Following a summer and fall filled with headlines about Central American children and other undocumented immigrants crossing into the United States, fleeing violence at home and perpetuating inaction in Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama was again faced with a desperate immigration situation. Through executive action, the president issued orders to help allow certain undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States with the option to work legally, as well as to pay into and benefit from the Social Security system.
Six years later, what impact has CAFTA had on Costa Rica?
In recent years, the rhetoric in Costa Rica regarding the Dominican Republic-Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA-DR) has died down as the impact of full implementation has extended across the country. Almost six years into the agreement, Costa Rica has a large stake in CAFTA’s success, and whether you are for or against the controversial trade pact, there is no doubt that some good has been created as a result of its implementation. From the increase in high-skilled labor to an increasingly diversified economy, CAFTA has brought Costa Rica a measure of economic stability.
CAFTA has served as a tool in Costa Rica’s ongoing, long-term process of becoming less reliant on tourism and moving toward an economy with higher-paying, more stable jobs.
The Results Are In: Brazil Presidential Elections Part 3
The results are in and Dilma Rousseff has been reelected as Brazil’s president. After a dramatic election season and a brutal run-off election, Rousseff squeaked out a victory with just 51.4 percent of the vote. Her win sent her opponent Senator Aecio Neves of the Social Democracy Party home on narrow margins.
Rousseff of the Worker’s Party was granted a second term as the country is at a tipping point economically. Brazil has been experiencing growing pains as a slowing economy and job market are not reflective of the successful social welfare policies championed by Rousseff that have lifted Brazilians out of poverty and the globalized economy that has helped Brazil soar onto the world stage as an upcoming leader.
Over the past two years, China has pursued agenda to strategically grow their power by constructing fake islands in the South China Sea. The country is staking claim on islands that they have little rights to near the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brueni.
More specifically, these countries have been fighting one another for decades over who truly owns the 100 islands and reefs in the area of Paracels and the Spratlys islands. Some of the islands are substantial and support life while others are uninhabitable rocky reefs and sandbanks. But this is not stopping China. On both the inhabitable and liveable islands, China is constructing block houses out of concrete and dirt from both their mainland and by dredging for earth in the ocean below.
Crippling Drug Crime Perpetuates Violence Narrative In Mexico
Unfortunately stories of gang violence, brutal murders, and drug trafficking are nothing new in Mexico. Over the past seven years, violent clashes between drug cartels and their leaders, along with corruption within the government have plagued the country causing the Mexican people to feel frustration and confusion in their daily lives.
Tensions reached a new boiling point three weeks ago when 43 students went missing in the town of Iguala after conflict broke out between them and the police. Allegedly, the students, who attend what is considered to be a radical teachers college, were arrested by the local Iguala police and quietly handed off to members of the region’s leading drug cartel, Guerreros Unidos. According to witnesses, the students were rounded up, forced into cars and were quickly taken away. Since the events on September 26, thousands of people around Mexico have flooded the streets, protesting the local police’s actions toward the students and demanding answers on their whereabouts.
The Race for the Run-Off: The Brazilian Elections Part 2
As the last votes were counted on Sunday evening, the Brazilian people unable to chose a clear winner have sent into motion a runoff election for the Office of the President. The two winners, President Dilma Rousseff and Senator Aecio Neves, will advance to the next round of elections to be held on October 26th.
Receiving just 42 percent of the vote, the incumbent, Rousseff did not secure a large enough percentage of the vote to stave off her opponents. Now Rousseff must endure three more weeks of campaigning and an onslaught of attack ads if she hopes to hold a second term.
It’s Time to Pay Attention to Brazil’s Presidential Election: Part 1
There is something important happening in Brazil and it has nothing to do with obsolete World Cup stadiums or the upcoming Olympic Games. Brazil is set to hold the first round of elections for their president and thousands of legislative seats on Sunday.
142.8 million voters will head to the polls on Sunday to cast their compulsory ballots, as every Brazilian citizens must vote in every election. This is a critical election not only to Brazil, but also to the rest of the globe as the world’s seventh largest economy makes a decision that will certainly impact its future direction. The current frontrunners, incumbent Dilma Rousseff and Marina Silva, are in a dead heat for the lead according to recent polls released over the weekend. Although some polls are showing Rousseff still hanging on to a lead she established for herself early in the campaign. But Silva is not far behind.
