Harris Admits to '15-Minute Mistake'
Bruce Harris, former head Caza Alianza - the Latin American street kids' charity -  fired after being accused of paying a Honduran teen-ager for sex, acknowledged on Saturday that he had made a "15-minute mistake."

Today's Stories: Harris Admits to '15-Minute Mistake' "Illegal" Lotteries Popular Standing Ovation A Deal with Goodall Americas Free-Trade-Zone Efforts Stalled Cup by Cup, Coffee Fuels World Market Did You Know?

The work by the Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL) bury all electrical electrical services in the downtown core will continue into January, well past the original deadline of October. The CNFL assures, however, that within the next three weeks the work of breaking up sidewalks and streets to lay the underground channels, that has caused many a traffic congestion, will be completed. Beginning next month the job is to connect customers to the underground system, which will not interrupt traffic in any way.

Did you Know? Costa Rica, considered a developing nation, is the political and economic star of Central America. It has a century-old democracy and the region's highest per capita gross domestic product, $8,300. By comparison, the U.S. GDP is $37,600.

Harris, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2000 for his work protecting homeless children in Central America, was dismissed Friday by the international child welfare group Covenant House.

The charity said it acted against Harris, because he recently paid a 18-year-old Honduran boy for sexual favors.

While prostitution is not illegal in Honduras and the age of consent is 18, Harris has fought for the rights of homeless youths in the region and campaigned against sex tourists.

"I have never been someone that hides behind lies, and so I take responsibility, as I always have, for my actions, correct or incorrect. I don't want the children that Casa Alianza serves to pay for my private life," Harris said in an e-mail to Reuters.

"I am being judged on my 15 years of service to children for a specific, 15-minute mistake. I do not deny that it was my mistake in my time and my personal life," he wrote. He said he would place himself "at the orders" of the authorities.

Harris sent a note to colleagues on Sept. 16 saying he had decided to resign "and take some time for myself and my family." He said he had submitted his resignation to Casa Alianza two days earlier.

Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez said Saturday that Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica were opening probes into Harris's activities.

"We are talking to the security ministers of Guatemala and Costa Rica and we are going to investigate whether this man had improper, deviant relations with other youths," Alvarez said.

Documentaries in many countries in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, have shown Harris' efforts to combat child prostitution in Costa Rica, including working undercover as a customer in a child brothel to gather evidence.

Honduran authorities are saying that they will want to see Harris in jail in their country if their investigation shows that Harris committed a crime. For the time being Harris is free man.

Harris, who has been a thorn in many governments in Central America with his outspoken and controversial ways, is now a target of criticism, including from those he worked with it.

"Illegal" Lotteries Popular
A recent report shows that "illegal" lotteries in Costa Rica monopolized 37% of the ¢110.000 Million colones spent on lotteries last year.

The Junta de Protección Social de San José (JPS), the government organization that runs lotteries (save lotteries run by the Red Cross) says that in 2003 more than ¢40.000 million colones are lost to the "illegals" and Panamanian lotteries that can be purchased in Costa Rica.

An inquiry by the JPS revealed that last year more than 50% of lottery purchasers purchases "illegal" lotteries at some point.

One of the most popular time of lottery is the "numbers". Purchasers can bet any sum they choose and can earn anywhere from 5 to 70 times their wager. However, with the legal lotteries, the price of the ticket is fixed and the prizes are established.

Illegal lotteries, according to JPS officials, is supported by the "rich" who have the ability to pay out any large winnings, who also can make fat profits. There are many intermediaries who sell or offer the "illegal" lotteries.

A typical intermediary can be a simple person who will visit a person's place or work, hangout or even one's home to take your bet. If the better is well known, a simple telephone call can place the wager.

Authorities say these types of lotteries are usually run out of downtown area retail stores that are really fronts for the illegal lotteries.

Operators of the illegal lotteries use the results of the JPS lotteries, that is to day, the results of the JPS numbers drawn are used to set the winning prize of the illegal lotteries.
 

Standing Ovation
The Youth Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica was accorded a standing ovation at one of the world's top music venues, the St. Cecile Academy in Rome, Italy.

In acknowledgement of an extraordinary performance, the full house stood up to cheer conductor Marvin Araya and his 68 boys and girls, ages 16 to 23, who played in Rome a message of peace and harmony to the world, in commemoration of the 140th anniversary of relations between Italy and Costa Rica.

A Deal with Goodall
Jane Goodall visited Costa Rica, not only to share her ideas but also to plant a root of her environmental awareness in Tico soil.

The British scientist, world renowned for her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania, signed an agreement with the local National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) to establish the first Central American office of her environmental education program Roots and Shoots.

