 |
 |
Costa Rica Your daily |
 |
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Vol. 11, No. 82 | |||||||||
 |
| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
 |
 |
|
Center city crime cut
by half, local chief says By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Crime in the center of San José has declined 50 percent, according to Marco Barrera, head of the Fuerza Pública that covers the area. Transvestite prostitutes have declined from 142 to 72, he said, as quoted by the Cámera Nacional de Turismo. The tourism chamber said it is seeking to make the center of San José more attractive for tourists. Many tourists do not want to enter the city now, and even the U.S. Embassy has blacklisted the area for visiting State Department employees and diplomats. The project is supported by the Hotel Aurola Holiday Inn, which is just north of Parque Morazán. This is an area where tourists must be cautious at night. Barrera said that the police have fixed up some vehicles that were out of service and put 22 more police into the area. Verdict is this afternoon in Rodríguez-Alcatel trial By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
After more than a year of trial, a tribunal in Goicoechea is expected to render a verdict today in the case known as ICE-Alcatel. This is the corruption case involving the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad and Alcatel in the awarding of a cell telephone contract. The best known defendant is Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Echeverría, the former president who had to quit as secretary general of the Organization of American States when the case became public. The decision today is expected to be brief followed by a lengthy written document in some weeks. Appeals are expected no matter in what direction the case goes. An Alcatel representative here already has been adjudicated in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because he admitted negotiating a bridge for the benefit of his company. The 3 p.m. hearing is expected to be televised. Taxi fares will go up, regulating agency rules By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Taxi fares are going up again for both the red local vehicles and the orange airport transports. The Authoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos said the local increase would be about 3.35 percent and that of the airport fleet 2.85 percent. In terms of money the initial kilometer for the local vehicles goes from 530 colons to 550 colons when the decree is published in the La Gazeta official newspaper. That's from about $1.07 to about $1.11. The same rates and increases apply to additional kilometers. Taxis in rural areas have the same base but the charge for additional kilometers goes from 690 to 710 colons, from $1.40 to $1.44. Airport taxis will go from 785 colons for the initial kilometer to 810 or from $1.59 to $1.64. The regulating authority noted that tolls are the responsibility of the passenger and are added to the cost of the trip. Taxi drivers still are behind the curve because the new rates reflect costs over the last six months and do not include the expected increases in petroleum.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Place
classified ad |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| 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 2011 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa
Rica's Third newspage |
|
||||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Vol. 11, No. 82 | |||||||||||
 |
| New tourism group seeks declaration of state of emergency |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Members of a new, more aggressive tourism organization are meeting this morning at Gran Hotel Costa Rica in San José to press their smorgasbord of petitions to the government. The group is pressing for a decree of a state of emergency for the tourism sector by the government. Among other requests, the organization, ProTur, said in a release that it wants the immediate repeal of a Costa Rican law that assesses a 10 percent charge of restaurant meals as tips for the wait staff. Between the 10 percent mandatory tip and the 13 percent sales tax, diners pay 23 percent more for their food. The organization also has come up with a number of financial proposals that would give them operating cash and keep banks and the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social off their backs. The group also wants a reduction in electrical rates and a system of joint purchasing to obtain benefits of bulk sales. Boris Marchegiani, a central Pacific hotel operator, is the president of the organization. Members met before Easter with opposition legislators who were generally sympathetic. Marchegiani noted that the industry faces hard times due to |
the
dollar-colon exchange rate, utility rates and government-imposed
credit rules that sometimes keep hotel operators from getting loans.
