Kmart Employee Stops International Money-Wiring Scheme
Officials of Peters Township, Pennsylvania, said an international money-wiring scheme has been uncovered by a local Kmart employee at the Peters Township store.

Manager Charlene Withrow noticed something was wrong while wiring $5,000 to Costa Rica for an elderly couple.

When she called Western Union's fraud office, she was told the couple was being duped. 

The couple had already wired more than $12,000 to the location reportedly for taxes on a million-dollar foreign lottery jackpot.

Powell to Visit Central America
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras next week in a two-day swing through Central America to discuss regional security, free trade, corruption and drug trafficking.

Powell will arrive in Panama on Monday to attend the 100th anniversary of its independence from Colombia and meet with President Mireya Moscoso, the State Department announced Wednesday.

He will fly to Nicaragua later that day to meet President Enrique Bolaños and to Honduras on Tuesday to meet President Ricardo Maduro.

Powell is likely to raise the issue of the security of the Panama Canal with Moscoso. His meetings with Bolaños and Maduro will touch on corruption, the rule of law and disarmament.

Nicaragua, which received hundreds of thousands of tons of Soviet-type weaponry under the Marxist Sandinista Front's rule in the 1980s, has become a key source of illegal weapons for guerrilla groups in Colombia.

Former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán is in jail in a massive corruption scandal that also has splattered Bolaños, who was Alemán's vice president before his election in 2001.

It's Time to Pay the Marchamo
In the next 10 days, authorities say they will be ready to start collecting the "marchamo" or right to circulate that is payable of all types of vehicles.

The Instituto Nacional de Seguros or INS says they working hard to ensure that their computerized system is ready. INS provides transport authorities information on what fees to collect, depending on the type of vehicle.

To find out what is due on any vehicle, click on this link http://www2.ins-cr.com/soa2000/ins.nsf/Cons2004 and enter the type of vehicle and the plate number. 

The INS website is in Spanish. Private vehicles are classed as "particular". The website will give information on the current registered owner of the vehicle and the amount of marchamo to be paid.

Any parking fines owed by the registered vehicles are added to the amount payable.

Casa Alianza honored with "Contribution to the Improvement of the Quality of Life" award
The Human Rights Ombudsman for the Republic of Costa Rica has chosen to honor Casa Alianza for its work for the human rights of children. Casa Alianza will receive the "Contribution to the Improvement of the Quality of Life" award tomrrrow, Friday, October 31st, 2003 in San Jose.

The regional headquarters of Casa Alianza has been located in Costa Rica since 1995. During the last eight years, the staff of eight people has been dedicated to fighting against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), sex tourism, child pornography, trafficking, and other situations that place children in grave danger.

Casa Alianza's winning nomination was selected by a panel of judges having been nominated for the prize by Rolando Angulo, a renowned journalist and director of the principal radio news program in Costa Rica.

"On behalf of the panel of judges for the "Contribution to the Improvement of the Quality of Life Award," it is my pleasure to officially announce that the vote for human rights work in the Central American category was in favor of Casa Alianza," confirmed Jose Manuel Echandi, Costa Rica's Ombudsperson.

Casa Alianza is recognized for providing services to more than nine thousand homeless children each year in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

"It is an honor for Casa Alianza to receive this award. The struggle against the sexual exploitation of minors in the region has been an up hill battle. This prize motivates us to not lose heart and reminds us that the majority of Costa Ricans recognize the importance of defending children's rights," commented Bruce Harris, regional director of Latin American Programs for Casa Alianza.

European Community Keen On Restarting WTO Negotiations 
While there is no fresh initiative from Washington to restart the process of negotiations deadlocked at Cancun, the European Commission is seeking new policy directions from the 133 - member committee representing the 15 - nation Union on the future course of action to be taken, say commerce ministry officials. 

They said that the panel used to meet often and had also met at Cancun. The other development after the collapse of the Cancun ministerial was a meeting of the G-21 at Buenos Aires, where only 12 countries signed the political statement that called for resumption of talks in Geneva in a constructive manner on all issues of the Doha work programme. The statement also focused on priority issues for improving and raising the standard of living of people in the developing and least developed countries. 

However, six Latin American countries which quit the group are in the process of negotiating free trade agreements with the US, especially through Central American Free Trade Agreement. El Salvador had left the group earlier at Cancun. The other five members who have left subsequently are Costa Rica, Ecuador, Gautemala, Columbia, and Peru. 

World Trade Organization director general Supachai Panitchpakdi’s moves on possible resumption of negotiations after the failure of Cancun talks has evoked response from 5 countries including Morocco, Botswana, Benin, Mauritius and Bolivia. 

Unctad’s Trade and Development Board at its meeting in Geneva from October 6-17 also undertook a post-mortem of the failure of the Cancun ministerial. Despite the failure, Unctad secretary general Mr Ricupero in his report felt that Cancun must be seen as a mid-term review of the Doha work programme, a stocktaking with the possibility of providing political direction on key issues of the Doha agenda. 

Mr Ricupero said that the board meet expressed disappointment that the WTO ministerials were becoming prone to such setbacks. At the same time, it was noted that there had been such impasse before in the history of multilateral trade system. 

He said that concern was also expressed that the Cancun setback could undermine commitment to multilateralism and play into the hands of protectionist and partisan interests. It could also speed up the vigorous pursuit of unilateralism, bilateralism and regionalism.