Santo Domingo. – The Environment Ministry (SEMARENA) handed over to the Immigration Agency 46 undocumented Haitians who were caught chopping down trees to plant crops in the Los Haitises National Park (northeast), just five days after the killings of at least three undocumented Haitians rocked the border town Jimaní.

SEMARENA’s Environmental Protection Service said the Haitians trespass in the protected area to cut trees and after the devastations returns to burn the dry wood. “The group is accused of depredating a zone of Los Haitises pertaining to the communities Pilancón and El Guanito, Monte Plata province, where they wrought enormous damage to the flora, fauna and water resources of that important protected area.”

SEMARENA officials handed over the undocumented people to Immigration Agency regional director Francisco Santos Tolentino, to continue the legal process.

ANTO DOMINGO.- Rebar makers have declared a “price war” in the last few days which has plunged prices as much as 28 % in the last weeks, and is expected help invigorate the construction industry.

The price of cement has also been falling by more than RD$10 a bag in the last days, according to hardware suppliers and builders.

They said from RD$1,850 the quintal two weeks ago, rebar now goes for RD$1,450, or RD$400 less, a 27.5% fall.

In the last few months rebar imports has led to fierce competition between importers and local makers, as a bundle went for RD$60,000 two months ago, today is less than RD$30,000.

Promoters and Builders Association (Acoprovi) founder Jose Rodriguez Cáceres said another reason rebar prices have fallen in the local market is that global consumption is lower, in addition to some imports. He said local consumption has fallen by more than 50%.

Hardware dealers say a ton of normal rebar cost RD$60,000 six months ago, then fell to RD$50,000 and even to RD$39,000 and note it’s something normal in the market, as the result of adjustments to the international market.

However the import of 8,000 tons by independent importers and a company immediately led to falling prices locally, and the fierce competition.

Large suppliers sell rebar to builders at RD$26,000 per ton with a RD$500 discount if they pay in cash, so rebar costs 110% less than six months ago.

Santo Domingo. - Around 30 Dominican military officers, some of them with the authority to use Navy craft to escort and protect planes and boats which brought drugs to the country, were part of a drug-trafficking support structure which has been dismantled partially, according to an investigation conducted jointly with U.S. since 2007.

The U.S. Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Immigration Customs and Service (ICE) and the Dominican Drugs Control Agency staged a sting operation including the use of a camouflaged American military plane to transport a dummy load of 500 kilos of cocaine, to uncover the officers’ complicity with the large drug shipments from Colombia.

Investigators of the Caribbean Corridor Security Forces (CCSF), formed by those four agencies, found that the ex Dominican Navy commander Carlos Rossó and ex lieutenant commander Miguel Suárez, together with more than other 20 officers whose identities haven’t been revealed, provided Navy boats to escort small craft which brought drugs from Colombia, and top secret intelligence information to Colombian traffickers, letting them know when to bring the drugs.

A U.S. undercover agent infiltrated the group and gave Rossó a satellite cellphone and a Blackberry equipped to trace the location of the Dominican Navy office, who used both items to protect cocaine shipments from a ring formed by the Dominican Heriberto Almonte and by the Colombians Harvey Bermúdez Lasso and Gustavo Gallego Cordoba.

One suspect identified as Daniel A. González received and handed the drugs to Almonte, while another, a woman by the name of Amparo Balaguera Sarta was the money exchange agent and managed the drug dispatches from Colombia, and is directly linked to Bermúdez.

The probe, whose results are contained in the case now in Puerto Rico’s Federal District Court to request Rossó’s and Suárez’s extradition to Puerto Rico, says that in 2007 and 2008 both “Dominican military officers use their position of influence and access to military intelligence to provide security to the drug shipments that enter and leave the Dominican Republic.”

Héctor Rodriguez, a Colombian pilot who resided in the country, was a direct partner of both ex Dominican officers. He’s said to be “an expert in drug airdrops,” whereas Almonte’s brother, Eduardo, resident in Colombia, negotiated shipments with the Colombian traffickers.

The report states that wiretapped conversations in October, 2007, Bermúdez presented Almonte “a confidential witness” of the DEA and this one informed him that the Dominican “had large amounts of money from drug trafficking in New York and Puerto Rico and needed to transfer the money to Colombia, to obtain other cocaine shipments in the future.”

DEA undercover agents received a first money sum from Almonte of 62,000 dollars and transferred it to Colombia, where Sarta and Gallego received it. That money was an advance to cover part of the costs to ship the 1,500 kilos of cocaine air. One agent acted as an intermediary for Almonte, who later sent 40,000 dollars from the country to several addressees in Colombia.

NEW YORK.- The Dominican distance swimmer Marcos Diaz will announce the most daring challenge in his career: “Swim of the Continents,” in which he’ll attempt out to join the world’s five continents by crossing the waters of each of the participating nations.

The Dominican swimmer’s goal is part of an ambitious United Nations international program to bolster the accomplishment of the Objectives of the Millennium.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to be present for Diaz’s announcement on Thursday, October 29 at 11 a.m. Foreign Relations minister Carlos Troncoso Morales and other Dominican officials and diplomts in the UN, will also take part in the ceremony.

In August, 2007 Diaz reached another great feat in New York when he circled the Hudson River twice, classifying him among the world’s top distance swimmers.

Para todos los que estan trabajando doro para mantener la familia. Jaquelyn en target gracias por ayudarme

Santo Domingo.– A 16-year-old boy who would have received the largest contract ever awarded to a Caribbean amateur by the St. Louis Cardinals said Saturday he is confident he will be signed again. Wagner Mateo credited the education his family has given him for keeping him strong.

“At one point I felt bad because St. Louis didn’t even call me to talk about what was happening,” he told the press. “They only sent me a letter, but I am working hard and trust that I can sign again.”

Mateo had signed a $3.1 million contract with the Cardinals in July, but the team said it was contingent on a physical exam and revoked the contract nearly three months later over what it called “pre-existing injuries and physical defects.”

The teen has myopia in his right eye and 20/30 vision, but he will fly to Miami on Monday to undergo more physical exams, agent Edgar Mercedes said. “We believe his eyesight problem can be fixed,” he said.