JANUARY 19, 2007

A MEETING of Mayors: Newly elected mayors from around the country met at Casa Presidencial yesterday for the first-ever National-Local Government Coordination Meeting, an attempt to unite efforts of national and municipal governments.

THE SINGAPORE of Central America?: The Caribbean port city of Limón could become “the Singapore of Central America” if a proposal to expand it into a $300 million megaport becomes a reality, said President Oscar Arias yesterday during a visit to the area. Arias was in Limón to assess environmental damage caused Dec. 13 by a massive fire at the chemical storage facility Químicos Holanda and sign an agreement to promote tourism in the area.

The 81 mayors set to take office Feb. 5 converged on Casa Presidencial in Zapote, southeast of San José, yesterday to meet with President Oscar Arias and most of his Cabinet at the first-ever National and Local Government Coordination Meeting.

Leaders from 40 countries in Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean are in San José for a seminar aimed at promoting disarmament and encouraging countries to support the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC).

Family and friends yesterday continued to search for Ronald Perugini, 26, arrived in Costa Rica from the United States on Jan. 13 and could be dangerous. According to Ron Perugini, the missing man’s father, his son, who goes by the name Eric, is a bipolar schizophrenic who came to Costa Rica with only enough medication for two days.

Mayors, Central Gov’t Leaders Meet in San José

By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff | kstanley@ticotimes.net

The 81 mayors set to take office Feb. 5 converged on Casa Presidencial in Zapote, southeast of San José, yesterday to meet with President Oscar Arias and most of his Cabinet at the first-ever National and Local Government Coordination Meeting.

Rodrigo Arias, the President’s brother and spokesman, told the assembled authorities that he hopes the encounter, as well as individual meetings between administration officials and each mayor, will become an annual tradition.

“During this administration, you’ll always find an attentive ear” at Casa Presidencial, he said.

Carlos Luis Marín, mayor-elect of Liberia, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, told The Tico Times the gathering seemed well worth the trip.

“Although we’re local governments, we depend on central institutions,” he said, adding that he hoped to firm up plans with the Labor Ministry to create an employment directory that would connect new businesses arriving in the booming province, where multinational corporations and hotels set up shop each year, to local entrepreneurs who can meet their needs.

During the event, a series of speakers including the ministers of Public Works and Transport, Housing, Tourism, Public Security, Justice, Planning, the Environment and Energy, and Foreign Trade were called on to outline their plans for the next four years, focusing on the areas where local and central authorities will need to coordinate.

The deterioration of municipal roadways was, unsurprisingly, a top priority. Transport Minister Karla González said she plans to work with the new mayors, elected Dec. 3, to maintain 2,700 km of local roads, improve 325 km, build 56 bridges and rebuild 16 this year.

She admitted that while fixing potholes is necessary until more profound improvements can take place, most of the country’s roads are fundamentally flawed and must be rebuilt.

“We’re throwing asphalt into a pothole of waste,” she said. “That’s true.”

Costa Rica Hosts Regional Conference On Biological Weapons

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net

Leaders from 40 countries in Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean are in San José for a seminar aimed at promoting disarmament and encouraging countries to support the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC).

The convention was developed in 1972 to “ban the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition and retention of microbial or other biological agents or toxins” for non-peaceful purposes, according to a Web site dedicated to the convention administered by the University of Bradford’s Department of Peace Studies.

The seminar, which began yesterday and concludes today, is one of five organized by the European Union to unite leaders in regions around the world and educate them on recent efforts to uphold the convention.

The Union chose Costa Rica to host this region’s seminar because of its reputation as a country that has worked toward disarmament for decades, explained German Ambassador Volkner Fink, speaking on behalf of the European Union. Germany assumed the 2007 E.U. presidency earlier this month.

“The European Union knows it cannot act alone in dealing with biological weapons threats,” said Andres Strub, an E.U. foreign relations representative. “This is a global threat and we must act together in cooperation.”

During the two-day seminar, E.U. experts will offer other countries technical assistance related to the BTWC, which calls for legislation to combat the production of biological weapons, evaluations and international cooperation.

Edgar Ugalde, Costa Rica’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Relations, took advantage of the roomful of regional representatives yesterday to discuss the Costa Rica Consensus, a proposal to reward countries for spending on education and social programs rather than weapons. 

“There is an urgent need for countries to exchange their military spending for social investment,” he said, adding that Costa Rica also shares the European Union’s vision of destroying weapons of mass destruction that “threaten international peace.”

Possibly Dangerous U.S.
Man Last Seen in Puerto Viejo

By Leland Baxter-Neal
Tico Times Staff | lbaxter@ticotimes.net

Family and friends yesterday continued to search for Ronald Perugini, 26, arrived in Costa Rica from the United States on Jan. 13 and could be dangerous. According to Ron Perugini, the missing man’s father, his son, who goes by the name Eric, is a bipolar schizophrenic who came to Costa Rica with only enough medication for two days.

Eric Perugini’s last known location was Puerto Viejo, on the southern Caribbean coast, and he could be heading for the Panamanian border, his father said.

“There’s no saying what he might do if he gets in a weird situation,” said Chad Concolino, a close friend of Perugini’s who is assisting with the search. 

Perugini is about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs 220 pounds, and has brown hair and green eyes. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts can call 863-2924, 869-0177, 819-8028 or 777-1936.

