by Rod Hughes

Francisco de Paula Gutierrez, president of Costa Rica’s Central Bank, expressed confidence that inflation could be reduced to 8% in 2008, due in part to a surplus left at the end of 2007, the first such surplus in recent years. The bank had hoped to hit the golden 8% figure last year, but inflation hit 10.8% despite all efforts.

Exports declined slightly last year due, according to some experts, to a weaker dollar and some uncertainty about the fate of the Central American Free Trade pact. The surprising budget surplus, some 1.6% of the gross internal product, will allow the Central Government to transfer some funds to cover losses that contributed to the higher than expected inflation rate.

Gutierrez admitted some uncertainty in the reduction of inflation, depending as it does on the prices of imported petroleum and grains. In its struggle to rein in inflation, the Central Bank took the extreme measure of lowering interest rates 2.75% percentage points to 3.25% in order to curb speculation the entry of short term speculative capital.

In a realistic attempt to be conservative in the face of global economic uncertainty, the Central Bank is predicting only a 3.8% economic growth for this year, despite the 6.8% the economy reached last year.

by Rod Hughes

Costa Rica’s national champion club, Saprissa, went all the way to the finals of Uruguay’s Copa Ricard soccer tourney but could not must quite enough force to win against Nacional of that country. The sides played to a scoreless tie, then began the shootout with penalty kicks. The Tibas team’s hopes crashed when Saprissa idol Ronald Gomez’s kick slammed into the post instead of the back netting.

Try Bennett also missed his goal shot. Soooo…the final score was Nacional 4, Saprissa 3.

Nacional goalie Alexis Viera distinguished himself with superb stops of direct goal shots by Gomez, Armando Alonso and Pablo Brenes during the match.

by Rod Hughes

Tehran was frigid, just above freezing and it seemed to affect both sides in the exhibition match with Iran, resulting in a scoreless tie. Nonetheless, Costa Rica’s head coach Hernan Medford was satisfied. “”(Costa Rica” stacked up very well against a very good team…All my players did well, even the substitutes.” The game was played early Wednesday morning, Costa Rica time.

But the era of Medford is not exactly a sterling one. This is the ninth match without a victory, the worst record for the “La Sele,” as the All-Star team is called, since 1980. Their opponents had called some players back from clubs in Germany to play. They played a fast, explosive match contrasted with Costa Rica, which was able to muster only one soft direct goal shot and three that went astray. But the Tico defense held the line.

by Rod Hughes

Surgeons at San Jose’s Calderon Guardia Hospital are satisfied with the recovery of Mairen Alvarez who received a heart and lung transplant at the hospital Jan. 17. The patient apparently shows no sign of rejecting the new organs and Monday was removed from the respirator.

Hospital Director Luis Paulino Hernandez predicted Tuesday that he patient may be able to return home in three weeks. The young woman is able to recognize her relatives and communicates with gestures.

Meanwhile, two other Costa Rican patients, also tributes to modern medicine, returned home from California. They are former Siamese twins, Yurelia and Fiorella Rocha-Arias, separated by multiple surgeries beginning in November at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard children’s Hospital at Palo Alto. Completely the pin-up patients, the two-year-olds pushed toy carts and swatted at soap bubbles while cameras snapped. They had been joined at chest and abdomen but more seriously shared a liver and their hearts were attached as well. Packard Hospital footed the bill, estimated at $2 million. Their prognosis is excellent, said Dr. Gary Hartman, head of the separation surgical team, and already the twins are developing separate personalities.

by Rod Hughes

Sometimes Mother Nature has a way of getting her vengeance in the most unique way. Case in point: the bizarre death in Carrillo, Guanacaste province of Zacarías Angulo, admired by his friends as an expert hunter. One night this week he and a companion, Jorge Barrantes, went out 15 kilometers from the town of Filadefia, Barrantes to illuminate the deer on this moonlight night.

“Spotlighting” deer is illegal in most countries because the deer is blinded by the light and freezes making an easy and unsporting target. But Angulo chose a highpoint and strung a hammock to sit in with comfort while the deer was driven to him. Fortunately for the prey but to Angulo’s disaster, he chose a dead branch to tie one end of the hammock..The branch broke as he waited along about 11 p.m., firearm in lap. Angulo fell more than 20 feet, landing on his head. He died of a broken neck.

Warned by Angulo’s cry as he was falling, Barrantes came running to find Angulo at the bottom of a steep hill. Barrantes ran for help but it was 3 a.m. before Jorge Luis Vega of the Belen Red Cross could reach the scene. Nothing could be done for Angulo by then.

by Rod Hughes

You can add a new traffic jam-generating hazard to San Jose’s streets to go with cars swerving to avoid pothole, pedestrians with death wishes, smoke-belching trucks and a plenitude of cars: attractive young ladies wearing short shorts or scanty skirts passing out advertising flyers to appreciative drivers.

Three of the lovely hazards, one 17 years old, work for Multiservicios La Macha, ironically in the streets near the Traffic Safety Council headquarters. La Macha (Spanish for “a sweet young thing”) deals in processing of drivers licenses and such, reports the newspaper La Nación. Male drivers, reporter Jairo Villegas observed, slow down to admire the flyer-distributors but often stop altogether in order to exchange a bit of appreciative chit-chat.

“These persons impede the flow of traffic,” primly observes Viviana Martin, Deputy Minister of Transport. But she also says that no law exists against the practice, although the girls expose themselves daily to danger of being run down and distract male drivers. Nor can they be singled out, because the practice of selling newspapers at traffic circles by young men is a tradition here.

Meanwhile, male drivers will gawk, running the risk of having a bus attempting to get into the trunk of their cars because they braked unexpectedly.

by Rod Hughes

Slowly but surely. The fifth of the 13 laws to implement the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) passed its first reading yesterday, aided by an unexpected boost by the opposition party PAC (Citizen Action Party in English). PAC, a bitter enemy of the trade pact passed last October by a nationwide referendum, had been blocking passage of bills aimed at bringing Costa Rican law into accord with the treaty.

The final amendment to the Trademarks & Patents Law was made by a bitter foe of CAFTA, lawmaker Jose Merino. The amendment, which passed after an hour and 20 minutes of negotiations, will allow the government to “break” a patent on medication during an epidemic or other public health emergency and, using medical and clinical findings, authorize use of a generic drug.

As promising as the progress has been, one of the implementation bills to be passed before CAFTA may be fully put into action, opening the INS insurance monopoly to a free market, is stalled in committee. The amendment to allow INS to invest abroad to secure its financial obligations has even the deputies of the same party divided. All this head scratching over whether this strategy is wise will likely slow the progress of the bill in committee and, if approved, may cause passage to deviate from strict party-line voting as the others have been. The pro-CAFTA Arias Administration has a bare 38 votes behind the pact, the minimum 2/3 majority.

Meanwhile, the bill to open telecommunications up to a free market status, breaking ICE’s monopoly is proving as prickly as a cactus, as this reporter predicted last year. ICE, a pioneer in electrification and land line telephones in Central America, is somewhat of a sacred cow here and has a strong leftist backing from college students and government employee unions.

But the minimum majority does not alleviate the pressure the 19 opposition deputies put on the Feb. 29 deadline to pass these laws. That is why the Arias Administration, in an attack of reality acceptance, is seeking an extension to this deadline. The opposition has inundated committees considering these bills with a veritable blizzard of amendments, some sincere but most frivolous attempts to avoid the inevitable. It will be interesting when the next elections roll around in 2010 to see how PAC, especially, will explain its opposition to the will of the thin majority of Costa Ricans who approved the free trade pact.

Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United States, Tomas Duenas, said this week that conversations with trade authorities in Washington D. C. indicate that they are favorably disposed to extend the deadline (Feb. 29) so that this country’s Legislative Assembly can pass the laws needed to put Costa Rica in accord with CAFTA. He said they are taking into consideration that the October referendum ratified the pact as a whole.

But the other nations in the treaty, which includes the Dominican Republic, must also approve the extension. Nicaragua’s and Salvador’s ambassadors have already said they see no reason not to approve the extension, said an Arias Administration spokesman. “We just can’t conceive of a CAFTA without Costa Rica,” commented Salvador’s Milton Colindres.