Today's Stories: • Cheap International Calls Coming • Dengue Fever • Consumer Hotline • Production Decelerates • Marked Decrease in Construction • Former Nicaraguan president spends first day in prison • Tensions erupt between Argentina, Britain over disputed islands • Latin American countries demonstrate on war anniversary   How voice over IP works Click for larger image!

Cheap International Calls Coming  by 2010
Following controversy over the last several months, ICE - the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad - has announced that it will be offering Voice Over IP (internet Protocol) service in the coming future. It is expected by the year 2010, at which time ICE will be offering a service that is now available in Costa Rica

ICE deems IP calls illegal.

Notwithstanding advertisements appear in the local print newspapers for low cost international calls for as low as .05 cents per minute to the U.S., while it costs about .50 cents per minute using ICE.

At the heart of the matter is ICE's claims that these services are using it's infrastructure while it is not being compensated. Several IP service providers have been shut down and are now in a legal battle with the telecommunications giant.

ICE claims that there is little demand for this type of service, especially by the corporations, and thus it is not economically feasible due to the high costs of the equipment it needs to install, to provide such service at this time.

The telecommunications monopoly says it has recently invested US$25 Million Dollars to purchase 300 IMAP's - Internet Message Access Protocol, a method of accessing electronic mail or bulletin board messages. IMAP permits a "client" email program to access remote message from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, and a notebook computer while traveling, without the need to transfer messages or files back and forth between these computers.

ICE says it needs time to complete it's IMAP installation that it will enable to provide all types of different services, and that by 2010 it will be ready to offer voice over IP.

Voice over IP uses the internet to carry a the two sides of a telephone conversation, a  technology that allows one to make telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.

Some services using VoIP may only allow you to call other people using the same service, but others may allow you to call anyone who has a telephone number - including local and international numbers. Also, while some services only work over your computer or a special VoIP phone, other services allow you to use a traditional phone through an adaptor.
 

Dengue Fever

The Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social (CCSS) and the Health Ministry reminds everyone that dengue fever is still a concern and the elimination of the mosquito that carries the virus should be a priority to everyone. Places eaves throughs, old tires and just about everywhere water pools are ideal places for the mosquito 'Aedes Egipty' that carries the virus to find home. To date this year, officials have diagnoses 1.211 cases of dengue, 9 more than at this time last year.

Consumer Hotline
Cellular telephones and appliance continue to be the principal cause of consumer problems in the marketplace, according to information released by the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Commerce.

Last week alone the Ministry received 135 calls from consumers complaining about their recent purchases.

Gilberto Barrantes, Economy Minister, says that his ministry is working to compile a list of merchants with poor consumer practices and in the case of cellular telephones, that are re-selling rebuilt or damaged telephones.

The Consumer Ministry has set up an 800 line to receive complaints: 800 CONSUMO or 800 266 7866.
 

Production Decelerates
The Central Bank of Costa Rica disclosed that the amount of goods and services produced in the country reached 10 months of continuous deceleration last January.

According to a Central Bank source, this results from a slower growth in the production of mid-size and large companies, particularly Intel, and the agricultural sector as a whole. To last January, the yearly variation of the monthly index of economic activity was 3.8 percent, as compared to 4.6 percent last December.

Marked Decrease in Construction
The area for which construction permits were applied for last January was 33 per cent less than the corresponding amount for the same month last year.

Also, January's figure was 32 percent lower than the monthly average for 2003. According to sector representatives, the decrease started last December, when a general upward trend in the prices of materials began.

However, several sector businessmen interviewed by the daily La Nación agreed that their outlook is a positive one, and that they expect an overall improvement in the coming months.

 

Former Nicaraguan president spends first day in prison
Former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman spent his first day in a federal prison on Saturday, after a judge ordered to transfer him from house arrest to a special cell outside the capital.

Aleman was given a 20-year sentence in December for fraud, money laundering and diverting public funds. But the former president, the first Nicaraguan ex-president to be convicted of a crime, had been placed under house arrest after lawyers claimed he was suffering from diabetes and hypertension and was too ill to go to prison.

