Category Archives: Dominican Republic

Haiti crisis: gangs attack police stations as Caribbean leaders call for emergency meeting

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National palace guards set up security ring after gangs attack at least three police stations in Port-au-Prince

Police and palace guards worked on Saturday to retake some streets in Haiti’s capital after gangs launched massive attacks on at least three police stations.

Guards from the National Palace accompanied by an armored truck tried to set up a security perimeter around one of the three downtown stations after police fought off an attack by gangs late Friday.

Sporadic gunfire continued to be reported on Saturday. The unrelenting gang attacks have paralysed the country for more than a week and left it with dwindling supplies of basic goods. Haitian officials extended a state of emergency and nightly curfew on Thursday as gangs continued to attack key state institutions.

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Dominican officials arrest Tekashi 6ix9ine on domestic violence charges

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US rapper scheduled to appear in court on Thursday and is being held in a Santo Domingo jail

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have arrested the US rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine, who is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday on charges of domestic violence.

The rapper, whose real name is Daniel Hernández, is being held at a jail in the capital, Santo Domingo, where he was arrested on Wednesday, officials said.

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Four-day work week to be trialled in Dominican Republic

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Employees will earn same salary but hours will be reduced from 44 to 36 hours as part of national voluntary trial, says government

Companies in the Dominican Republic are preparing for a voluntary six-month pilot of a four-day work week, the first move of its kind for the Caribbean country.

The initiative would launch in February, with employees earning the same salary, the Dominican government said, and the standard work week reduced from 44 hours to 36 hours, Monday through to Thursday.

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Dominican Republic explosion death toll rises to 10 with another 11 missing

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Four-month-old among victims and over 50 people also injured in explosion at commercial center in San Cristóbal

The death toll from a powerful explosion near the capital of the Dominican Republic has risen to 10 as firefighters searched through smoldering rubble, authorities said.

More than 50 people also were injured in Monday’s explosion at a bustling commercial center in the city of San Cristóbal, said Joel Santos, minister of the presidency. At least 36 of the injured remained hospitalized, Santos said.

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Dominican investigative journalist targeted with NSO spyware, report says

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Nuria Piera, known for her investigations into corruption, was targeted three times, Amnesty International says

One of the Dominican Republic’s most prominent investigative journalists was targeted using spyware made by NSO Group, according to a new report released by Amnesty International.

Nuria Piera, who is well known for her investigations into corruption, was hacked three times between 2020 and 2021, according to Amnesty’s forensic analysis of her mobile phone. The revelation marks the first confirmation that NSO’s military-grade spyware, Pegasus, has been used to target journalists in the Dominican Republic, making it the third Latin American country – after Mexico and El Salvador – where such abuse has been discovered.

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US warns its ‘darker-skinned’ citizens of Dominican Republic’s migrant crackdown

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Haitian migrants are being deported from Caribbean country and authorities seem to be targeting people based on their appearance

US officials in the Dominican Republic are warning “darker-skinned” Americans they are at risk of being swept up in the country’s crackdown on Haitian migrants.

The advice from the US embassy in Santo Domingo suggests that authorities there are using a person’s appearance as a criteria for detention of those suspected of being in the country illegally.

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Hurricane Fiona batters Turks and Caicos as Puerto Rico fights flooding

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British island territory imposes curfew and urges people to flee flood-risk areas after Category 3 storm lashes Dominican Republic

Hurricane Fiona has blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 3 storm after cutting a path of devastation through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico – where most people remained without electricity or running water.

The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles (45km) from the center.

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Flooding and landslides in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona knocks out power to island

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Category 1 storm damage ‘catastrophic’, says governor, while it continues to strengthen and barrels toward Dominican Republic

Most of Puerto Rico is without power after a category 1 hurricane bringing heavy rains and dangerous winds made landfall on Sunday evening, causing severe flooding and landslides and damaging infrastructure.

Hurricane Fiona was causing “catastrophic flooding” in Puerto Rico early on Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

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Canada air crew caught up in ‘hellish’ Dominican Republic drugs bust begs for repatriation

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Five-member crew was detained after they found a bag of cocaine on 5 April and spent nine days in jail in a ‘hellish situation’

A five-person Canadian airline crew caught up in a drug-trafficking investigation is begging their government to repatriate them after two months trapped in the Dominican Republic.

“It’s absolutely horrendous – terrible, terrible stuff we’re going through,” said captain Robert Di Venanzo, who said he and his crew could be held for up to a year while an investigation proceeds.

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Dominican Republic environment minister shot dead in his office

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Officials say Orlando Jorge Mera, founder member of Modern Revolutionary party, shot and killed by close friend

The Dominican Republic’s minister of the environment and natural resources has been shot and killed in his officeby a close friend, the office of the president said in a statement on Monday.

Authorities said Orlando Jorge Mera was shot by Miguel Cruz, who has been detained. No further details were immediately available.

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Boat capsizes near Puerto Rico, killing 11 as a ‘mass rescue effort’ is under way

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The total number of those aboard remains unclear although 31 have been rescued; the incident is the latest in a string across the region

Eleven people were killed and dozens were rescued after a boat capsized near Puerto Rico on Thursday, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear how many people were onboard the boat when it turned over, said a US coast guard spokesman, Ricardo Castrodad. He said a “mass rescue effort” was still under way.

