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*2005 promises to be an exciting year here

Costa Ricans awoke this morning to the first workday of a new year.

2005 is a year for a presidential campaign with two ex-presidents in prison,

a third refusing to return to Costa Rica and the current president under

investigation for campaign financing irregularities.

What looked like a fairly normal election year has been complicated by

allegations that leaders in both parties took kickbacks on public contracts.

More than a half dozen politicians are trying to set up their own political

parties to propel them into Casa Presidencial.

Leaders of both the Partido Liberación Nacional and Unidad Social Cristiana

fear that they are vulnerable to a reformist movement, although both will

field presidential candidates. Liberación is pinning its hopes on Oscar Arias

Sánchez, the man who won the Nobel peace Prize in 1987 for crafting a Central

American peace plan.

But Arias, 63, comes with a lot of baggage. He now faces renewed allegations

that Manuel Noriega, the former drug-tainted Panamanian dictator, funneled $1

million to his 1985-86 presidential campaign. The United States captured

Noriega in its 1989 invasion of Panamá.

With 16 months left in his term, current President Abel Pacheco is still

pushing for the revised tax plan that would raise $500,000,000 in new taxes.

That number is equivalent to the total value of Costa Rica’s banana exports

in 2004.

Pacheco went on television Sunday to promote the tax plan that is languishing

in the Asamblea Legislativa. He said that the tax plan would finance social

programs and reduce public debt.

Education, he said, was the key to eliminating poverty, and that he would

continue constructing schools, secondary institutions, science laboratories

and centers for languages and computer science in poor areas.

Pacheco also put in a qualified plug for the free trade treaty with the

United States. He said he urged the approval of a free trade treaty with the

Caribbean nations but said he hopes to
arrive as a consensus for the approval of a similar treaty with the

United States, just and advantageous for Costa Rica.

With these treaties, he said, and with those that exist with Mexico, Chile,

Canada and the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica is guaranteed an immense market

for its excellent products.

The free trade treaty certainly will be a key point of dispute in this

election year. And with public unions, some farmers and the vocal university

set opposed to the agreement, most candidates probably will be too.

One challenge for Costa Rica that may be a campaign issue is to regain the

confidence of the international investment community. The country had reneged

on an oil exploration deal with Harken Petroleum, is engaged in wrangling

with Alterra partners, the concessionaire at Juan Santamaría Airport and has

tried to shut down the proposed open pit gold mine operation north of San

Carlos.

Each of these disputes stem from the current administration not believing it

is bound by the decision of a previous administration.

Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier, one of the two jailed former ex-presidents,

got some good news Friday. The Tribunal del Juicio del II Circuito Judicial

in Goicoechea heard his appeal of a six-month preventative detention term and

decided to reduce it to three months. That means the ex-president will be out

of jail March 22 unless prosecutors seek another extension.

Both Calderón and former president Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría had

holiday visits from their wives and family members at the La Reforma prison

in Alajuela.

No big developments are expected in these prosecutions for two more weeks.

Court employees do not return from vacation until Jan. 17.


*Going, going soon to be gone

Street vendors near the San José Central market were working on borrowed time

Sunday.

The municipality gave a deadline of Dec. 31 for the vendors to leave. Now

officials are putting together a force to evict the small business owners

within 24 hours.

A Sala IV constitutional court appeal filed Friday has not yet been heard.

The area is along Avenida 1.


*Costa Rica Expects Increase of European Tourism
After Depreciation of the Dollar

The new year should bring an influx of European tourists while the euro soars

against the dollar, the National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR) predicted last

week.

Some 230,000 Europeans visited Costa Rica in 2004, representing about 16% of

the approximately 1.5 million tourists who visit the country annually.

CANATUR also mentioned that the average length of time tourists stay in the

country increased in 2004 from 10.4 days to 13.5 days, a fact that has

benefited hotel and other business owners.

--AFP


*Banco Cuscatlán Ordered to Open
Accounts for Costa Rican Political Campaigns

Friday, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala (IV) ordered

Banco Cuscatlán, backed by El Salvadoran capital, to open the accounts the

ruling Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) maintained during President Abel

Pacheco's electoral campaign in April, 2002.

During the campaign, hundreds of millions of dollars poured into PUSC's

coffers from unknown sources, such as from within the French transnational

telecom company Alcatel, now embroiled in a corruption scandal involving

Ex-President Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (1998-2002), and from Taiwan , which,

according to the law, is illegal.

Banco Cuscatlán had refused to open the accounts, but the Sala IV responded

to an injunction filed by opposition party congressman Humberto Arce and

issued a warning to Cuscatlán representatives that ignoring the order could

result in three months to two years imprisonment.

--AFP


*Millions of Dollars Feed Taiwanese Diplomacy in Central America
By Oscar Núñez Olivas
AFP

Donations and credits constitute the base of Taiwanese diplomacy in Central

America , but recent accusations and corruption scandals throughout the

isthmus indicate that bribery also plays an important role in the foreign

policy of the Asian nation.

Taipei 's contributions to Central America soared into the hundreds of

millions of dollars in the last ten years, and they are directed at a variety

of projects, such as construction, political campaigns, the electricity grid,

assistance programs for small and medium-sized businesses, and others.

