Cholera spreads into the Dominican Republic

The first reported case of cholera has been found in the Dominican Republic. The case indicates that the epidemic has a chance of jumping the border from Haiti, as the two countries share the island of Hispaniola.

From CNN, we read more about the new case of cholera.

The first confirmed case is a 32-year-old Haitian construction worker who returned to the Dominican Republic last Friday with symptoms of the intestinal illness, the health ministry said Tuesday night.

Wilmo Louwes went back to Haiti on October 31 to take money home, according to the El Nacional newspaper.

Louwes came back Friday with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea and was hospitalized in Higuey, near the eastern resort town of Punta Cana. He was in stable condition and will probably be released from the hospital Wednesday, the newspaper quoted Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez as saying.

Two other suspected cases turned out to be negative, the health ministry said.

The cholera outbreak confirmed last month in northwest Haiti has killed 1,034 of the 16,799 people hospitalized with the disease, according to Haiti's health ministry.

Former President Carter travels to Hispaniola

Former President Jimmy Carter is traveling to the island of Hispaniola to begin a malaria fighting initiative through his foundation. The island contains the two countries Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The goals for the new malaria fight is for the two governments to work together to fight the disease, because mosquitoes have no respect for nations.... in a manner of speaking.

From the Associated Press article hosted at Google News, writer Greg Bluesteon interviewedthe former president. More information about the malaria project and much more can be found at the Carter Center website.

Former President Jimmy Carter will visit the two countries Wednesday in hopes of spurring their leaders to join an island-wide pact to fight the disease.

Carter will also check in on the progress of a $200,000 pilot project established by the nonprofit Carter Center that local health officials say has helped curb the spread of malaria.

The pilot project in Ouanaminthe and neighboring Dajabon, in the Dominican Republic, purchases nets treated with insecticide for residents to hang over their beds, microscopes to help lab technicians diagnose malaria samples and motorbikes so field workers can zip along cramped alleys to test and treat residents.

The center's goal is to remove from this corner of the world the last vestiges of malaria, a disease that causes high fevers and flulike symptoms and kills more than one million people each year, most of them in Africa. It also would eliminate the threat of the disease spreading to nearby islands, including Jamaica and the Bahamas.

The goal is to show the leaders of the two countries that it's more costly to neglect malaria than to erase it, said Dr. Don Hopkins, the director of the Carter Center's health programs. But he said only a combined effort between the two countries will eliminate the disease.

"We want to help both sides raise their sights up from the day-to-day battle with these two diseases and agree on the aspiration that where they should be trying to go is an ultimate target date to eliminate both diseases from the island," he said.

In an interview before the trip, Carter said he's committed to traveling to "the most distant and small and isolated and poverty-stricken villages in the deserts, in the jungles and in the poorest countries on Earth" and wiping out diseases that have long been distant memories in richer countries.

"It's a very different kind of life than any person could sort of do while still in the White House," Carter said.

Baseball player Dave Valle and his microcredit operation

Former Major League Baseball player and current Seattle Mariners broadcaster Dave Valle spent some time in the Dominican Republic playing winter developmental ball. While there, he noticed little children rushing to him, but they didn't arrive to get his autograph, they wanted Valle's attention because they were hungry.

After his career was over Valle returned to the Dominican Republic to begin a microcredit operation. It gives small loans to people who the banks declare unworthy of credit, to help them with their own small businesses. Valle's organization also does a lot more for the people of the Dominican, providing schools and career centers.

From the Readers Digest, writer Todd Pitock visits Valle in the Dominican Republic.

Last November, I met with Valle in the Dominican Republic to see the results of that promise, a nonprofit he and Vicky established in 1995 with $30,000 of their own savings. Esperanza, which means "hope" in Spanish, is a microcredit agency, offering short-term, low-interest loans starting at about $150 to help extremely poor people get started in business.

Although microcredit banking has been around since the 1970s, Esperanza added other elements, creating a school, a dozen computer training centers, a member-funded health care plan, a water treatment system, and a home improvement initiative. It has also spearheaded the construction of five baseball fields that would be the envy of many affluent communities in America, fitting the sport into its broader goal of community development.

