San José, Costa Rica -   Thursday 30 September 2004

1.234 Daily Average Visits in August! Up 10%

Updated every day by 8:00AM Central Standard Time

Costa Rica's first lady Leila Rodriguez; El Salvador's first lady Ana L. Mixco and Guatemalas's first lady Wendy Lagarte receive flowers after their arrivals in San Pedro Sula, some 240 kilometers (149 miles) north of Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, Wednesday. Central America's first ladies will meet to talk about children's problems and other issues in the region until Sept. 30. [AP Photo/Presidencia, Jose Merlo] Click for larger image!

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

Arias: Costa Rica Worried About Stolen Jobs
Oscar Arias Sánchez, former president of Costa Rica, said in a speech to a mostly business audience at a Trenam Kemker-sponsored breakfast Wednesday at Tampa, Florida's, downtown Hyatt, "Costa Rica has little interest in participating in a go-where-the-labor-is-cheapest world tour."

ALCATEL SCANDAL:
Alcatel Also Made Donations to the Araya Campaign
Following a report this week that the French telecommunications company gave us$100.000 to president Pacheco's political campaign, channel 7's Telenoticias reports that Rolando Araya, the presidential candidate in the last election, also got us$100.000 from Alcatel.

FISCHEL-CAJA SCANDAL:
Calderón Cousin and Sister Called to Testify
The investigation into the biggest scandal to date - the multimillion dollar credit loan from Finland to the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) by way of the Corporación Fischel, dudded the Fischel-Caja scandal - continues as two members of former president Rafael Ángel Calderón visited the Ministerio Público.

Honduran Youth in Harris Scandal Has AIDS
The young Honduran man who accused former director of Casa Alianza, Bruce Harris, of paying him $30 for sexual favours, has AIDS.
A letter from a reader.

Gasoline Prices To Increase, Again.
If the last increase wasn't enough, a new increase would break the record prices set by the last.

Did You Know?
Prestigious international human rights organizations have their headquarters in Costa Rica.

US fingerprints more travellers
Visitors to the US who are not required to have a visa will be fingerprinted and photographed from Thursday.

Colombian lawmakers issued weapons for self defense
The Colombian Congress on Wednesday issued 150 pistols and 45 submachine guns to some of its members for self-defense, according to the legislature.

Argentina shocked by school shooting, mourns dead
Hundreds of people on Wednesday accompanied coffins of the two victims of Argentina's worst school shooting to the municipal cemetery in Carmen de Patagones, a small city about 960 km south of the capital.

Venezuela to send aid to storm-hit Haiti
A fourth Venezuelan air force plane will soon carry 15 tons of food, potable water and medicine to Haitian victims of tropical storm Jeanne, local press said Wednesday.

International News from the New York Times
 

CULTURE-CUBA: Hidden Story of the Daughters of Galicia They were poor women from the northern Spanish province of Galicia. They came alone to Cuba in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and like so many Latin American women now emigrating to Europe, many of them ended up in poor-paying jobs as domestics or on the fringes of society as prostitutes. More than 60,000 Galician women settled in this Caribbean island nation, where they founded the Daughters of Galicia Association and the hospital of the same name, which continues to provide services in Havana. But very few people remember how and why that institution emerged. ”If history books serve a purpose, it is to reflect on the past,” says Cuban historian Julio César González Pagés, author of the book 'Emigration of Galician Women to Cuba: The Daughters of Galicia'.

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