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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 5
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 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
photo
Researchers sometimes used
a floating lab to check coral.Control of
runoff urged to save coral
By the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
news staff
The lowering of the ocean’s pH is making it harder for corals to grow their skeletons and easier for bioeroding organisms to tear them down. Erosion rates increase tenfold in areas where corals are also exposed to high levels of nutrients, according to a study published in the journal Geology. As sea level rises, these reefs may have a harder time growing toward the ocean surface, where they get sunlight they need to survive. The study, led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, highlights the multiple threats to coral reef ecosystems, which provide critical buffers to shoreline erosion, sustain fisheries that feed hundreds of millions of people and harbor 25 percent of all marine species. And it points to a key management strategy that could slow reef decline: reducing the input of nutrient pollution to the coastal ocean from human activity such as runoff from sewers, septic tanks, roads, and fertilizers. Corals make their skeletons out of calcium and carbonate ions from seawater, constructing massive colonies as large as cars and small houses. As the ocean absorbs excess carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning, it spurs chemical reactions that lower the pH of seawater, a process known as ocean acidification. The process removes carbonate ions, making them less available for corals to build skeletons. “A healthy coral reef ecosystem exists in a constant and often overlooked tug-of-war. As corals build their skeletons up toward the sea surface, other organisms, mollusks, worms, and sponges, bore into and erode the skeletons to create shelters,” said lead author Thomas DeCarlo, a graduate student Woods Hole. This process, called bioerosion, reduces skeletons to rubble, which is transported offshore during fierce storms or gradually dissolved in the sediments. On healthy reefs today, calcium carbonate production barely exceeds the loss by erosion, dissolution, and offshore transport. As a result of this delicate balance, coral reefs grow very slowly, if at all, when sea level is stable. The new study shows that additional nutrients provide a dramatic boost for bioeroders that, combined with lower pH conditions, will tip this balance in favor of erosion. The bioeroders are filter feeders, sifting particles of food out of seawater. Nutrients spur the growth of plankton, supplying food for large populations of bioeroders that burrow into coral skeletons. When corals and bioeroders are in balance, the former grow just fast enough to stay near the sea surface, while the latter are busily sculpting the coral skeletons into an intricate, three-dimensional habitat full of nooks and hiding places for fish, urchins, and other marine life. In waters with fewer carbonate ions and more nutrients, corals may not be able to build new skeleton fast enough to keep pace with bioeroders cutting down the reef. The result would be flatter coral reefs with less of the three-dimensional structure responsible for the rich biodiversity found on coral reefs. To conduct the study, the research team investigated coral reefs spanning the Pacific Ocean, from the west coast of Panama to Palau. The researchers found that relatively acidic (lower-pH) reefs were more heavily bio-eroded than their higher-pH counterparts. But their most striking finding was that in waters with a combination of high nutrient levels and lower-pH, bio-erosion is ten times higher than in lower-pH waters without high nutrient levels. “The ocean will certainly absorb more CO2 over the next century, and ocean acidification is a global phenomenon that reefs cannot escape,” DeCarlo said. “But the encouraging news in our findings is that people can take action to protect their local reefs. If people can limit runoff from septic tanks, sewers, roads, farm fertilizers, and others sources of nutrient pollution to the coastal ocean, the bioeroders will not have such an upper hand, and the balance will tip much more slowly toward erosion and dissolution of coral reefs.”
