A brother and sister duo from Jacó both received first place honors at a surfing tournament held in their hometown on the Pacific over the weekend. 

The pair, Luis and Lisbeth Vindas, were the best out of a group of 100 surfers that competed at the "Grand Prix Mangoa." 

The event was the fifth leg of the 2004-2005 Circuito Nacional de Surf. As an official event of the national circuit, the competition gives both Luis and Lisbeth points towards their national rankings.

These rankings will be used to determine who represents Costa Rica at the World Junior Surfing Championships scheduled for October 2005 in Huntington Beach. 

The first four events of the circuit were held in Esterillos, Negra, Tamarindo and Dominical. 

First shots of country
to be shown by NASA

Preliminary results from the NASA aircraft mission to photograph Costa Rica will be viewed by President Abel Pacheco Thursday.

The preliminary results from Misión CARTA 2005 will be unveiled at a meeting in Hangar Nacional de Investigaciones Aerotransportadas at Juan Santamaría Airport in Alajuela.

The project was sponsored locally by the Programa de Regularización del Catastro y Registro. Officials from the group say that research from the project should help them protect Costa Rica’s population from natural disasters. 

The mission was designed to generate digital and multi-spectral photographs of Costa Rica that can be used to study Earth measurements and volcanic activity. These tools can help country officials to lessen the impact of natural disasters. 

The project also will allow officials to map individual properties through the country for purposes of ownership and taxation.

The aircraft and crews for the U.S. National Aeronautic and Space Administration are based at the airport.

Fairs and events fill
the Easter calendar

Over the next two weeks, Costa Rica will celebrate the coming of the Easter holiday with a variety of cultural fairs, festivals, and concerts.

The festivals actually began over a week ago in Limón, with a traditional art and culture festival that will run through March 20. The fair features traditional Caribbean cuisine and entertainment.

The Caribbean coast will also host two dance recitals at the Playa Chiquita Lodge in Puerto Viejo. Friday Grupo Metamorfosis will perform its "organic" dance routine. The following night, Saturday, the group will return to perform several other dance routines. All of the shows begin at 7 p.m.

Another festival began Sunday at the Costa Rican Cultural Center at Avenida 3 and Calle 15. The festival will run through next Saturday, featuring traditional music and dancing as well as works created by local artists.

The Symphonic Orchestra from Iowa has traveled to Costa Rica for a show today at the Templo Parroquial in San Ramón. The concert will begin at 6 p.m. Following the orchestra, a trumpet quartet from the Universidad de Costa Rica will perform. 

Today is also the start date for a cultural festival in Puntarenas. The festival will feature films, dances, and local art, presented at the Plaza de Artesanía.

The National Symphonic Orchestra will play two concerts in preparation for the holiday. The first, on Friday will be at 8 p.m. The second, March 20 will be at 10:30 a.m. Both concerts will be at the National Theatre.

The National Bands will also hold specialized concerts over the next two weeks for the holiday. The National Band of Alajuela will play Sunday at 10 a.m. and Friday at 8 p.m. at Parque Tomás Guardia. The National Band of Guanacaste will play Sunday and Friday at 7 p.m. at Parque de Liberia. 

The National Band of Limón will play Friday at 3 p.m. at the Boulevard. The National Band of Puntarenas will play Sundays at 10 a.m. and Thursdays at 6 p.m. at the Plaza de las Artesanías. The National Band of San José will play Sundays at 10 a.m. and Thursdays at noon in Parque Central. 

The National Band of Heredia will play Sundays at 10 a.m. and Thursdays at 7 p.m. at Parque Central. The National Band of Cartago will play Sundays at 10 a.m. and Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. at Plaza Mayor.

E-mail messages from Costa Rica are being blocked elsewhere because the Internet service provider Radiográfica Costarricense S.A. has been blacklisted.

The blocks mean that Internet professionals elsewhere believe that the Costa Rican provider, known as RACSA, is hosting customers who e-mail unrequested commercial messages known as spam.

This weekend e-mail messages from Costa Rica to the United States did not go through, and a message from the RACSA sever said

"Diagnostic code: smtp;550 found in in.dnsbl.org"

According to its Web site, the primary purpose of the DNS-bl is for DNS providers to collectively deny DNS services to known spam domains. DNS numbers are the digital addresses computers use to locate e-mail recipients and Web pages.

The organization reports that the domain racsa.co.cr has been banned for spamming easyDNS corporate mail hubs. EasyDNS is a company that provides and manages DNS numbers.

EasyDNS subscribes to a number of spam blacklisting services, and presumably has barred racsa.co.cr and passed that information on to dnsbl.org. Said EasyDNS on its Web site:

"If your mail server is being rejected by our mail servers we are probably the least of your problems. If we are rejecting your e-mail then a lot of other places are too. 

