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CAFTA Negotiators
Attempt to be Flexible
U.S. and Central American delegates have completed negotiations on some trade issues and are closer to reaching consensus on other topics during this week's talks being held in Houston.
The top negotiators of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or
CAFTA, said they've resolved differences on electronic commerce and industrial goods and narrowed down their disagreements on other topics such as labor, textiles and sanitary issues of agricultural products.
However, chief negotiators from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the United States must still meet at least twice more
to hammer out tougher issues before their ninth and final round of negotiations scheduled for Dec. 12 in Washington, D.C.
Negotiators have resolved some pieces of the controversial agricultural issues, but the broader topic probably will remain on the table even after this round of negotiations ends on Friday.
On the Central American side, negotiators want to protect their farmers from an increase in imports of U.S. agricultural goods, many of which are heavily subsidized. On the U.S. side, a powerful sugar lobby wants to protect itself from a flood of imports from this sugar-growing region.
Today negotiators from Costa Rica and the United States will continue to discuss the Central American nation's telecommunications industry.
Many in Costa Rica are opposed to privatization of the business, and U.S. negotiators insist they only want the country to allow private investment in the sector.
Costa Rica to present anti-terrorism plan at OAS meeting
Costa Rica will introduce an anti- terror plan during a coming meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Mexico, the Costa Rican authorities announced.
The plan, including sanctions against terrorist plots, will be presented next week to the OAS Special Conference on Hemispheric Security in Mexico, along with a proposal on constantly updating cooperation and communication against terrorism in the continent.
Costa Rican Public Security Minister, Rogelio Ramos, said Foreign Minister Roberto Tovar,
would outline the Costa Rican initiatives, as part of Central American states' cooperation after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, to combat the "world phenomenon" of terrorism. The country would contribute to the " search for a more secure and free world," he added.
The plan will also call for the punishment of the financing of terrorism and the recruiting of people for terrorist attacks, even if such activities take place abroad, Ramos told reporters here.
Should this plan be approved, the authorities will take actions to freeze funds linked with terrorist organizations, he said.
'Corporate Excellence' Awards to Latin America's Leading Companies
AmericaEconomia magazine, Latin America's leading pan-regional business publication, will host its "Corporate Excellence" Awards, which recognize the merits of twelve CEOs of the region's leading companies.
The awards, which have traditionally been a local initiative in various Latin American markets, will be celebrated this year for the first time on a regional level, as part of The Americas Conference hosted by The Miami Herald.
The awards ceremony will take place Tuesday, October 28, at 6:30 PM, at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida.
This year's 12 recipients are Ambev, Microsiga, and Tigre, of Brazil; Bimbo and Jose Cuervo, of Mexico; GTD and Concha y Toro, of Chile; Corp.
Supermercados Unidos, of Costa Rica; Grupo Gloria, of Peru; Impsat and Ona Saez, of Argentina; and Novica, a US company whose founders are from Brazil and Peru.
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Two bomb attacks hit Colombian cities
A bomb carried by a motorcycle exploded in Colombia's northwestern city of Itagui Wednesday night, injuring 11 people and damaging the city hall and nearby buildings, local authorities said.
A police spokesman said a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded in front of Itagui's city hall, injuring
three city government officials and eight citizens. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
Local police said the bomb attack may have been carried out by the country's largest rebel group -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in revenge for a government crackdown against local rebels.
Just hours earlier, a car bomb exploded in a residential area in the capital of Bogota on Wednesday morning, injuring two
people, one of them a policeman.
Police said the FARC was also responsible for the car bombing. adding that the move was aimed at disrupting a crackdown against rebels and violent groups in the run-up to a national referendum and local elections set for this weekend.
More than 50,000 troops and police officers have been deployed throughout the country to step up security measures for the elections, but kidnappings, bomb attacks and assassinations have occurred almost daily in recent months.
Up to now, 26 candidates for mayors have been murdered, 12 kidnapped and nearly 160 given up their candidacies.
Chile's Supreme Court rejects new move against Pinochet
The plenum of the Chilean
Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday a third petition for stripping the immunity enjoyed by retired general Augusto Pinochet as senator for his alleged responsibility in the Conferencia Street case.
The top tribunal upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeals of Santiago which voted on Aug. 27 to reject the removal of immunity from the 87-year-old former president, who was accused of participating in the kidnapping of 12 members of the Communist Party of Chile in 1976, as part of the case known as the Conferencia Street case.
The Supreme Court justified its decision with a decree passed in 2001 that exempted Pinochet from legal proceedings on the grounds of his "progressive and incurable senile insanity", a finding arrived at during process on the case dubbed the "Death Caravan."
That decision, which has protected Pinochet since then in
other judicial rulings, was ratified by the Supreme Court on July 1, 2002.
After the Wednesday ruling, the plaintiff in the Conference Street case appealed to the Supreme Court, but the top tribunal determined that such appeal would not proceed.
During the Conferencia Street case, Judge Juan Guzman passed sentences on other military members charged with human rights violations, including retired Brigadier General Miguel Krasnoff and retired Colonel German Barrga, as well as Police Colonel Ricardo Lawrence and civilian Osvaldo
Pinchetti.
Pinochet did once lose the immunity he had as a former president when the Supreme Court ordered him to stand trial in 2000 over the Death Caravan case. The trial started but was cut short in 2001 when he was diagnosed as mentally incompetent.
The ex-coup leader was implicated in a drawn-out legal battle over charges of human rights abuses during his 17-year rule from 1973 to 1990. About 3,000 people died in the violence resulting from the 1973 coup which swept Pinochet to power.
Poll shows many Venezuelans not to vote in referendum on Chavez
About 39 percent of Venezuelans would abstain from a possible referendum on whether President
Hugo Chavez should remain in office, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.
According to the survey by Alfredo Keller, a specialist in polling, 32 percent of those polled expressed no interest in the voting while 7 percent said they had technical problems in
casting their votes.
Keller's study indicated that between June and August 2003,
the segment of "neutrals" increased to 37 percent from 22 percent in the previous quarter.
The most radical sectors accounted for 42 percent of those polled, including 19 percent backing the government and 23
percent, the opposition, and they are mainly concentrated in the capital and eastern regions.
In 2000, Chavez obtained 3,757,773 votes for his reelection.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) approved this month petitions for referendum on the rule of President Chavez, halfway through his six-year term, and on opposition.
In order to call a referendum on the president and other elected officials, the opposition should collect at least 2.4 million signatures, 20 percent of the total registered voters.
According to the CNE, pro-government forces and the opposition should separately collect signatures for the requested referendum.
The collection of signatures by the pro-government forces will take place from Nov. 21 to Nov. 24, while the opposition will do so between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1, this year.
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