We started our tour in Santo Domingo--Valle, son Philip, now 23, and Esperanza's executive director, Carlos Pimentel-and drove north over a mountain range soaring 9,000 feet, dense with thick, lush jungle.

At a glance, a visitor could be lulled into thinking that all is well in the Dominican Republic. In addition to having enchanting scenery, the country has recently experienced between 7 and 10 percent in annual growth. Modern highways sport an astonishing number of SUVs. New real estate and tourism districts, such as Cap Cana on the east coast, are positively opulent, and indeed, even the pastel colors on many shanties balanced on hillsides suggest more cheer than perhaps they should.

But they can't paint over the reality for many Dominicans. Of 9.3 million people, 2 million live on less than $2 a day. Twenty percent of girls become pregnant before they're 19, and illiteracy and crime are pervasive. Despite promising economic progress early in the decade, the nation's gross domestic product plunged 15 percent several years ago. Haiti, which shares the island that Christopher Columbus called Hispaniola when he landed there in 1492, is even worse off.

The desperately poor are, of course, Esperanza's focus--people for whom it is not a credit crunch but a crush, whose only access to capital would be through loan sharks charging usurious interest rates.

Here is how microcredit works: People with ideas for businesses get together and apply as a group for a loan, or what Esperanza calls a bank of hope. Typical ventures include sundries shops, hair salons, and roadside eateries. Members are almost always neighbors, and they pledge responsibility for one another. At twice-monthly repayment meetings, they cover for anyone who may be short, all of which fosters mutual support and obligation. Repayment rates are 98 percent in the Dominican Republic as well as in Haiti, where Esperanza launched in early 2006. Once debts are settled, borrowers negotiate new loans.

As word of Esperanza spread, the pace of lending accelerated. With 20 borrowers when it began lending in 1995, Esperanza has since dispersed almost $15 million through 75,000 loans, including nearly 21,500 active accounts in 2008. It has 2,800 borrowers in Haiti. The organization estimates that at least five people benefit from each loan in the Dominican Republic, and six in Haiti.

After one year, free trade pact paying some dividends in Dominican Republic

from Tropix

By Doreen Hemlock

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

One year into a free trade accord with the United States, commerce, investment and business confidence are up in this Caribbean nation.

The Dominican economy is humming, growing 10 percent last year and likely 5 percent this year, among the highest rates in Latin America.

Problem is, analysts say, free trade can't take all the credit - nor all the blame for Dominican shortcomings. Many factors influence business, and one year is too short to measure the full effect of a pact that phases in over 20 years.

Early signs indicate that hopes of U.S. and Dominican officials are panning out: U.S. sales to the tropical nation are rising as tariffs fall on such items as automobile parts. Dominicans are seeing U.S. investment rise in hotels, real estate and more. And business confidence is stronger now that Dominican goods get U.S. duty-free access permanently and U.S. firms can rely on a special panel to resolve disputes.

Those results carry weight at a time when Washington is debating a free trade pact with Colombia and when U.S. Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have called for reforms to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 14-year-old treaty with Mexico and Canada.

Florida business is especially hot on DR-CAFTA, as the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement is known.

Florida sales to the Dominican Republic, the state's fifth-largest market overseas, rose 7 percent to $2.68 billion last year. And U.S. investment in Dominican ventures jumped 16 percent to a record $796.1 million, much of that from Florida, according to U.S. and Dominican government data.

'There's also a psychological benefit as the agreement gets more American, companies looking toward Dominican Republic,' said Manny Mencia, who heads up international business at Enterprise Florida, the state's economic development group.

But more than free trade influences outcomes. U.S. exports are up partly because of a weak dollar. And U.S. investment in Dominican Republic has been rising for years as the governments work to lure needed cash to a nation where at least one-third of the 9 million residents live in poverty. Free trade pacts offer tools, but using them requires skills and competitiveness, analysts say.

Even supporters know the pact has its limits.

South Florida entrepreneur Jimmy Tate ran a business for 11 years, working with Dominican factories to make pants for U.S. sale. At its peak, his company employed almost 100 Dominicans, supported thousands of factory jobs and generated $40 million a year in sales, he said.

But Tate closed his TKO Apparel operations last year and now buys pants from China and other Asian nations that used to face quotas on U.S. sales before 2004. Those factories use Asian cloth, which sells for less than the U.S. fabric used in Dominican operations.

