Vol. 3 • Edition 173 • Weekly • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 2009 • Costa Rica, Central America •

americas

global affairs

entertainment

sports

www.edica.co.crCERTIFICADA ISO 9001:2000

The practice of extreme sports in Costa Rica attracts thousands of tourists every year who seek an additional dose of adrenaline.

Thanks to the country’s topography and its variety of landscapes, the opportunities for extreme sports are many: including bungee dumping, rafting, canopy riding, rappelling, windsurfing, diving, mountain bik-ing, kayaking and many more. Whether on land, in the ocean or in the air, visitors can enjoy these outdoor ac-tivities all throughout Costa Rica.

According to Costa Rican Tourism Institute Statis-

tics (ICT), while North American tourists are more interested in visiting Pacific coast beaches, Europeans have a preference for extreme sports.

“This is a destination where nature can be enjoyed in comfort, that is, we as a country have kept a bal-ance between the comfort that tourists demand and the ruggedness of ecological and adventure tourism — and that is our strength, which visitors from North America, Europe and the rest of the world want to come and see,” said Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides.

Costa Rica has earned a privileged spot among the extreme sports enthusiasts around the world. PHOTO BY SYLVIA GUARDIA M.

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Brazil, one of the world’s main emerging economies, has started 2009 as a giant badly battered by the global financial crisis despite deep-pocketed moves by the gov-ernment to stave off the turbu-lence.

The roll-out of stimulus packag-es and the clean-up of banks must be accelerated, the head of the In-ternational Monetary Fund said, urging action to avert “a repeat of the Great Depression”.

British actress Kate Winslet said that she had banned magazines from her house and stopped read-ing reviews of her films after too many painful experiences. with the media.

Record-breaking Olympic champion Michael Phelps has been suspended for three months by USA Swimming after a published photograph appeared to show him smoking marijuana.

Winslet says magazines outlawed at her house

Extreme sports attractingmore tourists

Latin America’s biggest economy staggers under crisis

IMF urges action on stimulus, bank clean-up

USA Swimming suspends Phelps three months

www.journalcr.com

Playas del Coco, Guanacaste506.2670.2212 www.pacifico-costarica.com

New Beachfront Model Villa Open Daily

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AFP

AFP

AFP

AFP

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 20092

P. 6 business & economy Last CAFTA bill presented before CongressLast Feb. 4, the last of the bills related to the Central American Free Trade

Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States was presented before Congress. It’s Bill No. 17.264, which contains several reforms to three laws.

P. 10 society Costa Rica named first BioGem country by NRDC campaign For the first time, the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has

designated a country as a BioGem, Costa Rica, as a recognition of its efforts to become the world’s first carbon-neutral nation.

P. 14 culture MIT researchers make ‘sixth sense’ gadget U.S. university researchers have created a portable “sixth sense” device

powered by commercial products that can seamlessly channel Internet in-formation into daily routines.

P. 18 HealtH Fertility drugs do not boost ovarian cancer risk The use of fertility drugs does not increase a woman’s risk of developing

ovarian cancer, the largest study of its kind reported.

P. 19 europe France moves toward NATO return, in step with Germany President Nicolas Sarkozy took a new step toward France’s full return to

the NATO military alliance, while strengthening military cooperation with Germany.

P. 20 global affairs China presses for U.S. help on climate change The roll-out of stimulus packages and the clean-up of banks must be ac-

celerated, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, urging action to avert “a repeat of the Great Depression”.

P. 21 americasObama urged to focus on Latin America U.S. President Barack Obama should keep his eye on Venezuela and its

leftist allies, and nurture ties with close friends in Latin America including Mexico and Brazil, experts and lawmakers told .

P. 22 entertainmentBale apologizes for on-set meltdown Batman star Christian Bale apologized for his expletive-laden tantrum

during filming of a new “Terminator” film, saying he was “out of order beyond belief.”

P. 23 sportsWADA defends new code saying - “Do you want cheats or not?” The World-Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has defended its new, random

dope testing system which forces athletes to be more precise about their whereabouts, asking: “Do you want cheats or not?”

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COSTA RICA BASICSArea: 51,000 km2Population: 4,075,261 (July 2006)Capital: San JoseLanguage: SpanishTime Zone: UTC/GMT-6 hours

USeFUL NUMBeRS

EmergenciesEMERGENCY SERVICES 911Fire 2688-8918Medical Alert (Ambulance) 2670-0258OIJ (Police Special Branch) 2690-0128Red Cross 2666-0994Hospital Liberia 2666-0011Hospital Nicoya 2685-8400Hospital San José 2257-7922Clinic (Coco) 2670-0987Clinic (Liberia) 2666-1881Emergency Medical Service 8380 41 25 24 hrs.Santa Monica Radialogy Center 2665-0704

TransportCentral Line San José 2257-7214 2221-9115Central Line Liberia 2666-0085Interbus 2283-5573 Fax: 2283-7655Pulmitan Liberia 2666-0458 2666-3818Tica Bus 2666-0371

Lost credit cardsAmerican Express 0 800 012 3211Mastercard 0 800 011 0184Visa 0 800 011 0030

Vol3•Edition173 Feb10-Feb16,2009 Costa Rica, Central America OUR TEAM Marta Araya, Marketing & Sales Manager E-mail: marta.araya@journalcr.com / sales@journalcr.com classified@journalcr.com Tel:905-JOURNAL(5687625) CarlosEduardoVargas(*), Editors Board Member E-mail: editors@journalcr.com Design & Production: TheJournalDesignTeam E-mail: design@journalcr.com SALES: sales@journalcr.com / classified@journalcr.com NEWS:news@journalcr.com INFO:info@journalcr.com

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ALSO INSIDE

P.04 Lead StoryP.06 Business & EconomyP.10 SocietyP.15 Science & TechnologyP.16 Week In Brief

P.18 HealthP.19 EuropeP.20 Global AffairsP.21 AmericasP.22 Entertainment P.23 Sports

Contents

COStA rICA tIDES ChArt Information for Pacific Coast

Page two

Day High Low High Low High

Tue 10 02:59 / 9.55 ft 09:10 / -0.86 ft 15:28 / 9.82 ft 21:35 / -0.62 ft

Wed 11 03:47 / 9.75 ft 09:56 / -1.09 ft 16:14 / 10.11 ft 22:22 / -0.80 ft

Thu 12 04:34 / 9.71 ft 10:39 / -1.06 ft 16:59 / 10.12 ft 23:08 / -0.72 ft

Fri 13 05:18 / 9.43 ft 11:22 / -0.77 ft 17:42 / 9.87 ft 23:52 / -0.40 ft

Sat 14 06:03 / 8.93 ft 12:04 / -0.26 ft 18:26 / 9.38 ft

Sun 15 00:36 / 0.10 ft 06:48 / 8.29 ft 12:47 / 0.40 ft 19:10 / 8.75 ft

Mon 16 01:22 / 0.70 ft 07:35 / 7.58 ft 13:31 / 1.13 ft 19:58 / 8.07 ft

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 20094 Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 2009 5lead STory

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Beginning in March, those customers who have accounts with any of the country’s state-owned or private banks will be able to use a digital signature tool.

Digital signature is a method that associ-ates the identity of a person or equipment with an electronic message or document, thus securing the authorship or integrity of such signature. The digital signature is the result of the application of mathematical al-gorithms (called hash function) to its content, thus generating a signature on the document.

To verify the signature, the system vali-dates the subscriber’s digital certificate validity, the digital certificate’s status, and whether or not the digital certificate is the appropriate one for the operation being con-ducted (signature instead of rejection).

In the case of Costa Rica, the device that will be used for transactions is a smart card that contains a chip storing the information of the user, and which will take the place of an actual signature.

To sign a document, users need a digital certificate issued by the Registered Certify-ing Authority, and which must be stored and safeguarded by a token or smart card that meets the FIPS 140 level 2 standard. This token is very important, as it is responsible for safeguarding the private key utilized for digitally signing documents or files.

The token also requires activation date, which can be a password, a key phrase or biometric data (such as fingerprints).

The digital signature serves a double au-thentication function, based on the principle that the user must show proof of his or her identity twice — first through something the user knows (password) and then with some-thing the user has (the private key stored in the token).

To sign an electronic document of legal importance, an online validation service is required that indicated the status of the cer-tificate, this with the goal that no document is digitally signed with a certificate that has been revoked or suspended. Additionally,

validation must be done on the entire trust chain behind the certifying authority that is-sued the document.

“In the environment of electronic transac-tions, we want the country to enter and play in the big leagues with success, and the tech-nological development we are promoting must meet international standards,” said Sci-ence and Technology Minister Dr. Eugenia Flores. “And in the process of implementing the digital democracy we are promoting, it’s crucial to make sure excellence is part of every element of it. This obviously included the digital signature program, which by law is the responsibility of the Science and Tech-nology Ministry.”

The digital signature program will be sup-ported in Costa Rica by several pieces of leg-islation, including Law No. 8454 of Aug. 23, 2005, regarding Certificates, Digital Signatures and Electronic Documents; the Guidelines for the Law on Certificates, Digital Signatures and Electronic Documents; and the Guidelines for Internal Structure and Operation of the Costa Rican Accreditation Entity.

Digital signature to be used by bank customers

Even though they are not totally infallible, smart cards can reduce the risk of bank fraud.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Late last January, Dr. Jorge Alberto Amador was presented the 2008 Clodomiro Picado Twight National Science Award in recogni-tion to his research on the Caribbean Low-Level Jet. Amador has dedicated 30 years of his life to analyzing this phenomenon and believes this current is responsible for Costa Rica’s “dome” — a region of great marine riches off Guanacaste’s Pacific coast.

The Caribbean Low-Level Jet would also be responsible for the few dry days experi-enced in the middle of Costa Rica’s rainy season — a phenomenon popularly known as “Saint John’s Summer,” since the celebra-tion of this saint (June 24) falls during the mini-summer.

It is believed that this current causes strong winds in the Papagayo Peninsula dur-ing the months of June and July. The current descends so much that it even touches the ground, which would be how the dome is formed. The Jet is described as an intense air current located approximately one kilometer above the ocean’s surface in the lower part of the atmosphere, strongly influencing the distribution of rains in Central America. It shows up two times a year, during the north-ern hemisphere’s winter and summer sea-sons, peaking in the months of February and July, respectively.

