Archive for December, 2018
The South Zone is celebrating having been chosen by the government to host the 15th National Sports Games scheduled for 2020. The tournament that gathers the best in Dominican athletes under 23 years old will next take place in venues in the provinces of Azua, San Jose de Ocoa and Baní (Peravia) in the southcentral region.
On Sunday, 16 December 2018, on occasion of the closing of the 14th Games that took place in venues in the central and north central region, President Danilo Medina issued Decree 447-18 appointing the southcentral region to host the next games. As reported, key persons lobbying for the south region were the president of the Dominican Olympic Committee, Luis Mejia, who is from Baní. Also senators Wilton Guerrero, Rafael Calderon and Pedro Alegría of Peravia, Azua and San Jose de Ocoa, respectively. Also Azua Mayor Rafael Hidalgo.
Source: DR1, Eldia
Dec 20, 2018
President’s Donald Trump’s new real estate deal in the Dominican Republic could, if completed, violate the U.S. constitution’s Emoluments Clause, according to a new undercover investigation by the organization Global Witness.
The Trump Organization abandoned its ambitious plans to build dozens of luxury buildings in the Dominican Republic around a decade ago when the global economy crashed. The project ended with an acrimonious lawsuit in which the Trump Organization accused the Dominican developers, Ricardo and Fernando Hazoury, of fraud.
Despite his promise not to pursue new foreign business deals while in office, evidence has emerged that the Trump Organization, which is now run on a day-to-day basis by the president’s two adult sons, is again pursuing a similar deal with the same Dominican developers the organization cut ties with many years ago. Many lawmakers and experts note that this project could constitute a conflict of interest, and the Global Witness report released Monday argues that the project could violate the Constitution.
“The Trump Organization’s business in the Dominican Republic has also spurred questions about the relationship between the U.S. president and Dominican officials,” the report reads. “In particular, questions have arisen over whether Dominican officials changed rules so that buildings could be constructed higher to benefit a Trump company project, which could be a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.”
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, his son Eric Trump visited the Dominican Republic, reportedly to discuss the real estate project. Eight months after his visit, the Caribbean country’s government changed regulations that restricted building heights. The change only applied to the eastern tourist region of the country, where the Trump real estate projects would reportedly be built.
The Trump Organization denies that it is involved in any project in the Dominican Republic. Salespeople speaking with undercover investigators from Global Witness, however, told a different story.
The Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the president from accepting emoluments, which include a salary, fee or any other type of profit from his or her employment or office, from a foreign official. The clause was written by the Founding Fathers to avoid the type of transnational deals that often influenced the foreign policy decisions of Europe’s monarchs.
“What you have here is not a payment in cash, but allegedly a benefit of tremendous business value, from a foreign state. Benefits come in many forms and the founders understood that benefits come in many forms,” Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham Law, told Newsweek. “The Founding Fathers weren’t building high-rises, but they did understand the role of foreign states providing benefits to foreign leaders as a corrupt way of doing business, and the foreign emoluments clause was meant to be not just cash payments or bribes.”
On December 3, a federal judge gave the green light for attorneys general in Maryland and D.C. to issue subpoenas in ongoing lawsuits that alleged that President Trump had violated the Emoluments Clause. Shugerman said the evidence from the Global Witness report could be added to these lawsuits.
It is not illegal for Trump to run a private business while in office, but most senior government officials are required to divest completely from private financial interests that could influence their work. In Trump’s case, his children are running his business through a trust, but the president could retake control of the business at any time. Investigators note that the president will still profit from Trump Organization deals. This fact could give incentives to foreign governments and officials to make deals that are good for the Trump Organization in order to curry favor with the president, experts have said.
Senator Ben Cardin recently said that lawmakers in Washington expect the president to avoid the type of conflict of interest represented in the case of the Dominican Republic. In February, anti-corruption campaigners told Newsweek that the Dominican Republic projects could be grounds for impeachment. Meanwhile, some experts argued that, even if there was no evidence of corruption, the appearance of a conflict of interest could hurt the presidency.
“Donald Trump’s decision not to divest from his business interests once he took office is an albatross on his presidency. It is obviously unacceptable for the president to benefit personally by getting business favors from foreign governments that seek to curry favor with the American government. But it is damaging to the presidency even when there is not an actual corrupt effort underway,” Andrew Wright, former associate White House counsel, told Newsweek.
“When President Trump makes decisions in good faith on behalf of the American people that incidentally benefit a country in which he has business interests, we are left to wonder what his true motives were. It breeds mistrust in government and undermines public confidence in his decisions,” Wright added.
President Trump, meanwhile, still refuses to release his tax returns to the public.
Last year, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, fellow White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, spent a weekend visiting a luxury hotel in the Dominican Republic. It is unclear whether their visit was related to the real estate project, but it is estimated to have cost U.S. taxpayers almost $60,000 in security costs.
