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Southern Zone to Have International Airport
The government announced that it will soon begin construction of
an international airport in the southern region, in Finca 18 de Palmar Sur,
Osa, Puntarenas, near the Panama border with Costa Rica.
President Abel Pacheco made the announcement yesterday in the border region
where he has been visiting for the last two days.
Pacheco said that government officials have already decided on the land that
they will construct the airport and are in negotiations with the owners of
the land. The government's hope is to make an exchange with owner with other
government lands, so they will not have to make a purchase since there is no
government money available to make any land buys.
In addition, Pacheco said that his government is in negotiations with the
government of France for a donation of construction plans for the planned
terminal.
No costs were given for the project nor a plan for completion. Pacheco did
add that financing is in place and project is a go ahead. The President said
he had "guaquita de plata" - a Costa Rican familiar slang for a small bag of
old money - that he found so that construction.
Once complete, the southern airport will be the fifth terminal in the
country that will be able to handle international flights. The others are
Juan Santamaria - the main airport, Tobías Bolaños, west of San José and the
airports at Liberia and Limón
A Good Year
A survey of 309 Costa Rican companies found that 254 -82 percent consider
that their performance the last quarter in 2003 was better than the one
corresponding to the same period in 2002.
The improved performance is based on the data corresponding to production,
domestic sales, exports, employment, and overall situation.
Huge Omelet
It took 17 liters of cooking oil, more than 100 pounds of onions, 600
peppers, and several other ingredients that, combined with 12,750 eggs, went
into an omelet cooked in the town of Turrucares, west of Alajuela.
Sixty members of the National Chef Association worked for several hours to
prepare the world largest omelet, which they expect to become part of the
Guinness records.
As a more immediate outcome, the omelet was divided into some 7,500 portions
that were sold to raise funds to pay for the equipment used and for social
work. But also, they obtained the official pledge of the National Road
Council (CONAVI in Spanish) to repair the road from Turrucares to San
Miguel, upon which some 60 percent of the overall production of eggs of
Costa Rica moves.
112 New Export Goods
Costa Rica placed 112 new goods in the world market in 2003, a marked
diversification of its exports.
According to data from the Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER in Spanish), the
number of Costa Rican export products was 3,261 in 1999, a figure that
increased to 3,565 last year.
Costa Rican exports range from butterflies to fiberglass boats to bagged
drinks, according to the sources.
CMU
Students Assist Children in Costa Rica
A group of Central Michigan University (US) students is returning
to classes after a week working at a school for children with disabilities
in Costa Rica.
Six college students and five others associated with the Wesley Foundation,
a registered student organization at CMU, helped pupils with sight and
hearing problems at a 600-student school. Projects included arts and crafts,
preparing a computer lab for the children's home, gardening and general
maintenance to the building.
"If you focus on the work, then we could just as easily send a big check
down there for the people to hire local workers and complete the project,"
said Rev. Eric Stone, Wesley Foundation director, who has made the trip to
Costa Rica three times.
Stone calls these trips service learning trips, which benefits the students
who participate.
The group also toured a rain forest and visited a volcano.
"Even if we don't speak the same language, we still make friends," Stone
said. "People always return from these experiences with a sense of
accomplishment and gratitude for what they have."
In an effort to involve the community, group members sold "stock" in the
trip for $5 a share. The travelers plan to schedule a "shareholders meeting"
to serve Costa Rican food and share an overview of the trip.
Child
Laborers Represent Nearly 20% of Guatemala's GDP
More than 900,000 child laborers generate nearly 20 percent of
Guatemala's gross domestic product, according to an international study
published Saturday.
The report by the International Labor Organization showed that Guatemala has
the highest number of underage workers in Central America, and that the
primary reason the children work is because their families are poor.
"The root problem is the economic situation of these children's families,"
Berta Lidia Barco, the labor organization's adviser in Guatemala, was quoted
as saying by Prensa Libre, one of the newspapers that published the report.
The study, conducted throughout Central America from 2000 to 2002, concluded
that Guatemala has 937,500 child laborers, the majority of whom work in
farming and fishing. Honduras is in second place with 356,200; Nicaragua in
third with 253,000; El Salvador in fourth with 222,400 and finally Costa
Rica with 113,523 children.
Guatemala's labor secretary, Jorge Gallardo, noted that because most child
laborers in this country work in the informal economy, they receive few
benefits and no protection from abuse.
