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updated by 7:00 a.m. CST each day
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Teacher's Strike Continues: Day
22
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President Pacheco promises a firm hand
President Pacheco said yesterday that his
patience has run out with the teachers and that has
asked Education
Minister Manuel Antonio Bolaños
the necessary measures to get the teachers back to
the classrooms.
The teacher's union sent the Government a document
that they have studies the latest government
proposal and are not in approval of it.
They are insistent on the subject of pensions. In
addition, they are also requesting that the
government obtain the signature of all legislative
deputies in favor of the government's proposal.
Neither side wants to blink first. The strike
continues this week.
Rio de Janeiro and and San Jose first and second
friendliest places
Singapore and
Kuala Lumpur are among the least friendly places in
the world when it comes to random acts of kindness,
a study of 23 cities revealed on Sunday.
The city-state ranked
21st and Malaysia's capital 23rd after a six-year
study by a group of social psychologists led by Dr
Robert Levine, a professor at California State
University.
The results in the
American Scientist were published in The Sunday
Times. New York surfaced in the 22nd spot.
Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil and San Jose, Costa Rica emerged first and
second when it came to helpfulness.
Experiments in all
the cities were carried out to determine which
environments best encouraged altruism, and which had
people most willing to assist others.
The three tests
included feigning to be blind, pretending to have an
injured leg and accidentally dropping a pen. The
researchers noted how many people stopped to help.
Rio de Janeiro scored
full marks in the pen and blind person test and
residents helped a hurt person eight times out of
ten.
The appearance of
Latin American cities and poor ones such as
Lililongwe, Malawi and Calcutta, India in prime
spots prompted Levine to conclude that those where
people had less disposable income, experienced a
slower pace of life and had a culture that valued
social harmony were the friendliest places.
He also said people
in more crowded cities were less likely to help
others.
Every day we see more poor in Costa Rica
This week,
authorities will meet to discuss this reality and
some of the measures to take to combat. The
Buganvillea hotel will be the scene today as a forum
to analyze a World Bank report on poverty in Costa
Rica.
The forum will be attended by World Bank director
for Central America, Helena Ribe, and Costa Rican
vice-president Lineth Saborio, among others.
KBI
to work student death
A Kansas
Bureau of Investigation agent who leads the unit
specializing in long-unsolved murder cases will help
look into the slaying of a University of Kansas
student in Costa Rica.
Shannon Martin, 23,
was stabbed to death more than two years ago while
in the Central American nation to gather specimens
for a biology project. She was an honors student
whose death came shortly before she was to have
graduated.
Larry Thomas, a KBI
homicide investigator since 1977, will consult in
Costa Rica with Juan Carlos Arce, an attorney
representing the interests of Martin's family.
"I won't be
intervening with the local investigation," said
Thomas, who was leaving Sunday and expected to be in
Costa Rica for about a week. "But I'll observe,
and if I have any comments or recommendations or
offers of assistance, I hope they'll be considered
as the case moves forward."
Thomas said his
involvement in the case stemmed from regular
conversations with Martin's mother, Jeanette
Stauffer, of Topeka.
"She's asked
that we review the case file," Thomas said.
Last month, Costa
Rican officials agreed to let Stauffer participate
in legal proceedings surrounding the case. She in
turn hired Arce and asked Thomas to review the
evidence.
"I'm very
grateful to have been made a party in the
case," Stauffer said. "But I'm also very
concerned that up until now, there were a lot of
holes in the evidence that needed to be filled in.
My attorney needs (Thomas) to do that."
Though the case is
more than two years old, Stauffer said some
witnesses still hadn't been interviewed.
"The case is not
as solid as we'd like it to be," Stauffer said.
"I think it will be, but we're not there
yet."
Stauffer and her
family are paying expenses for Thomas and translator
Jesse Ybarra to go to Costa Rica.
Two men and a woman
-- Rafael Zumbado, 48, Luis Alberto Castro, 38, and
Kattia Cruz, 28 -- are accused of attacking Martin
after she left a nightclub in Golfito. An autopsy
showed she was stabbed 15 times in the early hours
of May 13, 2001, and her body was found along an
airport access road about 100 feet from her host
family's home.
