FEBRUARY 08, 2007

Working for Wall Street: The investment research company Amba Research -- with offices in the United States, Costa Rica, India, Sri Lanka, England and Singapore -- yesterday celebrated expanding its operations here. Here, President Oscar Arias inaugurates the company's offices in Heredia, north of San José.

BACK to School: Yesterday was the first day back to classes after summer vacation for children around the country, including these students at Rincón Grande School in Pavas, west of San José. Here, Marvin González, 10, shows off a new sticker for his backpack he received as part of a Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) campaign to make kids walking to and from school more visible to drivers.

Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz announced yesterday that a team of three Costa Ricans, two of whom helped negotiate a controversial trade pact with the United States in 2003, has been chosen to represent the country in negotiations for a Central American-European Union Association Agreement.

Proceedings in the trial of Osvaldo Villalobos – accused of money laundering, illegal financial intermediation and fraud in connection with the defunct, high-interest investment operation known as “The Brothers” – have been suspended until Friday as the judges review motions presented by the defense yesterday.

Hanley Denning was only 36 when a car crash outside Guatemala City ended her extraordinary life last month – but according to those she left behind at her innovative brainchild, Camino Seguro (Safe Passage), a program that's helping hundreds of children who live at Guatemala City's garbage dump, the work she began will far outlast her too-brief life.

Trade Minister Announces E.U. Negotiators

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

Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz announced yesterday that a team of three Costa Ricans, two of whom helped negotiate a controversial trade pact with the United States in 2003, has been chosen to represent the country in negotiations for a Central American-European Union Association Agreement.

Chief negotiator Roberto Echandi, as well as adjunct negotiators Cristian Guillermet, representing the Foreign Relations Ministry (COMEX), and Fernando Ocampo, representing the Foreign Trade Ministry, will work with representatives of other Central American countries in the coming months to prepare for the first E.U. meetings, expected to begin mid-year, Ruiz told reporters following President Oscar Arias' weekly Cabinet meeting.

Asked why he chose Echandi and Ocampo, who served on the often-criticized negotiating team of the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) – activists at anti-CAFTA marches often claim the pact was negotiated “behind the backs of Costa Ricans” and that negotiators ceded too much ground – Ruiz said they're simply the most qualified people for the job.

“It's not a political team. It's a technical team,” he said, adding later that “we need the best people there, and these are the best people.”

However, the government plans to “learn from the experiences we had (with CAFTA) and involve the ministries a great deal” in the negotiation process, as well as social groups, Ruiz said. The Foreign Ministry and COMEX will work with ministers to ensure the sectors under their leadership are represented, and will coordinate with the Planning Ministry to ensure that aid or cooperation the European Union offers during negotiations meets Costa Rica's needs.

Villalobos Trial Suspended Until Friday

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

Proceedings in the trial of Osvaldo Villalobos – accused of money laundering, illegal financial intermediation and fraud in connection with the defunct, high-interest investment operation known as “The Brothers” – have been suspended until Friday as the judges review motions presented by the defense yesterday.

The Brothers was a well-known investment program run out of the same office where Osvaldo had a currency exchange business, Ofinter S.A. Osvaldo insists he had nothing to do with The Brothers, and it was his fugitive brother Luis Enrique Villalobos who ran the operation. More than 6,000 investors lost between tens of thousands and millions of dollars in 2002 when The Brothers and Ofinter shut down and Luis Enrique disappeared with an estimated $800 million-$1 billion of their money (TT, Oct. 18, 2002).

Defense attorneys yesterday morning challenged the hundreds of civil suits and querellas (private cases added to the government's prosecution) filed by jilted investors with attorney Ewald Acuña, alleging procedural errors. According to defense lawyer Rodrigo Araya, many of the claimants incorrectly processed their power of attorney, and therefore their suits should be dismissed.

The motions came during the defense's opening arguments, in which the attorneys claimed Osvaldo is innocent of all charges and was involved only in Ofinter, not The Brothers.

The prosecution's opening accusation began Monday and lasted a day and a half, followed by Acuña's, which wrapped up Tuesday afternoon.

'Safe Passage' Gives New
Hope To Guatemalan Children

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

Hanley Denning was only 36 when a car crash outside Guatemala City ended her extraordinary life last month – but according to those she left behind at her innovative brainchild, Camino Seguro (Safe Passage), a program that's helping hundreds of children who live at Guatemala City's garbage dump, the work she began will far outlast her too-brief life.

Denning, a teacher from the U.S. state of Maine who first went to Guatemala to learn Spanish, visited the dump in 1999. Horrified to learn that many of the children living there couldn't attend public school because their families didn't have the money for the fees, and because the kids worked sorting trash to help support their families, Denning sold her car and computer and raised enough money to put 40 kids in school.