One of the interesting aspects of the Carib-bean Low-Level Jet is that it mobilizes large amounts of moisture whose intensity tends to vary (for example, depending on the pres-

ence of phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña), causing variations in rain distribution in correlation with these other weather phe-nomena.

Knowledge about phenomena such as the Caribbean Low-Level Jet is helpful for plan-ning a series of activities that are affected by rainfall, such as farming and water resource management. Thanks to studies on the Ca-ribbean Low-Level Jet, experts could make forecasts up to three months ahead — enough time to make important decisions regarding climatic events that could occur as a result of the current.

For studies such as these, scientists have utilized computer equipment such as Sibu-Ara and Quebe, which are two computer clusters that facilitate the analysis of data, statistics and numerical models by research-ers.

Dr. Amador is professor at the University of Costa Rica’s School of Physics. He has been recognized for discovering and describ-ing the Caribbean Low-Level Jet.

In November 2007, Amador was named a 2008 Humboldt Scholar, which allowed him to hire more collaborators and dedicate more time to gather data to finish writing his re-search project on the current — being name a Humboldt Scholar allows a researcher to dedicate an entire year exclusively to re-search activities.

ScientistawardedforresearchingcurrentsthatcometoGuanacaste’s coasts

Dr. Amador (center, standing) with some of the members of his research team. Photo courtesy of CONICIT.

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 20096 BuSineSS

outside the box

Javier Segura M.general Manager-DCl realty ConSultantS

Javier.Segura@DCl.Cr http://www.DCl.Cr

Along the last couple of weeks I have had some conversations with my contacts in USA, that have confirmed me what we, in DCL, have been feeling, on the last month; which is that we are really facing a new business world. Very different than the one which we were accustomed.

Some of those contacts are the investors that work with us in the project financing area, they are people that have a sixth sense about the future of the markets; their gut feel-ings are very well trained. You just need to know that, by the time Wall Street collapsed, all those guys were completely liquid, al-ready.

As they said: “Javier, it is not only what President Obama is saying; and doing!!!, this is a real divorce between Main Street and Corporate America, and Main Street is the one that have the big guns. And it will hit Costa Rica too, sooner than you think.”

Similar words I have received from sev-eral sources, all of them persons that have to be on top of the things.

And we are witnessing these events. All of them based in two concepts: Responsibil-ity and Commitment. I would like to say a few words about a couple of themes:

On the issue of the salary cap for the “bailed out companies” (their executives, re-ally) has been said lots of things, against it and in favour. It seems that top executives are resisting to take responsibility on his own actions; apparently they think that the bail out program is an approval nod on their job done. They still are living out of touch with what is happening in the world. A “head hunter” said in TV that this measure will damage se-riously the talent pool that companies have access to; let me ask you something: We are talking about the same talent that put cor-porate America in problems, aren’t we? If a company is consistently losing money, are not the executives the responsible ones? I mean, that was their job, no?

The Long-Term Investment: Long time ago America was the Technological leader of the world; it had the best infrastructure, the

best education, and the best research; now, most of that is gone. And it´s gone because the leadership have forgotten that the main task for a leader, is to guarantee the long-term survival of his people. Now, it seems that this government gets engaged itself, and the country, to retake that position; investing in new infrastructure, in the educational sys-tem, the health care system, and mainly, in new energy efficient technologies that will put the “oil age” behind.

I like to see how the press is hammering the issue: “It is a new world, don’t they real-ize it”, was the rhetorical question of a TV anchor this morning, about the need of in-vesting in broad band countrywide.

For me, I am not surprised that the pri-vate investors were the first top businessmen group in realize that; and in taking measures about it.

As some of you may know, we have been negotiating new sources of financing for our clients; and their speech is so different than a year ago. Now, the investors are tell-ing us about how much their business have changed; for example, they do not want bor-rowers or partners (they work financing and joint ventures) that are not going to commit themselves with the projects in long term; or clients that have not put real money into the projects; or those that are sitting just wait-ing for “the money to will come”. And bear in mind that this is going to spread itself to every industry, whether tourism or agribusi-ness, no doubt on that.

The most interesting thing of all is that I’ve asked one of them: “Hey, what you want is Commitment with the project and respon-sibility as developers, no? jaja, are you like the government now?” and the answer was quite great, really; and I will leave you, for the week, with his answer:

“Oh, yes… exactly. Don’t you see?, the firsts in adapting themselves to the situation are the ones who are going to take advantage of the opportunities of these new times, that is why we the private investors are way ahead of banks, because we are going to be closing deals meanwhile the bankers are going to be still fighting over their stupid perks”

Have a Nice Week

AdifferentWorld

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Last Feb. 4, the last of the bills related to the Central American Free Trade Agree-ment (CAFTA) with the United States was presented before Congress. It’s Bill No. 17.264, which contains several reforms to three laws.

The bill was introduced by Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz, who believes the document will provide coherence and uniformity to the legal framework of the trade deal and will also solve some defi-ciencies that have identified in the process — which must be amended so that the agree-ment will be fully implemented. Ruiz added that CAFTA trade partners agreed to have this final bill passed during 2009, without af-fecting the ratification of the treaty — which for Costa Rica went into effect on Jan. 1.

However, Minister Ruiz’ visit to the Legis-lative Assembly was met by some resistance on the part of minority Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) and opposition Citizen Action Party (PAC). For example, legislators Lorena Vazquez and Sergio Alfaro complained about lack of transparency and the little informa-tion they received late last year about the real goal of this last CAFTA bill. For some members of Congress, the bill is not only a change of “form”, but also of “content.” Ruiz responded that such perception is not correct, explaining that the bill’s goal is to clarify three issues related to intellectual property so they can be better interpreted.

The changes introduced in this piece of legislation refer to the Author Rights Law, clarifying that playing of a musical piece or

song or phonogram will be considered as pub-lished for the first time in Costa Rica when it is published within 30 days of its original publication according to what has been es-tablished in the text of CAFTA. This reform has been requested because during the read-ing of the bill to reform the Author Rights Law, the Ministry of Justice requested that reference be made to article 5 of the Rome Convention. However, not all countries that are CAFTA signatories are part of the Rome Convention — meaning such article cannot be applied to all of the trade deal’s partners.

Regarding the Law of Procedures for Ob-serving Intellectual Property Rights, in the section about sanctions for offering to the public unauthorized phonograms, songs or broadcasts, there was an omission in the first part of the sentence of such article — that is, the words “renditions of songs or musi-cal pieces” — which are included in the title of the article and in the second part of the sentence. This omission, backers of the bill said, could result in the unauthorized offer-ing of such renditions not being covered by the sanctions stipulated in that article — and the purpose of the law from the beginning was to include this kind of illegal conducts in conformity with commitments assumed in the international accords the country signed as part of the CAFTA trade deal.

Regarding the Law on Non-divulged Information, where the definition of new product is separate between agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals in an effort to protect testing data, the new bill seeks to clarify that a new product refers to a pharmaceuti-

LastCAFTAbillpresentedbeforeCongresscal product — also including a definition of new agrochemical product, consistent with the concept developed in the Agrochemicals Rulebook.

“It’s important to point out that these cor-rections are not intended to modify in any way or expand the protection of intellectual

property rights included in the current na-tional legislation, but also to correct the lan-guage of several articles, making them con-sistent with the rest of our legal system, and thus simplifying the application of the laws we already have so that there are no interpre-tation errors,” Minister Ruiz concluded.

It is expected that the three amendments sought to the intellectual property laws will clarify things well enough so that true free trade between Costa Rica and the United States can begin. Photo courtesy of COMEX.

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 20098 BuSineSS

Authorized Distributor / Tel: 2260 2632 / Fax: 2260 2471 / e-mail: info@rymcocr.com

premium home lifestyle

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – The sixth negotiation round for an asso-ciation agreement between Central America and the European Union was held in Brussels between Jan. 26-30, which helped solidify positions as both blocs look to working out their trade deal in the first half of 2009.

Costa Rican chief negotiator Roberto Echandi said that all three objectives of this round were met: obtaining political support from the EU to put forth the best efforts pos-sible to conclude trade negotiations during the first semester of this year; significantly advancing in the discussions of normative texts regarding the three basic pillars of the association agreement; and taking a solid step toward concluding negotiations regard-ing market access for goods.

With the goal of promoting strong political support for this negotiation process, the min-isters of the economy and trade from Central America met last Jan. 26 with the EU trade commissioner, Baroness Catherine Ashton. Costa Rica’s foreign trade minister, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, said the meeting allowed for frank and positive dialogue and highlighted the agreement expressed by both regions to try to nail down the accord in the next few months.

Among the most important advances made so far by negotiators is the institutional structure of the association agreement. It was decided that management of the accord will be the responsibility of the governments involved and two additional mechanisms for dialogue between the EU and Central

America were established: one for inter-parliamentary dialogue and the other one for civil society dialogue.

Regarding the political aspects of the agreement, Central America managed to have included in the discussions issues relat-ed to international cooperation. Additionally, the EU agreed to consider the isthmus’ inter-est in underscoring not only the human rights of indigenous peoples but also their rights in

a broader sense. There were also satisfactory advancements in topics such as disarmament, the non-proliferation of weapons of mass de-struction, and the environment. In this sense, area negotiators pointed out the inclusion of an article about financing for development initiatives lobbied by Central America.

In one of the most delicate subjects of this negotiation process, market access, conservations between the two blocs began on revising the text that has been proposed.

The EU withdrew its proposal for remanu-factured goods after listening to Central America’s explanation that differentiated tar-iffs are not applied to those compared to new goods. Meanwhile, the Central American na-tions scraped their proposal about reinsertion of merchandise after it has been repaired or altered, since this issue has already been ad-dressed in the customs procedures.

Since both regions have already covered 90 percent of goods in their negotiations, the negotiating groups turned to discussing alternatives for dealing with the products of most interest for the Central American coun-tries. The isthmus formally proposed to the EU a plan to have each bloc identify products they are particularly interested in exporting and request special tariff treatment for those, also indicating their exchange offers. Based on the proposals that were presented at this meeting, areas where no agreement couldn’t be found were identified in an effort to re-duce the number of products still pending for consensus.

The Central American nations identified some areas in which they have exporting interests but which have not yet been satis-factorily addressed by the EU — including fresh produce, fruit, rice, frozen shrimp, and orange concentrate. The EU also presented an initial offer for importing conditions for sugar and bananas. Even though no agree-ment still has been made regarding some of these key exports, Central America’s pro-posal to negotiate according to groups of products or “packages” was well received by the EU.

