[dailyarchive/2004_11/exchange_rates.htm]
Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, November 10, 2004
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| ROCKET innards: A view inside the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where three Costa Rica students from the University of Costa Rica and Costa Rican-U.S. astronaut Franklin Chang have been working on a new rocket propulsion system. Chang and the students explained their work to friends, family members and officials of the Ministry of Science and Technology in San José via videoconference from Houston yesterday. |
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Foundation Donates $8 Million
To Stop Poaching in Southern Zone The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has agreed to donate $8 million to help combat poaching on the Osa Peninsula, in Costa Rica's Southern Zone, government officials announced yesterday.
(Click for more)
Business Leaders Announce
Campaign to Promote Trade Pact Officials from the American Chambers of Commerce (AmChams) of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as other private and public-sector leaders, met via videoconference yesterday to announce a new “education campaign” designed to increase support for the Central American Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA) among workers in the region.
(Click for more)
$70 Million Project
Aims to Renovate Limón
Government officials yesterday laid out a new plan called the “Limón Port City Project,” an ambitious undertaking involving a $70 million loan from the World Bank to help fund urban renewal, city planning and the modernization of port facilities, as well as stimulate middle-class job opportunities through support for small businesses.
(Click for more)
Legislature Begins Session
On Comptroller's Future
The Legislative Assembly began meeting yesterday in a special session to discuss the removal of Comptroller General Alex Solís, who is accused of forging signatures and financing the illegal entry of Costa Ricans into the United States .
(Click for more)
November 10
Women's Club General Meeting
Meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Cariari Clubhouse. Info: 288-8056, 203-5556.
Electronic Music Performance
A performance with the electronic music of Brett Harter and dance by Diana Betencur, 9:30 p.m. at El Observatorio Bar and Restaurant in Barrio La California. Info: 223-0725.
U.S. Embassy Closed Tomorrow
The U. S. Embassy and Consulate in San José will be closed tomorrow in celebration of the U.S. holiday Veterans Day, and will re-open Friday 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
Edited By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net
Foundation Donates $8 Million
To Stop Poaching in Southern Zone
By Steven J. Barry
Tico Times Staff
sbarry@ticotimes.net
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has agreed to donate $8 million to help combat poaching on the Osa Peninsula, in Costa Rica's Southern Zone, government officials announced yesterday.
“This fills us with tremendous joy,” said Environment and Energy Minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez at yesterday's Cabinet Meeting. “It's not just any country or any project that is accepted by the Moore Foundation.”
The Moore Foundation, based in San Francisco , California , makes a relatively small number of large donations toward wildlife conservation efforts around the world, according to the organization's Web site.
Poaching on the Osa Peninsula , in the southern Pacific region, reached a breaking point this year, according to scientists, and will likely lead to the regional extinction of jaguars and white-lipped peccaries if nothing is done. Illegal hunters in recent years have stepped up their activity in Corcovado National Park , which extends over most of the southwest portion of the peninsula, leaving the animals with no haven to reproduce.
The white-lipped peccary – a gregarious, aggressive cousin to the wild boar – is the main prey of the jaguar. Poachers slaughter the animals by the dozens, rapidly diminishing the jaguars' natural food supply. The cats have been forced out of the park in search of food, and are shot by area residents who are frightened or trying to protect their cattle (TT, March 19).
Since 2000, the jaguar population in the park has plummeted from an estimated 100-150 to between 30-40 this year.
Eduardo Carrillo, a scientist with Universidad Nacional (UNA) heading a world-renowned study on jaguars in Corcovado , said the great cats have diminished to such an extent that he speculates they may be inbreeding, and a recovery to a stable population will be difficult (TT, July 30).
The donation, minister Rodríguez said, will provide for the continued protection of the park through additional park guards and social programs to help those who hunt white-lipped peccaries for subsistence.
Scientists and officials of the Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) agree that an adequate number of guards in the park would curb poachers and give the animals a chance to recuperate.