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 5 | |
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| Wind-whipped Heredia blaze destroys the dwellings of 18
families |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fire tore through a collection of substandard dwellings in Heredia early Wednesday and left 18 families comprised of 68 persons homeless. Fire fighters attributed the cause of the blaze to a bootlegged electrical system that illegally took current from utility lines. The wind also was called a factor that caused the power lines to arc. Fire fighters also said that the strong wind helped spread the flames. |
There were
only two minor medical problems, but the residents
fled the flames with very little and appear to have lost nearly all
their possessions. Government agencies are trying to find housing and clothes. The fire was in the section of Ulloa, Bajos del Virilla. Two homes were leveled as were six of what could best be described as rooming houses. The initial alarm came in at 5:43 a.m. The bulk of the dwellings were concrete, and wood with tin roofs. Some 20 of those made homeless are children, said fire fighters. |
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Environmentalists
challenge Moín terminal OK
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
As expected, environmental activists have taken the first steps to challenge a permission given to APM Terminals to begin work at Moín. The action was by Alvaro Sagot and Mauricio Álvarez of the Federación Costarricense para la Conservación del Ambiente. The $1 billion terminal project received approval from the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental just two days before the government closed for Christmas. The two men base their appeal on the way in |
which
the approval was
granted and that the leadership of the environmental agency
disregarded what its technical staff said. Basically the appeal for an administrative rehearing puts in place the groundwork for further court challenges. The Dutch firm that is to build the container handling terminal as a concession is ready to start work. The appeal by the Federación Costarricense para la Conservación del Ambiente might delay that. The environmental organization has a long history of opposing public projects, including open-pit gold mines, hydroelectric dams and oil drilling. |
| Highway agency installing plastic posts as guides along Ruta
32 |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Highway officials are installing collapsible plastic posts on the center line of a portion of Ruta 32 to guide motorists. The meter-high posts are supposed to serve as a guide for motorists in bad weather and also give a sound if the driver crosses into the other lane. This is a 223 million-colon job being done by J L Señalización y Arquitectura S.A. That's about $418,000. The job involves 37.5 kilometers between San Isidro de Heredia and Río Frio. This includes the stretch that runs north of San José through Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo which is frequently rainy and foggy. The posts also have reflective material that helps motorists to stay in the correct lane, said the Consejo de Seguridad Vial. If a vehicle knocks down one of the plastic posts, it is supposed to spring back up to its designated position. This is the first time that the posts are being used in Costa Rica, said the agency. |
 Consejo de Seguridad Vial
photo
This is how the plastic posts will appear
on Ruta 32.
Costa Rican roads are notoriously difficult to navigate when the painted lines have been eroded away. That happens a lot because officials wait until they can issue a large contract for repainting. |
| Petroleum monopoly predicts cut in gas prices of about 9
cents a liter |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo predicts a drop in the price of motor fuel in February. Despite the drop in petroleum prices of more than 50 percent to below $50 a barrel, the national refinery said it sees a cut of 47 to 51 colons in a liter of gasoline and 53 colons in diesel. 50 colons is about nine U.S. cents. |
The refinery
has imported all its gasoline since 2011. The February date was used because the pricing system of the Costa Rican regulator takes more than a month to be effective. There ae hearings and publication. The price of gasoline is based mostly on the world price of petroleum and the exchange rate with the U.S. dollar. Costa Rica has the highest fuel prices in Central America. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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2015 and may
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 5 | |||||
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| Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee make moves as if they were
candidates |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee have jump-started the 2016 presidential campaign. Bush’s announcement in recent days that he is forming a political action committee as he explores a White House bid and his decision to resign all of his board memberships sent a strong signal throughout the potential Republican presidential field that he is taking a serious look at the 2016 race. Huckabee said he decided to leave his television show on Fox even though he hasn’t made a final decision about running. Bush is a favorite of the so-called Establishment Wing of the Republican Party while Huckabee still draws strong support from evangelical Christians and social conservative activists in the key early contest state of Iowa in early 2016. Both Bush and Huckabee are well known to Republican voters and their decision to possibly jump into the fray early may speed up the decision-making process for a host of other contenders in what promises to be a crowded Republican presidential field. Among those who may have to adjust their timetable for deciding are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The early moves by Bush and Huckabee could also put greater pressure on lesser-known Republicans to make a quicker assessment of their chances than they would otherwise like to do. Among those in this category are Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. Bush has done well among potential Republican contenders in |
recent public