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Dominican Republic starts work on border wall with Haiti

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Officials claim the controversial barrier will stop migrant crossings, as well as drugs and contraband, from crisis-hit Haiti

The Dominican Republic has begun work on a border wall with Haiti, sparking controversy between the neighbouring Caribbean countries.

Construction began this week on a concrete barrier that will span nearly half of the 244-mile (392km) border between the two countries, with Dominican officials claiming it will reduce flows of migrants, drugs, weapons and contraband.

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Ten missing and 17 detained by US after boat capsizes in Puerto Rico

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Incident is latest calamity as migrants from Dominican Republic and Haiti increasingly try to cross treacherous smuggling route

Federal authorities detained 17 Dominican migrants on Friday after their boat capsized near Puerto Rico’s north-west coast in the pre-dawn hours, with the US Coast Guard searching for an estimated 10 others still missing.

Jeffrey Quiñones, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman, told the Associated Press that those detained told officials that a total of 27 people were onboard the boat that struck a rock and turned over near Shacks Beach in Isabela.

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Liborio review – fascinating account of a true-life Dominican folk hero

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A faith healer in the Dominican Republic falls foul of the US in this arresting, ambiguous drama

Here’s a striking and mysterious debut from the Dominican Republic, where film-maker Nino Martínez Sosa recounts a fascinating true-life story of occupation and resistance from the turn of the last century. Olivorio Mateo was a peasant and faith healer who became known to his disciples as Papa Liborio; he built a self-sufficient community in the mountains. But when US forces occupied in the 1910s, Liborio was branded a bandit, and killed.

Not that you’d know any of the historical facts from watching this, which is set squarely in the arthouse endurance-test genre: there is little to no scene-setting or explainers, with the kind of pacing often euphemistically described by critics as “deliberate”. It begins after Liborio vanishes from his village during a hurricane, presumed dead. When he is found alive, he claims to have returned from God with healing powers and takes a band of followers up into the mountains.

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Music producer Flow La Movie among nine dead in Dominican Republic jet crash

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Private jet, which carried seven passengers and two crew members, was headed towards Orlando, Florida

Nine people died in a jet crash on Wednesday in the Dominican Republic, including acclaimed Puerto Rican music producer Flow La Movie.

The private jet, which carried seven passengers and two crew members, took off from La Isabela international airport in El Higüero and was headed towards Orlando, Florida. However, the pilots quickly declared an emergency and attempted to divert the flight to the nearby Las Américas international airport, crashing the plane in an attempted emergency landing.

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Three people dead as Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba

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Storm kills one person in St Lucia and a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman in the Dominican Republic

Cuba prepared to evacuate people along the island’s southern region on Sunday amid fears that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.

The government on Sunday opened shelters and moved to protect sugarcane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm, whose next target was Florida, where governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County where the high-rise condominium building collapsed last week.

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‘It’s not easy’: seven working parents around the world – photo essay

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Photographers Linda Bournane Engelberth and Valentina Sinis document the lives of working parents from Botswana to the UK for Unicef

If investing in family-friendly policies is good for business, then many companies are missing a trick. Giving parents and families adequate time, resources and services to care for children, while staying in their jobs and improving their skills and productivity, pays off according to employers. But for many, in all parts of the world, paid parental leave and childcare are not a reality. And that can compromise the first critical years of life – a time when the combination of the right nourishment, environment and love can strengthen a developing brain and give a baby the best start.

Evidence suggests family-friendly policies pay off in healthier, better-educated children and greater gender equality, and are linked to better productivity and the ability to attract and retain workers. Momentum for change is growing with an increasing number of businesses beginning to see the value.

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Mafia fugitive caught after posting YouTube cooking video

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Marc Feren Claude Biart was betrayed by failing to hide his distinctive tattoos in the clip

A mafia fugitive has been caught in the Caribbean after appearing on YouTube cooking videos in which he hid his face but inadvertently showed his distinctive tattoos.

Marc Feren Claude Biart, 53, led a quiet life in Boca Chica, in the Dominican Republic, with the local Italian expat community considering him a “foreigner”, police said in a statement on Monday.

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Johnny Pacheco, co-founder of New York’s Latin label Fania, dies aged 85

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The Fania All-Stars player and record-label impresario worked with Latin music giants including Celia Cruz and fostered a more intense, political salsa sound

Johnny Pacheco, the co-founder of trailblazing salsa label Fania Records, has died aged 85. The cause was complications from pneumonia.

A representative for Fania said Pacheco was “the man most responsible for the genre of salsa music. He was a visionary and his music will live on eternally.”

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Dominican Republic activists fear total abortion ban banishes women to the dark ages

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Scores of Dominican women die each year from botched attempts to end unwanted pregnancies

As Argentina becomes the first major Latin American country to fully legalize abortion, activists in the Dominican Republic fear their own government is banishing its women to the dark ages by upholding a total ban first implemented in 1884.

The Dominican Republic is one of four countries in Latin America – along with Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador – where abortion is illegal in all circumstances.

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