Although the government says tourism is up, the locations where
tourists go are very specific, and most operators in this business say
tourists are spending much less money. Marchegiani also complained about a lack of effective representation of tourism operators in dealings with the government. The Cámera Nacional de Turismo has not responded to the complaints of the new organization. ProTur claims to have members from 500 operations. Another request is a fund that would make loans to tourism operators with a payback delayed three years. The group also wants the government to act to force banks to withdraw any judicial collection garnishments placed on tourism structures for payment defaults. As to the emergency decree, the organization wants a mixed commission empaneled consisting of the president of the Asamblea Legislativa, the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo and tourism operators to analyze the possibility of doing that. The firm has hired Kardayac Comunicaciones to promote its aims. The meeting today is at 10 a.m. |
| Official start of La Sabana reforesting will be Thursday |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Thursday is the kickoff for an eight-year project to restore native species of trees to Parque La Sabana. This is a project promoted by Scotia Bank and supported by a number of environmental organizations, such as Preserve the Planet. Park officials for years have been talking about the need to remove the existing trees, mostly fast-growing eucalyptus |
and
cypress. The mature trees are now considered a danger because
some are
diseased and some are dead. Parque La Sabana used to be the nation's international airport. Now it is referred to as the lungs of the city. Work already has started to dig holes to plant trees. The 3,000 existing trees eventually will be taken down. The project has been subjected to extensive study by experts and has been discussed for years. |
| Privacy groups oppose U.S. passport biographical form |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A host of human rights organizations and privacy activists are asking the U.S. State Department to withdraw a proposal to make some passport applicants fill out a lengthy questionnaire. The questionnaire seems to be of the type usually reserved for applicants into some of the nation's secret services. One question seeks the address of the applicant's mother in the year before he or she was born. In addition, the questionnaire seeks all prior addresses, a full employment history, names of work supervisors and other details. The groups which have filed to block this document, DDS-5513, said that an applicant selected to fill out the form would have to know the name of his or her supervisor when the applicant worked at McDonalds as a teen. The State Department said via email in a response to a comment that the biographical questionnaire is not designed to replace the standard DS-11, Application for a U.S. Passport, but rather to supplement it only when the applicant submits citizenship or identity evidence that is insufficient to meet his/her burden of proving citizenship or identity. The Department estimates that such supplemental information will only be requested for a small number of applicants, perhaps less than half a percent of the applications it receives annually, it said. In a filing with the Federal Register the department estimated that about 74,000 persons a year would have to fill out the form. The department estimated that this would take about 45 minutes. |
The privacy and rights groups say it
would take 100 hours and require
the hiring of private investigators to answer the form fully. "The department understands that some of the information requested is quite detailed," the State Department said. "However, in those instances where an applicant cannot provide sufficient proof of citizenship or identity, it is important for the applicant to provide additional information which will help establish the applicant's United States citizenship or identity." The form is before the Office of Management and Budget for approval. A 22-page objection came from the Consumer Travel Alliance, the Identity Project, the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights, Knowledge Ecology International, the Center for Media and Democracy and Privacy Activism, as well as two individuals. The organizations say that the State Department does not have the legal authority to impose such a document on passport applicants and that the document could be applied subjectively, perhaps even on those who filed objections during the approval process. The corporate parent of A.M. Costa Rica also filed an objection via email in which it questioned the failure to let expats overseas know about the proposal. The company did not take a stand on the document itself due to lack of information. |
 |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
| Home |
Tourism |
Place
classified ad |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| 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 2011 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
 |
 |
 |
||||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth news page | |||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Vol. 11, No. 82 | |||||||||
 |
 |
| Multiple causes seen in decline of
amphibian species |
||
|
By
the University of Oregon news
services
