OIJ Agent
Arrested for Drug Trafficking
Police
detained this Tuesday a judicial agent, Edwin
Santana Cortés, with 65 kilos of cocaine and
heroin, near the border with Nicaragua.
The arrest occurred
at dawn of Tuesday, about 3 kilometers before
the border . Cortés Santana was an agent for the
Organismo Judicial de Investigacion (OIJ) for 18
years, in Guanacaste
The case is in
investigation.
A Fruit Fight?
Del Monte Produce Inc., which claims to have produced the sweetest and most perfect pineapple in the world in Costa Rica, has patented its production method.
Since it introduced the "Extra Sweet Gold" pineapple in the US market, its sales have tripled.
However, other scientists are trying to duplicate the product, claimed to be very juicy, sweet and durable, and a big patent fight is
expected
.
So precious is the fruit to Del Monte that The Wall Street Journal says it has hired guards to watch over the plants 24 hours a day.
"A fruit like this comes along only once in a lifetime," says C J Ingles, executive vice president of Texas- based Le Best Banana Co., a competing pineapple producer.
"It is even more rare that one company would control it. Del Monte has a beautiful ride."
"Sowing the seeds for a worldwide fruit fight," says The Wall Street Journal. Dole Food Co. Inc., Chiquita Brands Inc., and others are planting thousands of acres of competing pineapples in Central America, hoping to break the hold of one of the most profitable chunks of the produce aisle in the
supermarkets.
After a court ruling that Del Monte had patented a different pineapple, competitors are expected to start flooding the US with their versions of the Gold later this year and next.
At stake is a worldwide market valued at over $ 1billion a year.
To Control HIV/AIDS Epidemic, Central America Must Invest More In Prevention
Four of the six countries with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in Latin America are in Central America, and the epidemic threatens to run out of control unless prevention efforts are intensified, the World Bank cautioned today.
In report on the subject released today at the Third Central American Congress on Sexually Transmitted Diseases/HIV/AIDS, Concasida 2003, which runs from October 13-17 in Panama city, the World Bank indicated that Belize, Honduras, Panama, and Guatemala are four of the six countries with the highest HIV prevalence in all of Latin America as of the end of 2001.
“The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Central America is serious and is worsening, and although the epidemic continues to be concentrated in high risk populations, it has become generalized in some countries,” said Jane Armitage, the World Bank’s Director for Central America. “Fortunately, there is still time to limit the current and future impact of HIV/AIDS. Prevention is the key.”
According to the document titled HIV/AIDS in Central America: An Overview of the Epidemic and Priorities for Prevention, HIV adult prevalence is highest in Belize (2 percent), followed by Honduras (1.6 percent), Panama (1.5 percent), Guatemala (1 percent), El Salvador (0.6 percent),
Costa Rica (0.6 percent), and Nicaragua (0.2 percent), based on UNAIDS estimates.
HIV transmission in Central America is primarily due to heterosexual sex, which is more similar to the Caribbean than the South American pattern, and although there are more men than women with AIDS in Central America, the gender gap is closing, according to HIV/AIDS in Central America: An Overview of the Epidemic and Priorities for Prevention.
The epidemic is generally concentrated in high-risk populations such as men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, prisoners, the Garifuna (an Afro-Caribbean population group), and in the case of Honduras, street children and the security forces. However, the World Bank makes it clear that there are significant exceptions: the disease is becoming generalized in some areas of Belize and the epidemic can still be classified as nascent in Nicaragua.
As for El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama, the projections indicate that if the current pattern continues the epidemic could reach adult prevalence levels of close to 2% in those countries by the year 2010.
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