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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Jo
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Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, April 15, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 73 | |||||||||
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Maduro wins in
close vote
over Henrique Capriles By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Election officials in Venezuela say acting President Nicolas Maduro has won the special election to succeed his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez. The national election authority announced late Sunday that Maduro had narrowly defeated opposition leader Henrique Capriles, winning just 50 percent of all votes cast to Capriles' 49 percent. Venezuelans gathered in the streets of the capital of Caracas to celebrate the election of Maduro, Chavez's hand-picked successor. The 50-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister began the campaign with a double-digit lead in the polls over Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor who lost decisively to Chávez in last year's presidential election. But Maduro's lead shrank considerably in the lead-up to Sunday's vote. Capriles accused Maduro and the Chávez government of doing little to solve Venezuela's economic problems, food shortages and soaring crime rate. Maduro has pledged to continue what he calls the Chávez revolution, which supporters say used oil wealth to lift millions out of poverty. Chávez died last month after a two-year battle with cancer. He was a staunch socialist who was first elected president in 1998. He earned the enmity of the United States and others for such policies as nationalizing major companies and courting world leaders like Cuba's Fidel Castro, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. The opposition accused him of becoming a dictator, but he was revered by many of Venezuela's poor. Early election day the voting lines were shorter than expected in some parts of Caracas. Maduro was counting on a high turnout by the poor to continue the Socialist Party's rule in Venezuela. Maduro has cast himself as his mentor's son during the campaign, and has promised to continue oil-funded policies that cut poverty from 50 to 29 percent with popular health, education and food programs. Maria Ortega said she voted for Maduro because that is what President Chávez wanted. She said Venezuelans have a lot of faith and confidence in Maduro, and if Chávez put him there it was for a reason. She adds he did it with all his heart and voters must go with their hearts to support the legacy of Hugo Chávez. Many voters say they were frustrated with the stagnant economy, the double-digit inflation, chronic power outages, and shortages of food and medicine. The soaring crime rate is also a major issue for voters. Venezuela has among the world's highest homicide and kidnapping rates. Capriles supporter Joselyn Fernández said she was thinking about her young niece when she voted. She said she does not want her to live in a dictatorship, she is just starting life. Ms. Fernández said she wants her niece to live and have a good life, so that she can go out on the street with a sense of security and get a good education. The opposition has complained that Maduro has used the state bureaucracy of nearly 2.7-million workers and government-owned media to unfairly support his campaign. But the voting process in Venezuela is generally considered fair and impartial. Election official Juan Martínez said witnesses or observers from each party are on hand at polling stations to make sure there is no voter fraud. He said the observers were looking to see that voters show the official identification and that it is not a copy or some other paper. Nearly 19 million people including Venezuelans in Costa Rica were eligible to vote. Road construction delay not enough for protesters By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The central government has backed down on a highway concession after protesters dominated the Juan Santamaría day festivities in Alajuela. Casa Presidencial said late Friday that after a meeting with mayors of the affected cantons, the order to start construction would be delayed. This is the San José-San Ramón highway where a 2,000 colons toll, about $4, has been predicted. The concession was won by a Brazilian firm, OAS. Those who would use the highway say that it is too much. The toll would be $8 for a trip from San Ramón to San José and return. Opponents of the concession said over the weekend that they would continue their efforts to have the concession rescinded. They have been meeting to plan additional actions to bring their message to the government. The central government issues concessions to private firms because it does not have the money for capital projects, despite heavy taxes on vehicle imports and on gasoline and diesel. In exchange for building the road, the contracting firm gets to collect a toll for a specific period of years. San