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Costa Rica condemns firing
Our readers' opinionsrockets into northern Israel By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica has condemned the launching of missiles against northern Israel from Lebanon as something that aggravates the tensions there and impedes efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The statement by the foreign ministry said it repudiated the attacks against innocent civilians and for the risk of increasing violence and tensions. At the same time the statement called for a cease fire in Gaza. Terrorists in Lebanon launched three Katusha rockets into northern Israel Thursday morning, and one of them hit a retirement home. Two residents were injured. The attacks are believed to come from elements of Hezbolla which fought Israel in the summer of 2006. Israel is fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip. PriceSmart posts gains for first quarter sales Special to A.M. Costa Rica
PriceSmart, Inc. said it had a 21.8 percent increase in sales during the first quarter of fiscal year 2009 which ended Nov. 30. The firm has stores in Costa Rica. For the first quarter of fiscal year 2009, net warehouse sales increased to $298.5 million from $245.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2008, the company said. Total revenue for the first quarter was $305.2 million compared to $250.4 million in the prior year. The company said it had 25 outlets in operation as of Nov. 30, 2008, compared to 24 outlets in November 2007. The company recorded operating income in the quarter of $14.9 million, compared to operating income of $10.2 million in the prior year. Net income was $10.7 million, in the first quarter of fiscal 2009 compared to $6.7 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2008. makes Limón man unhappy Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Thanks to Marc Schweitzer, president of Costa Rica Mortgage S.A. in Escazú, I started the day out with an accelerated heart rate, a general tenseness, mild rage and the need to address his compassionate words: "If he [Biden] and I [the esteemed Schweitzer?] are correct and Hamas/Al Qaeda wreak some havoc in the Northeast, the C.R. market will boom like never before," said Schweitzer." No one I know could have said it better and laid bare for the public readership of A.M. Costa Rica to see such a cold, crass, calculating desire! Mr. Schweitzer, maybe you could retire in 6 months if your ticket to Nirvana really kicked into high gear and we saw simultaneous attacks in....let's say..YOUR HOMETOWN. You know, the place where your family lives, works and plays. The neighborhood where your kids go to school! The rest home where your parents or grandparents reside! Let me fancy a guess; You have no children, brothers, sisters, mother or father currently alive in the U. S., right? If I am wrong, you surely have fallen off the deep end. As one who *does* have family in the Northeast, I wish you all the luck in this world with your mortgage business and may it fall off the end of the earth before the rest of us do. With No Respect,
Dennie Sartuga Limón
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Schweitzer was stating a hard fact, not cheering on terrorists. Colorado reader says Chávez reporting bad Dear A.M. Costa Rica: On Thursday you reported as fact: "(Hugo) Chávez also is the darling of the U.S. Left because of his opposition to President George Bush." Simply because Noam Chomsky is willing to point out and criticize overreaching on the part of a non-governmental organization does not make Hugo Chávez "the darling of the U.S. Left" because he opposes George Bush. As far as I can tell, just about everyone opposes George Bush. The U.S. Left has not made darlings of Chávez, Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, Kim Jong-il, Robert Mugabe, or any other totalitarian leader simply because of their opposition to the unilateralist policies of the outgoing U.S. President. Moreover, it is important to "know your enemy" not simply publish bloated, critical reports about him. Accuracy in intelligence and popular reporting is a virtue which strengthens everyone's hand. Inaccuracy is simply propaganda, and leads, as we saw in Iraq, and as both Bush and VP Cheney have now publicly admitted, to bad decision making. It appears from your article that Chomsky and others have identified bad reporting bordering on propaganda from a biased source, Human Rights Watch, which is otherwise well regarded. Their motivation appears to be to set the record straight and apprehend the downfall of the reputation of a generally reliable source. This does not make Chávez the darling of anybody. Truthful reporting is the goal. If Chávez is a mad man, let the real facts speak for themselves. Greg Russi
New Castle, Colorado
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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 A.M. Costa Rica/Saray Ramírez
Vindas
Instituto Nacional de Vivienda y Urbanismo workers wait out
