Puerto Rico News Digest For August 30, 2016

PERELLO RESIGNS AS HOUSE SPEAKER

From Caribbean Business:

"Jaime Perelló resigned from his position as Speaker of the Puerto Rico House
of Representatives Monday afternoon. He announced his resignation in the Ca-
pitol rotunda next to an original text of the Puerto Rico Constitution...Perelló
left his position after meeting with 16 lawmakers at the Capitol to discuss a tr-
ial underway in federal court of three former House employees under his dire-
ct supervision who were charged in a pay-for-play scheme to benefit the form-
er speaker’s fundraiser, Anaudi Hernández. During the trial Monday, Hernán-
dez said he raised more than $60,000 in cash for Perelló as part of a pyramid
scheme organized by attorney Irvin Faccio in which he was required to raise
$75,000 for the House leader..."

PUIG HEADS TO US OPEN AFTER GOLD MEDAL

From Bloomberg:

"Tennis player Monica Puig, who won the commonwealth’s first Olympic gold
medal in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month, competes Monday in her first match
this year at the U.S. Open in Queens, New York. Puig’s Olympic victory comes
amid dire Puerto Rico headlines of escalating debt, a broke pension system, a Zi-
ka outbreak, and a 10-year economic recession. Thousands of cheering fans gree-
ted her at the airport in San Juan when she arrived on Aug. 20, a week after her
win..."

BERNABE: AGRICULTURAL REFORM "URGENT"

From The San Juan Daily Star:

"Working People’s Party (PPT by its Spanish acronym) Rafael Bernabe said
late last week that the destruction of the island’s agriculture has been one of the
greatest tragedies in Puerto Rico’s recent history. Speaking at a forum sponsored
by the Puerto Rico Agriculture Association during its annual assembly, Bernabe
laid out some of the PPT’s proposals for the agricultural sector. “It’s a scandal that
today we import 85 percent of our food and that with the ability to export much
more and having a much broader food industry, we don’t do the first, and we don’t
have the second,” he said, according to an Inter News Service report. He added that
the reconstruction of island agriculture, with an agro-ecological emphasis, “is an ur-
gent and crucial task...”

LIBERTY GOES SOLAR AT LUQUILLO HQ

From News Is My Business:

"Oak Leaf Solar X LLC, a Yarotek entity, has installed 2,444 solar panels at Li-
berty Puerto Rico’s facility in Luquillo, making the provider’s operations more
sustainable and “reaffirming the companies’ respective commitments to Puerto
Rico and the environment,” the company announced Monday. Liberty entered
into a long-term power purchase agreement to buy its solar power from Oak Le-
af Solar X, an independent power producer and developer focused on solar energy..."

Puerto Rico News Digest For August 23, 2016

OLYMPIANS PARADE THROUGH SJ TODAY

Photo: PR Olympic Committee

From Caribbean Business:

"The Puerto Rican Olympic delegation will celebrate on Tuesday the end of the
2016 Río de Janeiro games with a parade through San Juan. The participating
athletes include Javier Culson, Jaime Espinal, Franklin Gómez and Mónica Puig.
The caravan is slated to begin on Baldorioty de Castro Avenue and end at the Pu-
erto Rico Coliseum. The event is expected to begin at 2 p.m. and includes a stop
at the San Jorge Children’s Hospital and then continues toward the coliseum via
Fernández Juncos Avenue..."

UP TO 270 ZIKA MICROCEPHALY CASES EXPECTED

From The San Juan Daily Star:

"U.S. health experts estimate that as many as 270 babies in Puerto Rico may be
born with the severe birth defect known as microcephaly caused by Zika infecti-
ons in their mothers during pregnancy. The estimate is the first to project the po-
tential impact of Zika on Puerto Rico, which has borne the brunt of the outbreak
in the United States. Puerto Rico had 13,186 laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika,
including 1,106 pregnant women, as of Friday. Rising infection rates of the virus
in Puerto Rico prompted the U.S. government to declare a state of public health
emergency last week..."

ECONOMISTS TO DISCUSS PROMESA IMPACT

From News Is My Business:

"The Puerto Rico Economists Association wiil address the impact of the Puerto
Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) and pre-
sent, through successful cases, the recipe to achieve economic revitalization dur-
ing its upcoming annual conference, the organization announced. The 33rd ann-
ual meeting will take place Aug. 26, when, under the slogan of “The New Econ-
omic Recipe: Strategies for Economic and Social Revitalization,” several panels
comprising representation from government, academia and private industries will
discuss a range of topics..."

SAN JUAN ACTIVISTS PROTEST TAX EXCEPTIONS

From Democracy Now:

"In Puerto Rico, activists disrupted a business conference in San Juan on Friday
to protest laws that give new residents and some business owners complete exc-
eptions on a slew of taxes. The activists were also protesting against the PROM-
ESA law, which creates a new financial control board to oversee the island’s fin-
ancial affairs. During the protest, activists carried banners reading "The People
Before the Debt." The protest shut down the conference’s event registration for
parts of the day..."

Monica Puig Wins First Ever Gold Medal For PR

NPR

Bill Chappell

Puerto Rico now has its first Olympic gold medal, courtesy of tennis star
Monica Puig, who beat Germany's Angelique Kerber in the women's sin-
gles tournament at Rio's Summer Olympics Saturday.

"I"m speechless," a smiling Puig said after her historic win. "I wanted it
so bad."

"I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would happen," Puig ad-
ded — and she said her experience in Rio de Janeiro has been like a dream.
She's looking forward, she said, to waking up tomorrow morning and seeing
her gold medal sitting on her bedside table...[CONTINUE READING]