TRIPOLI – The small desert ranch near Tripoli was described as a turkey farm, but there were no birds in sight when a group of weapons experts visited six weeks ago. Guided by Libyan officials, they entered a metal barn to discover the farm’s true purpose: a hiding place for hundreds of chemical bombs.

The turkey farm is one of a number of secret weapons sites Libya has shown to U.S., British and U.N. officials in the weeks since Moammar Gadhafi publicly renounced weapons of mass destruction. Libya’s willingness to open its weapons laboratories and storage depots – including some that were unknown – has helped cement trust between U.S. and Libyan scientists, while persuading Bush administration officials that Gadhafi’s December announcement was sincere.

Working with black-market suppliers, Libya was in the process of acquiring a large uranium enrichment plant that could have produced enough fuel for several nuclear bombs a year.

The Libyan disclosures have provided U.N. investigators with an important glimpse of how global weapons proliferation actually works.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – With the Argentine economy showing signs of life again following the worst economic crisis in its history, President Nestor Kirchner’s defiant proposal to repay only a fraction of the nearly $88 billion the country owes to creditors in the United States, Europe and Japan is rallying voters here and angering bondholders abroad.

Argentina defaulted on the bonds in December 2001, deepening a long recession and leading to a sharp devaluation of the peso. Argentina’s economy grew last year for the first time in five years, by nearly 8 percent. But with one in five workers unemployed, and more than half of the country’s 38 million people living in poverty, Kirchner has not budged from his insistence that Argentina cannot afford to repay the defaulted bonds at anything close to their full prices.

THE presidents of Central America and top Spanish officials will sign an agreement today to include Spain as part of Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE).

Spain is expected to contribute $200 million in additional funds to BCIE by serving as an extra-regional partner, similar to Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Taiwan.

During their visit, the Central American leaders will attempt to convince Spanish leaders to propose that the European Union begin free-trade negotiations with Central America no later than January 2005.

Most of the presidents – Oscar Berger of Guatemala; Mireya Moscoso of Panama; Abel Pacheco of Costa Rica; Ricardo Maduro of Honduras and Francisco Flores of El Salvador – arrived in Spain Wednesday. Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños arrived Thursday.

In addition to signing the BCIE agreement, the presidents will discuss other cooperation issues during their meeting.

AS of May 1 of this year, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have agreed to implement a joint customs union. Costa Rica, which took part in the customs union discussions, is not part of the agreement.

“The customs union agreement attempts to set up uniform legislation, customs procedures and product entry regulations,” explained Oscar Santamaría, head of the Secretariat for Central American Integration (SICA). “The transition calendar will operate in several phases. All four countries agreed on that.

“Costa Rica will also participate, but in a progressive manner,” Santamaría said. “They believe it may take them longer than May.”

THE Costa Rican Foreign Trade Ministry (COMEX) announced the country needs additional time to conduct internal reforms to some of its laws before agreeing to set dates for the implementation of the customs union. No information was given on when that would be.

“We prefer not to commit ourselves to deadlines we might not be able to meet,” Gabriela Llobet, Costa Rica’s Foreign Trade Vice-Minister, told the daily La Nación last week.

President Abel Pacheco was absent during the Central American presidents’ summit held last week in Guatemala to discuss the customs union. Foreign Trade Minister Alberto Trejos went in his place.

Under the customs union, all products grown or manufactured in one Central American country would be able to enter any other Central American country free of tariffs. Foreign products that enter the region at one port of entry would be allowed to freely circulate throughout the region.

CUSTOM taxes would be paid at local banks in cash instead of at the port of entry. Customs procedures would take “only five minutes,” reducing the long lines at borders and making it easier to do business in the region, according to Salvadoran Economy Minister Miguel Lacayo.

Costa Rica needs more time to decide how it will charge sales taxes to incoming products, which are currently collected at customs offices. The country also needs to find a way of guaranteeing that the free movement of goods throughout the region does not limit the country’s ability to enforce existing plant and animal health standards and security procedures, Llobet said.

Costa Rica is requesting that all Central American countries finish harmonizing the tariffs charged to foreign products.

According to COMEX, 8% of the region’s tariff lines have yet to be harmonized.

Despite Costa Rica’s decision, the region remains optimistic the customs union will be succesful.

