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A.M. Costa Rica
Your daily English-language news source Monday through Friday |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, June 1, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 109 | |||||||||
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 Screen
shot of new device
Tourism chamber launches
mobile device application By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The Cámera Nacional de Turismo has launched a mobile operating system that is designed to connect users to various members of the chamber that offer services to tourists. The application is called Toditico, and it runs on Android and Apple systems. Some 40 firms are offering promotions via the free device, the chamber said. The application appears to be a way for the tourism chamber to supplement its Web site, which is listed at 651,438th in the world by Alexa, the Amazon company that tracks Web usage. The Web page, which carries ads by chamber members, ranks 960th in Costa Rica. Nearly half the visitors to the page get there by searching canatur, which is the acronym for the chamber. These probably are not tourists. Http://www.alexa.com By contrast a Web site for El Diario Extra, the popular Spanish language newspaper, is listed at 41,701st in the world and 37th in Costa Rica. The new application is available at Google Play and Apple Store, the chamber said. Quakes hit along Pacific By the
A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two quakes estimated at 3.7 magnitude took place today, Friday, along the Pacific coast. The Laboratorio de Ingenieria Sismica at the Universidad de Costa Rica said the first took place at 9:45 a.m. about six kilometers north northeast of Damas, Quepos, Aguirre, on the central Pacific coast. The quake was felt in all the way to San Pedro, the agency said. The estimate placed the epicenter just a few miles inland. Just a minute after 1 p.m., the Laboratorio said a quake took place east southeast of Montezuma on the tip of the Nicoya peninsula. The estimate puts the epicenter at the mouth of the Gulf of Nicoya, a location of frequent seismic activity. The quake was felt strongest on the tip of the peninsula, the Laboratorio said.
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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 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica Third
News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, June 1, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 109 | |
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| Jacó will see a Las Vegas-style
pagent Saturday afternoon |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Those who enjoy beauty pageants can visit the Most Beautiful Latina Central American Finals at the Hotel Cocal Beach Resort and Casino in Jacó Saturday. The event runs from 2 to 4 p.m. and is open to the public. Organizers noted that the winner Saturday will participate in finals in Las Vegas Oct. 4 to 7. Two Costa Rican beauties have won the title in the past. They are Angie Quesada, who won in 2009, and Kimberly Chaves, who did so in 2010. Some 26 models from 18 Latin countries participated in the event last year. Participants in the Costa Rican semi-final have been involved in events all week in San José. There are money prizes for those who place in Las Vegas as well as a number of items and prizes presented by sponsors. |
 Participants
wear distinctive costumes.
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| Tip leads to discovery of about $1
million in cash |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers received a tip Thursday that allowed them to detain three persons and discover what may be as much as $1 million in cash in a cabin in Colorado de Abangares in Guanacaste. Officers said that they were told about the money via an anonymous telephone tip. They kept an eye on the dwelling until a Mexican man, his Costa Rican girlfriends and another |
person left to travel by vehicle.
Police stopped the vehicle nearby and detained the three, they said. A subsequent search of the cabin revealed a safe in a closet. Within the safe was a briefcase containing stacks of bills, said the Fuerza Pública. Officers clearly know more than they have told reporters. They said the investigation was one of money laundering and was being handled by the Judicial Investigating Organization. |
| A conversation with someone who was very close |
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| In
August 1993, I was sharing a large three-bedroom apartment in Barrio
Dent. I wrote to my brother Mike in response to our telephone
conversation. We were five years and one day apart, but I felt as
if we were twins in our thinking and doing. Like me, he was
something of a maverick. You said. “If you don’t like what you’re doing, stop doing it.” Good advice. Maybe it brought me to my senses. That’s an interesting phrase. Perhaps when you are in touch with your senses you’re experiencing life on the most elemental, be here now level, aware of what you see, hear, taste, smell, and touch (note, I didn’t include think). Maybe that’s the way to go. I went downtown, planning to have a snack and then to the movies. I wanted to see a new Steve Martin film that my roommate, Meredith, didn’t like, although she likes Steve Martin. I am not fond of Steve Martin. Just as former roommate Ann and I were so alike in our habits and likes, Meredith and I are almost exact opposites, so I figured I’d like the movie. I forgot that on weekends the theaters change their films to something suitable for children, and the lines were long with mom and dad and the kids. The center of town is just a 20 minute walk, and I enjoy it because I do some of my best thinking then (obviously, I am not entirely into my senses.) I love naïf or primitive paintings. I like the genre in general, but it is those brightly colored tiny sometimes faceless people with animals, buildings, whatever, that I think of in Costa Rica. It occurred to me that the artists have to paint them tiny and simply to convey what they are depicting – lots of humanity interacting with each other and their environment. And I wondered if most of this naïf art comes from Third World countries. This thought came as I entered the Plaza de la Cultura next to the Teatro Nacional, and saw dozens of people selling their wares of handmade and other stuff to hundreds of other people who were eating and laughing with their children throwing seeds and chasing the pigeons, and generally making a naïf spectacle of themselves, one I wish I could paint. Did you visit the Plaza de la Cultura when you were here? I used to shop in the Mercado Central more often but going into town during the week is not as much fun as it was. The area around the market is dirty and noisy, and certainly crowded, but I enjoy the vitality of the people and the energy and good will they project. I live just a few blocks from an AutoMercado and a fish market, so I’m getting lazy. Fish and seafood are expensive because they have begun to export it. The cheapest fish you can get is mako or shark, which I happen to like. When I lived in New York City I found more beautiful, delicious fruits and vegetables than I had ever seen in California or Florida, which is where they came from. I am afraid that is going to happen here. |
