Vol. 3 • Edition 175 • Weekly • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 2009 • Costa Rica, Central America •

americas

global affairs

entertainment

sports

www.edica.co.crCERTIFICADA ISO 9001:2000

Scarlet macaw (Ara macao) and Buffon’s macaw (Ara ambigua) are the species of this type of bird that inhabit Costa Rica, and both are included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endan-gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), listed as species facing a serious threat of extinction.

Scarlet macaw populations in the country were origi-nally distributed along the Pacific coast, but due to frag-mentation of natural forests and illegal trade, currently this magnificent bird only survives in protected areas. Meanwhile, the Buffon’s macaw (also called great green macaw) inhabits the lower and humid sections of

the country’s Northern Zone, the Caribbean and south-ern Nicaragua. This species is seriously threatened due to the disappearance of natural forest, especially swamp almond trees, which are their main source of food and nesting sites.

There has been, however, an increase in the number of macaws recently seen. But that has been the result of programs for reproduction and release of captive birds, in which organizations such as Zoo Ave, the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Animals (CRAVE) and the LAPPA conservation association have been in-volved.

Even though these magnificent birds were close to disappearing from the country, now the population of macaws has rebounded thanks to preservation programs targeted at this endangered species. Photo by Sylvia Guardia M.

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Society P. 12

A high profile task force charged with overseeing reform of the trou-bled U.S. auto sector held its first meeting last Friday, with senior figures pressing for a swift and extensive overhaul of the industry, the White House said.

The UN General Assembly last week formally launched talks on how to expand the 15-member Security Council to make it more representative, with France and Britain offering an interim reform ahead of full-scale expansion.

Tiger Woods says he is confident of defending his title at this week’s Accenture Match Play Champion-ship after an eight-month layoff following reconstructive knee sur-gery.

Pop megastar Michael Jackson is in talks with concert organiz-ers for a comeback series of up to 30 live shows in London later this year, a source close to the negotia-tions told AFP.

Tiger confident of winning return

Macaw populationson the rebound

Obama panel eyes ‘fundamental’ auto sector reform

UN formally opens talks on Security Council reform

‘King of Pop’ eyes London comeback concerts

www.journalcr.com

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Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 20092

P. 6 business & economy New U.S. companies set up shop in Costa RicaDespite gloomy news around the world about massive layoffs and pro-

duction slowdown, new U.S. capital companies are opening their doors in Costa Rica and others are expanding their existing operations. (P.6)

P. 10 society Guanacaste hospitals join ‘safe surgery’ programWith the goal of reducing complications at operating rooms, the 29 hos-

pitals run by the Costa Rican Social Security System (CCSS) throughout the country have joined the “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” program promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) (P.12)

P. 14 culture Mujheroes women’s art exhibit comes to Guanacaste As par of the NomadArt Circuit (a series of itinerant art exhibits), the

Barcelona-based La Casa Amarilla, the Guanacaste Culture Office of the Ministry of Culture and Youth and the University of Costa Rica’s (UCR) Guanacaste campus will be offering a special exhibit geared mainly at Guanacaste women artists. (P.14)

P. 18 HealtH Stroke deaths soar in poorer nations, drop in richThe incidence of strokes in low- and middle-income countries has dou-

bled since 1970, surpassing for the first time the rate in rich nations, down by 40 percent over the same period, report two studies released last week. (P. 18)

P. 19 europe EU’s eastern nations fear western protectionism The EU’s crisis-hit eastern member states have decided to hold a mini-

summit in Brussels to send a message against protectionism to their richer western partners, officials said last week. (P. 19)

P. 20 global affairs 2,500 languages threatened with extinctionThe world has lost Manx in the Isle of Man, Ubykh in Turkey and last

year Alaska’s last native speaker of Eyak, Marie Smith Jones, died, taking the aboriginal language with her. (P.20)

P. 21 americas Brazil wants to nudge aside dollar in regional transactions is keen to see transactions between South American companies and states

take place using national currencies, without recourse to the U.S. dollar which currently acts as an intermediary exchange instrument. (P.21)

P. 22 sports MLB would free up top players for OlympicsThe U.S. major leagues would likely free up top players for the 2016

Olympics should baseball be reinstated in the Games, the head of the sport’s world governing body said. (P.22)

P. 23 entertainment Domingo wins million-dollar Swedish opera prize Spanish tenor Placido Domingo has won the first prize in memory of

Sweden’s legendary soprano Birgit Nilsson, who herself picked him for the award before her death in 2005, organisers revealed last week. (P. 23)

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Vol3•Edition175 Feb 24 - Mar 2, 2009 Costa Rica, Central America OURTEAM Marta Araya, Marketing & Sales Manager E-mail:marta.araya@journalcr.com/ sales@journalcr.com classified@journalcr.com Tel:905-JOURNAL(5687625) CarlosEduardoVargas(*), EditorsBoardMember 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.14 CultureP.15 Science & Technology

P.16 Week In BriefP.18 HealthP.19 EuropeP.20 Global AffairsP.21 AmericasP.22 SportsP.23 Entertainment

Contents

COStA rICA tIDES ChArt Information for Pacific Coast

Page two

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Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 20094 Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 2009 5lead STory

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – With the goal of reducing complications at operating rooms, the 29 hospitals run by the Costa Rican Social Security System (CCSS) throughout the country have joined the “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” program promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO)

Cartago’s Max Peralta joined the initiative last Feb. 13, and on Feb. 17 the Chorotega (Guanacaste and northern Alajuela cantons) Region main health centers — Nicoya’s La Anexion Hospital, Liberia’s Enrique Balto-dano Briceño Hospital and the Upala Hospi-tal — also came on board.

Dr. Luis Fernando Ortega Canales, medi-cal services director for the Chorotega Re-gion, highlighted that the region’s three hos-pitals have organization support for joining this working strategy that seeks to benefit

patients.Ortega Canales explained that this week

there will be an important work session aimed at educating personnel working on those three hospitals about the importance of adhering to the “safe surgery” initiative.

Dr. Orlando Urroz Torres, coordinator of the program, said CCSS’ goal is that its 29 hospitals will be actively involved in the international initiative within the next three months.

OMS hopes that this program will help re-duce by 50 percent the incidence of surgical complications through the incorporation of good practices that would slash the possibili-ties for mistakes.

According to Dr. Federico Hernandez, WHO advisor in health services systems, the organization’s goal is to have all 29 Latin American countries join the program — but

acknowledge that so far only Argentina, Peru and Costa Rica have done so.

Urroz Torres said that this program can be implemented quite easily and that it doesn’t

require additional resources — as it consists in changing operating room personnel’s at-titudes so that communication can improve among the surgeons, anesthesiologists and instrument handlers.

The idea is that surgery professionals would verify a series of steps that should be taken into consideration at three crucial mo-ments: before the patient is given anesthesia, before the surgical incision, and before the patient leaves the operating room.

For Urroz Torres, this verification process is very important, as it benefits all parties in-volved in a surgery: the patient, the medical professionals, and the overall health system.

Dr. Victor Navarrete Acosta, director of the Max Peralta Hospital, expressed his satisfac-tion for the health center’s incorporation into the new program, saying that his personnel is very motivated to participate and improve surgery procedures.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Different groups involved in the tourism in-dustry have expressed their satisfaction with two bills currently being considered by the Legislative Assembly, and which they say will strengthen one of Costa Rica’s most im-portant economic engines.

The bills they are referring to are the Gen-eral Tourism Law (File No. 17.163) and the Law for Fomenting Rural Tourism (File No. 16.879).

“We received this news (inclusion of the Tourism Law bill) with gladness because it is a piece of legislation drafted by CANATUR (the National Chamber of Tourism) with the goal of creating a central axis that would de-fine guidelines for the tourism industry,” said CANATUR President Gonzalo Vargas.

Vargas spoke about the urgent nature of having tourism industry guidelines approved by Congress that would include modern state policies regarding this economic activity and that would encompass other aspects related to the industry — such as better regulations concerning the interests of the private tourism sector, an issue that Vargas said creates legal insecurity both for the provision of services and for matters of business investment.

The current legislation governing the in-dustry is the Costa Rican Tourism Industry

Law of 1955.The General Tourism Law seeks to estab-

lish guiding principles, concrete objectives and definitions, mechanisms for participation of the private and public sectors in the gov-ernance of the tourism industry, and regula-tions concerning the private tourism sector. It also attempts to strengthen the Costa Rican

Tourism Institute (ICT) and generate mea-sures that would allow the country’s tourism industry to be competitive on a global scale.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides explained that the bill includes guidelines that would clarify even more his office’s role within the tourism in-dustry for the benefit not only of those busi-

nesses involved in the sector but also for the tourists themselves.

“We are pleased with the summoning of these two bills by the Executive Branch and we are already counting on the legislators to help us turn them into laws,” Benavides said. “The benefits are many. For example, the General Tourism Law initiative would establish rights and obligations of tourists, would include a system for protecting them, but it also seeks to optimize the quality and competitiveness of the services the industry offers.”

The General Tourism Law bill is based on the concepts of planning and sustainability, seeking to optimize destinations and services and boost the sector’s competitiveness. The law keeps as part of ICT’s responsibilities the role of promoting and marketing Costa Rica as a destination. It also makes it man-datory to draft a National Tourism Develop-ment Plan.

The bill also proposes including the topic of tourism in public school curricula, in coor-dination with the National Tourism and Hotel Education National Commission; establishes standards for the participation of the private sector, and mandates all providers of tourism services to comply with a National Tourism Registry.

Billsunderdiscussionwouldstrengthentourism:Industry officials

New legislation seeks to give the tourism sector more competitiveness, as this industry is the main generator of income for the country. Photo Jose Pablo Alfaro.

Now, surgery rooms at Liberia’s hospitals have verification lists visibly posted, a result of the “Safe Surgeries Save Lives” program. Photo courtesy of CCSS

Guanacastehospitalsjoin‘safesurgery’program

Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 20096 BuSineSS

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Despite gloomy news around the world about massive layoffs and production slow-down, new U.S. capital companies are open-ing their doors in Costa Rica and others are expanding their existing operations.

Last Feb. 18, medical device company Precision Wire Components (PWC) unveiled its new plant in the Barreal de Heredia busi-ness zone.

