Word: costa
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While they may never be fast friends, Nicaragua and Costa Rica moved last week to ease the border tensions that threatened to destroy their already edgy relations. The two countries agreed to form a joint patrol of their 225-mile frontier to prevent clashes between Sandinista forces and U.S.-backed contras based in Costa Rica. The arrangement is designed to avoid incidents like the shooting deaths of two Costa Rican guardsmen last May, which resulted in abruptly severed diplomatic relations. Reason: San Jose blamed the violence on Sandinista troops, while Managua blamed the contras...
Amid the chronic bloodletting of Central America, Costa Rica stands out as an oasis of calm. But when the quadrennial presidential elections roll around, the country erupts into a celebration of its nearly century-old democracy that resembles nothing quite so much as a homecoming football game. Music blares, drivers honk, and flags decorate the streets. The Feb. 2 elections were no different. After more than 1 million voters went to the polls, Oscar Arias Sanchez of the ruling National Liberation Party emerged triumphant with 52.3% of the vote, defeating the Social Christian Unity Party's Rafael Angel Calderon Fournier...
Many found little difference between the two candidates. But Arias, 44, seized victory by exploiting his party ties to the outgoing President, Luis Alberto Monge, who is credited with having kept Costa Rica afloat despite a $4.4 billion foreign debt. Arias also portrayed himself as the peace candidate, upholding his country's policy of neutrality while insisting that Costa Rica, which disbanded its army in 1948, must hold the line against the pro-Marxist Sandinista regime across the border in Nicaragua...
...first, is it really plausible that any American administration of the past 30 years, any President, any Secretary of State, genuinely liked the Duvaliers? Thought that their regime was better for American interests than the kind of government Costa Rica enjoys? To put the question is to expose its absurdity...
...venture with whisky, beer and sake. "It is a historic time for us and Japan," said Walter Burkett, a general manager. Merrill Lynch will soon be joined on the exchange by two other New York firms, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and three British companies, Jardine Fleming, Vickers Da Costa and S.G. Warburg...