Sixth trade deal round with EU takes place in Brussels

Negotiations with the European Union for an association agreement included sensitive issues such as quotas and controls for food products. Photo courtesy of COMEX.

National and Popular banks have recently announced measures to help delinquent clients make their monthly loan payments.

Late payments in the country’s banks in-creased significantly last year, as a result of the tough conditions in the local and world economies. A report by CFS Investment Ad-visors revealed private banks were the most affected by overdue loans from their clients. Private banks’ rate of delayed payments compared to the total amount of their loans was 5.8 percent at the beginning of last year, but by December the percentage rose to 6.2

percent. State-owned banks fared slightly better, with late-payment rates going from 4.3 percent to 4.9 percent by the end of 2008. CFS considered the slowdown in the local and international economies and high inter-est rates contributed to the hike. Some banks have recently announced measures to help delinquent clients make their monthly loan payments.

CostaRicansfellbehindinloan payments last year

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – In a unanimous 45-legislator vote, the Legisla-tive Assembly approved last Feb. 5 the Law for Strengthening the Battle against Terror-ism in its second and final debate.

This legislation defines activities such as financing of terrorist activities in the coun-try’s legal system, as a way of meeting in-ternational compromises Costa Rica has as-sumed in the topic of fighting terrorism and regarding which its legislation was lagging behind.

In this way, Costa Rica comes out of the non-complaint list in which it was included by the Edmond Group — an organization made up of 107 financial intelligence units around the world fighting against terrorism.

Just two days before the passing of this law, Costa Rica had hosted the First Sub-re-gional Workshop on Financing of Terrorism.

“Terrorism has gone beyond national bor-ders, and in that sense, now all countries are vulnerable to being attacked,” said Presiden-cy Vice Minister and president of the board of directors of the Costa Rican Institute on Drugs (ICD), Jose Torres, during the work-shop. “This circumstance shows the need to take on this malady from a regional and glob-al perspective, with the goal of formulating, discussing and adopting measures, actions

and policies directed at preventing, control-ling and repressing terrorism. The activity that gathers us today has singular importance for the entire Latin American region. Terror-ism and its financing are real problems that impact the region, about which all states should be concerned. Ignoring this situation would be a grave error.”

The workshop gathered experts from the entire continent with the objective of estab-

lishing strategic alliances for fighting against this type of organized crime.

According to Torres, the goal of the work-shop was to share with renowned interna-tional experts about control, prevention and repression systems targeted at the financing of terrorist activities, as “unfortunately this problem has advanced toward spheres each time closer to the citizens.”

The Vice Minister highlighted several il-

licit activities that contribute to the financing of terrorism, including drug and arms traf-ficking, people trafficking, product counter-feiting, contraband, fraud, kidnapping and extorsion.

The workshop brought to Costa Rica representatives from all Central American nations and invited guests from Bolivia, Bra-zil, Ecuador, Paraguay and the United States, among others.

Also participating in the gathering was the representative from the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime, Mauro Miedico; the manager of the Inter-American Commission against Terrorism of the Orga-nization of American States (OAS), Ignacio Ibañez; and the representative of the Inter-American Commission for the Control of Drug Abuse, John Grajales, among other of-ficials.

Regarding the new terrorism law, ICD’s general director, Mauricio Boraschi, said that this legislation will impose penalties of up to 15 years in prison to people who support or finance any form of terrorism.

“This law establishes a control model that provides more power to pertinent authorities and guarantees the prosecuting of any person who participates in the financing of planning of terrorism acts,” Boraschi said.

CRapprovesterrorismlaw

A group of international experts met in Costa Rica to analyze threats arising from terrorism and its financing. Photo courtesy of Casa Presidencial.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Costa Rica’s Agriculture Minister, Javier Flores, and the U.S. Ambassador to San Jose, Peter Cianchette, have signed a protocol that allows for exportation of fresh, ripe tomatoes and bell peppers to the United States.

Following three works of work put into this protocol, the document now establishes the responsibilities of participants in the pro-duction process of these vegetable crops and the procedures to be followed for shipment to the U.S. market.

Before this protocol was approved, there was a total prohibition regarding exportation of sweet bell pepper to the United States, and Costa Rica could only export green tomatoes to its largest trade partner. Now, thanks to the

work done by the Costa Rican government and the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspec-tion Service (APHIS) in identifying areas of low prevalence of the Mediterranean fruit fly (an important plant pest), Costa Rica man-aged to have the doors open to these prod-ucts and thus expand export opportunities for other tropical vegetables and fruits.

The first tomatoes to be exported under this new agreement will come from small farms in the Zarcero area northwest of San Jose. Producers there grow the tomatoes in some 15 greenhouses, for a total area of 10.5 hectares.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s State Plant Health Service (SFE) has mapped areas of low fruit fly prevalence that are now certified

for production of exportable fresh tomatoes and peppers. They include regions such as Alfaro Ruiz in Alajuela province (which in-cludes Zarcero); the higher lands of Cartago province (between Santa Cruz, Llano Grande and Tres Equis in Turrialba); some parts of the Coris Valley; and the region of Pilas de Canjel, in Nandayure, Guanacaste.

Despite the current agreement, if just one Mediterranean fruit fly is detected on traps at a production site or during the shipping pro-cess, the farm or farms in question would lose their right to export tomatoes and peppers to the United States until SFE and APHIS in-vestigate the case.

The new protocol establishes the responsi-bilities of producers, exporters, packers and institutions involved in the program, as well as procedures for each stage of production — harvest, packing, inspection, plant health certification, detection trapping, and correc-tive actions.

Growers and exporters are charged with carrying out the necessary actions to keep greenhouses free of important quarantine pests. These actions include good agricultural practices for pest control in greenhouses and elimination of infected plants, overripe fruit, or fruit otherwise not acceptable for export.

SFE and APHIS will approve the specific production sites that will be able to send fresh tomatoes and peppers to the United States. They will also visit and inspect production sites every month, beginning two months prior to harvest time and continuing until the end of the shipping season; they will certify all shipments of tomato and pepper during the harvest and until the shipment season is over.

Approved production sites will be green-houses that don’t allow the entrance of pests. Registered sites will conduct a detection trapping program within the greenhouse and within 500 meters around the greenhouse, whose goal is to detect any fruit fly present in the area.

CostaRicawillbeabletoexportfreshtomatoes,peppers to the U.S.

Now, Costa Rican ripe tomatoes will be enjoyed by American customers. Photo courtesy of MAG.

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 200912 SocieTy

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – The National Roadways Council (CONAVI) began last Jan. 30 the process of receiving bids from companies interested in repairing and expanding the section of the Pan Ameri-can Highway North between the cities of Ca-ñas and Liberia.

On the following day, the government’s official daily, La Gaceta, published the call for bids from companies interested in the project. These companies have until March 3 to present their proposals to CONAVI.

The project will entail reconstruction and widening of 54 kilometers between the cities of Cañas and Liberia, also including side-walks and bike paths. The road expansion will first target this section of the highway — on which 3,000-4,000 vehicles circulate daily — because no expropriation will be needed to accommodate the additional lanes (which could cause delays), as that land is al-ready owned by the government. The project will also include nine pedestrian bridges, bus bays and 30 kilometers of bike paths with guardrails.

Bike paths are an important part of road expansion projects scheduled for Guana-caste. In addition to the Liberia-Cañas sec-tion, plans also call for building a bike path between 27 de Abril and Rio Seco in Santa Cruz (alongside a new highway to be built

there) and another one between the beaches of Junquillal and Avellanas. These works in-clude constructions of the bike paths, side-walks, guardrails and pedestrian bridges.

The highway section from Liberia to Pe-ñas Blancas will be expanded during a sec-ond phase of this project.

The Ministry of Transportation and Pub-

lic Infrastructure (MOPT) will be soliciting proposals for building these roads both with asphalt and cement, later selecting the pro-posal that offers the best cost advantages in the long term.

Regarding financing, MOPT informed funds will come from the Central Ameri-can Economic Integration Bank (BCIE). The works will have an estimated total cost of $150 million. The project will also be fi-nanced in part through an $850 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

If no delays arise, it is expected that the project will be assigned to the winning bid-der during the second semester of 2008, with construction lasting one year. The need for this expansion comes from the increase in vehicular traffic that has been experienced on this highway, due to higher domestic and international tourism activity in Guanacaste.

The road expansion will be complemented by works on three bridges in Guanacaste, which will be repaired. These are the Aban-gares, Aranjuez and Azufrado bridges.

Repairs to these important bridges are part of the bridge maintenance program going on in Guanacaste. During the third quarter of 2008, some $65 million were invested in bridges around the country, part of which went to Guanacaste.

BidsstarttocomeinforCañas-Liberiahighwayproject

If no delays arise, the Cañas-Liberia section of the Pan American Highway will begin to be expanded by the middle of this year. Other related works include construction of a bike trail to 27 de Abril.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – For the first time, the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has designated a country as a BioGem, Costa Rica, as a rec-ognition of its efforts to become the world’s first carbon-neutral nation.

“These BioGems are some of the last wild and unspoiled places left in the West-ern Hemisphere,” said Robert Kennedy, Jr., senior attorney at NRDC. “By naming these places as BioGems, NRDC is empowering hundreds of thousands of concerned indi-viduals to take effective action to save these natural treasures for generations to come.”

Since 2001, NRDC has campaigned to save more than 30 special natural places that offer sanctuary for endangered wildlife, curb global warming and provide livelihoods for local communities. NRDC redesigned its “Save BioGems” Web site with new features in order to more effectively mobilize online activists to protect these areas.

In Costa Rica, NRDC is working with the Energy and Environment Ministry to iden-tify measures to help the country meet its commitment of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral nation by 2021.

Additionally, NRDC also just signed an agreement with the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) on energy efficiency and re-newable energy projects. In partnership with

one of Latin America’s leading ecological fa-cilities — the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), lo-cated in Costa Rica — NRDC has launched a rainforest rejuvenation project to plant 30,000 trees to restore a natural rainforest. These actions will help Costa Rica reaffirm its position as a global environmental leader and reduce pressure on its biodiversity and other natural areas.

In addition to Costa Rica, other BioGems added to the list include the Carrizo Plain National Monument in central California and the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Alberta, Canada, which are in danger because of oil and gas exploration.