aftershocks in San Jose's Barrio Amón |
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| Arias will tour the affected areas with his staff today |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Óscar Arias Sánchez said Thursday that he would lead a government team to the area of the earthquake epicenter today to see first hand the consequences. The visit will start at San Pedro de Poás, which is presumed to be at the epicenter of the 6.2 magnitude Thursday earthquake. At a press conference Thursday night Arias characterized Costa Rica as a country with a big history of earthquakes and asked that the public remain calm. Arias was out of the country when major flooding hit the Caribbean coast and the northern zone at the end of November. And some suggested that he should have cut short his trip. Arias said that the government was doing all it could do to lessen the impact of the event and that it would channel resources to help. "Today is a day of mourning for Costa Rica," Arias said, speaking of the heavy financial lost and the three deaths of children that were known as he spoke. As expected, Arias said that he would issue a decree of emergency today after he and his staff learn the full extent of the damage to homes and infrastructure. The decree is a way that the government has to get all the agencies and dependencies to raise additional cash for needed repairs. |
 A.M. Costa Rica/josé Pablo
Ramírez Vindas
Rodrigo Arias Sánchez sits with his brother, the
president, at a press conference at the national emergency commission. |
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At least 42 communities
suffered some form of damage
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national emergency commission said that the districts hardest hit by Thursday's quake were Poasito, Sarapiquí, Río Cuarto, Heredia centro, Vara Blanca, Dulce Nombre de San Isidro and Sabana Redonda de Poás de Alajuela. In all, there were 42 communities that suffered damage, the commission said. The commission said that persons were injured in Vara Blanca, Cedral, Carrizal and Los Cartagos. Also there were reports of damage in Alajuela Centro, Cinchona de Sarapiquì, Catarata de Vara Blanca, Los Guido de Patarra, Sabanilla de Montes de Oca, Dulce Nombre de San Isidro and in Tacacori de Alajuela. Later the Cruz Roja reported that five deaths had occurred in el Roble de Santa Bárbara. Two girls had been reported to have been killed by a landslide earlier in Cinchona, and a 14-year-old died when a house collapsed in Carrizal. David Meléndez, emergency director for the transport ministry said that from Heredia in the south to Vara Blanca to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui in the north a helicopter crew Thursday afternoon counted between 25 and 30 landslides. He confirmed that a bridge over the Río Ángel, the locally known Salto de Ángel, had fallen due to the movement of earth. He estimated that officials would need three to four days to learn the magnitude of the damages. |
The U.S. Geological Survey said the
quake was 35 kilometers (22 miles) northwest of San José. The
exact estimated
coordinates were 10.22 degrees north and 84.28 degrees west, said the
survey. The event was estimated to be 28 kilometers (about 17 miles)
deep. Costa Rican sources put the epicenter at about 10 kilometers or 6 miles east of Volcán Poás in an area close to the border between the province of Alajuela and the province of Heredia. Much of the damage took place there, but there also was damage in San José and other Central Valley towns. The nearby community of El Roble de Santa Bárbara was the only place that the emergency commission had set up a shelter. Five persons, including parents and two children, died in that community in a building collapse, and about 80 residents were evacuated to a more sturdy structure, according to the Cruz Roja in Heredia. Costa Rica is vulnerable to quakes because the topography is rugged with deep ravines and steep hillsides. That is one reason the main highway from San José to Guápiles suffered a number of slides and is usually closed as heavy rains hit. In the central mountains of Costa Rica highways are carved into the steep hillsides vulnerable to sliding downwards or being covered with rock and mud. Homeowners frequently perch their dwellings on a ridge to take advantage of the view, but when heavy rains or a quake comes, the earth gives way and the home crashes down the hill. |
 Emergency worker studies site . . .
Firemen prepare to inspect Hospital México. . . Hospital
patients await word
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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| How to define the year and yourself with just one word |
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| My
daughter gave me an interesting exercise, something a member of her
writers’ group does at the beginning of each New Year. The idea
is to come up with a one word description of last year (either personal
or global, I suppose) and another for yourself for the coming year.