In a much less violent and more democratic way than history is accustomed to, Scotland was afforded the opportunity to vote their way to independence. Ultimately Scotland decided to stay with the United Kingdom. Although it may seem to some that an opportunity was wasted, the Scots’ decision to stay united is not a total lost and can be seen as a chance to question whether or not the time is right for other countries or regions longing for independence to hold a referendum of their own.
Ranging in desire, seriousness and urgency, there are regions seeking independence across the globe. The following countries can certainly be included on this list and perhaps may find a newly lit spark thanks to Scotland’s bold referendum.
It seems like ages ago that Americans spent 13 days wondering if we were on the brink of nuclear war as the Soviet Union and Cuban government engaged the Kennedy Administration in the tumultuous Cuban Missile Crisis. Or even longer ago when American CIA agents stormed the shores of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in a failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. Cuba’s allegiance to the Soviets and their admiration for communism encouraged the US to go on the defense and place a trade embargo and severed diplomatic relations with our neighbors 90 miles to the south.
But the days of communist threats have waned and the botched events of the early 1960s are long gone. In fact these events occurred 53 years ago.
As the summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ended in Wales, a plan to come to the aid of its Eastern European member nations and Ukraine emerged. President Obama made it clear at the closing press conference that “actions have consequences,” referring to Russia’s overreach in Ukraine and that the organization would protect its Eastern Europe members. Essentially, NATO agreed to create a “rapid-reaction force” that would place permanent troops in Eastern Europe and increase military cooperation with Ukraine.
This agreement builds international cooperation and protection for Ukraine and the other Balkan countries while attempting to discourage Russia from any further action.
Water Conflict: A Lesson from Matt Damon's Ice Bucket Challenge
Matt Damon jumped on the ASL Ice Bucket Challenge bandwagon, joining millions of Americans who dumped icy water over their heads. However, Damon put a twist on the challenge by using ice-cold toilet water to symbolize the lack of clean water available around the world. The point that Damon was trying to stress is that 2.4 billion people lack proper sanitation, making most western toilet water cleaner than their drinking water. In fact, a majority of the world cannot take a hot shower, get clean water from the tap or even flush a toilet.
Car Dependent Costa Rica Goes Against Environmental Narrative
Car Dependent
After arriving in Costa Rica at the San Jose International Airport, we hopped in a taxi and made our way to our new home in Ciudad Colón. Leaving the airport we merged onto a congested highway where motorbikes, trucks and cars alike moved quickly around the airport. Not unlike most Central American countries, it’s immediately obvious Costa Rica is car-dependent and that most of their transportation fleet is reliant on fossil fuels.
With just a few passenger rail lines, most Costa Ricans depend on their cars or the various bus companies that operate throughout the country. It’s also obvious to see that the average age of Costa Rican cars is quite high and there are few fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. On average, there are about 188 cars per 1,000 people in Costa Rica.1
As well, when you compare the kilometers of paved roads versus available railway, there is an apparent imbalance. Costa Rica has 278 km of railway vs. 39,018 km of roadway.2 That is in part due to the work President José María Figueres Olsen who in the 1990’s shut down a majority of Costa Rica’s rail service including all lines that carried industrial goods. While some lines were reopened following President Figieres Olsen departure from office, a large route connecting Limon and San José remains closed.
Now, trucks must travel across the country on Route 32 or Carretera Braulio Carrillo to reach either city. This road is a lifeline between these two large Costa Rican cities and thousands of trucks travel the road everyday.3 The possibility of seeing a reduction in the country’s carbon footprint is a far from reachable goal as the scarcity of train lines makes the country deeply dependent on the automobile.
Far From Neutral
All of the carbon monoxide that pours into the air has negatively impacted Costa Rica’s environmental standing. According to the Environmental Performance Index, a study conducted by Yale University, Costa Rica fell from the fifth most environmentally friendly country in 2012 to 54th out of 178 in 2014.
Through this study, 178 countries were compared in various categories, including water resources, climate and energy, wastewater, air quality, health impacts and others. When you specifically explore some of these categories, you see that Costa Rica performs miserably in Climate and Energy, ranking 98th, where it shows their carbon emissions are 38.81per kilowatt-hour. These damning statistics not only drag the country down in the rankings but also prove their dependency on the automobile is having a negative overall effect.4 In conjunction with that fact that Costa Rica has a strategic plan to make the country carbon neutral by 2021, these findings give little hope to reach that goal in seven years.