“We have a new opportunity under the Obama administration to protect and save a number of our BioGems,” said Jacob Scherr, co-director of NRDC’s BioGems Initiative. “Places like the Tongass National Forest, Utah’s Redrock Wilderness, and wildlife like the polar bear remain in danger after eight years of reckless policies.”

For more information, go to www.Save-BioGems.org.

Costa Rica named first BioGemcountrybyNRDC

Costa Rica’s efforts to become the first carbon-neutral country has been recognized by the international conservation community. Photo courtesy of ICE.

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – The 2009 Liberia Civic Festival will of-fer a wide array of activities, beginning on Thursday, Feb. 12 at 5 a.m. with the tradi-tional bombas, or improvised popular poems. Events will go on until Sunday, Feb. 22.

The first day of the festivities, at 7 p.m., the festival’s queen will be crowned, with the coronation ball following at 8 p.m. at the Ma-rio Cañas Ruiz Park featuring the Cédula 5 Band in a show called “A Big Party Night.”

Other cultural activities include presenta-tions by the Sergio Garrido Musical Group and Pastel de Gente, in addition to a tradi-tional parade, horsemen parade (with a spe-

cial parade for young riders).Other traditional activities include a pasa-

calles (parade) with cimarrona band and mas-querade, which is a way the Liberia Festival seeks to offer fun for the whole family — in-tegrating entertainment, music, folklore, and recovery of Guanacaste traditions.

Theater will also be part of the festivities, with the play “Chico Loco” and the second part of comedian Marcia Saborio’s popular show.

Wednesday the 18th will be a great day for music lovers, as there will be a dance at 8 p.m. featuring Victor Kapusta of the band

Abracadabra and the group Gaviota. The following day, at the same time, there will be a dance with Via Libre band. On Friday the 20th, the special guest will be Los Hic-sos group, and Saturday the 12th will offer a concert with the Big Band Orchestra.

Every day of the festival, at 5 p.m., early birds will be able to enjoy the traditional di-anas, and every night there will be fireworks. Folkloric dance groups will showcase their talent every night of the festival, while Costa Rican-style bull fighting and bull riding fea-turing several cattle ranches from Guanacate will also be on tap. A bull parade will take place on Sunday the 22nd.

On the last day of the festival there will be a presentation by the Liberia National Band — plus an international concert by an artist yet to be announced. The traditional Paseo de la Burra will take place at 8 p.m.

Organizers are expecting large attendance this year, as the public comes out to en-joy this time of summer, beach and sun in Guanacaste.

The beginning of the year sees a number of celebrations in Guanacaste. The Coco Beach Festival was held Jan. 22-26, and Santa Cruz also organized festivities Jan. 17-25.

SocieTy / culTure

Costa Rican-style bull fighting and bull riding featuring several cattle ranches from Guanacate will also be on tap.

LiberiaCivicFestivalbeginsFeb.12

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – With the goal of eliminating as many of the breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry dengue fever as possible, more than 200 volunteers met last Feb. 8 in Sardinal and El Coco to go house by house and collect solid waste and also encourage neighbors to clean up their yards and other common areas — the most effective way to reduce the risk of contracting this viral disease. This initiative is promoting a new solid waste management culture in the country, implemented through local efforts.

Last weekend’s work resulted in 1,600 Guanacaste home being free of dengue. Addi-tionally, the initiative carried and educational and environmental message to people, invit-ing communities to reflect on issues such as consumption, waste management and citizen responsibility.

“Sweeps against Dengue” is a project sponsored by brewer Cerveceria Costa Rica as part of its social corporate responsibility program, in collaboration with Terra Nostra Association. The project’s goal is to help sig-nificantly reduce the number of dengue cases compared to previous years. The project also promotes citizen participation and responsi-bility related to adequate waste management. If every citizen commits to being responsible for cleaning up his or her house and sur-rounding areas, the project’s rational goes, the impact of this potentially fatal disease

could be substantially reduced.Dengue-carrying mosquitoes often breed

in discarded objects that hold water for an extended period of time, including old tires and cans.

The year’s first “sweep” in the Guanacaste region had as its operations centers the Ber-nardo Gutierrez School in Sardinal and the Central School in El Coco.

In Sardinal, all communities in the central town area were visited and cleaned, while in El Coco the barrios targeted were El Jobo, San Martin, La Aurora, Los Canales and La Segovia — in addition to some sectors near the beach and the downtown area.

The cleaning campaign helped collect all sorts of residues: plastics, glass, aluminum, tires, oil drums and other materials such as sections of roof gutters, all of which could serve and mosquito breeding grounds.

Participants in these community sweeps are all volunteers, while some state institutions also provide support, including the Ministry of Health and the Costa Rican Social Secu-rity System (CCSS). Locally, organizations and businesses that collaborated include the Municipality of Carrillo, Supermercado Lu-peron, the Coco Beach Community Develop-ment Association, the Carrillo and Sardinal health boards, the Sardinal Health Commit-tee, COOMUREC R.L., the ADEP retired teachers association, the youth committee of

the Red Cross, Holcim, RITEVE and Punto Rojo.

The El Coco and Sardinal sweep was the

first of 15 that will take place this year in dif-ferent communities throughout the country which in the 2007-2008 period reported the most dengue cases.

Dengue ‘sweeps’ begin in Sardinal and El Coco

The Liberia Civic Festival this year will feature a number of folkloric groups. Photo courtesy of Vera Beatriz León.

The entire community supports the clean-up campaigns against dengue in Guanacaste. Photo courtesy of Fundación Terra Nostra.

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15%off Politicssudan calls costa Rica ‘banana

republic’(Inside Costa Rica) — Sudan’s U.N. en-

voy last week blasted Costa Rica as a “ba-nana republic” after its ambassador said there was no justification for suspending any war crimes indictment of the Sudanese presi-dent over Darfur. “The issue here is bigger than the small minds ... of some ambassador who talked with you just some minutes ago,” Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Ab-dalhaleem told reporters after a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sudan. He said the Costa Rican envoy was trying “to inflame and inflict damage” on the stalled Darfur peace process. Speaking afterward to Reu-ters about Costa Rica, Abdalhaleem said, “It is a banana republic.” His Costa Rican coun-terpart, Jorge Urbina, who is in his second year as an elected member of the 15-nation council, told reporters he saw no justification for Security Council intervention to suspend any indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for suspected war crimes in Darfur. The chief prosecutor at the Inter-national Criminal Court in The Hague, Luis Moreno Ocampo, asked the court’s judges last year to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir on suspicion of orchestrating a campaign of genocide in Darfur. Urbina said the idea that peace and justice might be incompatible was “absolutely false.” He compared the discus-sion of Bashir and Darfur to the war in the former Yugoslavia when some argued against indicting suspected war criminals.

legislators call for firing of housing Minister following lavish

lunch(Inside Costa Rica) — Legislators of the

opposition Citizen Action (PAC) and Liber-tarian Movement political parties are calling for more heads to roll following an exces-sively expensive lunch by the head of the Home Mortgage Bank (Banhvi), Ennio Ro-driguez, who has since resigned. Last week, a group of Banhvi officials, including Hous-ing Minister Clara Zomer, attended a lunch at a high-end Escazu restaurant at a cost of well over $1,000, in times when the country faces a financial crisis. Members of both political parties are calling on Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to fire Minister Zomer, who is also the head of the Banhvi board of direc-tors. Legislators said Arias is contradicting himself, as only last week he announced a plan to head off the financial crisis, while al-lowing his minister to continue in such lavish behavior.

business & econoMytrade groups urge banks to

reactivate credit(La Nacion) — Foreign Trade Minister

Marco Vinicio Ruiz urged state banks to begin lending to the export sector again, now that these financial institutions have been capital-ized by the central Treasury. “We have state banks that have resources. I agree with them checking (the credit-worthiness) of their cli-ents, but they need to do it fast so exporters get their loans,” Ruiz said. Meanwhile, the manager of the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER), Emmanuel Hess, asked banks to lend to small and medium businesses, so that this sector can take care of its operations and is able to sell to countries other than the traditional U.S. market.

sylvania closing plant in costa Rica(Inside Costa Rica) — The Sylvania com-

pany announced last week that it would be closing its one of its two plants located in Pavas and laying off workers, although the exact number had yet to be announced. Os-car Vega, regional manager for the company, confirmed the closing of the plant that manu-factures consumer lighting products. The company said it will keep open only one of the two plants it operates in Costa Rica, the closure being a result of the slow down in the construction industry due to the world eco-nomic crisis and the demand for its products. The Sylvania plant in Costa Rica exports products to both North America and Europe.

nacional and Popular banks have lower interest rates

(Inside Costa Rica) — Both the Banco Nacional (BN) and the Banco Popular, fol-lowing the lead of the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) last week, announced a drop of 2 percentage points in their interest rates. The move is in line with the call by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias the previous week as part of his “Shield Plan” to confront the cur-rent economic crisis. The rate drop will be effective as of Feb. 15 at Nacional and as of March at Popular. Both state banks said the lower rate will be held for the next 24 months.