“We are telling the world Central America is one and is going to begin working as a bloc,” Guatemalan President Oscar Berger said following last week’s summit.

Guatemala and El Salvador have already agreed to implement the customs union agreement by March 10.

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) – The Guatemalan government launched a security plan Tuesday that aims to protect the safety of the thousands of tourists who visit the country and promote a positive image of the Central American nation.

As part of the plan, the government will add 800 new officers to the National Civil Police (PNC) and the Tourism Police (POLITUR), and increase vigilance on the highways bordering El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, said Minister of the Interior Arturo Soto.

“We hope to develop the human capacities of POLITUR, in order to intensify the presence of police on borders with El Salvador and Honduras, so that Guatemala is a good recipient of visitors in the region, and starting March 12, the border with El Salvador will be open,” he said.

THE Presidential Commissioner of Security and Defense, General Otto Pérez, said investigations have detected at least four delinquent gangs that operate against tourists in Guatemala.

“Each gang has some 25 members, who rotate in various regions, but what interests us is speeding up the diligence to make captures a reality, and minimize the number of crimes committed,” he said.

According to Pérez, the national plan for tourist safety “is a way in which the government of President Oscar Berger – in power since January 10 – is declaring the safety of visitors a priority.”

Alejandro Sinibaldi, the director of the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism (INGUAT) and Sandra Muralles, president of the Chamber of Tourism (CAMTUR) said they were pleased with the announcement.

They said the tourism sector has become the country’s number one generator of income, after the foreign remittances sent from Guatemalans outside of the country.

“TOURISM is an important source of direct and indirect employment, and the investment of capital in the sector has caused a positive effect on industries like communications, the bank system, construction, agriculture, food processing and artisans, among others,” Sinibaldi said.

Aggressions against tourists have become more frequent in Guatemala. One of the most recent was Jan. 7, when Brett Richards, from the United States, died after being attacked by a gang.

MANAGUA (AFP) – Three U.S.- based multinational companies have been ordered by a Nicaraguan court to pay $82.9 million to 80 banana workers who became sick after using the pesticide Nemagon in banana plantations, a judicial source announced Wednesday.

The Third Civil Judge of the Man agua District, Vida Benavente, ruled against the North American companies Shell Chemical Company, Dole Food Company Inc. and Standard Fruit Company, which was later acquired by Dole Food Company Inc., an employee of the judicial office confirmed for the AFP.

The judgment favors the banana workers with a payment of approximately $1 million each, for health damages caused by the use of Nemagon in the banana plantations that the U.S. companies operated in Nicaragua in the 1970s.

This is the second trial Nicaraguan banana workers affected by Nemagon have won in Managua against North American companies. On December 11, 2001, a Nicaraguan court ordered Shell, Dole and Dow Agro Sciences to compensate sick banana workers with $489 million, but the businesses refused to pay the money.

THESE cases represent only a portion of the total compensation cases filed by more than 17,000 Nicaraguan banana workers in the last six years against eight international companies from the United States.

The ruling made by judge Benavente was supported by medical exams of those affected that show evidence of ailments caused by the pesticide.

Specialized doctors testified about the harmful effects Nemagon has on human beings, including kidney problems, skin problems, infertility, inflamed internal organs, cancer and physical birth defects.

Approximately 600 people have died in the last 10 years from sicknesses caused by Nemagon contamination, according to leaders of the banana workers.

ABOUT 2,000 victims of the pesticide walked to the capital city February to request the support of the government of President Enrique Bolaños against the companies that have ignored the Nicaraguan ruling.

The defendants are Dole, Shell Chemical (subsidiary of the Houston, Texas-based Shell Oil Company), Chiquita Brands International, Standard Fruit Company (which merged with Dole), Del Monte Tropical Fruit Company, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Dow Agro Sciences and Aka del Monte Foods.

Shell, Dole and Dow Agro Sciences, the three companies that were ordered in December 2001 to pay damages, have taken legal actions against the beneficiaries, whom they accuse of fraud for presenting falsified medical exams

The Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT) expects to complete the last remaining stretch of the

, which will connect the central Pacific coast city of Quepos to Playa Dominical in the Southern Zone, by December 2006, the daily La Nación reported.

Local residents, many of whom have been waiting 40 years for a paved highway connecting the Southern Zone to Quepos and the rest of the country, are optimistic, but still have doubts the project will be completed on deadline.

