Arias: Costa Rica Worried About Stolen Jobs
Oscar Arias Sánchez, former president of Costa Rica, said in a speech to a mostly business audience at a Trenam Kemker-sponsored breakfast Wednesday at Tampa, Florida's, downtown Hyatt, "Costa Rica has little interest in participating in a go-where-the-labor-is-cheapest world tour."

Today's Stories: Costa Rica Worried About Stolen Jobs Alcatel Also Made Donations to the Araya Campaign Calderón Cousin and Sister Called to Testify Honduran Youth in Harris Scandal Has AIDS Gasoline Prices To Increase, Again. Did You Know?

The Ministerio de Obras Publica y Transito (MOPT) has launched a new website to keep you informed about the roads, reporting accidents and areas of high congestion, to make your trip more comfortable and secure. The website www.transito.go.cr provides current information on traffic flow in the Central Valley area roads as well as the major routes throught the country. Visitors can also check on any tickets or fines outstanding for their vehicles or the driver. Have an outstanding fine? The website will tell you if the fine was paid (recorded) or not. As well, the website attempts to educate drivers on the rules of the road, safery and gives statistics on road incidents and their locations.

Did You Know? Prestigious international human rights organizations have their headquarters in Costa Rica, such as the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, the International Development Bank and the Earth Council.

The speech shows that Costa Rica is worried that it's garment manufacturing industry slip through their fingers when China starts to aggressively bid for the same work, were Chinese workers will toil for one-fifth the going pay in Costa Rica.

Arias, was president of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990, hopes to again be president in the 2006 elections.

Election laws were recently changed to allow the re-election of a former president to one additional term as long as the terms are not consecutive. That is, a sitting president has to sit out one election before he can run again.

U.S. garment work first concentrated in northern U.S. cities was lost to lower-cost southern factory towns, which in turn watched their textile and garment plants migrate to Mexico, Costa Rica, the Philippines and other Asian nations. Now those countries are under pressure from China, whose enormous population of cheap workers and can-do capability is rapidly making it the go-to country.

Arias said his country wants U.S. lawmakers to approve CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic negotiated CAFTA with the United States as a free trade pact designed to eliminate tariffs on U.S. imports and allow duty-free access to U.S. markets for nearly all goods from CAFTA countries. The trade deal awaits a vote on Capitol Hill.

With a diplomat's skills, Arias called Americans a wealthy and "generous" people while criticizing the U.S. government as the "stingiest" on earth. European and other rich countries devote a far higher percentage of their economic output to helping weaker countries.

Foreign aid, Arias suggested, is a big reason such once-lagging nations as Ireland, Portugal and Greece have been able to improve their infrastructures and boost their economies and standards of living so quickly. But the United States won't follow the European model. "Foreign aid is dead," Arias said.

"The world is more protectionist now than it was 100 years ago," Arias said. He noted that even the United States still subsidizes its domestic sugar industry, which in Florida is largely controlled by South Florida's Fanjul family.

Costa Rica's economic future depends on free trade and, for now, on attracting some high tech and service jobs. Arias singled out Procter & Gamble, the U.S. consumer products giant, for its investments in the country. And he said Costa Rica, for years the most stable country in Central America, is trying to attract more call centers - a strategy the Tampa Bay area embraced in the early 1990s - as more young people in his country learn to speak English.

One Tampa company, Sykes Enterprises, operates at least two call centers in Costa Rica.

Arias became a Nobel laureate in 1987 for his role in bringing a peace plan to a strife-torn Central America. On Wednesday, he repeated his often-quoted concern that the United States spends too much on its military - $450 billion dollar -  more than the rest of the world combined - instead of doing more to help less-developed countries. He also questioned the $200-billion spent in Iraq.

His remarks on U.S. military spending met with scattered applause.

CAFTA is generally supported by U.S. business groups, including the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. But not everyone in Florida is so gung-ho. Katie A. Edwards, executive director of the Dade County Farm Bureau, in a Miami Herald opinion piece Wednesday condemned CAFTA for delivering (like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement in force for 10 years) a devastating blow to South Florida's agricultural economy.

On the flip side, a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta report predicts a free trade agreement with Central America would enhance economic growth in the Southeast, including Florida.

For Arias, Costa Rica aims "to become the Singapore of the Americas." As more and more jobs migrate to the lowest-cost provider, that goal might get tougher to achieve.

From a report by Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist

ALCATEL SCANDAL:
Alcatel Also Made Donations to the Araya Campaign
Following a report this week that the French telecommunications company gave us$100.000 to president Pacheco's political campaign, channel 7's Telenoticias reports that Rolando Araya, the presidential candidate in the last election, also got us$100.000 from Alcatel.

Although Araya denied to Telenoticias reporters having received any monies from Alcatel, Telenoticias reports that it was informed that the bank account of Servicios Notariales Q.C.,  paid out  us$100.000 to José Antonio Herrero Peñuelo, who was Araya's treasurer during the campaign.

Herrero told Telenoticias not remembering having received any such donation, but would sift through his documents.