PWC is a specialized firm that manufac-tures fine medical wires used in minimally invasive cardiovascular and neurological procedures, such as reduction of blood clots in the brains of embolism victims and brain aneurysm treatments.

Opening of the PWC plant in Costa Rica represented an investment of 448 million co-lones (little less than $1 million) and jobs for 20 Ticos, who received specialized training during six months at the company’s head-quarters in Oregon.

Chuck Trover, founder of PWC, said that “our team carefully searched countries with economic and government stability where we could invest, and Costa Rica met all the requirements. Additionally it has very good human resources.”

According to the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the medical devices and products in-dustry has become one of Costa Rica’s main economic engines, representing two thirds of the local Gross Domestic Product, according to Central Bank estimates.

For example, St. Jude Medical, named by Fortune Magazine the “Most Admired Medi-

cal and Precision Equipment Company” in 2007 and 2008, has also decided to set up shop in Costa Rica, manufacturing medical devices. The company will invest more than $40 million in its new, 20,000 square meter plant, which is expected to create up to 500 new jobs by 2010.

St. Jude Medical will initially employ its Costa Rica plan to expand production of medical devices in its heart valve line. The global medical device company, based out of St. Paul, Minn., develops products for management of cardiac pace, auricular fibril-lation, heart surgery, cardiology and neuro-modulation.

Meanwhile, BeamOne, a firm that spe-cialized in providing sterilization services through the so-called E-Beam technology to medical and pharmaceutical companies, un-veiled in January its new plant in Costa Rica, which would allow other multinational com-panies operating here to sterilize their medi-cal devices so they can be directly exported from Costa Rica to the rest of the world. This company invested $5 million in its new 2,500 square meter plant in the Coyol de Alajuela Duty Free Zone.

Finally, thanks to the success of its exist-ing operation in Costa Rica, avVenta has re-ceived a capital injection to the tune of $20 million by the TZP Group. These monies will be used to improve technology and training of those who work in the Costa Rica digital pro-duction center. Additionally, the firm plans to undergo a global expansion process by open-ing offices in London and New York.

NewU.S.companiessetupshopinCostaRica

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Last Feb. 12, the Ministry of Foreign Trade (COMEX) and the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMEX) began the regional workshops program in Nicoya as part of informational and public consultation activities related to the free trade agreement Costa Rica is negotiating with the People’s Republic of China. These workshops are tak-ing place with sponsorship from the National Chamber of Agriculture and Agribusinesses, the Costa Rican Chamber of Exporters and state-owned Banco de Costa Rica.

Some 100 people participated in the work-shop, among them students from the National University (UNA) regional campus and busi-ness owners from the Nicoya region.

Attending this first workshop was Fer-nando Ocampo, chief negotiator for the trade deal with China; Andres Chavarria, PRO-COMER exports promoter; and Ronald Arce, trade analyst with PROCOMER’s trade intel-ligence division.

Chief negotiator Ocampo said that these workshops are part of an information pro-gram mainly geared toward the country’s production sector, but which is open to any-body interested in knowing more about the current negotiation process with Chinese trade authorities. Ocampo added that the government is coordinating with agriculture and export chambers so that this information can be taken throughout the country, tak-ing advantages of forums such as the one in Nicoya to answer questions and receive feed-back as the negotiation process between both nations progresses.

Meanwhile, Chavarria, who directs export promotion efforts for the country’s industrial sector, added that PROCOMER — as a tech-nical support entity for the country’s export-ers — has been conducting for the past year and a half several trade promotion activities in China and with Chinese companies based in Costa Rica.

Chavarria said that the goal of these re-gional workshops is to invite and encourage

businesses from outside the Central Valley to come and learn and explore the vast trade op-portunities the Chinese market offers, as well as to share the experience of exporting to and doing business in the Asian giant.

These sector-specific information work-shops are also organized to unveil studies conducted about market-access conditions for agricultural and industrial goods in Chi-na.

Ocampo highlighted the importance of having companies and representatives of dif-ferent production sectors take part in these workshops, as in this way business owners will be able to identify potential Chinese market niches of interest for exporting their goods.

PROCOMER’s website currently offers market-access studies related to sugar; fish and sea food; metals and related products; paints, stains and varnishes; coffee; tobacco and cigarettes; plastics, rubber and related products; flowers and ornamental plants; eggs and chicken; alcoholic drinks and bio-fuels; oils and oil seeds; leather, fur and re-lated products; wine and spirits; pork; paper, cardboard and graphic industry products; fruit juice concentrates; rice; vegetables and forest products.

Informational workshop about China free trade deal held in Guanacaste

Some 100 people participated in the workshop, among them students from the National University (UNA) regional campus and business owners from the Nicoya region. Photo courtesy of Melissa Salazar

Precision Wire Components is the most recent U.S. company to set up shop in Costa Rica. Photo courtesy of Casa Presidencial.

Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 20098 BuSineSS

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Seventeen institutions will participate in the “National Program for Prevention of and Combating Tax Fraud,” promoted by the central government and the Ministry of the Treasury.

The program, whose goal is to achieve higher effectiveness when confronting this type of fiscal crime via actions coordinated by several state institutions, would allow the Treasury to better conduct its role as over-seer and recover more efficiently amounts of money evaded by taxpayers and apply the respective sanctions.

To achieve this goal, all institutions par-ticipating in the program first underwent a swear-in ceremony held at the National The-ater in San Jose, by which all of them took on the responsibility of drafting within five months a document about tax fraud in Costa Rica and a plan for its approval.

This tax fraud document will include the following aspects and actions: identification and analysis of the most significant types of fraud, their causes and effects; evalua-tion of the legal tools currently available for prevention and repression of fraud; analysis of the prevention and control systems es-tablished by public entities that deal with tax issues; presentation of a document that would include measures aimed at improving prevention and correction of fraud crimes; and approval of said document by the Presi-dent’s Cabinet.

The swearing-in ceremony was attend-

ed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias; Treasury Ministry Guillermo Zuñiga; and Bernardo Kliksberg, who is considered the “father of social management,” and who presented the conference “How to achieve development with equality? The key role of transparency and civility.”

Also attending were legislators, directors of state institutions and state companies, leaders of professional organizations, and representatives of private sectors, among others.

“I think all of the members of this work-ing group for their commitment, and I re-mind them that their actions will reflect Cos-ta Rica’s values and the manner by which such values can materialize in every day ac-tions,” President Arias said. “The business that reports income lower than what it actu-ally earned is not only affecting the Ministry of the Treasury, but also the thousands of young people who receive student scholar-ships such as that provided by the Avanc-emos (Let’s Move Forward) program. The independent professional who doesn’t regis-ter as a taxpayer is not only hurting the Tax Revenue Division, but also the thousands of older adults who receive a pension for their survival.”

Added Arias:“The assembling of a working group that

would deal with this task seems to be one of the most adequate options we have. Let’s recall that this is a national problem that af-fects all citizens. Participation from public

institutions, academia, political parties and worker and business groups will be translat-ed into an opportunity to help the collective good and create awareness about the eva-sion problem, changing entrenched attitudes among people and identifying the factors that have originated them, and also propos-ing solutions and putting them to practice.”

Minister Zuñiga indicated that in the first two years of the Arias administration, tax revenue collection has increased by 2 per-cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) without having created a single new tax — thanks to programs to combat fiscal fraud, cooperation of and trust from taxpayers, and the adequate use of taxpayer money.

However, the Treasury Minister added, for the country to become developed it’s neces-sary to have tax revenue above 15.4 percent of the current GDP. This, he said, will ne-cessitate stopping tax evasion and achieving a progressive tax system, more modern and simple. “But while that is achieved, we need to collect the current taxes, reason for which is everybody’s responsibility to fight against fiscal fraud,” Zuñiga concluded.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Following the establishment of trade rela-tions with the People’s Republic of China, Costa Rica is seeking closer ties in other ar-eas such as education, security, infrastructure and economic affairs.

For example, a period for receiving docu-ments to apply for scholarships for under-graduate and graduate degrees and Mandarin Chinese language courses has been opened, according to information released by the Chinese Embassy in San Jose.

The call for applications is geared toward individuals who wish to study at Chinese universities, all of whom must take a test on general Chinese culture that will be adminis-tered at the Ministry of Public Relations next March 23.

The Chinese Embassy said applicants have until March 12 to present all paperwork and meet requirements.

In other news, the Ministry of the Treasury informed that the People’s Republic of China has concluded the second stage of the pur-chase of domestic debt bonds for the amount of $150 million, which was done in similar terms to the first tract: 12 years maturity, semi-annual interest payments, and 2 percent interest rate.

Just as with the first tract, this amount came into the main government fund with the goal of financing important expenses, among them the payment of foreign debt that was earning higher interest rates.

This financial transaction consisted in sell-ing domestic debt bonds for $300 million to China. The first issuance of $150 million was done in January 2008, also with 12 years ma-turity at a 2 percent interest rate.

Additionally, as part of collaborations in the area of infrastructure, China has already sent 400 containers with materials that will

used for construction of the National Stadium in San Jose. Fifty percent of the materials are already at the site of the stadium (La Sabana Park), while the other half is at the ports of Moin (Caribbean) and Caldera (Pacific).

China donated $60 million for construc-tion of the stadium — a first gift following he establishment of diplomatic relations be-tween the two nations in 2007. According to Osvaldo Pandolfo, Vice Minister of Health and Sports and president of the National Sports and Recreation Council, the 45,000-seat coliseum is expected to be completed by the end of 2009 or in early 2010.

Other collaborations have to do with citi-zen security, with the Chinese government donating 200 police patrols to reinforce safe-ty throughout the country.

Moreover, Costa Rica has requested help from Chinese officials on issues ranging from justice administration to combating or-ganized crime.

All of these exchanges have taken place in a relatively short amount of time follow-ing the establishment of ties between the two new partners. Such relationship could even result in a free trade agreement between Cos-ta Rica and China in the near future.

CR seeks closer relations with China

A delegation from the People’s Republic of China visited the country last year to sign several cooperation agreements.

Treasury Minister Guillermo Zuñiga said that this year’s anti-tax fraud plan will focus on liberal (independent) professionals and the tourism sector. Photo cortesy of Treasury Minister.

