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25 Nov 2005 |
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Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, November 25, 2005
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CAFTA March Draws Thousands;
Opponents Allege Coercion
Thousands turned out yesterday for what could be the largest demonstration ever in favor of the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA). While several journalists who were present at both yesterday's demonstration and last week's anti-CAFTA march (TT, Nov. 18) said that the pro-CAFTA movement was significantly smaller in comparison, other estimates for attendance range from 18,000, according to the Transit Police, to 35,000, according to organizers.
(Click for more)
Surgeries Suspended Because of
Saline Solution Contamination
Costa Rica's two main public hospitals, Hospital México and Hospital Calderón Guardia, in downtown San José, had to suspend their daily surgeries because of a fuel spill in the two wells used to produce 80% of the saline solution supply for the country's public hospitals.
(Click for more)
Presidential Candidate Claims
Arias Family Business Evaded
Social Security Payments
Legislator and presidential candidate Humberto Arce claims a business owned by the family of ex-President and 2006 presidential election front-runner Oscar Arias evaded $813,000 in social security payments.
(Click for more)
November 25
Oxcarts Parade in San José
Oxcarts and their drivers from all over Costa Rica meet in La Sabana Nov. 26 for a series of cultural events and on Nov. 27 at 9 a.m. will walk in a parade with decorated oxcarts, children, and oxen through the streets of downtown San José.
1st Surf National Circuit
Nov. 26-27, Avellanas, Pinilla Classic, Surf Party Babylon, Nov. 26, 9 p.m. Registration, Nov. 25, 5-7 p.m., Hotel Vista Villas, Tamarindo.
“ Y al final son Tres ”
Dance show with three choreographies and U.S. guest dancer Carol Dilley, Nov. 25-26, 8 p.m., Nov. 27, 5 p.m., Teatro de la Danza, CENAC.
Edited By Rebecca Kimitch
Tico Times Staff
rkimitch@ticotimes.net
CAFTA March Draws Thousands;
Opponents Allege Coercion
By Leland Baxter-Neal
Tico Times Staff
lbaxter@ticotimes.net
Thousands turned out yesterday for what could be the largest demonstration ever in favor of the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA). While several journalists who were present at both yesterday's demonstration and last week's anti-CAFTA march (TT, Nov. 18) said that the pro-CAFTA movement was significantly smaller in comparison, other estimates for attendance range from 18,000, according to the Transit Police, to 35,000, according to organizers.
The demonstration stretched west on Ave. 2 from the Plaza de la Democracia in downtown San José, where organizers had built a large, elevated stage and had an impressive array of speakers on towers blasting salsa and reggaetón.
Most in attendance represented various private businesses, especially in the industrial sector, and were bused in by their employers for the day. Prior to the demonstration, anti-CAFTA groups such as the High School Teachers' Association (APSE), called on the government to investigate supposed complaints of pressure from businesses on their employees to attend the event.
The organizers of yesterday's event, however, rejected these allegations.
“That is totally false. It is a lack of respect for the intelligence and common sense of the three million workers in the private sector. It is very difficult to think that even a small group would attend a demonstration by being forced. This is only in the minds of those who have a very leftist way of thinking, a communist way of thinking,” said Mario Montero, the Executive Director of the Food Industry Chamber, who was in charge of logistics for the demonstration.
See the print or online pdf edition of The Tico Times for more on the pro-CAFTA demonstration.
Surgeries Suspended Because of
Saline Solution Contamination
Costa Rica's two main public hospitals, Hospital México and Hospital Calderón Guardia, in downtown San José, had to suspend their daily surgeries because of a fuel spill in the two wells used to produce 80% of the saline solution supply for the country's public hospitals.
Gabriela Murillo, chief of operations for the Social Security System (Caja), told the daily La Nación that hospitals were asked to practice only emergency or highly necessary surgeries.
According to Murillo, production of saline solution remained suspended for more than one week, because it was necessary to wash the pipes and equipment from the laboratory that produces the saline solution, located in San Antonio de Belén, northwest of San José.
Both Hospital México and Hospital Calderón Guardia have suspended the 90 daily surgeries they had planned for the following days while the Caja ordered all its hospitals and clinics to restrict the use of the saline solution they still have.
The Caja requires some 20,000 bags of saline solution per day, 16,000 of which are produced at the Belén laboratory. The remaining amount is produced by Baxter Laboratory, which has now been asked for all the saline solution it can provide the Caja.
Murillo said that right now, the Caja is seeking to obtain saline solution from Mexico and all of Central America, and it will ask the Pan-American Health Organization (OPS) for assistance.
Caja president Alberto Sáenz told journalists that it will request a supply from the Honduran Social Security System.
-ACAN-EFE
Presidential Candidate Claims Arias Family
Business Evaded Social Security Payments
Legislator and presidential candidate Humberto Arce claims a business owned by the family of ex-President and 2006 presidential election front-runner Oscar Arias evaded $813,000 in social security payments.
“The immigration law allowed the Arias Sánchez family, owner of the business Desarrollos Urbanísticos La Lilliana, S.A., to continuously flaunt the payment of more than ($813,000) in Social Security over the last 10 years,” Arce said in a press conference.
Arce, a candidate for the Patriotic Union Party (UP), added that the business “did not report dozens of workers, mostly Nicaraguans.”
Arias (1986-1990), also a 1987 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, leads the pack of presidential candidates, running on the National Liberation Party (PLN) ticket.
“Today I charge that Oscar Arias promotes vetoing the recently approved Immigration Law, not for humanitarian reasons, as he says, but rather for stingy economic and business interests,” Arce said.
The new immigration law, which will take effect next year, will punish businesses that hire undocumented foreigners.
”I'm speaking with documents in hand, documents that I have turned over to the Attorney General's Office so the Economic and Tax Crime Prosecutors can determine the eventual punishments” for the Arias family, Arce said. The documents, he added, are administrative files from the Social Security System (Caja) and a judicial file that has been processed in the Heredia Civil Court since February.
Arias denied Arce's charges in a statement, saying they “have no base whatsoever and the business is completely up to date with its obligations to the Caja.
“The truth is, this company subcontracts with other construction businesses,” and any incompliance on their part “cannot be attributed to La Lilliana S.A.,” he said.
-- ACAN-EFE