Source: Newsweek
Dec 20, 2018
Caribe Tours that offers commuter bus service around the country and to Haiti announced it has added 42 new buses to its fleet. The buses have capacity for 54 passengers. The company has more than 550 vehicles in service, according to company executive vice president Paul Guerrero Melo.
The new buses are of the Marcopolo brand, year 2019, model New G7 and are of the most advanced in service in Latin America and the Caribbean, says the company executive. He says the new buses have seats for persons with special needs and are equipped with an anti-rollover protection system. The buses offer wi-fi service, chargers for mobile devices and are equipped with modern bathrooms. The company transports around 16 milion persons a year.
Source: DR1
Dec 20, 2018
Dominican cave specialist, Domingo Abreu Collado presented evidence that the Taino indians who inhabited the island when Christopher Columbus arrived, shared identity with Maya and Inca indians of South America. Abreu presented the evidence during the 17th Scientific Research Day held at the UASD. His presentation was on “Maya Connections to Taino Cave Art in the Dominican Republic.”
“After an individual analysis of thousands of figures and forms in the pictographic and petroglyphic evidences, located in Dominican caves, together with the verification of cave art in caves in Central America, and the search in the texts of the chroniclers who made contact with Maya, Inca and Nahua cultures in that region, has led us to the Mayan identity traces in our own rock art collections,” said Abréu Collado.
He called for revisiting archaeological and anthropological studies with new perspectives and investigative practices to further confirm the linkages between the Taino and South American and Central American indian cultures.
Source: DR1, DiarioLibre
Dec 20, 2018
The Ministry of Public Health says the winter flu is especially bad. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already had announced that the flu that came with the cold weather in January and February 2018 was the worst since the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
Dozens of persons are seeking medical help in Dominican hospitals for high fever and other flu symptoms. Bulletin 46 by the Epidemiological Unit of the Ministry of Public Health explains that during the past four weeks AH1N1 prevails, but Influenza B and respiratory syncytial virus are especially active, primarily affecting children under five years, according to local hospital records.
Prevention is best. Physicians recommend frequent washing of hands with warm water and soap after shaking hands or touching a surface that might be germ-covered. And carrying an alcohol-based sanitizer for times when one can’t get to a sink.
Source: DR1, DiarioLibre
Dec 20, 2018
Puerto Plata city Mayor Walter Musa. The project is lead by Rosa Maria Garcia, Kitty Heinsen and representatives of public and private entities, church, schools and civic societies, including Mision Joven. Garcia said the project seeks to change the way people see garbage as garbage and instead that garbage be seen as material that may be transformed into reusable goods.
“Puerto Plata is a clean city and with this project we take advantage of that and go one step further to educate on the management of waste, care for our environment and avoiding the consequences that, obviously, affect and will continue to affect our environment more and more,” said Garcia. She highlighted: “That is why we put this program today in the hands of current and future generations of our country, to turn Puerto Plata into the first province that recycles in the Dominican Republic.”
Heinsen said selective separation trials, environmental communication campaigns, debates, film forum, participatory cleaning of degraded areas, door-to-door awareness and programs in schools will be carried out.
Also taking leadership in the effort are business people Nelson Katulo, Lilian Russo, Jacqueline Guzmán, Elvis Peralta and Tery Correa.
Source: DR1
Dec 20, 2018
Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas Maldonado said the Dominican Republic would not be signing the Global Pact on Refugees on 17 December 2018, during the plenary session of the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. In a document explaining the Dominican position, Vargas said the country identifies with the spirit of the pact, but pulls out on grounds that it is based on conventions on stateless persons that the country has not ratified. Vargas says that all commitments taken on by the government need to comply with the Constitution and Dominican law.
Vargas argues, as stated in a press release, that in the national territory only the Dominican state can grant the condition of refugee. Nevertheless, the UN Pact seeks to provide a basis for the distribution of the burden and responsibility among UN member states that could be contrary to the national interest and Dominican law. From a practical point of view, that distribution of burdens and responsibilities could affect the capacity of the Dominican Republic to host considerable numbers of persons susceptible to be declared refugees according to the new international statutes.
Once the text of the pact became widely circulated in the media outlets throughout the country late last week, there was a crescendo of criticism. Many experts highlighted the porous Dominican border and the political, social and economic instability in neighboring Haiti as grave concerns for national security in the context of the proposed language in the pact.
The Dominican Republic in recent years is also experiencing an unprecedented influx of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants who are fleeing the economic turmoil and political unrest in their country. Contrary to the Haitians who usually are employed as unskilled laborers in the country, Venezuelans, many of whom are highly skilled and educated, are thought to be competing with professional, middle-class Dominicans for jobs in a wide range of industries and sectors.
PRSC president, Federico Antun Batlle, said that if the country signed the refugee agreement it was propitiating the destruction of the Dominican Republic. The PRSC president said that it is “unacceptable” that the Dominican government sign the Pact for Refugees after the generalized Dominican rejection of the Global Migration Compact that would have been signed in Marrakesh, Morocco on 7 December 2018. He said the Pact for Refugees puts in danger national sovereignty because it stimulates and protects undocumented Haitian immigrants who come en masse to the Dominican Republic and who have already taken over a large part of the national territory.
