A new United Nations study shows that teenagers in Costa Rica's two port cities know little about the risks of AIDS and HIV, even as they engage in unsafe sex.

The majority of teens ages 13 through 18 in the Caribbean port town of Limón and the Central Pacific port town of Puntarenas do not know how to put on a condom and do not know how HIV is transmitted.

“Levels of awareness are extremely low in Limón, and even lower in Puntarenas,” the report concluded. “The situation in Puntarenas is dire.”

Perhaps most worrisome, 14 percent of teens in Puntarenas and 6 percent in Limón said they have had sexual relations against their will in the past six months.

“That's rape. There is no other way to describe it,” said Marco Fournier, who worked on the study.

Nearly 62 percent in Puntarenas and 57 percent in Limón did not know how HIV is transmitted. Some 83 percent in Puntarenas and 72 percent in Limón did not know how to put on a condom.

The study, which used a 400-person sample in each city, is part of a project by the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the Culture and Youth Ministry to promote healthy sexual practices.

The United Nations has donated a total of $156,630 for the project, whose total cost is $425,000. The project's coordinators are looking for more funding.

France's Chief Negotiator for Climate Change, Brice Lalonde, is in Costa Rica this week discussing ways France and Costa Rica can cooperate in the fight against climate change.

Lalonde has been accompanying Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Minister Roberto Dobles, and met with President Oscar Arias Monday afternoon.

He was then scheduled to sign an agreement for France to cooperate with Costa Rica in combating climate change, as well as receive help from Costa Rica on French initiatives. Both countries also agree to work together on international climate change projects and in negotiating a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol, under which nations agreed to a series of measures to reduce the production of greenhouse gasses, expires in 2012.

“France is a world leader in the area of climate change. We want to see what their experience has been and share our experience in what we have been doing, and see how to move into implementation,” said Lidieth Carballo, who oversees the National Climate Change Strategy at the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET).

“What we need to do is go from paper to action,” she said.

Lalonde met Monday morning with representatives of businesses in Costa Rica that have acted to lessen their environmental impacts.

Rudy Amador, the director for environmental and food safety affairs for Dole Fresh Fruit International, said that Dole, one of the world's largest producers of bananas, pineapples and other fruits and vegetables, has launched a series of initiatives to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions.

These programs include training thousands of employees in energy efficient practices, improving refrigerated containers to use less energy and working to reduce the use of fertilizers.

Ivan Hernández, the director of human resources at Tabacón, a resort and spa based around hot springs at the foot of the Arenal Volcano, in northwestern Costa Rica, said his company has compiled an inventory of all the greenhouse gasses emitted from its operations, including the transportation of tourists and company trips.

The company is now working to reduce what emissions it can, and compensating the rest through reforestation and conservation of existing forests, Hernández said.

Like Hernández, many companies in Costa Rica are measuring their emissions with help from MINAET, and trying to balance out their emissions by paying to reforest land or conserve existing forest.

Trees capture and store carbon dioxide, one of the prime culprits believed to be causing global climate change.

“We help (businesses) do it. We offer a lot of things, such as aid in developing a (greenhouse gas emissions) measurement system so those systems are measurable, reportable and internationally recognizable,” said Environment Minister Roberto Dobles.

MANAGUA – Nicaraguan magistrate Silvia Isabel Rosales has been chosen as the new president of the Managua-based Central American Court of Justice (CACJ) for the 2009-2010 period, as the court's rotating presidency remains temporarily in this Central American country.

Court spokeswoman Ana Isabel Solís said Ricardo Acevedo, of El Salvador, was elected vice president.

Rosales, 50, has been a magistrate with the CCJ (the court's initials in Spanish) since 2006, having cut her teeth in criminal law at a Managua appeals court.

Rosales will take the reins from Honduran Francisco Darío Lobo.

The CACJ's history dates back to a 1907 Washington, D.C., peace conference between Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador, and was resurrected through the Central American Integration System in 1991, with two magistrates from El Salvador, two from Honduras and two Nicaraguans. Two Guatemalan judges are soon expected to join.

Belize, Costa Rica and Panama, however, have not ratified the Tegucigalpa Protocol in order to gain membership.

United World College students from across the globe are collaborating with residents of the town of Poasito by cleaning out an old elementary school damaged during the Jan. 8 earthquake.

The United World College in Costa Rica (UWCCR) has 180 students representing approximately 80 different countries. Aside from pursuing studies in both English and Spanish at the school's campus in Santa Ana, a town west of San José, they participate in activities and social programs which involve working closely with the local community and the natural environment of Costa Rica.

After the magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed as many as 30 people, left hundreds homeless and caused $100 million in damage, the students' mission came into focus.

“Our first idea, starting in November, was building houses,” said Elba Gutiérrez, 18, from Mexico City. “But after the earthquake we turned the project to the more specific goal of helping the community of Poasito rebuild.”

Gutiérrez heads a group of approximately 20 students. She has been involved in the program since the age of 16 when she was selected on the basis of merit for a scholarship enabling her to attend the College.

Following the clean-up of the school, the intention is to convert it into a cultural center. Castillo said the work is going so well that they may be finished ahead of the projected finishing date, this Friday, allowing them more time to participate in cultural activities.

“When we aren't working we are organizing cultural activities for the children of Poasito who were affected by the earthquake,” Gutiérrez said. “It's more of a human experience than only a material one.”