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Alleged
Swindler Loses
Bids to Stay in Canada; Deported to Costa Rica
A former
Costa Rican bureaucrat who fled to Canada to
avoid embezzlement charges lost his last
appeal in a Toronto, Canada, court and was
ordered deported back to Costa Rica.
Jorge Alberto Martinez Melendez, 46, who is accused
of stealing almost $1-million from a government
housing project for the poor, arrived in Costa Rica
shortly after 1pm yesterday on Air Canada's
inaugural direct service between Toronto and
San José.
Martinez was heavily guarded by Canada's
Interpol agents who then handed him over to
the Costa Rican authorities.
Martinez was taken off the flight and escorted
to a San José court - the
Primer Circuito
Judicial de San José - where judge Villalobos
dictated one year of preventative detention
and sent to the San Sebastian jail to await
trial.
Martinez went to Canada four
years ago with his family and immediately filed a
refugee claim, which was rejected by the Immigration
and Refugee Board of Canada.
The decision has been upheld by two judicial reviews
at the Federal Court of Appeal, but Mr. Melendez's
lawyer said yesterday both ignored information
showing his family has been threatened.
"This year there was an attack against a family
member of Mr. Melendez," said Ricardo Aguirre,
referring to a threat against the claimant's
brother. "His whole family, as a result, face a risk
if they return to Costa Rica."
But the judge hearing yesterday's request for a stay
of deportation pointed out that a risk-assessment
officer for Canada's department of citizenship and
immigration was aware of the threat, but concluded
there was insufficient evidence linking it to Mr.
Melendez.
A lawyer and member of the Partido Liberation
National (PLN) in Costa Rica, Mr. Melendez was
appointed in 1994 by then-president Jose Maria
Figueres to manage a new social program. When the
PLN lost the 1997 election, the new regime
investigated previous government spending, and Mr.
Melendez says he was pressured to implicate his
former superiors.
Charges of embezzlement were laid against Mr.
Melendez after he arrived in Canada.
Will There
Be "Bulls" This Year?
There
remains 21 days before the annual fair in
Zapote opens. The old "bull ring" was torn
down last month due to safety concerns about
the structure.
The Municipality of San José is giving time
until the 19th of December to receive bids
from interested parties to operate the "bulls"
concession this year.
According to Health Minister,
María del Rocío Sáenz Madrigal, they Ministry
has not denied any permits for no one has come
forth making an application.
The Health Ministry needs several days to
review any application. This year most
government offices will close for the holiday
season which begins on the 20th of December
and goes until the 5th of January.
Applications have to submitted before the date
to have the "Toros A La Tica" this yeae.
Mother's
Love Brings Justice for Daughter Killed in
Costa Rica
The night
Shannon Martin died, she danced.
Her killers saw her in the crowded disco in
Golfito, in the southern zone of Costa Rica.
They followed her from the bar, attacked her,
dragged her to an out-of-the-way spot and
tried to rape her. The University of Kansas
student died fighting them, said her mother,
Jeanette Stauffer of Topeka.
"Three people heard her scream,'' Stauffer
said, "and they just dismissed it. No one went
to her rescue.''
At a news conference Tuesday at Washburn
University and in interviews this week,
Stauffer recounted her struggle to find out
what happened May 13, 2001, and to bring her
daughter's killers to justice. The turning
point came last summer, she said, when a
special agent with the Kansas Bureau of
Investigation and a court interpreter from
Topeka became involved.
Over more than two years, Stauffer made 11
trips to Costa Rica, hired attorneys and
investigators and appealed to U.S. and Costa
Rican political leaders. She accumulated
$100,000 in debt. But she got some
satisfaction shortly before Thanksgiving when
a three-judge panel in Costa Rica found a man
and a woman guilty of stabbing her daughter.
"You do what you have to do,'' Stauffer said.
"Shannon deserved to have the murder solved.''
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16 escape from
Ecuadorian jail by digging tunnel
At least 16 prisoners
escaped from an Ecuadorian jail Wednesday through a
well-prepared tunnel illuminated by electric lights.
Elio Alvarez, director of the Garcia Moreno jail,
told the Press that the escape was discovered 6:30
p.m. local time when guards found a hole in a
dormitory wall.
Investigations revealed a 25 meter-long tunnel dug
through cement beneath the bed of one of the
inmates.
Investigators say it could have taken three or four
months for the escapees to dig the tunnel and equip
it with electric lights.
Along the tunnel, sacks used to take dirt out were
found. It is believed the escapees dug the tunnel
using table knives as tools. Plastic jars, shoes,
working clothes and clean clothes were also found
inside the tunnel.