Governmentpromotesprogramtopreventtaxfraud

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – The ministers of Economy, Industry and Commerce (Marco Vargas) and Agriculture (Javier Flores Galarza), announced a series of measures to protect small corn and bean producers in the face of inconsistencies cur-rently going on in the market for these basic grains; guarantee the availability of these staple foods at prices affordable to consum-ers; guarantee a safe, quality product; and ensure employment and income for farming families throughout the country.

Among other actions, the two ministers informed about the decision to keep tariffs for import of beans and white corn at levels established under the Central American Cus-toms Tariff Standard — which is 20 percent for red beans, 30 percent for black beans, and 15 percent for white corn, evaluating any tariff reduction according to a performance clause.

Another measure announced was the in-troduction of a bill to apply a performance clause that would allow for more transpar-ency in the management of contingencies related to lower supply of corn and beans. This clause would indicate that for agribusi-nesses to be able to import these grains with reduced tariffs, they need to show a commit-ment to national producers by corroborating purchases in the previous purchase period or purchase contracts with growers. Addition-ally, the production costs structure for these staples will be kept updated and will be made available as a reference for buying from local farmers.

Minister Flores Galarza called on basic grain traders to join efforts with the govern-ment.

“This is a social responsibility strategy. We should unite our wills to maintain and improve jobs and income in rural areas. This will improve the quality of life of farming families, which will benefit everybody,” the agriculture chief stated.

According to Minister Vargas, these mea-sures will meet two objectives: protecting the local consumers and taking care of the needs of farmers, especially small ones, so they can live dignified lives and provide for their families.

Additionally, the Executive Branch is committing to expediting the research of new grain varieties with the goal of improving the competitiveness of national producers; and continuing imported product verification at ports, border stations and store shelves to make sure quality standards are being met for the benefit of consumers.

The National Production Council (CNP), through an agreement with the Agrarian De-velopment Institute (IDA), will purchase the bean crop from growers living and working at farming settlements and will sell them through the Institutional Supply Program (PAI). CNP will also intensify efforts in training producers in issues related to post-harvest management and the development of products for commercialization in the local market, and will also continue monitoring prices and market trends.

Measures adopted to protect small corn and bean farmers

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – With the goal of eliminating as many po-tential breeding grounds as possible for the mosquito that transmits dengue fever, more than 200 volunteers came together Feb. 22 in Nandayure, going from house to house col-lecting solid waste and encouraging residents to clean up their yards and common areas — the best prevention strategy against this mosquito-borne, viral disease.

The effort was part of the “Sweeps against Dengue” program, sponsored by brewer Cerveceria Costa Rica as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative, in association with Terra Nostra Foundation. This program was started in 2006 and was conducted again in 2008, as data showed a reduction in the number of dengue cases in areas where the initiative was implemented. Such success prompted organizers to undertake the effort again in 2009, including in the canton of Nandayure.

“This program’s objective is education, clean-up and prevention, as well as control-ling this disease and stopping its propaga-tion,” said Gustavo Gutierrez, social invest-ment director for Cerveceria Costa Rica. “We are also encouraging citizen participation and responsibility in the adequate manage-ment of solid waste.”

Communities that were selected for this year’s “sweeps” are mostly in high-risk areas, and which in 2008 presented a high number of reported dengue cases. According to data from the Costa Rican Social Security System (CCSS) and the Ministry of Health, in 2008 in the canton of Nandayure there were 46 re-ported cases of dengue (2.4 percent), making it the canton with the highest dengue inci-dence rate in the Chorotega (Guanacaste and northern Alajuela province cantons) Region. Countrywide, CCSS attended 5,471 people stricken by the potentially deadly disease.

The operations headquarters for the clean-up effort in this Guanacaste community was the Nandayure Development Association. Volunteers cleaned the downtown area and the Santa Rita sector, for a total of 1,100 houses.

All types of residues were collected as

part of the “sweep,” and those that could be recycled were separated: No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, glass, aluminum, tires and metal junk. The rest of the garbage was taken to the respective landfills

The 200 volunteers who participated in the clean-up campaign were supported by the Ministry of Health, CCSS, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), Banco Nacional and the Ministry of Agriculture. Other local organizations joined the effort, including the Municipality of Nandayure, the Nandayure Forest Fire Brigade, Catholic Church groups, the Oasis de Esperanza Church, the Nand-ayure Development Association, the Peace Corps and local businesses. Private sponsors of the 2009 Sweeps against Dengue also col-laborated — including the Holcim, Riteve and Red Point companies.

Work in Nandayure began at 7 a.m. Vol-unteers began by learning about responsible management of solid waste, recovery of re-cyclable materials and their correct separa-tion. Later they took part in the clean-up ef-fort and shared the information they learned with the community.

The Nandayure “sweep” is the third con-ducted so far this year, out of 15 planned for several communities throughout the coun-try that are most vulnerable to dengue out-breaks.

Some of the measures that will be taken also seek to offer a competitive price to consumers.

Clean-up to fight dengue takes place in Nandayure

The community of Nandayure in Guanacaste came together to pick up solid waste in an effort to prevent the spread of dengue fever. Photo courtesy of Angelith Picado

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – For the second year in a row, the three-time Costa Rican basketball champion, Ferreteria Brenes-Barva, visited the Guanacaste can-tons of Abangares and Cañas to play exhibi-tion games, to the enjoyment of followers of this successful team.

The night of Saturday, Feb. 7, Barva played in Abagares against the first-division Escazu team, which the champions won 42-40. Be-yond the victory, the match allowed Barva

coach Luis Blanco to observe new players and the roster’s fitness, following month-long physical conditioning workouts.

“We were very interested in looking at the physical aspect of the team, and all the play-ers responded very well. Obviously the stra-tegic and tactical aspects must be fine-tuned, but in general terms, we are on the right track,” said Blanco, who rotated his team with the goal of giving all athletes playing time and rhythm.

On Sunday, Feb. 8, the squad traveled to Cañas to play a local team. The game helped give Barva competition rhythm and was well received by the residents of that city.

During the next few days, Barva will play more pre-season games as it prepares to face its first rival of the new national tournament, San Ramon, next March 6.

The Barva Basketball Sport Association (original name of the team), was founded in 1990, following the 1989 formation of a team to participate in a summer tournament in San Ramon (Alajuela province), where it finished first. The success motivated a group of hoops enthusiasts from the canton of Barva (Here-dia province) to make the team a permanent institution that would represent this commu-nity in national leagues.

In 1990, the new team participated in the Second Division National Championship, finishing in second place.

Seeking to become a more competitive and professional team, in 2005 Barva’s board of directors struck a sponsorship deal with hardware store Ferreteria Brenes, which led to a new name and a new structure for the club.

The 2005 team was coached by Jorge Ar-guello, with Blanco as his assistance. Chang-es were made, however, because the squad didn’t achieve as expected. A new coach, Gustavo Porras, was hired, and he led Barva to the Closing Tournament championship and a spot in the national finals. By the fol-lowing, Barva had attained its first national title, which it repeated in 2007 and 2008.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Last Jan. 30, officials with the Agrarian Development Institute (IDA) held ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the agricultural settle-ment of Lagunilla in Santa Cruz, including accompanying infrastructure in the form of a bridge worth 27 million colones ($49,000) and a 1.5-kilometer gravel road costing 51.5 million colones ($93,000).

At the event were Carlos Bolaños Ces-pedes, IDA’s executive president, in addition to the government agency’s general manager, Annie Saborio Mora, and board of directors members Aida Montiel, Carlos Millet and Reynaldo Quiros; also there was IDA’s direc-tor for the Chorotega (Guanacaste) Region, Marco Aguilar, in addition to representatives of the National Learning Institute (INA), the National Production Council (CNP) and the

Municipality of Santa Cruz.Erasmo Alvarez, of IDA’s Santa Cruz sub-

regional office, said the Lagunilla settlement has as extension of 37.5 hectares, and so far only five families have established there be-cause no water or electric services are avail-able. However, Bolaños pledged to begin ef-forts to provide the farmers there with basic utilities.

Right now, Lagunilla has seven plots of 3.5 hectares each, where the farmers grow bell peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes and wa-termelon. Last year, the farmers were given a temporary permit to plan four hectares with corn and three hectares with beans. IDA’s plans for the settlement call for drilling a well to establish an irrigation system.

On that same day, IDA inaugurated a

produce warehouse in the Rio Blanco settle-ment, on the foothills of the Miravalles Vol-cano in La Fortuna, Bagaces. The 150 square meter building represented an investment of 33.5 million colones ($61,000).

The Rio Blanco settlement has 56 farms occupied by the same number of families, who grow onions, sweet corn, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, bell pepper, lettuce, cilan-tro and various types of root crops (such as tiquizque and ñampi).

The settlement’s growing food production was the reason behind IDA’s decision to build the warehouse, which will allow these farm-ers to market their produce directly, without the intervention of intermediaries.

Other events in the Huetar Norte Region (which includes northern Guanacaste and

other border cantons) included two field days in which specialists shared new information with attendees, among whom were 80 IDA farmers and other growers from the region.

The outreach activities provided valuable information about genetics of basic crops, and there were also presentations about de-veloping a certified seed industry. Following the field days, participants attended meetings where they could learn and ask questions about the planting of basic crops, production of seeds, and experimental varieties.

IDA also made the official delivery of an 80.5 hectare farm in La Trinidad de Santa Cecilia, in the canton of Los Chiles. The farm was purchased in 2008, and now 15 families will settle there, growing organic pineapple, basic crops (such as beans), roots and tubers.

BarvabasketballteamplaysexhibitiongamesinGuanacaste

Ribbon-cutting for farmer settlement, road infrastructure, produce warehouse in Guanacaste

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – Scarlet macaw (Ara macao) and Buffon’s macaw (Ara ambigua) are the species of this type of bird that inhabit Costa Rica, and both are included in Appendix I of the Conven-tion on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), listed as species facing a serious threat of extinction.

Scarlet macaw populations in the country were originally distributed along the Pacific coast, but due to fragmentation of natural forests and illegal trade, currently this mag-nificent bird only survives in protected areas. Meanwhile, the Buffon’s macaw (also called great green macaw) inhabits the lower and humid sections of the country’s Northern Zone, the Caribbean and southern Nicara-gua. This species is seriously threatened due to the disappearance of natural forest, espe-cially swamp almond trees, which are their main source of food and nesting sites.

