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updated by 8:00 a.m. CST each day
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Massive
Layoffs at ICE
The
employess' union of the Instituto
Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), denounced
the layoff of 600 ICE employees.
According to, Fabio Chaves, president of
worker's union ASDEICE, the layoffs are due to
several stalled projects and ICE is laying off
workers due to budget cutbacks.
In a press conference, Chaves said, that is
the layoffs do actually occur it would in
violation of an agreement signed last year
between the government and ICE.
ASDEICE is waiting
on Pablo Cob ,who is to remain as president of
ICE, for clarifications of the situation
before making any announcements of their plans
to combat the layoffs.
Alleged Swindler
Bids to Stay in Canada
A former
Costa Rican bureaucrat who fled to Canada to avoid
embezzlement charges could be deported tomorrow if a
judge in Toronto rejects his last appeal.
Jorge Alberto Martinez Melendez, 46, who is accused
of stealing almost $1-million from a government
housing project for the poor, went to Canada four
years ago with his family and immediately filed a
refugee claim, which was rejected by the Immigration
and Refugee Board of Canada.
The decision has been upheld by two judicial reviews
at the Federal Court of Appeal, but Mr. Melendez's
lawyer said yesterday both ignored information
showing his family has been threatened.
"This year there was an attack against a family
member of Mr. Melendez," said Ricardo Aguirre,
referring to a threat against the claimant's
brother. "His whole family, as a result, face a risk
if they return to Costa Rica."
But the judge hearing yesterday's request for a stay
of deportation pointed out that a risk-assessment
officer for Canada's department of citizenship and
immigration was aware of the threat, but concluded
there was insufficient evidence linking it to Mr.
Melendez.
A lawyer and member of the Partido Liberation
National (PLN) in Costa Rica, Mr. Melendez was
appointed in 1994 by then-president Jose Maria
Figueres to manage a new social program. When the
PLN lost the 1997 election, the new regime
investigated previous government spending, and Mr.
Melendez says he was pressured to implicate his
former superiors.
He says he was detained for six months in the San
Sebastian jail, and that his release was offered in
January, 1999, in exchange for information about the
PLN, used by the new regime against the former
president.
Charges of embezzlement were laid against Mr.
Melendez after he arrived in Canada.
Yesterday, Madame Justice Judith Snider asked for
evidence that past events place Mr. Melendez or his
family in danger should they return to Costa Rica.
She echoed a suggestion made in a risk-assessment
officer's report that the refugee claimant faces
"prosecution rather than persecution" in his native
country.
Three risk assessments have been conducted, two of
which have been reviewed by appeal courts and ruled
to reject the likelihood of politically motivated
persecution.
Judge Snider withheld her decision until this
morning.
Mr. Melendez is scheduled to be deported at 8:30
a.m. tomorrow if a stay is not granted. No
deportation order has yet been issued for his wife
and three young children.
Large Group of
Ilegals Detained
Fifty seven
persons were detained by the Fuerza Publica in the
north zone of Costa Rica in an operative to curb the
mass influx of illegals coming into Costa Rica for
the coffee harvest season.
All detained were of Nicaraguan nationality; 48 men,
3 women and 6 minors.
According to police authorities, they made their way
into Costa Rica by way of a mountain pass near the
border crossing at Peñas Blancas.
Police were tipped off at a large group of
Nicaraguans that were to enter Costa Rican territory
and were awaiting their arrival to affect an arrest.
In most cases, the illegals are simply turned back,
only to make their way back in another day.
Justice in Costa
Rica Killing Cost Victim's Family $100K
The mother of
Shannon Martin, a Kansas University student murdered
in Costa Rica, says the campaign to find and
prosecute her daughter's killers has left her more
than $100,000 in debt.
"I'm not worried about it, yet. We still have
options," said Jeanette Stauffer, referring to
herself and her husband, Brad Stauffer.
"I have learned that the most important thing in
life is to help other people and to take on a lot of
what my daughter valued in life. Materialism isn't
important. If we have to live in a shack, we'll live
in a shack."
Stauffer's daughter, Shannon Martin, 23, was stabbed
to death after leaving a nightclub in the coastal
town of Golfito, Costa Rica. Her body was found May
13, 2001, beside an airstrip-access road near her
host family's house.
Two of Martin's attackers, Kattia Cruz, 29, and Luis
Alberto Castro Carrillo, 33, were found guilty of
"simple homicide" last week. Both were sentenced to
15 years in prison. A third suspect, Rafael Zumbado
Quesada, 52, was found not guilty.
The trial, expected to last five to six days,
stretched over a six-week period.
"Those six weeks cost us anywhere from $20,000 to
$22,000," Stauffer said.
In the two and a half years since her daughter's
murder, Stauffer said she made 11 trips to Costa
Rica. Her husband joined her on five trips.