January had lowest inflation in 10 years

(Inside Costa Rica) — The National Cen-sus and Statistics Institute (INEC) reported that last month saw the lowest inflation rate in the past decade. INEC reported that the

cost of goods and services increased only 0.38 percent in January. The inflation rate in January 2008 was almost double, at 0.76 per-cent. INEC officials warned that although the inflation rate was low last month, the annual inflation between February 2008 and March 2009 is expected to be 13.5 percent. The items that contributed the most to the rise in the cost of living last month were electricity, education, potatoes, dentistry and domestic help. On the other hand, items like gasoline and house rent dropped.

ice soon to have competition in telecom business

(Inside Costa Rica) — The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the state insti-tution that has held the monopoly on en-ergy and telecommunications for the last 80 years, will soon have competition. Last week, WorldCom was the first to apply to the Telecommunications Superintendent’s Office (SUTEL) to operate as a telecom in Costa Rica. More telecom operators are ex-pected to apply for operations in Costa Rica now that the SUTEL has been formed and the market liberalized. WorldCom has been in Costa Rica since 1993, focusing mainly in the leasing of satellite communications services. Currently ICE is the only telecom operator in the country, providing both fixed and cellular phone service, as well as Internet connections. Private operators are expected to focus on the cellular, international calling and Internet markets.

domino’s Pizza closes its doors in costa Rica

(Inside Costa Rica) — Without notice to employees and customers, the Mexican own-ers of the Domino’s Pizza franchise in Costa Rica decided to pull up stakes and close its nine stores, leaving its 130 workers unem-ployed. The order from the head office in San Francisco de Dos Rios, San Jose, went out that all stores be closed, all equipment and inventory be pulled, without any explanation as to why. Employees told the press that the move (closing) was surprising, though not totally unexpected, as the pizza chain had been losing money, estimated at $2 million by the employees. All the Domino’s Pizza stores in Costa Rica were located in the San Jose metropolitan area.

societystrong winds caused destruction,

power outages(La Prensa Libre) — A large part of Costa

Rica suffered due to strong wind gusts result-ing from a cold front that also caused flooding in the Caribbean and other low-lying areas. The wind left entire towns without electricity or drinking water, as well as other services such as cable TV and Internet. Wind gusts reached 90 kilometers (57 miles) per hour in the canton of Liberia, where trees, utility poles and billboards fell to the ground dur-ing several days last week. Drizzle and un-seasonably colder temperatures accompanies lesser winds in the Central Valley, but util-ity companies were busy restoring services to many citizens. The winds also destroyed crops, including mangos and avocados.

un court to hear arguments in costa Rica-nicaragua spat

(Inside Costa Rica) — The U.N.’s highest court said last week it would hear arguments next month in a long-running spat between Costa Rica and Nicaragua over navigation rights in the San Juan River. “The Interna-tional Court of Justice...will hold public hearings in the case from Monday, March 2 to Thursday, March 12, 2009,” the tribu-nal, based in The Hague, said in a statement. Costa Rica filed suit against its neighbor in September 2005, claiming unfair restrictions on navigation in Nicaragua’s San Juan River. It argued that this violated an 1858 treaty. The row broke out in 1998, when then-Ni-caraguan president Arnoldo Aleman banned armed Costa Rican police patrol boats from the river. In its application to the court, Costa Rica said it “seeks the cessation of Nicara-guan conduct which prevents the free and full exercise and enjoyment of the rights that Costa Rica possesses on the San Juan River, and which also prevents Costa Rica from ful-filling its responsibilities under certain agree-ments between itself and Nicaragua.” The ICJ is the U.N.’s highest court, mandated to try disputes between states.

environmentalists try ‘greening’ central American sugar

(Reuters) — Environmental groups are working to set up labeling programs to cer-tify green-friendly sugar in Central America in a bid to cut the pollution caused by this major cash crop. Building on the success of certified coffee, bananas and other products, backers of certified sugar believe it will com-mand higher prices from green-conscious consumers, offsetting higher production and shipping costs and possibly boosting earn-ings for farmers. The common practice of burning cane fields before the harvest is the main target of environmentalists. “The burn-ing has to stop. It is an untenable practice,” Chris Willie of the Rainforest Alliance in Costa Rica told Reuters last week.

The Alliance is one of three nonprofit groups seeking to reduce cane-field burning by setting up a certified green sugar program, but farmers and laborers are reluctant to abandon the practice. Cane growers deliber-ately set the fires to burn off the sugarcane’s razor-sharp leaves that can slice through clothes and skin, before rural laborers enter the fields to cut down stalks with machetes. Mechanizing sugar plantations would elimi-nate the need for the practice but at the cost of depriving thousands of rural workers of their livelihood. “We know there are practical rea-sons for the burning and social repercussions when harvest machines replace workers. We need to fix one problem without creat-ing another,” Willie said. However, growers are doubtful whether there is a market niche for certified sugar like those carved out by organic or environmentally-friendly coffee, chocolate and fruits, said Byron Meneses, who manages environmental policy for the Guatemalan sugar association.

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WASHINGTON (AFP) – Early whales gave birth – and probably rested and mated – on land, according to a study published last week that examined 47.5 million-year-old fossils discovered in Pakistan.

The “stunning discovery” reinforces the belief that modern sea-dwelling mammals originated from terrestrial ancestors, said H. Richard Lane, director of the National Sci-ence Foundation’s paleontology program, which funded the research.

The team that discovered the Pakistan fos-sils in 2000 and 2004 were initially baffled when they found whale skeletons so close to-gether, said team leader Philip Gingerich of

the University of Michigan.“When we first saw the small teeth, we

thought we were dealing with a small adult whale, but then we continued to expose the specimen and found ribs that seemed too large to go with those teeth,” he said.

“By the end of the day, we realized we had found a female whale with a fetus.”

The fetus was positioned for head-first de-livery, like land mammals but unlike modern whales, according to the study, published in the online journal PLoS.

The positioning indicated the whales still gave birth on land, said Gingerich.

Other clues – such as the whales’ big teeth that would have been well-suited to catch and eat fish – suggested to researchers that the mammals lived most of their time in the sea, but came on land to rest, mate and give birth.

The primitive whale couldn’t travel far on land, although “they could support their weight on their flipper-like limbs,” said the study’s authors.

“They clearly were tied to the shore,” ac-cording to Gingerich. “They were living at the land-sea interface and going back and forth.”

The discovery gives unparalleled insight

into how the early whale gave birth and how it transitioned from land to sea, according to the researchers.

The fossils’ species “occupies an interme-diate position on the evolutionary path that whales traversed as they made the transition from full-time land dwellers to dedicated denizens of the deep,” the authors said in a statement.

“Specimens this complete are virtual ‘Ro-setta stones,’” Gingerich said. They provide “insight into the life history of extinct ani-mals that cannot be gained any other way.”

LONG BEACH (AFP) – U.S. university researchers have created a portable “sixth sense” device powered by commercial prod-ucts that can seamlessly channel Internet in-formation into daily routines.

The device created by Massachusetts Insti-tute of Technology (MIT) scientists can turn any surface into a touch-screen for comput-ing, controlled by simple hand gestures.

The gadget can even take photographs if a user frames a scene with his or her hands, or project a watch face with the proper time on a wrist if the user makes a circle there with a finger.

The MIT wizards cobbled a Web camera, a battery-powered projector and a mobile telephone into a gizmo that can be worn like

jewelry. Signals from the camera and projec-tor are relayed to smart phones with Internet connections.

“Other than letting some of you live out your fantasy of looking as cool as Tom Cruise in ‘Minority Report’ it can really let you con-nect as a sixth sense device with whatever is in front of you,” said MIT researcher Patty Maes.

Maes used a Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference stage in Southern Cali-fornia on Wednesday to unveil the futuristic gadget made from store-bought components costing about 300 dollars (US).

The device can recognize items on store shelves, retrieving and projecting informa-tion about products or even providing quick

signals to let users know which choices suit their tastes.

The gadget can look at an airplane ticket and let the user know whether the flight is on time, or recognize books in a book store and then project reviews or author information from the Internet onto blank pages.

The gizmo can recognize articles in news-papers, retrieve the latest related stories or video from the Internet and play them on pages.

“You can use any surface, including your hand if nothing else is available, and interact with the data,” Maes said.

“It is very much a work in progress. Maybe in ten years we will be here with the ultimate sixth-sense brain implant.”

Earlywhalesgavebirthonland

MIT researchers make ‘sixth sense’ gadget

The device created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists can turn any surface into a touch-screen for computing, controlled by simple hand gestures.

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MOSCOW (AFP) – Prime Minister Vladi-mir Putin bluntly told the European Union to investigate rights abuses in Europe after its chief expressed alarm over the killing of journalists and activists in Russia.

At a news conference following talks with Putin aimed at restoring already frayed ties between the two sides, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Europe-ans were concerned by recent murders.

“In the public opinion there is some con-cern regarding some recent events that hap-pened in Russia,” Barroso said. “Namely the murder of some journalists and some rights activists.”

In typically defiant style, Putin said that while Russian rights issues had to be dis-cussed, Europe needed to be looking at violations on its own territory such as the problems of Russian minorities in the Baltic states.

“Russia is prepared to discuss any issue and any problem, including the entire set of problems related to the rule of law and free-dom,” he said at a joint news conference with Barroso.

But Putin added: “We are not satisfied

with the way the situation of Russian-speak-ing minorities in the Baltic states is being handled.

“We know about the rights of migrants in the countries of Europe and how they are vi-olated. We know about the situation in some prison systems of separate European govern-ments. And we also have these problems.

“We need to discuss the full range of prob-lems – both in Russia and in Europe – in or-der to be able to solve them.”

Last month prominent Russian rights law-yer Stanislav Markelov, 34, and 25-year-old reporter Anastasiya Baburova were gunned down in central Moscow in broad daylight after leaving a news conference.

Another Russian journalist, Mikhail Beke-tov, was left in a coma after being savagely beaten outside his home in a Moscow suburb in November.

In the latest incident targeting reporters, unknown assailants lodged an axe in the doorway of Alexei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of independent radio station Echo of Moscow, local media reported.

Showing his trademark confidence, Putin brought up the issue of rights himself, noting

he had heard Barroso had raised it earlier in the day in talks with President Dmitry Med-vedev.

The visit was aimed at mending ties with Russia battered by the January cut in Russian gas supplies, which sparked Europe’s worst energy crisis of modern times.

The visit “is a good demonstration of the wide scope of our relations and the many is-sues we need to discuss so we can deepen our relations,” Barroso said after talks with Medvedev.

In the midst of a freezing January several EU states were deprived of Russian gas sup-plies for two weeks as the bloc was caught up in a venomous row between Russia and Ukraine over gas prices.

Russia blamed Ukraine for triggering the crisis but EU officials repeatedly expressed exasperation it had taken Moscow so long to restore supplies.

Medvedev told Barroso in the talks that it was vital to resolve questions of energy se-curity although he again placed all the blame for the crisis on Ukraine.

“The question of energy security is very important. The last gas crisis showed that all

is not well in this area. The situation is very vulnerable,” he said.

Putin said he had asked the European Union to keep its observers on the ground monitoring its gas conflict with Ukraine until the end of the first quarter.

But he complained that Ukraine had not allowed Russian observers to the “central control rooms or the underground gas stor-age tanks”.

Russia’s relationship with the European Union had already been severely soured by the war with Georgia in August and Mos-cow’s subsequent recognition of two Geor-gian breakaway regions as independent.

The EU brokered a ceasefire between the two sides but waited impatiently for Mos-cow to withdraw its troops from deep inside Georgia.

Barroso has brought with him to Moscow four EU Commission vice presidents and five commissioners, including Energy Com-missioner Andris Piebalgs.

The last full-scale meeting between the EU’s executive arm and Russian leaders dates back to 2005.

MUNICH (AFP) – President Nicolas Sarkozy took a new step toward France’s full return to the NATO military alliance, while strengthening military cooperation with Ger-many.

