• Spanish Queen visits organic banana plantation in the Dominican Republic
• Dominican Republic: Organic banana exporter saves millions with solar panels
• In Dominican Republic, Ban hails collective effort to bolster human rights, development, peace

• Wave after wave of garbage hits the Dominican Republic
• Education limited for Dominican-Haitians
• Deportation fears on rise in Dominican Republic

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Positive Trends
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Spanish Queen visits organic banana plantation in the Dominican Republic
24 May 2018 - Queen Letizia of Spain arrived in Haiti's capital on Tuesday, May 22, after concluding a visit to the Dominican Republic to promote cooperation projects financed with the support of her country. Queen Letizia visited the Dominican Republic, where she toured an organic banana plantation under the guidance of a woman who, together with other artisanal farmers, had managed to export her products to Europe through micro-credits. (more)

Dominican Republic: Organic banana exporter saves millions with solar panels
9 April 2018 - A company that grows and exports organic bananas has substantially lower production costs and increased productivity -- by generating power from solar panels to irrigate a farm of 2,050 tareas (126 hectares). According to banana project president Tony Frias, the company saves over 2,800 gallons of diesel per monthly or RD$514,000 (RD$6.0 million per year). (more)

In Dominican Republic, Ban hails collective effort to bolster human rights, development, peace
16 July 2014 - In a first-ever visit to the Dominican Republic, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the National Congress, saying 'one country with dedication and solidarity can move the world', helping to spur progress in across the three pillars of the UN -- development, human rights and peace. (more)

Dominican Republic to get large-scale solar park
12 September 2013 - The Dominican Republic will soon have its first large-scale solar park, the project developer has announced. German renewable energy developer Wirsol has begun construction on a 64-MW solar photovoltaic (PV) park in the Dominican province of Monte Plata, the company said. Wirsol plans to connect an initial 32 MW to the grid by the end of 2013. (more)

Dominican Republic: Regional forum on sustainable development and the environment
7 February 2007 - The Forum on Sectorial Network for the Environment and Sustainable Development of Latin America and the Caribbean opened recently under the sponsorship of the German's Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ). (more)

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Flops
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Wave after wave of garbage hits the Dominican Republic
23 July 2018 - Come for the beaches, say tourism ads for the Dominican Republic. But it has some beaches you might want to skip right now. The Caribbean nation is known for sapphire seas and ivory beaches, but it is grappling with waves of garbage washing up on its shores, a vivid reminder of the presence of thousands of tons of plastic in the world's oceans. (more)

Education limited for Dominican-Haitians
10 April 2014 - Children of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic are increasingly being barred from attending school following a court ruling that could lead to tens of thousands of people being stripped of their citizenship, according to a report released Friday. Dozens of families with school-age children say they are being turned away or harassed due to arbitrary interpretations of the court ruling and Dominican laws, according to researchers at the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Centre who compiled the report. As a result, some children drop out of school or lose scholarships while others are forced into underage labour, said Kimberly Fetsick, one of the report's authors. 'Children are being harmed, and their human rights are being violated,' she said. 'Action must be taken to protect these children.' (more)

Deportation fears on rise in Dominican Republic
21 November 2013 - In September, the Dominican Constitutional Court ruled that being born in the country does not automatically grant citizenship, and it directed officials to purge voter rolls of non-citizens, including people born to non-legal residents going back to 1929. Advocates say 200,000 people could be stripped of citizenship, along with the documents they need to work or attend school, although the government says an initial count came to about 24,000. The ruling, based on a new 2010 constitution, is a reflection of deep hostility in the Dominican Republic to the vast number of Haitians who have come to live in their country, many brought in to work in the sugar industry and their descendants. There are accounts of people who have been reported to immigration authorities and deported after squabbling with their neighbours or being abruptly thrown out of the country at a time when their employers are having financial difficulties, Metzner said. Migrants say they have paid bribes to soldiers to keep from being detained, or were held when they couldn't come up with enough cash, said Colette Lespinasse, director of the Support Group for Repatriates and Refugees, known by its French acronym as GARR. And there are widespread reports that authorities are deporting or seizing the residency documents of people with darker skin or French names that may signal Haitian ancestry. (more)