MOPT estimated it will cost approximately $1 million to build each of the highway’s remaining 40 kilometers. The high cost is the result of the additional work the highway will require.

According to Carlos Acosta, chief engineer of the project, the highway will be raised and drains will be constructed on its sides to protect it from flooding.

Four layers of rock, stabilizing mixture and asphalt will be placed on the highway’s surface to ensure it stands the test of time.

The project will be financed through a $60 million loan from the Central America Economic Integration Bank (BCIE).

Once completed, Costanera Sur will serve as the country’s main connection to Panama. The highway is part of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s controversial Puebla-Panama Plan, which aims to create a highway between Panama and Southern Mexico.

WHAT began as one community’s struggle to keep an incinerator out of the neighborhood has grown into a national fight against this method of treating infectious hospital waste.

With cries of public health concerns, residents of La Aurora de Heredia, just north of San José, have issued a call to arms to environmental groups, municipalities and other communities, and it appears the first battle has been won.

Last year, Fénix Médica de Costa Rica, S.A., proposed the construction of an incinerator in the northern San José neighborhood of Tibás. After the proposal was rejected there, the project, which proponents said would have treated 300 kilograms of hospital waste per hour, was proposed for an industrial zone in Barreal de Heredia, 1.5 kilometers from the community of La Aurora (TT, Oct. 24, 2003).

ALTHOUGH the Ministry of Health approved the preliminary plan in November 2003, the Municipality of Heredia later rejected it. No proposals to build incinerators in Heredia currently exist, Mayor Javier Carvajal told The Tico Times.

However, the support of the Ministry of Health for this project has sparked renewed concern among those who oppose the incineration of hospital waste. A group has formed that would like to see the Ministry do for the country what the Social Security System (Caja) has done for the country’s public hospitals: prohibit the use of incineration as a treatment of medical waste.

Lead by Agenda Local 21, of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the fight against incineration has grown in recent months to include more than 100 environmental groups and is at least 300 people strong, according to Agenda Local 21 executive committee member Francisco San Lee, an environmental education advisor to the Public Education Ministry.

THROUGH workshops, community meetings and e-mail correspondence, residents in La Aurora initially brought their fight to the surrounding communities of San Francisco, Belén, Lagunilla and San Joaquín de Flores.

The crusade has since been carried to the cantons of Esparza and Montes de Oro in Puntarenas province, and some regions of the Atlantic zone and northwestern Guanacaste province.

The crusaders’ message is that toxins released from incinerators can cause cancer, respiratory damage and birth defects.

The ashes created when medical waste is burned are often mixed with heavy metals and can contaminate water and soil if not properly disposed, according to Sonia Torres, of the Association of Ecological Community Users of the Golf of Nicoya (CEUS).

“People are surprised that they are promoting this type of technology,” Torres said.

HOWEVER, the Ministry of Health says research shows incinerators that burn waste at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit are not dangerous, as long as controls on temperature and gas emissions are monitored.

“If a company has good control, we accept them, if they don’t have good control, we don’t,” said Arturo Navarro, an industrial chemist for the Department of the Protection of the Human Environment at the Ministry of Health.

Fénix Médica representatives declined requests by The Tico Times to comment on their incinerator proposal, saying articles published by the paper last year on the subject contained “misstatements.” Details were not provided.

The Ministry of Health does prohibit burning materials containing chlorine because cancer-causing toxins can be released, Navarro said. Many plastics contain chlorine molecules.

Navarro said the Ministry often refers to information from the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, and cites the use of thousands of incinerators in that country.

However, according to Agenda Local 21, only a handful of the incinerators used in the United States are monitored for the release of diotoxins.

BEYOND medical waste, environmental groups are concerned about the treatment of waste as a whole in Costa Rica. They hope to create a nationwide system for the management of all waste, including treatment of toxins and separation of recyclable materials, far beyond what is currently being implemented by the Caja (see separate story).

“The problem is not the trash, the problem is the management of the trash,” said San Carlos Deputy Mayor Wilberth Rojas.

“There needs to be a solution of the same intensity as the problem,” agreed Maria Fournier, president of the environmental group Yiski, which works primarily with waste treatment.