In an effort to prepare for France’s rein-tegration into NATO’s military structures, Sarkozy said that the “time was coming” to explain to the French public the importance of Paris’s links with the United States.

“The alliance with the United States and the alliance with Europe does not compro-mise the independence of my country,” he said, at an international security conference in Munich, southern Germany.

However he did set one “condition” in that “France wants to renew its relationship with NATO while remaining an independent ally, a free partner of the United States.”

Paris, he underlined, would retain its nu-clear deterrent.

France is rumored to be ready to announce its intention to return fully into NATO at its 60th anniversary summit in April, but it has made the move conditional on Europe’s de-fense capacities being strengthened.

“You can be sure that by the month of

April we will try to realize the great ambition for this family that we are part of,” Sarkozy said. The summit will be held in the French city of Strasbourg and Kehl, in neighboring Germany.

France was a founding member of NATO, but then-president Charles de Gaulle pulled out of the alliance’s integrated military com-mand in 1966, determined to keep French nuclear independence.

The split developed over many years, as successive French governments became in-creasingly dissatisfied with what they per-ceived as Anglo-American domination of the command structure and insufficient French influence.

US Vice President Joe Biden, who also took part in the conference here, said Satur-day that Washington backs France’s intention to return fully to the fold.

Indeed, the United States has agreed to al-low French generals to be given command of two major NATO structures if Paris decides to reintegrate.

However the other allies must agree on the plan, which would see France take over NATO’s Allied Command Transformation in

Norfolk, Virginia, and a regional command headquarters in Lisbon.

France, which remains an important mem-ber of NATO and is a major contributor to its missions, has recently sought to ensure that Europe can stand alone militarily if it must.

In a sign that Europe’s defense pole was

being strengthened, Sarkozy welcomed the imminent deployment of German troops on French soil, describing the move as a “his-toric act.”

France “would be happy to host on its ter-ritory” a German battalion for the first time since invading German forces were forced out at the end of World War II, he said in Munich.

French Defence Minister Herve Morin said it would involve some 600 soldiers and that they would be based at Illkirch, near Strasbourg in northeast France.

“It will have reconnaissance and infantry companies and have a headquarters, corre-sponding to a force of 600 to 700 troops,” Morin told AFP on the sidelines of the con-ference.

The Franco-German brigade was set up in 1989 and currently has 2,300 French soldiers and 2,800 German forces stationed side-by-side in southwest Germany.

German troops occupied much of France during World War II, and the eastern Alsace-Lorraine region where Illkirch is located has a patchwork history of annexation and occu-pation under both countries.

FrancemovestowardNATOreturn,instepwithGermany

EU,Russiapointfingersoverrightsabuses

French Defence Minister Herve Morin arrives on the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle in the Mediteranean. After a technical problem for 15 months, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carriers are starting to be used again for training. Morin vows a more balanced relationship between Europe and the United States within Nato. AFP / JOEL SAGET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Spending va-cations at the beach during childhood may increase the risk of the deadly skin cancer melanoma later in life, according to a new study.

Researchers examined 681 white children born in 1998 who were lifetime residents of Colorado and conducted exams on the children when they were seven years old to identify nevi – commonly known of moles – which are a risk factor for developing mela-noma.

The study found that each vacation at the shore one or more years prior to the exam was linked to a five percent increase in nevi that were less than two millimeters (.08 inch-es) large.

“Parents of young children need to be cau-tious about taking their kids on vacations that are going to be sun-intensive at waterside lo-cations, where people are outside for whole days at a time in skin-exposing swimsuits,” said Lori Crane, chair of the Department of Community and Behavioral Health at the Colorado School of Public Health.

“We recommend that, for young children, parents keep the kids involved in indoor ac-

tivities from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm to decrease risk, or if they are to be outside, that they wear shirts with sleeves.”

Crane, the study’s lead author, said par-ents often mistakenly believe that sunscreen prevents skin cancer risks. But children often stay out in the sun longer, which increases their risk, she added.

“Daily sun exposure at home did not seem to be related to the number of moles, while waterside vacations were. Vacations may impart some unique risk for melanoma,” she said.

The researchers found that young boys were 19 percent more likely to develop nevi than young girls, which Crane said “may be due to an increased likelihood among boys to want to stay outdoors.”

Income was also observed to be a factor, with higher income families more at risk of developing nevi because they were more likely to take vacations at the shore.

More than 62,000 Americans are diag-nosed with melanoma every year and more than 8,000 die, the study said.

PARIS (AFP) – The use of fertility drugs does not increase a woman’s risk of devel-oping ovarian cancer, the largest study of its kind reported.

For decades doubt has persisted as to whether drugs commonly used to increase a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant also boosted her susceptibility to cancer.

A pair of studies in the mid-1990s sug-gested a link, causing anxiety among women seeking to enhance their fertility.

But the number of women included in each clinical trial was small and subsequent studies failed to show a risk factor.

Most ovarian cancers are thought to arise from a layer of epithelial cells surrounding the ovary. Researchers had speculated that the natural cycle of damage and repair that occurred during ovulation could harm DNA and lead to cancer.

Stimulating over-ovulation through fertil-ity drugs, it was thought, might increase the risk.

In the new study, researchers at the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen, led by Al-lan Jensen, evaluated the medical records of 52,362 women with infertility problems re-ferred to Danish clinics from 1963 to 1998.

It found that none of four groups of fer-tility drugs in use over recent decades were associated with an increase cancer risk, even in women who had undergone 10 or more cycles of treatment.

The drugs covered by the study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), were gonadotrophins, clomifenes, human chorion-ic gonadotrophin and gonadotrophin releas-ing hormone.

The results were given added weight by

the fact that 156 women with ovarian can-cer were included, more than three times as many as had been evaluated in any previous study.

“These data are reassuring and provide further evidence that fertility drugs do not increase a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer to any great extent,” noted Penelope Webb, a researcher at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

“Given the increasing number of women seeking fertility treatment, this is important in-formation for clinicians and their patients,” she wrote in a commentary, also in the BMJ.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Wrinkles are not due to genetics alone but also to stress-ful environmental factors, such as a divorce, abnormal weight loss and use of antidepres-sants, according to a study published last week.

“A person’s heritage may initially dictate how they age – but if you introduce certain factors into your life, you will certainly age faster. Likewise, if you avoid those factors, you can slow down the hands of time,” said study author Bahaman Guyuron, an Ameri-can Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) member.

Researchers examined 186 pairs of identi-cal twins because “they are genetically pro-grammed to age exactly the same,” explained Guyuron, professor and chairman of the de-partment of plastic surgery at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center, in Cleve-land, Ohio.

The study found that twins who had been divorced looked nearly two years older than their identical siblings who were married, widowed or single. Researchers found that antidepressant use and weight gain were also factors in perceived age difference.

In sets of twins younger than 40, the heavier twin seemed older, while in sets of twins more than 40 years old, the heavier

twin seemed younger.“The presence of stress could be one of the

common denominators in those twins who appeared older,” said Guyuron.

Continued relaxation of the facial muscles due to antidepressant use could explain sag-ging, and losing abnormal amounts of weight has harmful effects on health and appearance, the researchers found.

The study was published in the web-based version of “Plastic and Reconstructive Sur-gery,” the ASPS medical journal.

GENEVA (AFP) – The World Bank and World Health Organization warned donors and developing countries that cuts in health spending in the financial crisis could cost lives and roll back progress on healthcare.

“This financial crisis could unravel many of the hard-fought gains in health over previ-ous decades unless we all hold the line on the flow of development aid and health spend-ing,” said Joy Phumaphi, World Bank Vice President for Human Development.

Phumaphi, who is also Botswana’s for-mer health minister, warned that cutbacks in health could lead to “lost lives and lost years in health” since it could take up to 10 years for health services to recover.

Phumaphi was speaking at a meeting or-ganized by the International Health Partner-ship which brought together health ministers, health practitioners and NGOs.

The partnership was launched in 2007 by the World Bank and WHO, aimed at speed-ing up the implementation of health systems in the partner countries.

Some 24 countries are now part of the initiative, including Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda.

“We urge our development partners to work with us to find ways to maintain and scale up support in these difficult econom-ic times,” said Ethiopian Health Minister Tedros Ghebreyesus.

Britain and Norway said they remained committed to development aid.

Britain said it was targeting spending on 0.7 percent of its gross national income on development aid by 2013, while Norway said it would maintain one percent of its gross na-tional income on development aid.

Fertility drugs do not boost ovariancancerrisk

The use of fertility drugs does not increase a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer. Photo: www.sxc.hu

Stress, not just genetics add yearstoface

A person’s heritage may initially dictate how they age – but if you introduce certain factors into your life, you will certainly age faster. Photo www.sxc.hu

Beachvacationsmayincreasekids’ cancer risk

WHO, World Bank warn against health spending cuts

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 200920 Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 2009 21aMericaSgloBal aFFairS

Protection and freshness

the whole dayDEXIPIES products are formulated under strictly supervised processes, with ingredients of the highest quality, by Laboratorios MELS-FAC S.A., Costa Rica. Phone: (506) 2215-2424. Fax: (506) 2215-2727. Sold at pharmacies throughout the country.

BRASILIA (AFP) – Brazil, one of the world’s main emerging economies, has started 2009 as a giant badly battered by the global financial crisis despite deep-pocketed moves by the government to stave off the turbulence.

In just a few months, the real, the national currency, as well as exports and industrial activity have all abruptly plummeted, con-sumption has declined, and unemployment has crept up.

Between September and November 2008, the country used 46 billion dollars to shore up the real, and in January it injected another 42 billion dollars in its development bank.

Last week, the government announced it was increasing its Accelerated Growth Pro-gram, a longstanding plan to invest in infra-structure, by 62 billion dollars over the next two years, to a total 280 billion dollars.

Last Thursday, the central bank also said it was making up to 36 billion dollars of its foreign reserves available for Brazilian com-panies with overseas debt to make end-of-year payments. The measure would benefit around 4,000 firms. The bank has 200 billion dollars in foreign reserves.

The efforts to bring back liquidity to the

market, and counter an outflow of foreign capital, may have blunted some of the effects of the crisis, but Brazil is still suffering.

In December, industrial production fell 12.4 percent compared to the previous month – the worst level in 17 years. More than 650,000 jobs were lost.

Worsening matters, the trade balance in January closed with a 518-million-dollar def-icit – the first time imports have outstripped exports since March 2001.

