, and chicken breasts down to RD$39.95lb.
La Isla is advertising 35% off towels, sheets, lamps and accessories and 50% off select textiles for upholstery on Friday 1, Saturday 2 and Monday, 4 February.
Specchio is advertising clothing sales with 10-50% reductions.
Thomasville furniture store has a two-day sale on furniture.
The Latin American Table Tennis Championships will take place in Santo Domingo from 30 March to 6 April. A total of 14 spots need to be filled for the Beijing Olympic Summer Games.
Two competitors from the Dominican Republic, Lin Ju and Wu Xu, qualified in the Pan American Games held in Rio de Janeiro in 2007. Competitors from 20 countries will be competing in the upcoming event, which is organized by the Dominican Table Tennis Federation.
Continental qualification procedures will be ongoing from July 2007 to April 2008.
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