Anti-drugs police in the Dominican Republic have revealed how a micro-trafficking network paid local cops over $100,000 in bribes each month, showing how the domestic drug market is spawning ever wealthier and powerful local organized crime groups.

I spent the past few weeks in the Dominican Republic with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), witnessing workers’ grassroots efforts to further basic human rights in the workplace. Conducting cultural diplomacy, American college students of USAS also work closely with Dominican workers to reform corporate social responsibility.

Through my involvement in labor rights activism, I started organizing direct actions under the USC student-run organization, “Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE).” SCALE is a smaller branch of the national student labor rights movement. Our advocacy program demonstrates how university students engage in public diplomacy with factory workers worldwide. While at the same time, we advocate for the use of hard power inducements to enforce social responsibility on corporations and governments.

The Guangzhou Acrobatic Ballet will perform at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo on September 6 as part of the cultural exchange between China and the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is one of the most baseball-crazed countries in the Caribbean. Major League teams have set up multi-million dollar training and scouting facilities here to find the next great prospect.

The Vermont Institute on the Caribbean, better known as VIC, organized a cultural baseball exchange in 2007. Sending kids and parents to the Dominican Republic, they are housed with local families, learning about their way of life and of course, baseball.