There has been, however, an increase in

the number of macaws recently seen. But that has been the result of programs for re-production and release of captive birds, in which organizations such as Zoo Ave, the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Ani-mals (CRAVE) and the LAPPA conservation association have been involved.

So far, these efforts have been success-ful. Re-introduction projects have helped boost the number of birds counted in vari-ous studies. Nonetheless, the process is slow. For example, one of the projects that began in 1998 had by 2007 re-introduced into the wild 86 scarlet macaws, whose survival rate surpassed 70 percent. This is a 15-year proj-ect, which hopes to release groups of seven to 15 individuals per year until reaching 200 scarlet macaws.

Macaw populations on the rebound

Even though these magnificent birds were close to disappearing from the country, now the population of macaws has rebounded thanks to preservation programs targeted at this endangered species. InfoWebPress/TJ

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(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – A state project for enhancing science educa-tion based on exploration of knowledge has entered its second phase. The project previ-ously conducted a diagnosis during 2008 at 16 schools in Guanacaste and San Jose — which allowed to collect information about what teachers are currently doing to teach science and the strategy the Ministry of Edu-cation (MEP) must employ to train and sup-port them.

MEP, in alliance with the government-backed Century XXI Strategy and the Na-tional Academy of Sciences, officially kicked off the project’s second phase last Feb. 17.

The initiative began in 2007 and so far has included an exchange of experiences with France, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Panama, through which Costa Rican educa-tion officials learned about programs such as “La main à la pâte” and “Hands-on.” Thanks to inter-institutional support, MEP has gone into a process of research and diagnosis that would result in the eventual application of the science education project for grades 1-6. In a conceptual state at this point, officials hope the project will become a reality by in-corporating it into current science curricula.

The project is part of MEP’s quality of education critical focus, which the ministry has been developing during the Arias admin-istration with the goal of strengthening the quality and relevance of the country’s public education so that students acquire and grow knowledge and also attain the sensitivity and competencies necessary to have useful and fulfilling lives.

Dr. Gabriel Macaya Trejos, president of the National Academy of Sciences and for-mer rector of the University of Costa Rica

(UCR), is convinced that science education plays a key role in forming intelligent, proac-tive and wholesome citizens.

Macaya’s proposal is to take science to citizens so that they can have better tools, opportunities and skills for communication and culture — and so that the visions and ca-pabilities of individuals can be transformed, favoring a better social and natural environ-ment.

As Macaya understands it, science is not a collection of facts, but a toolbox of values, attitudes and practices. Scientific formation also includes, he said, the ability to commu-nicate knowledge and acquire new skills to inform and form ourselves critically.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Leonardo Garnier said that the science education based on the exploration of knowledge project is an important part of his office’s plans to im-prove educational quality because it seeks a type of learning that is more compatible with the needs of children and youths outside of the classroom.

“Teachers should be comfortable teaching their students biology by getting them near it, that is, going to a tree, touching plants or recreating in a museum the stories that have constituted what we are today,” Garnier ex-plained.

“Adequate scientific formation should allow citizens to understand problems as critical as global warming or demographic changes, improving energy efficiency, in-creasing agricultural productivity, the elimi-nation of diseases through prevention, or the protection of natural resources — all topics that concern the planet’s sustainable devel-opment challenges,” Macaya added.

(InfoWebPress – www.journalcr.com) – As par of the NomadArt Circuit (a series of itinerant art exhibits), the Barcelona-based La Casa Amarilla, the Guanacaste Culture Office of the Ministry of Culture and Youth and the University of Costa Rica’s (UCR) Guanacaste campus will be offering a special exhibit geared mainly at Guanacaste women artists.

According to information provided by the organizers, the activity seeks to show that women are the backbone, the pillars of soci-ety, especially through everyday actions and within families. That’s why the exhibit will become a way of paying homage to women and their key role as enablers of dialog be-tween cultures— especially on International Women’s Day 2009.

The activity will be held between Feb. 23 and March 8 at the exhibit hall, Old Gober-nacion Building in Liberia. The exhibit will be officially inaugurated on Feb. 23 at 6 p.m., gathering 10 Latin American and European artists in Costa Rica.

The show will include 35 works and will feature a special appearance by Spanish cu-rator, artist and ideologist Queral Bardet.

The Mujheroes (Women-Heroes) exhibit is a project of NomAdart, an itinerant se-ries of plastic arts and photography by Latin

American and European artists that has been organized by La Casa Amarilla since 2005.

Several Costa Rican artists were also chosen to participate in this exhibit free of charge — Rosemary Golcher, Mariamarta Pachecho, Marcia Salas, Lorena Villalobos and Karen Clachar.

Also present at the exhibit will be Clara Albacete and Christina Senserrich (Spain), Karin Barrera (Chile), Marina Frank (Argen-tina), and Xochitl Sierralta Leal (Mexico).

La Casa Amarilla’s original exhibit pro-gram for Latin American artists in Catalonia, Spain, was reformulated to create NomadArt — which seeks to promote cultural exchange through art.

The program utilizes itinerant exhibits and the organization of several parallel activi-ties simultaneously to make the shows more dynamic and innovative, as well as to reach new audiences and create relationships with local populations.

NomadArt’s objectives are to foment in-tercultural dialogue and understanding of the current world through art and related ac-tivities; to open up new spaces for dialogue among local artists and others coming from different parts of the world; and to promote the participation of citizens in local cultural and artistic processes.

Study conducted on science education in Guanacaste

For Education Minister Leonardo Garnier, the science education improvement project fits the overall goals of the country’s quality education plan. Photo courtesy of MEP.

The art exhibit gathers works from various trends. This image corresponds to the activity inaugurated in Liberia last year. Photo courtesy of Mujheores.

Mujheroeswomen’sartexhibitcomestoGuanacaste WASHINGTON (AFP) – The U.S. space

agency’s Fermi telescope has detected a mas-sive explosion in space which scientists say is the biggest-ever gamma-ray burst, a report published last week in Science Express said.

The spectacular blast, which occurred in September in the Carina constellation, pro-duced energies ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said.

“Visible light has an energy range of be-tween two and three electron volts and these were in the millions to billions of electron volts,” astrophysicist Frank Reddy of U.S. space agency NASA told AFP.

“If you think about it in terms of energy, X-rays are more energetic because they pen-etrate matter. These things don’t stop for any-thing – they just bore through and that’s why we can see them from enormous distances,” Reddy said.

A team led by Jochen Greiner of Germa-ny’s Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics determined that the huge gamma-ray burst occurred 12.2 billion light years away.

The sun is eight light minutes from Earth, and Pluto is 12 light hours away.

Taking into account the huge distance from earth of the burst, scientists worked out that the blast was stronger than 9,000 super-novae – powerful explosions that occur at the end of a star’s lifetime – and that the gas jets emitting the initial gamma rays moved at nearly the speed of light.

“Gamma-ray bursts as a class qualify as the biggest explosions since the Big Bang

and in the measurements we reported, this is the most intense and the most extreme,” Reddy said.

Astronomers believe gamma-ray bursts occur when stars run out of nuclear fuel and collapse.

They shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million-trillion times as bright as earth’s sun, NASA says on its website.

Long gamma-ray bursts, which last more

than two seconds, occur in massive stars that are undergoing collapse, while short bursts lasting less than two seconds occur in small-er stars.

In short gamma-ray bursts, stars simply explode and form supernovae, but in long bursts, the enormous bulk of the star leads its core to collapse and form a blackhole, into which the rest of the star falls.

As the star’s core collapses into the black hole, jets of material blast outward, boring

through the collapsing star and continuing into space where they interact with gas pre-viously shed by the star, generating bright afterglows that fade with time.

By studying gamma-ray bursts – called GRBs – scientists are trying to gain a bet-ter understanding of the origins of the early universe, “the parts we can’t fully see yet,” Reddy told AFP.

“Remember: these are single stars that we’re able to see at distances where we can’t even reliably see galaxies. This is our only signal from that far away,” he said.

Last month, NASA announced that it had detected molecular lines in a GRB spectrum.

“That’s the chemical signature of a galaxy that’s extremely far away,” said Reddy.

“That’s the promise that the study of GRBs has held out for a long time and only now is bearing fruit: that you will be able to get these samples of extremely far cosmos. One day, we will see GRBs from some of the earliest stars,” he said.

The Fermi telescope and NASA’s Swift satellite detect “in the order of 1,000 gamma-ray bursts a year, or a burst every 100,000 years in a given galaxy,” said Reddy.

Astrophysicists estimate there are hun-dreds of billions of galaxies.

The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope was developed by NASA in collaboration with the US Department of Energy and partners including academic institutions in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

Hugegamma-rayblastspotted12.2blnlight-yearsfromearth

The spectacular blast, which occurred in the Carina constellation, produced energy ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said. “Visible light has an energy range of between two and three electron volts and these were in the millions to billions of electron volts,” astrophysicist Frank Reddy of US space agency NASA told AFP. AFP/NASA/Stefan Immler

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PoliticsPresident Arias gains costa Ricans’

confidence(Angus Reid Global Monitor) — The past

few months have seen an increase in the pop-ularity of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, according to a poll by Unimer published in La Nacion daily. Forty-nine percent of re-spondents said Arias has done a good or very good job as head of state, up 20 points since September. Arias won the February 2006 presidential election with 40.92 per cent of all cast ballots as the candidate for the Na-tional Liberation Party (PLN).

