A 75 years old US citizen was recently detained in Nicaragua as a suspect of crimes of corruption of minors, kidnapping and rape, was in Costa Rica a total of seven times before his arrest.

According to the daily Guatemalan paper La Prensa, Roy Adrian Wildman - a retired ship captain - was arrested in Granada, Nicaragua, when police found a 13-year-old girl in his house against her will.

The name of the accused appears repeatedly in the lists of the Costa Rican Office of Migration and Foreigners. The report shows that the accused was in the country at least seven times in the last three years.

Wildman visited Costa Rica three times last year. During one of his visits of nearly two and a half months, he was arrested while heading toward Nicaragua on December 12, 2002, on suspicion of sexual exploitation of children. Among the evidence against him are many photos of nude girls lying on his bed. It is still unclear whether the pornographic photos were taken in Nicaragua.

"Casa Alianza fears that there exists a relation between child sexual exploitation in Nicaragua and Costa Rica", explained Bruce Harris, Regional Director for Casa Alianza in Latin America, an agency that defends the rights of children working in both countries. "In various cases investigated in Costa Rica, foreigners have fled the country to then begin illicit activities against Nicaraguan children."

After obtaining a search warrant, police found 38 rolls of photos, computer disks and videos containing child pornography in Wildman's home. The prosecutor of the case plans to present them as evidence against Wildman.

A 13-year-old girl, currently under protection, narrated the nightmare she lived in Wildman's house. 

ICE employees: a call to strike next Monday
The union representing the workers of ICE, is calling on it's membership to wage a general strike beginning at 7am, Monday, the 12th of May, to march to the Central Bank.

The refusal of the government to authorize the bond positioning is the main cause of this protest. The government recently signed a commitment with the workers, however, the Central Bank refuses to authorize the emission of a bond for 38.000.000 colones.

The workers maintain that, in the Southern zone, this Wednesday, 16 employees were fired and that many projects would become paralyzed if in two or three weeks they cannot count on the liquidity offered by the issuance of the bond.

In a letter sent to president Abel Pacheco, the workers request that he asks for the board of directors of the Central Bank to approve the bond emission in dollars.

In addition, they insist that another action to help the institution maintain it's liquidity is to readjust the tariffs on energy costs. Nevertheless, Jorge Walter Bolaños, Ministro de Hacienda (Revenue Minister), does not want to use an increase in rates as a tax.

Mom in custody case gets probation
By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News

A Westminster, Colorado mother who fled with her daughter to Costa Rica in violation of a custody agreement was sentenced to five years of probation Wednesday.

Barbara Vigil took her daughter in April 2001, claiming she feared her child was at risk for sexual abuse at the hands of her father, who had won custody of the child in a bitter divorce.

Vigil worked as a teacher in Costa Rica for nearly a year before authorities arrived at her door to take the child back to her father, Russ McCallian, in April 2001.  Complete Story

The Nicaraguan government Wednesday condemned the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for Monday's killing of 10 hostages it had held.

"The government of Nicaragua joins the international community, which has condemned such a criminal act made by outlawed groups against defenseless citizens, in a clear violation of the international humanitarian law," said a communiqué released by the Foreign Ministry.

The communiqué said the Nicaraguan government expressed its confidence "in the prompt re-establishment of conditions allowing to resume ways that ensure peace and tranquility in Colombia."

According to Colombian authorities, the hostages, including a governor, a former minister and eight soldiers, were murdered by the guerrillas on Monday when Colombian army commandos tried to rescue them.

The 10 victims were on the list for the exchange of prisoners between FARC and the Colombian government.

The rebel group, which has fought with the Colombian government for nearly four decades, is still holding hundreds of country fellows and three Americans. The three were captured when their light plane went down in the rebels-occupied territory in February.

US spokesman plays down anti-America protest in Afghanistan

A US military spokesman on Wednesday played down an anti-America demonstration in this Afghan capital, saying that the US troops will continue their mission in Afghanistan as the majority of Afghan people want them to do that.

"It was a small demonstration. I don't believe that the majority of people of Afghanistan feel the same way about the United States as those demonstrators did," said Roger King, spokesman for the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Over 200 protesters, mostly university students and government workers, staged a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday in downtown Kabul, protesting against the slow pace of post-war reconstruction, low and delayed salaries, and the US military presence in the country.

It was the first anti-America demonstration in Afghanistan's capital in more than 17 months after a US-led military campaign drove out the religiously radical regime of the Taliban.

"I have confidence that we will still do our mission here," King told a routine weekly press conference in Kabul.

Over 8,000 US troops, among the 11,000-strong coalition forces, are in Afghanistan hunting down holdouts of the ousted Taliban movement believed to be hiding in mountainous areas along the country's border with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the spokesman said that the US military authorities in Afghanistan would not seek to interfere with the Afghan government's decision on the fate of thousands of former Taliban members in and outside the country.

President Hamid Karzai last week announced a de facto national pardoning of low-ranking Taliban soldiers, saying that only a few of the Taliban leadership were responsible for providing shelter to the terrorist al-Qaeda network, which had run terror training camps in the country.

Karzai even reportedly has invited some Taliban leaders, including former Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Mohammad Ghous, to Kabul for talks on power sharing.

"It is up to the government and people of Afghanistan to decide whether or not" to accept those Taliban members who do not want fight any more to participate in the rebuilding of the country, King said.

Karzai's decision was widely seen as a sign of his eagerness to divert attention of the Afghan people and the international community from anti-terrorism activities in Afghanistan to the country's national reconciliation and reconstruction efforts.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, while visiting here last week, said that the focus of the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan has shifted from major combat operations to helping the country's stabilization and reconstruction activities.

US adds Basque groups to terror list

The United States has added three Spanish Basque nationalist parties to a list of "terrorist" groups and has frozen their assets in the United States, the Bush administration announced Wednesday.

The freeze announcement, signed by Secretary of State Colin Powell last week, was published Wednesday hours before Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was to meet with US President George W. Bush at the White House.

It singles out the Basque groups Euskal Herritarrok, Herri Batasuna, and Batasuna, but does not disclose the estimated value of the suspect assets.

More than 800 people have been killed in ETA attacks since the late 1960s in the group's violent campaign to create an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France.