 |
Help on the Way: Acting President Laura Chinchilla (center) yesterday announced that ¢30 billion ($58.1 million) to ¢35 billion ($67.8 million) is available to victims of recent flooding through government funds and a donation from China. More than half of the country's cantons suffered damage caused by this inclement weather. |
|
Photo courtesy of Casa Presidencial
|
 |
| China Offers Costa Rica $20 Million in Aid |
China announced yesterday it is writing Costa Rica a check for $20 million, money President Oscar Arias said will go toward flood relief in the regions damaged by last week's heavy rains.
|
|
| EU Negotiations Launch, So Does Opposition |
As negotiations between the European Union and Central America over an association agreement kicked off this week, so did something else: opposition. |
|
| Experts Call For Alternative Energies |
Costa Rican-U.S. astronaut and physicist Franklin Chang yesterday called for Costa Rica to use electric cars and hydrogen-based energies to reduce the country's reliance on fossil fuels.
|
|
|
 |
| October 25 |
 |
National Artistic Gymnastics Championship
Teens and adults, today through Sunday, National Gymnasium, southeast La Sabana Park, San José. Info: 220-1421, 291-2937, 388-3921.
Cello Concert
By Gabriel Cabezas, 14, with pianist Ana Isabel Cabezas, performing works by César Franck, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pablo de Sarasate and others, 7:30 p.m., Eugene O'Neill Theater, CCCN, Barrio Dent. Info: 224-1334, 207-7500.
|
|
Edited By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net |
|
China Offers Costa Rica $20 Million in Aid |
By Peter Krupa
Tico Times Staff | pkrupa@ticotimes.net
|
China announced yesterday it is writing Costa Rica a check for $20 million, money President Oscar Arias said will go toward flood relief in the regions damaged by last week's heavy rains.
That was only one of several announcements that were the fruit of Arias' long-anticipated trip to visit the Asian giant for the first time since Costa Rica switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in June (TT, June 8).
In addition to the $20 million in cash, China has pledged another $27 million in “technical and economic cooperation that will be assigned to different projects,” according to a release from Casa Presidencial. A spokesman there had no details on what that cooperation might involve.
Also coming out of Arias' visit was the announcement that the two countries had agreed to speed up the process to investigate the possibility of a free-trade agreement.
“Certainly now China is going to show greater interest in Costa Rica than what it showed before establishing diplomatic relations, and certainly Costa Rican businesspeople will want to conquer that import and export market,” the statement quoted Arias as saying. |
|
EU Negotiations Launch, So Does Opposition |
By Peter Krupa
Tico Times Staff | pkrupa@ticotimes.net
|
As negotiations between the European Union and Central America over an association agreement kicked off this week, so did something else: opposition.
At a meeting hosted by the Citizen Action Party (PAC) in a Legislative Assembly conference room, representatives of Central American agriculture groups objected loudly to the free-trade element of the association agreement under discussion.
“The negotiations have started very badly,” said Carlos Aguilar, a spokesman for a group called “The Cry of the Excluded in Mesoamerica,” which Aguilar described as an amalgamation of various small agriculture alliances in the Americas.
The first round of negotiations began in Costa Rica Monday, and yesterday the Foreign Ministry announced the negotiators have agreed on the political and cooperation topics that will be discussed in the following three rounds, to be held this coming December, February and April.
Today Costa Rican officials are scheduled to announce news of financial cooperation between the European Union and Costa Rica planned for 2007-2017 |
|
Experts Call For Alternative Energies |
By Blake Schmidt
Tico Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net
|
Costa Rican-U.S. astronaut and physicist Franklin Chang yesterday called for Costa Rica to use electric cars and hydrogen-based energies to reduce the country's reliance on fossil fuels.
“Hydrogen is the future of the country. We should throw out fossil fuels and transform into a hydrogen-based economy,” he said to an audience at the University of Costa Rica's (UCR) Scientific City auditorium, where alternative energies were the topic of discussion at the National Oil Refinery (RECOPE) Quality Fair.
Chang called not for conventional hydrogen-based energy, which is produced largely with fossil fuels, but for innovative forms of hydrogen-based energies like ones he is developing in his lab in the northwestern city of Liberia.
The two-day fair brought together regional energy experts ranging from Chang to Brazilian engineer and bio-fuel expert Luis Augusto Horta.
RECOPE is working on a pilot plan to sell fuel with an ethanol mix at Central Valley gas stations as of early next year, according to spokesman Carlos Cantillo.
Chang discussed long-term possibilities, such as using a soup of extremely hot particles and plasma to create fusion, an energy form that breaks from traditional fission-based nuclear energy and may end up leaving behind less radioactive waste, he said
|
|
|
| 
| Exchange Rates