Business & economyPublic institutions’ budgets to be

slashed(La Prensa Libre) — The Ministry of the

Treasury has announced budget reductions for several public institutions due to the on-going financial crisis. Already announced has been a cut for the four state universi-ties, and the Judicial Branch will also have less resources available. Treasury Minister Guillermo Zuñiga was clear that several enti-ties — including the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) and the Costa Rican Social Security System (CCSS) — won’t be facing any budget cuts.

central America coffee-price slide hits costa Rican producers

(Reuters) — A surprise drop in coffee prices late last year has left some Costa Rican coffee millers in the lurch, forcing them to sell the crop below cost and raising fears of shutdowns if prices fall further. The CoopeSabalito coffee cooperative, close to the border with Panama, paid farmers high prices in advance for coffee cherries harvest-ed at the end of last year, but now it has to sell the processed beans to roasters at a much lower price. “(Our situation) is quite critical, both in terms of the high cost of production and financing difficulties,” the cooperative’s president Hernan Murillo told Reuters. The March arabica coffee contract KCH9 slipped from a high of $1.60 per pound in July to around $1.12 this month. The co-op paid out more than it is getting back and is now wor-ried about its own survival. Small farmers in the area around the small town of San Vito de Coto Brus depend on the cooperatives to buy their crops and extend loans. “Everyone hopes that (the coop) does not disappear be-cause it would hurt the town,” said coffee

farmer Marcos Salazar. Coffee millers in the lush mountains of southern Costa Rica are in a tighter spot than elsewhere in Cen-tral America because they are the first region to begin harvesting and depend heavily on March delivery contracts. CoopeSabalito’s main buyer is Starbucks, which recently an-nounced it would be selling instant coffee in a wave of cutbacks and price slashing for customers whose pockets have been pinched by the economic slowdown.

RecoPe said high fuel prices are due to limited refining capacity(Al Dia) — Following criticism from con-

sumers about the high prices of fuel here despite a reduction in international crude oil prices, the executive president of the Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery (RECOPE), Jose Leon Desanti, blamed the situation on the limited refining capacity of the country, which buys 80 percent of its fuels already processed and only refines 20 percent of local consumption. Desanti said RECOPE is seek-ing to increase refining at its Limon plant to 60,000 barrels daily, that is, 100 percent of finished fuels the country needs.

HAsDc not the manager of Juan santamaria Airport just yet

(La Nacion) — Management of San Jose’s Juan Santamaria International Airport won’t be given over to the Houston Airport System Development Corporation (HASDC) just yet, as the Comptroller General has indicated the consortium hasn’t provided guarantee that it has enough funds to finish the work needed at the air terminal.

ict on the hunt for more tourists(Inside Costa Rica) — The Costa Rican

Tourism Institute (ICT) is trying to attract more tourists and as such will be attending a total of 45 international tourism fairs this year. This will be a record for Costa Rica, as it makes its pitch for tourists in places like London and Berlin and beef up its presence in American and Canadian markets, where the majority of the tourists here come from. Other countries like Switzerland and Russia and South American nations are also on the ICT radar. Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides said that countries like Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have been identified as potential markets for Costa Rican tourism, calling them “emerging markets.” The chal-lenge is to equal or top the 2 million visitors that came to Costa Rica in 2008, who spent here an estimated $2.2 billion, or 7 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

society

Health ministry to close manuel Antonio Park for appalling

conditions(Inside Costa Rica) — The Manuel An-

tonio National Park, in the popular Central Pacific beach destination of Quepos, could be shut down the end of the month unless the Ministry of the Environment (Minaet) cor-rects a number of deficiencies signalled by the Aguirre Health Management Office, fol-lowing a visit to the park last week.

The national park is only 7 kilometers from the town of Quepos and a favorite tourist attraction. Health officials said they have found that sewage from the septic tanks of the homes of park rangers run di-rectly into the ocean, and wastewater from the bathrooms used by visitors drain into a park lagoon. A water analysis revealed that the lagoon water contained 46,000 coliforms per 100 milliliters of water. The report also indicated that the park bathrooms are in poor condition, the sinks leak, and there is no maintenance work been done. Officials The health officials reported that they have found junk vehicles in some of the trails, becoming breeding grounds for the dengue mosquito, and that the number of visitors in the park exceeds the capacity for the staff for a proper care of the park and its visitors.

Private telecom competitors criticize new regulator

(La Nacion) — Two telecommunications companies interested in providing telephone and Internet services in Costa Rica, and which in doing so would be competing with the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), are criticizing the market’s rules of engage-ment. Intertel Worldwide and R&H Inter-national Telecom are charging that the new Telecommunications Superintendent’s Office (Sutel) is placing excessive requirements on their ability to enter the market. The charge comes after ICE complained to the Sutel for Intertel offering cheaper international calling from its public telephone booths. Sutel de-fended its position by saying that the stricter measures are to protect the public from com-panies suddenly disappearing from the mar-ket. Juan Manuel Campos, legal adviser to Intertel, said that the Sutel requirements are too onerous on them and other competitors. “Sutel does not want to see an opening of the telecommunications market. It is impossible to provide the material they are asking. They want us to negotiate with ICE and Racsa (a telecom division of ICE), but that cannot be done unless there is approval in place,” Cam-pos said.

cases of kidnapping-theft technique down 60%

(Inside Costa Rica) — Banks’ practice of shutting down automated teller machines (ATMs) at night has greatly reduced the so-called “paseos millonarios,” a technique used by criminals holding up ATM customers and taking them for a ride to various bank ma-chines to withdraw the most from their plas-tic. Customers using ATMs, especially late at night and in the small hours of mornings, had become target of criminals, terrorizing their victims while cash is taken from their credit and debit cards. The Judicial Investigative Police(OIJ) reported 48 such attacks at bank

teller machines between March and Decem-ber 2008. But OIJ indicated that only 10 “paseos millonarios” were reported in Octo-ber, 6 in November, and just 4 in December, when the banks responded by shutting down their ATMs between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

canada and costa Rica conclude air transport agreement

(Inside Costa Rica) — A newly reached Open Skies-type air transport agreement with Costa Rica is good news for travellers and Canadian businesses, announced Cana-da’s Transport Minister, John Baird, and the Minister of International Trade, Stockwell Day. “This new agreement is a win-win for Canada’s air travel industry and consumers,” said Minister Baird. “This announcement is another example of our Government’s com-mitment to forming partnerships with other countries, offering competitive airline prices to travellers and boosting our economy.” The Canada-Costa Rica air transport agreement allows airlines to operate own-aircraft and code-sharing scheduled air services between any bilateral city-pairs. Code-sharing is a type of air service, which allows an airline to sell seats in its name on the flights of another airline. This agreement also allows airlines greater flexibility in scheduling and pricing of flights. In conjunction with these services, airlines will also be permitted to sell services between each other’s country and third coun-tries. The Canada-Costa Rican air travel mar-ket has grown and is now of interest to many Canadian stakeholders.

ice puts time limit on cellular connection

(Inside Costa Rica) — The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said last week that those customers with reservations for a new GSM cellular line will have two weeks from their appointed date to connect to the network or lose their place in line. The state telecom said it has the capacity to only con-nect up to 20,000 lines daily as it completes its promise to have available 100,000 new GSM lines this month and another 100,000 next month. The plan is to meet the demand for cellular service before the competition is allowed to set up shop. A number of foreign operators, like Movistar and Telefonica, have expressed an interest in offering cellular ser-vice in Costa Rica, in competition with ICE.

Arias concerned economic crisis will shoot up desertion in schools

(Inside Costa Rica) — Costa Rican Presi-dent Oscar Arias expressed his concerns that the financial crisis could affect many students trading the classrooms for work to help out their families. The President made his com-ments during a tour of the Liceo Experimen-tal Bilingüe high school in Rio Jimenez de Guacimo (Caribbean) on the first day of the public school year. Arias added that he hopes that the 150,000 scholarships under the “Pro-grama Avancemos” will help families in their efforts to keep their children in school. “This year many will feel the temptation to aban-don the classroom, partly due to the subjects that will require effort and partly to the eco-nomic situation of the country, which may be difficult for many families to overcome,” the President said.

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BRUSSELS (AFP) - The EU’s crisis-hit eastern member states have decided to hold a mini-summit in Brussels to send a message against protectionism to their richer western partners, officials said last week.

The meeting, a Polish initiative, will take place in Brussels on March 1, just before an extraordinary summit of all 27 EU nations aimed at coordinating rescue efforts in the face of a deepening recession across Europe.

EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Bar-roso will attend, a spokesman said, along with leaders from nine EU countries that have joined the bloc since 2004 and are just beginning to find their collective voice.

The meeting will be a chance for the east-ern partners to rehearse their own positions before the full summit, as tensions rise be-tween the older and newer European Union members, diplomatic sources said.

“We want to send a clear message that we support the European Union’s position in favour of defending the common market

and that we are against protectionism,” Po-land’s Minister for European affairs Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, told the national PAP new agency.

France in particular has raised hackles in the Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, with comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy against French automakers producing their cars in the Czech Republic.

The European Commission is now looking into the French auto aid package that aims to retain jobs and assembly lines in France as well as similar measures in Italy and Spain to help the ailing auto industry.

Though Barroso has accepted the invita-tion to the east European mini-summit on March 1, the European Commission said it was keen to prevent the bloc from fraying along the old Iron Curtain faultline.

“We either swim together or we sink to-gether,” a commission spokesman said Fri-day.

“’Yes’ to meetings with different formats, but ‘yes’ above all to a European solution for all.”

The Brussels summit will also be a chance to consider a coordinated aid plan for eastern Europe’s hard hit banks.

Austria, whose banks are highly exposed to debt in central and eastern Europe, and Hungary have been spearheading a cam-paign for EU aid to banks that have run into trouble, but so far without success.

European finance ministers will also mull the problems facing banks in Central and Eastern Europe at a meeting in Berlin on Sunday, a German government source said.

“Most rich countries in the EU are boosting fiscal spending to mitigate the downturn. But some of the new members are being forced to cut budgets by IMF emergency programmes. In the others, higher public spending cannot make up for falling export demand,” said Katinka Barysch from the Center for Euro-pean Reform.

The World Bank urged the European Union’s western states not to use recession-fighting measures to shut their ex-commu-nist neighbours out of their markets, saying it could set back two decades of economic progress.

Also the European Commission pro-claimed the Union’s “big bang” expansion eastwards five years ago to have been a huge success, despite the challenges that the cur-rent economic crisis presents.

“Enlargement has served as an anchor of stability, and driver of democracy and the rule of law in Europe,” said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, without explain-ing why he had chosen Friday to hail the achievements of EU expansion rather than May 1, the date it happened.

The nine nations involved in the March 1 mini-summit are Bulgaria, the Czech Re-public, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The only central and eastern EU member state not at-tending is Slovenia.

France, Spain to have high-

speed sea links MADRID (AFP) – Spain and France will

next week sign a deal to create two “mo-torways of the sea,” linking Nantes in west France with ports on the Spanish coast, Ma-drid’s public works ministry announced last wewek.