Groups Plan CAFTA Protests

Groups opposed to the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) announced yesterday that they haven’t given up their fight against the controversial pact and are planning a protest Feb. 26 to urge leaders to renegotiate it. 

President Oscar Arias’ administration should “take advantage of this occasion to sit down at the table and renegotiate the several negative aspects CAFTA has for Costa Ricans,” said Albino Vargas, secretary general of the National Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP), during a press conference yesterday.

The United States has recently renegotiated trade pacts with South American countries, Vargas argued, so reworking parts of CAFTA should also be considered a possibility.

Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said the United States was able to renegotiate agreements with Peru and Colombia because they had not been ratified by any country’s legislature. The situation with CAFTA is different, he said, since the U.S. legislature has approved it, and it has gone into effect in other Central American signatory countries.

At the upcoming march, CAFTA opponents plan to meet at various points downtown before converging on the Legislative Assembly.

Recently I picked up a wonderful new attachment for my PDA, called Intelect-Inside, which, when pointed at a subject within 15 meters, is able to capture and display the unexpressed thoughts of that person. A few days ago I went to a quasi-government office. I arrived at opening time and while I waited, having nothing better to do, I pointed the thing at a young employee who was sitting at a nearby desk.

What follows here is the sequence of his thoughts, translated from pachuco Spanish to English:

Whoof! Made it just in time. Stupid new security service! Why do they have to check employees coming in and going out? Yesterday afternoon they almost found the staplers. I’ll have to stop doing that before I get caught.

Don’t these privatized people ever rest?

I know the kind of thing Security is trying to catch in the mornings. They stopped Elberth from the Filing Department from bringing in his bottles of guaro. That’s goodbye to his little business! He’s going to feel the drop in his income… I bet he won’t be able to afford Rosita any more…

Hey, maybe I’ll be able to pick up with Rosita myself. Nah! With the stapler, paper punch and scissors business going phut, I wouldn’t be able to afford her, either. Stupid new security service!

But I daren’t take up with Rosita anyway – Stupid Carmen would immediately tell my wife.

Where is Stupid Carmen, anyway? I know! She must be in the bathroom putting on her face. Uncanny, the way she arrives back at her desk exactly one minute before the jefe walks in.

Uh oh. There’s the messenger from Metropolitana. I mustn’t meet his eye! Maybe if I ignore him, Sánchez will attend to him. Boy, Sánchez is really trying for a promotion – he was actually working when I arrived. What’s he trying to do – show the rest of us up? Stupid Sánchez!

Mustn’t raise my eyes! Hmm, my shoes need waxing. They haven’t been cleaned since the new guards stopped the shoeshine lad from coming in. Now everyone has dirty shoes and we don’t have those racy magazines any more, to pass the while away. Stupid security service!

The new privatized cleaning service is good! They cleaned the dust from my outbox. I wonder if I should make two piles of the stuff in my inbox? The one pile is likely to topple over. Should I put the files in alphabetical order to expedite things when someone needs something? Nah! Too much trouble. Let ’em wait while I riffle through.

Ooh, there’s Rosita! Yoo hoo, Rosita! Wow, I love it when she stretches backward like that. Heck! I caught the eye of Metropolitana – but he just smiled and looked at Rosita.

I think that blouse is one she bought from the Nica. The Nica hasn’t come back since the new guard service started – they probably stop him from coming in. I saw him lurking outside yesterday – luckily he didn’t see me. I don’t like those shirts very much, anyway, so why should I pay for them? Maybe I should grow back my moustache. No, I can’t grow it back because then the lottery chap would recognize me, and I owe him more than I owe the Nica.

Hmm, that man’s here to see the jefe – I’d better pretend to be working. Boy, the dust between the files in my inbox is terrible. I think I’ll go to the infirmary later and pretend to have hay fever, and maybe they’ll give me some more of that allergy medicine I sell to my brother-in-law.

Here’s the file I told the guy from Cosmopolitas I had processed and sent to the Evaluations Department. Stupid Cosmopolitas guy, with his shrill voice and horrible haircut – I hope he got properly messed up! But I must be more compliant or he won’t repeat the nice Christmas present this year.

Ah, here comes Stupid Carmen – so the jefe will be arriving any moment. I’d better keep looking busy. But I mustn’t look up – Sánchez still hasn’t attended to Metropolitana.

We should turn the desks around so we don’t have to face the counter and “see” the people who are waiting. But if we turn the desks around, the people at the counter would see our computer monitors, and that’s no good! I wonder where I can get the new version of Free Cell?

Stupid Carmen hasn’t said “good morning” to me. In fact, she hasn’t even looked at me. Who does she think she is? Boy, I’d really like to nab her stapler, paper punch and scissors, and then see her squirm! But she locks them in her desk whenever she’s away from it. Stupid Carmen! What does she think I am, a thief? It’s not as if taking staplers, scissors and paper punches were really stealing – nobody around here cares about that sort of thing.

Where’s the jefe? I want his newspaper. I’m sure La Liga won, but I want to check the final score of last night’s game. Stupid ICE and its power cuts – it should be privatized! But if they privatize ICE we will follow right behind, and that would be really terrible – I don’t know what I would do! And all these other poor people. Except Sánchez – he would find a new job right away, curse him! I really should try to get into the hierarchy of the union and become one of the Untouchables.

There’s the guy from Profesionales. Maybe he knows how the game ended up. But I’d better not ask him – he may want me to do something for him, and now it’s now only 20 minutes before my first coffee break, so I can’t take on any more tasks.