International leaders assemble for presidential inauguration

SantoDomingo.- Most of the heads of state and international dignitaries who willattend today’s inauguration of president-elect Danilo Medina and vice president-elect Margarita Cedeño de Fernández have already arrived in the country.

A pressrelease from the organizing committee reports that the presidents of Honduras,Porfirio Lobo; Haiti, Michel Martelly; El Salvador, Mauricio Funes; Panama,Ricardo Martinelli; Suriname, Desiré Delano Bouterse; the Prince of Asturias,Felipe de Borbón; the vice presidents of Taiwan, Wu Den-yi; Cuba, Esteban LazoHernández; Peru, Marisol Espinosa Cruz; Costa Rica, Alfio Piva Mesén and the deputyprime minister of Georgia, Eka Tkeshalashvili arrived yesterday.

ArchbishopLuigi Bianco from the Holy See is also in the country for the occasion, along with OASSecretary General José Miguel Insulza, former vice president and currentLiberian ambassador to the United Kingdom Dr. Wesley Momo Johnson and thesecretary general of the Central American Integration System (SICA) Juan DanielAlemán.

Otherdignitaries include Jaime Vallaure of the United Nations World Food Program,Lilian Reneau-Vernon and Laura Ramírez from the Pan American HealthOrganization (PAHO), French Overseas Minister Victorin Luren, and Russianambassador Vladimir Zaemskiy, who is based in Venezuela.