Road work causes jam
on Autopista del Sol


The Autopista del Sol management failed to win many friends Monday. Workmen were putting down asphalt and motorists returning from a a long weekend at the Pacific beaches were tied up in lengthy traffic jams for hours.

The Autopista del Sol said on its Web page that the work was at kilometers 23 and 25 in the lane headed to San José.  Traffic police said the highway was tied up and was slow going at kilometers 53 to 49.

Workmen stopped the job at 1 p.m. after the effects of their labors became apparent.

In other highway news, the Puriscal-Parrita road, Ruta 239, was closed at  Salitrales because of a landslide.

A slide on the Sarchi – Bajos del Toro limited travel to four-wheel vehicles, said the Policía de Tránsito.

Refueling boat beached
after Caribbean chase


Anti-drug patrols appear to have run ashore a sea-going filling station.

Police discovered the abandoned fastboat near the Río Vizcaya on the southern Caribbean coast. The boat had containers filled with gasoline and other fuel containers on the beach. Officials speculate that the boat was providing fuel for drug runners from the south.

U.N. project provides loans
for sex workers in Ecuador


A United Nations-supported microcredit project is helping vulnerable refugees in Ecuador, especially women who have turned to sex work to support themselves and their families, break out of poverty.

Ecuador is home to the largest number of refugees in Latin America, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Of the more than 53,000 recognized refugees, 73 per cent are women and children.

Over the past year, the high commissioner's office has been working with partner organizations to set up programs and provide financial services to help needy Colombian refugees and their hosts in Ecuador, including supporting income-generating projects.

Such projects “benefit Colombian and Ecuadorean women, especially those who are often subject to discrimination, in order to give them a different alternative,” said Luis Varese, the refugee office representative in Ecuador.

Among the most vulnerable are refugee women who turn to sex work, either because they have limited job opportunities or need a second income to support their families, said the U.N..

Studies done by U.N. agencies, non-governmental organizations and the Ecuadorean health ministry have found that nearly half of the Colombian refugee women who are sex workers in Ecuador’s northern border area were not in the trade back in their homeland.

Last year 19 women each received an average credit of $300, and so far there has been no delinquency in the loans.

Computers at school
not enough, study reports


Putting more computers in schools will do little to improve the quality of education in Latin America and the Caribbean unless countries invest in teacher training and educational software, according to a new study by the Inter-American Development Bank.

In spite of a recent flurry of high-quality research on the impact of information and communication technologies on education, significant uncertainty still remains about the effectiveness of these interventions in improving learning, especially in the case of very visible initiatives, such as providing computers for every child, the development bank said.

Using information and communication technologies in education can be very costly and may crowd out important alternative programs with relatively higher returns, said Alberto Chong, who coordinated the study. “It is vital for governments to conduct careful evaluations of these initiatives and, particularly, to budget enough resources to train teachers and develop adequate software for students," he said. "Countries cannot expect that learning will improve with simply greater access to computers. Quality of use is crucial.”

The findings are detailed in the book "Development Connections: Unveiling the Impact of New Information Technologies," which will be launched next month. The book analyzes to what degree information and communication technologies contributed to the success of 46 development projects in Latin America.