Child workers in Guatemala generate about US$4.8 billion, or about 20
percent of the country's GDP, Gallardo said.
The International Labor Organization conducted the study through its
International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor.
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Colombian
Police Capture FARC Leader
Colombian police captured the commander of an urban guerrilla
unit accused of murdering the ex-president of Congress' Peace Commission and
six others, the Bogota police chief said Thursday.
Eladio Diaz Artunduaga, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, was picked up last week in the rundown Bogota suburb of
Soacha, Gen. Hector Garcia said. Authorities waited to verify Artunduaga's
identity before making his arrest public.
He faces numerous counts of terrorism, rebellion, homicide and money
laundering, Garcia told reporters.
Artunduaga is also believed to have ordered the murder of former Congressman
and leader of Colombia's Liberal Party, Diego Turbay Cote, his mother and
five others on highway near Puerto Rico, 190 miles southeast of Bogota, in
December 2000. Some 50 FARC fighters forced Cote's convoy to stop and shot
them by the side of the road.
In June 2002, a Bogota judge convicted the FARC's supreme commander, Manual
Marulanda and 10 other top FARC leaders in absentia to 36 years in prison
for the killings.
Separately, Colombian troops killed nine suspected members of Colombia's
smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, in fighting
Thursday near Concepcion, 175 miles northeast of Bogota, the army said.
One soldier also died in the clashes, said Gen. Luis Garcia Chavez, the
commander of the army's Second Division.
The FARC and the ELN have been battling to topple the government and
establish a Marxist state in Colombia for four decades.
Chile
Defies Church and Legalizes Divorce
Couples eager to end their marriages breathed a sign of relief in
Chile yesterday as the lower house of Congress approved a bill to legalise
divorce.
Until Thursday Chile was the only country in the Americas - and one of the
few left in the world - to forbid divorce.
"I want to celebrate the enormous respect for this democratic exercise that
was achieved on such a sensitive topic that affects the interests and values
of so many different sectors," beamed the country's justice minister, Luis
Bates. "This is a moment of pure joy."
Applause erupted in Chile's lower house after the clause-by-clause vote. The
bill has gone through almost nine years of legislative wrangling.
Successive centre-left governments have tried to liberalise Chile's family
laws, which were set out in 1884. Eighteen bills died in Congress before the
lower house managed to pass one in 1995. But it lingered in the Senate until
last September and, after much controversy, it passed in January. Today's
vote in the lower house was its last legislative hurdle.
Chileans will still have to wait a further six months for the law to come
into effect and allow them to get a divorce.
It has been a long road, and one fraught with opposition from key actors in
Chilean society.
"They should have approved this ages ago," said Cecilia Muñoz, a separated
young mother. "There are many unhappy families that need this. The church is
what has stood in the way."
Chile is viewed as the most conservative country in Latin America. The
Catholic church has been at the forefront of resistance to divorce
legalisation. It launched a television advertising campaign and lobbied hard
against the bill, even threatening ex-communication to Catholic
parliamentarians who voted in its favour.
Father Jaime Fernández, of the Family Vicariate of Santiago, said this bill
reflected a wave of change that was doing away with traditional societal
values.
"To us, these laws seem like a great social danger," he said.
The rightwing senator Hernán Larraín said the state had opened a Pandora's
Box that would mean more broken families. He pointed out that only about 15%
of Chilean marriages end in separation (a further 10% end in annulment). But
he said there was not one country where divorce was legal and the rate was
lower than 30%.
"Countries like the US have a 50% rate of divorce, for a first marriage," he
said.
"But two out of three marriages in a second marriage will divorce. So the
trouble with divorce is that it brings more divorce."
Opinion polls show 73% of Chileans are in favour of divorce, 25% oppose it,
and only 2% are undecided.
But supporters say this bill is a victory for the masses against the
powerful minority aligned with the church.
Congresswoman María Antioneta Saa, a member of the Party for Democracy which
is part of the ruling leftwing coalition, introduced the divorce bill in
November 1995.
"I would say that, more than in civil society, the opposition has been in
political society, and in the spheres of power, and well, the first force to
deny and resist is the Catholic church," Ms Saa said.
"But I would say that our society is one that is rapidly opening up. The
effects of globalisation are huge.
"Today the problems of this conservative society are being exposed. People
want to be happy and they fight for their rights."
