San José, Costa Rica -    Wednesday 22 September 2004

1.234 Daily Average. Visits in August! Up 10%

Updated every day by 8:00AM Central Standard Time

Authorities raid the main offices of the Corporación Fischel in downtown San José, in search of documents and evidence in the Fischel-Caja case. Click for larger image!

insidenicaragua A new weekly feature published on Sundays, featuring a summary  of current news and events in Nicaragua.

FISCHEL-CAJA:
Multiple Raids on Fischel by Fiscaliá and OIJ
In an action that began about 9am, yesterday, the OIJ, prosecutors from the Ministerio Público and auditors from the Ministerio de Hacienda, raided the central offices of the Corporación Fischel and three warehouses owned by the Corporación Cormar, in Barreal de Heredia.

Vargas and Reiche Appeal Detention
Eliseo Vargas, former president of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social (CCSS) and Walter Reiche, president of the Corporación Fischel, appeared before a judge yesterday, in a closed session, to appeal their preventive detention.

Pacheco Addresses United Nations Assembly
As 95 Heads of State and Government began arriving at United Nations Headquarters in New York Tuesday for the start of the General Assembly's annual high-level debate, President Abel Pacheco de la Espriella of Costa Rica called for a fairer world economic system.

Italian Drug Gang Busted
Yesterday's arrest of a 37 year old Italian man identified only by his last name, Maddaloni de Rosa, saw the break up a band of drug traffickers that sent cocaine from Costa Rica to Italy, by the Policía de Control de Drogas (PCD).

Honduran Minister Doesn't Believe Harris a 'One Time' Offender
Óscar Álvarez, Honduran Minister of Security, in a press conference, said that Bruce Harris, former director of Casa Alianza, "could have had sexual relations with minors in every country he visited while on work."

Institute Widens Human Rights Representation
The INTER-AMERICAN Institute for Human Rights has widened its board membership to ensure wider representation as it continues to work for the preservation and improvement of human rights in the Caribbean-Latin American region.

Did you Know?
You can swim in Costa Rican waters all year round, since the sea temperatures are always warm (21 to 29° C / 70 to 85° F).

Storms leave 13 dead in Panama
At least 13 people were killed and 11,700 displaced due to floods caused by heavy storms and hurricanes hitting Panama since last week, according to the Civil Protection authorities on Tuesday.

Leaders of Colombia, Venezuela meet on border security
Colombia's Foreign Minister Carolina Barco met her Venezuelan counterpart Jesus Perez Tuesday in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to evaluate the situation on their border, Colombia's diplomatic sources said.

Fujimori 'to run for presidency'
Peru's self-exiled former President Alberto Fujimori says he plans to run for the presidency in 2006 - despite being banned from public office.
Mr Fujimori told a BBC online forum a third of Peruvians wanted him to run for president again, and that the ban against him was politically motivated.

International News from the New York Times
 

CENTRAL AMERICA American dream turns into nightmare Despite abuses on the way, migrants persevere in their bid to reach US. Each day, hundreds of Central Americans cross the town of Tecun Uman on the border between Guatemala and Mexico in search of a better life in the United States and what they find is "the nightmare of the American Dream." That is how Rev. Ademar Barilli, director of La Casa del Migrante Tecun Uman, describes the crossing of Mexico by Central American emigrants. "Migration Diagnosis, Human Rights Violations of the Guatemalan Migrant," a study carried out by the organization, describes the situation faced by illegal immigrants at the border crossing as nothing less than "a catastrophe." Barilli, a Brazilian priest, said 95 percent of the emigrants crossing the Mexican-Guatemalan border pass through Tecun Uman.

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