The routes from Nantes Saint-Nazaire to Gijon in north Spain and Vigo on the north-west coast will take the load off motorways by providing high-speed ferry transport for goods lorries, the ministry stated.

The memorandum will be signed in Paris on February 27 by Spain’s Minister of Equip-ment Magdalena Alvarez and France’s junior transport minister, Dominique Bussereau, and each nation will contribute 15 million euros (19 million dollars) to the project.

The statement gave no details on timing, but said that the maritime corridor linking Nantes with Vigo could be extended to Al-geciras, Spain’s busiest port, which lies in the southeast.

BERLIN (AFP) – The German parliament approved a record stimulus package aimed at lifting Europe’s biggest economy out of its worst recession since World War II.

The plan cleared its final hurdle as the Bundesrat upper house representing Germa-ny’s 16 states gave the green light, and came seven months before Chancellor Angela Merkel will stand for re-election.

Merkel’s fractious “grand coalition” cob-bled together the 50-billion-euro (63-billion-dollar) package last month after its first 31-billion-euro effort last year drew criticism at home and abroad for being too small.

“We are operating on the principle that Germany is strong and therefore can come to terms with this difficult economic situation,” Merkel said after the vote.

“We will see to it that Germany emerges stronger from this crisis than it entered it. With the biggest package in the history of the federal republic of Germany, we are also liv-ing up to our international responsibilities.”

The new measures include 100 billion euros in loan guarantees for stricken firms. But that amount will fall short based on pre-liminary requests alone, business daily Han-delsblatt reported citing economy ministry

sources.

“If we approved all the applications that have been submitted unofficially, the 100 billion euros would be insufficient,” an un-named official told the newspaper.

An economy ministry spokeswoman de-clined to estimate the amount requested to date.

The raft of measures constitutes Germa-ny’s largest postwar stimulus plan.

It includes some 17 billion euros in infra-structure spending as well as about 18 billion euros in tax cuts for individuals and busi-nesses.

Official data released this month showed that the German economy contracted by 2.1 percent in the final quarter of 2008, the big-gest slump since East and West Germany unified in 1990.

The world’s biggest exporter, hobbled by weakening demand for its goods abroad and weak domestic consumer spending, entered recession in the third quarter of 2008 after two successive three-month periods of nega-tive growth.

The stimulus plan forces Germany to take on about 37 billion euros in new public debt

and Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck has acknowledged his country will next year break EU public deficit rules.

The package was approved by the Bund-estag lower house last Friday. Merkel’s gov-ernment has forecast the economy will shrink by 2.25 percent in 2009.

EU’seasternnationsfearwesternprotectionism

Historic German stimulus plan clears final hurdle

GERMANY, Berlin : Delegates attend a session at the Bundesrat (upper house of parliaments) in Berlin. The German parliament approved the biggest stimulus package in the country’s postwar history, aimed at lifting Europe’s biggest economy out of its worst postwar recession. The measures cleared their final hurdle after the Bundesrat upper house representing Germany’s 16 states gave the green light. AFP/

VIENNA (AFP) – A UN drugs agency warned against underestimating the dangers of cannabis.

“The international community may wish to review the issue of cannabis,” the Inter-national Narcotics Control Board (INCB) wrote in its annual report.

“Over the years, cannabis has become more potent and is associated with an in-creasing number of emergency room admis-sions,” the report stated.

Cannabis was often the first illicit drug taken by young people and was frequently called a “gateway drug,” in that it could lead to later use of hard drugs.

“In spite of all these facts, the use of can-nabis is often trivialized and, in some coun-tries, controls over the cultivation, posses-sion and use of cannabis are less strict than for other drugs,” the INCB said.

Indeed, many countries allowed the “rec-reational” use of cannabis, and public per-ceptions of the so-called “medical” uses of the drug and its recreational use “are over-

lapping and confusing,” it said.The agency also expressed “alarm” at the

development of “rogue” or illegal Internet pharmacies.

The agency said it had long been concerned about the role of the Internet in the sale and distribution of controlled and uncontrolled substances and was aware of numerous cases involving illegal Internet pharmacies.

While it recognized “that purchasing phar-maceuticals online can be beneficial, espe-cially in areas where hospitals and pharma-ceutical services are widely dispersed, (the INCB) is alarmed that ‘rogue’ pharmacies are encouraging drug abuse among vulner-able groups.”

The report called for international action “to address the illegal sale of drugs on Inter-net pharmacies and websites.”

It also urged governments to “stimulate” the controlled use of opiate-based painkillers to help “alleviate unnecessary suffering of millions of patients.”

“Although the access to controlled medi-

cines, including morphine and codeine, is considered by the World Health Organiza-tion (WHO) to be a human right, it is virtu-ally non existent in over 150 countries,” the report said.

“The WHO estimates that at least 30 mil-lion patients and possibly as many as 86 mil-lion annually suffer from untreated moderate to severe pain.”

The report also highlighted a big increase in drugs being trafficked through eastern Eu-rope.

“The smuggling of cocaine through East-ern European countries has significantly in-creased in the past few years,” it said.

Western Africa had also become a “major hub” for cocaine smugglers on the route from South America to Europe, the INCB added.

According to the study, some 27 percent, or 40 tons, of the cocaine consumed every year in Europe transited through western Af-rica.

This was due to its geographic location but also to “weak governmental structures that have limited capacity to defend them-selves against drug trafficking and its conse-quences, such as corruption and drug abuse,” it added.

PARIS (AFP) – Whether one smokes to-bacco or not has a greater impact on life span than being rich or poor, the largest study of its kind reported.

Previous research in developed countries have shown that disparities in income trans-late into significant gaps in health and lon-gevity.

But the extra years of life that, on aver-age, come with being in the highest social brackets are more than wiped out by smok-ing, showed the study, which tracked mortal-ity rates over a 28-year period among 15,000 men and women entering into old age.

Lighting up likewise cancelled out the survival advantage enjoyed the world over by women, who generally live several years longer than men.

The findings also confirmed that it is nev-er too late to quit: ex-smokers had survival rates much closer to those who had never smoked than to those with a confirmed to-bacco habit.

For the study, residents aged 45 to 64 from two towns in western Scotland, recruited in the mid-1970s, were divided into four groups depending on their social class and income level.

They were further divided by sex, and into smokers, former smokers, and “never smokers” who had consistently avoided the tobacco habit.

Survival rates after 28 years spelled out the risks of smoking with stark clarity.

Among non-smokers who had never smoked, the survival rate was 65 percent for women and 53 percent for men in the top so-cial tier. The rates in the lowest tier were 56 for women and 36 for men.

For women who smoked, the percentage of survivors dropped to 40 for the most afflu-ent smokers, and 35 for those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder -- fully 30 percent-age points less than wealthy non-smokers.

For men the gaps were even larger. Smok-ing cut the survival rate for the well heeled in half to 25 percent, and for the most income-challenged the percentage dropped to 18.

For both sexes, smoking had a far more devastating impact on mortality than being poor.

“This study provides further evidence that cigarettes indiscriminately damage and kill their users, regardless of social position,” said the study, led by Laurence Gruer at NHS Health Scotland and published in the British Medical Journal.

“Smoking itself was a source of greater health inequality than other factors associ-ated with social position in that population.”

The results also suggest that moving up the socioeconomic ladder will have little ef-fect on the health of those who continue to puff away.

“The combination of the greatly increased mortality of smokers with the now much lower prevalence of smoking among the more affluent is the major contributor to the widening health inequalities observed in the United Kingdom and other industrialised countries,” the researchers concluded.

PARIS (AFP) – The incidence of strokes in low- and middle-income countries has doubled since 1970, surpassing for the first time the rate in rich nations, down by 40 per-cent over the same period, report two studies released last week.

The research also reveals huge gaps in stroke-related mortality: in Russia, for ex-ample, the condition is nearly ten times more deadly than in Canada, France, the United States or Israel.

The worst-hit regions are eastern Europe, north Asia, central Africa and the South Pa-cific, while the least affected are north Amer-ican and western Europe, they report.

Exactly why the gap between developing and wealthy nations is so large, however, re-mains unclear, according to the studies, both published online in the British journal The Lancet Neurology.

Known risk factors such as diabetes and alcohol consumption are often higher in in-dustrialised countries, and thus cannot ac-count for the gap.

Strokes occur when the brain is deprived of blood and thus oxygen, causing brain cells to die.

In 2002, there were an estimated 15.3 mil-lion strokes worldwide. More than a third of them were fatal, accounting for about 10 per-cent of deaths worldwide from all causes.

A trio of researchers led by Claiborne Johnston of the University of California in San Francisco assessed national differences in stroke mortality and the impact of disease measured in years lost because of premature death and disability.

They found that national income was the best single predictor of stroke burden and mortality, with death rates on average 3.5 times higher in poor and middle-income countries than middle-to-high income na-tions.

Most risk factors for stroke – including diabetes, smoking, alcohol consumption, and obesity – were more prevalent in high-income countries.

“Disparities in stroke rates in low-income countries are unexplained by the metrics that are commonly used in assessing the cardio-vascular health of a country,” they noted, speculating that other measures such as rheu-matic heart disease and HIV/AIDS might be better indicators.

In the second study, Valery Feigin at AUT University in Auckland, New Zealand sifted through thousands of studies from around the world to compile a database for comparing stroke incidence over the last four decades.

Drawing from 56 studies across 28 coun-tries with comparable data, they found that the problem had reached “epidemic levels” in less developed nations, more than dou-bling since 1970.

Moreover, patients in these regions were disproportionately hit with haemorrhagic strokes – the most severe kind – and more often died within one month after an attack.

“The time to decide whether or not stroke is an issue that should be on the governmen-tal agenda in low-to-middle income countries has now passed. Now is the time for action,” they conclude.

Dangers of cannabis must not be underestimated

Rich man, poor man, tobacco still a killer

Cannabis was often the first illicit drug taken by young people and was frequently called a “gateway drug,” in that it could lead to later use of hard drugs. www.sxc.hu

For both sexes, smoking had a far more devastating impact on mortality than being poor.

Stroke deaths soar in poorer nations, drop in rich

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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 is keen to see transactions between South American com-panies and states take place using national currencies, without recourse to the U.S. dol-lar which currently acts as an intermediary exchange instrument.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva put the idea formally to his visiting Colombian coun-terpart, Alvaro Uribe, this week, suggesting that a system be set up where national mon-ies can be used as the going commercial rate, officials said.

