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TODAY'S CONTENTS
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*News Digest

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FEATURE ARTICLE
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DISCUSSION
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NEWS DIGEST
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*President Pacheco to be Censured

The Legislative Commission that has been investigating donations to the

political parties will be asking Congress to censure president Abel Pacheco.

The Spanish daily newspaper La Nación reports that five of the seven

legislators who make up the commission have confirmed their decision over the

irregularities that were found in Pacheco's presidential campaign donations.

Those who support the sanction say that, even if Pacheco did not handle the

actual money, his attitude has lacked interest and he did not try clear up

what really went on.

The newspaper published the names of those in favour of the censure: Ronaldo

Alfaro (libertario), Luis Gerardo Villanueva (PLN), Gloria Valerín (PUSC),

Humberto Arce (Bloque Patriótico) and Marta Zamora (Acción Ciudadana).

The only one against the censure is Rodolfo Delgado of the PUSC party, the

same party that Pacheco belongs to, saying that he participated in the

Pacheco campaign and saw no anomalies.

The commission has been working for months, investigating various political

figures and their campaign funding, and has come up with really nothing,

though it is clear to many that the PUSC political campaign played dirty.

Censure is a process of a Legislative reprimand - the political equivalent of

a strongly-worded letter. Presumably, censure of the President would take the

form of a resolution adopted Legislature and then publicly announced.

Legally, the resolution would have no effect.

In an interview with the Spanish daily newspaper Al Día, President Pacheco

said that if Fiscal General - Chief Prosecutor - Francisco Dall'Anese calls

on him on May 9, 2006, the after he steps down from the presidency, he will

appear without any fear.

He told the Al Día reporters that he has "no one pulling his tail" and has no

fear of answering the prosecutor's questions over the us$500.000 dollars from

Taiwan and us$100.000 from Alcatel, all contributions to his political

campaign.

Pacheco says he will continue to defend his position that nothing irregular

went on during the election campaign and continues to be a humble servant of

the people and respect for the law as he has done all his life.

Pacheco is a president who doesn't have or use a computer in his duties,

continues to have lunch at the same place he has for most of his life, will

be in Spain for Christmas, as he always done and says he has offers to return

to television after his done with his presidential mandate.

The 67 year old man is a psychiatrist, TV commentator, businessman,

politician and song writer. Born in 1933, he is twice married and has six

children.


*Sala IV delivers blow to open pit gold mine

A constitutional court decision made known Wednesday delivered a major

setback to the Las Crucitas open pit gold mining project in northern Costa

Rica.

"Goodbye to gold mining in San Carlos," crowed a release from an

environmental group.

"Inexplicable" was the word used by Industrias Infinito S.A, the company

seeking to operate the gold mine.

Although the original Sala IV constitutional court decision was not available

to reporters Wednesday, both environmentalists and Infinito said the

magistrates had decided a 2002 recurso de amparo or appeal for help. Both the

company and the environmentalist group, Federación Costarricense para la

Conservación del Ambiente, said the court based its decision on Article 50 of

the Costa Rican Constitution.

That article says, in part "Every person has the right to a healthy and

ecologically balanced environment, being therefore entitled to denounce any

acts that may infringe said right and claim redress for the damage caused."

The Las Crucitas project has been controversial because Infinito plans to

leach gold from the crushed rock with cyanide. Adding to the controversy is

the project’s proximity to the Río San Juan River. The river is in Nicaragua,

and that country had expressed strong concerns about the mining method.

The project is 95 kms. (59 miles) north of Ciudad Quesada (San Carlos). The

project had been billed as a financial boon to the generally depressed area.

The environmental federation said the original legal case was brought by

Carlos Murillo and Diana Murillo. The court’s action was to annul a

resolution by the environmental ministry, issued Dec. 17, 2001, that awarded

a mining concession to Infinito, said the environmental group.

The two individuals were identified as members of the Frente de Oposición a

la Minería de la Zona Norte, a group that opposes the project.



