by Rod Hughes

Costa Ricans want a university education but many are the aspirants and few are called. Look at the figures: University of Costa Rica (UCR) has the same 7,500 new students as last year, although 30,000 took the entrance exam. Autonomous University (UNA) at Heredia is adding space for 500 but that only brings the openings up to 4,500–15,500 will be turned away.

At Costa Rica Technological Institute a 400-place rise only brings new student up to 4,524, although 19,000 took the exams. And low test scores are not the only reason for turning away students–some courses fill up rapidly.

Some public universities have tiny regional annexes that really do little to alleviate the need. For those who are rejected and can afford it, private universities will take up some slack. Universidad Latina, for example, has 19,000 total enrollment and others are nearly as large.

University rectors complain that they are getting no more public funding than they did last year. And budget makers in the Legislative Assembly must balance their needs with primary and secondary schools.

by Rod Hughes

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega publicly acknowledged that the dispute over the San Juan River navigation would have to be resolved by the World Court at The Hague. He made the admission during a lengthy press conference following two hours of discussion with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

Relations between the two presidents are not personally warm because of deep ideological differences but the issue of allowing police carrying arms and tourist boats to pass on the San Juan without interference is a long-standing controversy between the two nations. A flawed 19th century treaty makes the river Nicaraguan territory while still allowing Costa Rican boat traffic to use the waterway–except for warships.

The Nicaraguan government seems to see outboard motorboats with sidearm-bearing police aboard as warships. The fact that Costa Rica has had no military since 1949 makes no impression on any of the Nicaraguan governments in the past decade. The need for Costa Rican police to supply their outposts by water because of dense jungle and swamp in the area likewise makes no impression, despite the fact that armed drug smugglers can use the border for their activities.

After years of bickering, in 2005 Costa Rica placed the matter before the World Court but the prospect of arbitration did not set well with Nicaragua’s foreign policy makers–they seemed to look upon the move as a dirty trick. At times the countries’ foreign ministries have simply refused to talk, not only about the San Juan but also about the flood of immigrants from Nicaragua entering Costa Rica.

Despite the sour relations of the past, the two presidents donned diplomatic smiles and spoke out for a “friendly” resolution in the court. Ortega said that soon a group of lawmakers from his country would come to talk to Legislative Assembly deputies here about the need to draft a new Costa Rican immigration act. On this issue, Arias and his visitor have some common ground; Arias has refused to enforce the law passed during the past Administration because he sees it as “unworkable” and flawed by human rights issues.

But while Arias remained firm on navigation rights on the northern border, he did give Ortega the generous word that this country would forgive “an important part” of Nicaragua’s $630 million debt and would throw his weight into Ortega’s efforts to reduce debt to other nations. Nicaragua is in far worse shape economically than Costa Rica and the situation was made worse by the need to rebuild the ravages of the hurricane that hit northern Nicaragua a few months ago.

by Rod Hughes

Anyone doubting that the dollar is slumping badly has only to have read the country’s leading newspaper, La Nación yesterday, with its banner headline that Banco Central has reduced the value of the dollar against the national currency by 4%.

Costa Rica’s Central Bank is notoriously cautious so the drop of the colon from ¢519.16 to ¢498.39 is for them a drastic step. “The winners are those who have dollar credit in dollars and the importers, the most affected are the exporters,” commented Banco de Costa Rica manager Carlos Fernandez. He might also have mentioned those having dollar bank accounts.

In the medium term, the adjustment will slow the inflation of the colon but the damage to the exports might offset that. Exporters will be paying salaries, materials and other costs in more valuable colones while earning dollars that turn into fewer colones. To offset this would mean selling merchandise abroad at a higher price, potentially reducing the number of buyers. Importers are smiling because the opposite is true with them.

As this reporter interviewed middle class Costa Ricans about the declining dollar yesterday, the only serene one was a lady who had a bank account in euros.

by Rod Hughes

Scores of Costa Rican students, ages 15 to 25, brought their innovations recently to the Young Inventors’ fair at Latin American University of Science and Technology (ULACIT). Inventions ranged from an ultraviolet killer of mites (such as found in household dust, contributing to allergies) to an automated election process.

But the winner was a group of students from the San Sabastián Technical High School with their carbono nanotubesw, forming a tiny material stronger but much lighter than steel. Berny Mora, Joiner Ramos, Fabiola Bogantes and Yeilín Zúñiga created the structures with equipment that companies like Intel donate to schools, in which an electric arc is created between a graphite disk and an electrode in an atmosphere of argon gas. The dislodged carbon molecules from the disk are sucked into ethanol. Their success had to be tested by viewing through an electron microscope. The winners took four months of intense work to complete the project while still keeping up with their studies but it was worth it. The quartet each won a full scholarship to ULACIT, including all expenses, plus a computer and slightly less than $200 in colones.

Second place went to Sayder Palacios and Rony Pérez of the Don Bosco Technical High School for creating softwar and hardware especially for the blind. With this program, a scanner views a text document and transforms it into Braille.

Third place went to Andrés Navas of Mario Fernández High School for a consumately practical home alarm using a laser and mirrors. Cost of materials: less than $20.

Congratulations to all participants from all of us at American-European Real Estate. These students are a credit to this so-called “Third World” country whose technicians have already made advances with Intel. (See previous newsfeed article on the subject.)

by Rod Hughes

Thank heavens it was only an exhibition game Wednesday. On the other hand the All-Star’s performance in the 1-1 tie with Panama bodes ill for the Sele, as the team is affectionately (sometimes) called, getting past the improved regional teams and into the World Cup

The general impression of disorganization even extended to Panama’s scoring at minute 29. It was an autogoal, self inflicted by Costa Rica’s veteran Luis Marín with the complicity of the poorly positioned Tico goalie, Jose Francisco Porras. It took substitute Victor “El Mambo” Nuñez, who came in for Roy Myrie at minute 77, to even up things. It should be noted that the goal came from a pass by Marín (pulling his badly burned chestnuts out of the fire) at minute 81.

More could be written about the match, but ye could not bear it now…