“If we humans have had the ability to create such a serious problem, we also have to have the capacity to resolve it,” she concluded.

IN what each team hopes will be only a stop on the road to Athens, Greece, the first-ever women’s Olympic qualifying event held by the Confederation of North and Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) is taking place in San José and Heredia through the end of next week.

In total, eight teams are competing for the two berths to this summer’s games in Athens.

“This is a historic event,” CONCACAF press officer Steve Torres told The Tico Times. “This is the first time there has been a women’s qualification for the Olympics in our region and it’s the first time that we will send two teams to the Olympics.”

Costa Rica’s male Under-23 National Soccer Team qualified for the Olympics, for the first time since 1984, earlier this month (TT, Feb. 13).

Since the inauguration of women’s soccer as an Olympic event in 1996, the United States has been the only team from the region to compete. The U.S. women received an invitation to play eight years ago and qualified for the Sydney games based on their FIFA World Cup performance in 2000.

BECAUSE of their past Olympic and World Cup performance, the U.S. women are a favorite to qualify. However, with two spots available, Canada and Mexico have a good chance of advancing as well.

Mexico defeated Haiti 5-0 and the United States dominated Trinidad and Tobago 7-0 in the opening games Wednesday at the National Stadium.

Last night at press time, Costa Rica took on Panama in the team’s first game of the tournament. The Ticas will face off against Jamaica tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. at the National Stadium in San José.

The tournament was originally scheduled to take place in Mexico at the same time as the men’s Olympic qualifier.

“Unfortunately, Mexico could not accomodate the women’s competition so it was relocated,” Torres explained.

“WE needed to find a host to stage the women’s Pre-Olympic event and Costa Rica was the first country to ask,” he continued.

“The decision was approved by the executive committee and the dates were modified so it wouldn’t conflict with the men’s competition.”

Although the Costa Rican women’s team failed to qualify for last year’s World Cup, they received entry into the tournament as a result of being the host country.

The Ticas’ last major win came in 2001 at the Central American Games.

In the early rounds, teams are grouped together and face off against each other before advancing to the semifinals, which will take place on March 3 at National Stadium in San José. The final will be played March 5 at Eladio Rosabal Cordero Stadium in Heredia.

Group A consists of Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Panama, while the United States, Mexico, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago make up Group B.

THE crowd was sparse for the first game, although those in attendance were dedicated soccer fans who had come from around the United States, as well as Mexico and Haiti, to support their teams. Lauren Krueger and Nancy McDaniel came from Arizona to watch the games.

“Nancy wanted to go on vacation and I said I’d come as long as we could plan it for the end of February so we could come to the games,” Krueger said.

Humberto Rojas, from San José, was there Wednesday – even though the Costa Rican team would not compete until the next day.

“I’m just a really big fan of the game,” he said.

“This is an important championship and I want to see the best teams in the Americas – the United States, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica – play,” he added.

RESPONDING to ongoing concerns about teenage pregnancy and AIDS transmission in Costa Rica, the Ministry of Public Education is once again trying to bring clarity and universality to sex education in schools.

At the start of the school year, the ministry distributed policy guides to teachers throughout the country, which attempt to address issues ranging from emotional aspects of sexuality to sexually transmitted diseases and pornography by teaching selfrespect, responsibility and life vision.

The new “comprehensive” guides focus on values and ethics, mentioning teenage pregnancy only once and AIDS twice.

ACCORDING to the official curriculum set by the ministry, sex education has been a part of science, religion, and achievement classes since 1990, and in some cases earlier.

But it may not be enough.

“Because there are so many pregnant girls these days, I think teachers have realized they must talk about contraceptives,” said 20-year-old Karen Mejía, at a recent meeting of Recycling Hopes, a support group for teen mothers. Mejía has a 2-year-old son.

“But what girls really need to learn is how to apply the information they have,” she said.

Detailed lessons about sex begin in fifth and sixth grades, according to Rita Sandí, biology advisor for the Public Education Ministry.

In eighth grade, lessons continue on birth control and abortion. Students don’t learn about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases until the ninth grade.

Sexual education continues through the eleventh grade.

DESPITE this official policy, the issue of discussing sex in schools has a long history of controversy in Costa Rica, where 90% of the population is Catholic, the official religion.