Surrounded By Nature
But if a country is ambitious enough to have a carbon neutral plan, they must be making strides in some capacity. Most Ticos are keenly aware of the vast natural resources and diverse landscape surrounding them, so they have called on their government to institute environmental protection policy.
For instance, Costa Rica is the only country in the world that is re-foresting more then they are deforesting. Through its Payments for Environmental Services (PES) program, the government pays farmers and landowners per square KM to conserve forest and water resources on their land. This incentivizes farmers to do the right thing by making it cheaper to save the land and resources then to destroy it for agricultural purposes.5 As a result Costa Rica has preserved a large amount of its natural habitat.
One of the driving forces of these conversation efforts is the fact that Costa Rica hosts more biodiversity than most countries, ranking either first or second depending on the source. In addition, six percent of the world’s total species live in Costa Rica while only encompassing three-hundredths of a percent of the earth’s surface.6
Moreover, in 1996 Costa Rica created the Forest Law, which enhanced regulations for forest areas, defined ecosystem and outlined property owner’s rights and their ability to trade environmental resources5 . This law also created a fossil fuel and water tax to help fund the PES.
When it comes to power generation, Costa Rica has almost abandoned the use of non-renewable energy sources and the country now generates more than 95 percent of its energy from renewable resources. Costa Rica mostly utilizes geothermal and wind power to feed its electrical grid.
With carbon emission being poured into the air from each vehicle that is driven on Costa Rican roads, reducing their carbon footprint seems like a lofty and unattainable goal. However, this goal does is aided by an overall supportive federal government that pushes environmental policy that protects Costa Rica’s greatest assets.
But is it enough? An inflated ecotourism industry is not enough to promote and protect good environmental practices, if citizens cannot positive contribute in reducing the country’s carbon footprint. And without serious consideration toward an improved transit system in conjunction with more fuel-efficient cars, Costa Rica will fail to live up to its green expectations.
How Republicans Can Use The Border Crisis to Their Advantage
The saga of the American immigration crisis continued to grow over the summer months as unaccompanied children and families from Central America poured over the border with promises of seeking safety and a better life in the US. Unfortunately, the United States cannot live up to that promise.
We have long known that our immigration system is broken, but we have also been content ignoring the problem for just as long. Both President Obama and Governor Romney called for change during the 2012 Presidential election and members of Congress have stumped for reform. While there has been a lack of legislative reform and executive leadership, the Republican Party has the unique opportunity to be the biggest cheerleader for solving the Central American border crisis.
What You Need To Know About ISIS’s March Across Iraq and the Kurdish People
Over the course of the past two months, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) forces have made their way down through Iraq from Turkey and Syrian borders, trampling over the Iraqi army, enflaming sectarian violence and overtaking important oil reserves that are key to Iraq’s economic vitality. Their well funded forces are so strong that some Iraqi soldiers walked away from their posts and laid down their weapons as ISIS militants overtook town after town. Leaving in their wake a path of humanitarian crises and deaths across the country as the Sunni militant group worked to upend the Shia led government in Baghdad.
Is Costa Rica Really The Switzerland Of Central America?
Whenever Costa Rica is mentioned, thoughts of beautiful beaches, dark roasted coffee, and exotic animals living in the country’s ubiquitous rainforests come to mind. Or perhaps you imagine Costa Rica’s stable government and lack of inference in the world’s affairs.
What led to Costa Rica earning these stereotypes? Why has it earned the prestigious nickname, the Switzerland of Central America? How similar really are these two countries that are separated by thousands of miles and cultural and historical differences?
When considering what countries surround Costa Rica, it truly is amazing the country has not experienced a downfall of its neutrality and strong democracy. Costa Rica has had its fair share of corruption and challenges, but overall they have been able to create and sustain the region’s oldest and most stable democracy, not unlike Switzerland.
Costa Rica has been able to diversify their economy by embracing the presence of multinational corporations and free trade agreements, and by taking advantage of their natural resources that both promote desirable agricultural products and a unique ecotourism industry. The result is the highest standard of living in Central America. All of these factor into Costa Rica’s Swiss characterization.
However, Costa Rica’s democracy is not nearly as old as Switzerland’s, which has roots in the Middle Ages. But following their independence from Spain in 1821 and a failed attempt at a Central American Union in 1838, the country formed a stable government. After a civil war in 1948, Costa Rica established its neutrality, abolished its military, and began one of the most expansive public safety nets in Central America.
