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updated by 7:00 a.m. CST each day
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Central
America presses for free trade deal
Six Central American countries are
pushing the EU to begin free trade agreement talks
as early as next year, it has emerged.
The countries which make up the Central American
Integration System - Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama – are
hopeful that negotiations on a free trade agreement
could conclude by 2005.
What is important is to get the mandate for
negotiations in May 2004.
The deal would be part of an wider Association
Agreement. Two Latin American countries - Chile
and Mexico - currently have such agreements.
In the interim the EU and Central America last May
launched talks on a fresh 'political dialogue and
co-operation agreement'. It is hoped that this
agreement is signed during the Italian Presidency [until end
of 2003].
Central America's third market is the European
Union, its first market is the United States.
Banana
exports keep on falling
The
Costa Rican banana exports dropped 25.6 percent from
1999 to 2002, causing serious problems in the
labor-intensive industry and in the nation at
large.
While the income from the fruit Costa Rica¹s top
agricultural dollar-earner reached $632.2 million
in 1999, it dropped to $467.5 million last
year.
The National Banana Corporation explained that the
crisis in the sector results from a surplus in the
world market and by the ups and downs in the
European Union market, mainly.
The United States is Costa Rica¹s top banana
customer, followed by Belgium and Luxembourg.
Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Italy also
bought large amounts of bananas from Costa Rica last
year.
US
halts military aid
The
United States announced the discontinuation of
military aid to 35 nations, including Costa Rica,
because they did not grant immunity to members of
the US armed forces before the International Penal
Court.
Even though Costa Rica does not have an army, the
decision means that it will not receive some
$500,000 that were used in the training of
law-enforcement units and in the maintenance of
airplanes and boats.
On the other hand, the Minister of Public Security,
Rogelio Ramos, asserted that this will not interfere
with the joint US-Costa Rica anti-drug patrol
agreement, which is not a military program.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roberto Tovar,
asserted that Costa Rica is a pioneer and a founding
member of the International Penal Court, therefore
it is by no means going to go against it.
New
Finance Minister
After
the resignation of Jorge Bolanos as Minister of
Finance, President Abel Pacheco appointed Jorge Dent
to the post.
Minister Dent asserted that his main goal is
controlling public spending.
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Colombia, US negotiate frozen military assistance
Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos expressed confidence Thursday that a compromise can be reached over Washington's suspension of its military aid to Colombia although negotiations will be difficult.
"The negotiation has been undertaken at a high level ... We arenegotiating on the basis that we are very close allies and that weboth need each other," Santos said at a farewell ceremony for outgoing US ambassador Anne Patterson at the Defense Ministry.
The United States decided Tuesday to suspend military aid of 5 million US dollars to Colombia as punishment for its refusal to grant immunity to Americans from the International Criminal Court
(ICC).
Assuring that her country would not cease efforts to help Colombia fight drug trafficking and production, Patterson praised Colombia's anti-drug efforts and predicted that the two countries could work closely despite Washington's decision on military aid.
Meanwhile, Colombian ambassador to Washington Luis Moreno said he was not aware that the 5 million dollars in assistance had been frozen.
"The information we got is that the money is already approved. I have not been able to learn what was the item they froze," he said.
Colombia, the third largest recipient of US military assistance after Israel and Egypt, insists that a 1962 agreement, renewed in 2000, already protects US citizens from the
ICC.
Over the past three years, Colombia has received more than 2 billion dollars in aid through Plan Colombia.
Besides Colombia, Latin American countries affected by Washington's decision were Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Washington, which doesn't recognize the authority of the ICC, has been busy forging bilateral accords on its citizens' immunity from the ICC.
Canada says mad cow may come from US
The Canadian government said it could not rule out the possibility that a mad cow case found in the country last month might have come from the United States, it is reported Thursday.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a report that an unusually large number of cows were imported from the United States shortly before animal protein was banned from cattle feed.
"Canada cannot, to date, exclude the possibility that the indexcase itself derived through this huge, unique importation," said the report. About 25,000 pregnant cows came to Canada from the United States in 1998.
A cow was found in May to have been infected with the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease, in a northern family farm in Alberta Province.
But the single case has paralyzed the Canadian beef industry. Despite an extensive investigation that found no trace of BSE elsewhere in the Canadian cattle industry, the federal and provincial governments have been unable to persuade the United States to reopen the border.
Japan and South Korea have been demanding that any beef coming from the United States be certified not to have any Canadian connection.
Canada exports beef products worth about 4 billion Canadian dollars (about 3 billion US dollars) annually.
Peruvian government worried about terrorism: interior minister
The Peruvian government is worried about the stepped-up rebel actions in the country, Peruvian Interior Minister Alberto Sanabria said on Thursday, adding that the ministries concerned were meeting constantly over the situation.
President Alejandro Toledo "is the first citizen worried about this situation, and is also aware of the recent events taking place in the provinces," Sanabria said.
The government did not underestimate the situation and knew what was going on, Sanabria said, adding that his ministry and theMinistry of Defense were holding weekly meetings in order to coordinate actions to eradicate the remainders of subversion.
Recent raids launched by Shining Path (SL) guerrillas in remoteareas of Peru which are posing a renewed threat to the country already ravaged by two decades of violence.
"We are constantly meeting to coordinate the actions in these areas," Sanabria told Radio Programas del Peru.
The worst event among the recent raids occurred last month whenSL rebels kidnapped 71 workers in a pipeline construction plant and released them 30 hours later.
The Shining Path threw Peru into chaos in the 1980s and the early 1990s with car bombings, political assassinations and massacres of peasants who did not support it. With the capture of the group's main leaders, the number of attacks declined sharply.
Anti-Terrorism Police Subdirector General Benedicto Jimenez said the remaining SL cells are regrouping under instructions fromthe main leaders who are serving prison terms in different jails in the country.
L. American human rights body condemns US pressure over ICC
The Latin American Association for Human Rights (ALDHU) on Thursday condemned the United States for the latter's suspension of military aid to countries refusing to grant Americans immunity from the International Criminal Court
(ICC).
In a statement, the ALDHU described the US decision as illegitimate, abusive, arbitrary and imperialist. It also saw it as a flagrant threat to international law.
The ALDHU hailed the refusal of those Latin American countries, including Ecuador, to sign an agreement with the United States, saying their decision was "brave."
The United States on Tuesday announced the suspension of its military assistance of more than 47 million US dollars to some 35 countries for not signing bilateral accords to give immunity to UScitizens and troops from the
ICC.
Besides Ecuador, Latin American countries affected by Washington's decision were Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru and Venezuela.
Created under a 1998 treaty, the court was established to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity cases against nationals of countries unwilling or unable to try the cases themselves. Inaugurated in March, it was supported by 78 nations and is charged with prosecuting crimes committed after July 1, 2002.
Washington, which doesn't recognize the authority of the ICC, has been busy forging bilateral accords on its citizen's immunity from the ICC.
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