Amphibian declines around the world have forced many species to the brink of extinction, are much more complex than realized and have multiple causes that are still not fully understood, researchers conclude in a new report. Amphibians in Costa Rica are among the threatened species The search for a single causative factor is often missing the larger picture, they said, and approaches to address the crisis may fail if they don’t consider the totality of causes — or could even make things worse. No one issue can explain all of the population declines that are occurring at an unprecedented rate, and much faster in amphibians than most other animals, the scientists conclude in a study just published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The amphibian declines are linked to natural forces such as competition, predation, reproduction and disease, as well as human-induced stresses such as habitat destruction, environmental contamination, invasive species and climate change, researchers said. “An enormous rate of change has occurred in the last 100 years, and amphibians are not evolving fast enough to keep up with it,” said Andrew Blaustein, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University and an international leader in the study of amphibian declines. “We’re now realizing that it’s not just one thing, it’s a whole range of things,” Blaustein said. “With a permeable skin and exposure to both aquatic and terrestrial problems, amphibians face a double whammy,” he said. “Because of this, mammals, fish and birds have not experienced population impacts as severely as amphibians – at least, not yet.” The totality of these changes leads these researchers to believe that the Earth is now in a major extinction episode similar to five other mass extinction events in the planet’s history. And amphibians are leading the field – one estimate indicates they are disappearing at more than 200 times that of the average extinction rate. Efforts to understand these events, especially in the study of amphibians, have often focused on one cause or another, such as fungal diseases, invasive species, an increase in ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion, pollution, global warming, and others. All of these and more play a role in the amphibian declines, but the scope of the crisis can only be understood from the perspective of many causes, often overlapping. And efforts that address only one cause risk failure or even compounding the problems, the researchers said. |
 Oregon State University/Pieter
Johnson
Infection with trematodes in this leopard frog caused extra
legs to grow. “Given that many stressors are acting simultaneously on amphibians, we suggest that single-factor explanations for amphibian population declines are likely the exception rather than the rule,” the researchers wrote in their report. “Studies focused on single causes may miss complex interrelationships involving multiple factors and indirect effects.” One example is the fungus B. dendrobatidis, which has been implicated in the collapse of many frog populations around the world. However, in some populations the fungus causes no problems for years until a lethal threshold is reached, studies have shown. And while this fungus disrupts electrolyte balance, other pathogens can have different effects such as a parasitic trematode that can cause severe limb malformations, and a nematode that can cause kidney damage. The combination and severity of these pathogens together in a single host, rather than any one individually, are all playing a role in dwindling frog populations. Past studies at Oregon State have found a synergistic impact from ultraviolet radiation, which by itself can harm amphibians, and a pathogenic water mold that infects amphibian embryos. And they linked the whole process to water depths at egg-laying sites, which in turn are affected by winter precipitation in the Oregon Cascade Range that is related to climate change. The problems facing amphibians are a particular concern, scientists say, because they have been one of Earth’s great survivors – evolving about 400 million years ago before the dinosaurs, persisting through ice ages, asteroid impacts, and myriad other ecological and climatic changes. Their rapid disappearance now suggests that the variety and rate of change exceeds anything they have faced before, the researchers said. “Modern selection pressures, especially those associated with human activity, may be too severe and may have arisen too rapidly for amphibians to evolve adaptations to overcome them,” the researchers concluded. |
|
| Home |
Tourism |
Place
classified ad |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| 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 2011 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 |
|
|||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Vol. 11, No. 82 | ||||||||||
 |
| Leftist Humala is ahead in Peruvian opinion poll By the A.M. Costa Ricas wire services
A new opinion poll released in Peru shows that leftist former army officer Ollanta Humala is leading the daughter of imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori ahead of a run-off election scheduled for June 5. The survey, published Sunday in El Comercio newspaper, says Humala has 42 percent of voter support, while Fujimori's daughter, Keiko Fujimori, has 36 percent. About 1,800 people were questioned for the poll, which was conducted between April 16 and 21 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percent. The survey results caused Peru's stock market to drop 3.3 percent. Peru's currency, the sol, also fell on the news. Humala won 32 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting on April 10, short of the 50 percent margin needed to win the election outright. Ms. Fujimori took 24 percent of the vote. Analysts say many Peruvians question Humala's and Ms. Fujimori's credentials on human rights and see them as a threat to the democratic system. Humala, who led an uprising against Ms. Fujimori's father in 2000, lost a run-off election to current President Alan Garcia in 2006. Humala was outspoken during that campaign