Deported Killer Returns to Costa Rica
Ronny Zamora, the man whose attorney once argued that television violence led him to kill as a youth, returned quietly to his native Costa Rica on Wednesday, deported from the United States after 27 years in prison.

Zamora, now  42, had been sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting 83-year-old Elinor Haggart at her Miami Beach home on June 3, 1977. He was 15 at the time.

He was released from prison into federal custody on Tuesday after serving 27 years and was deported on Wednesday.

He declined to speak at length, saying, ``I have always thought that the best way to respect the family of the victim is not to seek publicity.''

But in a brief declaration, he said ``I am very sorry for what I did.''

Zamora's trial in 1977 was one of the first to be televised after cameras were allowed into Florida courtrooms. His attorney, Ellis Rubin, argued that Zamora's perception of fantasy and reality had been blurred by watching television crime programs, prompting him to kill.

Zamora and his 14-year-old accomplice, Darrell Agrella, stole $400 and the car of the woman they killed. Agrella was released from prison in 1986

Central American Presidents Back Rodriguez
Central American presidents voiced Tuesday in El Salvador their support for the candidacy of former Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez as the secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS).

"We said yes today to this candidacy by acclamation and not voting, because he already claims support of all the countries," reports reaching here quoted El Salvador's newly elected President Elias Antonio Saca as saying.

The leaders, including Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños who had refrained from backing Rodriguez, inked a joint statement expressing their support to Rodriguez, who was Costa Rican president from 1998 to 2002.

With Bolaños' support, all the 34 member countries of the OAS back the candidacy of Rodriguez as the new OAS chief.

Rodriguez is the only official candidate to the OAS secretary-general, a post to be elected at the OAS General Assembly to be held on June 6 in Ecuador.

Rodriguez, when elected, would serve a five-year term as OAS secretary general. 

Lightning Strike Causes Blackout
A lightning bolt hit the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL) equipment installation in Colima de Tibás that blacked out a great area of San José yesterday afternoon.

The bolt hit an electrical substation around 3:00pm. The substation distributes electrical energy from generating stations, to a large part of the Metropolitan area, causing damage estimated at more than $75.000 dollars.

Thousands were without electrical power in the areas of Guadalupe, Moravia, Tibás, San José centre, La Uruca, Pavas, Santo Domingo de Heredia, la Universidad de Costa Rica and Barrio México.

Most of the power was restored by 5:00pm, however, in some areas the wait lasted until after 8:00pm.

Internet Service Cut
Had problems with your internet connection yesterday morning?

Well, Costa Rica's connection to the world was cut when the Maya 1 fibre optic cable that runs undersea and connects Costa Rica to Florida and Cancun, Mexico failed. Technicians said that something went wrong with the 'light spectre'  that transmits data along the cable.

The problems began around 7:00am and continued for most of the morning, with service being offered at 50% of capacity.

Costa Rica uses to undersea cables - the Maya and Arcos 1 - both in the Atlantic - to connect to world wide web.

ICE and Racsa are negotiating the services of a third cable called "Global Crossing" that is located in the Pacific and will connect to Costa Rica at Parrita.

UN urges Colombian guerrillas to release kidnapped people
The UN official in Colombia urged the National Liberation Army (ELN) on Wednesday to set free 12 people kidnapped last Saturday in the northwest of the country.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia issued a communique, demanding the "immediate and unconditional" release of all the civilians held by the ELN.

The guerrilla group kidnapped 18 people, including several university students, in the northwestern province of Choco last Saturday, and later released six.

The communique also urged the "illegal armed groups to refrain from the unacceptable practice of kidnapping," saying that to "deprive the freedom of members of the civil population constitutes... a war crime."

The 5,000-strong ELN is Colombia's second largest leftist rebel force, after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Also on Wednesday, the FARC released seven political leaders abducted in the southern province of Vaupes in April, when they were sailing a river near Vaupes' Caruru municipality.

Colombia has been ravaged by a four-decade-old civil war, during which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries have fought one another, killing an average of 3,500 people, mostly civilians, each year.
 

Argentine Nobel Prize winner criticizes sending troops to Haiti
Argentina's 1980 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel on Wednesday criticized the sending of Argentine troops to Haiti and argued that "support (for aiti) should be given in a different way."

"The sending of troops doesn't solve anything," Esquivel said. He called on international financial organizations to cancel Haiti's foreign debts in order to realize peace in the Caribbean country.

The Argentine Congress will discuss next Wednesday whether to authorize sending troops to Haiti as part of the UN peacekeeping forces there.

"We say yes, we must support Haiti but in a different way," Perez Esquivel stressed.

He said that the decision by Argentine President Nestor Kirchner to dispatch troops to Haiti "is an attempt to get closer to the politics" of US President George W. Bush.

The dispatch of 598 members of the Argentine Army and Marine Infantry, along with equipment, a ship and a mobile hospital, will be debated by the Chamber of Senators on Wednesday and later by the Chamber of Deputies.

The main opposition party, the Radical Civic Union, has already decided to vote against the deployment of troops abroad.