Against that backdrop, the last weekly economists’ survey by the central bank showed the market expecting 2009 gross do-mestic product to shrink from the previous estimate of 2.0 percent to just 1.8 percent.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said last month: “We are going to have a worrying (first) quarter.”

This week, Economy Minister Guido Man-tega reaffirmed that, saying “the economy is going to enter a period of deceleration. But I don’t believe it will go into recession.”

Analysts say the most crippling factor weighing on Latin America’s biggest econo-my is the drastic reduction in credit since the last quarter of 2008.

Consumers who had been living a boom and relying on credit to finance car and house purchases suddenly reared back, sending consumption into a downward spiral.

The situation contrasted with much of 2008, when Brazil was busily investing and creating jobs to accommodate growing de-mand. Come September, the boom hit a brick wall.

In December, durable goods such as re-frigerators fell 42 percent month-on-month. Vehicle production slid 49 percent.

Several big companies, mainly automak-ers, put workers on forced vacation and cut salaries. A few, notably General Motors Bra-zil, have started sacking.

For Paulo Francini, head of the economics statistics section of the Sao Paulo Federation of Industries, “the crisis came late to Brazil, but it has clearly arrived.”

“The numbers show a strong readjustment of industrial production. There’s been a fall in demand and, following on, a necessary adjustment of reserves. This is leading to a reduction in employment,” he said.

He added that it was “difficult to make forecasts, because we don’t know the extent of the global crisis.”

WASHINGTON (AFP) – U.S. President Barack Obama should keep his eye on Ven-ezuela and its leftist allies, and nurture ties with close friends in Latin America includ-ing Mexico and Brazil, experts and lawmak-ers told.

“I hope we keep committed to focus on Venezuela,” said Connie Mack, Republican minority leader on the House of Represen-tatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that convened the hear-ing.

Venezuela under socialist President Hugo Chavez has been a thorn in Washington’s side since he was elected 10 years ago. Mack said the February 15 referendum that could allow Chavez unlimited reelection was an alarm signal the U.S. should take heed of.

Polling expert Sergio Bendixen told the hearing Venezuela had close links to other leftist regimes in the region including Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, which he called the “socialist group.”

“They are not friends, they have worked to diminish (US) power” in Latin America, he added.

Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush’s lack of attention to Latin America was partly blamed for the spread of Chavez’ influence in the region, and subcommittee chairman and Democrat Eliot Engel warned of fur-ther leftist encroachment unless U.S. policy changed.

“If we create a vacuum, others will rush in, like Iran or China,” he said.

George Washington University professor

Cynthia McClintock warned that Venezu-ela outspent the United States five to one in foreign aid in Latin America in the past few years.

The Obama administration was also ad-vised at the hearing to nurture its relations with its close Latin American allies includ-ing Mexico, Colombia and especially Brazil, one of the largest developing economies in the world.

“Cooperation with Brazil significantly ex-panded during the Bush administration. This relationship needs to be further deepened un-der President Obama,” said Engel.

Council of the Americas Vice President Eric Farnsworth also called on the White House to “place special emphasis on engag-ing more actively and creatively with Brazil

as an emerging global actor.”Engel said U.S. assistance to Mexico

should go beyond the 1.6-billion-dollar anti-drug program known as the Merida Initiative that was passed last year, and address one of the root causes of the spiraling violence af-fecting the U.S. neighbor.

“It also means stemming the flow of fire-arms into Mexico,” Engel said.

“Shockingly, 90 percent of the guns that are used in drug-related violence in Mexico originate in the U.S.,” he added.

“Mexico is facing an immediate crisis bat-tling drug traffickers and we cannot sit by,” Mack said, adding that the Obama adminis-tration should consider increasing aid to all its friends in the region, including Colombia and El Salvador.

Latin America’s biggest economy staggers under crisis

A man looks at shoes on sale in a shop in Rio de Janeiro during summer sales. Brazil, one of the world’s main emerging economies, has started 2009 as a giant badly battered by the global financial crisis despite deep-pocketed moves by the government to stave off the turbulence. In just a few months, the real, the national currency, as well as exports and industrial activity have all abruptly plummeted, consumption has declined, and unemployment has crept up. AFP /Antonio Scorza

ObamaurgedtofocusonLatinAmerica

WASHINGTON (AFP) – China wants United Sates help rather than complaints on climate change, and could be finding a recep-tive audience as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton readies to visit Beijing.

With international talks on global warming intensifying this year, China’s ambassador appealed to U.S. commercial self-interest to assist his government’s efforts to combat the problem.

Zhou Wenzhong said China must focus on industrial growth to lift millions of its citi-zens out of poverty but was not stinting in the global warming fight, outlining a national government plan on efficiency and renewab-le energy.

And he said China and the United States, the world’s two biggest polluters, could pro-fitably work together and set an example for the international community leading up to a December climate meeting in the Danish ca-pital Copenhagen.

“China and the United States have many shared interests and extensive areas for cooperation on energy and climate change,” he said at a Brookings Institution forum.

The United States should offer its “advan-ced technologies and a rich experience in energy efficiency and clean energy” to boost China’s own plan, the ambassador said.

“Cooperation between our two countries

on energy and environmental issues will enable China to respond to energy and cli-mate change issues more effectively while at the same time offering enormous busi-ness opportunities and considerable return to American investors.”

President Barack Obama has pledged to reverse the resistance of his predecessor Ge-orge W. Bush to action on climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks, designed to forge a successor to the Kyoto climate tre-aty.

Democrats who control the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have said they hope to have major legislation creating a “cap-and-trade” system for limiting “green-house gases” before the Copenhagen talks.

And they have said the paralyzing U.S. re-cession is no excuse for inaction – noting that Obama’s massive economic stimulus packa-ge contains ambitious steps to promote clean and renewable energy.

But Republicans have signaled they will not sign on to any system that imposes rest-rictions on the U.S. economy while letting developing competitors such as China and India off the hook.

U.S. officials will present their case in per-son when Clinton visits China on February 20-22 as part of her first overseas trip as sec-retary of state.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – The roll-out of stimulus packages and the clean-up of banks must be accelerated, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, urging ac-tion to avert “a repeat of the Great Depres-sion”.

IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said stimulus measures an-nounced so far were nearing the IMF’s goal of about 2.0 percent of global GDP.

“But the reason I’m worried is that imple-mentation takes time,” he said, citing delays in the United States caused by the political transition, and in Europe because of the EU’s political processes.

“On top of that I’m worried that all this will work if, and only if, the different coun-tries are likely to do what they have to do in terms of restructuring the banking sector,” he told a press conference.

Strauss-Kahn said there were still losses in the banking sector that remained undis-closed, and that until the balance sheets are cleaned up confidence in the financial mar-kets will not return.

“Loss of confidence is now the central problem. Governments and central banks should credibly commit to measures suffi-cient to eliminate the risk of a repeat of the Great Depression,” he said.

The IMF boss endorsed Washington’s stimulus package – which aims to pump at least 780 billion dollars into the ailing US economy – saying it was the “correct size” and mix.

But he added that it needed to be imple-mented at the same time as the restructuring of the banking sector.

Strauss-Kahn said the European Central Bank, which left interest rates unchanged this week, was more concerned about infla-tion than other parts of the world and there could be room for cutting interest rates.

However, measures such as cleaning-up banks could be a more effective tool for Eu-

rope than lower interest rates.

Strauss-Kahn said Asia could recover rap-idly next year once the rest of the world had emerged from recession.

But he said that while central banks in the region have cut interest rates aggressively and many countries have introduced fiscal stimulus measures, “there is still room for more”.

He said the IMF currently has enough re-sources to face the crisis, but that as problems deepen its needs “may double” and it might need more funds within six to eight months.

Strauss-Kahn played down the risk of bal-looning deficits as governments spend big to avert or alleviate recession, saying it was inevitable that most nations would incur an increase in public debt.

Of the risk of excess liquidity as interest rates tumble, he said today’s problems had to be addressed before tomorrow’s.

“When you have a fire in the house, you first need to put out the fire and then you see how you evacuate the excess water. So that’s exactly the situation we’re in,” he said.

IMF urges action on stimulus, bank clean-up

ChinapressesforU.S.helponclimatechangeClinton’s new special envoy for climate

change, Todd Stern, is to join her in Beijing, a State Department official told AFP, under-lining the Obama administration’s post-Bush determination to tackle the issue cooperati-vely.

“We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the prob-lem,” Stern told the New York Times.

Brookings experts Kenneth Lieberthal and David Sandalow presented a new report proposing incremental steps by the United States and China to cooperate between them-selves and so give a push to the Copenhagen process.

Among their recommendations was a cli-mate change summit by Obama and Chine-se President Hu Jintao, joint work on clean energy, and the promotion of burgeoning an-ti-warming initiatives by local governments in both nations.

“It’s clear that if the U.S. expects coopera-tion from China, the U.S. will have to lead,” Stuart Eizenstat, the lead U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto talks in the 1990s, told the think tank’s forum.

But he also stressed that without well-pub-licized initiatives on the Chinese side, inclu-ding a less hardline approach to the needs of developing nations, any successor treaty to Kyoto would be dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (R) and IMF Asia Pacific Director Anoop Singh (L) hold a joint press conference February 2, 2009 at the IMF Headquarters in Washington, DC. The management of the IMF discussed the effect in Asia from the global financial crisis. AFP

Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 200922 Edition 173 • Feb 10 - Feb 16, 2009 23enTerTainMenT SporTS

Each column, row and box must contain each number from 1 to 9. There is only one solution, wich is shown here.

NEW YORK (AFP) – Major League baseball star Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003 when he was voted the league’s most valuable player, according to a report on the website of Sports Illustrated magazine.

The report cited four anonymous sources who claim that New York Yankees infielder Rodriguez, known popularly as ‘A-Rod’, was among 104 players on a list who tested positive for performance-enhancing sub-stances in 2003.

At the time Rodriguez was voted the league’s MVP as a member of the Texas Rangers. The same year Rodriguez, an American whose parents were immigrants from the Dominican Republic, hit the most home runs in the American League.

The report claimed he tested positive for two anabolic steroids, including testosterone, but when asked last Thursday to respond to the claims at a gym in Miami, where he lives in the offseason, Rodriguez had no com-ment.

“You’ll have to talk to the union,” he told a reporter from Sports Illustrated.

The claims come at a testing time for the sport, which has been battling claims of drugs use by some it’s high profile stars in recent years.

