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Two Cubans Arrested With Ecstacy
The courts have issued a six month
preventative detention against the two cubans
who were arrested for possession of a load of
Ecstacy (Extasis in Spanish).
Police arrested the two men,
only their last names released - Ibáñez y
Jeanjakues - with a load of 999 pills.
They were arrested on Thursday and Friday
morning were brought to the San José tribunals
for a hearing.
Ecstasy, is a drug with hallucinogenic
and amphetamine like properties and has been
reported to contribute to heightened sexual
experience, tranquility, and happiness.
Ecstasy
is sold on the streets of Costa Rica for about
8.000 colones a pill. The typical market is
young people between the ages of 14 and 18.
The drug takes effect almost immediately and
can reach it's peak effect within an hour of
taking it, but can last in the blood stream up
to 24 hours.
Minimum wages
Costa Rica is
the Central American nation that has the highest
minimum wages, according to data from the Secretary
of Central American Economic Integration (SIECA).
Analysts point out the fact that larger unemployment
rates, low educational levels, and the conditions of
each economy account for the differences.
Among other examples, the sources said that , for
example, an untrained farm worker earns $4.02 a day
in Guatemala, $2.47 in El Salvador, $2.79 in
Honduras, and $1.34 in Nicaragua, while the amount
rises to $8.27 in Costa Rica.
An official source pointed out that one thing nobody
should ignore is the fact that the cost of living in
Costa Rica is much higher than elsewhere in Central
America.
Observers Expect U.N. Cloning Controversy to
Resurface
Both Costa Rica and the United States have
indicated they are unsatisfied with the
recommendation made by the Assembly's legal
committee and want U.N. member states to
support their proposal for a ban on all
cloning.
Belgium, on the other hand, led the states
that pushed to ban human cloning but to permit
the practice for research purposes, also known
as therapeutic cloning.
The two positions were deadlocked at
November's legal committee meeting, leading to
the compromise motion to delay the vote for
two years.
The General Assembly typically follows the
recommendations of its various committees.
While both resolutions call for a ban on human
reproductive cloning, they vary on the
restrictions they impose on therapeutic
cloning.
The Costa Rican proposal calls for a ban on
all forms of human cloning. The United States
and Spain have cosponsored the Costa Rican
resolution.
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Nearly 150 US
soldiers in Iraq infected with skin disease
Nearly 150 US soldiers
in Iraq have been diagnosed with a parasitic skin
disease, and hundreds more could unknowingly be
infected, experts said.
So far 148 soldiers have confirmed cases, but
hundreds more are expected, entomologist and Army
Lt. Col. Russell Coleman, who spent 10 months in
Iraq, was quoted by the USA Today newspaper as
saying on Friday.
The disease, Leishmaniasis, which is called the
"Baghdad Boil" by US soldiers, is carried by biting
sand flies and doesn't spread from person to person.
It causes skin lesions that if untreated may take
months, even years, to heal and can be disfiguring,
doctors said.
Sand flies are active during warm weather, and soon
after US troops arrived in Iraq in late March, "we
started seeing soldiers basically eaten alive,"
Coleman said. "They'd get a hundred, in some cases,
1,000 bits in a single night."
The disease has an incubation period of six months
on average, so a person infected in September may
not show symptoms until March.
Coleman and Army Lt. Col. Peter Weina, a
leishmaniasis expert still in Iraq, predicted in
April that there would be 400 cases, based on the
number of bites seen and tests that show about one
in every 70 sand flies carries the bug.
US doctors are concerned that soldiers coming home
may be harboring the parasite without knowing it,
the report said.
Leishmaniasis is rare in the United States, and
American doctors may not recognize it, said Glenn
Wortmann, a physician at the Washington-based Walter
Reed Army Medical Center.
Former US President
Reagan unable to talk, says daughter
Former US President
Ronald Reagan was unable to communicate or feed
himself as he is gradually overtaken by the
lengthening shadow of Alzheimer's disease, his
daughter Patti Davis was quoted as saying Friday.
Writing in an essay for the Dec. 15 edition of
People magazine, Davis said she wants people to have
a clear understanding of what Alzheimer's disease
has done to his father, who is the first former US
president ever to reach the age of 92.
"It makes me realize that my mother and I have been
so protective of his condition since he became ill
-- almost a decade now -- that it has allowed people
to imagine he is still talking, still walking, still
able to stumble into a moment of clarity," she said.
"But it would be a disservice to every family who
has an Alzheimer's victim in their embrace to say
any of that is true, and I don't believe my father
would want us to lie," Davis added.
Once famously robust and even chopped wood in his
downtime at his Santa Ynez Valley ranch in Los
Angeles, Reagan no longer knows his family, nor can
he feeds himself or speak, according to the People
magazine.
Reagan's former chief of staff Joanne Drake refused
to talk about any specifics of his former boss'
health. "He's the same. Nothing has changed. He's
comfortable at home," he said.
Former first lady Nancy Reagan has called the
disease that has taken over his husband "the long
goodbye," which has stretched through nine years
now.
Nancy indicated the extent of the disease's impact
on Reagan during a CBS "60 Minutes II" interview
last year.
"The golden years are when you can sit back,
hopefully, and exchange memories, and that's the
worst part about this disease: there's nobody to
exchange memories with ... and we had a lot of
memories," she said.
Reagan's former White House physician said a man of
lesser constitution -- the president survived a
would-be assassin's bullet on March 30, 1981 and
managed to joke about it as he was taken for
emergency surgery -- would probably be gone by now.
"He's in the throes of continual neurological
degradation," John Hutton told the People.
"Occasionally, he is put in a wheelchair and moved
out where he can view the city. But there is a
vacantness there. You can't really tell if he
appreciates it."
Nancy has rarely left the side of her husband,
especially since his hip surgery in 2001, the
magazine reports. Now 82, she gets help caring for
him from doctors, nurses and a full-time
housekeeping staff at the Reagans' three-bedroom
home in Bel Air.
The former first lady, who underwent cataract
surgery earlier this year, looks fragile herself
these days.
She goes out infrequently, occasionally lunching at
the Hotel Bel-Air with friends.
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