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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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Solís acknowledges Arias
as the president-elect By Saray Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Ottón Solís, the presidential candidate of the Partido Acción Ciudadana, moved Friday to quell a rebellion in his party against the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones. In a short, televised speech he accepted his opponent, Óscar Arias Sánchez, as the legitimately elected president. But he also leveled criticism at the Tribunal. Some Solís supporters were demanding a second round of elections, claiming that neither candidate got 40 percent of the popular vote. Both men were in a tight race with Arias winning 18,000 more votes of 1.6 million cast. The Solís activists counted all votes cast, including blank ones and mutilated ones, to show that Arias won slightly less than 40 percent. The Tribunal said before the election that the percentage would be of the valid votes cast. Other activists presented complaints to the Tribunal and questioned the neutrality of the Tribunal's magistrates. Solís said he accepted his defeat and had sent a letter to Arias acknowledging that and stressing some policy points. Solís is seeking 8 percent of the gross national product to be earmarked for education in the national budget, repair of the battered highways and a security initiative. He also said he was disappointed that some in the Tribunal preferred to cover the truth. Solís 6-year-old political party did not have the network to supervise polls all over the country, particularly in Guanacaste, Puntarenas and Limón where Arias won heavily. Solís said that everyone should pray for the new president. The action was more symbolic than a concession speech because Arias and his followers have known they had won the presidential race since a day or two after the Feb. 5 voting. Solís was the one who held out hoping that disqualifications of some polling place totals would turn the tide. The Tribunal has not yet made an official declaration of a winner. Free trade road shows for Florida, treaty nations Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Briefings about the U.S. free-trade agreement with Central America and the Dominican Republic are being held in several Florida cities and in some of the countries covered by the pact, thanks to the U.S. Department of Commerce and Enterprise Florida. Enterprise Florida, a partnership between the Florida state government and Floridian business leaders, announced last week that the road shows about the treaty feature presentations by commercial officers and trade experts from the U.S. public and private sectors. The shows, which are intended to help businesses and entrepreneurs capitalize on the opportunities offered by the free trade treaty, are designed to increase trade between Florida and the countries party to the pact. President George Bush signed the trade pact into law Aug. 2. Presentations about the treaty will be held in the Florida cities of Miami, St. Petersburg, Orlando and Jacksonville. Briefings also are scheduled in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Guatemala City; San Salvador, El Salvador; and the Honduran cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The treaty is designed to eliminate barriers to trade, investment and business between the people of the United States and the 45 million people of the trade pact's other signatory countries: the Dominican Republic and the five Central American nations of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Enterprise Florida said that collectively, the six other treaty nations are Florida's No. 1 trading partner. Florida's main exports, it said, include computer products, aviation and aerospace equipment, fertilizers and telecommunications and medical equipment. Puerto Rican woman dies in flaming crash By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A 26-year-old Puerto Rican woman died as the result of a flaming auto crash Sunday morning while she was on her way from San José to her Escazú home. The woman was identified by the last name of González. The Judicial Investigating Organization is handling the case. No one knows exactly why the woman's car left the highway, rolled over twice and ended up in a ditch. She was pinned in the car, and would-be rescuers were forced back by the flames. The crash took place on the Próspero Fernández highway in Sabana Oeste afer 4 a.m. Emergency chopper ride touches down in Sabana By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An emergency helicopter flight turned into a diversion for Sunday visitors at Parque la Sabana when the chopper had to land there because it was the closest available spot to the Hospital Nacional del Niños. The helicopter from the Servicio Nacional de Vigilancia Aérea was on a mercy flight with a 4-year-old passenger. The boy, Sebastián García García has suffered a serious machete wound to the right foot. The helicopter left its Alajuela base at 8 a.m. Sunday for Boyey de Xiqiari in southeastern Limón. The pilots reported that they had to hike 30 minutes to get the boy to the spot where the helicopter landed. On the return trip, the boy appeared to be in need of immediate hospitalization, officials said, so Fuerza Pública officers cleared a spot on the south side of the park in western San José. This was the fifth such mercy flight for the air service this week, officials said. |
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on our real estate page HERE! |
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Third news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 6, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 46 | ||||||
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| Visa woes still keep Cuban baseballer stuck here |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Spring training for the New York Mets begins today, but power hitter Michel Abreu won't be there. U.S. businessman Richard J. Sims said consular employees of the U.S. Embassy here have not yet issued the Cuban refugee a visa so he could fulfill the major league baseball contract he has. Sims said that Abreu had a visa interview at the U.S. Embassy last week but that the consular worker there said he was unfamiliar with the situation and sought advice from more experienced officials. The baseball player spent the rest of the day fruitlessly waiting outside the embassy, Sims said. Embassy workers continued to claim they did not know what to do to get the Cuban refugee a U.S. visa so they referred the case to Washington, D.C., Sims said. And that is where the case stands. Abreu lacks a passport because that was being held by Cuban officials to keep him from defecting. He has refugee status in Costa Rica. Sims said that Abreu's Washington, D.C., law firm even sent a message to the embassy here suggesting that a business visa could be issued on the strength of the contract with the Mets. Meanwhile, Abreu, a popular figure in Cuba, has been playing baseball with a students in a university league in San José. Elaine Samson, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy here said Sunday that the matter now rests in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the merged entity under the Department of Homeland Security. She said a tourist visa was inappropriate because the Cuban was going to the United States to earn money. Actually Abreu is going to spring training but will not be paid. His Washington law firm, McCandlish Holton, sent FAXes to David Dreher and Nadi Castro, both at the U.S. Embassy, Friday explaining that a |
 File photo
Abreu when he played for a Nicaraguan teamsingle-entry non-employment business visa would be appropriate. Sims and the lawyer's letter said Abreu expects to spend a couple of weeks in spring training and then be sent by The Mets to the Mexican league for a break-in period. A section of the law for a B-1 business visa specifically mentions foreign athletes who enter the United States for training. If Abreu makes the majors, he will have to get another visa while he is in México. Sims says the athlete will suffer a setback if his arrival at training camp is delayed. Sims also said that U.S. newspapers have characterized Abreu, who usually plays first base, as the best free agent in major league baseball. The player is living in San José and has experienced difficulty in even getting an appointment with a U.S. consular official. Abreu lost a $425,000 signing bonus with the Boston Red Sox last year when he could not get a visa. |
| Here are some great expressions when you are angry |
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| ¡Andate al
Infierno! y te llevás un saco de carbón pa’ que te dure
más “Go to hell! And be sure to take a bag of charcoal so you can stay longer.” This is rather a long dicho, but I think it is a very clever and witty way of letting off some steam in a frustrating situation. It’s difficult to drive more than a few blocks in Costa Rica without encountering some infuriating motorist who simultaneously disengaged his brain when he engaged the transmission. You might be tempted, in such situations, to roll down the window and shout: ¡Andate al infierno! Y te llevás un saco de carbon pa’ que te dura más at the ignoramus. But, perhaps it would be better to simply mutter these soothing words under your breath, as some ignoramuses have been known to react in an undesirable manner to such chiding. I believe that everyone should learn how to swear, especially in his or her native tongue. Swearing is a wonderful way of relieving tension through words rather than actions. The problem is, however, that swearing may sometimes provoke actions on the part of others, which we are unprepared to handle. In today’s dicho the insult of the first part ¡andate al infierno! is softened and somewhat offset by the wit of the second part, te llevás un saco de carbon pa’ que te dure más. Usually, in English at least, an insulting oath is not followed by such mitigating drollery. But, if you are really angry at someone, and prepared to pay the consequences of your words, you might hurl voy a poner tus dientes a bailar en una esquina de tu boca at them, meaning: “I’m going to set your teeth to dancing in one corner of your mouth.” At this point, of course, you should probably be prepared to either fight, or run like hell. But when we catch ourselves feeling this kind of anger it’s time to try to calmarnos “calm down,” or llevarla suave “take it easy,” for the sake of our health. Not only because someone is likely to beat |
the tar out of us, but also because we might give ourselves a
heart attack. There are ways of expressing one’s anger without bursting a
blood
vessel in the process. We Ticos like to use humor, which is designed to
relieve tension rather than creating more of it. Whenever I drive around Costa Rica with my dear companion he
never
fails to get angry over the crazy way some Ticos drive, and he is very
colorful in the aspersions he launches at the culprits. But when he
