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Organization for Tropical Studies Trips
Corcovado National Park, July 8-11; Chirripó, Aug. 7-10. Info: 2524-0607, biocursos@ots.ac.cr.

Ana Wien
Sculptures, July 8-13, Los Sueños Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort, Playa Herradura, Central Pacific; Aug. 12-Sept. 12, Confort Suizo, Plaza Itskatzú, Escazú. Info: www.anawien.com.

Karate Classes
Kids, daily, 5:30-6:30 p.m.; adults, Mon., Wed., Fri., 6:30-8 p.m., and Tues., Thurs., 7-8:30 p.m., Heredia, opposite Mercedes Norte cemetery. Info: 8816-8387.

Former Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega could be back on his native soil within the year, despite being sentenced yesterday to seven years in a French prison for money laundering.

That's the optimistic prediction of Noriega's Panamanian lawyer, Julio Berrío, who thinks French judges will agree to reduce the aging general's sentence to eight months.

“We hope to bring him home so he can spend his final days in Panama close to his family. He is not a danger to anyone in this country,” Berrío told The Nica Times Wednesday in a phone interview from Panama City.

A French judge sentenced Noriega to seven years in prison and a € 10 million ($12.5 million) fine for laundering money in France in the 1980s. The judge also ordered that he pay an additional $2.5 million in legal expenses and have his assets frozen in France.

Still, Berrío and the rest of Noriega's legal defense team remain optimistic. Berrío said the three years that the 76-year-old Noriega spent fighting extradition to France from a U.S. jail cell will count as time served in France. Plus the general's age, poor health and good behavior should combine to convince the judge to reduce the sentence to eight months, Berrío said.

Noriega ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989, when he was ousted by a U.S. invasion and whisked to Miami to face drug trafficking charges. The former strongman served 20 years in U.S. custody as a prisoner of war before being extradited to France in April (TT, April 30).

Noriega also faces murder charges in Panama.

For more on this story, see the July 16 print or digital edition of The Tico Times.

What seemed like normal protocol – seeking the approval of the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly for another group of Marines, with their support ships and planes, to monitor the country's coastline for signs of drug traffickers – erupted into protests and angry comments as some Costa Ricans complained that their country's sovereignty was being trampled upon.

The response caught the U.S. Embassy, which was amid its Independence Day celebration, by surprise.

“We are not sure why there is this uproar,” U.S. Ambassador Anne S. Andrew said, explaining that the request is the same one that has been submitted each year for the last 10 years under a bilateral agreement between the two countries. And the timing seemed rather odd, she added.

Costa Ricans will be the first to tell you that their once-peaceful country is suffering a problem of national security. A recently released study by polling company Unimer showed that Costa Ricans' greatest fears involve issues relating to security and crime. And few disagree the problem has arrived mostly from the outside, much of it on the backs of drug-smuggling cartels that have found room to maneuver along Costa Rica's lightly protected coastlines and borders.

“This (protest) seems to arise at a point where there is no question that there is a serious security challenge ahead for Costa Rica,” Andrew said. “In the last 10 years, the efforts of Costa Rica and the United States under the Joint Maritime Agreement have been responsible for the interception of 115,000 kilograms of cocaine and $24 million in laundered money off the coast of Costa Rica.”

For more on this story, see the July 9 print or digital edition of The Tico Times.

The Costa Rican Red Cross announced on Wednesday that it will help move patients and equipment next week from the Costa Rican Social Security System's old hospital in Heredia, north of the capital, to the city's new state-of-the-art facility (TT, May 28).

Next Thursday and Friday, the Red Cross will send 60 ambulances and 100 staff members and volunteers to help patients check in to the new hospital, only 500 meters away.

People under intensive care and special-risk patients will be moved first in ambulances with advanced support units. Traffic Police will escort the ambulances to ensure a fluid transfer.

Red Cross personnel will keep a count of patients who enter the new hospital and remain present in both hospitals until the transfer is complete.

Members from the San José Red Cross and the Alajuela unit, northwest of San José, will join Heredia Red Cross workers in the transfer.

PANAMA CITY – The construction of a third set of locks for the Panama Canal has been stalled due to a strike involving close to 700 workers, who are demanding better working conditions and pay increases.

Meanwhile, negotiations have begun between representatives of the striking workers and the consortium handling the project, Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC).

The strike comes just six days after Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Manuel Chaves officially inaugurated the canal expansion project.

“We have communication with the people. (The work has been shut down) and the strike is continuing,” Genaro López, secretary general of the Suntracs construction union, told EFE Tuesday, adding that 700 workers are taking part in the strike.

The protest began on Saturday, and has gradually received the backing of more workers involved in building the third set of locks, a project being carried out by the GUPC consortium, which is led by Spain's Sacyr Vallehermoso and includes Italy's Impregilo, Belgium's Jan De Nul Group and Panama's Constructora Urbana.

Representatives of GUPC, which was awarded the $3.1 billion project, sat down Tuesday with union representatives in an effort to resolve the dispute.

The workers are demanding a salary hike, a solution to the lack of transportation for workers and more sanitary working conditions, among other improvements.

“It's a negotiating table to discuss 13 points, 12 of them involving violations of the collective-bargaining agreement and the labor law,” López said, adding that the work stoppage will continue while the negotiations are taking place.

The consortium has agreed to “comply with a countless number of points, but there is still the issue of salary, payments to people on strike and (guarantees of) no reprisals against workers,” he added.

GUPC did not comment on Tuesday, after issuing a press release Monday night saying only that it “will take appropriate legal action to ensure normal operations of this great project.”

The 300 workers involved in the Atlantic construction work and the close to 400 working on the Pacific side earn between $2.90 and $3.37 an hour, depending on skill level and job classification.

The goal of the canal expansion plan, which encompasses several projects and is estimated to cost a total of $5.25 billion, is to double the waterway's annual capacity from 300 million tons of shipping to 600 million tons.