opinion surveys of Republican voters. If he can win over some big-time Republican campaign donors early, he could prevent possible rivals like Christie and Rubio from getting early traction and fundraising help. Enthusiastic backing from the establishment wing of the party could also put an end to speculation that 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney might be considering another run in 2016. In announcing his new political action committee, “Right to Rise,” Bush touched on a theme often pushed by progressive Democrats. “While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America,” he said. That kind of appeal could pay dividends in a general election if Bush becomes the nominee. But it could come back to haunt him in the Republican primaries as Tea Party favorites prepare to take him on. As for Democrats, the main story line continues to swirl around Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of State leads her potential Democratic rivals by huge margins in public opinion polls. But that apparently hasn’t stopped some Democrats from worrying that the air of invincibility surrounding Clinton could become a problem once the caucus and primary votes begin. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal said that some liberal Democratic activists in Iowa are hoping that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren eventually decides to join the Democratic race, giving voice to those who want to make income inequality a major issue in the 2016 campaign. Some activists are also wondering what happens if Mrs. Clinton doesn’t run, but most expect some sort of announcement in the next few months. |
Here's reasonable medical care
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2015 and may
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 5 | |||||||
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 Voice of America photo
First responders near the
magazine offices.One of three murder suspects gives up in French shooting By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The youngest suspect identified in Wednesday's mass slaying at the office of a French satirical magazine in Paris has surrendered. Sources told news agencies that Hamyd Mourad, 18, gave himself up to police after a daylong manhunt for him and two brothers suspected of carrying out the massacre. Details of his surrender were unavailable. Mourad is from the northeastern French city of Reims, where reports said anti-terrorism police had been carrying out an operation. The search for the two other suspects, Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother, Cherif, 32, both of Paris, was continuing. Police identified the suspects after one of them left his identity card in the car used to leave the scene of Wednesday's killings: the Paris headquarters of the satirical weekly paper Charlie Hebdo. Police said the shootings left at least 12 people dead. Two of the victims were police officers. French President Francois Hollande denounced the shootings as a terrorist attack and said France's best defense against such barbarity was unity. That unity was later displayed when thousands staged a peaceful protest in Paris in defense of free expression. Hollande declared Thursday would be a national day of mourning. Late Wednesday morning, black-hooded gunmen carrying Kalashnikov rifles and a pump-action shotgun stormed the weekly's offices, bursting into an editorial staff meeting and opening fire. Terrorism experts said the gunmen appeared to have carried out their attack methodically. Among the dead on the "Charlie Hebdo" staff were three cartoonists, including co-founder Jean “Cabu” Cabut and editor-in-chief Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier. The gunmen said "Allahu akbar" and that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammed, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters. After dozens of shots rang out, two assailants were seen calmly leaving the scene in a video. One police officer was seen being shot as he lay wounded. At least 11 others were injured in the attack, including at least four critically. Police union official Rocco Contento described the scene inside the offices as carnage. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings, but jihadists online had repeatedly warned that "Charlie Hebdo," well-known for courting controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders and publishing numerous cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammed, would pay for its ridicule. A police union official said there were fears of further attacks. The government declared the highest state of alert, increasing security at transport hubs, religious sites, media offices and department stores as the search for the assailants got under way. Hollande addressed the nation on television late Wednesday, saying that "an act of indescribable barbarity has just been committed today in Paris,” but insisting that "no act of barbarity will ever extinguish freedom of the press." He said several other terror plots had been foiled in recent weeks. "We were being threatened because we are a country of freedom," he said. "And because we are a country of freedom, we will fight against these threats and we will punish the aggressors." France last year reinforced its anti-terrorism laws and was already on alert after calls from Islamist militants to attack its citizens and interests in reprisal for French military strikes on Islamist strongholds in the Middle East and Africa. Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy mosque in the north Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, said of the attack, "I am extremely angry. These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam, and I hope the French will come out united at the end of this." Chalghoumi said of the gunmen: “We must be firm with them, because they want terror, they want racism, they want to pit people against each other.” The imam of one of France's major cities, Bordeaux, urged Muslims to take to the streets in protest of the Paris attack, calling it "almost an act of war." Tareq Oubrou said after meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican Wednesday that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was "tantamount to what September 11 meant to America." Wednesday's public protest in Paris occurred at the Place de la Republique. Agathe Bayeurte was there with her mother, Catherine. Ms. Bayeurte said France was a country where people could say what they think, and that she was there to defend that right. A retired history professor, Francois Mareschal, arrived at the rally clasping an old copy of Charlie Hebdo. The satirical weekly may have been targeted for mocking Islam, but Mareschal was holding an old edition that mocked Christianity. Mareschal said he joined many in Paris in denouncing fundamentalism in all its forms. The assailants, he said, had killed some of the best cartoonists in France. The White House strongly condemned the attack. "France and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers," President Barack Obama said, adding that America's thoughts and prayers were with the victims of the terrorist attack. The White House said Obama had directed the administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these terrorists to justice. In a joint appearance with Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna, Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the Paris attack, saying, "Each and every American stands with you today." British Prime Minister David Cameron said the attack was "sickening," while German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it "despicable.” “This abominable act is not only an attack on the lives of French citizens and their security. It is also an attack on freedom of speech and the press, core elements of our free democratic culture," Ms. Merkel said. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists described the attack as a brazen assault on free expression. The scale of the violence is appalling,” said Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. “Journalists must now stand together to send the message that such murderous attempts to silence us will not stand.” Upon entering the building, two gunmen headed straight for the paper's editor, Charbonnier, killing him and his police bodyguard first, Christophe Crepin, a police union spokesman, said. A journalist from a press agency located just across the street described the scene to French radio, saying many shots were fired from Kalashnikov rifles. He then saw two armed and masked people leaving the building. After fleeing into the street, the gunmen exchanged fire with officers in the first police car to respond to emergency calls and with two policemen on mountain bikes before firing repeatedly at a second patrol car. The eyewitness said he heard yelling and shots being fired on the street, and that police and emergency services arrived a few minutes later. Amateur video filmed from a nearby rooftop showed a gunman walking up to a wounded policeman, who had staggered from the car to a nearby sidewalk, and shooting him dead point-blank. The gunmen drove off toward northeastern Paris. They collided with a motorist before abandoning their car on a busy square and hijacking another vehicle as they escaped into the northern suburbs. Wednesday's attack is considered one of the worst terrorist attacks on French soil in decades. Late last year, a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” injured 13 people by ramming a vehicle into a crowd in the eastern city of Dijon. In 2012, seven people were killed in attacks that targeted French soldiers and Jewish civilians. In 1995, a series of attacks were carried out, including a commuter train bombing that killed eight and injured 150. Thousands of people took to Facebook and Twitter in support of the publication, saying freedom of expression must be defended. Charlie Hebdo's offices were firebombed in 2011 after it published an issue poking fun at the Muslim prophet. Muslims also denounced the weekly for later publishing a series of crude comics of the prophet. Wednesday's shooting coincided with the launch of a controversial French book depicting France's election of its first Muslim president. Charlie Hebdo has featured the cover of the book, "Submission," on its cover. Meanwhile, Danish media group JP/Politikens Hus, whose newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons in 2005 depicting the Prophet Muhammed, increased its security level because of the Paris shooting, an internal email showed. Jyllands-Posten's publishing of the cartoons sparked a wave of protests across the Muslim world in which at least 50 died. President, foreign minister issue statements from China By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Both President Luis Guillermo Solís and Manuel González, the foreign minster, expressed their repudiation and condolences over the attack by gunmen on a French magazine Wednesday. The pair were in China on an official visit. Solís said he strongly condemned the attack and that there was no justification at all for the barbaric act. The world should look with horror and reject and repudiate immediately these acts, he said. González expressed condolences on behalf of the Costa Rican government over the irreparable loss of lives by innocent victims. French weekly has tradition of mocking about everybody By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo had just tweeted a cartoon mocking Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi when masked gunmen burst into its Paris office Wednesday. Paris police said at least 12 people were killed, including two police officers, and at least 11 others were injured, with four listed in critical condition. Ten members of the Charlie Hebdo staff died in the attack, prosecutors said. Among the dead were three cartoonists, including co-founder Jean “Cabu” Cabut and editor-in-chief Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier. Charlie Hebdo, which publishes every Wednesday, is known for being irreverent, anti-establishment and virulently anti-religious. Police said the weekly had received several threats in recent weeks and had permanent police protection. From publishing the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked Middle East riots in 2005 to renaming an edition Sharia Hebdo and listing Islam's prophet as its supposed editor-in-chief, the weekly has repeatedly caricatured Muslims and their beliefs. It is renowned for courting controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders. Many of its cartoonists started in the 1960s on Hara-Kiri magazine, which openly proclaimed its aim to be inane and nasty. It was banned in 1970 after printing a mock death notice for General Charles de Gaulle, only to reappear months later under the name Charlie Hebdo. But its attacks on Muslims have caused the most controversy, including a court case on charges of racism and the firebombing of its offices in 2011 after the Sharia Hebdo edition. “Hebdo” is French slang for a weekly newspaper. The weekly has had permanent police protection since the firebombing incident. The weekly has also made fun of the Muslim veil for women and ridiculed Islamist extremists. In the edition publishing the Danish cartoons, its cover had a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad in tears, saying: “It's hard to be loved by jerks.” The racism case went to court in 2007, but the plaintiffs, two leading French Muslim groups and the Saudi-backed Muslim World League, stood no chance against the weekly's defense that France's freedom of speech and separation of church and state guaranteed its right to criticize any religion. Because of its relentless criticism of many public figures and institutions, Charlie Hebdo's often crude, many Muslims would also say cruel, caricatures are seen in France more as free speech rather than far-right, anti-Muslim agitation. In 2012, the publication again published Muhammad caricatures, depicting the prophet in naked and pornographic