After eight years of tireless efforts that earned her the nickname “Angel del Basurero ” (“The Angel of the Dump”), the organization she founded is serving 580 students, with approximately 500 more on the waiting list, and offers before- and after-school support, vocational training, and even a hotel where kids can train to work in the hospitality business. The organization relies on volunteers, earnings from its Posada Lazos Fuertes hotel in Antigua (www.posadalazosfuertes.com) and donors, including individuals or groups who “adopt” a child or classroom.

“In many schools, she found an attitude of, ‘We can't do anything with these kids,' but she was so insistent,” program leader Lety Méndez told The Nica Times in a phone interview. “She convinced the teachers to accept them.”

On Jan. 18, a bus struck the car in which Denning was traveling from Guatemala City to Antigua, killing her and her driver and injuring two program volunteers in the backseat, according to a Portland Press Herald article on Denning's funeral in her hometown of Yarmouth, Maine.

Méndez, 34, said that she and the rest of the staff are determined to carry on Denning's work.

“Normally, people in Guatemala, we try two or three times, but she tried 1,000 times … It really could be done,” she said. “Now, more than ever, I believe it.”

Opportunities abound to help Safe Passage, including participating in short- or long-term volunteer projects, donating to the Hanley Denning Memorial Fund, sponsoring a child or classroom and staying at Posada Lazos Fuertes. For more information, visit www.safepassage.org.

See this Friday's print or electronic edition of The Nica Times' Central America page for more on Hanley Denning and Safe Passage.

Panamanian Authorities Find Boat
Possibly Connected with Cocaine Floating at Sea

Authorities with the Panamanian National Marine Service yesterday found an abandoned boat on Panama's Pacific Coiba Island they believe was used by alleged drug traffickers who abandoned 1,280 kilograms of cocaine at sea Tuesday.

National Maritime Service Captain Carlos Samudio told the Panamanian radio station RPC Radio that fugitives aboard the boat were being pursued by the U.S. Coast Guard when they threw overboard the cocaine, wrapped in 30-kilogram sacks.

These drugs were discovered floating at sea Monday by a Costa Rican police patrol boat in Pacific waters near the Panamanian border. The Costa Rican Coast Guard, together with Drug Control Police, recovered the cocaine and turned it over to the Prosecutor's Office in the southern port city of Golfito. Costa Rican police are investigating the case, according to Public Security Ministry spokeswoman Marielos Barboza.

The boat, which measured 12 meters, was taken by Panamanian authorities yesterday from Isla Coiba to Puerto de Pedregal, Panama, Samudio said.

The coastal native Americans of the U.S. Pacific Northwest lived in a land of such plenty that they used to hold potlatches, ceremonial feasts for an event such as a wedding, in which the host distributed gifts according to each guest's rank or status. Between rival groups, the potlatch often involved extravagant or competitive giving and destruction of valued items as a display of superior wealth. The Bellevue-Redmond area of Seattle, Washington, where I stay when I am in the United States, is one of the places where native peoples lived and celebrated their prosperity. You may think that much has changed, but, in some ways, things are not so different after all.

This is one of the upscale neighborhoods in Seattle, the area where Bill Gates decided to establish Microsoft. As I stroll through this neighborhood and look around, I can't help but contrast it with Costa Rica.

As if string theory weren't enough, traveling from a remote mountain area of Costa Rica to this place in less than a day gets me to wondering about the true nature of reality.

This is the place where…

Everybody has a bread machine and a juicer, but nobody makes bread or juice.

You can buy five different kinds of salt.

Everyone sleeps under a duvet.

Wedding costs begin at $15,000.

Nobody throws garbage on the ground.

There is a special park just for dogs.

Nobody has to watch commercials any more.

Grocery shopping is available online – free delivery next day.

The hospital reception area features floor-to-ceiling aquariums and a classical pianist.

No one ever overcooks vegetables.

There are no stray dogs.

Everyone has an outdoor hot tub and speakers hidden in fake rocks.

Yards with dogs all have invisible fences.

No one knows, thank goodness, what a chayote is.

Bus drivers are always helpful.

All appliances (large or small) must match the decor of the kitchen.

Dog sitters charge $25 a night.

People leave blenders and toasters on the sidewalk for Goodwill pick up.

Everyone has at least one gas fireplace.

Black beans are a gourmet item.

During the Christmas season, stores feature a section for doggie stocking stuffers.

No one jaywalks.

Everyone eats organic.

You can get your money back on merchandise for any old reason.

UPS comes two or three times a week.

People stop their cars for pedestrians to cross the street.

For just $1 apiece, you can buy one kind of lemon (yellow, thick and pulpy).

Each child has his own DVD player for the car.

The roads are perfect.

Everyone recycles.

Little girls take ballet and little boys take karate.

Landscapers charge $900 to prune two apple trees.

A four-lane highway is a very small one.

Phone cable stays put.

All the traffic lights work.

CDs are passé.

Everyone has a redwood deck.

Sushi is a standard item in grocery stores.

So what is my conclusion? Is Bellevue, which means “pretty view” in French, better than where I live? Better than my view of the Costa Rican mountains from the windows of my funky cabin?

Mmm, I don't think so.