Ramón book sale promised to be the biggest Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The Gran Venta de Libros, Costa Rica’s largest used book sale, is back and is bigger than ever. The third annual event will be more than just a used book sale; it will be a celebration of reading with additional activities scheduled including workshops for children and teachers, and storytelling, The Community Action Alliance will once again produce this event at the Universidad de Costa Rica regional museum in San Ramón Saturday, April 27, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Last year’s event featured over 7,000 used books, CDs, DVDs, magazines and other educational materials, more than half of which were in Spanish. Nearly 1,600 people attended from throughout the country. The proceeds from the 2012 event benefited the regional museum and the Hogar Para Ancianos de San Ramón. The beneficiaries for the 2013 event will be the museum and Escuela Jorge Washington. Prices for paperback books will be 1,000 colons. Hard-bound books start at 2,000 colons. In addition to the new activities, this year’s book sale will help pay for the installation of a 5 kw solar panel electrical system on Escuela Jorge Washington, named after the first president of the United States. The project is being pursued in support of the efforts of the Fundación San Ramón Carbono Neutral to have San Ramón become the first carbon neutral canton in Costa Rica. The Carbon Neutral Foundation and the Municipalidad de San Ramón are partners in this project. It is believed that Escuela Jorge Washington will be one of the first public schools in Costa Rica to install a solar panel system which is projected to reduce the school’s electrical consumption up to 50 percent and save the school up to $100,000 over the life of the system. To ensure that the sale is successful, the Community Action Alliance is requesting donations of used books and other educational materials. Drop off locations have been set up in over 10 locations in San Ramón including the following: the Municipality, the Cruz Roja, the Centro Cultural José Figueres, Café Aromas, and the Regional Museum. Books can also be dropped in the Central Valley at any of the three locations for the Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano, or at AGECO. Individuals or institutions with large donations can contact Sergio Di Giancinto to arrange pick up of books at 8680-7914. More information on the Community Action Alliance and the Book Sale can be found at www.actionalliancecr.com. Vietnam vet is unhappy with portrayal in column Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I don’t know your reason to have such a low opinion of former military. When I returned home from Vietnam, I didn’t experience the humiliation of being spat upon as I entered the terminal, but the disgust that I felt as I read of this happening to my fellow servicemen was overwhelming. I haven’t felt that emotion in a long time, until I read the column in today’s A.M. Costa Rica. “There has been a new group of expats coming to Costa Rica. Many may be former military who are in possession of guns,” according to Ms. Stuart. As a member of the American Legion, I would like to know where these former military members are located so they can attend our meetings. Are we talking about the former military being in possession of guns? I don’t know what information this is based upon, but of the number of expats who own guns, the former military, are the ones who are probably the ones who are most knowledgeable in the safe use of firearms. “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” You are absolutely right in that! According to Ms. Stuart, “some of these very people with guns, who probably could be called “rightists” to balance the teeter totter of political equilibrium, are also what are called 'peppers' or survivalists, who have built bunkers and collected provisions and artillery in the peaceful hills and mountains of Costa Rica” Again, I don’t know where you are getting your information. I have no knowledge of former U.S. military, in Costa Rica, having bunkers in the peaceful hills and mountains but if there are any and they aren’t bothering anyone, why should anyone care? Most of the veterans, “that is the proper term for those who have fought in wars and conflicts for the United States of America,” that I know are people with children and grandchildren, and all they want is peace so that their loved ones won’t have to experience the sights, sounds, and sorrows of battle. Your use of that wide brush to portray veterans in a bad light is personally repulsive. I don’t have to agree with what you believe and print, but many of my brothers and sisters have defended your right to your opinion, to their death. Tom
Branham
San Jose
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, April 15, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 73 | |
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 Here
are some of the photos that the Museo Nacional said will be in the
exhibit.