This makes a stimulating change from the usual New Year’s resolutions
one makes in January, year after year — usually the same ones. I
stopped doing that a long time ago. Nor do I give up anything for
Lent anymore. Life takes care of that. When I quit smoking,
I did so in order to be a nonsmoker on my birthday, so I quit in
September, knowing it would take at least five months to succeed.
Now that I think about it, perhaps it is more daunting to choose a word rather than a resolution, after all, “In the beginning was the word.” January is not only a time for new beginnings and words, it evidently is a predictive month. The ups and downs of the Wall Street stock market during the month of January supposedly predict its journey for the rest of the year. In Costa Rica, the first 12 days of January are supposed to predict the weather for the coming 12 months. If that is so, it is going to be sunny, windy, and partly cloudy, and the rainy season will begin in early May. It is doubtful that these predictions will be successful this year given the recent cataclysmic events in the financial world (which is our world, too), and the dire warnings about global warming. Personally I feel we are experiencing the beginning of another Ice Age — this past year has been the coldest I have known since coming to Costa Rica. Nevertheless, it was one of the best holiday seasons I have enjoyed in years — more active with dinners and friends and games. Perhaps that is why while I hear that everyone who is anyone began 2009 “hitting the ground running,” I started the New Year hitting the ground idling. I just can’t get into gear and going after all that food fun and games. Then my daughter came up with her idea. The global events of last year overshadowed, my own life, so my word for 2008 was ‘Collapse.” My more personal word for 2009 is “Move.” |
Walking has been my mode of transportation for years.
I’m not good at
walking just for exercise. When I lived on the east side of town
it
was a less than a 20-minute walk to the center of the city — all of it
downhill. Walking in the city always gave me ideas to write
about.
Walking in the area of the Sabana has not done that. But, think
of
“Move,” off I went on Wednesday, deciding to go to the bank the long
way. |
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to many foreign officials Special to A.M. Costa Rica
A former executive of an Orange County, Calif.-based valve company pleaded guilty Thusday in connection with his role in a conspiracy to pay approximately $1 million in bribes to numerous foreign government officials, said the U.S. Department of Justice. Mario Covino, 44, an Italian citizen and resident of Irvine, Calif., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge James V. Selna in Santa Ana, Calif., to a one-count information charging him with conspiring to make corrupt payments to foreign government officials for the purpose of securing business for the Orange County valve company. The charge involved business with from state-owned enterprises in several countries, including Brazil, China, India, Korea, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to court documents, the valve company designed and manufactured service control valves for use in the nuclear, oil and gas, and power generation industries worldwide. Covino was the director of worldwide factory sales at the valve company from March 2003 through August 2007. In this position, Covino was responsible for overseeing new construction projects and the replacement of existing valves made by other companies and installed at customer plants in more than 30 countries. In connection with his guilty plea, Covino admitted that from March 2003 through August 2007, he caused employees and agents of the valve company to make corrupt payments totaling approximately $1 million to foreign officials employed at state-owned enterprises in order to assist in obtaining and retaining business for the valve company. Covino also admitted that the valve company earned approximately $5 million in profits from the contracts it obtained as a result of these corrupt payments. According to the court documents, the corrupt payments were made to foreign officials at state-owned entities including, but not limited to, Petrobras (Brazil), Dingzhou Power (China), Datang Power (China), China Petroleum, China Resources Power, China National Offshore Oil Company, PetroChina, Maharashtra State Electricity Board (India), KHNP (Korea), Petronas (Malaysia), Dolphin Energy (United Arab Emirates) and Abu Dhabi Company for Oil Operations (United Arab Emirates). Covino also admitted to providing false and misleading responses to internal auditors during a 2004 internal audit of the company’s commission payments, and to deleting e-mails and instructing others to delete e-mails that referred to corrupt payments, for the purpose of obstructing the internal audit. As part of his plea agreement, Covino has agreed to cooperate with the Department in its ongoing investigation. At sentencing, scheduled for July 20, Convino faces a maximum of five years in prison. |
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