News World

Police in Germany board a Dutch plane at Cologne airport to arrest two men suspected of planning attacks, officials say.

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US political leaders say more work is needed on a $700bn bail-out for financial markets after White House talks end in impasse.

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In an address to the United Nations 63rd General Assembly, President Leonel Fernandez rallied for the world’s richest countries to provide the same emergency funding to achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at slashing global poverty, hunger and other social ills as they have provided for bailing out failed financial institutions.

“What is certain is that at this moment, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we need from the international community a financial rescue plan, a kind of ‘bailout,’ as they say these days,” he said, citing World Bank figures that $50 billion is needed annually to reach the MDGs by their target date of 2015.

Referring to the “stupefying” rise in the price of oil, he said that the extra $5 billion that the Dominican Republic has had to pay since 2004 could fund all public investments needed to achieve the MDGs [...]

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President Leonel Fernandez will travel to Qatar and probably to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in November, according to a report in Listin Diario. Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso highlighted the importance that the DR is placing on diplomatic relations, exchanges and cooperation agreements with the Rio Group and the Council of Gulf States, when meeting with representatives of those countries on the occasion of the President’s participation in the United Nations General Assembly.

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Senator Wilton Guerrero has appealed to the nation not to be left alone to fight against drug trafficking in the country. Speaking on Tuesday, he called for the support of honest citizens, political parties, the church, community organizations and civil society and said he has not found the authorities receptive to the fight against crime. He told Listin Diario that the members of the two commissions appointed to investigate the massacre of seven men in Paya, Bani had “crowed like a rooster, but laid eggs like hens.” Following the massacre, the senator accused the provincial governor, the police commander and the district prosecutor of complicity with the drug dealers. The police commander and the district prosecutor have been transferred to other posts. Guerrero criticized the commissions’ handling of the investigations and failure to identify who was truly responsible for the killings. He demanded that the commissions carry out more in [...]

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Take all the derelict buses discarded by the government’s OMSA bus company, refit them and turn them into libraries. The Aulas Bibliotecas (Classroom Libraries) are now being sent to small towns nationwide and are known as “teaching buses.” The program was developed by Teresa Peralta Checo and Ana Valdes Sanchez from the First Lady’s Office. First Lady herself, Margarita Cedeno, came up with the idea after listening to OMSA director Ignacio Ditren announce that he would take buses out of circulation. In the discarded buses, she saw classrooms, Teresa Peralta and Ana Valdes said in an interview with Listin Diario. “We went to see those buses and we saw how the junk could become multi-faceted equipment. With a bit of creativity we turned useless things into something really functional,” she explained. The buses were then recycled and equipped with chairs, blackboards and books, converting them into true classrooms, libraries and [...]

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Government officials have recently been trying to allay fears that the Dominican economy is not well prepared to handle any trickle-down effect from the financial crisis affecting the US economy. Nonetheless, economists Arturo Martinez Moya and Guillermo Caram don’t agree with the assurances provided by government officials. Both economists are urging the government to take preventive measures and reduce public spending as a way of preparing for any possible fallout. Economist Isidoro Santana explains that the crisis has yet to affect developing nations, but says it is difficult to ever determine how that crisis could affect the DR. Martinez Moya criticized President Leonel Fernandez’s optimism at the UN General Assembly, and said that Fernandez’s statements demonstrate a lack of understanding of financial issues. According to Martinez Moya, quoted in Hoy, the crisis is already being felt in the DR as some Dominican banks have already received notices from US banks [...]

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While the frequency of remittances is stable, the amounts being sent back home by Dominicans living abroad is declining, says Freddy Ortiz, president of the Dominican Association of Remittance Companies. He said that unemployment is up 7% in the US and this is having an impact on Dominicans. He estimated that about 1,050,000 Dominicans live in the US, and of these 50,000 have lost their jobs in the past month. He said that many Dominicans in Spain have also lost their jobs. Ortiz explained that 82% of the remittances that enter the DR come from the US and the rest mostly comes from Europe. He said that remittances traditionally increase by 8-10% every year, but he expects that there will be no growth this year, and that a decline in remittance totals was possible. He said that last year, Central Bank statistics indicated that Dominicans sent back home US$3.03 billion. [...]

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The Dominican Republic remains below the Latin American average and its citizens continue to perceive widespread corruption in government. Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) launched on 23 September highlights the fatal link between poverty, failed institutions and graft in 180 countries. The DR declined from 99th place to 102nd place. In the region, only Haiti (177), Venezuela (158), Ecuador (151), Paraguay (138), Nicaragua (134), Guyana (126), Honduras (126), Belize (109) were ranked worse than the DR. Others in the region ranked in the survey are Bolivia (102), Guatemala (96), Jamaica (96), Panama (85), Trinidad (72), Suriname (72), Mexico (72), Peru (72), Colombia (70), El Salvador (67), Cuba (65), Costa Rica (47), Puerto Rico (36), Dominica (33), St. Vincent (28), Chile (23), Barbados (22) and St. Lucia (21).

News commentator Huchi Lora commented that the high perception of corruption in government among Dominicans contrasts with the millions the [...]

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Writing in today’s El Caribe, lawyer Leila Mejia comments that the government’s constitutional reform proposal for the judiciary will worsen the present situation of judicial inefficiency. She says the 1994 constitutional reform made the mistake of granting the Supreme Court of Justice, more power than it has in any other country in the world, aside from the vertical structure where no one dares contradict the wishes of the Supreme Court judges. Politicians had the most say in the choice of the judges.

She criticizes the fact that the constitutional reform proposal made by President Leonel Fernandez would make 7 of 11 members of the board that would take decisions by majority directly or indirectly or subordinates to the Supreme Court of Justice and its head.

She comments that hefty investments in public relations have not quelled the generalized feeling that rejects the present judicial system for being expensive [...]

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