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Central American Trade Talks See Progress
Negotiators said Friday they are increasingly confident that a free-trade agreement will be reached between the United States and five Central American countries by the end of the year.
The comments followed a five-day meeting in Houston between U.S. and Central American officials, who had held six previous rounds of talks to work out details of the Central American Free Trade Agreement .
The agreement would lift tariffs and other trade barriers between the United States and Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
Costa Rica and El Salvador for goods, agriculture, services and investments in the same way the North American Free Trade Agreement lifted barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"I would characterize it as a week of major achievement," said Anabel Gonzalez, the chief negotiator for Costa Rica.
Negotiators, who plan to meet for a final round of talks in mid-December in Washington D.C., said they were optimistic an agreement would be reached and then sent to Congress in early 2004 for approval. The five countries make up about 1 percent of U.S. trade.
"We want a very bold and ambitious trade agreement," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
Without going in to details, Regina Vargo, assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Americas, said negotiators "made some very good progress" on how to handle tariffs on industrial and consumer products and concerns about the environment and labor.
Negotiators for the Central American countries echoed her comments.
Sensitive areas in the talks include opposition from the U.S. sugar industry to cutting tariffs and quotas that limit sugar imports and possible exclusion of industries that could open a wide market for U.S. service businesses, such as Costa Rica's monopoly in telecommunications.
The United States and the five Central American countries trade almost $25 billion in goods.
In 2002, U.S. goods exports to these countries reached $11.5 billion, an increase of more than 42 percent since 1996. That total is about the same as U.S. exports to Russia, India and Indonesia combined. The United States is expected to import $13 billion of goods from Central America in 2003.
Intel Invests
Another $100 million
Among its plants
throughout the world, Intel chose Costa Rica to make
an additional $100-million investment, in order to
develop new technologies here.
The move means 500
additional jobs to the 1,900 that the corporation
provides now. Also, Intel remains the largest
investor in this Central American nation, with some
$510 million already, and it is the largest exporter
as per the amount of sales abroad.
Local sources
pointed out that Intel chose Costa Rica - its only
facility in Latin America - for the new investment in
spite of the competition from plants located in the
United States, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, and other
nations throughout the world..
K9 Unit Reinforced
The Embassy of the
United States donated four dogs and two vehicles to
the Costa Rican police, with an overall value of
$100,000.
The four dogs will take to 16 the number
of animals trained in detecting drugs and other
evidence that the K9 unit has now available.
One of
the vehicles will be used for the transportation of
agents and the other for the dogs.
Solar Panels
Small villages in the
most distant parts of Costa Rica are enjoying
electricity now.
This was made possible through a
$1.2-million investment in solar panels by the state
power and telecommunications institution (ICE), and it benefits communities that because
of their location have no access to the national
power distribution network.
From Indian villages in
the mountains to small islands on the Pacific Ocean,
now enjoy the advantages of electricity thanks to
solar power.
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World Bank warns of social inequality in Brazil
Brazil remained the Latin American country with the most marked social inequalities, the World Bank said in a report Friday.
Ten percent of the poorest population in Brazil account for 0.9percent of the total national income, while the richest 10
percent earn 47.2 percent, said the WB report on Latin America and the Caribbean, released during the Seminar on Development with Social Justice held by the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro.
The report also said that economic and social inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean worsened in the last years, compared to other regions of the world.
David de Ferranti, WB Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the origin of the inequality in the region is complex and related to the European colonization in history and its aftermath.
Francois Bourguignon, a chief economist of the World Bank, urged the Brazilian government to adopt a less rigid monetary policy, reduce the basic interest rate, as well as to invest in infrastructure that could serve as the foundation of economic growth.
Colombian authorities seize 700 km of explosives
The Colombian military seized on Friday over 700 km of explosives from the region of Lagunas
Verdes, Santander, northeast of Columbia.
Military sources indicated that 20 10-km bombs, two bomb-cylinders of 20 km, 100 km of black powder, 30 ball-shaped 10-km explosive devices and several fragmentation grenades were found.
According to the authorities, the explosives belong to a guerrilla front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel group in the country, of 17,000 combatants.
Documents were also found, which indicated several possible targets of attacks. Military patrols, bridges, energy pylons, public buildings and communications infrastructure were included in the list.
FARC is trying hard to sabotage Saturday's referendum and Sunday's regional elections.
The 15-question referendum is proposed by the government of President Alvaro Uribe, with the view of combating corruption by freezing most public salaries for two years, capping high
pensions and cutting the size of Congress.
In the regional elections to be held on Sunday, about 1,000 mayors, 30 governors, 400 local representatives and 10,000 town councilors will be elected for a three-year term.
More than 50,000 troops and police have been deployed throughout the country to step up security measures for the elections, but kidnappings, bomb attacks and assassinations have occurred almost every day in recent months.
Up to now, 26 candidates for mayors have been murdered, 12 kidnapped and nearly 160 given up their candidacies.
Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade-old civil war. The conflict kills about 3,500 people every year, most of them civilians.
California judge fines spammer 2 million US dollars
A California judge on Friday ordered a marketing firm to pay 2 million US dollars in fine for allegedly sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails telling people how to make money through
spam.
In the first anti-spam ruling in California, Santa Clara
County Superior Court Judge William Martin also banned PW Marketing and its owners, Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin, from owning,
managing, or holding an economic interest in any company that advertises over the Internet without first notifying the state attorney general.
California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who brought
the case against PW Marketing and its owners, said the decision foreshadowed a crackdown on
spam.
"Spam is an annoying invasion of privacy for our citizens and acostly burden to our businesses at a time when we're trying to
get the economy back on track," Lockyer said. "We will continue to strongly enforce our anti-spam laws to protect Californians from this high-tech pollutant."
PW Marketing, which does not have a web site and has been accused of operating under fictitious names, has allegedly sent millions of illegal, unsolicited e-mails advertising tools for spamming, including 39-dollar how-to books and lists of e-mail addresses of California residents.
Prosecutors said PW Marketing violated the 1998 anti-spam law by sending unsolicited e-mails without a toll-free number for recipients to call to stop additional mailings. Its missives did not include a valid return address or the "ADV:" label to mark advertisements, which the state requires.
State attorneys also claimed the owners illegally tapped into computer users' network connections so the company could send e-mails that couldn't be traced back to its source.
California's new anti-spam law, effective on Jan. 1, prohibits unsolicited e-mail advertisements which are sent to or from any California e-mail address, unless the recipient gives prior permission, or has an existing business relationship with the sender. The law also permits private individuals to sue spammers and collect actual damages, plus 1,000 dollars per e-mail and up to 1 million dollars per incident.
According to studies by US hi-tech market research firms, spam cost American businesses about 9 billion dollars in lost productivity and screening expenses in 2002, when spam accounted for roughly 40 percent of all e-mails.
A recent study found that 25 percent e-mail users say spam has reduced their overall use of e-mail, and more than half say spam has made them less trust all e-mails.
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