 Recently I have been reading my old journals with the idea of making a story out of some of them. People who have written memoirs have said that the most valuable part was getting to know oneself. They don’t mention how painful it is to learn how petty, silly, callous or pitiful we can be. Anyone who has written an honest memoir must emerge with great humility. Then I thought about that man, remember, the clothing factory owner, who was kidnapped and kept in a hole in the ground for 12 days and who ‘wrote’ his autobiography in order to stay sane? I knew he didn’t just think about his life, he was mentally composing it and writing it down, punctuating it. Can you imagine the experience of going over your whole life in detail, knowing that the accumulation of all that you have done or been is ending up in a hole in the ground? What am I saying? He was rescued. That man was a hero, just as you were heroic when you got yourself out of freezing water and back on your boat with a broken shoulder. You said you weren’t a hero, just a survivor. To my mind, a hero is someone who has survived something others can’t imagine overcoming But then, we don’t know, do we, what challenge will be more than we can survive, until we are faced with it? My brother faced that challenge 10 years ago, and I miss him. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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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 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, June 1, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 109 | |||||
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Jo
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| Forecast says that Sunday will see better
weather all over |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
June is the month with the heaviest rainfall in the first half of the country's wet season. But those who can hold on will see the Veranillo de San Juan around June 23, said weather forecasters. The veranillo is a return to drier conditions. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional noted that winds from the north are weakening now, and humidity is pouring into the country from the Pacific every day. That is why there are late morning and afternoon thunderstorms. Late in this month, the winds will get stronger, and rainfall will diminish, said the weather experts. The weekend forecast contains more of the same. Hot humid mornings setting the stage for afternoon storms. |
The bulk of the rain will be on the
Pacific coast, in the Central Valley and on the Caribbean and northern
zone mountains. The weekend forecast holds out hope for a reduction in the rain for Sunday all over the country. The rain already took its toll on the nation's highway system. Ruta 142 that connects La Unión and Quebrada Flores suffered a washout Wednesday night. A slug of water took out the roadway and water lines. This is the highway that goes along Lake Arenal and crosses the dam to the community of Arenal. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad said crews were working on what it called an important tourist route. The weather forecast noted that the Atlantic hurricane season begins officially today. So far both the Atlantic and Pacific were clear of storms, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center. |
| U.N. chief calls on work to fight tobacco
company attacks |
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Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
Top United Nations officials Thursday called on governments to resist the increasingly aggressive steps taken by the tobacco industry to undermine efforts to diminish use of the substance, which kills almost six million people every year. “The interests of the tobacco industry and of public health are directly opposed,” Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his World No Tobacco Day release. The day is observed annually on May 31. “While governments and the international health community try to implement effective measures to contain tobacco use and protect the health of people, their efforts are being aggressively opposed by an industry whose products kill people,” he added. The World Health Organization’s theme for this year’s World No Tobacco Day is tobacco industry interference. It focuses on the need to expose and counter what it calls the tobacco industry's brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts to undermine global tobacco control efforts. In his message for the Day, the U.N. chief noted that tobacco takes a pervasive, heavy toll, hindering development and worsening poverty: “Tobacco and poverty create a vicious circle since it is the poor who smoke most and bear the brunt of the economic and disease burden of tobacco use,” he said. He added that money spent on tobacco cannot be used to pay for food, education and health care. And tobacco use is |
growing fastest in low-income
countries that are least equipped to deal with its
consequences. “Tobacco control is essential to achieving our global development goals,” he said. “If we do not step up our efforts to control it, tobacco could kill up to one billion people this century.” Among the tools the world has at its disposal to fight tobacco use and protect public health is the World Health Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. With 175 signers, it became one of the most rapidly embraced treaties in U.N. history after it entered into force in 2005. “I urge all governments and civil society to prevent the tobacco industry from derailing the implementation of the Framework Convention,” the secretary general said. “Let us resist the industry’s attacks and pursue our vision of a tobacco-free world.” According to WHO, more countries are moving to meet their obligations under the Framework Convention, with governments working to create 100 per cent smoke-free, enclosed work and public places, to inform the public of tobacco harms through large and strong pictorial warning on tobacco packages and to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry is working to undermine the treaty, including taking governments to court, the U.N. health agency noted. Currently, the Governments of Australia, Norway and Uruguay are battling tobacco industry law suits in tehir national courts. |
