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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 14, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 117 | |||||||||
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and damage in valley By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The tropical storm front lived up to its name Wednesday as it swept over Costa Rica leaving slides, floods and even a small cyclone in its wake. The storm moved in from the south after hitting Colombia and Panamá, Heavy rains arrived in the Central Valley about 3:30 to 4 p.m. Belén in Heredia suffered heavy flooding and some roads in the vicinity of the Cariari Mall were closed. Other flooding took place near the Bridgestone Firestone plant. Homes were heavily damaged in San Rafael Arriba de Desamparados. The cyclone hit the Manuel de Jesús Jiménez section of the city of Cartago about 4:30 p.m. and ripped metal and plastic sheets off the rooftops. A local youth took spectacular video on the event, and the segment showed up on local television. Costa Rica experiences two to three damaging cyclones a year, usually during unstable, stormy weather. The last one was in Barreal de Heredia. There was little word on damage in the south Pacific or in the Talamanca where the nation's emergency committee said the full force of the storm front also would be felt. The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias is maintaining an alert. Daniel Gallardo, emergency commission president, will be traveling along the Pacific coast through Friday inspecting storm preparedness and meeting with local officials. Focus on family director rejects homosexual adoptions By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Focus on the Family official came out strongly Wednesday against allowing homosexual couples to adopt a child. She is Sixto Porras, director of the organization. She was testifying before the Comisión de Juventud, Niñez y Adolescencia on a proposed law that would prohibit such adoptions. The measure was submitted by lawmaker Guyón Massey of Restauración Nacional. "The established cultural demands and standards are predominantly monogamous heterosexuality and adoption of children by couples of the same sex would go against these," said Ms. Porras. She also said that every child has the right to be raised in a family where the masculine and feminine roles are clearly defined which contributes to the child's emotional stability. To allow otherwise would be discrimination, she said. Ms. Porras pointed out that the Sala IV constitutional court has rejected same-sex marriage and that the Constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The commission will be calling other witnesses to testify on the measure. High school girl dies in Moravia murder-suicide By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
A man murdered his 15-year-old sister-in-law and then hung himself in the northern suburbs of Moravia Wednesday, investigators believe. Dead is Raquel Retana, a high schooler who was found murdered in her bed in a room that showed signs of a struggle. Her body was found in a room adjacent to where Jorge Campos, 29, is believed to have hung himself. The girl died from a knife wound to the neck, an initial examination showed. The man's wife discovered the crime late Wednesday afternoon. Body of missing woman found in coffee field By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Investigators have found the body of a 19-year-old woman who vanished Monday after leaving a relative's home in San Ramón. She was identified as Stefanny Cruz of Puntarenas. The woman traveled to San Ramón for a visit and called her mother Monday to say that she was on her way back home. She is believed to be the victim of a sexual assault. The body turned up in a coffee plantation in Barrio Belén of San Ramón.
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 14, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 117 | |||||||||
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| Taking chances each day on a swinging suspension bridge |
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By Donna Lynn Norton
Special to A.M. Costa Rica The bridge is dilapidated and scary but necessary for residents who want to cross over from the pueblo of Santa Rita, district of San Carlos, into the pueblo of Bajo Rodríguez, district of San Ramón. This wood plank and cable bridge is a couple of minutes walking distance from the once-drivable bridge washed out more than a decade ago. The cables are secured into concrete buried into the ground at each end. The entire walking area of the suspension bridge slopes noticeably to one side. The planks also bounce up and down when residents walk across it. There is only one cable to grasp (and hold onto dearly) on the high side. The worn, four-inch wood planks have several areas with gaping holes. Residents, including children, nevertheless, use the bridge to get to the bus for San Ramón, among other reasons. Such bridges, like this one in the northern zone, are part of life in the country and a daily burden for people far from the seats of power. Before a flood washed it away 12 years ago, the former drivable Río Balsa bridge directly connected the roads coming to or from Santa Rita with the road coming to or from Bajo Rodríguez. A traveler could bypass Javillos or La Tigra by driving directly from the popular tourist town of La Fortuna to Santa Rita/Bajo Rodríguez, and from there, directly to San Ramón and on to the airport in San José. As with many of the country's suspension bridges, this one is off the beaten track and out of sight, out of mind of transportation officials. Locals cling to a rumor that a new bridge is coming "within five months." But others note that the rumor has been current for 12 years. Around the area of the wood plank and cable-strung bridge, especially from a higher vantage point, on a clear |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Donna Lynn Norton
Family is safe at last on the bridgehead, but the sky will be
darker for the return trip.day, the famous, mesmerizing, active Volcán Arenal can be clearly seen. The blissfully quiet area surrounding it, from the higher vantage point, gives a 280-degree view, and a tourist can make a mental connection of the area's geography. The Río Balsa is a kayak mecca. According to the locals, the Balsa begins as an underground mountain spring in San Ramón. The Balsa then merges into the Río San Lorenzo River, which becomes part of the mighty Río San Carlos River. The San Carlos flows into the Río San Juan and then into the Caribbean Sea. |
| Arias says isthmus countries have wasted $35 billion on
military in a decade |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Óscar Arias Sánchez estimates that the countries of the isthmus have wasted $35 billion in the last decade supporting their armies. "The fight for human development ought to become the central axis of the public politics of our countries, especially in the most poor countries and those in which violence and armed conflict have reduced the opportunities of their citizens to reach greater levels of wellbeing," said Arias in New York. He was speaking at a United Nations seminar marking the 20th anniversary of the Central American final peace plan, engineered in part by Arias. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace as a result. Arias was promoting his Consensus de Costa Rica. Thanks to the peace plan, the per capita income in Honduras has increased 65 percent and by 70 percent in Nicaragua, said Arias. The increase is more than double in Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador, he said. But Central America will not see peace while gangs of youth, maras, terrorize residents and while diseases, like dengue, amoebas, and malnutrition are killing the children, he said. |
 U.N. Photo/Evan Schneider
Óscar Arias Sánchez speaks at New York conferenceSome 17 million in Central America live in
extreme poverty and some 40
percent will not see high school, condemning another generation to
poverty, he said. This is because of the waste in military spending, he
said. His
consensus calls for a reduction in the military budget coupled with
more spending on education and social programs along with debt
reduction provided by lender nations.
