Arias has still to be named leader of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) and many party members are angry at Arias for his public position as if he were already such. Earlier in the week Figueres has said in a public statement that he would not support any either Arias or his competitors.

Figueres said he is a party man and will participate in the upcoming elections as a member of the party and will support whomever may be chosen as the leader of the party when that happens.

Figueres is cheif executive officer of the World Economic Forum and does not spend much time in Costa Rica. He added that his work at the WEF consumes much of his time and as such he cannot be too involved in party matters. Figueres spends most of his time in Geneva, Switzerland, home of the World Economic Forum.

The World Economic Forum is the foremost global community of business, political, intellectual and other leaders of society committed to improving the state of the world. The Forum is an independent international organization incorporated as a Swiss not-for-profit foundation and has NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

IMF Forecasts 4 Percent Growth
The production of Costa Rica will grow 4 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2005, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts in its World Economic Perspectives, which comes out every six months.

Meanwhile, the estimates of the Central Bank of Costa Rica are 4.4 percent for 2004 and 3.7 percent for 2005. The IMF sets inflation at 9.4 percent for this year and at 9 percent for the following one, while the Central Bank sets it at 9 percent and 8.5 percent.

The current account deficit -the excess of imports over exports of goods and services- is expected to be 5.4 percent this year and 6.4 percent in 2005.
 

Archaeological Preservation
Amidst the cement, asphalt, and other modern features, the city of Curridabat, east of San Jose, now preserves three aboriginal tombs dating back some 1,200 years.

A joint effort by the Saint Peter School, the National Museum, and the Dia Azul Foundation enables the tombs to be preserved and open for visits, particularly by students from throughout the nation.

According to Saint Peter's principal Angelita Moraga, in 2001 they learned about an Indian burial ground, with 88 tombs, located only some 110 yards from their school, and decided to donate some of the school's property to preserve three of the tombs. A small palenque -Indian tribal house- now holds the three tombs, that archaeologists from the National Museum transferred to the site in such a fashion that they are now just as in their original site.
 

Global Effort to Stop Child Pornography
Microsoft Corp. and Interpol are joining in a program to train law enforcement officers around the world to use technology to catch child pornographers.

About 300 police officers from 90 countries have already gathered in Costa Rica, Brazil and other countries for training in the "Global Campaign Against Child Pornography," sponsored by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. The group plans to host as many as 10 sessions a year.

The campaign is funded by donations of $500,000 each from Microsoft Corp. and Sheila C. Johnson, a member of the center's board and co-founder of Black Entertainment Television. Microsoft and Interpol, the international police organization, will spearhead the training of officers, said Interpol Chief Ronald Noble.

"Let them look at the crime differently and also learn how technology can let them investigate a crime locally and globally as well," Noble said.

He described how police officers in Sweden had obtained a video of a child being abused by a man. Through identifying the man's Spanish-speaking accent and singling out a radio broadcast in the background, authorities were able to locate the man in Connecticut and eventually prosecute him.

Officers must view pictures as not just evidence of crime but as crime scenes themselves, Noble said. Everything from newspapers in the background, to shampoo bottles to furniture can point authorities to culprits, he said. The new campaign will make cooperation easier among local law enforcement agencies, Interpol and the center, so that child pornography can be decreased, he said.

The International Centre was founded in 1998 and launched by the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. In 2003, more than 200,000 reports of Internet-related child pornography were made to the organization's CyberTipline. A recent Department of Justice study found that one in five children between the ages of 10 and 17 has received unwanted sexual solicitations online.
 

Guatemala Apologizes for Role in Killing
President Oscar Berger joined the heads of Guatemalan Congress and the Supreme Court Thursday in publicly acknowledging government responsibility in the 1990 killing of human rights leader Myrna Mack.

The somber ceremony at the Presidential Palace came at the urging of the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court on Human Rights.

"In the name of the state, I ask for the forgiveness of the Mack family and of the people of Guatemala for the murder of this young anthropologist," Berger said.

Mack was stabbed 27 times outside her downtown Guatemala City office on Sept. 11, 1990. The 39-year-old allegedly angered the military when she wrote a groundbreaking report blaming government anti-insurgency campaigns for killing Mayan civilians during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.

In October 2002, Col. Juan Valencia, an assistant director of Guatemala's presidential guard, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering a fellow member of the guard to kill Myrna Mack.

But Valencia was freed by an appeals court in November. The Guatemalan Supreme Court later overturned that ruling and ordered Valencia to be returned to prison, but by then he had vanished.

Retired Gen. Edgar Godoy — who once headed the presidential guard — and army Col. Juan Oliva were found innocent during the trial that convicted Valencia.

Noel Beteta, another former guard-member, is serving a 25-year sentence for Mack's murder.

Last year, Guatemala's government formally accepted responsibility for Mack's killing in a letter to the Costa Rican human rights tribunal. Santiago Canton, director of a commission affiliated with the court, was among those on-hand for Thursday's ceremony.

The presidential guard grew from an executive branch protection unit into a squad of spies and assassins responsible for some of the civil war's most high-profile kidnappings, tortures and killings. Fighting between state forces and leftist guerrillas ended in peace accords in December 1996, but not before 200,000 people had been killed.

In October, the government finally lived up to years of promises to disband the presidential guard.
 

IMF, WB press Argentina to boost budget surplus
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) on Thursday criticized the Argentine government for its economic policy, pressing the South American nation to boost budget surplus and fulfill its foreign debt obligations.

Acting IMF managing director Anne Krueger told a news conference Thursday that "getting a resolution of the difficulties with the debtors is going to be critical, because Argentina is going to need to increase investment as it goes forward if it is to sustain anything like its current growth rate."

Argentina had built up large amounts of excess capacity in the economy, which it was now using up, "and as that capacity goes down, bottlenecks will appear," she warned.

Krueger said Argentina should come up with a better deal to payoff holders of 81 billions US dollars in bonds ,which it defaulted in January 2001.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn on Thursday urged Argentina to fulfill its financial commitments, saying "everyone wants to put money into social purposes and no one more than the World Bank, but there needs to be balance in terms of some responsibilities and obligations which have been undertaken."

Argentine President Nestor Kirchner's government is resisting IMF pressure to boost its budget surplus to 3 percent of gross domestic product, claiming it would drain funds needed for social programs.

The IMF and the World Bank are preparing for meetings in Washington.
 

Salvadoran troops to remain in Iraq: commander
El Salvador's military chief in Iraq Col. Hugo Omar Orellana Calionio said Thursday that the Salvadoran troops will not withdraw, although troops from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic would pull out, reports from El Salvador said.

Orellana's remark echoed that of Foreign Minister Maria Eugenia Brizuela de Avila, who said Tuesday that her country's troops should remain in Iraq until the commitment to the coalition is fulfilled, which is due to end next August.

Orellana, commander of El Salvador's Cuscatlan Battalion, told daily La Prensa Grafica in Najaf that the withdrawal decision of Spain, Honduras and Dominica "is sovereign and part of democracy, "and it was up to these governments to "define what is convenient or not."

Honduras and the Dominican Republic have declared that their troops would be withdrawn from the war-torn country as soon as possible. Spain ordered soldiers Sunday to return home.

Orellana said he had not been officially informed who would lead the Salvadoran troops after the departure of Spaniards.

He said the withdrawal of the Spanish-speaking troops would not affect communication of Salvadoran soldiers because "almost all the officials can speak English, and we have interpreters and translators for other languages."

The Salvadoran troops, alongside soldiers from Honduras and the Dominican Republic, constitute part of the Spanish-led Plus Ultra Brigade, which is in turn under the command of Poland.

Although pledging to continue to stay in Iraq, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Maria Eugenia Brizuela de Avila added Tuesday that the "final decision" to order the anticipated withdrawal was in the hands of outgoing President Francisco Flores, whose tenure expires on June 1.

Just as Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has done, she said, the newly elected Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca will have to assess the situation in Iraq and make a decision on the deployment of troops in Iraq.

Last February, Salvador deployed 380 soldiers in Iraq to rotate360 troops who had been engaged in reconstruction work in the Arab nation for six months.

Salvador's Cuscatlan Battalion suffered a death and 12 injuries on April 4, when Shi'ite militants attacked the camp in Najaf city.