According to the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry, Taiwan contributed $132.6

million to Central American integration entities in the 1992-2003 period.

But Taiwan has also provided bi-lateral financial assistance (both loans and

donations) to each Central American country, both to the public and private

sectors for amounts that in many cases are not revealed, which makes taking

inventory difficult.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Taiwan has contributed $112 million to

finance “a broad range of projects,” in the country.

In Nicaragua , Taiwan 's financial cooperation topped $318 million from

1991-2000, and in El Salvador Taiwanese donations reached $38 million in the

past five years, according to official sources.

The government of Taiwan gave $45 million for the construction of a hospital

in Panama and awarded a loan of $6 million to build the President's

headquarters, the Casa Presidencial, in Honduras . Also, Ex-President of

Honduras , Carlos Flores (1998-2002) traveled in a helicopter donated by

Taiwan .

Central American nations are among the 26 in the world that recognize the

sovereignty of Taiwan , a country of 23 million people that the People's

Republic of China considers a rebel province.

Subjected to strong pressure from Beijing , which seeks to politically

isolate the island, Taiwan uses some of its abundant economic resources to

guarantee diplomatic recognition as a state that is separate from China .

However, Taiwanese donations have been at the center of recent corruption

scandals in several Central American countries.

In Costa Rica , the Prosecutor's Office is investigating the transfers of

$400,000 from the government of Taipei to Ex-President Miguel Ángel Rodriguez

(1998-2002), currently serving a preventive prison sentence under suspicion

of accepting bribes from the transnational telecom company Alcatel.

Though Rodríguez claims the money he received was a loan, the Taiwanese

embassy in San José said it was donated to a private foundation managed by

Rodríguez to carry out training seminars.

Rodríguez received other contributions totaling $1 million from companies of

alleged Taiwanese origin, the existence of which has not been confirmed, and

for reasons that have not been divulged.

Also, it recently came to light that a foundation directed by Ex-President

Oscar Arias received $1.3 million from the Taiwanese government in donations

that some Costa Rican political groups demand deserve an investigation.

In October, Taiwanese legislators accused Ex-President Chen Shui-bian of

giving $1 million to Panamanian Ex-President Mireya Moscoso, a fact that both

parties denied.

Regardless, the Panamanian Prosecutor's Office is investigating the use of a

Taiwanese donation of $45 million, managed by three private foundations, for

the construction of a hospital in the capital, a museum and the remodeling of

several public buildings.

In Nicaragua , transfers of $1.5 million from Taiwanese businesses to

Ex-President Arnoldo Alemán are under investigation. They occurred through

private foundations that Alemán, now serving time for corruption, had

established in Panama.


*Livingston to Costa Rica

Latest Aviation OO-SBZ writes "Italian carrier Livingston has just launched

its Milan-Malpensa San Jose (Costa Rica) service on 28/12/2004.

Malpensa-based Livingston was previously known as Lauda Air Italy. Nowadays

the carrier operates three Airbus A321 from Milan, Verona-Catullo, Bologna,

Rome-Fiumicino, Napoli and Bari to short and medium haul leisure

destinations. Three Airbus A330s are also part of the fleet."


*Students to get real-life rain forest lesson

Middle school science textbooks show photographs of the lush tropical rain

forests that, though dwindling, still thrive in Central and South America.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's the worth of stepping inside

the picture?

A group of students from Independence Middle School in Jupiter may find out

in June, when teacher Nancy Guthrie plans to lead them through the Costa

Rican rain forest during a weeklong trip.

The students will see the very subjects they have studied all year. They will

stop at the Tirimbina Biological Reserve, where scientists from around the

world research the rain forest. They will visit the world's largest butterfly

garden. They will feel the spray of tropical waterfalls and see orchids,

toucans and monkeys.

It's the second group of youngsters Guthrie will take on the trip as a

culmination of their studies. She chose 15 well-behaved top students who will

have to come up with much of the $1,400 for the trip on their own. She keeps

the group small so the students will have plenty of access to their Costa

Rican tour guide.

Costa Rica is known for its healthy slice of rain forest and the nocturnal

animals whose sounds emanate from the trees and plants all night. About a

third of the small country, which borders Nicaragua and Panama and has

hundreds of miles of coastline, is protected for wildlife. The students will

be visiting during the country's rainy season. Typical rainfall in Costa Rica

is 77 inches a year.

"I wanna go," school board member Paulette Burdick said. Burdick has traveled

to Costa Rica four times, including a trip last summer with her godchild, who

was an eighth-grader at the time. She said the country's birds, flowers and

rivers are exquisite, as is the surfing.

The school board approved the trip at a meeting this month.

Board member Monroe Benaim wants more schools to host similar trips.

"With the rain forest and the small villages side by side with cities,"

Benaim said, "it lets students really get the flavor of environmental impacts

of man. They learn about endangered species. That's really enriching."

At the same time, students are learning social lessons, and they have a

chance at once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

"Students learn how to travel, how to socially interact with the (other)

tourists. They have to be courteous and not ruin someone else's time," he

said. "They fly, obviously. A lot of these children on these field trips,

it's the first time."


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