Arias was to continue promoting his program, called Quixotic by the Spanish daily La Nación, in New York. |
| Suspect
in Hospital Calderón Guardia fire that killed 19 given 50 years |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A three-judge panel found a 23-year-old nurse's aide guilty of starting the Hospital Calderón Guardia fire July 12, 2005, and sentenced him to 50 years in prison Wednesday. Some 19 persons died in the fire. The man is Juan Carlos Ledezma Sánchez. Witnesses testified that they had seen him near the storage room where the fire is presumed to have originated. The blaze swept through a surgical recovery wing and even killed two nurses as they tried to evacuate patients. Ledezma was convicted even though fire investigators said they could not find a specific cause for the blaze. An alternate theory advanced at the time of the tragedy was |
that the ballast of a light
fixture had
ignited combustible material in the storeroom. The wing where the fire took place had to be demolished. One of the victims of the blaze never has been identified. He is believed to have been a vagrant who sought a place to sleep in the hospital. Ledezma never testified in his own defense. He also made no statement. The trial judges ordered him held in preventative detention until the Sala III conducts a mandatory review of the case. Calderón Guardia had been plagued by small fires until the early morning tragedy. The fire showed that the hospital did not have adequate safety measures in place. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 14, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 117 | |||||||||
| Victim
of communism doesn't like idea of trade with China |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Human rights activist Harry Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps for criticizing China's Communist Party. He was released in 1979 and came to the United States. When he returned to China in 1995, he was arrested and convicted of stealing state secrets. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was immediately expelled. At the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. Tuesday, Wu criticized the belief that money and trade with China's government is the best way to promote democracy there. "I think the money and technology going to China serve as a blood transfusion to a dying Communist evil," says Wu. Tu Tranh Tran was a political prisoner in Vietnamese labor camps for 18 years under the Communist government. He says 65,000 people died in the camps from executions, hard labor, beatings, disease and starvation. "There were no obvious bloodbaths,” says Tran. “But |
behind the heavily
guarded fences the Communists conducted the vilest and most monumental
and physical torture ever designed." Cuban Pedro Fuentes said at first he believed in Cuban President Fidel Castro and became a member of the revolutionary government. But after he disagreed with Castro's Soviet-backed politics he spent 18 years in a Cuban prison. "The Cuban ex-political prisoners have been fighting for more than 40 years and we are ready to continue fighting until we see our country free," said Fuentes. Fuentes said more than 100 million people around the world have lost their lives due to communism. President George Bush Tuesday dedicated a new memorial in Washington D.C. to the victims of communism. Fuentes said the new memorial should teach people that they should fight against communism. |
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Strong earthquake shakes
Guatemala but hurts no one By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services U.S. seismologists say an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 has struck Guatemala. There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage following the 1:29 p.m. tremor Wednesday. The U.S. Geological Survey says the epicenter of the quake was near the Pacific coast about 115 kilometers (71 miles) south southwest of Guatemala City. There were no reports of serious damage but some homes were damaged and landslides took place in rural areas. The quake also was felt strongly in neighboring El Salvador. |
 National Earthquake Information
Center map
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| Two
Fuerza Pública officers held involving shakedown of motorist in
Alajuela |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two Fuerza Pública officers in Alajuela have been detained to face allegations of abuse of authority. One of the officers is Zeidy Riviera Guzmán, 40, who has nine complaints filed against her for aggravated robbery, theft, abuse of authority among others, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. The other officer is Rodolpho Avila Sánchez, 45, who faces five similar allegations. |
A victim said he had been approached
by two officers in Alajuela Centro
March 16 and the officers made him get out of his car on the claim that
he was carrying drugs, said investigators. When they left the two
officers had taken a firearm, eyeglasses and 500,000 in colons, some
$960. In another case, investigators detained another officer, identified as Daniel Santamaría Arias, 26, on the allegation that he tried to charge a robbery victim money to have the stolen goods returned. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 14, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 117 | ||||||
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