Rodríguez Heads to Court Today
Today may be a good day for former president Miguel Angel Rodríguez. Or, it may be the worst of days, as the former president leaves his apartment in Montes de Oca for a hearing before the Juzgado Penal, who will hear both the appeals by Rodríguez and the Fiscalía.

The Fiscalía has asked the courts for nine months of preventive detention (jail) for Rodríguez following his arrest.

However, a penal court judge preferred to give Rodríguez six months of "house arrest" in lieu of jail and ordered the former president to pay a ¢250.000.000 colones bond.

The Fiscalía appealed the original decision and argue before the court today that the former president should be in jail and may be taken to one of the detention centres following the hearing, if the judge agrees.

Rodríguez on the hand will argue that he should remain under house arrest and is appealing the judge's decision for a reduction in his bond.

This hearing is one where all the parties are present and similar to a trial, they can make arguments before the court.

However, unlike original trial, the judge has to render an almost immediate decision on the arguments, though the decision could come minutes or even hours following the arguments.

Former president Miguel Angel Rodríiguez is being accused of receiving monies, by way of his former Housing Miniser, José Antonio Lobo Solera, from the Alcatel firm with respect to the multimillion dollar "prize" - the contract that was awarded to Alcatel to install the GSM network in Costa Rica.

There are also allegations that Rodríguez received money from the government of Taiwan.

Figueres Olsen Asked to Return to Costa Rica
Former president José María Figueres Olsen admits that he received us$906.355 dollars between 2000 and 2003, payment for consulting services, contracted by his former government advisor Roberto Hidalgo

In a written press statement from his office at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, Switzerland, Figueres says he received us$900.355 dollars for consulting work, payment he received after leaving the presidency and has not committed any improper or illegal act.

The payment was for consulting work, contracted by the Hidalgo company for advice on the promotion and modernization of the telecommunications technology in Costa Rica.

Figueres did not mention in his statement that the payment originated from Alcatel, nor what his specific duties where as a consultant under the terms of the contract.

The situation is worsened with the revelation that Carmen Valverde, former secretary general of the PLN party and former legislative deputy from 1994 to 1998, the same period period Figueres was president, also received us$900.000 from the Hidalgo company.

Doña Carmen is also the sister of Edgar Valverde, the former president of Alcatel in Costa Rica and now in preventive detention for making payments to public officials.

Critics are asking that former president José María Figueres Olsen come to Costa Rica and "show his face" to explain what went on.

Humberto Arce, a strong critic and a legislative deputy that most Costa Ricans call perhaps the most honest politician the country has or has seen, told television cameras that the country for more than a decade has been run by "gangsters and mafiosos".

Arce's comments refers that the last three former presidents have been linked to payoffs from Alcatel, a company that used it's financial might to ensure itself a future in Costa Rica's telecommunications industry by paying off large amounts of money to public officials and functionaries, including the last three presidents.

President Pacheco did not miss his opportunity to make his indignation known and likened the current situation to cancer. "Costa Rica is will and we need to heal it from the cancer that has developed in the form of corruption", he told the noon hour television cameras.

Nobel Prize winner, Óscar Arias Sánchez, who belongs to the same party as Figueres, the Partido Liberacion Nacional (PLN),  considers the actions by Figueres "a betrayal to the ideals and inheritance of Don Pepe (José María Figueres Ferrer)".

Don Pepe, is father of Figueres Olsen proved to be one of Costa Rica's most influential leaders, as head of the Founding Junta of the Second Republic of Costa Rica.
 

Alcatel Fires 2nd Executive in Costa Rica
PARIS (AFX) - Alcatel SA said it has fired another senior employee as part of its investigation into alleged bribery of politicians at its operations in Costa Rica.

Alcatel said it has fired Christian Sapsizian, director of Alcatel Central America, for violating the company's code of ethics, without giving further details.

Earlier this month, Alcatel announced that it had fired Edgar Valverde, president of Alcatel Costa Rica, for the same reasons.

'Alcatel is fully cooperating with all the relevant authorities and reiterates that its policy is to conduct its business in full compliance with laws and regulations, both locally and internationally,' the company said.

Officials in Costa Rica are leading a wide investigation into corruption by government officials, which has resulted in the arrests of former presidents Rafael Angel Calderon Fournier and Miguel Angel Rodriguez.
 

Greatest and the Worst Press Freedom
North Korea, Cuba, Burma and China are ranked among the countries with the worst press-freedom records in an index released by a media watchdog group this week.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world, said East Asia and the Middle East have the "worst press-freedom records," while northern Europe is "a haven for journalists."

North Korea, at 167, stands at the bottom of the list for the third year running, preceded by Cuba at 166 and Burma at 165. China is ranked 162, Vietnam 161, and Laos, 153. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is ranked 159, Iran 158 and Syria 155.

Costa Rica is ranked at 35.

The United States, at 22, is ranked below Bosnia-Herzegovina and Trinidad and Tobago because of "violations of source confidentiality, persistent problems in granting press visas and the arrest of several journalists during anti-Bush demonstrations," the group said Tuesday.