Lori
Berenson Allowed Visits With Husband
A convicted Peruvian terrorist who last year married Lori Berenson, an
American serving a 20-year sentence for aiding leftist rebels, has been
granted conjugal visiting rights at her Andean prison, he said Thursday.
"They gave me permission in late October to visit her two times a month,"
Anibal Apari told The Associated Press by cell phone from the Andean city of
Cajamarca, 350 miles north of Lima, where Berenson is being held.
Apari dismissed a report in the tabloid newspaper Correo on Thursday that
Berenson is trying to become pregnant. "We still haven't talked about that,"
he said, adding that the use of birth control is required by prison
authorities.
Apari was released from prison in June after serving 12 1/2 years of a
15-year sentence. The terms of his parole initially prohibited him from
leaving Lima, and his father had to stand in for him at the Oct. 2 prison
wedding.
Berenson, 34, and Apari, 40, met while both were serving sentences for
involvement with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.
Prior to November, Apari had not seen Berenson since October 1998, when she
was transferred to a different prison.
Berenson was convicted by a secret military court in 1996 and sentenced to
life in prison for being a Tupac Amaru leader and plotting a thwarted attack
on Peru's Congress.
That decision was overturned in 2000. The following year she was convicted
in a civilian court on the lesser charge of terrorist collaboration and
sentenced to 20 years in prison, including time served. Berenson denies the
charges.
Berenson is hoping her conviction will be overturned by the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. Her father, Mark Berenson, told The
Associated Press from his home in Manhattan that the case is expected to be
heard in early May.
Asked whether his daughter wants to start a family, he laughed.
"He wants that ... He's 40," Berenson said, referring to Apari. "I would
love to be a grandfather, but I don't want to pressure them."
Mexico City Mayor Says Lawmakers Intent of Ruining His Political Future
Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday said
members of the federal government, right wing lawmakers and others intent on
ruining his political future were behind the airing of a corruption scandal
afflicting his administration.
"Those who assembled this scandal, the intellectual authors, do not have the
least intention of fighting corruption, but to hurt me politically," López
Obrador said at an evening press conference. "I have information that the
conspiracy was hatched by officials of the federal government," including a
senior lawmaker from President Vicente Fox's National Action Party and "very
probably" former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
The federal government denied any illegal actions or machinations to
"discredit administrations." López Obrador cited reports from high-ranking
federal agents that PAN Sen. Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, a federal
intelligence agent, and a member of the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR)
met with a businessman at the center of the corruption scandal sparked by
the release of secretly filmed video tapes. López Obrador did not provide
any evidence of Salinas' involvement.
Over the last week a series of videos have implicated high ranking members
of López Obrador's administration and his Party of the Democratic Revolution
(PRD).
The recently-fired city finance secretary Gustavo Ponce was caught at the
high-rollers table in Las Vegas, while the majority leader in the city
assembly and a precinct chief were shown taking bundles of cash from
businessman Carlos Ahumada.
López Obrador said he has never met Ahumada, never accepted money from
businessmen, and that he did not know of Ponce's gambling habit.
Both Ponce and Ahumada have disappeared and are wanted by city prosecutors
in connection with a 31 million peso fraud, where road work contracts were
paid for but never completed.
López Obrador said he would take legal action to demand the Las Vegas Hotel
Bellagio hand over information on how Ponce was filmed gambling at the high
security hotel and his bills turned over to an unknown party who gave them
to a national television station.
According to memos Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard sent to López Obrador, a high
ranking member of the federal Attorney General's Office told Ebrard that
Fernandezde Cevallos, a federal intelligence agent, and a member of the PGR
met with Ahumada on Feb. 20 at a hotel.
Interior Secretary Santiago Creel gave a brief statement late Thursday
denying that the federal government committed any illegal acts and he
challenged the mayor to present solid proof of his accusations Only moments
after his statement, Rolando López Villaseñor, the PGR agent cited by the
mayor, gave a press conference where he said his words had been distorted by
Ebrard. But he confirmed the meeting of federal agents was arranged with
Ahumada at the first class hotel so the businessman "who feared for his
life" could file charges against "high ranking city officials" for
extortion.
López Obrador has said Ahumada's charges were a last ditch strategy after
two of Ahumada's associates were arrested in a fraud investigation.
López Obrador, who leads polls as an early favorite for the presidency in
2006, has long been a champion in fighting high-profile corruption cases.
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