Dominican court ruling renders hundreds of thousands stateless
12 October 2013 - For four generations Banesa Blemi's family, descendants of Haitian immigrants, put down roots as low-wage sugar cane cutters in their adopted homeland, and came to consider themselves Dominicans. Then, last month the country's Constitutional Court issued a decision effectively denationalizing Blemi and her family, along with an estimated 250,000 fellow immigrants born after 1929. 'I have no country. What will become of me?' said Blemi, 27, standing with relatives outside the family's wooden shack near La Romana, the heart of the Dominican Republic's sugar cane industry and one of the Caribbean's top tourist resorts. 'We are Dominicans -- we have never been to Haiti. We were born and raised here. We don't even speak Creole,' she said, referring to Haiti's native tongue. The 23 September court ruling retroactively denies Dominican nationality to anyone born after 1929 who does not have at least one parent of Dominican blood, under a constitutional clause declaring all others to be either in the country illegally or 'in transit.' An immigrant census released earlier this year estimated there were 245,000 Dominican-born, first-generation children of immigrants living in the country. But the number affected by the ruling is likely to be exponentially higher, activists said, because it applies to other generations as well. (more)

Experts fear Dominican ruling could cause crisis
27 September 2013 - Experts warned Friday that a Dominican court decision to strip citizenship from children of Haitian migrants could cause a human rights crisis, potentially leaving tens of thousands of people stateless, facing mass deportation, and discrimination. Officials promised to create a path to Dominican citizenship, but gave no details about how it would work or who would be covered. The ruling by the Constitutional Court is final and gives the electoral commission one year to produce a list of people to be excluded from citizenship. The decision applies to those born after 1929 -- a category that overwhelmingly includes descendants of Haitians brought in to work on farms. It appears to affect even their grandchildren. A UN-backed study released this year estimated that there are nearly 210,000 Dominican-born people of Haitian descent and roughly another 34,000 born to parents of another nationality. (more)

Dominican ruling strips many of citizenship
26 September 2013 - The Dominican Republic's top court on Thursday stripped citizenship from thousands of people born to migrants who came illegally, a category that overwhelmingly includes Haitians brought in to work on farms. The decision cannot be appealed, and it affects all those born since 1929. The Constitutional Court's ruling says officials are studying birth certificates of more than 16,000 people and notes that electoral authorities have refused to issue identity documents to 40,000 people of Haitian descent. The decision, which gives the electoral commission a year to produce a list of those to be excluded, is a blow to activists who have tried to block what they call 'denationalization' of many residents. 'This is outrageous,' said Ana Maria Belique, spokeswoman for a nonprofit group that has fought for the rights of migrants' children. 'It's an injustice based on prejudice and xenophobia.' (more)

Amnesty: Dominican police responsible for abuses, murder
25 October 2011 - Police in the Dominican Republic have been responsible for an alarming number of killings and torture over a five-year period, Amnesty International said in a report released Tuesday. The report, titled 'Shut up if you don't want to be killed,' documents alleged human rights violations and calls for the police department to thoroughly investigate them. At least 154 people were reported killed by police from January to July of this year, compared with 125 people in the same period last year, according to the Dominican Republic's Office of the Prosecutor General. The report also stated that low salaries has led to widespread corruption, with 45 per cent of the department earning about $140 a month. (more)

Haitian migrants hide as Dominican Republic pursues deportations
7 January 2011 - Many Haitians were in hiding or staying in their homes in the Dominican Republic on Friday amid an immigration crackdown fuelled by cholera fears that has seen more than 1,000 Haitians sent home. Human rights groups have denounced the deportations. On Friday, Amnesty International asked the Dominican government to step up efforts to help its earthquake-shattered neighbour instead of forcing people back to what it called a desperate situation. Gloria Amezquita, with the Jesuit Refugee and Migration Service, said officials are not allowing some migrants detained to contact relatives so they can present their papers, adding that those born in the Dominican Republic risk deportation anyway because many lack the appropriate documents. (more)

Prosecutors summon ex-Dominican president
14 April 2005 - Prosecutors on Wednesday summoned former Dominican President Hipolito Mejia for questioning about alleged links to a man accused of drug trafficking in the United States, a former presidential aide said. (more)

Dominican Republic court hears extradition case
2 February 2005 - The Supreme Court heard opening arguments Tuesday in the extradition case of a former Dominican Republic army captain wanted in the United States on cocaine trafficking charges. (more)