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Increase in Dengue
Reported
In the past
week, 50 new cases of dengue per day have been
reported. A number that has health authorities
worried, since January there have been 4.553 cases
reported.
The numbers are growing quickly and the worse part
of the rainy season is yet to come.
The Ministry of Health has began campaigns country
wide to clean areas of possible health risks and to
fight against the mosquito "aedes aegipty",
the transmitter of the disease.
The most effective way to fight dengue is to avoid
the accumulation of water deposits that can create
breeding grounds for the mosquito.
Click
here for more on Dengue Fever and
DENGUE
HAEMORRHAGIC FEVER
Troubles
Continue at Education
Education
Minister, Manuel Antonio Bolaños, is firm on
recuperating the 11 days lost during the teacher's
strike last month and that classes, this year,
will continue until the 20th of December.
Not everyone is happy with the minister's decision.
Some parents want that the total of 200 days be
respected - that would take the school year into
January, while others complain that the extended
school year - not the the complete year - will cut
into their yearly vacation periods.
And the teacher's union is complaining that the
minister is cutting out most of the teacher's
'professional' days, a time for teachers to meet and
discuss educational matters.
Minister Bolaños
is staying firm with his decision.
Majority
Lose Faith in President Pacheco
Most
Costa Ricans lost the faith that they had had in
president Abel Pacheco, who had turned to be the
president with the best beginning in the last 25
years.
The
evaluation of the work of Pacheco lowered 14 points
in the last CID-Gallup survey for the REPUBLICA and
Repretel, made from the 4 to the 9 of July.
A 39% described good or very good the work of the
president, as opposed to 29% that considered it bad
or very bad, for an index of 10 points (it is
obtained to reduce the negative opinions to the
positive ones).
In the previous survey of April, the president had
an index of 24 points, result of a 46% of favorable
opinions, and 22% of unfavorable.
Warlords Meet with Chief Colombian Peace Negotiator
The Colombian
government's chief peace negotiator started a two-day
meeting on Monday with far-right paramilitary warlords,
who say they want a negotiated exit to the country's
four-decade-old war.
A government source said the talks were taking place
in an undisclosed location somewhere in northern
Colombia and sought an agreement to start formal peace
negotiations.
"The meeting seeks a joint review of
recommendations by the exploratory (peace) commission on
how to advance to a formal peace negotiation," a
government source told Reuters.
The meeting is the first since the renegade chief of
the 10,000-member United Self Defense Forces of
Colombia, Carlos Castano, suggested earlier this month
that the United States suspend an extradition request if
he and his men pulled out of crime and
"behaved."
U.S. officials say they support attempts to negotiate
an end to the 39-year-old conflict but refuse to drop
their demand for Castano's extradition for allegedly
smuggling 17 tonnes of cocaine in the United States and
Europe.
The government source said the meeting, in part,
sought legal tools that would allow Castano and his
fighters to lay down their arms, despite facing jail
time for grave human rights violations and dabbling in
the world's largest cocaine trade.
Known by its Spanish initials AUC, Castano's
paramilitary army started peace talks with the
government last year, calling a cease-fire in its
blood-soaked struggle against leftist guerrillas. The
gruff-voiced former army scout has been fighting a war
of revenge since 1980, when the rebels kidnapped and
killed his father.
President Alvaro Uribe, whose father was also killed
by the rebels, has been under pressure from the United
States to crack down on the paramilitaries and continue
punishing members of the armed forces who collaborate
with the outlawed gunmen.
Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio said on Monday
his office had removed a state prosecutor from his post
over allegations that he was paid by the paramilitaries
to help draft a legal argument for a pardon. The
prosecutor allegedly met with other lawyers, hired by
the paramilitaries, in Costa Rica during his vacation.
"He has been separated from his post,"
Osorio said.
In June, Castano was sentenced in absentia to 40
years in prison for the massacre by his fighters of 30
peasants in the village of Mapiripan in 1997. Most of
the victims were decapitated with machetes and their
bodies burned.
The meeting was also attended by paramilitary leaders
from two smaller blocks with a combined 5,000 members
and the government's peace chief, Luis Carlos Restrepo.
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Colombian president to run government from conflict zone
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, in defiance of the illegal armed groups, will run his government for three days beginning Tuesday in the eastern state of Arauca, where rebel attacks have been rampant.
By doing so, Uribe tries to show that his government has control over the whole country, officials were quoted as saying bythe El Tiempo daily on Monday.
The move is the first time in recent memory that a Colombian president has moved his government to a conflict zone.
Uribe, together with 80 officials, will be stationed in a military barracks in Arauca, capital of the state with the same name, near the border with Venezuela.
Arauca is considered one of the "no-go zones" in the country. In addition to constant attacks on petroleum and electricity infrastructure, this area has seen a number of murders of lawmakers and mayors.
Guerrillas of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, and the far-right paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia are very active in
Arauca.
Since he was sworn in in August, President Uribe has adopted a tough policy against the rebels in order to put an early end to a decades-old civil war that kills about 3,500 people each year.
US seeks alliance with Brazil in WTO against EU subsidies
US ambassador to Brazil had said the US government wished to forge an alliance with Brazil in the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework against the European Union's (EU's) agricultural subsidies, a local newspaper reported on Monday.
The United States could not do anything in eliminating agricultural subsidies as demanded by the Brazilian government, ifno progress was made at the negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), US ambassador Donna Hrinak said in an interview with daily Folha des Sao Paulo.
Hrinak said the FTAA negotiations were hard, but this was the way it should be, because the free trade benefits were "obvious."
The dispute between Brazil and the EU stems from the 15-member bloc's sugar subsidies, which are three times those of the United States and are accused by Brazil of distorting world market.
Since the talks with the EU in Geneva last November failed to bring about a mutually satisfactory settlement, Brazil has decidedto take a further step, asking the WTO to lead a probe into the issue.
Four killed in airplane crash in Venezuela
Four people were killed while five others survived when a light airplane crashed in Venezuela's southwestern state of Tachira, rescue groups said on Monday.
Military police told the press that bad weather hobbled the removal of bodies and survivors from the mountainous area where the airplane crashed.
Policemen, soldiers, firemen and Civil Protection officials joined the rescue operation after the crash occurred on Sunday night in Chorro del Indio National Park, 12 kilometers from San Cristobal, Tachira's capital.
The five survivors received medical assistance on the spot, as well as blankets and food, said National Guard officer Rafael Doubront in San Cristobal, without indicating the health condition of the survivors.
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