Lack of funding has forced MINAE to cut the number of park guards throughout the country by 100 during the past 10 years. In Corcovado , there are 25 guards. Park director Eliecer Árce said a minimum of 40 full-time guards are necessary to control the poaching problem (TT, March 19).
Rodríguez made a point of thanking President Abel Pacheco for his efforts in negotiating the $8 million donation, and denied the government has ignored the poaching problem.
“More than trying to evade reality, we have confronted this situation,” Rodríguez said.
In April, Rodríguez officially requested national parks be placed in a state of emergency, something he said President Pacheco told him “wouldn't solve much, in the long term.”
In recent months, Pacheco has said the government is financially unable to combat the poaching, arguing he “can't get rid of doctors to hire park guards.”
(See Friday's edition of The Tico Times for the full story.)
Business Leaders Announce
Campaign to Promote Trade Pact
By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff
kstanley@ticotimes.net
Officials from the American Chambers of Commerce (AmChams) of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as other private and public-sector leaders, met via videoconference yesterday to announce a new “education campaign” designed to increase support for the Central American Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA) among workers in the region.
The business leaders watched a sample from a 25-minute video, produced in El Salvador , which touts the benefits of the proposed agreement with the United States .
Costa Rica 's AmCham president, Carlos Denton, who introduced the video, said its goal is “to give Central America 's factory workers – who have, on average, a sixth-grade education – information about the benefits of this treaty.”
The videoconference also featured the inauguration of the Alliance for CAFTAction, a pro-CAFTA initiative, and the announcement the alliance will be funded in part by a $700,000 donation from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
(See Friday's edition of The Tico Times for the full story.)
$70 Million Project
Aims to Renovate Limón
By Steven J. Barry
Tico Times Staff
sbarry@ticotimes.net
Government officials yesterday laid out a new plan called the “Limón Port City Project,” an ambitious undertaking involving a $70 million loan from the World Bank to help fund urban renewal, city planning and the modernization of port facilities, as well as stimulate middle-class job opportunities through support for small businesses.
“For the Limónenses , that they may hear us: we are moving forward. The progress has been somewhat slow, but we are moving forward,” President Abel Pacheco told the press yesterday.
The project is to be spearheaded by the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT), which has invested $50,000 in feasibility studies related to the project, said Lorena López, Vice-Minister of Transportation.
The World Bank, which López said has shown “great interest” in the project, has already contributed $320,000 to feasibility studies, and the government of Japan an additional $335,000.
López said that by March 2005, a proposal for the project will be submitted to the World Bank. Approval from the bank is expected by June 2005, and the project should be presented before the Legislative Assembly by December 2005, López said.
After the project's approval, she said the face of the city would immediately begin to change.
“That is the success of this project: you see immediate effects while the long-term changes are developing,” she said.
One of the main aspects of the project, according to a statement from MOPT, would be urban renewal – specifically, new drainage systems to better manage black water and the renovation of historic buildings.
Legislature Begins Session
On Comptroller's Future
By Rebecca Kimitch
Tico Times Staff
rkimitch@ticotimes.net
The Legislative Assembly began meeting yesterday in a special session to discuss the removal of Comptroller General Alex Solís, who is accused of forging signatures and financing the illegal entry of Costa Ricans into the United States .
The legislature met yesterday morning after voting in their regular afternoon session Monday to meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning this month until they determine Solís' fate.
In yesterday's special session, legislators accused one another of political opportunism.
The Legislative Assembly named Solís to his position, responsible for reviewing the government's finances and contracts, in June.
Last month, agents of the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) concluded Solís forged 27 signatures of family members while he worked as an attorney. In June, accusations arose that the comptroller was behind dozens of loans to residents of Pérez Zeledón, 100 kilometers south of San José , where he is from (TT, July 2).
A special legislative commission studying these accusations made their conclusions in five reports, four of which recommend Solís' removal.
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