The next day, Cruz
allegedly pawned a custom-made earring that belonged
to Martin.
Stauffer said she had
been told to expect a preliminary hearing sometime
in July and a trial in August.
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Britain to enforce tighter visa regimes for citizens of 16 countries
Nationals of 16 countries will need a visa to travel through Britain on their way to a third country, the British Home Office announced on Monday.
The restrictions, which will come into force at midnight on Monday, will affect citizens from Albania, Belarus, Burundi, Cote d'Voire, Gambia, Liberia, Macedonia, Moldova, Myanmar, Nepal, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Vietnam.
According to the Home Office, those visiting Britain from thesecountries already need visas, and the change means they will also need a visa in order to pass through the country on their way to other destinations.
Commenting on the move, Home Office minister Beverley Hughes said it was part of a strategy to continue to strengthen British borders.
"The ability to travel to the UK without a visa when claiming to be on the way somewhere else is a relatively cheap and easy wayto circumvent our immigration controls," Hughes said," We are tightening up our procedures to put a stop to this abuse."
Swiss biotech companies to attend Bio 2003 in Washington
More than 100 delegates of Switzerland's leading biotechnology companies are to showcase their products at the industry's annual convention Bio 2003 in Washington this week.
Swiss Radio International (SRI) reported that some 3,300 delegates from 50 countries, including scientists, investors and ministers, have arrived in Washington for the meeting, which the organizer billed as "the world's largest gathering of biotechnology leaders."
Switzerland ranks number six in Europe in terms of number of companies active in the biotech industry, with 129 firms in the sector employing more than 11,000 people. The leaders, Germany andBritain, have 360 and 331 firms respectively.
For market capitalization and turnover generated in biotech, Switzerland is in the number two spot, while Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands are the top three countries for biotech stocks.
SRI said that during Bio 2003, scientists from Switzerland and Sweden are expected to host a panel discussion on applying nanotechnology, the manipulation of particles at the nano-scale (one-billionth of a meter) in biotechnology applications.
Ship carrying large amount of explosives seized in Greece
Greek special forces seized an Africa-bound cargo ship carrying 680 tons of explosives on Sunday and forced the vessel to port for inspection, government officials and shipping sources said.
Elite troops from the coast guard boarded the Comoros-flagged Baltic Sky in Greek territorial waters after receiving a tip-off that it was carrying suspicious cargo, a statement from Greece's Merchant Marine Ministry said.
The ministry said it had ordered the Baltic Sky, registered to Alpha Shipping Inc. based in the Pacific Ocean nation of Marshall Islands, into the tiny port Platiyali, 235 km northwest of Athens,for a "detailed search."
The Baltic Sky's seven crew, including five Ukrainians and two Azerbaijanis, had been taken into custody for interrogation and shipping officials and police were checking the ship's papers, police sources said.
The ship looked certainly like a suspicious ship, police said. It carried ammonia dynamite, an explosive widely used in mining, as well as detonators and fuses, they added.
Shipping sources said the Baltic Sky began its journey in the Black Sea and was bound for Tunisia.
Authorities said they would continue the inspection Monday on whether the shipment was legal.
US intelligence report casts doubt on Iraq-al Qaeda
connection: paper
A still-classified US intelligence report circulating within the Bush administration last October gave a far less clear picture of the link between Iraq and al Qaeda than the one presented by US President George W.Bush, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, which represented the consensus of the US intelligence community, contained cautious language describing Iraq's connections with al Qaeda and warnings of the reliability of conflicting reports by Iraqi defectors and captured al Qaeda members about the ties, the report quoted US intelligence analysts and congressional sources as saying.
"There has always been an internal argument within the intelligence community about the connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," said a senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The NIE had alternative views."
In a nationally televised address last October, Bush declared that the then government of Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States by outlining what he said was evidence pointing to its ongoing ties with al
Qaeda.
The address crystallized the assertion that had been made by senior administration officials for months that the combination ofIraq's chemical and biological weapons and a terrorist organization, such as al Qaeda, committed to attacking the United States, posed a grave and imminent threat.
Within four days, US House and Senate overwhelmingly endorsed aresolution granting the president authority to go to war.
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