New York State University, in Buffalo, and the Jane Goodall Institute will support INBio with the program, which already takes in more than 225,000 people in 7,500 groups distributed in 87 countries.

Americas Free-Trade-Zone Efforts Stalled
Efforts to create a hemisphere wide free-trade zone are stalled, and trade officials have all but abandoned an end-of-month deadline for an agreement to open markets.

The Western Hemisphere's democracies last November agreed to an outline for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a far-ranging pact that would cover 34 nations with 800 million people and $13 trillion in economic output.

One of the few concrete goals set in November was a Sept. 30 deadline to conclude negotiations on "market access," which includes elimination of trade barriers.

"We have said for some time that this deadline was challenging and since it's only two weeks away, it does not look achievable," said a U.S. trade official, who asked not to be named.

FTAA talks also have an end-of-year deadline for the entire pact. The trade official would not dismiss the deadline but acknowledged that meeting it would be "a challenge."

Since the November meeting in Miami, the 34 countries have failed to significantly advance the FTAA, a centerpiece of U.S. economic policy for the hemisphere.

The United States and Brazil especially are at loggerheads. The two nations are co-chairmen of the current phase of negotiations and met several times earlier this year to try and break the impasse but did not succeed.

The Bush administration is linking lower trade barriers to a commitment from other nations to protect products from piracy and create rules that help investors. Brazil is hesitant to change its laws governing piracy and investment, but still wants lower trade barriers, especially for its agricultural products.

But the two nations still have fundamental differences on the FTAA and different interpretations of the November agreement. The outline, while allowing leaders to declare success at a regional summit, purposely left vague "a common and balanced set of rights and obligations applicable to all countries."

The United States, meanwhile, has set its sights on a series of bilateral free-trade agreements that cover much of the hemisphere.

"This is a validation of our strategy to not put all of our eggs in one basket. We have been opening markets throughout the hemisphere with our bilateral agenda," said Richard Mills, Mr. Zoellick's spokesman.

Within the hemisphere, the United States has free-trade agreements with Canada, Mexico and Chile, and the Bush administration completed free-trade negotiations with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

The administration also has started talks with Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Cup by Cup, Coffee Fuels World Market
As morning breaks in Tres Rios, scores of pickers dash into lush rows of 7-foot trees and begin tugging at branches laden with ripe, crimson berries.

José María Solano, along with his wife, daughter and three grandchildren, starts picking on a sultry Saturday in late January. The 66-year-old quickly strips the slender branches of their berries, filling the wicker basket strapped around his waist.

Those strong, weathered hands may well have picked the beans that flavor your morning jolt of caffeine, a cup of coffee brought to you by a global economy that links 25 million coffee farmers and legions of consumers.

Farmers, pickers, processors, importers, shippers, roasters, grocery clerks and baristas on six continents all have a hand in $70 billion of world coffee sales. Many of those who pick and process the beans have never tasted espresso, and their daily earnings amount to the cost of a few double-tall lattes.

The beans Solano picks on Bella Vista Tres Rios farm make their way through an elaborate international chain of commerce that begins in the fields of Costa Rica, continues on container ships bound for Seattle and ends in more than 4,000 company-run Starbucks stores in the U.S

Coffee is the world's No. 2 commodity, after oil. The most recent annual harvest produced 6.7 million tons of beans.

Arabica beans -  the higher-quality ones preferred by specialty coffeehouses - require higher altitudes, temperate climates and nutrient-rich soil. They grow well on the fertile slopes of volcanoes in tropical Costa Rica. In the U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico grow the only coffee sold commercially.

The coffee market is dominated by lower-grade unwashed arabica and robusta beans, which are combined to make some canned blends and instant coffees. Robustas grow in hotter, wetter, lower-altitude regions and yield more beans than arabica plants.

In Central America, it costs between 60 cents and 90 cents to produce enough beans for a pound of specialty coffee, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America. In Costa Rica, costs can top $1 a pound, some farmers say.

Coffee is a tradition in Tres Rios, where generations have grown up picking beans at Bella Vista, one of Costa Rica's oldest coffee farms. About 30,000 of the country's 4 million people are coffee farmers, and about 500,000 or so - many from neighboring countries - pick and process beans.

Coffee has long been Costa Rica's most famous export, once accounting for nearly one-third of the nation's gross domestic product. While it now claims less than 5 percent of the national GDP - giving way to microchips, textiles and medical devices - coffee remains central to the country's identity.

Most of Costa Rica's presidents have been descendants of the coffee elite. When the seven-month picking season peaks - from December through February - an economic ripple effect swiftly spreads through the region.