about his admiration for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, but has since distanced himself from the leftist leader. Some Peruvians distrust Ms. Fujimori because of her father, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in death squad killings in the 1990s. Alberto Fujimori also has been convicted of corruption. There has been concern that his daughter would try to free him if elected. Keiko Fujimori has apologized for mistakes and crimes committed while her father was in office. The older Fujimori was Peru's president from 1990 until 2000. Much of the presidential campaign has focused on continuing the rapid economic growth seen in recent years, while ensuring that the poor also see some of the increased prosperity. Turkey ready to control Internet for its citizens By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Turkey already bans more Web sites than any other European country. Now the government is set to introduce new controls that officials say are needed to protect children. Critics fear they represent an effort to control the Web. The Turkish government calls its new Internet controls Safe Use of the Internet. They are scheduled to take effect in August and will require all Internet users to choose from one of four filter profiles operated by their server provider. Law Professor Yamman Akdeniz at Bilgi University in Istanbul says the measures open the door to government censorship of the Internet. "We are concerned that the government will enforce and develop a censorship infrastructure," said Akdeniz. "Even the standard profile is a filter system and the problem is government mandated, government controlled and there are no other countries within the EU or Council of Europe that has a similar system. And the decision also states if anyone who tries to circumvent the system, further action may be taken." Government officials say the new regulations are needed to protect families, particularly children, from pornography. But critics say it is unclear which Web sites can be banned and for what reasons, and the regulations can also be used to silence political Web sites. Nadire Mater is the head of the Turkish human-rights Web page Bianet: "Depending on the government, depending on the ministers, one can be put on the blacklist," said Ms. Mater. "This is not a democracy. We've experienced this before, because police, from time to time, they distributed these blacklists, and in some Internet cafes or companies we were getting the complaints from the visitors they were saying that we don't have any access to Bianet." Bianet criticizes the government for establishing the new measures by decree, rather than by a vote in parliament and is challenging the new controls in court. Web freedom is a concern within the European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join. EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule stressed those concerns before the EU parliament earlier this year. |
|
 |
| Home |
Tourism |
Place
classified ad |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| 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 2011 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M.
Costa
Rica's sixth news page |
|
|||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Vol. 11, No. 82 | ||||||||||
 |
Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
of 45 persons in Libertad 2 By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A mid-afternoon blaze in the Libertad 2 section of Pavas destroyed four homes and heavily damaged two more. Some 42 adults and three minors were left homeless or nearly so by the blaze in the cramped collection of low-income houses. Some 27 fire fighters responded from San José, Pavas and even Heredia. One fire fighter suffered an electrical shock but was not injured seriously due to his protective gear, said the Cuerpo de Bomberos. The fire department said that the blaze started in a rooming house that was used to provide living quarters for the homeless. Fire investigators are looking into four possible causes: candles, electrical problems, a wood stove and arson. Service club collecting obsolete electronic gear By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Cub Rotaract San Pedro, a service club for young adults, is collecting surplus and obsolete electronic equipment this weekend at Office Depot outlets in San Pedro, Escazú, La Uruca and Paseo de las Flores, Heredia. The club said it will use the money raised from the effort to construct the Escuela Paul Harris in Fraijanes de Alajuela, which was destroyed by the January 2008 earthquake. Companies that may have a quantity of recyclable computers, printers, hubs or other devices are eligible for pickup, the club said. A representative can contact sanpedrocurridabat@rotaractcr.org. The club also noted it would accept limited household appliances, including microwaves and DVD players. It asked that the devices be delivered with their electrical cords and that monitors be intact and not with smashed screens. Tourism institute seeking New York wedding contacts By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo said Tuesday that it will be represented at The Wedding Salon, and international exposition related to marriage and honeymoons. The event is today with the expected participation of 100 exhibitors and coverage by the wedding press, said the institute. |
| Latin American news feeds are disabled on
archived pages.
|
|
| Costa Rican News |
AMCostaRicaArchives.com |
Retire in Costa Rica |
CostaRicaReport.com |
| Home |
Tourism |
Place
classified ad |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About
us |
|
| 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 2011 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
James
DeRoy
