Archive for July 21st, 2008
Monday, July 21st, 2008
According to the Lonely Planet phrasebook Costa Rican Spanish, the phrase ¡Pura vida! “embodies Costa Rican life. Meaning literally ‘pure life,’ it is really a more profound concept encompassing well being, positivity and harmony. It can variously be translated as ‘great,’ ‘cool,’ ‘right on,’ etc.”
“Pura vida” has become Costa Rica’s informal motto, a sort of Latin American version of “hakuna matata” (which was a real Swahili phrase long before “The Lion King”). You see it in advertising, on souvenirs, and you hear it in casual conversation.
Pura vida
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias denied any knowledge of a 1.5 million dollar donation from Taiwan for his country’s poor, but which allegedly was diverted for pet projects elsewhere in the government.
“I had no knowledge of this help from the government of Taiwan which I learned about from the press just recently,” he said in remarks published Saturday in the La Nacion newspaper.
La Nacion earlier this month alleged that the office of Arias’ brother and chief of staff, Rodriguez Arias, paid scores of government consultants with two million dollars that had been donated by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE).
Funds were sent by Taiwan to BCIE at the request of Costa Rican Housing Minister Fernando Zumbado, according to press reports, which have said the sum of the wire transfer was 2.5 million dollars.
Zumbado admits to having received only 1.5 million. The minister has been suspended from his post pending a congressional investigation.
News reports said donations made by Taiwan in 2006 were destined for the construction of housing for the poor, but never got to the intended recipients.
Costa Rica in June 2007 broke its ties with Taiwan, and instead established relations with the Chinese government in Beijing.
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
Global Crossing (Nasdaq:GLBC), a global IP solutions provider, reported (18 July) that a ceremony has been held today in the Costa Rican city of Esterillos to celebrate the inauguration of a new submarine fibre optic telecomms cable connecting the Pacific coast of Costa Rica to the Pan American cable (PAC).
The PAC connects the west coast of the US, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and the Virgin Islands. The new submarine cable, constructed and operated by Global Crossing will provide the state-run Costa Rican national telecomms body Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) and Radiografica Costarricense SA (RASCA), a Costa Rican Internet access provider, with increased international capacity and additional connection resilience. (more…)
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
Standard & Poor’s, a global leader in credit ratings and credit risk analysis, has adjusted its assessment of Costa Rica from stable to positive.
Costa Rica currently has a BB qualification for long-range debt in foreign currency, which means the country is less vulnerable in the short-term than other issue markets, the Minister of the Treasury, Guillermo Zúñiga, said of the assessment.
The Standard and Poor’s rating places Costa Rica in a situation equitable to that of Guatemala, but below El Salvador.
Countries with the best assessments in Latin America are Chile, México and Brazil, which together make up nations with “investment grade ratings”, and had the best results — as did the Caribbean nations of Aruba, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the Bahamas.
The improved rating came as the Costa Rican colon took a pounding on Tuesday, losing more than two percent of its value in just a few hours. (more…)
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
Costa Rican farmhand Elbert Perez cuts bunches of unripe bananas in the blazing sun and prepares them for their long journey from the world’s No. 2 banana exporter to the European Union.
One of the few farms in Costa Rica that exports exclusively to Europe, owner Eduardo Gomez says European Union import tariffs on Latin American bananas mean lower wages for his workers and a barrier to creating jobs and expanding trade.
“Without tariffs, all the workers would benefit, we could pay better salaries, improve cultivation. We have a great advantage in quality and productivity that we are not able to develop,” said Gomez at the lush Bananera El Esfuerzo farm, where wages are about $95 a week. (more…)
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
Costa Rica’s Legislative assembly on Thursday started discussing the 2008 second extraordinary budget of 30 billion Costa Rican Colones (57.9 million U.S. dollars) which includes the money to finance the Food National Plan.
The Food National Plan, focusing on issues such as increasing the production of staples like rice, reactivating crop insurance and providing better credit conditions to food producers, was among the government’s measures to cope with the world crisis of rising food prices.
Half of the budget would be used as food tokens to 16,000 poor families with children under 12, and scholarships for 43,000 children.
Guillermo Zuliga, the finance minister, told Xinhua that the budget also included a certain amount of money for state universities to handle salary increases.
The country would also seek to increase its capacity of storing grain.
The budget, however, encountered strong opposition at the Congress on Thursday.
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