'The competitive edge in Asia far outweighs any benefits we can find in this hemisphere, even with DR-CAFTA,' Tate said. 'As a businessman, I appreciate that. But as an American, I'm sad that we no longer produce in this hemisphere.'

Santo Domingo street vendor Andres Vidal, 66, finds the benefits from free trade are not evenly distributed: The rich gain most.

'It helps the big companies more than the small,' said Vidal, peddling footwear from the hood, roof and back seat of his car. 'Big companies can buy millions of dollars of products from the United States, and they can get them much cheaper than I can.'

Prices of U.S. goods in the Dominican Republic also have dropped less than many hoped.

That's partly because some Dominican importers have not passed the full benefits of lower import duties on to consumers, pocketing some of the difference, said David Lewis, vice president of Manchester Trade , a trade consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.

Prices for some U.S. goods are rising because of soaring prices for oil and transportation. Dominican exports to the United States also have been stymied by a sluggish U.S. economy.

'I think the war with Iraq has hurt us because we depend so much on the United States,' said taxi driver Julio de Jesus, 43. 'With the weak dollar, the United States, instead of buying more Dominican goods, is the one that is benefiting by selling us more.'

The free trade pact is helping foreign investment, which hit a record $1.7 billion from all countries last year. But it's not the only reason, said Eddy Martinez, who runs the government's exports and foreign investment program.

The country has been benefiting from longer-term assets, such as its modern telecommunications system, which now attracts call centers and other high-tech services. It has stepped up promotions of factories to make medical devices and electronics to offset the loss of apparel jobs. And it's increased marketing for tourism, a top revenue earner.

United Nations denounces alarming poverty levels in hotel-peppered Dominican province

from The Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) disclosed today that poverty rages at a 68.9 percent among inhabitants of the Dominican eastern province of El Seybo, affecting 70.2 percent of homes there.

According to a recent report elaborated by local representatives of the UN program, 21 percent of the total population in this eastern region lives in extreme poverty, most noticeably because this zone is marked by exclusive tourism enclaves located in Punta Cana and Bavaro.

In El Seybo’s rural sector, poverty levels reach the most alarming figure of 82.2 percent among the people there and 84.3 percent of homes. In the urban zone, the percentage is 46.3 and 44.5, respectively among people and homes.

The UNDP states in the study that unemployment is at 55.41 percent, and identifies that 24% of the men are affected, while 76 percent of women are jobless.

Delinquency is at 17.3 percent; prostitution, at 13.0 percent; drug addiction is estimated at 26.5 percent – that is, one of every four individuals in the province.

The entity also determined that 45 percent of the population in this area lacks energy supply, while 58 percent does not have tap water or garbage collection services.

I.A.D.B. and World Bank consider banks’ fraud aggravated poverty in Dominican Republic

from The Dominican Today

Dominican banks' demise on account of fraudulent handlings zoomed poverty levels up from 27% to 42%

Santo Domingo.- The economic crisis that came about during the period 2002 and 2004 due to the bankruptcy of three important private banks shot poverty levels up in the Dominican Republic from a 27 percentage to 42%, which represented 1.5 million additional poor individuals, according to the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The data divulged by these entities in their report on poverty in the Dominican Republic indicates that the crisis registered during this period “caused a significant deterioration of the real income and a noticeable increment by 50% of the poverty rate in the country.”

The entities define the “poor” as those persons “with insufficient income to assume the minimum cost of their basic needs,” namely food, housing, health, education and clothing.

The report on poverty in the country elaborated by the WB and the IDB, also points that during the same period, 670 thousand persons moved to live in extreme poverty -- that is, 7.2% of the total population.

Those living in extreme poverty have income that is so low, insufficient even to cover for basic food nourishment “with a minimum caloric level.”

The addition of more than two million 100 thousand persons that since entered the poverty and extreme poverty brackets, emerged specifically during the period “comprised as of the beginning of the year 2002 till the end of 2004,” according to findings by the international entities.

Investigations of the credit transnational organizations also established that “in 2004, 42 out of each 100 Dominicans lived in poverty, and of these, 16 of every 100, in extreme povery.