Looking Back in Time: This photograph is part of an exhibit of photos taken from 1880 to 1930 on display through Nov. 24 at the Sophia Wanamaker Gallery inside the Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center in San José's Barrio Dent. For more information, call 207-7554 or 207-7567.

Communities around Costa Rica are being pounded by a tropical storm that has caused several rivers to overflow, according to the National Emergency Commission (CNE), which yesterday declared a green, preventive alert for the Pacific coast and Central Valley.

More than 100 Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) swept into the northwestern beach town of Tamarindo yesterday to look for illegal immigrants and weapons, according to an OIJ statement.

Kiwanis Club Meeting
With speaker Gail Melander, who sold her business in California to help young women in Costa Rica, noon, Ambassador Hotel, Paseo Colón. Info: 446-3840, 293-1089.

Guatemalan Film Festival
Featuring “Zipakapa No Se Vende,” by Álvaro Revenga, 7 p.m., Centro de Cine, San José, Barrio Otoya, Ave. 9, Calle 11. Info: 223-2127.

By Gillian Gillers
Tico Times Staff | ggillers@ticotimes.net

Declarations by legislators and the Executive Branch yesterday made clear that the fight over the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) will not end with the national referendum Oct. 7.

At issue is the CAFTA implementation agenda – a set of 13 laws crawling through the Legislative Assembly – which would allow the free-trade pact to go into effect. Citizen Action Party (PAC) faction head Elizabeth Fonseca has declared that even if voters pass CAFTA, the party will use all the tools in its power to keep the assembly from approving the implementation agenda.

The agenda includes some of the most controversial aspects of the trade pact, such as taking monopolies away from the state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) and National Insurance Institute (INS).

Citizen Action “is ignoring the will of the Costa Rican people,” Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias said in a press conference yesterday after the President's weekly Cabinet meeting. “They are making a mockery of Costa Ricans.”

Arias, who is the President's brother, said if voters reject the treaty, the Executive Branch would drop its push for opening in the telecommunications and insurance industries.

Fonseca said blocking the agenda after a “yes” vote “is not disrespectful at all” because the Executive Branch and the Supreme Elections Tribunal have treated the implementation agenda as separate from CAFTA.

Rodrigo Arias maintains that given a “yes” vote Oct. 7, the implementation agenda would have to be approved before a Feb. 29, 2008 deadline for the free-trade treaty to go into effect. Some legislative advisors have said Costa Rica could request an extension of the deadline.

Still, Rodrigo Arias remains “optimistic” that the agenda can be passed within the nearly five-month time frame. The “extraordinary session” during December could be one tool to push the 13 laws, Arias said. During such sessions, the Executive Branch has the power to define the legislative agenda.

See this Friday's print or electronic edition of The Tico Times for more CAFTA news.

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

A bill that would prohibit gays from adopting children was unanimously approved by the Legislative Assembly's Childhood and Adolescence Commission yesterday and will now be placed on the assembly's agenda for debate on the main floor.

The law proposes reforming article 107 of Costa Rica's Family Code by adding a paragraph banning “adoptions, made by title to an individual or pair, in which one or both people have shown a sexual orientation toward people of the same sex,” according to a statement from the Libertarian Movement Party.

Now that the bill has been approved by a legislative commission, it will be added to the assembly's agenda to move to the main floor for debate, explained Legislative Assembly spokesman Juan Carlos Jiménez. It will automatically get added to the end of the agenda, which is 200-plus bills long, unless a legislator makes a motion to bump it up.

Mario Núñez, a Libertarian Movement legislator and president of the Childhood and Adolescents Commission, praised the bill.

“Members of this commission are committed to the emotional, psychological, social and material well-being of minors, which is why, going beyond the desires of a social minority, we should legislate thinking only of the superior interest of the child,” he said. “The state should make sure that minors in this condition are given to families whose base is heterosexual monogamous matrimony, as is established in our Constitution, Family Code and Christian principles.”

Abelardo Araya -- president of the Diversity Movement, a gay, bisexual and transgender activist -- strongly disagreed.

The commission's arguments are totally stereotypical,” he said. “Sexual orientation has nothing to do with whether or not one is fit to take care of a child.”

The bill shows a “retrocession of human rights in Costa Rica,” he said. “It's highly discriminatory. From the outside, Costa Rica seems like a country where human rights are respected, but in reality there are acts of systematic discrimination happening every day. It's an embarrassment.”

Communities around Costa Rica are being pounded by a tropical storm that has caused several rivers to overflow, according to the National Emergency Commission (CNE), which yesterday declared a green, preventive alert for the Pacific coast and Central Valley.

The National Meteorological Institute (IMN) yesterday predicted more strong rains to pass over the region last night.

Yesterday, heavy rains began to fall over the northwestern Guanacaste province, flooding houses in Tilarán and Santa Isabel Arriba. Also, 15 families were preventively evacuated from their homes Tuesday night when heavy rains threatened to cause Cañas River to overflow.

These torrential rains continued all day yesterday, causing damage in the cantons of Carrillo, Santa Cruz and Nicoya.

More than 100 Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) swept into the northwestern beach town of Tamarindo yesterday to look for illegal immigrants and weapons, according to an OIJ statement.

From 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., these officers, together with National Police, Immigration officials and Traffic Police, stopped cars to check passengers' identification.

They arrested six people who failed to produce identification: one Panamanian and five Nicaraguans, and also seized three motorcycles of “doubtful origin,” three unlicensed guns and small amounts of drugs.