Reporters Without Borders said the continuing war has made Iraq "the most deadly place on Earth for journalists," with 44 killed there since fighting began in March 2003.

It also ranked U.S. behavior toward the press in Iraq separately (at 108) from the overall situation in the country (at 148).

It said six journalists and media assistants were killed by U.S. Army gunfire and that the military failed to conduct proper inquiries into the deaths.
The group said the new Iraqi government has not yet established a framework guaranteeing press freedom and "reacted in an authoritarian manner toward the pan-Arab satellite TV news stations whose coverage they view as pro-terrorist."

The American democracy advocacy group Freedom House, which releases its ranking of press freedom around the world in May every year, placed the United States at 15 and Iraq at 142 out of 193 countries studied during 2003.
Senior researcher Karin Deutsch Karlekar at Freedom House, who also helped in the survey for Reporters Without Borders, said this week's index was fairly similar to the Freedom House ranking, especially at the top and bottom of the list.

The reason for the difference in the ranking of some countries, including the United States, was that Reporters Without Borders considered attacks and imprisonment of journalists, while Freedom House looked at the legal and economic aspects of journalism.

"The press in the United States has a very strong legal structure," Mrs. Karlekar said.
She expressed surprise, however, at the ranking of India, "which has very vibrant media," at 120, below Afghanistan and Swaziland. Freedom House placed India at 93.
Reporters Without Borders said China, with 27 journalists in jail, and Cuba, with 26 behind bars, are the world's "biggest prisons for journalists."

Countries where the greatest press freedom is enjoyed are located in Europe: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway are all ranked 1, along with Slovakia and Switzerland. Of the top 20 countries, only three are outside Europe: New Zealand (9), Trinidad and Tobago (11) and Canada (18).

The index shows that rich countries do not have a monopoly on press freedom. Jamaica (24), El Salvador (28), Costa Rica (35), Cape Verde (38) and Namibia (42) rank fairly high on the index.

Supporters of CAFTA Brace for a Tough Fight in US Congress
Last May the United States and the five countries of Central America – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica – signed the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement known as CAFTA. Several months later, the Dominican Republic joined the agreement, which would eliminate almost all trade barriers among the participating countries.

According to Dan Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a research organization in Washington, the trade agreement has some flaws. But overall, he says CAFTA is a winner for the United States and the other six countries, not only in economic terms but political terms as well.

"This is a region that is in our backyard," he says. "It has a tortured past. It was only in the 1980’s that Central America was one of the biggest headaches for U.S. foreign policy. Today the region is at peace. All six CAFTA countries are multi-party democracies. They’re making progress on social trends, on political rights and CAFTA would encourage that."

Opponents counter that CAFTA will impede social progress. Carol Pier is labor rights and trade researcher for Human Rights Watch. She says as drafted, CAFTA freezes substandard labor laws in place and does not give these countries any real incentive to improve them. For example, workers’ rights to organize are not sufficiently protected in many Central American countries. Ms. Pier says she would like to see CAFTA not only require countries to enforce their labor laws but have them meet a minimum international standard.

Carol Pier also faults CAFTA for not protecting workers from discrimination. "You’re dealing with countries in which the work
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force in the free trade zones is majority female. And yet you’re not requiring the countries to effectively enforce their laws on sex discrimination? To me that’s ludicrous," she says.

Opponents of CAFTA also fear it will damage the rural sector. According to Jeff Vogt at the Washington Office on Latin America, a democracy and human rights monitor in Washington, one-point-five million Mexican farmers were forced off their land after NAFTA was implemented in 1994. Central American farmers – who in some countries represent more than half the economically active population – could be harmed even more.

"There is a real concern that there is going to be increased unemployment in the rural sector," he says, "because Central Americans are not going to be able to compete with very highly subsidized agriculture, which will come in eventually to the Central American marketplace."

American farmers receive one-fifth of their income from government farm subsidies, which enables them to sell their crops below market cost. While importing cheaper grains into the Central American market will benefit those who live in urban areas, it will hurt rural farm workers and their families who stand to lose their livelihoods.

And as Jeff Vogt points out, one crop that Central Americans grow competitively isn’t included in the free trade agreement. "If you look at the Central American market, one of the major crops that it produces is sugar," he notes. "And that’s one product on which the U.S. is continuing to keep trade barriers. So in the one product where they could be competitive there’s a barrier to entry in the U.S. market."

Even free-trade supporters like the Cato Institute’s Dan Griswold concede that the sugar exclusion is one of CAFTA’s glaring failures. But he argues that even flawed, CAFTA is a good recipe for economic growth across the region.

"You look around the world and there seems to be a connection between trade liberalization, development and democracy taking root," he says. "We’ve seen it in South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Mexico, and it’s happening in Central America. As these countries turn toward the global market, as they liberalize their economies, we’re seeing democracy and human rights take root."

It remains unclear when CAFTA will be sent to the U.S. Congress, although some speculate it could be as early as November, after the election but before the next president and congress are sworn into office in January.