Uribe was said to have greeted the pro-posal with enthusiasm in talks with Lula last week.

The Brazilian leader also telephoned Ven-ezuelan President Hugo Chavez to express Uribe’s interest and to explore options for Brazil and Venezuela to start talks on the is-sue.

The shared preoccupation of the South American leaders was their countries’ depen-dency on the U.S. dollar, especially during this time of high volatility on the currency markets.

“We need to get our finance ministers and central bank chiefs together to talk about making rules so we don’t have to continue to be dependent on the dollar, which is be-coming more and more problematic every day,” Lula said in a speech delivered before Uribe.

Unasur, the South American trade and cus-toms union, could benefit from such a shift, he said.

“If we manage to give Unasur a commer-cial exchange in national currencies we will be freeing ourselves of a big problem,” Lula said.

Brazil and Argentina have already made

moves to formally institute such a system af-ter seeing their monies tumble badly against the dollar, which is currently benefiting from international safe-haven status.

Economists, though, said implementing such a mechanism would be difficult.

A specialist in the economic department of Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry, Lucia Maduro, said the global financial cri-sis “makes alternatives like this interesting, even though they would require enormous integration of central banks.”

The option of paying cross-border con-tracts in local currencies “should be ex-plored,” she told AFP.

But another expert, Ricardo Martins, in the economic unit of the Sao Paulo Indus-tries Federation, pointed out that the Brazil-Argentina adoption of the system had thus far been lackluster.

“It’s like giving a placebo to someone who’s sick,” he said, saying that despite the extensive trade between Argentina and Bra-zil, ditching the dollar for straight exchange “hasn’t become an important option.”

“It would be marvellous if we could have a common currency, but that’s quite a way off,” he said.

The figures back up the lack of interest in circumventing the dollar in Brazil-Argentina transactions: only 70 exchanges have thus far been denominated solely in Brazil’s real or Argentina’s peso since the system was launched last October.

A Brazilian foreign ministry official speak-ing to AFP on condition of anonymity said the aim of the proposal was not to ensure that the bulk of transactions were conducted in national currencies, but to “allow new actors to enter in commercial exchanges.”

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A high profile task force charged with overseeing reform of the troubled U.S. auto sector held its first meeting last Friday, with senior figures press-ing for a swift and extensive overhaul of the industry, the White House said.

The cabinet-level panel is examining make-or-break restructuring plans presented by car giants General Motors and Chrysler last week.

Both firms have called for billions more in loans to stay afloat, and warned the only other option may be huge lay-offs and expen-sive bankruptcy proceedings.

At Friday’s meeting, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House econom-ic adviser Lawrence Summers “emphasized the urgency of the issues ... and the need for fundamental restructuring to achieve long-term viability,” a White House statement said.

Members of the panel presented their ini-tial ideas on restructuring plans presented by GM and Chrysler recently – which including a request for 21.7 billion dollars in additional funds.

There were no details of what conditions might be placed upon the firms, or the admin-

istration’s view on a rumored GM-Chrysler tie-up.

The proposals were demanded after both firms accepted 17.4 billion dollars in bailout money late last year.

Agreement on the final plan will serve as a basis for the Treasury’s decision to call in or extend the loans.

That decision is expected to come by the end of March.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States will pursue a “positive relationship” with Venezuela after a referendum lifted term limits for President Hugo Chavez and all politicians, a U.S. official said.

“We will continue to seek to maintain a positive relationship with Venezuela,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.

“Although there were some troubling re-ports of intimidation of opponents, for the most part, this was a process that was fully consistent with democratic practice.”

Venezuelans on Sunday voted nearly 55 percent in favor of constitutional reform sought by Chavez, a staunch Washington critic, to run for unlimited reelection, in his bid to consolidate his brand of socialism crit-ics compare to Cuba’s communism.

Chavez has already signaled he intends to run for a third term in 2012.

Asked about Chavez’s bid for unlimited rule, Duguid said he did not have “an opinion on the democratic practices of Venezuelan. In the United States, we have term limits, but that’s our practice.”

Duguid reiterated that the referendum “was a matter for the Venezuelan people.”

But he said that the United States looks “for governments who have achieved a posi-tive democratic result to use that in a positive manner.”

U.S.-Venezuelan relations have been steadily deteriorating since Chavez first took office in 1999. In September, they took a turn for the worse after Venezuela expelled the U.S. ambassador and the United States responded in kind.

Brazilwantstonudgeasidedollarinregionaltransactions

Obama panel eyes ‘fundamental’ auto sector reform

The cabinet-level panel is examining make-or-break restructuring plans presented by car giants General Motors and Chrysler last week.

Last year Alaska’s last native speaker of Eyak, Marie Smith Jones, died, taking the aboriginal language with her.

US seeks ‘positive relationship’ withVenezuela

www.journalcr.com

PARIS (AFP) – The world has lost Manx in the Isle of Man, Ubykh in Turkey and last year Alaska’s last native speaker of Eyak, Marie Smith Jones, died, taking the aborigi-nal language with her.

Of the 6,900 languages spoken in the world, some 2,500 are endangered, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO said s it released its latest atlas of world languages.

That represents a multi-fold increase from the last atlas compiled in 2001 which listed 900 languages threatened with extinction.

But experts say this is more the result of better research tools than of an increasingly dire situation for the world’s many tongues.

Still there is disheartening news.There are 199 languages in the world spo-

ken by fewer than a dozen people, including Karaim which has six speakers in Ukraine and Wichita, spoken by 10 people in the U.S. state of Oklahoma.

The last four speakers of Lengilu talk among themselves in Indonesia.

Prospects are a bit brighter for some 178 other languages, spoken by between 10 and 150 people.

More than 200 languages have become extinct over the last three generations such as Ubykh that fell silent in 1992 when Tefvic Esenc passed on, Aasax in Tanzania, which disappeared in 1976, and Manx in 1974.

India tops the list of countries with the greatest number of endangered languages, 196 in all, followed by the United States which stands to lose 192 and Indonesia, where 147 are in peril.

Australian linguist Christopher Moseley, who headed the atlas’ team of 25 experts, noted that countries with rich linguistic di-versity like India and the United States are also facing the greatest threat of language extinction.

Even Sub-Saharan Africa’s melting pot of some 2,000 languages is expected to shrink by at least 10 percent over the coming cen-

tury, according to UNESCO.On UNESCO’s rating scale, 538 languag-

es are critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe.

On a brighter note, Papua New Guinea, the country of 800 languages, the most diverse in the world, has only 88 endangered dialects.

Certain languages are even showing signs of a revival, like Cornish, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, southern England, and Sishee in New Caledonia.

Governments in Peru, New Zealand, Can-ada, the United States and Mexico have been successful in their efforts to prevent indig-enous languages from dying out.

UNESCO deputy director Francoise Riv-iere applauded government efforts to support linguistic diversity but added that “people have to be proud to speak their language” to ensure it thrives.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The UN General Assembly last week formally launched talks on how to expand the 15-member Security Council to make it more representative, with France and Britain of-fering an interim reform ahead of full-scale expansion.

Assembly members met in a closed-door plenary session and agreed to tackle five key issues: categories of membership, the ques-tion of the veto, geographic representation, the size of an enlarged council and its work-ing methods, and the relationship between the council and the General Assembly.

But the substantive bargaining was to be-gin in earnest on March 4, with additional inter-governmental sessions slated for March and April before a second round of negotia-tions on concrete proposals in May.

The powerful Security Council can adopt binding resolutions, including some impos-ing sanctions or even authorizing the use of force in cases of serious threats to interna-tional peace and security.

Its makeup has remained largely un-changed since the United Nations was es-tablished in 1945 and several countries, particularly in the developing world, see the council as not representative of today’s global realities.

The Council currently has 10 rotating, non-permanent members elected for two years and five, veto-wielding permanent ones (China, the United States, France, Brit-ain and Russia).

In 2005, a so-called Group of Four (G4) countries – Germany, Brazil, India and Ja-pan – made a strong push to join the council

as permanent members, along with two Afri-can countries, but without veto rights.

But their bid failed to get enough support as it ran into strong opposition from regional rivals, such as Italy, Pakistan and Argentina.

“No more stonewalling. The negotiation must begin,” France’s UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters. “The vast ma-jority of members want enlargement. They believe that the council is not representative enough of today’s world and this weakens its legitimacy and effectiveness.”

Ripert said Paris and London backed per-manent membership for the G4 and up to two African countries.

But in view of opposition from some countries to this formula, he said the two countries were proposing “an interim re-form” to break the impasse.

“Let’s create in the interim a category of elected members elected for a longer term” of five, six or eight years, Ripert said, with-out specifying numbers.

He voiced guarded optimism that a com-promise formula could be reached by next September. Council expansion will require approval by a two-thirds majority of the 192-member Assembly and the concurrence of the council’s five veto-wielding perma-nent members.

After 15 years of drawn-out consultations on the divisive issue, the Assembly agreed last September to launch actual negotiations this month, after a report by five facilitators found broad support for council enlargement but no consensus on how to bring it about.

“The current climate of economic insta-

bility has highlighted the need for strong, representative and effective international organizations,” Britain’s UN Ambassador John Sawers said. “Success will require flexibility on all sides.”

Several members said success would largely depend on the stance of the new U.S.

administration of President Barack Obama.“The United States believes that the long-

term legitimacy and viability of the Security Council depends on its reflecting the world of the 21st century,” said its ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.

“As such, we will make a serious, deliber-ate effort, working with partners and allies, to find a way forward,” she added, stressing that Washington was “not linking Security Council reform to other aspects of UN re-form (overhaul of management practices to root out corruption and waste).

“We view both as important and will pur-sue them in tandem,” she added.

Italian Ambassador Giulio Terzi mean-while urged “a solution that can garner the widest possible political acceptance by member states.”

At a ministerial meeting on UN Security Council reform in Rome two weeks ago, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini warned that the reform “should take into consideration the legitimate interests of all UN member states, not just an ‘elite’, to serve on the Council.”

