Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil have finally gotten most of what they were after in the banana dispute with the European Union, ongoing since 1999. Even though former European colonies will pay no duty on imports, which the Latin American countries still consider unfair, the “banana” republics will not be restricted to quotas or require licenses in order to export to the EU. As of January 1^st, the European Union has agreed to charge a flat tariff of 176 Euros per ton of banana from Latin America. Currently fruit that enters under the quota system pays 75 Euros and additional tons pay 680 Euros each.

Even though the Assembly is taking extra time to vote on pending motions, the tax plan appears comatose according to representatives. Apparently parties are hesitant to vote in favor of increasing taxes ahead of the February elections. Although PLUSC started out supporting the plan 3 years ago, apparently many of the PUSC representatives are no longer willing to vote in favor.

375 motions are pending discussion, and even though the Assembly will dedicate all of the December sessions to the project, opponents doubt that the motions will be dealt with before the break. The most recent surveys count 23 supporters of the plan, 3 for the plan with conditions, 20 against, 6 undecided, and 3 not answering. So at least 3 votes are lacking, depending on what may happen with the motions under discussion.

According to a note in La Nación, its “The New York Times” weekly supplement, last Saturday was the last edition for Costa Rica. The supplement was a selection of articles taken from The New York Times and published every Saturday in La Nacion. The note cited a lack of commercialization, as the reason behind the move.

157,000 public employees will be on vacation from December 16th and will return on January 2nd.  The Executive branch assures that  500 million colones, nearly $1 million,  were saved by authorizing a similar mandatory vacation in 2004.  Particularly in the areas of water, electricity, telephone and Internet usage.

The Judicial Branch will take a break from December 23rd to January 16th. The Minister of Laber, Fernando Trejos, explained that 9 working days will be deducted from bureaucrats’  vacation days. The holidays December 25th and January 1st fall on Sundays, so they are not counted, leaving 10 working days from the 16th to the 2nd.  Public officials get a an official day off to enjoy the Christmas Festivals, so that cannot be counted as a vacation day.

Many private sector businesses will close between Christmas Day and the New Year, although in recent years the traditional break has not been as widely observed.

Thanks to DEMASA, Repretel and the Banco Nacional, you may ride the train for free every Tuesday and Thursday.  The INCOFER president, Miguel Carabaguíaz, explained that the offer will not cost the institution revenue and will not cost the government anything. "The companies do it in order to stimulate the use of the train as a means of transport." The instution receives 948,000 colones from the sponsor companies, which is the equivalent of 3160 fares @ 300 colones each.  This is the amount of passengers the train could carry at 100% capacity all day long.

125 workers employed at the construction site of a new Wal-mart distribuition center near Pottsville, Pennsylvania. The workers were from Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and some used fake documents to obtain employment with subcontractors, officials said. The arrests came after search warrants were executed for six companies at the site.

Agents obtained the search warrants after learning that 10 workers employed by Destin Drywall & Paint were using Social Security numbers that did not match their names. Another three used Social Security numbers that were never issued by the government, according to an affidavit unsealed Friday at U.S. District Court in Scranton.

The Costa Ricans are expected to return this week to Costa Rica, if they are not held for using fake documents.

Microsoft will file suit on 2 Costa Rican companies, one in Barva de Heredia and the other in Curridabat, that were searched by experts from the Registry of Author’s and Intellectual Property Rights. The suit will be for the illegal use and commercialization of Microsofts Windows XP and Office.  The Costa Rican companies did not pay $20,000  (¢98,6 millones) for licenses y original copies of the software.

Ole! The national arts channel SINART (Channel 13) left Channels 6 & 7 out in the cold this year,  The lucrative Tico Style Bullfights are the mainstay of the traditional end of year festivities and the basis of the end of year broadcasts. Each year the tranmission rights for the "Festejos Populares" (People’s Festivals) are auctioned off by the Festival Commission. Other important TV events between Christmas and New Years are the TOPE (show horse parade December 26 and Carnival (parade of dance/percussion groups December 27).  But  these are only one day events, so the bull fights are used to bind all the transmissions together. 

So this year SINART S.A. (The National System of Cultural Radio and Television) will transmit the majority of the year end activities.  The funding for the bid was provided by entrepeneur Alfredo Chavarría Ferraro, who is the son of the popular magnate Fernando Chavarría Ardón, known as the "Pollo Macho” (blonde chicken, don’t ask!). The bid was for 51,2 million colones (a bit over $100 000), interestingly enough just over 100,000 colones more than the joint offer placed by Channel 7 y Channel 6.

The other bidding on Saturday was not fruitful for the Festival Commission.  The stand space on the MIdway, where they promote games of skill (chance), food, beverages, and other items for sale; was open for bidding but no offers were received.  Business owners said the base prices were to high and abstained from bidding.  The commission will try again this Saturday.

In a strange turn of events, gas prices fell Wednesday.  Although in some quarters it didn’t help much, as gas stations were out of fuel?  Some observers note that it is interesting that in multiple price hikes there was always fuel available, yet when prices dropped at midnight Tuesday, many stations had no inventory to sell at the new price.  Hmmm.

At the Shell station in Moravia only Super was available and at the Total station there only diesel.  Even the Servicentro Cristo Rey, in Ochomogo just a few meters from the RECOPE plant, was "out" of gas Wednesday.  Gas transporters verified that on Tuesday gas stations bought only the minimum amount of gas, so that they wouldn’t lose money when the price fell.  Al Dia visited another ten gas stations in Sabanilla, Tres Ríos, Curridabat, Cartago, Heredia and Desamparados, where all all customers were attended to normally.

The situation will be investigated by ARESEP, since by law the gas stations may not interrupt service.  Berny Ramírez, president of the Costa Rica Fuel Provider’s Association stated that companies involved in this ruse should be sanctioned.  "I believe that it is irresponsible that the service stations didn’t have supplies on hand to meet the demand.",  he stated.

Escazu and Santa Ana will be the first towns to benefit from Wi-Max access in Costa Rica, RACSA has announced its new program for 2006.  This will allow properly equipped PCs, laptops PDAs and cell phones wireless broadband access to the Internet.

The main advantages of the technology are lower cost (no wires), higher speeds( 500kbit/s and 2 Mbit/s) and better range (5 to 8 km from cells as opposed to 3 km for DSL lines).  RACSA plans to install one cell in Santa Ana - Escazu in January to serve 500 accounts. During the remainder of 2006 they plan to install 6 cells in the GAM (Grand Metropolitan Area) to serve 20,000 users. 

 Wi-MAX technology is promoted by the WiMax Forum, the board includes enterprises like:

According to the Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax)
WiMAX is an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, a certification mark for products that pass conformity and interoperability tests for the IEEE 802.16 standards.  Products that pass the conformity tests for WiMAX are capable of forming wireless connections between them to permit the carrying of internet packet data. It is similar to WiFi in concept, but has certain improvements that are aimed at improving performance and should permit usage over much greater distances.

Visit the Wikipedia for complete information about WiMax.