Yellow Alert for the Caribbean Zone
The National Emergency Commission (CNE) has issued a yellow alert for the Caribbean Zone due to the heavy rains that fell since Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning.

In addition, the CNE, has issued a Green alert for the Central and South Pacific areas.

According to the weather man, the heavy rains are a result of a cold air front and heavy winds that slammed into a warm tropical air front and low atmospheric pressure situated in the northern part of Panama and the southern coast of Costa Rica.
 

$220 Million for Roads Lost
During the last six years, for every 100 colones paid for fuel and for the circulation rights and destined to fixing roads, the Ministry of Finance allocated 35 colones to ends other than the roads.

Therefore, against the law, the Government did not disburse some $220 million to the National Road Council, of the money taxpayers thought was destined to repair or improve roads.

The tax on gasoline is 40.72 percent, 32.68 percent on diesel, and 30 percent of those overall revenues is earmarked for roads, as is 50 percent of the circulation rights paid every year.

According to analysts, true improvement on the roads would be evident if all of the funds that correspond to them were properly allocated.

Moreover, they point out, Costa Rica would make major savings if that were the case, because for every dollar invested on the improvement of the road system there are $3 to $5 worth of productivity, competitiveness, and life quality..
 

CAFTA: The Coming Free Trade Fight
U.S. labor leaders want to delay another effort by the Bush administration to expand free trade - and this time they think they can succeed.

They are taking their case to the public in an effort to make quick passage of a U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) politically risky and vulnerable in Congress.

They don't have much choice. Unable to directly influence negotiations, labor leaders can only sit back and watch as trade officials from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua meet here this week with their U.S. counterparts in what they hope will be the final round of talks before signing the accord. After that, the administration will present the agreement to Congress for approval.

While it is true that some countries constitutionally recognize workers' rights to organize without discrimination, the worker advocates argue that enormous loopholes prevent that from happening in Central America. Human Rights Watch reported last week that in El Salvador, union members face all sorts of hurdles, from "excessively burdensome'' red tape required to join unions, to anti-union hiring practices.

U.S. labor leaders also take issue with reports that the Bush administration is spending aggressively in Central America to sell CAFTA as a windfall for all parties involved.

"If indeed this is U.S. taxpayers' money that is going to underwrite this campaign, they are underwriting a very unilateral position which is not necessarily the opinion of the American public," said Stan A. Gacek, international affairs assistant director for the AFL-CIO.

A U.S. official, however, defended the effort, funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development, as a move to help Central American governments do their own outreach. If anything, the official said, civil societies should welcome such attempts to make governments in the region more open to public opinion and dissent.

Both the Bush administration and the union advocates are struggling mightily to win this one. The administration needs CAFTA to keep the process of hemispheric-wide integration alive. Labor leaders and their allies see stopping CAFTA in Congress as their best chance yet to block "irresponsible trade agreements."

Some form of free trade is coming to Central America, there is no doubt. And despite growing popular skepticism in the region, regional experts remain convinced that free trade agreements are essential to exert constructive pressure on governments to do what is necessary to reform and help their industries become competitive.

An immediate delay will only deny Central America both the benefits and drawbacks of free trade.
 

Puerto Rico is a Major Player in Regional Trade
An analysis of the trade of the U.S. with the 33 other participating countries in the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) indicates Puerto Rico is a significant factor.

While Puerto Rico’s two-way trade in the region is dominated by the $1.4 billion traded with the neighboring Dominican Republic, the next eight countries (listed in descending order) reflect how diversified the island’s trade has become.

No. 2 is Canada ($477 million) and No. 3 is Mexico ($380 million); both are partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which applies to Puerto Rico as part of the U.S.

Brazil ($343 million), Colombia ($324 million), and Trinidad & Tobago ($278 million) have moved ahead of Venezuela ($255 million), reflecting the instability in the latter country as well as the emergence of Trinidad & Tobago as a major supplier of natural gas to Puerto Rico. Following Venezuela are Costa Rica ($187 million), Argentina ($171 million), and Ecuador ($106 million).

Puerto Rico’s trade with the English-speaking Caribbean is led by Jamaica ($26 million), followed by St. Kitts & Nevis ($24 million), Barbados ($20 million), St. Vincent & the Grenadines ($13 million), Antigua & Barbuda ($3 million), Dominica ($3 million), and Grenada ($2 million).

The trade of the U.S. Virgin Islands with the region is significant, led by Venezuela ($2 billion), Colombia ($87.9 million), Mexico ($59 million), Bahamas ($38.6 million), Brazil ($29 million), Argentina ($12.9 million), St. Lucia ($12 million), Trinidad & Tobago ($8.6 million), the Dominican Republic ($6.7 million), and Panama ($3.4 million).