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| Museum honors tropical studies
organization for its 50 years |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Organization for Tropical Studies, which runs three research centers in Costa Rica, is celebrating 50 years. The Museo Nacional has created a photo exhibit to honor the organization. There are 52 different works, including four sculptures. Photographers are Juan José Pucci, Giuseppe Tarnero, Karla Kruse and Carlos de la Rosa, said the museum, adding that the sculptures are by Jonathan Torres. Naturally the photos are of outdoors Costa Rica, and they cover |
most of the country from the dry
northwest to the Parque la Amistad in southeastern Costa Rica. The organization will be having its annual meeting June 23 to 27 at the Ramada Herradura Convention Center. The non-profit organization operates the La Selva Biological Station at the northern end of the Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo. The Palo Verde Biological Station is in Parque Nacional Palo Verde in Guanacaste. The Las Cruces Biological Station and the Wilson Botanical Garden are in the south. The organization provides both undergraduate and graduate academic courses. |
| Taxing court filings considered to raise
money for judiciary |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A large U.S. law firm has a slogan: How much justice can you afford? That also might be appropriate for the Poder Judicial here which might be the beneficiary of yet another new tax. This time the tax would be levied on those going to court to collect money on a debt. The nation has a new, faster law on collecting money, and such cases have more than doubled over the last few years. The staff at the Asamblea Legislativa said that there were 856,685 such cases in 2011. The new tax would be half a percent on the amount claimed in the initial filing. So if a bank sought to collect a debt for |
$50,000, the bank's lawyers would
have to pay the colon equivalent of $250 up front. Of course,
there is no guarantee that the bank would prevail in the subsequent
hearings. The legislative staff estimated that the tax would have brought in about $8 million in 2010 and about $7.3 million in 2011. The proposal, No. 17.526, for the tax had been dormant since 2009 when the measure first was put in the legislative hopper. But now there are active hearings before the Comisión Permanente de Asuntos Jurídicos. The Poder Judicial would use the proceeds to improve services and training, according to a summary. Testifying last week was Luis Ortiz Zamora, adviser to the Cámara de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras de Costa Rica. |
| Key highway in north San José to
be open fully this morning, transport officials say |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Road officials said that the stretch from the La República intersection in north San Jose to the Río Virilla would be open fully to traffic this morning at 5:30 o'clock. Passage on the main highway had been limited because of the |
work removing exiting concrete and
putting down asphalt. This is the main highway to the north and to the
Caribbean coast. The work has been a major inconvenience to motorists. Top officials including Pedro Castro, minister of Obras Pública y Transportes, were expected to be at the highway for the opening. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, April 15, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 73 | |||||
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| Another
weekend river cleanup nets 10 bags of plastic trash By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Río Tibás in Heredia is cleaner today because students and residents took to the waterway in yet another effort to keep it clean. Participating were teachers and students from the Colegio Yurusti and members of the Comité Bandera Azul Ecológica de San Miguel de Santo Domingo This was the third and last cleanup. In three efforts, some 30 bags of plastic material and other items have been removed from the river. The weekend efforts have been going on since March, said committee members. This week there were 10 bags collected for recycling. Rainy weather will raise the level of the river making further cleanups this year impossible, said the organization. The river flows into Santa Domingo from San Isidro de Heredia y San Rafael de Heredia where there also are organizations protecting it. The Comité Bandera Azul Ecológica issued a plea for residents to avoid using the river as a dump. The members also said that those with property near the river should take care that material does not get washed or otherwise enter the river. |
 Comité Bandera Azul Ecológica
de San Miguel photo
Colegio Yurusti do not hesitate
to get wet while they collect trash. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M.
Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, April 15, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 73 | |||||||||
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| Gases beside carbon dioxide seen trapping world heat By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
There's still time to slow the rising of sea levels around the world, according to a new report from climate scientists, and their strategy does not focus on carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere and trapping solar heat over the past century is widely blamed for today's melting glaciers, shrinking ice sheets and rising ocean waters. But other heat-trapping pollutants have a more short-term impact, and the researchers say cutting those emissions could be a more effective way to slow the rate of climate warming and reduce sea-level rise. They identify methane, tropospheric ozone, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon as pollutants that could be targeted with technologies that already exist to drastically cut their release. Quickly implementing that strategy could offset warming temperatures by up to 50 percent by 2050, and reduce sea level rise by 22 to 42 percent by the end of the century, the researchers said. Delaying emission cuts would reduce the beneficial impact. In their report, published in Nature Climate Change, the researchers stress that carbon dioxide is still the most important factor in sea level rise over the long term. But co-author Warren Washington of the National Center for Atmospheric Research notes that "we can make a real difference in the next several decades by reducing other emissions." Spanish protesters march seeking end to monarchy By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Thousands of Spanish protesters marched through the streets of the capital, Madrid, to demand the abdication of the monarchy and the return to a democratically-elected government. Sunday's protest marked the anniversary of the country's last democratically-elected republic, which was overthrown by an army uprising, followed by a civil war and nearly four decades of dictatorship under Gen. Francisco Franco. King Juan Carlos took over as head of state following Franco's death in 1975 and is credited with steering the country towards a constitutional democracy. The royal family has come under intense criticism following a series of recent scandals, including last year's controversial elephant hunting trip by the 75-year-old king and a corruption investigation involving his daughter, Princess Christina. Speedy evolution reported in a controlled experiment By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new study challenges the widely held belief that evolutionary changes in living organisms take place slowly, over hundreds, thousands or millions of years. Researchers have found evidence species can evolve much more quickly when in response to environmental change. Tim Benton studies how living organisms respond to changes in their environment. In a paper published in Ecology Letters, the professor of biological sciences at the University of Leeds in England examines why marine species, for example, have declined so rapidly in size and number over the past 50 years. “Is this a response that is due to them having less food or the temperature of the water changing from climate change or is it a response that is due to natural selection working and evolutionary biology happening?” Benton said. To find out, Benton’s team of researchers conducted a series of laboratory experiments with soil mites, tiny spider-like creatures that, among other things, reproduce rapidly. “We brought them in from the wild and put them in test tubes, where each test tube maintained about 1,000 individuals in a free running population. Every day, we just put in a little bit of food," he said. "And in some of the populations we took out juveniles and in other populations we harvested adults. And then we just left them to it over about 100 weeks.” That’s normally long enough for about 20 generations of soil mites. In their new test tube environments, the tiny creatures competed for food, sex and survival in different ways than they would have in the wild. And in charting the mites’ growth rates, genetics and reproduction over this relatively brief span of time, the scientists observed that natural selection produced significant evolutionary changes. For example, Benton said, the length of time the mites needed to reach adulthood doubled during the course of the experiment. “Because it is taking them so much longer to grow up, then that means that the population responds to changes in a different way," he said. "Population growth rate is slower, which means that there are very large changes in population dynamics, the way the population size responds to environmental change in itself.” According to Benton, the mite study suggests there is a powerful interplay between environmental and evolutionary change. “And one or two more complementary studies like ours in different groups, then people will quite happily accept, I think, the force of evolutionary change in ecological time," he said. "So over a single human life time, 100 years, there are likely to be very large changes and if we don’t start thinking about the evolutionary changes as well as the changes in the environment then the things we put in place to protect the species we want to manage won’t actually work.” One place where this might have a critical impact is in fisheries management. "Given that we are harvesting large animals all the time, that’s what we do when we go out fishing," he said. "The phenotypic response that we see in the reduction of size is likely to be an evolutionary response and that’s what we found in our laboratory study. So what that means is, if you stop fishing because your stock is getting depleted and the animals are increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller, there is no necessity that they will be able to recover because you’ve had a hard-wired evolutionary change. So they won’t just be able to spring back.” There’s no guarantee that they will again grow larger and larger. Benton added that environmentally-induced evolutionary changes could also have serious implications for other wildlife conservation efforts, as well as for disease and pest control programs. Comedian Jonathan Winters left modern stand-up legacy By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Comedian Jonathan Winters, whose manic improvisational genius never seemed to take a rest, has died at the age of 87 after a more than 50-year career in stand-up, on television and in film. The burly, moon-faced Winters, a major influence on contemporary comedians like Robin Williams and Steve Martin, died Thursday of natural causes at his Montecito, California, home, surrounded by family and friends, said long-time family friend Joe Petro III. Winters had standout roles in 1960s comedy films "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming." He also made regular appearances on "The Tonight Show" with hosts Jack Paar and then Johnny Carson, and had his own TV shows "The Jonathan Winters Show" and "The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Winters' outlandish riffing style and repertoire of madcap characters made him a leading stand-up performer in the late 1950s but the pressure of being on the road led to a mental breakdown in 1959. He spent time in mental hospitals and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Winters was a comedian who rebelled against telling jokes and entertained in a stream-of-consciousness style that could veer into the surreal. "Most of us see things three-dimensionally," Robert Morse, who starred with Winters in the 1965 movie "The Loved One," once told The New York Times. "I think Jonny sees things 59-dimensionally. Give me a hairbrush and I see a hairbrush. Give Jonny a hairbrush and it will be a dozen funny things." Steve Martin said on Twitter Friday: "Goodbye, Jonathan Winters. You were not only one of the greats, but one of the great greats." His characters included Maudie Frickert, the salty old lady with a razor for a tongue, and Elwood P. Suggins, the drawling overall-clad hick who "was fire chief a while back until they found out who was setting the fires." Winters joined the U.S. Marine Corps at 17 and fought in the Pacific during World War II. After the war he returned to his native Ohio, attended art school and married Eileen Schauder. At her urging he entered a talent contest, which led to a show on a Dayton radio station on which he would create characters and interview them using two voices. Winters moved to New York and with his many impressions, facial expressions and sound effects, quickly made a reputation in the city's stand-up comedy clubs, leading to high-profile appearances on television variety shows. Winters' career derailed in 1959 when he began crying on stage at a nightclub in San Francisco. He was later taken into custody by police who found him climbing the rigging of a sailboat, saying he was from outer space. Wrung out from the solitude of the road and stress of performance, Winters spent eight months in a mental facility. Winters once admitted he felt the need to be on at all times, staying on the set after filming was done to entertain the crew, breaking into characters to amuse strangers on an elevator or joking with customers in a store. "I was the class clown," Winters told The New York Times in recalling his high school days. "Other guys had more security, steady dates and all that. I didn't. The only thing that kept me together was my comedy." In 1981 Winters was cast in the sitcom "Mork and Mindy," teaming him with Williams, an ardent admirer whose gift for off-the-wall improvisation made him the Jonathan Winters of his generation. Winters won an Emmy in 1991 for his work on the short-lived sitcom "Davis Rules" and was given the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999. Recent work included providing the voice of Papa Smurf in the 2011 live action "The Smurfs" movie, and a sequel due for release in July. His wife Eileen, with whom he had two children, died in 2009 of breast cancer. Hopi masks auctioned despite strong protests By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An auction of ancient masks revered as sacred by a Native American tribe fetched more than 750,000 euros on Friday, disappointing prominent opponents of the sale after a French court ruled it should go ahead. The Hopi tribe of northeastern Arizona and supporters including the U.S. ambassador to France and actor Robert Redford had urged the Paris auction house to suspend the sale due to the masks' cultural and religious significance. But the court rejected a motion from the tribe and Survival International, a non-government group representing its interests, arguing that it could only intervene to protect human remains or living beings. The auction went ahead in front of a standing-room only crowd, raising about 752,000 euros ($984,500) in pre-tax proceeds as collectors snapped up dozens of lots in a sale that lasted more than two hours. The most expensive, a crow-mother mask, went for 160,000 euros. A buyer who acquired four masks said he was delighted to be adding to his collection of Hopi artifacts. "One day I might give some back,'' said the collector, who declined to be identified. "But if it had not been for collectors in the 19th century who contributed to the field of ethnology, there would be very little knowledge of the Hopi." Some disagreed. A man with Hopi origins studying in France was kicked out of the auction room for interrupting the sale with an angry speech. Several people trying to take photographs were also removed. "We have lots of art that can be shared with other cultures, but not these,'' said Bo Lomahquahu, 25. "Children aren't even supposed to see them.'' The Neret-Minet, Tessier and Sarrou auctioneers said their collection of masks, priced between $2,000 and $32,000 apiece, was assembled by an amateur with assured taste' who lived in the United States for three decades. A spokeswoman for the auctioneers was not immediately available for comment. "This decision is very disappointing,'' said Pierre Servan-Schreiber, the lawyer for Survival International, a London-based advocacy group. "Not everything is necessarily up for sale or purchase, and we need to be careful.'' A chorus of opponents had weighed in on the dispute, arguing the Paris auction house should provide legal justification for selling the masks. "To auction these would be in my opinion a sacrilege, a criminal gesture that contains grave moral repercussions,'' Robert Redford wrote in an open letter. The U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, had urged the auctioneers to reconsider, saying in a statement late Thursday: "A delay would allow the creators of these sacred objects the chance to determine their possible rights.'' Rivkin, who said that the auction house had yet to provide the Hopi Tribe with essential information about the objects, voiced his dismay in a Twitter message. "I am saddened to learn that the sacred Hopi cultural objects are being