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Venezuelan opposition leader denies conspiracy against president
President of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), Carlos Ortega, denied
on Saturday that there is any conspiracy against the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Ortega, an opponent to the Chavez administration who is
seeking asylum in Costa Rica, said that since his arrival in the country, he has "strictly" complied with the instructions of Costa Rican Foreign Minister, Roberto Tovar, as well as with rules of the international law for political asylum.
In a statement issued to the local press, the CTV president said he regretted Chavez's persistence in "creating a conflict without any foundation."
On Friday, the Venezuelan government confirmed that next week it will send representative
Fermin Toro to Costa Rica to lodge a denunciation on the conspiracy aimed at ousting President Chavez.
The Venezuelan government charges that a new coup against Chavez is in the making from Costa Rica, the United States and
the Dominican Republic.
Costa Rica has denied its involvement in a movement against
the Venezuelan government, saying it will study the Ortega case to define whether he violates his asylum rights, and to decide about his presence in the country.
Venezuela's Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel has said his government would resort to such international organizations as
the Organization of American States (OAS) to denounce the alleged conspiracy.
For his part, Ortega stressed that his remarks to the press have not exceeded the limits of "a free man in a democratic society".
Ortega has been on the run since Feb. 19, when Venezuelan authorities issued a warrant for his arrest, charging him with treason and other crimes for his role in leading the
two-month-old nationwide strike that failed to oust Chavez late last year.
Fasten
Your Seat Belt
According to
a survey by the Road Safety Council, 76 percent of
drivers in Costa Rica do not fasten their seat
belts, and a majority of them claim that they plain
"forget" to do so.
The study also found that 84 percent of the
passengers do not take advantage of the belts
either. The survey is one of the studies used to try
to convince the Legislative Assembly to pass a law
making the wearing of seat belts mandatory, as a
means to lower the number of deaths and injuries
resulting from road accidents.
No
to Central American Sugar
The Louisiana
cane sugar industry launched a campaign to prevent
sugar to be part of the negotiations of a free trade
agreement between the U.S. and Central America.
The campaign requests state residents to assert
their opposition by letting President George Bush
know about it. The sector claims that tariffs on the
product must remain effective, otherwise the Central
Americans would flood the market with cheap sugar.
Turtle
Rescued
Wardens of
the Las Baulas National Marine Park combined their
efforts with volunteers and rescued a 200-kilo
(440-pound) turtle that for unknown reasons lost her
way back to the ocean after spawning at Tamarindo
Beach, in Guanacaste, on the Costa Rican Northwest
Pacific.
The rescuers guided the turtle back to the sea, in
order to prevent her dehydration or her falling
victim to a predator in the estuary where she was
spotted, evidently lost and far away from her
environment.
This turtle was defined as a re-migrant by Park
authorities, because it carries a chip that was
placed on her in the 1997-98 season, and shows that
she came to spawn in Tamarindo again in the 2000-01
season, before doing so in the current one.
Flu
Vaccine
The Costa
Rican Social Security Institution (CCSS in Spanish)
is going to provide a flu vaccine to some 80,000
people under 5 or over 65 starting next February.
Even though the vaccination will cost some $575,000,
the CCSS expects savings amounting to $4.4 million
per year in the care and hospital expenses of flu
patients from the age groups covered. CCSS sources
explained that the very young and the elderly are
prone to complications resulting from the flu,
therefore the effort to prevent them.
Taiwanese
Probe Conditions
A trade
mission from Taiwan visited Costa Rica as part of a
tour that also included Panama and El Salvador.
The aim of the visit is analyzing the investment
conditions in this part of the world to eventually
establish an electronics plant.
The secretary general of the Taiwan Electric and
Electronics Manufacturers Association, Joseph Fu-Hsiong,
explained, "The major aim of the mission is
establishing contacts and links with companies, in
order to create bilateral commercial opportunities
in the electric-electronics area.
This is prompted by the fact that we are studying
the possibility of establishing a plant in this
region."
