The controversy over the relationship between Eliseo Vargas, ex-president of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) or commonly known as "la Caja" prompted judicial authorities to a second raid pf the head offices of the Fischel Corporation, following a second raid on Vargas' home this week. It appears that the home rented by Vargas is owned by Marchwood Holding, a Panamian  corporation, lists the president of the Fischel Corporation as the president of the company as well. Today's Stories: • Man Who Stole Radioactive Material Caught; However Container Not Found • Cellular Scam Uncovered • Court-Martial Begins for Accused Soldier • Cops Nab Diamond Thieves • Foreign Investment in Latin America and Caribbean Falls Again - UN report • Spheres of Influence • Venezuelan government defends Chavez's proposal • Fidel Castro meets Chinese party official • Brazil to maintain strategic partnership with China: Lula The problem began in 1996 when the magazine "Chavespectáculos", on sale at news stands, was deemed to have contained pornography and a legal battle ensued, that included the magazine being fined. Yesterday a San José court ordered the closing of the magazine for failing to pay those fines. The owner of the magazine, Jorge Chaves, claims he is being persecuted by the authorities.

The man, it appears is an indigent who took the radioactive material while taking other things in the course of the robbery. Police found the man with possession of goods from the robbery, but not the radioactive container.

The radioactive material was stolen from a sealed warehouse owned by a company contracted by the RECOPE, the national oil refinery and distribution company.

The radioactive material is contained in a orange coloured container, containing the radio active Iridium 192, which is a commonly used radiotracer in the oil industry and emits a high level of radiation.

The material is extremely dangerous. In normal and regulated use, radioactive sources pose no undue radiological hazard to workers or the public. Problems can arise if radiation sources are involved in accidents, and have the potential to cause serious radiological harm.

Police are asking for anyone who knows the whereabouts of the the missing Iridium 192, to call 911.

Cellular Scam Uncovered
Ever wondered what happened to cellular lines when someone dies or fails to pay the bill and the service is cut?

Yesterday, two employees of ICE - Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad - the state owned monopoly telecommunications company, were arrested for defrauding ICE of more than ¢8 million colones.

The two men, identified by their last names Flores and Murillo, were arrested in the downtown offices of the ICE and according to the director of the OIJ - Organismo de Investigación Judicial - Jorge Rojas, the men are suspected of being involved in at least 35 cases of telephone fraud. The amount could rise to 75 cases once the investigation is complete.

Apparently, the men would re-activate the cellular telephone lines of those persons who had died and their lines were frozen, or changed from the TDMA to GSM technology, or didn't pay their bills and service was suspended.

The lines were then sold to delinquents and foreigners, who then placed large amounts of long distance calls without payment for them. Some of the calls amounted in the thousands of dollars each call.

The original owner of the line would then be billed and once discovered a complaint with the telephone company was registered. In cases where the owner of the line had died, family members produced death certificates to prove their claim.

The OIJ suspect that there are others involved with the two men and believe that this may not be an isolated case and there may exist other group or groups who are doing the same.

Court-Martial Begins for Accused Soldier

By RUSS BYNUM, Associated Press Writer

FORT STEWART, Ga. - The attorney for a U.S. soldier accused of deserting his unit in Iraq asked a military judge Wednesday to dismiss the charge, saying the infantryman was entitled to leave the military because he is a citizen of Costa Rica.

Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, a reservist in the Florida National Guard, is charged with desertion after failing to return to his unit in Iraq after a two-week furlough in October.

He turned himself in to the Army in March after being gone five months, saying he did not want to fight in an "oil-driven war."

Mejia, 28, faces a year in prison and a bad-conduct discharge if convicted of desertion, which military law defines as leaving the military with no intention to return or to "avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service."

His attorney, Louis Font, has argued that the Army illegally extended Mejia's service. His enlistment was originally set to end in March 2003, but he was ordered to stay after his unit was called up for the war in Iraq.

Mejia's attorney said he should have been exempt because a 19th-century treaty between the United States and Costa Rica exempts Costa Rican citizens from "compulsory service" in the U.S. military.

