Archive for April, 2018
Dominican taxpayers contribution to politics is RD$13 billion in 20 years
The president of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), Julio César Castaños Guzmán, said it is only reasonable to put a limit to electoral campaign spending in the country. He said since 1998, the political parties have spent RD$13.48 billion of taxpayer money on election campaigns. He said so far they estimate that to carry out the 2020 general election another RD$4.5 billion would need to be spent.
The law obliges use of taxpayer money for electoral campaigns in the proportion to votes received in the previous presidential election.
“We must be alert to the new reality: offers of illegal money, product of international drug trafficking, money laundering, illicit trafficking in persons and other criminal activities, that become attractive temptations that could contaminate the will of some candidates and future officials, and that, in exchange for these obsequious and immoral dispensations, they compromise their future public will, which eventually turns them into transgressors,” said the JCE president, at the lunch event organized by the American Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, 25 April 2018. “Irrationally, so much money is not budgeted, seeking the favor of a political will, when there comes a time when the saturation in the use of propaganda in the media becomes counterproductive,” said the public official.
Source: DR1, Listindiario
April 26, 2018
Vehicle robberies increase
According to a report on Citizen Safety issued by the Observatory for Citizen Safety, in 2017 there were 5,970 robberies of vehicles. This translates to an average of 58.7 vehicles stolen per 100,000 inhabitants and 15.4 per 10,000 motor vehicles registered in the country. Some 90% of the thefts were of motorcycles.
The figures show a 9% increase over 2016, when 5,455 were stolen. However, the report states that the violent robberies have decreased from 1,795 in 2016 to 1,594 in 2017.
Most of the thefts occurred between January and September with a decrease in the last quarter of 2017 compared with the same time period in 2016. Of the thefts some 31% take place between six and eleven in the morning and 47% happen at the weekends.
Source: DR1, Listindiario
April 25, 2018
Plan International and Unicef: Parents use their daughters for their financial gain
Plan International and Unicef again are stressing the troubling situation of sexual exploitation that affects children in the southern border provinces. A recent study, “Invisible under the sun: A look at the sexual exploitation of boys, girls and teenagers in the Enriquillo Region”, reveals that 50.9% of those under 21 years in the region have already had sex. Of that percentage, 26.8% told pollsters they had done so with a person at least 10 years older, 11% said they did so at least once for money or another retribution, and 76% had had sex at least once in the past 12 months. These statistics are above national averages.
The poll is part of the project “Adding up efforts: Prevention of sexual exploitation of boys, girls and teenagers in the country.”
The poll also revealed that 48.6% of women 20 to 49 years had been in cohabitation before their 18th birthday, and 17% before their 15th birthday.
Rosa Elcarte, representative in the Dominican Republic for Unicef, said the authorities need to do better to care and prevent victims of sexual abuse. She said the present efforts are insufficient.
The provinces in the Enriquillo Region are Pedernales, Independencia, Barahona and Bahoruco.
Most cases in the south occur in the poorest communities, where parents use their girls as an economic asset, said ElCarte. She said then the girl is marked for life.
Plan International’s program manager, Silvio Minier, says that the sexual exploitation of children “is a form of violence, a violation of their rights and ironically a preventable crime”. She defined as causes the patriarchal culture and gender inequality.
Both entities recommend the “promoting public policies of prevention, involving private companies, especially the tourism sector, communities and adolescents themselves in the construction of protective environments, promoting the reduction of social tolerance and increased persecution of this crime.”
Source: DR1, Elcaribe
April 25, 2018
Police says RD$36 million bank heist robber left the country
The director general of the Police, Major General Ney Aldrin Bautista Almonte, says that one of the lead suspects in the robbery of RD$36 million to a G4S security company cash truck, Manuel Antonio Pérez Sánchez (Elién) traveled abroad on the day after the robbery that took place at the Curva de Billeya on the Baní-Azua highway. Bautista made the announcement when making public that another suspect, 25-year old Misael Vólquez Espinosa has turned himself in to the authorities in the presence of his mother, and Moneidy Gómez, of the local Human Rights Commission; Benny Rodríguez, secretary general of the Journalists Guild, among others.
Vólquez’s brother, the Barahona Jail inmate Darbinson Vólquez Espinosa, is suspect of having planned the crime from inside the jail using his mobile phone.
The Police has arrested several others in the case, but say they have only recovered RD$5.7 million of the RD$36 million stolen from the truck. Bautista suspects Pérez Sánchez knows the whereabouts of the missing cash.
The majority of cash from security truck heist still missing
Of the RD$36 million stolen from a G4S security truck, which appears to have been an inside job involving the G4S employees, the police have so far recovered RD$4,836,000 and 28,500 Euros.