Much like Switzerland, Costa Rica remains on the sidelines of the world’s messy wars and affairs, concerning themselves only with protecting its citizens internally by raising a strong national police force and coast guard. While the Swiss earned their neutrality via European Powers at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Costa Rican constitution of 1948 mandated the country remain neutral.1 2 For both Switzerland and Costa Rica, the countries have enjoyed the benefits that come along with neutrality, including forgoing large military budgets for strong social safety sets.
Their people-first priorities have allowed Costa Rica to develop into an upper-middle class society with a Gross National Income of $24.8 billion.3 Costa Rica values investment within their own population and the government has invested 6.6 percent of GDP in public health programs and 6 percent in education.1 Both investments have allowed the country to develop a healthy and well-educated populace with a literacy rate of 95 percent, a life expectancy of 79-years-old, and a declining poverty rate of 16.7 percent.1
Another similarity, both Switzerland and Costa Rica have incorporated proactive environmental policies, which depend on innovation to promote protection of their natural resources. While Costa Rica has far more complex and diverse natural resources, both countries have embraced renewable energy sources, such as hydropower to generate their country’s electricity. Interestingly, Costa Rica generates more than 95 percent of its energy from renewable resources, while Switzerland generates 65 percent. Hydropower is critical to both countries’ power grid, making water conservation a top priority for the two. Costa Rica also harnesses geothermal and wind power while Switzerland uses a large amount of nuclear power -- the latter of which Swiss Parliament has agreed to phase out over the next 20 years.1 4
The importance of water to Costa Rica is clear with the government taxing companies who are major consumers of water, including drinking water companies, hydro-electric dams, farmers, as well as companies who pollute water sources.1 In addition, Costa Rica has stepped onto the global stage by taking leadership in developing global environmental policies with the United Nations, including the KYOTO Protocol.
Banking vs. Bananas
Despite many similarities, Costa Rica and Switzerland do have differences that make them stark opposites beyond the obvious cultural and lingual differences.
For example, the Swiss have built a strong and widely distributed rail network that not only connects the country’s major urban centers, but also various rural townships and villages of the nation. The Swiss government has given priority to public transportation, viewing it as an opportunity to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
On the other hand, Costa Rica has only a few passenger rail lines that reach beyond the San José capital to its suburbs. In addition, service has been inconsistent, including a period of time were rail service was eliminated to a period of low service to today where more rail service is available. Lack of government prioritization and financial issues have plagued the system which has led to the inconsistency. 5
As well as infrastructure differences, Costa Rica lacks a large and stabilizing industry like the Swiss banking industry. Swiss banks provide immense wealth to Switzerland, giving the country the highest nominal wealth per adult in the world.6 In short, the debt-free country has the room to become innovators in various areas and provide resources for its people without the fear of looming budget battles and deficit spending.
Costa Rica is not so lucky. In 2013, Costa Rica had a government debt to GDP ratio of 55.45 percent and the volatile agriculture industry is the largest sector of the Costa Rican economy. 7 8
Finally, Switzerland and Costa Rica’s neighbors create opposing political and economic issues. Switzerland enjoys the benefits (and some pitfalls) of being located right in the middle of the European Union. The Swiss have managed to earn themselves a lucrative deal by not becoming members of the EU and removing themselves from EU politics and the obligations of bailing out member nations with serious debt issues. Concurrently, the Swiss get to take advantage of the free border crossing benefits of The Schengen Agreement and Switzerland is located in the middle of the largest combined economy in the world.9
Costa Rica’s neighbors have been far more inhibiting as drugs, corruption, and violence have led to an unstable and unsafe environment in Central America. Not only is Costa Rica still considered a developing nation, but so are its neighbors, Nicaragua and Panama, whose economies are both smaller than Costa Rica.
Switzerland of Central America
After examination, it seems the Switzerland comparison is trivial and not an accurate description of two countries with neutrality in common. Perhaps it’s more effective to consider the similarities in neutrality and social and environmental policies that have allowed these two countries to flourish. Costa Rica and Switzerland have found that by directing investment to their own people, success in education and public health are easily attainable. While Switzerland has distinct economic advantages over Costa Rica, a common mentality and value of internal success has earned the country the nickname of the Switzerland of Central America.
Photo: Arturo Sotillo
Sources:
Costa Rica: Background and U.S. Relations CRS Report 2009.http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40593.pdf