Capt. A.J. Balbo, the lead prosecutor, said Mejia never requested an exemption before his court-martial and voluntarily went to fight in Iraq, where he accepted a promotion.

Mejia joined the Army as an active-duty soldier in 1995 and entered the National Guard in 1998.

The judge did not immediately rule on the request.

After returning in March to Fort Stewart, Mejia applied to become a conscientious objector, saying his experiences in Iraq had made him opposed to war.

Mejia said he became upset after seeing civilians hit by gunfire during an ambush on his unit and at seeing an Iraqi boy die after confusion over which military doctor should treat him.

He also claims he saw Iraqi prisoners treated "with great cruelty" when he was put in charge of processing detainees last May at al-Assad, an Iraqi air base occupied by U.S. forces.

Mejia's objector application is being considered separately from his court-martial on the desertion charge.

Cops Nab Diamond Thieves
Shanghai - Police have arrested more than 20 foreigners suspected of being involved in stealing a bag containing US$690 000 worth of diamonds from a local jewelry fair, state-run media reported on Thursday.

The suspects, from Latin American countries including Columbia, Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Chile and Peru, are suspected members of an international crime syndicate, China;'s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Police and city officials declined comment, saying they planned a media briefing on the case.

Authorities launched a manhunt after reviewing video surveillance footage that showed a "foreign woman with dark red hair" and a 1.8m-tall man making repeated visits to the booth the diamonds disappeared from on May 13, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported.

In radio announcements, police urged taxi drivers and other city residents to notify them if they saw people matching the descriptions. A hotel employee spotted the suspects, the reports said.

The diamonds were found in a black bag carried by some of the suspects as they left their hotel, the reports said. Others were caught while on their way to the airport.

Foreign Investment in Latin America and Caribbean Falls Again - UN report
Foreign direct investment (FDI) plummeted by nearly 20 percent last year, to $36.5 billion, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the only region in the world to see a decline, the United Nations economic commission for the region said today.

The sharp plunge - to well under the $88 billion in inflows posted in 1999 - was due mainly to drops in Brazil and Mexico, according to the Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2003 Report presented by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

In recent years, South America, especially the Mercosur area, has experienced the sharpest declines in FDI, while flows have remained relatively constant in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin. Foreign firms are investing less in the region, but dividends sent abroad have not declined, holding at around $20 billion since 1997.

From 1996 to 2002, the service sector brought in almost 58 per cent of total FDI, followed by manufacturing (28 per cent) and the primary sector (15 per cent).

According to ECLAC, trends in these flows have followed the dynamics of the service sector, whose behaviour has been behind strong growth in the 1990s and later its sharp decline. Most of the rise in FDI in services occurred through privatizations, although that sector started to fall in 2001, and saw a significant decline in 2002 and again last year.

ECLAC said FDI has transformed Latin America, modernizing manufacturing sectors and improving many of its services and part of its infrastructure. The study mentions Mexico's and Costa Rica's export platforms, dedicated to assembling cars and microprocessors in competitive conditions, Brazil's much improved telecommunications network, Argentina's financial services and Chile's airport services and highway networks, among others.

Despite the drop in investment from abroad, the presence of transnational firms remains important and is apparent in the enormous strength of the region's economy, ECLAC said.

From 2000 to 2002, 39 per cent of the sales of the region's 500 largest firms, 55 per cent of the sales of the 100 largest manufacturing companies, 38 per cent of the 100 main service companies, 42 per cent of the exports of the 200 main exporters, and 37 per cent of the assets of the 100 largest banks are all controlled by transnational firms.

Spheres of Influence
In 1940, while preparing ground in the Térraba River delta region of southwest Costa Rica, workers for the United Fruit Company unearthed an archaeological enigma.

The spheres gained worldwide attention in 1969, when Erich von Däniken included them in his survey of "ancient astronaut" relics, Chariots of the Gods. Since then they have become regular fixtures in the literature of the unexplained.

Some say they were carved by laser-wielding aliens, while others claim they are remnants of an Atlantean wireless power network.