Last weekend, another of the supposed robbers, 25 year old Misael Vólquez Espinosa, handed himself in to the public prosecution office in Barahona.
Those already arrested, which the police say are all of those thought to be involved, are 50 year old Rudy Alberto Serrano Féliz; Manuel Isaías Pérez Sánchez, 33, Nircido Féliz Fernández, 51, Darlin Vólquez Feliz (Wassa), 33, Israel García García and his nephew Ernesto García Reyes.
However, the whereabouts of the remainder of the money is unknown.
Source: DR1, Eldia, DiarioLibre
April 25, 2018
President Medina inaugurates Santiago Botanical Garden
On Monday 23 April 2018, President Danilo Medina Sánchez, accompanied by the ministers of the Environment and Public Works, headed up the ceremony to inaugurate the first stage of the Professor Eugenio de Jesús Marcano Botantical Garden in Santiago.The area has more than 650,000 square meters, of which more than 12 kilometers are trails for walking and cycling protected by a closed perimeter and permanent security. Over the next months, it was announced that a visitor’s center, a train, a Japanese Garden and a modern events and convention center would open at the Santiago Botanical Gardens.
Minister Francisco Domínguez Brito explained the importance of the project and asked that the citizens of Santiago value it, as it would be one of the most important botanical parks in the Caribbean. During the inauguration, Domínguez Brito also highlighted other projects to protect natural resources such as the agroforestry programs and the recovery of the Valle Nuevo Protected Area, the rescue of the Ozama and Isabela rivers and that of the Yaque del Norte River.
Source: DR1, Eldia
April 25, 2018
Public Health alerts to not consume unpackaged powdered milk
The Ministry of Public Health continues to alert the population to the risks of consuming powdered milk sold in bulk without proper storage. The Ministry says that recent inspections indicate the practice continues in 8 of 22 provinces inspected for the illegal practice. The Ministry says they have seized 7.7 tons of the product from colmados (44%), warehouses (24%), supermarkets (17%) and minimarkets (15%).
Source: DR1, 7dias
April 25, 2018
Too much drinking in the DR
Ruth Santana, director of the Centro de Atención Integral a las Dependencias (CAID), a government agency concerned with addictions, said that alcohol consumption in the Dominican Republic is at 6.9 liters per year, a level that makes the matter an issue for public health. The Ministry of Public Health division alerts to the “damaging impact alcohol consumption has, especially on youths and women, many of which are pregnant.”
“It is a situation that goes beyond the physical damage,” said Santana. She spoke of how the people around the drinker and society as a whole are also harmed. Santana made the remarks when participating in the workshop, “Importance of a Comprehensive National Policy on Alcohol Consumption” organized by the mental health division of the Ministry of Public Health with the sponsorship of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and with participation of alcoholic beverage companies in the Dominican Republic.
Dr. Santana called for the approval of a law on alcoholic beverages that would tackle the problem from a legal perspective, as well as full compliance with Transit Law 63-17, and Children’s Protection Law 136-03.
Source: DR1, 7dias
April 25, 2018
El Salvador and Dominican Republic are sending pregnant women to their deaths
Last month, Maira Verónica Figueroa Marroquín was released from a Salvadoran prison after serving 15 years for having a stillbirth. In El Salvador, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances, women who have abortions, miscarriages or stillbirths can be charged with aggravated homicide without any direct proof. Such was the case for Maira, who was 19 when she became pregnant after a sexual assault. While being treated for severe bleeding following a stillbirth, she was accused of having an abortion and handcuffed to her hospital bed. Authorities detained her the same day and a judge swiftly sentenced her to 30 years in prison for “aggravated homicide.”
Today, Maira is home, safe with her family. But more than 20 Salvadoran women remain in prison, their lives casualties of the country’s criminalization of abortion. While the harsh criminal penalty Maira experienced is specific to El Salvador, the country’s abortion ban is not. Altogether, six countries — including the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Suriname — ban abortion in all circumstances, including when a woman’s life is at risk or in cases of rape of a minor.
This spring, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic are on the precipice of progress. Both countries’ legislatures will consider proposals to end their extreme policies and decriminalize abortion. These countries must end this outright ban so that women whose lives are at risk and girls who have become pregnant by rape can make their own hard decisions about their futures.
Total abortion bans not only affect how women live; they affect how women die. The Dominican Republic, where 30 percent of the population lives in poverty, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Latin America. For every woman who dies during pregnancy or childbirth in the United States, at least three women will die in the Dominican Republic. And, out of all pregnancy-related deaths, one in three women die because of a terminal disease that went untreated because of the pregnancy.
Source: Miamiherald
April 25, 2018
Last updated April 7, 2024 at 12:19 am