starts limiting his insults to English, I know that he’s really mad. |
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on our real estate page HERE! |
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Fourth news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Monday, March 6, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 46 |
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| More Latin women holding jobs, U.N. labor study says |
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new study by the United Nations finds that an increasing number of women now hold jobs in Latin America's urban areas, rising from 39 percent of the total working population in 1990 to 44.7 percent in 2002. The study was released by the U.N. International Labor Organization to commemorate International Women's Day, which occurs each year on March 8. The study attributes the boom in female participation in the labor market to better schooling, urban growth, declining fertility rates and new cultural patterns that favor the autonomy of women. A substantial increase in the number of female-headed households, which ranges from 19 percent to 31 percent of total households depending on the country in Latin America, also has played a role. But the study, "Women's Labor Force Participation Rates in Latin America," showed mixed results for women in access to quality jobs, unemployment compensation, remuneration and social protection. The study said domestic service represents 15.5 percent of the total female employment in Latin America. Maria Elena Valenzuela, co-author of the study, said one of the reasons so many women are employed in |
domestic service in
Latin America is that many women from medium- and
high-income households have entered the labor market. In other
words,
many poor women "can only find paid employment by working for the
better-off," she said. The study found that unemployment in Latin America is higher among women than for men. In 2004, some 9.4 million women from urban areas were unemployed -- 6.8 million more than in 1990. Although unemployment negatively affected both sexes, the increase was far greater in the female labor force. About half of the women employed in Latin America in 2003 were in the "informal" jobs sector, which usually means the jobs pay little and job security is poor, as opposed to the formal economy where there is better pay, job security and benefits. The study said gender inequality is compounded by discrimination on ethnic grounds, meaning large numbers of women from indigenous groups and of African origin face disadvantages and exclusion. In Brazil, for example, 71 percent of black women work in the informal sector, a bigger proportion than black men (65 percent), white women (61 percent) and white men (48 percent). In Guatemala, only 10.6 percent of Indian people with some form of employment worked in the formal economy compared to 31.8 percent of non-Indian workers. |
| Former Ecuadorian president gets out of jail as security
charge dismissed |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
QUITO, Ecuador — Former Ecuadorian president Lucio Gutiérrez has been released from prison after a judge cleared him of charges of endangering national security. The judge announced the release Friday in a courtroom in this, Ecuador's capital. In response, Gutiérrez said he wanted to "thank God and the Ecuadorian people". |
Ecuador's lawmakers
voted Gutiérrez out of office in April last year,
after he made substantial changes to the Supreme Court and later
disbanded it altogether. He was arrested in October for saying his
ouster was illegal. The judge Friday found that making that
statement
did not break any laws. Vice President Alfredo Palacio replaced him as president and remains in office. Gutiérrez has vowed to run for the presidency again in October elections. But he has very little voter support |
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George Clooney and Rachel
Weisz win Oscars for acting performances
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
This year's Academy Award for best supporting actor has gone to George Clooney for his role in the CIA spy thriller "Syriana." Rachel Weisz won the best supporting actress award for her role as a social activist in "The Constant Gardener." Clooney and Weisz were given the awards — the first ever for each — Sunday night at the 78th Annual |
Academy Awards in
Hollywood. The much-anticipated ceremony, known as the Oscars, is being watched on television by millions of people around the world. The British film "Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit" won the Oscar for best animated feature — while the Academy Award for best documentary went to "March of the Penguins." |
| Chávez goes to the people to build a self-defense
force against U. S. |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela has begun military instruction of civilian reservists who, according to officials there, would conduct guerilla warfare against foreign aggressors. About 500,000 civilians have begun training. They will train on weekends for four months of weapons and resistance tactics. Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, has accused the |
United States of
plotting to invade his country. Chávez has begun the civilian training program to build up a force capable of resisting a more powerful foreign force. Washington has denied it has any plans to invade Venezuela and has warned that Chávez is becoming a threat to Venezuela's democracy and regional stability. |
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