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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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Server outage in L.A.
puts newspaper offline By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The A.M. Costa Rica Web pages and mail system were not available from about 2:40 p.m. Thursday until about 1 a.m. today because of hardware problems with the server in Los Angeles, California. A.M. Costa Rica is hosted by Bluewho.com, and company officials said that the delay was caused by a file checking program that ran into a customer with 600,000 files. Files had to be checked after the server was repaired. The A.M. Costa Rica Web pages reappeared in Los Angeles about midnight but additional work was needed to get them to display themselves in Costa Rica. This is the first time in four years that Bluewho.com has experienced a serious outage. The company recently moved into a state-of-the-art server complex in the California city. Celebration in Sarchí to benefit the Cruz Roja By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Sarchí, the town famous for furniture, is having its first civic celebration starting today, and the beneficiary will be the Cruz Roja. The event runs through March 3. The festivities start today at noon with mascaradas, those giant heads with youngsters underneath. At 7 p.m. there is the first Costa Rican bull fight. Saturday there is the tope or gathering of horses that will go through the streets of the town. There also are the usual fireworks scheduled. The funds collected will go to refurbish a structure used by the Cruz Roja in the community and to fix up the local ambualnce. Two face allegations of flat tire thievery By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Investigators arrested a 30-year-old man in Hatillo during a raid Wednesday night and alleged that he was the leader of a gang involved in stealing from tourists by causing flat tires. A 48-year-old Tibás man also was detained earlier Wednesday in that community. The Judicial Investigating Organization said its agents were trying to solve crimes in which thieves would puncture a tire and then follow a vehicle until the operator got out to fix a flat. Then they would pull up, offer help and in the confusion steal items. In one case the gang followed a family of tourists from Paseo Colon to Barrio California where they managed to steal passports and a portable computer. This is the technique known in Spanish as pinchonazo, and it has been used for a long time on tourists or those who look like tourists. In the case of the Barrio California theft, the participants were identified, said investigators. Ministry says ATM robberies have decreased due to closings By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The security ministry is taking credit for a decrease in forced bank withdrawals from October to December. It was Nov. 25 when the security minister, Janina del Vecchio, asked banks to shut down their automatic teller machines from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. The purpose was to prevent what police call the Paseo Millionario whereby bandits force a victim to withdraw funds from an ATM. In October there were 10 such robberies reported to authorities, said the security ministry. In December only four were reported, the ministry said. No figures were given for January or for November. From March to December there were 31 such robberies in San José alone, the ministry said. December also was the month that many more police were put on the streets because of the distribution of the Christmas bonuses and the crush of Yule shoppers. Drugs stopped at both borders By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A load of cocaine and one of cocaine and heroine have been intercepted, one at Peñas Blancas at the Nicaraguan frontier and one near Paso Canoas across the border with Panamá. Both cases developed Wednesday. The detainee in the incident at the Nicaragua border was a Guatemalan trucker. Police said he had 190 kilos of cocaine in his truck. That's about 418 pounds. This is the fourth trucker detained in the last two weeks, police said. The vehicle was headed to Guatemala. The Panamá arrest involved two Costa Rican bus drivers. The Policía de Control de Drogas said the man driving a passenger bus backed up into Panamá when he was told to pull over for a detailed inspection. Police in Panamá detained the bus and said they found three kilos of cocaine and 20 small packets of heroine, said police here. Bus driver murdered By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A bandit pretended to be a passenger and then fired two shots, killing the driver of a San José-Heredia bus in Heredia Wednesday night. The victim, Sigifredo Maroto, 42, died a short time later at the local hospital. The assailant fled. The shooting happened about 8:30 p.m. The buses have been a frequent target of bandits. In this case, the driver is believed to have struggled with the gunman.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| These are the men you cannot
do without if you have a septic tank. But they were unhappy this week. |
 A.M. Costa
Rica/Saray Ramírez Vindas
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These drivers have tanks full
of complaints, so they protest