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Central America expects agricultural protection in FTA with US
Central American countries negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States have expected to obtain a special safeguard on volume or price to protect agricultural producers against the imports of subsidized US products.
Anabel Gonzalez, chief negotiator of Costa Rica, was quoted on Saturday by local press as saying that this goal is expected to
be achieved during the so-called "mini-round" of negotiations to begin next week in Washington between the two parties.
Such protective measure is an instrument that defends the countries from mass imports not only of subsidized products from other nations, but those with "other distortions at an international level", Gonzalez explained.
A volume is established to guarantee that only a determined amount of tons enter into the country, in order to prevent an over-importation that diminishes the prices at an internal level, making the international production more profitable than that of national agricultural producers, the negotiator said.
He added that not all national products have to opt for a special safeguard.
Over 8,000 observers to watch over elections in Guatemala
Over 8,000 observers including some 400 from foreign countries will be stationed throughout Guatemala during Sunday's general elections amid fears of irregularities and violence, reports reaching here said.
The observers come from the organization Mirador Electoral, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union
(EU).
President Alfonso Portillo, who will hand over his presidency on Jan. 14, admitted in a speech that the international community was "as close as ever to the electoral process."
Voters will choose a president, a vice president, congress representatives, Central American Parliament legislators and municipal officials on Sunday.
If none of the presidential candidates can get 50 percent of the votes, the two front runners will move on to a run-off scheduled for Dec. 28.
"One of our preoccupation is that disturbances could occur during the voting," said Raymundo Caz, judge of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
Oscar Berger, the Grand National Alliance candidate, who was leading in the opinion polls, also expected "the most violent electoral campaign in the history."
The international missions of electoral observation had warned of violence during the elections, and predicted it could reach
its peak on the election day.
The Electoral Observation Mission of the OAS said on Oct. 27 that at least 27 people had been killed in election-related violence.
The number was registered since May 15, when the call for the elections was made.
Jannis Sakellariou, chief of the Mission of the EU, said there was unrest due to violence, a commonplace in the Central American nation.
Interior Minister Adolfo Reyes said the government had identified a total of 50 "high-risk" spots, where vigilance would be reinforced.
Nearly 20,000 troops would be deployed to guard the polling stations, roads, bridges, borders, and telecommunication and electricity infrastructure on Nov. 5-15, according to the minister.
Brazil yields to US pressure in FTAA negotiations
Brazil has decided to withdraw from the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) the demand to discuss the end of the agricultural subsidies in the United States, reports here quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying on Saturday.
The Brazilian government had considered the negotiation on the US agricultural subsidies fundamental for the continued FTAA negotiations, scheduled to take effect in 2005.
"After having heard a thousand times that US negotiators say they did not accept negotiating subsidies in the FTAA, we had to admit their difficulties," said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, after meeting with US Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick in Washington Friday.
The Brazilian diplomat explained that the recognition of the
US difficulties was a "way to move on in the negotiations" and keep "the differences between the two countries" for future.
As for the removal of agricultural subsidies, Amorim said Brazil wants to negotiate with the United States a greater access for its products to the US market and withdraw from the FTAA negotiations those "sensitive" issues, which include rules for investments, governmental procurement and intellectual property.
Zoellick, who had criticized the Brazilian position on the FTAA,said Friday's meeting was "very constructive and useful."
According to Amorim, following the latest development, both
the issue of US agricultural subsidies and the "sensitive" issues for Brazil would again be negotiated within the framework of the WorldTrade Organization
(WTO).
Other issues in the FTAA negotiations will be dealt with in bilateral or multilateral negotiations.
The Brazilian foreign minister said the new Brazilian proposal would allow the 34 countries involved in the FTAA process to negotiate their positions in the best way.
At the first Summit of the Americas in 1994 in Miami, Florida, the United States proposed the creation of the FTAA covering the Western Hemisphere, except Cuba. The FTAA would become the
world's largest free trade zone with 784 million potential consumers, stretching from Alaska, of the Unites States, to Argentina.
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