*Government Begins Negotiations With Alterra

The Juan Santamaría (San José) airport manager Alterra Partners has started

negotiations with the government regarding an us$18.7 million dollars claim

for lost revenue, according Alterra executive director in Costa Rica, Mónica

Nágel.

"Negotiations - that should have started a year ago - are to analyze

alternative solutions to respect contracts with international banks," Nágel

said.

La Contraloria General de La Republica - Costa Rica's comptroller general -

"interpreted differently" a contract governing the Alterra's tariff model,

causing Alterra to suffer a shortfall in projected income.

Specifically, the comptroller "questioned certain development costs and

operational expenses that were to be recovered in tariffs - and those costs

had been approved previously by the Costa Rican government," she said.

The comptroller must approve any agreement reached between the government and

Alterra. The government will recess for the year on December 20, meaning

negotiators aim to submit by then "a scratch copy" of the proposal, which is

under development.

Alterra, controlled by US construction giant Bechtel, signed a 20-year

contract in 2002 to run operations at Santamaría airport.

The contract called for us$120 million investments to modernize the airport,

for which Alterra turned to ten international banks for financing. Since

March 2003, us$30 million of that total has been held up by the banks until

arbitration is finalized.


*The Price Gasoline To Drop

Yes, you read it right. Yesterday, the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo

(Recope S.A.) has finally, for the first time in a long time, asked for a

reduction in the price of gasoline. It claims the drop in the world price for

crude warrants a reduction of prices at Costa Rican gasoline pumps.

The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (Aresep) - the government

body that regulates public prices and services, received the reduction

request following 11 straight increases in the price of a litre of gasoline.

When approved, the price att he pumps will drop an average of ¢11.73 colones,

which is expected to take effect early January.

The current price for a litre of super gasoline is ¢364.90 (us$0.80), while a

litre of regular costs ¢348.9 (us$0.765) and deisel ¢260.9 9 (us$0.572).

The price reduction will see super drop to ¢352.858 (-¢12.042), regular to

¢337.380 (-¢11.420) and deisel ¢251.683 (-¢9.217) per litre.



*Political Parties in Latin America, India Most Corrupt: Report

Political parties in Latin America, India, Indonesia, and certain eastern

European states are judged the most corrupt, according to a new survey

released by the group Transparency International.

In half the 64 countries surveyed, "political parties were rated by the

general public as the institution most affected by corruption," the report's

authors said on Thursday.

According to the survey carried out by the polling company Gallup

International, Ecuador rates worst in its population's eyes for political

corruption, followed closely by Argentina, Brazil, Peru and India.

Others with low grades included Bolivia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Indonesia,

Ukraine and Uruguay.

The countries considered to have the most honest parties in terms of

corruption were Singapore, the Netherlands and Albania.

Transparency International, a Berlin-based non-governmental organisation

which evaluates and ranks corruption around the world, released its 2004

Global Corruption Barometer in Paris on Thursday to coincide with the UN

International Anti-Corruption Day.

"As TI's world Barometer shows, corruption remains a scourge in many places,

and many countries and sectors of economic and social life suffer its

negative consequences," the head of Transparency International France, Daniel

Lebegue, told a media conference.

He called on governments to ratify a UN Convention Against Corruption that

would make it easier to return assets stolen by politicians and speed the

extradition of corrupt leaders who have fled abroad.

The survey asked more than 50,000 respondants how they rated their various

public institutions for corruption.

Political parties came out worst in most of the countries, followed by the

police, customs officers and national parliaments.


*Owners of Amón Plaza Want Barceló Declared Bankrupt

The owners of the hotel Amón Plaza in Barrio Amón are asking for the courts

to declare Barceló hotels in Costa Rica bankrupt after Barceló failed to keep

it end of the agreement since 1998 to manage their hotel. Recently, the

Clarion Hotel chain took over management of the hotellocated in the historic

Amón quater of San José. The owners claim that Barceló used a shell company

to sign it' contract and now cannot pay, while Barceló will be depositing

into court the amount in dispute, saying that the Spanish hotel chain is not

in financial difficulty.

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