Today a surprising amount is now known about the balls.

Some archaeologists have suggested they are natural in origin, formed during volcanic eruptions or rolled smooth by glaciers, but current research associates them with the Chibchan-speaking cultures of southern Costa Rica.

Clues found at the sphere sites date them to anytime from 200BC to about AD1500 - though production had certainly ceased by the time the Conquistadors arrived in 1502.

Most are made of granodiorite, a stone found at the top of the Talamanca mountain range. It's thought they were sculpted using tools made of the same material and then, exploiting a natural property of granodiorite, exfoliated using hot coals and cold water. No doubt a great deal of polishing was also involved.

Why the spheres were made is a mystery. One group was found aligned towards magnetic north, while others were arranged in geometric patterns.

Unfortunately almost all the balls have been moved since their discovery, or destroyed by treasure-seekers, making it very unlikely that we'll ever understand their original significance.

Fidel Castro meets Chinese party official
Cuban leader Fidel Castro discussed bilateral cooperation here Tuesday with a visiting senior Chinese party official.

In a meeting with Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's International Department, Castro spoke highly of Cuba's long-standing friendship with China and hoped bilateral cooperation would deepen further.

Wang said the Chinese leadership attached great importance to relations with Cuba and will further expand bilateral cooperation in trade and other fields.

Wang arrived Saturday for a visit at the invitation of the Communist Party of Cuba.
 

Brazil to maintain strategic partnership with China: Lula
The Brazilian president said his upcoming visit to China will help maintain a more solid and lasting strategic partnership with the world's most populous country in areas like politics, economy, trade, technology and culture.

It is the most important trip for him to visit China this year, which marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said here in an interview with Chinese reporters prior to his visit to China.

Lula, who took office on Jan. 1 last year, said that since 1974the two countries have maintained sound diplomatic and political ties, built a strategic partnership, and carried out fruitful cooperation in various fields.

In the space sector, the two countries have launched two joint-venture earth resources satellites, and another two are currently being developed.

The president said he sees great potential in economic cooperation and trade between the two countries, which have multiplied in recent years.

China has become the third biggest market for Brazilian exports last year, with bilateral trade worth 8 billion US dollars.

Lula said both the governments and entrepreneurs of the two countries hope to further expand cooperation and increase mutual investment.

Late last month, Lula met in Brasilia with a delegation of moret han 40 Chinese business leaders from various fields as part of a series of bilateral exchanges before his China tour in late May. An agreement was signed between the two sides to create the Brazil-China Business Council, which would embrace 46 companies of the two countries.

Brazil's petroleum giant Petrobras, the country's biggest state-own enterprise, plans to set up an office in Beijing, and the airline company Avibras will soon open a direct flight to China. All these will play an important role in strengthening Brazil-China economic cooperation and trade, Lula said.

Lula welcomed Chinese enterprises who have interest in investment in areas like railway, port building, mining, and oil in Brazil. He said the Brazilian Senate is expected to pass a bill aimed at attracting domestic private enterprises and foreign capital to engage in the country's infrastructure building.

More reasonable investment rules and better policies on infrastructure investment are currently being formulated by the Brazilian government, Lula added.

On political cooperation, Lula said Brazil and China, the two biggest developing countries in Latin America and Asia, maintain same or similar stance in international affairs and have cooperated in international organizations, like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, to jointly safeguard the interests of developing countries.

He pointed out that Brazil and China could have more influence on the world's politics, economy and trade by strengthening cooperation, in light of the two countries' territorial area, economic strength, and development potentials.

"I believe this trip would push the Brazil-China strategic partnership to an unprecedented new high and bring about short, medium and long-term positive impacts on the development of friendly relations and cooperation," the president said, adding this visit is the Brazilian government's most important political, economic and trade trip.

Lula said 421 businessmen have signed up to join his China tour, which will be the largest-ever business delegation to accompany the Brazilian president in the state visit. Lula said this shows the great interest the Brazilian business community have in China.

In addition, several government ministers, state governors, and representatives from big banks will also accompany Lula to China.