Stauffer said she also paid airfare, hotel and meal
expenses for KBI agent Larry Thomas and translator
A. Jesse Ybarra, who gathered much of the evidence
used to convict Cruz and Carrillo. The KBI paid
Thomas' wages, Stauffer paid Ybarra's.
"It took outsiders to solve this murder," Stauffer
said.
Stauffer said she also picked up the hotel and meals
tab for four security guards provided by the Costa
Rican Ministry of Public Safety during the last
three days of the trial.
The guards were called in, Stauffer said, after
officials realized the defendants were part of a
"Costa Rican, drug-dealing underworld" capable of
killing those who stand up against it.
"Those first few days, the courtroom was chaos,"
Stauffer said. "The defendants' families were all in
there -- I had two of Kattia's brothers, both of
them big men, stand behind me the whole time. And
then they'd follow me wherever I went."
The guards' arrival "put an end to all that," she
said.
Stauffer said she and her husband have dedicated
themselves to raising money for the Shannon Lucile
Martin English Center in Golfito, which opens in
February. Donations may be sent to the Shannon
Lucile Martin Foundation, 5431 S.W. 29th St., Topeka
66614.
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Venezuelan oil
company confirms crude-production recovery
Venezuelan
state-run petroleum company PDVSA confirmed on
Tuesday the current crude production stands at 3.2
million barrels per day (bpd), recovering from a
record low of 250,000 bpd in the December
2002-January 2003 period.
The directors of the company were satisfied with the
achievements and the overcoming of multiple
obstacles in petroleum production, according to
local daily El Universal.
The PDVSA had secured substantial recovery in
refining, gasoline-transportation and the
normalization of the tanker-fleet.
According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), Venezuela's oil output stood at
2.56 million bpd in October, up 21,000 barrels from
that of September.
In the first nine months of the year, the Venezuelan
petroleum exports reported an accumulated decrease
of 24 percent, as compared to the same period in
2002, according to a report of the economic cabinet.
From January to September 2003, the country's gross
domestic product (GDP) registered a 14.7-percent
contraction from the same period in 2002, though it
is expected to grow by 6.5 percent in 2004.
On Dec. 2, 2002, opponents of President Hugo Chavez
called a 63-day national labor stoppage aimed at
forcing him to resign.
Figures of the Venezuelan Energy and Mining Ministry
revealed that the country, the world's fifth largest
exporter, lost more than 10 billion US dollars
because of the strike that halted 70 percent of the
oil industry's operations.
Brazilian president
begins tour to Arab countries for closer ties
Brazilian President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva departed on Tuesday for the
Middle East in order to forge new political
alliances, open markets for Brazil's exports and
attract foreign investments.
This is the first time for a Brazilian head of state
to visit the region since 1870, when Emperor Pedro
II visited several Arab countries.
The eight-day tour includes Syria, Lebanon, the
United Arab Emirates (UAE), Libya and Egypt.
After strengthening the relations with Africa and
other countries of South America, Lula embarked on
the tour of five Arab countries with an aim of
searching for a new foreign policy alliance for
Brazil in the Middle East.
Currently, barely 3.0 percent of the Brazilian
exports go to the Arab countries, so the trip will
be focused on the commercial aspect, with the
participation of a delegation of Brazilian
businessmen.
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States, Brazil believes there is a
good opportunity for the South American region to
attract funds from Arab countries since they become
reluctant to invest in the United States.
During the tour, Lula will be accompanied by
Argentine ex-president Eduardo Duhalde, who will
preside, since mid-December, over the commission of
permanent representatives of the South American
Common Market (Mercosur).
US ends registration
program for foreigners
The US Department of
Homeland Security said Monday that it was ending a
program introduced after the Sept. 11 attacks that
requires men and boys, mostly from the Middle East,
to register with the government while they are in
the United States.
The department would focus more on individuals
instead of "broad categories" of people, said Asa
Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and
transportation security.
The move, which takes effect as of Tuesday, would
free up resources to target potential terrorists
based on individuals instead of geographic factors,
he said, arguing that the decision was not taken
because of harsh criticism and protests.
With immediate effect, men from 25 nations would no
longer have to re-register after 30 days and then
one year after entering the United States, but they
will still be photographed and fingerprinted on
arrival, he said.
The program, which was started by the Justice
Department last year and inherited by the Department
of Homeland Security when it was created earlier
this year, could be used again if there was another
terrorist attack linked to a foreign country,
Hutchinson said.
Under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration
System, men and boys from 25 countries in the Middle
East and other areas, in which the US government
said al Qaeda network or other terror groups had
been active or where the United States had national
security concerns, are required to be fingerprinted,
photographed and interviewed at US immigration
offices.
The program, which was designed to help bar known
terrorists from entering the country, was accused by
critics of unfairly targeting thousands of people on
grounds of nationality.
Over 290,000 registrations were reported through
Sept. 30, and 2,870 people were detained as a result
of registrations and some were deported, he said.
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