Santiago Mayor Abel Martinez spoke up forcefully to reject the Global Pact on Refugees promoted by the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees. He said it would have untellable consequences for the country. He urged the government not to sign because the pact obligates those signing to guarantee the entry, stay, feeding, health services, education, documentation and nationality of the undocumented that enter.
Martinez said the country is already a victim of what he called a “passive invasion of undocumented Haitians.” Undocumented Haitians receive free medical services and free education in the Dominican Republic. “Right now the country is full of undocumented Haitians; imagine if the government signs that pact. Then we would have a greater problem when Haitians begin to enter in caravans, effectively using the Pact promoted by the United Nations as an entry permit.” He called for a comprehensive solution to the problem of immigration of undocumented Haitians into the country.
A commentary in Pagina Abierta blog written by Central Bank staff and placed on the Central Bank web site observes that the pact represents indefinite expenditures that the country is not in the capacity to absorb. The blog says it would oblige the country to provide additional commitments without taking into consideration the local labor situation, the financial and economic costs of illegal immigration. Furthermore, the author says the Pact could open a debate on the right of even the existence of a nation-state and could provoke instability in the country.
In the blog, “A economic look at the proposed migratory pact,” the writer states that the concept of an open land, free to settle on demand, refers to the origins of human history, an era characterized by violence, where, with the exception of insurmountable geographies, every frontier was drawn by battle. In this sense, the Central Bank blog summarizes that the UN could, therefore, be inducing humanity to revive the dispute process by defining territorial spaces instead of defending peace and prosperity, its central and critical mandate.
Source: DR1, Hoy
Dec 20, 2018
Kathleen Martinez, the Dominican archeologist who is on the search of the remains of Cleopatra in Egypt, announced the discovery of two mummies covered in gold ornaments at the Taposiri Magna cemetery in Egypt. Martinez has defended the theory that Cleopatra might be buried in a crumbling temple near the coastal desert town of Taposiris Magna (present-day Abu Sir), 28 miles west of Alexandria. Martinez argues that Cleopatra sought for Mark Antony and herself to be secretly buried where no one would disturb their eternal life together.
Source: DR1, DiarioLibre
Dec 20, 2018
The World Bank will be lending US$100 million to the Dominican government for efforts of the Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education. The funds will be used to advance a comprehensive plan of reforms underway for public education. These include the extended school day, improvements in teacher training and qualifications and the modernization of the Ministry of Education (MINERD).
The World Bank points out that improving student learning outcomes is the main challenge facing the Dominican Republic’s education system. Dominican students ranked last among the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, and only 27% of third grade students achieve a satisfactory level of learning in mathematics, according to a diagnostic by MINERD.
The World Bank says that the financing will be focused to further increasing the quality of teacher recruitment and training, institutionalizing the collection and use of student learning data, and decentralizing the management of public schools. The program will build on the existing Support to the National Education Pact Project, which launched a competitive selection system to raise academic standards of newly recruited teachers and improve education quality, and conducted a complete learning diagnostic of all third grade students to better inform education planning and adjust teacher training. In addition, the World Bank is providing technical assistance on strengthening statistical systems, leveraging technology to have a higher impact in learning, as well as on strengthening risk management in schools as part of the WB’s global Safe Schools Program.
Source: DR1
Dec 20, 2018
Over the last 10 years, the need to borrow to fund the National Budget has increased by 150%, which some experts see as a symbol of “poor quality in spending management.” In the recently approved National Budget of the State 2019, which amounts to RD$922 billion, there is some RD $232 billion in financing of which RD$76 billion are for net financing and RD $156 billion are for debt payment, according to a report in Diario Libre. This figure far surpasses the gross financing set aside by the National Budget Law for 2010 which was RD$116 billion of which RD$48 billion were set aside to cover the net financial deficit while just RD $68 billion were used to reduce public debt.
As reported in Diario Libre, a member of the faculty member of the Economics Department at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo said that the government is undervaluing the deficit in order to show that it is handling the finances in a proper manner, which he says “is not very realistic for 2019.”
The last budget presented by the administration of Leonel Fernandez in 2012 from, amounted to RD$430 billion with a gross deficit of RD$78 billion. Financing that year amounted to RD$22 billion and another RD$78 billion to pay public debt. At that time the net financial deficit fell to 0.9% of GDP that was less than the previous year which was pegged at 1.6% of GDP.
Beginning in 2013 under the Medina administration the budget reached RD$455 billion with a gross financial deficit shooting up to RD$146 billion and net financing of RD$70 billion and pegged at 2.8% of GDP for that year. Debt-taking would continue to increase in the next five years of Medina administration.
Source: DR1, DiarioLibre
Dec 20, 2018
