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President Pacheco
Opens Banking Accounts
President
Abel Pacheco, published this Thursday the registries of his personal
bank accounts, in response to a legislative commission that
is investigating a scandal of illegal contributions to the
Pacheco's 2002 presidential campaign.
Pacheco sent to the legislative commission the registries of three banking accounts, two
in Costa Rican banks and one in the US at the Bank of America.
Pacheco included a letter sent to the president of the legislative commission, Luis Gerald Villanueva,
saying that the information he is submitting goes
beyond the brief period of campaign for the commission asked.
"The reason is that I can render an account of all my life", the
chief executive explained, who simultaneously asked for the deputies to request
the same from other 12 presidential candidates who participated in the campaign.
He added, that requesting the same of all the
candidates shows that the commission is sincere in
it's investigation, getting to the truth, and not
just simply a personal persecution against him.
Pacheco assumed the presidency in May 2002, as a
leader in the fight against corruption. He denies
having had knowledge of all the funds not reported
to the electoral court received during the campaign.
Of those contributions, there appear donations from
two Taiwanese companies for US$500.000
Dollars and US$250.000
Dollars from a Nicaraguan company, all deposited
into a secret bank account in Panamá.
No Cases of
Cholera Since 1997
Twelve years after cholera surfaced again in the continent, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) plans to declare the Central American nations free of the disease by next December 6.
PAHO director Mirta Roses made the announcement at a meeting with the ministers of Health from Central America and the Dominican Republic in Panama. She asserted that the region has made extraordinary progress against the disease in the last five years, and pointed out the commitment of the ministers of Health to prevent any new outbreak.
Cholera became active in South America in 1991, when a freighter carrying water from Asia with the bacteria arrived in Peru and caused an outbreak that extended throughout South and Central America. From 1991 through 2002, 1.2 million people caught the disease in these parts of the world, and 12,757 of them died.
The first case in Costa Rica was imported from Ecuador and the last one was registered in 1997.
Former US Lawmaker
Gets OK To Visit Costa Rica Before Bribery Scandal
Sentencing
A former state lawmaker expected to be sentenced in
a bribery scandal next month will get a chance to
visit his two-year-old son in Costa Rica first.
U.S. attorney spokesman Randall Samborn says the
court approved 60-year-old Roger Stanley's request
today. He'll get to leave the country for seven days
before his sentencing.
Stanley pleaded guilty in May to trading bribes for
contracts from Chicago's Metra commuter rail
service. Hoping for a reduced sentence, he agreed to
cooperate with prosecutors in the Operation Safe
Roads investigation of corruption at the Illinois
secretary of state's office.
Stanley's motion requesting the trip said the U.S.
Embassy had not granted a visa for the boy to travel
to the U.S.
Samborn says Stanley must sign new extradition
waiver papers and pay for a former federal agent to
accompany him on the trip.
AmWest Adds
Costa Rica to its List of Destinations
America West
Airlines, the Tempe, Arizona, based airline said
Wednesday that it would begin one daily round-trip
flight to San Jose, Costa Rica, on Dec. 1. It will
be the third international destination for America
West, which serves cities in Mexico and Canada.
"It makes sense for us," said Dion
Flannery, the airline's vice president for route
scheduling and planning. "It is an upscale
cultural and leisure destination, and with our
connections to the West Coast, it will have a large
passenger base. There is strong demand in Los
Angeles for service to Costa Rica."
America West will fly Airbus A319 aircraft with 124
seats. Fares will start at $499.
The decision to fly to Costa Rica, which is popular
with adventure tourists, comes shortly after America
West announced new service to Monterrey in Nuevo
Leon, Mexico, and Edmonton, Alberta. Flannery said
the foreign routes are considered potentially
lucrative.
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Mexico says differences with US on Iraq are settled
Mexico and the United States have already settled their differences on Iraq, and now it is time to continue with the bilateral issues, Juan Bremer, Mexican ambassador to Washington, said on Thursday.
"I'm absolutely convinced we have settled this," said Bremer in an interview with The Washington Diplomat magazine. He had been asked about differences aroused by the Iraqi issue, which in previous months led the United States to express disappointment with neighboring Mexico.
"We try to play a constructive role. Mexico has been very active in its foreign policy and I would be careful not to overemphasize the differences of opinion," he added.
Bremer said he believed the two countries were going to find "suitable ways" to settle pending issues between them.
One of the issues is a proposal by Mexico to protect its citizens who often cross over the common border to seek work opportunities in the United States.
Independent commission asked to investigate Brazil rocket blast
Relatives of victims of last week's rocket explosion in the Brazilian Alcantara Launch Center have demanded the creation of an independent commission to closely follow investigations on the cause of the deadly explosion, Brazilian media reported Thursday.
Some relatives of the victims expressed dissatisfaction over silence prevailing after the accident, and supported the formation of an independent investigative commission, the press said.
"We want to know what happened so this won't happen again with other people," said Luiz de Almeida, a commercial pilot and brother of one of the victims.
President of the Brazilian Space Law Association, Jose Monserrat, Wednesday said in the Lower House of Congress that onlyan independent commission, without members of the space commission,would be capable of investigating, with objectivity, the accident.
The Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC), which also favored an independent investigation, sent a letter to the government to ask that the commission to be headed by a prestigious scientist of the community.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in a speech paying tribute to the victims, gave an assurance that families of the victims would be listened to by the government.
At the request of Lula, the official in charge of the country's space policy and the defense minister summoned the families of the victims for a meeting and to see what the government could do for them.
The VLS-3 rocket blew up on the launch pad last Friday, just two days before the scheduled launch into orbit, dealing a heavy blow to Brazil's long-cherished aspiration of becoming a space power in Latin America.
The explosion killed 21 civilian engineers and technicians in the aeronautics and space technical center, most of whom had been working as the backbone of Brazil's space program.
The accident marks Brazil's third failure after two previous attempts ended in failure in 1997 and 1999.
General 24-hour strike ends in Uruguay
A 24-hour general strike to protest government economic policies, and in support of public health sector workers, ended Thursday in Uruguay.
This was the sixth general strike following the inauguration of President Jorge Batlle on March 1, 2000.
The strike, called by the Uruguayan national trade union, PIT-CNT, affected the activities of ministries, public firms, banks, education and passenger transport throughout the country.
However, most of the businesses in this capital opened their doors, and transport companies were committed to providing emergency services.
The conflict began on Aug. 11 between the government and the health sector, and was the worst situation faced by the Batlle administration.
About 4,200 doctors and 13,000 officials of the sector demand a68-US-dollar wage increase, but the government only offered a 38 percent increase of salaries.
The union rejected the offer. The doctors and public sector officials occupied at least five hospitals in Montevideo and in the rest of the country.
Twelve suspected drug traffickers arrested in Colombia
The Colombian police Thursday arrested 12 people allegedly involved in drug trafficking, and seized 19 kilograms of drugs, in south Colombia.
Police agents made the arrests after raiding a hotel in San Andres, on the Caribbean coast. The drug had been carried inside shoe soles.
Police authorities were quoted by the press as saying the suspected traffickers were using the southern Colombian tourist archipelago to smuggle drugs to Central America, the United States and Europe.
Colombia, one of the largest drug producers in the world, supplies much of the US market. It produces 580 tons of cocaine a year, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the world's total output
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