Home run star Barry Bonds fell back under the doping spotlight earlier this week when a New York Times report said a urine sample that he provided as part of anonymous test-ing in 2003 has tested positive for banned substances.

Bonds had provided samples that did not test positive under Major League Baseball’s drug-testing program, but those samples were retested after they were seized in a 2004

raid, the newspaper reported.The new information could be a key fac-

tor in Bonds’ perjury trial, which is slated to begin March 2.

Baseball’s home run king, Bonds testi-fied to a federal grand jury in 2003 that he used substances known as the “cream” and the “clear” but did not know that they were performance-enhancing drugs. The urine samples could prove the existence of other steroids in his body.

During testimony, Bonds said he never took steroids. The government alleges that Bonds lied under oath.

COLORADO SPRINGS (AFP) – Record-breaking Olympic champion Michael Phelps has been suspended for three months by USA Swimming after a published photograph ap-peared to show him smoking marijuana.

The national governing body of the sport stressed that the punishment was not for a doping violation, but said they wanted to send a “strong message” to Phelps about his status as a role model for young people.

“USA Swimming has reprimanded Mi-chael Phelps under its Code of Conduct by withdrawing financial support and the eligibility to compete for a period of three months effective today, February 5,” said a statement.

“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swim-ming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero.

“Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust,” the statement added.

Phelps had been expected to return to com-petition for the first time since the Olympics at a USA Swimming Grand Prix meeting in Austin, Texas in early March.

Now he won’t be able to race until May. That would still allow him to compete at the US National Championships in Indianapolis in July, the qualifying meet for the World Championships in Rome July 18-August 2.

Any plans Phelps had for the post-Olym-

pic season were plunged into disarray when Britain’s News of the World published the photograph in which Phelps appeared to inhale from a glass pipe of the kind used to smoke marijuana.

The newspaper said the photo was taken at a university party in South Carolina in No-vember.

The 23-year-old swimmer, who electrified the Beijing Games in August when he won an unprecedented eight gold medals, told his hometown newspaper the Baltimore Sun on Wednesday that the incident showed “obvi-ously bad judgment and it’s something I’m not proud of at all.”

Phelps suffered more fall-out last Thurs-day, when U.S. food company Kellogg’s said it would not renew its endorsement deal with the Olympian when it expires at the end of the month.

“Michael’s most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg,” com-pany spokeswoman Susanne Norwitz said in a statement.

“Michael accepts these decisions and un-derstands their point of view,” a spokesman for Phelps’s agents Octagon said. “He feels bad he let anyone down.

“He’s also encouraged by the thousands of comments he’s received from his fans and the support from his many sponsors. He intends to work hard to regain everyone’s trust.”

Several other sponsors, including apparel manufacturer Speedo and watchmaker Ome-ga, have stood by Phelps.

Speedo was the company that forked over a one million-dollar bonus as Phelps sur-passed U.S. swimming icon Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record of seven gold medals at one Games in Beijing.

In Beijing Phelps set seven world records

en route to his eight gold medals. He took his total of Olympic titles to a record 14, includ-ing six from the 2004 Athens Games.

In the glow of that success Phelps said he would return for the 2012 Olympics in Lon-don, but he indicated to the Baltimore Sun that the bruising publicity he has received last week could prompt him to reconsider.

“This is a decision of mine that I’m not going to make today and I’m not going to make tomorrow,” Phelps told the newspaper, saying any move would include discussions with his longtime coach and mentor, Bob Bowman.

Since the photo was published, Phelps said he has come under intense scrutiny – of a far different sort than he received in the wake of his Olympic triumph.

“I’ve been waking up to guys yelling into megaphones outside my window at 7 o’clock in the morning,” Phelps said. “I’ve had pa-parazzi people following me from my house to my mom’s house. People knocking on the door.”

It’s not the first time Phelps has had to pol-ish his image. In 2004, after he won six gold medals and two bronze at the Athens Olym-pics, the 19-year-old Phelps pleaded guilty to drunken driving and received 18 months probation.

“I think this is like the DUI, in that it’s something I can talk more about and make sure that nobody makes the same mistakes I made,” Phelps told the newspaper. “What I’ve gone through in the last week, no one wants to go through.”

LONDON (AFP) – The World-Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has defended its new, random dope testing system which forces athletes to be more precise about their whereabouts, asking: “Do you want cheats or not?”

While elite athletes in many sports have complained about the need to tell testers where they are seven days a week for a whole hour every day, WADA are adamant that the inconvenience of a few can help the fight against cheating.

“We haven’t heard a suggestion of any-thing better,” WADA director general David Howman told BBC Sport.

“I think that’s a little bit over-emotional and I would hope people would address the situation in a sensible and calm fashion.

“This consultation took 18 months to two years before it was settled, so people had plenty of time to think of a better idea but we didn’t hear one.

“People who want cheating fall into one category and people who don’t are in anoth-er, and that’s the larger group.

“So you then say here is a process you have to go through, some will say ‘that’s a bit tough’. But then you are back to that basic question - do you want cheats or not?”

For a three-month period, athletes must basically inform their national doping au-thorities of the address they will be staying for a single hour every day. Previously, it had been for five days a week and not for an en-tire hour.

Three missed tests in an 18-month period

would likely result in a suspension.UK Sport, the national anti-doping organi-

zation, has supported the new rules.“While I do have some sympathy for the

fairly small number of athletes who are re-quired to meet these requirements, I would think that it’s a small price to pay for clean athletes to help us drive cheats out of sport,” said director of Drug-Free Sport Andy Par-kinson.

“Without it we might as well pack up, go home and let the cheats win.”

Top tennis players in particular, such as Rafael Nadal and Andy Murry, have been concerned about the nature of the new ‘whereabouts system’.

Several dozen Belgian athletes have taken recourse to the justice system and claim the new code in fact violates the European Union privacy laws.

Better communication on the matter might soften the blow for athletes, Howman add-ed.

“In the past these things have come up be-cause people get aggrieved when they don’t get the personal touch - somebody hasn’t come and talked to them personally or they haven’t had the situation explained to them by their personal federation.

“Once things settle down then you find that people say ‘well, we’re doing this to make sure there is integrity in our sport and people stay clean, and we accept the respon-sibility on our shoulders to make sure people comply’.”

USA Swimming suspends Phelps three months

USA Swimming suspended Olympic superstar Michael Phelps for three months, a “reprimand” after a published photograph showed him apparently smoking marijuana. The national governing body of the sport stressed that the punishment was not for a doping violation, but said they wanted to send a “strong message” to Phelps about his status as a role model for young people. AFP / MARTIN BUREAU

The report cited four anonymous sources who claim that New York Yankees infielder Rodriguez, known popularly as ‘A-Rod’, was among 104 players on a list who tested positive for performance-enhancing substances in 2003.

A-Rodtestedpositiveforsteroids,claims report

WADAdefendsnewcodesaying-“Do you want cheats or not?”

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Batman star Christian Bale apologized for his expletive-laden tantrum during filming of a new “Ter-minator” film, saying he was “out of order beyond belief.”

Bale’s meltdown became an Internet sen-sation last week after a recording of his rant at a cinematographer found its way on to the web.

The 35-year-old old British-born ac-tor called a Los Angeles morning show on KROQ radio to apologize for the outburst.

“It has been a miserable week for me,” Bale told the show’s hosts. “I know I have a potty mouth but I was way out of order.

“The thing that I want to stress is that I have no confusion whatsoever. I was out of order beyond belief. I acted like a punk.

“I regret that and there is nobody that has heard that tape that is hit harder by it than me. I make no excuses for it, it is inexcus-able, and I hope that is absolutely clear.”

Bale also said he hoped the fallout from his tirade would not deter people from watching “Terminator Salvation” when it hits screens later this year.

“I’m asking people, please do not allow my onetime lapse in judgment, my incred-ibly embarrassing meltdown, to overshadow this movie and to have all of those people’s hard work [from the film’s cast and crew] go to waste.”

In the audio clip of the incident, which took place on location in New Mexico last July, Bale can be heard lambasting cinema-tographer Shane Hurlbut for apparently wan-dering into the actor’s line of vision.

Bale repeatedly calls for Hurlbut to be

kicked off the set and threatens to tear down the cinematographer’s lighting rig.

Bale’s rant is the latest incident involving the actor, who is renowned for his fiercely committed approach to acting.

Bale was arrested in London last year for allegedly attacking his mother and sister. Po-lice later said the actor would face no charges because of insufficient evidence.

BERLIN (AFP) – British actress Kate Winslet said that she had banned magazines from her house and stopped reading reviews of her films after too many painful experi-ences with the media.

After her Holocaust drama “The Reader” screened at the Berlin Film Festival, Winslet told reporters that ignoring the press was es-sential to surviving the Hollywood fishbowl lifestyle.

“I don’t read anything – I don’t read re-views, I don’t read magazine articles, inter-views I have given, we don’t keep magazines in our house and that’s how I remain sane,” said Winslet, who is married to British direc-tor Sam Mendes.

“This is a great passion for me, acting. I absolutely love it and I love my job and in order for me to be able to do it with a full, open heart and a clear mind, I really can’t read about what other people are saying about me and that’s obviously how I operate in this business.”

Winslet was often savaged for her yo-yoing weight in the British press but has received glowing coverage of late due to a string of awards and nominations for her performances in “The Reader” and Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road” opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.

She said had no trouble doing the steamy nude sex scenes in “The Reader” with her teenage co-star, German actor David Kross.

“Quite a lot has been made of the love scenes and made of David’s age and he’s 18, he’s a young man, he’s extremely profession-

al and he’s absolutely brilliant in the film,” she said.

“For me, it was all about making sure Da-vid understood exactly what was going to be happening whilst we were shooting those scenes because I’ve been in the position that I think Daniel was in – really not knowing what it was going to be like, how many peo-ple would be in the room.

“But the truth is, at the end of the day, it is part of this job and it’s a very, very important part of this love story so we just got on with it really, and dare I say it, we actually kind of had a laugh.”

The Berlin Film Festival runs until Febru-ary 15.

Baleapologizesforon-setmeltdown

Winslet says magazines outlawed at her house

Winslet was often savaged for her yo-yoing weight in the British press but has received glowing coverage of late due to a string of awards and nominations for her performances in “The Reader” and Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road” opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 35-year-old old British-born actor called a Los Angeles morning show on KROQ radio to apologize for the outburst.

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