UN formally opens talks on Security Council reform

2,500languagesthreatenedwithextinction

After 15 years of drawn-out consultations on the divisive issue, the Assembly agreed last September to launch actual negotiations this month, after a report by five facilitators found broad support for council enlargement but no consensus on how to bring it about.

Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 200922 Edition 175 • Feb 24 - Mar 2, 2009 23SporTS enTerTainMenT

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

LONDON (AFP) – Pop megastar Michael Jackson is in talks with concert organizers for a comeback series of up to 30 live shows in London later this year, a source close to the negotiations told AFP.

The source, who requested anonymity, confirmed British media reports that the 50-year-old “King of Pop” could be set to play his first major concerts since his 2005 acquit-tal on child molestation charges.

London’s O2 arena is reportedly compet-ing with resort hotels in Las Vegas in the United Sates for the right to host the shows, which could net the fallen icon up to 150 mil-lion pounds (167 million euros, 215 million dollars), reports said.

If the deal is confirmed, it would be a spectacular return to the limelight for Jack-son, who dominated pop with hit albums like “Thriller” and “Bad” in the 1980s but has virtually vanished from public view since his trial.

“It will be the greatest comeback in the history of pop and there would be no problem selling out the O2 every night,” an unidenti-fied source told the Daily Mail newspaper.

“No one is concerned about his reputation and people don’t feel it is a risk. Organis-ers are confident people will come from all over the world to see him. There have been rumours about his health but that is not an issue.”

The star has reportedly hit financial dif-

ficulties and last year faced a seven million dollar lawsuit in London brought by a son of the King of Bahrain, Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, over an alleged unpaid debt.

Jackson and the sheikh settled eventually agreed a confidential out-of-court deal to re-solve the matter.

But he could be set to earn big bucks from the comeback concerts – the Sun placed possible earnings at 150 million pounds, while the Times said that VIP packagaes at the 20,000 seat arena could go for 1,000 pounds.

Jackson has repeatedly said he is working on a new album, but so far nothing concrete has materialized.

“Thriller”, which was released in 1982, remains the world’s best-selling album of all time and he has sold over 750 million records during his career.

The last time he was in London was No-vember 2006, when he appeared at the World Music Awards to accept an award for sell-ing more than 100 million albums over the course of his career.

Though it had been expected that Jackson would recreate “Thriller” at the awards, he instead sang only a few lines of “We Are The World” with a group of youngsters, prompt-ing critics to slate the performance.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Spanish tenor Placido Domingo has won the first prize in memory of Sweden’s legendary soprano Bir-git Nilsson, who herself picked him for the award before her death in 2005, organisers revealed last week.

“The Birgit Nilsson Foundation announc-es today (Friday) that Placido Domingo is the first winner of the one-million-dollar (792,000-euro) Birgit Nilsson Prize, the big-gest prize in classical music history,” the foundation said in a statement.

“The name of the first prize winner, chosen by Birgit Nilsson herself, was kept secret un-til this official announcement,” it said, add-ing that Domingo would receive his award at a formal ceremony at the end of this year.

Domingo was chosen for the prize for “outstanding achievements in the interna-tional field of opera and concert” due to his legendary four decade-long career during which he has sung “130 different roles, more than any other tenor in history,” the founda-tion said.

Nilsson, who died on December 25, 2005 at the age of 87, first sang with Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera in 1969 in a matinee production of Tosca, after which she praised his “superb” acting and “gorgeous singing.”

Domingo meanwhile once said in an inter-view that Nilsson’s recording of “In questa

reggia” was one of his all-time favourites, but added that “the recording cannot compare to the sound I heard when singing with her.”

Nilsson’s most famous role was that of Isolde in Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde”, with which she took La Scala by storm in 1956 and established her credentials as one of the 20th century’s great Wagnerian sopranos.

Nilsson made her last public appearance in 1984 and published her auto-biography “La Nilsson” in 1995.

Domingo wins million-dollarSwedishoperaprize

Domingo was chosen for the prize for “outstanding achievements in the international field of opera and concert” due to his legendary four decade-long career during which he has sung “130 different roles, more than any other tenor in history,” the foundation said.

The source, who requested anonymity, confirmed British media reports that the 50-year-old “King of Pop” could be set to play his first major concerts since his 2005 acquittal on child molestation charges.

‘King of Pop’ eyes London comeback concerts

TOKYO, (AFP) – The U.S. major leagues would likely free up top players for the 2016 Olympics should baseball be reinstated in the Games, the head of the sport’s world govern-ing body said.

International Baseball Federation president Harvey Schiller – speaking in Tokyo, which hopes to host the Olympics – said he had met the owners of all Major League Baseball (MLB) clubs in Arizona this month.

“I asked for their assistance in providing a representative group of the best players for the 2016 Games,” the former executive di-rector of the U.S. Olympic Committee told a news conference in baseball-obsessed Japan.

He added, without citing any clearer com-mitment, that MLB commissioner Bud Selig had issued a statement that the 2016 team “will represent the best players ever in any Olympic tournament”.

“Baseball is a big business and you don’t have to shut baseball down to have a repre-sentative group of the best players (in the Olympics),” Schiller said.

“The (English) Premier League just doesn’t stop playing football and the Olym-pic sponsors such as Coca Cola don’t shut

their factories down.”He said his organisation had proposed to

the International Olympic Committee that a 2016 Olympic baseball tournament would be about five days long, compared with the usu-al 13 days, making it easier for MLB players to take part.

Staging some matches outside the host city, as in football, would be another option, Schiller added.

Baseball and its sister sport, softball, were voted out of the Olympics line-up in 2005 for various reasons, including its limited global spread.

MLB has refused to halt its season for the Olympics, instead staging its own event – the 16-nation World Baseball Classic fea-turing MLB stars – which was first held in 2006, with its second edition to be staged in March.

Baseball and softball will not be staged at London in 2012, although each seeks a re-turn for the 2016 Olympics, which Madrid, Chicago and Rio de Janeiro are also bidding to host.

The IOC executive board will recommend in June one or two sports to be added to the

2016 programme, among seven candidates also including golf, rugby sevens, karate, squash and roller sports.

A full session of the 115-member IOC will vote on the 2016 Olympic venue and pro-gramme in Copenhagen in October.

Schiller said “it will be very, very impor-tant to have a definitive statement” from the MLB before the IOC executive meeting about the participation of its top players.

Baseball became an Olympic medal sport in 1992 and professionals became eligible to play in 2000.

Schiller said he was was heartened that all four 2016 Olympic candidate cities had a “strong history of baseball” and that baseball hotbeds Tokyo and Chicago have “economic advantages” such as big facilities and large fan bases.

The recent discovery of New York Yan-kees star Alex Rodriguez’s doping record has exposed insufficient anti-doping measures taken by the MLB, including its relatively short bans for first offences.

Schiller said his organization enforces pen-alties against drug cheats in a similar manner to any other international sports federation.

Offering what he called a personal view, he said: “If any player in the (World Base-ball) Classic is stupid enough to take drugs and be tested positive during the tournament, he should never be allowed on the baseball field anywhere.”

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Tiger Woods says he is confident of defending his title at this week’s Accenture Match Play Champi-onship after an eight-month layoff following reconstructive knee surgery.

“Nothing changes from every time I enter, it’s to win,” Woods said on Friday. “So that’s my intent, to go in there and win.”

The 14-time major winner announced last Thursday that he would return to the Tour for the Accenture Match Play which begins Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona.

He said he cherished his time at home dur-ing the layoff with his family but now he is

ready to get back to work.“I’m really looking forward to getting

back,” Woods said. “Getting out there and competing again. It’s been a long time.

“Everything’s been great here on the home front. (New son) Charlie’s doing fantastic. (Wife) Elin’s recovering, and everything couldn’t be any better than it is at home. So now’s the time for me to start playing again.”

The tournament will be Woods’ first since an epic U.S. Open victory last June in San Diego.

Eight days after his triumph Woods under-went season-ending surgery to reconstruct the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Woods also had stress fractures in his left tibia, injuries that affected him during his gritty U.S. Open win, in which he needed 91 holes to defeat Rocco Mediate.

The timing of Woods’ return was affected by several factors and not just the rehab on his knee - his wife Elin gave birth to their second child Charlie Axel on February 8.

“They (Sam and Charlie) look a lot alike, there’s no doubt,” Woods said. “The only dif-ference is Charlie’s sleeping a lot better than Sam did, which is really nice.”

Woods chose the name Charlie because it has a good ring to it.

“We kind of like Charlie, and he just kind of fit that when he came out.

“We had a couple of names. Then as far as the Axel, that’s (Elin) brother’s name, so wanted to make sure it stayed in the family.”

Woods said he could have waited a few weeks and come back at World Golf Champi-

onship-CA Championship at Doral in Florida but trusts the way he is playing now.

“Well, it was going to be one of two tour-naments,” he said.

“As I started practising and getting ready in late December that was kind of my time-table was to be back for one of those two events.

“And with Charlie coming on time. I felt that this was the time to get back and play again.”

Woods is scheduled to face Brendan Jones in the opening round on Wednesday unless someone withdraws from the event.

The American star stressed the impor-tance of getting off to a fast start in the match play.

“I am as curious as (everyone else),” Woods said. “Getting out there and compet-ing again and feeling the adrenaline and feel-ing the rush of competing and playing again. I haven’t done that in a while.

“Hopefully, I can get into the flow of the round very quickly. It helps that it is match play, and that each hole is basically an indi-vidual match. So it pays to get off to a quick start.”

Woods said his knee feels much better but people might notice subtle changes in his swing.

“I’ve been trying to make changes in my golf swing,” he said. “One of the great things about coming back was with the ACL, my bones aren’t moving anymore.

“It is comforting feeling to hit a ball and not have your bones slide all over the place. It caused a lot of pain.”

Woods trails only Jack Nicklaus (18) with his 14 major victories. He is also third over-all on the PGA Tour win list with 65 victo-ries. Only Sam Snead (82) and Nicklaus (73) have more.

Woods won four times in his six starts on the Tour in 2008 and placed second in The Masters. He also won the PGA European Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic.

MLBwouldfreeuptopplayersforOlympics

Tiger confident of winning return

Baseball and its sister sport, softball, were voted out of the Olympics line-up in 2005 for various reasons, including its limited global spread.

The tournament will be Woods’ first since an epic U.S. Open victory last June in San Diego.

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