Unlike mathematics, sciences and social studies classes, there are no standardized books used by students for sexual education. Instead, teachers can elect to distribute photocopies of material from the Didactic Guide for Education in Population in the Area of Human Sexuality, published in 1993.

Most schools throughout the country have at least one set of the books, unless they have been lost, Sandí said.

The guides were released after a nearly two-year controversy in the early 1990s. First published in 1992, objections by the Catholic Church resulted in changes – primarily the removal of photos and detailed drawings and a reduction of information on birth control – and a second publication (TT, Feb. 5, 1993).

The new 22-page policy guides were released without approval from the Catholic Church. The Episcopal Conference was consulted after the Council of Superior Education had already approved the guides, so the suggestions of religious leaders were not taken into consideration, according to Federico Cruz, director of the Department of Religious Education for the Ministry of Education.

“IT seems that students are given a lot of information, but they need to talk more about it, about what it is to be human and reinforcing values,” said Nubia Chávez, who teaches orientation classes at Liceo del Sur high school in San José.

Orientation classes are taught to seventh, eighth and ninth graders once a week and include sex education.

Sexual education should include discussions on giving and receiving affection, strengthening mutual respect and living happily with a partner, according to the new guide. A link should be made between human sexuality and emotion and instruction should be offered on problem-solving methods for concrete problems, it states.

TO bring clarity to this vagueness, a 40-hour series of instructive workshops will be given in each region of the country.

A staff of 30 people, trained by the Department of Integral Education of Human Sexuality and director Patricia Arce, will provide instruction.

Because of the complexity of this task, only about half of the regions in the country will institute the new sexual education guidelines this year, Arce said.

The Council of Superior Education originally approved the new sex education guidelines in June 2001. However, lack of funding to print the manual prevented its distribution until this year, Arce said. She hopes to have the new program guidelines implemented at every school in the country by 2006.

Areas in Costa Rica with the highest rates of teenage pregnancy will be the first to be trained, Arce said.

She pointed to a 2002 State of the Nation, which said fertility rates are particularly high in the San José suburbs of Tirrasas-Río Azul, La Carpio-Pavas, León XIII, Tuetal Sur de Alajuela and southern neighborhoods of San José such as San Sebastián, Hatillo, San Antonio, San Felipe and Concepción de Alajuelita.

Teenaged women between the ages of 15 and 19 who live in these areas are 50% more likely to become pregnant than those who live in other neighborhoods of the greater metropolitan area.

“CHILDREN having sex at 12 years old and younger is a reality, it is our reality,” said Patricia Quesada, who teaches Education to Achieve classes at Liceo del Sur. “We teach a little about contraceptives, but the reality is these methods are necessary. We need to talk to young woman about protecting themselves, and about the thousands of consequences that exist.”

Quesada is aware of one pregnant 15-year-old girl at her school. She said last year at least four students at the school became pregnant.

Statistics on teenage pregnancy from the Social Security System (Caja) are available only through 2001. From 1997 to 2001, the annual number of pregnancies in women ages 10 to 14 increased from 578 to 593, peaking in 2000 with 684, according to the Caja. For women ages 15 to 19, the numbers rose from 14,475 in 1997 to 14,701 in 2001, peaking in 2000 with 15,765.

A study by the Center of Central American Population at the University of Costa Rica shows that 52.7% of all births in Costa Rica in 2000 were by unmarried mothers, up from 38.5% in 1990. In addition, 31.2% of births in 2000 were to unknown fathers, up from 21.1% in 1990.

THE new sexual education guidelines will attempt to address the issues behind these statistics, according to Arce. Like pregnancy statistics, records of HIV and AIDS cases are also limited in Costa Rica.

According to the Ministry of Health, since 1983 there have been 2,455 cases of AIDS. The annual number of cases peaked in 1998 with 295. In 2002, the ministry reported 90 new cases.

However Minister of Health Rocío Sáenz said health officials believe that “for every known case of AIDS, there are ten unknown (TT, Nov. 28, 2003).”

“THERE are people (infected with AIDS) who don’t go to the Caja, who don’t go to the AIDS control department, who don’t go to anything, so there are not any official numbers,” agreed Carlos Alfaro, president of the Association for the Movement to Fight Against HIV.

“No one can officially say how many there are, there could be 15,000 (HIV-positive cases), there could be more, there could be less,” he said.