But on Friday, Judge Juana Mendez, who presided over the former president's trial, threw out an injunction seeking to keep Aleman from being transported to prison.

Aleman was led away from his "El Chile" ranch south of Managua by the district judge and a team of police minutes after Friday midnight. Television broadcasts showed dozens of Aleman's supporters tried to block the operation by obstructing traffic with rocks, burning tires and throwing stones at the police.

The police responded with tear gas and fired automatic weapons in the air to gain access to the yard. The protests quieted by daybreak Saturday.

Aleman's attorney Mauricio Martinez condemned the transfer of his client and said the decision would be appealed.

The 58-year-old Aleman, who ruled the Central American nation from 1997 to 2002, had been under investigation on corruption charges since 2002.

Aleman was stripped of parliamentary immunity in December 2002.He was jailed in August 2003 and then released and placed under house arrest in December because of illness related to his weight.
 

Tensions erupt between Argentina, Britain over disputed islands
Diplomatic tensions erupted Saturday between Argentina and Britain for the presence of an Argentine icebreaker ship near the disputed Malvinas islands.

Britain urged Argentina to explain why the Almirante Irizar icebreaker recently entered the Malvinas' "exclusive zone".

Argentine media quoted Foreign Ministry officials as saying Saturday that the Almirante Irizar was carrying out fishing control tasks in Argentine jurisdictional waters and kept security contacts with fishing boats and British units while sailing near the Malvinas islands.

Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa has ordered a response to the British request.

The Malvinas islands, called the Falkland islands by Britain, are located in the south Atlantic in front of the Argentine coast. In 1982, both countries fought a brief war over the sovereignty of the islands, which are currently under British rule.

The British authorities said the icebreaker and a helicopter going with it entered for 24 hours 10 miles into what is considered an exclusive area of the islands.

The Argentine government does not recognize the exclusion zone marked in 1994 by Britain.
 

Latin American countries demonstrate on war anniversary
Thousands of protesters across the Latin American countries went to the streets on Saturday and demonstrated against the occupation of Iraq by the US-led forces since March 20, 2003.

The demonstrations were a result of coordinated efforts of the 4th World Social Forum held at Bombay, India to commemorate the first anniversary of the war.

In Sao Paulo, the biggest city of Brazil, several social and political groups, including the State Committee against the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), the Workers Central Union and the Landless Workers Movement organized a large scale demonstration.

The demonstrators stationed in front of the city's Art Museum for 14 hours before marching on through the central Paulista Avenue.

Thousands of Chileans went to the Italy square and marched through the Bernardo O'Higgins boulevard to the government headquarters of the Currency Palace in the Constitution square.

While demanding an end to the occupation of Iraq, the demonstrators also voiced solidarity with the victims of the March11 train bombings in Madrid, the capital city of Spain.

Gladys Martin, president of the Communist Party, one of the rally's organizers, described the US government as the "number one terrorist of the world."

Greenpeace, an ecological organization, also staged a protest outside the US Embassy, where they put 200 petunia flowers as a symbol of peace.

Greenpeace representative to Chile Gonzalo Villarino said the US-led campaign lacked justification, adding that the occupation of Iraq was "illegal, illicit and immoral."

Some 10,000 Cubans took on Saturday to the streets of the Cuetolocality, 700 km east of the capital Havana, demanding that the US forces withdraw from Iraq immediately.

The protesters defended Iraq's right to independence and expressed their support for and sympathy with the Spaniards who have suffered immensely in the series of train bombings, which killed 202 people and wounded over 1,400.

The Cuban demonstrators urged the US to free the five Cubans accused of espionage and condemned the laws, which have strengthened the embargo Washington imposed on the country more than 40 years ago.

In Managua, the capital of Honduras, groups of Hondurans also joined the international protests against the US-led intervention in Iraq.

The organizers of the protests said in a report that their efforts were part of the world day against the "US intervention in Iraq and Haiti".

Protests were also launched in Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic.