Many houses like the one above are flooded, the effects of the heavy rains of the last 72 hours in the Atlantic and Northern Zones. The most affected areas are Matina, Batán and Siquirres in Limón and Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí in Heredia and la Fortuna de San Carlos. Today's Stories: • Pacheco Visits Areas Affected by Rain • US, Central America to Sign Trade Deal May 28 • Wanted Italian Arrested in Costa Rica • Three Beers is the Limit • Earth Council Flees Costa Rica • Colombian paramilitaries reject coup accusations by Venezuela • Cuba closes hard-currency shops • Honduras withdrawing troops from Iraq: president Sonia Chang, who will present her couture evening and ready-to-wear collections at the Miami Beach's Fashion Week of the Americas. ''She some socialites and fashion-forward first ladies of Costa Rica,'' according to Cece Feinberg, Chang's publicist. Chang currently is carried solely in her native Costa Rica. The event showcases Latin and Caribbean clothing, accessory and jewelry designers, as well as those from a handful of other countries, including Canada, Italy, Spain, Panama, Trinidad and India.

The President toured the areas of Sarapiquí, Matina and Batán - Batán is Pacheco's birthplace.

The President told the residents that he came to the area to see first hand the damage and give hope to the residents of the area that the government will be there to help those affected.

The Comisión Nacional de Emergencias (C.N.E.) released a preliminary count of 2.076 persons affected by the rains of the last 72 hours and who are now lodged in temporary shelters and three deaths, who were swept away by torrential rivers.

The hardest affected are the communities of Matina, Batán and Siquirres in Limón, as well as Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí in Heredia and la Fortuna de San Carlos.

The CNE has called a "red" alert of the Atlantic zone and a "yellow" alert for the Nortern Zone.

US, Central America to Sign Trade Deal May 28
US and Central American ministers will sign up to a free-trade pact in Washington later this month, El Salvador's economy minister said.

"All agreed the signing will be May 28," Miguel Lacayo said.

Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador reached agreement with the United States on the accord in December. Costa Rica did so in January.

The signing ceremony will take place at the Organization of American States, in Washington, he said.

Trade ministers of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica will sign the document, along with Robert Zoellick for the United States, Lacayo said.

The Dominican Republic will accede to the agreement in a separate ceremony to be held in July at the latest, he said.

Lacayo said the document's final text should be prepared by next week.

The legislature of each country will then need to ratify the signed agreement.

The United States plans to submit the Central American agreement for ratification after US general elections on November 2, according to US lawmakers who visited San Salvador on the weekend.

Wanted Italian Arrested in Costa Rica
The count for this year so far is 12. That is, 12 foreign nationals who have been arrested in Costa Rica on international warrants, wanted in their countries and having fled to Costa Rica.

The latest case is of Italian national Ilvo Usai who is wanted in his country for fraud in excess of $2 Million Dollars.

Fusai had been in Costa Rica for some time and owned a several businesses - two North American clothing outlets in San José and a ceramic tile business in Alajuela.

According to Eduardo Guzmán, chief of the "capturas" section of the police, the capture had been planned for the week earlier, however, they had lost traces of the man for a while. Usai was not aware that he was wanted by the Italian justice. He had come and gone to and from Costa Rica on a number of occasion, the last recorded entry into Costa Rica was last December at the Juan Santamaria airport.

The man lived in a luxurious residence in La Aurora de Heredia. He was arrested by police and Interpol agents in the area of Sabana Norte yesterday morning. Police say the man was relaxed, though surprised, when shown the extradition request against him.

Usai was sentenced in October of 2000 by a court in Turin, Italy.

Three Beers is the Limit
Following the passing and coming into law of the new transit laws, most are not aware that in addition of the use of the seat belt requirement by all passengers, the law also regulates drinking and driving.

As of yesterday, Sanchez said, that 30 motorcycle units donated by the government of Spain, in addition to another 10 purchased by the Transit authority, are patrolling the roadways. This is in addition to the normal Transit police patrols.

The new BMW and Honda motorcycle cops will be handing out ¢10.000 colones fines.

Earth Council Flees Costa Rica
Global maestro of sustainable development Maurice Strong is in a pickle in Costa Rica. The government in San Jose is chasing one of his most important global policy instruments, the Earth Council, for US$1.65-million, charging the council with the "wrongful sale" of land which the government had granted it for a headquarters. As a result, the council has left the country.

In the wake of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, Mr. Strong -- perennial United Nations player-referee and now a key advisor to Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin - set up the Earth Council as a "watchdog" on the process he had started himself. It was to keep up the pressure for Agenda 21, Rio's doorstop socialist wish list, as well as for global restrictions on carbon emissions.

The council was also to seed myriad new non-governmental organizations to spread the gospel of sustainable development, and push the notion of an "Earth Charter," which had been rejected at Rio.

As the location for this beacon of radical environmentalism, Mr. Strong chose Costa Rica, well known for its status as eco-tourist paradise and tax haven. In 1996, the Earth Council was granted land on which to build a new headquarters, with the provision that the land would have to be returned if the council shut down or moved on.

Intriguingly, the funds to build the new headquarters were to come from part of the proceeds of issuing Costa Rican Carbon Bonds, a Swiftian emissions trading instrument which entitled the bearer to emit CO2 if he paid the government of Costa Rica not to torch its own rain forest. Hence "value" would be created literally from thin air, with the proceeds to flow to part of Mr. Strong's master plan to save the world from capitalism. At least capitalism as practiced by others.

Mr. Strong had long held land in Costa Rica, and had become embroiled in a tourist development for which he was harshly criticized by local native groups.

Also, in 1994, when he was head of Ontario Hydro, Mr. Strong had become steeped in controversy when he was discovered to be considering the purchase of a swathe of Cost Rican rain forest.

In anticipation of the carbon bond proceeds, the council started spending its own money on development plans, eventually sinking $1.1-million into the centre. But then a new Costa Rican government abandoned the carbon bond plan, and suggested that the Earth Council share the facilities of the United Nations' University of Peace, which also happens to be in San Jose.

However, trouble arose in paradise when the Earth Council decided to reimburse itself for its expenditures by selling the land that Costa Rica had given it. The government cried foul, and the Earth Council upped and departed the country, citing the drain of the legal fight.

That Mr. Strong's council is miffed is obvious from a thinly veiled warning on the Earth Council's web site that if Costa Rica doesn't get its act together, then other UN-type boondoggles might not find their way to its shores. "This unfortunate experience of the Earth Council," says the council, "will also affect the attitudes of other international organizations in deciding whether to locate in Costa Rica."

The council, meanwhile, has moved its operations back to Toronto, which is also threatened with the first offshore campus of the University of Peace.

Colombian paramilitaries reject coup accusations by Venezuela
The right-wing paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) on Monday rejected the accusations by the Venezuelan government, who charged the AUC for collaborating with Venezuelan dissidents in a coup to overthrow left-wing President Hugo Chavez.

"We reject the accusations made from Venezuela by its leaders, "AUC top leader Salvatore Mancuso told Colombia's RCN television via telephone. "Only sick people with messianic delusions of staying in power by the force of dictatorship can put forth stories so far from reality."

Venezuelan authorities on Sunday arrested at least 88 paramilitaries.

Mancuso also accused Chavez's government of maintaining an "anti-democratic collaboration" with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

According to the Colombia police and military sources, Colombian paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas operated in Venezuela, just across the border from Colombia.

The AUC is an illegal armed group with 13,000 members. It was created by the far-right elements about 22 years ago.

Colombia has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries fight one another. The conflicts kill an average of 3,000 people every year.
 

Cuba closes hard-currency shops
The Cuban government has closed most shops selling goods in dollars.

It says it is an emergency measures in reaction to United States' proposals to tighten its embargo on the country. US President George W. Bush last week gave his backing to various measures designed to hasten the end of Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba.

The moves include a reduction in the amount of money Cuban Americans are allowed to take to their families on the island. Thousands of shops across the country were shut on Tuesday. Department stores that sell furniture, electrical equipment or hardware all had their doors firmly closed. In the morning crowds milled outside. A heavier than normal police presence was noticeable.

Queues formed outside dollar- stores in Cuban cities

Some Cubans were staring at the signs reading "closed until further notice" with an air of disbelief.

Since the dollar was legalized in the early 1990s, dollar stores have become the only places for them to buy not just luxuries but some essentials too, particularly clothes.

Cuba has given no detailed explanation for shutting the shops - beyond that faced with US aggression, it is necessary to conserve resources.

Long queues have formed outside dollar stores that sell food. They have been allowed to stay open but some wonder for how long.

There is an air, encouraged by the Cuban government, that this country is getting on a war footing. Dissidents have expressed dismay at the whole turn of events.

They say that President Bush's declared aim to speed up political change here has given President Castro the perfect opportunity to create a sense of crisis in the country and they warn that a wider clampdown may yet come.
 

Honduras withdrawing troops from Iraq: president
Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said on Tuesday that his country had begun withdrawing its troops from Iraq, as the first of its 369 soldiers arrived in Kuwait, reports reaching here said.

Maduro, who is now on a tour of Japan, Spain and Italy, made the announcement in an interview broadcast early Tuesday from Tokyo.

"I'm pleased to officially announce to the Honduran people that we have begun withdrawing our soldiers from Iraq and that some of them are already in Kuwait," he said.

However, he did not specify how many troops had left Iraq, but said that preparations for a full withdrawal were under way and that all the troops would soon return home.

Honduras and the Dominican Republic decided last month to pull their troops out of Iraq following Spain's decision to bring home its soldiers in Iraq.

Honduras, a close ally of the United States, sent troops to Iraq around the middle of last year as peacekeepers, who had planned to stay there until July.