Several other prisoners who attempted to escape were
stopped and returned to their cells and police
reinforced security to guard the tunnel.
New protests erupt in
Bolivia
Social protests erupted
again in Bolivia this week despite a 90-day truce
political parties and trade unions gave President
Carlos Mesa when he took office in Mid-October.
In the districts of Aiquile, Totora and Mizque,
protesters blocked the Cochabamba-La Paz road,
demanding the government deliver 2.3 million US
dollars for reconstruction in their localities,
following the earthquake that rocked the region in
1998, said reports from La Paz, capital of Bolivia,
on Tuesday.
Mayors claimed this amount, provided by
international organizations, was diverted by the
regime of President Hugo Banzer(1997-2002) to buy a
presidential airplane.
In Murillo Square by the Government Palace, hundreds
of families of the more than 80 killed and 450
injured during the month-long disturbances from
Sept. 15 to Oct. 17 have been demonstrating since
Monday. They are demanding more compensation than
previously offered by Mesa's government.
On Tuesday morning, workers of the airliner, Lloyd
Aereo Boliviano, began partial labor stoppages,
urging the company to eliminate a tax law that
excludes privatized companies.
Peasant trade unions of the southwestern state of
Potosi announced they would start blockades on major
roads of the region until the government attended to
their agrarian demands.
Meanwhile, the agricultural workers' group, the
Landless Peasant Movement (MST), said it had taken
control of 20 rural estates with idle soil in
different parts of the country. This wasd one
because of the central government's delay in meeting
their demands.
In the northern state of Beni, on the Brazilian
border, demonstrators called for the presence of the
head of state and his ministers to solve regional
problems.
In the Chapare region, Cochabamba, the situation
remained tense ollowing the death last weekend of an
agent of the Special Anti-Narcotics Force. He was
killed by a home-made bomb, which also injured five
soldiers and destroyed a military truck.
Former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada resigned
on Oct. 17 in the wake of a month-long public
protest sparked by the government's economic policy
and its natural gas export plan to North America.
Mesa, then vice president, took over to head a
transitional government.
Analysts say the political situation in Bolivia is
still precarious, and Mesa faces challenges ranging
from restoration of political stability to the
alleviation of poverty.
US remains optimistic
about new round of six-party talks
The United States said
Wednesday it remains optimistic that another round
of six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) can be
held soon and denied the process is deadlocked.
US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told
reporters that Chinais "working diligently" to
organize a second round and the United States, for
its part, is ready to begin now.
"We support an early resumption of the talks," Ereli
said. "We are ready to convene a second round as
soon as possible. But I don't want to predict when
that's going to be."
US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, chief
US delegate to the nuclear talks, is to meet here
Thursday with his negotiating counterparts from
Tokyo and Seoul - South Korean Deputy Foreign
Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck and Japanese Foreign Ministry
Director-General Mitoji Yabunaka.
China hosted an initial round of six-party talks on
the DPRK nuclear issue in August that included
diplomats from the DPRK, Japan, Russia, South Korea
and the United States.
Iraq war fails to
reduce terror threats: US poll
A growing majority of
Americans believe that the US-led war against Iraq
has not reduced the threat of terrorism, while
support for the United Nations to take a leading
role in Iraq's reconstruction increased, according
to a poll released Wednesday.
The survey of 712 people, conducted on Nov. 21-30
under the Program on International Policy Attitudes
at the University of Maryland, showed 70 percent of
the respondents disagreed that "the threat of
terrorism has been significantly reduced by the
war," up from 47 percent in a Gallup poll in April.
Meanwhile, 56 percent disagreed that "the war in
Iraq will result in greater peace and stability in
the Middle East," up from 32 percent in April.
According to the poll, 60 percent Americans are
impatient with the slow process of creating an Iraqi
government. Four in five respondents think Iraqis
should be able to choose their own government, even
if it is unfriendly to the United States.
An increasing number of Americans gave their support
to the United Nations for playing a greater role in
Iraq. About 71 percent said the UN should "take the
lead to work with Iraqis to write a new constitution
and build a new democratic government," up from 50
percent in April.
"Impatience with the process of Iraq reconstruction
seems to be creating increasingly robust support for
putting the operation under the UN," said Steven
Kull, director of the program.
On the question "What do you think is the more
important thing for the US to do as part of the war
on terrorism," only 21 percent said it should be
capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,
while 75 percent said it should be catching terror
mastermind Osama bin Laden and break up the al Qaida
terrorist group.
But despite apparent uneasiness with US military
presence in Iraq, two-thirds of respondents, 14
percentage points down from April, said they do not
think US troops should withdraw until there is a
stable government.
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