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By Saray Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff The men who do some of society's dirty work were out in force at Casa Presidencial Thursday demanding action and not words. These are the men who clean the septic tanks in the metro area. They also are targets of barbs and allegations of dumping their trucks' loads into rivers and creeks. Their problem is bigger than that. The sewage plant where they used to take their liquid loads has closed and the tank cleaners have no approved place to dump the tens of thousands of gallons that they collect each working day. |
They had a meeting with the minister
of Salud, María Luisa Ávila
Agüero, but Thursday when they hung their signs on the fence in
front
of Casa Presidencial they complained that all they got was words and
not actions. The men are doing the best they can, but they are subject to fines if they are caught dumping the waste into the existing metro sewer system. That system simply flows into the Central Valley's rivers and then to the Gulf of Nicoya via the Río Grande de Tarcoles. The men are seeking to have the private treatment plant reopened or some other solution found. Meanwhile, Casa Presidencial employees are happy the men left their trucks at home. |
| Thoughts of a clever friend who cannot be here now |
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| The
beautiful weather that it is rightfully famous for has finally returned
to Costa Rica. At least to my part of the world. And the
season is changing so that my balcony is now bathed in the early
morning sun. Soon it will once again be there the whole morning. And sunshine is free – at least at the moment. I love the sunshine, but not everyone does. Some people — like those who are allergic to the sun and those who are vampires — don’t like the sun at all, and no matter how much I try to convince them, they never will. In a recent column in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen talked about the philosophical differences between U.S. Democrats and Republicans. Cohen said that these differences will probably never be reconciled because their basic beliefs are not only different but often diametrically opposed. Cohen points out that the same irreconcilable differences exist between countries and cultures (not to mention religions). On the news also, over and over, has been the story of the attack by the pet Chimp, Travis, against a friend of the family. Last year I would have been talking about these subjects with my friend Mavis. We talked almost daily on the phone. She would draw upon her background in sociology and anthropology, her wisdom, her sense of humor and her realistic outlook. She would probably laugh at some of my opinions and comments, but concede that I might have a point. We would discuss whether or not the differences between Republicans and Democrats are as great as between Shiites and Sunni, or on par with the differences between U.S. and Costa Rican cultures. She might pretend to be shocked when I said that the description of Travis the chimp (“normally he was charming, funny and loving”) is the same description of a husband or a child who turns into a killer. Or that perhaps the friend's new haircut, which made her look like a man, posed a threat to Travis. Or, maybe it was the medication. I think we both would question the simplistic “instinct” explanation. |
But I can only think about talking to Mavis because she died a year ago this month. The Book Club met this past Wednesday. Mavis was a driving force in the Club for many years, and two of the three books I checked out had comments from her in them. She has read more books than anyone else I know. Marguerite, a member, said, “I miss Mavis, don’t you? I
miss her
subtle sense of humor.” I agreed and said I missed her subtle
sense of
reality. No one else mentioned Mavis, but we don’t seem to talk
about
those of us who have passed on to wherever it is we go.
Mavis, the eternal realist, I miss you. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, Vol. 9, No. 36 | |||||||||
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Stanford turns up in Virginia
as Latin Americans tremble
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Havoc and panic stemming from fraud charges against U.S. billionaire Allen Stanford have spread to Latin America, prompting several governments to swing into action. The man at the center of the banking and investment scandal turned up in Virginia Thursday and promptly was served with legal papers showing his assests have been frozen. Latin America is bearing much of the brunt of fallout from alleged fraud schemes perpetrated by banks and other financial firms owned by Stanford. At least five nations have launched investigations, suspended bank operations, or, in the case of Venezuela, seized control of local Stanford banking affiliates. Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodríguez says the government was forced to act after panicked depositors withdrew tens of millions of dollars from more than a dozen bank branches in the country. Rodríguez says massive withdrawals have brought about a highly precarious situation, which made it necessary for authorities to intervene and put the bank up for sale. The finance minister said that, in the interim, the government would back remaining deposits. Other nations to take action include Mexico, Panamá, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. British and European investigators are also reported to be probing Stanford's dealings. The panic ensued after U.S. officials filed fraud charges and froze the assets of three companies controlled by Stanford, the flamboyant Texas billionaire who has |
donated vast sums to U.S.