Alcatel and Servicios Notariales Q. C. signed a contract to bid on the public tender for GSM service in Costa Rica.

On Tuesday, the La Nación reported that Luis Fishman, second vice president of Costa Rica, confirmed that he received US$100.000 from Alcatel as a contribution to President Abel Pacheco's political campaign.

Fishman told La Nación that he co-ordinated the arrival of the funds with Luis Gabriel Castro, who is president of the Porter Novelli company.

Castro admitted to La Nación reporters that he did meet with the manager of Alcatel and Pacheco at Fishman's house, however, he could not recall if the political contribution was ever completed.

The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) awared the French telecommunications giant, Alcatel, a contract for US$258.000.000 dollars over the past three years.

In August of 2001, Alcatel was awarded the contract to install 400.000 GSM cellular telephone lines, in a contract that was worth US$149.000.000 dollars.

FISCHEL-CAJA SCANDAL:
Calderón Cousin and Sister Called to Testify
The investigation into the biggest scandal to date - the multimillion dollar credit loan from Finland to the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) by way of the Corporación Fischel, dudded the Fischel-Caja scandal - continues as two members of former president Rafael Ángel Calderón visited the Ministerio Público.

Alfono Guardia, a cousin of Calderón, was the first to arrive at the Ministerio Público offices at 8am, who was intervied by officials until 12:30, questioning him on his role in having received a us$80.000 cheque from Calderón, which was subsequently trasnferred to Gloria Bejarano, Calderón's wife.

According to Ministerio Público sources, Guardia was given notice that he is being dealt with as a "hostile witness" in the Fischel-Caja scandal.

Guardia did not answer reporter's questions on leaving the building, accompanied by his lawyer.

Several hours later, María del Rosario Calderón, sister to the ex-president, officially became involved in the case, who is also being treated as a "hostile witness" by prosecutors.

Her appearance before the Ministerio Público officials also laster hours and as Guardia, refused to answer reporter's questions, preferring to maintain silence on the matter.

Calderón admitted to have received us$522.500 through a Panamanian corporation paid to it by another Panamanian corporation held by Walter Reiche Fischel.

Calderón last week deposited the us$522.500 in an account belonging to the Supreme Court of Justice. The amount corresponds to the money he or his companies received as fees for what he claims were "legal activities" as an attorney, but that are part of a scandal for the embezzlement of some $8 million in a $39-million contract for medical supplies destined to the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS).

Calderón said the deposit was not an admission of guilt, rather, to let the courts decide if he is legally entitled to the money. Calderón has not been called by the prosecutor's office to give testimony, however, the courts issued an order impeding his exit from Costa Rica on the request of the Fiscalia (the prosecutor's office).

Honduran Youth in Harris Scandal Has AIDS
The young Honduran man who accused former director of Casa Alianza, Bruce Harris, of paying him $30 for sexual favours, has AIDS.

The information was revealed by the director of the private foundation Amigos de los Niños, Gloria Godoy.

Godoy told the press that the boy was infected prior to November 2002.

In November of that year, the boy had been examined medically and psychologically, and was diagnosed with AIDS.

The boy identified only by his last name, Ortiz, who is under the protection of the prosecutor's office in Honduras, went to Godoy's office earlier this month seeking help and confessed to her his relationship with Harris.

Casa Alianza in Honduras is under intervention by the Fiscalía, who is looking deeply into the sex scandal that may involved other children.

The boys says that on July 14, Harris picked him up in a public park in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. The boy said he regularly offered his sexual favours to homosexuals on the street, following his rape in a Casa Alianza shelter when he was 12 years old.

The boy who is now 18, was also involved in a sex scandal some three years ago that involved a 80 year old priest in the eastern region of Honduras.

Harris has admitted to what he calls his "15 minute mistake".

Harris championed a campaign against sexual abuse of minors and street children for the last 15 years as director of Casa Alianza, the Central American arm of Covenant House in New York.

Harris was fired by Covenant House following the report, though he told the press one day earlier that he was quitting to spend more time with his family.

Harris operated from the Casa Alianza offices and also lived in Costa Rica, though he travelled frequently throughout Central America.

Harris left Costa Rica a couple of days following the reports and though he has not been accused of any wrongdoing in Costa Rica, Minister for the Children and director of PANI - the child welfare organization - Rosalía Gil, has called for anyone to come forward with any information if Harris had acted improperly against them.

Gasoline Prices To Increase, Again.
If the last increase wasn't enough, a new increase would break the record prices set by the last.

The last increase saw the price of each litre of gasoline jump ¢22 colones to set a new record of ¢349 per litre for super and ¢334 for regular.

Yesterday, the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo (RECOPE), asked the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (ARESEP) - regulating authority of public prices and services - for an increase of another ¢11 colones to the price of a litre of gasoline.

If the increase if approved, would see the price of super jump to a record ¢361 colones and regular to ¢345 colones a litre.

According to RECOPE - the state owned refinery and monopoly on gasoline products - says the request is due to an increase in the world price of crude oil.

The ARESEP has 22 days to respond to the request.