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CAFTA

Costa Rica given more time to ratify free trade deal
2-Oct-2008 Inside Costa Rica
October 1 was the deadline for Costa Rica to ratify and join the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA). However, Costa Rica now has until January 1, 2009, to ratify the trade deal.
Cafta: Trade deal has hidden qualities
21-Sep-2008 FT
In May 2004, when government officials from the US, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala gathered in Washington to sign a 2,400-page trade agreement, there was a sense of achievement in the air. Four years later, that early enthusiasm and optimism has come down several notches.
Costa Rica court strikes down CAFTA bill for overlooking indigenous
12-Sep-2008 Tico Times
Costa Rica could miss its Oct. 1 deadline to pass law reforms needed to enter the Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) because of a legal snag in the final bill on intellectual property: Nobody thought to ask the country’s indigenous people.
Costa Rica top court blocks US trade pact approval
12-Sep-2008 AP
Costa Rica’s highest court on Thursday overturned an intellectual property law demanded by the US prior to the enactment of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The Constitutional Court ruled that lawmakers improperly passed the bill — which included provisions on biodiversity — without consulting Indian groups.
Costa Rica: Social groups to protest tomorrow for the independence of the courts from the executive
2-Sep-2008 Inside Costa Rica
Dozens of organizations of the Movimiento Social (Social Movement) will be convening on Tuesday in front of the Poder Judicial de Costa Rica, in downtown San José, to demand the magistrates of the Corte Plena (Full Court) its independence from the powers of the State and reject its alliance with the Poder Ejecutivo (Executive branch of the government).
Clock ticks on free trade pact with US
25-Aug-2008 Tico Times
As Costa Rican lawmakers return today from a weeklong vacation, time grows tight to pass two laws required to implement the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA). Lawmakers must pass a bill amending the agreement, as well as a bill that strengthens intellectual property rights, before an Oct. 1 deadline.
Amendments to CAFTA trade deal passed
8-Jul-2008 Guanacaste Journal
The long and arduous road toward final approval by Costa Rica of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States has suffered yet another delay.
Costa Rican Congress approves ending its 84-year-old insurance monopoly
2-Jul-2008
Costa Rica is saying goodbye to its 84-year-old insurance monopoly as it opens the industry to national and international competition.
Report from El Salvador: Why They All Keep Coming
1-Jul-2008
Having just spent time south of the border in a poor country whose major export is people, I’ve seen firsthand what’s driving people north - and why conventional political solutions aren’t going to deter desperate Salvadorans from coming to the U.S. Largely missing from this year’s campaign is any serious reappraisal of our foreign, military, and trade policies that have forced millions Latin Americans to uproot themselves and seek opportunities for a better life far from home.
Dominican Republic-U.S. trade deficit jumps to US$688M on imports
13-May-2008
In the first three months this year the country posted a trade deficit with the United States of US$688 million, much higher than the US$426 million in the year earlier period, reports newspaper Hoy.
Sweetheart Deal
6-May-2008
The deadline for completion of a new farm bill has been pushed back to May 16. But the endless wrangling over a piece of legislation that Congress once hoped to finish in 2007 has not induced a significant change in the thinking of those who regard it as an opportunity to lock in lush new benefits for American agricultural producers.
U.S. sock makers wage war on Gildan imports
6-May-2008
Just two years after launching an ambitious plan to become a major player in the North American hosiery business, Gildan Activewear Inc. finds itself caught up in an international trade dispute over the flood of socks into the U.S. from Honduras.
Bullets and bananas: The violence of free trade in Guatemala
4-May-2008 Upside Down World
The ongoing violence against workers in Guatemala makes it clear that talk of free trade improving human rights in developing countries is lost in translation.
Resistance to UPOV and the privatisation of life in Costa Rica
25-Apr-2008
Interview with Silvia Rodríguez Cervantes of Costa Rica’s Biodiversity Coordination Network about the national struggle against joining UPOV (Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties) as required by CAFTA.
Guatemala accused in CAFTA labor complaint
24-Apr-2008 LA Times
Guatemalan and US labor groups filed a complaint Wednesday with the US Department of Labor alleging that Guatemala had failed to uphold its own labor laws as required under the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Dominican Government sacrificed RD$2.3B with Free Trade
22-Apr-2008
Figures from the Customs Agency (DGA) show Dominican Government has sacrificed RD$2.3 billion since the United States-Central America Free Trade Agreement began.
U.S. or E.U.? Tico politicos split over best foreign investor
9-Apr-2008
Costa Rican lawmakers are divided over who makes a better investor in their country, the United States or the European Union, according to a recent questionnaire.
Dominican business criticizes FTAs
4-Apr-2008
Dominican businesspeople do not see any advantages on the Free Trade Agreement signed between the Dominican Republic, the US and Central America (CAFTA-DR), said Ignacio Mendez, president of the Dominican Industrials Association.
The ravaging effects of capitalism on my hometowns
4-Apr-2008 AlterNet
What will become of Costa Rica? That’s the question on my mind, now that my adopted country has narrowly accepted CAFTA. Our national slogan is "Pura vida!" meaning "pure life," and it’s commonly used as an affirmation that life is good. It’s easy to understand how such an expression could catch on here: Costa Rica has virtually no enemies, a temperate climate, and a hell of a lot of good beaches. However, as an expatriate whose previous hometowns have been despoiled by global capitalism, I find it difficult to imagine that life will be as pure or as good once the effects of CAFTA begin to kick in.
Costa Rica telecom market seen opening soon
4-Apr-2008
Costa Rica, one of the few Latin America countries still with a state-run telephone sector, is expected soon to open to big foreign players as part of a trade deal with the United States.