politicians and sponsored sporting events from the
Caribbean to Britain. The banker had been knighted in Antigua, where
Stanford International Bank is headquartered. Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Stanford and several associates of orchestrating what officials termed a multi-billion dollar fraudulent investment scheme of "shocking magnitude" based on "false promises and fabricated historical return data." The SEC posted an automated call-in message for Stanford investors detailing the assets seized and what will become of them, as mandated by a federal court. "The receiver will take control of and operate the assets, and take steps to preserve the value of assets in order to prevent loss. The court further issued a temporary restraining order freezing all assets of the defendants and requiring preservation of documents. The SEC's investigation of this matter is ongoing," he said. Federal authorities were under no immediate orders to arrest the banking magnate. Since the SEC's announcement, several high-ranking former employees and business associates have come forward to state that they were aware of fraudulent or improper business dealings by Stanford. The Stanford case is the second major alleged fraud scheme to be uncovered by U.S. authorities in recent months. Late last year, FBI agents arrested Wall Street businessman Bernie Madoff, who stands accused of swindling investors out of approximately $50 billion through what is known as a ponzi scheme. |
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Miami security consultants
pick Heredia man to head operations in Costa Rica
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A U.S. security consultancy firm has expanded into Costa Rica and named Hamid Kaber of Heredia president of the organization here. The firm is Security Warriors Group Inc. of Miami, Florida, which says it is the world’s largest distributor of security technology in Latin America. Until now, there was no client-side support available to security buyers in Costa Rica, leaving only the choice of a local alarm vendor — often with less that perfect results, said the firm. Security Warriors of Costa Rica is not designed to compete with local alarm companies, but to bring professionalism to the field, said Kaber, adding "and, when your life, livelihood and possessions depend upon it, you may have only one chance to get it right." "Having spent the past 37 years in this field as a consultant/ engineer, I have gained an in-depth understanding of security problems and how to deal with them," he said. "In my professional career I have worked on projects |
ranging from Fortune 100 companies
like Gillette and
Xerox to high rise office complexes and executive residences, including
work for the company that designed systems for Bill Gates' home. According to Kaber there is much more to security systems than knowing how to install cables or cameras. It is a discipline that takes many years to master, he said. It involves an understanding of security risks and threats, client operations and lifestyle, changing technology, quality standards and project management, and until this moment, that combination of skills simply did not exist in Costa Rica, Kaber added. Kaber said that he and his firm will work with a client at every stage of a project to review specifications, to review vendors' qualifications and to make sure that the job is done correctly at every critical stage. "This really isn't a new concept. Consultant/engineers have been used for years in the building trades. It's just taken a while for this to impact the way security systems are designed in Costa Rica," he said. The local firm can be reached via e-mail through the Miami firm's Web site. |
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basis of Ecuador's complaint By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The State Department said Thursday that Ecuador's expulsion this month of two U.S. diplomats "raises serious concerns" about that country's interest in a productive relationship with the United States. The two diplomats were helping administer a U.S. law-enforcement training program. An employee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security working at the American embassy in Quito was ordered to leave the country last week. On Wednesday, a second embassy staffer, First Secretary Mark Sullivan, was given 48 hours to leave the country. Ecuador has accused both Americans of meddling in the country's internal affairs with regard to selection of Ecuadoran police officers for U.S.-sponsored training. Officials here have said Ecuadoran officials objected to embassy efforts, mandated by the U.S. Congress, to exclude from the program police thought to be corrupt or otherwise undesirable. At a news briefing, Gordon Duguid, State Department deputy spokesman, said the U.S. embassy had tried to deal with Ecuadoran concerns amicably, and that the U.S. ambassador had been scheduled to meet government officials Wednesday and present a proposal that could have resolved the issue. Duguid said the Ecuadorans rejected the effort to settle the matter through diplomatic channels and instead held a news conference to announce Sullivan's expulsion. "The decision by the government of Ecuador to expel a second American diplomat is very troubling and raises serious concerns about Ecuador's desire to maintain a productive relationship," said Duguid. "The United States rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing by embassy staff. Our embassy personnel have acted with the utmost respect for Ecuador's sovereignty. Our programs have been administered in a transparent and accountable fashion with the full cooperation of Ecuador's senior officials." Duguid said Sullivan is in the process of leaving Ecuador and that the United States intends to respond to the two expulsions in an "appropriate way" - language suggesting that retaliatory action might be forthcoming. U.S. officials say the law enforcement training program was suspended after the first expulsion, and that some Ecuadoran officials objected when the U.S. Embassy insisted on the return of computers and other equipment associated with the project. Duguid said U.S.-Ecuadoran cooperation over the years against drug smuggling, terrorism and trafficking in persons has paid dividends for both countries, and he said he hopes the Quito government will reconsider its actions and return to a cooperative dialogue. The former Bush administration had a difficult relationship with Ecuador's left-leaning President Rafael Correa, who is campaigning for re-election in April on a platform of standing up to foreign influence. |
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