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China
Oil Refinery Threatens Costa Rica Environment:
Groups
AFP - An
oil refinery would jeopardize Costa Rica's
environment as planned by a Chinese company
known as a polluter, environmental groups said
Saturday.
Oilwatch Mesoamerica and other groups warned
that recent agreements between China and Costa
Rica included a refinery built by China
Petroleum Corporation.
"We are studying the history of this company,
which has little concern for the environment or
human rights, two of President Oscar Arias's
causes elsewhere in the world," Oilwatch
Mesoamerica director Alicia Casas told AFP.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Arias broke with
Taiwan and normalized relations with China on
June 1 and followed up with a set of cooperation
agreements.
Oilwatch Mesoamerica joined with the Federation
for the Conservation of the Environment to
denounce a large number of accidents they said
killed hundreds of people and caused a lot of
pollution "through negligence" of the China
Petroleum Corporation in the Chinese cities of
Cangzhou, Chongqing and Kaixian.
"We were surprised that one of the Beijing
envoy's first announcements was construction of
a mega-refinery, at a cost of billions of
dollars," Casas said.
She said Arias "has an obsession" with bringing
this oil company to Costa Rica.
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