poses, which drew denunciations from around the Muslim world. These caricatures forced France to temporarily close embassies and schools in more than 20 countries amid fears of reprisals. In a 2012 interview, editor Charbonnier had answered questions regarding the magazine’s take on an anti-Islamic movie called "Innocence of Muslims." He said the weekly had not defended the movie, which he characterized as vulgar. He instead said the magazine caricaturized the film itself. Charbonnier, who said he is an atheist, said that he stays clear of mosques and churches because he always encounters shocking statements or discourse in those venues. In the same light, he stated that if believers do not want to be shocked, they should not read Charlie Hebdo. Reuters reported in 2012 that Charbonnier had been under police protection since the 2011 firebombing. "This is a satirical paper produced by left-wingers and when I say left-wingers that goes all the way from anarchists to communists to Greens, Socialists and the rest. Above all it is a secular and atheist newspaper," Charbonnier said at the time. "When we attack the Catholic hard right ... nobody talks about it in the papers. It's as if Charlie Hebdo has official authorization to attack the Catholic hard right. But we are not allowed to make fun of Muslim hardliners. It's the new rule ... but we will not obey it," he said in 2012. In a 2011 interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, Charbonnier said, “If we worried about the consequences of each of our drawings in each of our 1,057 issues, then we would have had to close shop a long time ago. “Extremists don’t need any excuses,” he said following the firebombing of his magazine offices, in which no one was hurt. "If they are not amused by our cartoons, they don't need to buy our magazine. Of course they are allowed to demonstrate. The right to protest needs to be protected, so long as one abides by the law and refrains from violence." Minutes before the attack Wednesday, Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of the extremist Islamic State group's leader with a New Year's message that read: "Best wishes, by the way." The extremist leader has previously urged his followers to attack citizens of the U.S., France and other countries involved in an international coalition, whose goal is to destroy the Islamic State group. |
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2015 and may
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 5 | |||||||||
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Kidnappers in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, have freed a prominent teenage AIDS activist after holding her for eight hours. Keren Dunaway Gonzalez, 18, who is HIV-positive, was undergoing tests at a hospital Wednesday. The gunmen kidnapped Ms. Dunaway and her mother, Rosa González, Tuesday near the offices of the Llaves Foundation, which helps children with AIDS. Mrs. Gonzalez was freed after a short time, but Ms. Dunaway was held captive. "At around 8:20 at night, she was dropped off by a vehicle at Lomas del Carmen, in the Santa Marta neighborhood. Five minutes after a call to our National Police, she asked for help and was taken home and then to a medical clinic,'' said Honduras National Police spokesman Jorge Rodriguez. Her kidnappers apparently let her go after her mother, who is a U.N. ambassador for children with AIDS, made a televised appeal and said the family had no money. Ms. Dunaway has spoken at international AIDS conferences and also runs a magazine and radio show for HIV-positive children. She has campaigned to end the stigma and discrimination toward HIV and AIDS patients and has encouraged other HIV-positive young people to speak out. San Pedro Sula is considered the most violent city in Honduras, which for years has been ravaged by an escalation in crime made worse by Mexican drug cartels. New drug targets those superbugs By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
International public health officials have expressed alarm that once highly-effective antibiotics, developed in some cases more than 50 years ago, are losing the war against dangerous infections, allowing once treatable diseases to grow into deadly illnesses worldwide, so-called "superbugs." These include the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, which silently infects up to one-third of the world’s population. It can spring to life and cause active disease, and a sometimes fatal skin infection called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, that is spread through hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. But a new antibiotic discovered by an international team of researchers is unlikely to fail where other drugs have. Called Teixobactin, it is made by Eleftheria terrae, one of 10,000 previously untested bacterial strains found in soil. The compound is manufactured by the company Novo Biotic. According to Kim Lewis, director of the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, traditional antibiotics, also developed from soil microbes, work by binding to bacterial proteins that are essential for the microbe to thrive. After a while, Lewis says, many bacteria adapt themselves to the drugs and develop avoidance mechanisms. “Mutations occur, the protein changes and the antibiotic no longer binds," said Lewis, lead author of the study describing the new antibiotic compound in the journal Nature. "The targets of Teixobactin are not proteins. It hits two different targets. These targets are precursors of cell wall polymers and they do not mutate. There is nothing to mutate. So, at least by that common mechanism, resistance does not occur.” Teixobactin destroys bacteria by causing their cell walls to break down. At the earliest, it’s estimated that Teixobactin and drugs in the same class will not become available for at least five years, pending more animal tests and human clinical trials. |
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| From Page 7: New consulate may bring more Chinese tourists By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica will open a consulate in Shanghai in an effort to attract more Chinese tourists, Casa Presidencial said Wednesday. Tourism officials also are trying to arrange direct flights from the Asian country to Costa Rica, they said. Casa Presidencial said that President Luis Guillermo Solís had held a meeting with the director of the China National Tourism Administration. Manuel González, the foreign minister, said that the new consulate would speed up issuing documents for tourists and for commercial purposes. Solís said that the Chinese are exploring the possibility of participating in EXPOTUR in May. This is the exposition where some of the country's tourism operators show their wares. |