"Your problem will not fix itself and will not go away or lessen over time. It will get worse and fewer and fewer networks will accept your mail. There are ways to get unblocked . . . .  your first priority should be to secure your mailserver against open relays, bring your DNS into compliance and get rid of any spammers you may be providing services to. "

The U.S. Federal Communication Commission says that open relays and open proxies are servers that allow any computer in the world to bounce or route e-mail through servers of other organizations, thereby disguising the real origin of the e-mail. Spammers use this technique.

The Spamhaus Project is one of those international 
organizations that keep track of spam e-mails and maintains a blacklist.

Spamhaus said that it has been keeping track of spam from Costa Rica generated by Internet a su Alcance and other spam sources here. Spamhaus also lists what it calls other racsa.co.cr spam problems.

Internet a su Alcance describes itself on its Web site as a bulk e-mailer but tries to differentiate what it does from spam. The firm’s contacts are in San José, according to a lookup of the domain’s registry. The firm lists Omni Life and Corporación Miravalles as some of its bulk e-mail customers

RACSA periodically has spam problems. Because it is the official government monopoly, most e-mails from Costa Rica go through its servers and therefore would be rejected elsewhere.

The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, RASCA’s corporate parent, markets a fast Internet service that uses telephone lines available all over the country. However, it, too, has been experiencing problems with e-mail during the last three weeks. 

Spamhaus does not have any current listings of spam coming from the company known as ICE.

After 10 days of searching without results for an Australian student missing in Tamarindo the Fuerza Pública has come under scathing criticism by several Australian news organizations. 

The case is supposed to be handed over to the Judicial Investigating Organization today. According to officials at the organization, the student, Brendan Dobbins was reported missing by several of his classmates March 4 after Dobbins failed to meet up with them in San José for their flight home.

Dobbins, 24 and a senior at the University of Florida, traveled to Costa Rica with several of his classmates over spring break.

Several Australian newspapers have published stories about Dobbins’ disappearance and have been critical of the Fuerza Publica’s investigation. Articles published by the Melbourne Herald Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, claimed that the investigation has been hampered by bureaucratic inaction and that the case should have been handed over to the Judicial Investigating Organization sooner.

The Telegraph article claims that the Fuerza Pública’s Tamarindo office lacks computer support, does not have a fax machine, and is underfunded. The articles said that officials from the organization were slow to act and said the arrival of a K-9 squad to search for Dobbins’ body Saturday, took place long after his scent would have disappeared. 

The articles also said the police asked Australians looking for Dobbins to provide food for the officers working the case. The policemen did not leave the station until a caterer had been asked to make 20 meals, the newspaper said.

Brian Dobbins, Brendan’s father, traveled from Melbourne, Australia, over the weekend to help search for his son. According to the Cruz Roja, the elder Dobbins visited several local churches and asked the congregations to help look for his son. Imogen Wells, a friend of the younger Dobbins’ who traveled with him 

"They used sniff dogs to search for Brendan. Then they used a boat search and finally helicopters," she said. 

Brendan Dobbins

"The investigators said that if he had drown, his body would have floated to shore by now." Miss Wells declined to comment about the Fuerza Pública’s effectiveness in the case.  The articles in the Autralian newspapers all seem to have been written by a man identified as Adam Harvey. The stories said that he was reporting from Tamarindo. Miss Wells said that Brendan’s father would most likely be in town for a while longer.

"Right now he doesn’t have any immediate plans to go back," she said. "He is just taking it a day at a time." The father declined to be interviewed but he did release a short statement.

Dobbins was last seen by a local DJ walking along the beach at 7 a.m. March 4, with a local female acquaintance. The girl was originally thought to be missing too, but she was located in a suburb near Tamarindo a few days ago, officials said. 

Investigators questioned the girl and have not included her as a suspect in the investigation, according to Miss Wells. The girl said she left Dobbins on the beach.

Chris Munn, consular general of the Australian Embassy in Mexico, traveled to Tamarindo over the weekend. After working with local authorities, Munn headed to San José Sunday to speak with officials at the Canadian Embassy, which handles Australian consular duties in Costa Rica.

Six men suspected of being part of a gang who worked together to rob persons who live in luxury condominiums in Escazú and the western suburbs will face trial starting today.

Investigators arrested the six men in March and April 2004. They are suspected of being the group that targeted upscale apartment and condo complexes.

The court identified the six men that comprised the group by their last names, Madrigal, Loría, Villegas, Palma, and two men with the last name Campos.

Frequently they would tie up the people found in the apartments.

Officials caught up with the suspects during two raids held March 31. One of the raids was held in San Sebastian on San José’s south side. The other was in Barrio Pinto, Montes de Oca.  All of the men facing trial are charged with aggravated robbery. Some 33 witnesses have been scheduled.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami took turns attacking the United States Friday during a state visit by the Iranian leader.

In a speech to Venezuela's National Assembly, Chavez declared that Iran has every right to develop atomic energy, and promised to oppose any U.S. efforts to stop 

In Khatami's speech to the lawmakers, he denounced terrorism while condemning what he called "crimes of liberty," specifically citing the U.S. Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq and ongoing detentions at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba. On other issues, the presidents of two oil-producing countries signed a number of cooperation agreements.