put out to auction in Paris today," he wrote. The tribe's legal advocates had sued the auctioneers at the Drouot-Richelieu auction house in central Paris on grounds that auctioning the masks would cause the Hopi profound hurt and distress. Lawyer Quentin de Margerie bought mask 13, a design which mocks tourists, on behalf of Servan-Schreiber to give to the Hopi. He said few of the collectors understood the significance of the artifacts they were buying. "It's a symbolic choice,'' de Margerie said. "What the Hopi have said about this auction is that people don't understand their culture.'' Integrated approach planned against two diseases of kids By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The World Health Organization and U.N. Children's Fund are unveiling a new strategy to end preventable child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhea by 2025. The agencies say this new plan of action potentially could save the lives of up to two million young children each year. Pneumonia and diarrhea are two leading killers of children. Together, they account for nearly one-third of all the deaths of children under 5 years old in developing countries. Nearly 90 percent of the two million annual child deaths from these two diseases occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Health agencies say children are dying from these preventable diseases because effective interventions are not reaching them or are not being provided equitably across all communities. Elizabeth Mason, director of the World Health Organization's Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, says pneumonia and diarrhea are currently treated separately. She says evidence from countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Tanzania show it makes good health and economic sense to tackle these diseases together. She says many factors contribute to pneumonia or diarrhea, so no single intervention can effectively prevent, treat or control these two conditions. She says the new approach involves putting the known interventions into one comprehensive, integrated package. “Current interventions, such as exclusive breast-feeding, good under-5 good nutrition for children, hand washing, safe drinking water, improved cook stoves, environmental pollution, zinc, oral rehydration solution, antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, vitamin A, and vaccination need correct and consistent and sustained use,” said Ms. Mason. Vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhea are not affordable in many developing countries. The GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership, provides funding that increases access to immunization in developing countries. To date, GAVI has helped 24 poor countries immunize 13 million children with pneumococcal vaccines to prevent pneumonia and 13 countries with rotavirus vaccines to immunize five million children against diarrhea. GAVI welcomed the integrated global action plan and says it hopes to accelerate affordable access to these life-saving vaccines by developing countries. Ms. Mason said she believes the targets set by the new integrated approach for ending preventable child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhea by 2025 are achievable. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, April 15, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 73 | |||||||||
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 Ministerio de Gobernación.
Policía
Policía de Fronteras
confiscated this load of medicines from Nicaragua at the Peñas
Blancas border crossing. No one claimed ownership of the bags and a box
after police expressed an interest.y Seguridad Pública photo Rules on rebar delayed, and builders unhappy By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The construction industry is asking the government to enact technical regulations relating to rebar. Rebar are the long pieces of metal that add strength to concrete construction. The Cámara de Industrias de Costa Rica said the government has postponed for a month issuing the regulations and that the consumer deserves to know that the material in use is high quality. The rebar also affords protection against earthquakes. The regulations are under the auspices of the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio. The regulations were worked out since 2011 and comply with international standards, said the chamber. They were supposed to go into effect Thursday, but the ministry issued a delay. Intruder stabs man in Escazú confrontation By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial investigators said that an Escazú man suffered critical stab wounds administered by someone who entered the victim's home. The victim was identified by the last name of Flores. The intruder stabbed him several times in the abdomen and then fled about 6 p.m. Saturday, said agents. Flores was being treated at Hospital San Juan de Dios. China not manipulating yuan, Treasury Department reports By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States has determined that China is not manipulating the value of its currency, which has been a major complaint by the Obama administration. The Treasury Department said in its twice yearly report to Congress Friday that China has taken a series of steps to liberalize currency controls and peg the value of the yuan to a more market-determined exchange rate. But the report also says the yuan is still significantly undervalued and that the Chinese economy, as well as others in Asia, need a more flexible exchange rate and transparency. The Obama administration and many in Congress have accused China of deliberately manipulating the value of the yuan against the U.S. dollar. This makes U.S. goods too expensive on the world markets compared to Chinese exports. China has always denied currency manipulating. The Treasury report also calls on Japan to refrain from what it calls "competitive devaluation" of its currency. |
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