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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 2012 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, Friday, June 1, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 109 | |||||||||
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| Flame
virus report sparks some expert skepticism By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Flame computer virus unleashed in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries is being described as unusually large and powerful. Some experts, though, are questioning the seriousness of the threat. A Russian-based computer security firm, Kaspersky Lab, found that the Flame virus could record keystrokes, capture screenshots, and record conversations using microphones built into computers. The greater part of the infected computers were in Iran. "We think that this is one of the rare examples of cyber weapon, and it actually illustrates the fact that there are some cyber warfare operations going on there secretly," said Vitaly Kamluk, Kaspersky's chief malware expert. Flame is much larger than the 2010 Stuxnet virus, which is believed to have shut down uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. As with that virus, suspicions now point to Israel and the United States. But no one has claimed responsibility, and the Iranian government said this week it has produced an antivirus program that stops Flame. James Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the new virus was a collection of existing cyberespionage tools. "What Flame was was somebody took a lot of existing techniques, and glued them all together, which are kind of fun. But none of this is what you call cutting edge stuff," said Lewis. Kaspersky's investigation was commissioned by the International Telecommunications Union. Russia wants the U.N. agency to extend its regulatory authority to the Internet. And Lewis suspects the Moscow-based company is helping in that effort. "Kaspersky entered into an agreement with the ITU, first to do some sort of global cybersecurity project, and second the ITU asked Kaspersky to look for malware in the Middle East, and that's how they found Flame. Boy, that's a strange set of coincidences when you line them up," he said. The ITU's 193 members will meet later this year in Dubai. And viruses like Flame will surely be part of the debate over how the Internet should be governed. New York's Bloomberg seeks ban on large, sugary drinks By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks in an effort to fight the city's rising obesity rate. Bloomberg's proposal would be the first of its kind in the United States. Restaurants, delicatessens, movie theaters, sports venues, and mobile food carts would be barred from selling sweetened beverages in containers larger than 473 milliliters, including energy drinks and iced tea. Diet sodas, fruit juices, dairy-based drinks and alcoholic beverages would be exempt from the ban. The amount is just short of 16 ounces. New York City's Board of Health has to approve the measure. All of its members have all been appointed by Bloomberg. A spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association criticized Bloomberg's proposals as over the top and zealous, and called on health officials to seek solutions that would actually curb obesity. Bloomberg has taken a number of public health initiatives during his time as mayor, including a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, which has served as template for similar laws across the United States. He has also launched a campaign to eliminate unhealthy fatty ingredients from restaurant dishes and a law requiring that franchise restaurants list the calorie counts on their menus. In the past, Bloomberg has tried unsuccessfully to curb New Yorkers' appetite for sodas and other sugar-laden drinks. His push for a higher state sales tax on soda failed in the New York state legislature. The federal government turned down his idea to restrict the use of food stamps to buy sodas. |
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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 2012 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 |
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| San
José,
Costa Rica, Friday, June 1, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 109 |
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Latin America news |
 SpaceX photo
The SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle
floats in the Pacific Ocean after splashdown. Dragon capsule
back home
after space station hookup By
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
news staff SpaceX completed a landmark mission Thursday that saw its Dragon capsule deliver half-a-ton of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station and return safely to Earth. The flight made history as the first privately built spacecraft to rendezvous with the International Space Station. Its true impact is expected to be seen in coming months as the company sends regular re-supply missions to the orbiting outpost and continues work to launch astronauts into orbit in a few years. "We are hoping to continue working with NASA and hopefully flying crew within three years," said Elon Musk, the founder, CEO and chief designer for the Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX. "This was a crucial step and makes the chances of becoming a multi planet species more likely." NASA engineers worked closely with SpaceX throughout preparations for the uncrewed demonstration mission. "As a country, we should be very proud," said Mike Suffredini, NASA International Space Station program manager. We took a capability that this agency has nurtured over many years, combined that with a different thought process in spacecraft design and created a team that worked very well. The SpaceX team learned a lot and so did our NASA engineers." SpaceX launched the Dragon capsule on top of the company's Falcon 9 rocket May 22 to begin the chase of the space station. Astronaut Don Pettit guided the historic link-up a week ago when he reached the station's 32-foot-long robotic arm, Canadarm 2, out to the Dragon as it hovered near the station. Reversing the process a few days later, Pettit pulled Dragon away from its port on May 31 and released it to fly on its own again. As planned, the Dragon fired its thrusters to move away from the station's vicinity. Dragon released the trunk and its solar arrays before turning its heat shield toward Earth for the fiery plunge through the atmosphere. Descending under a canopy of parachutes, the Dragon splashed down hundreds of miles west of Baja California to be recovered by ships and taken to port. |
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
