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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 25, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 124 | |||||||||
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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Our readers' opinions
Costa Rica sold itself outfor a bit of Chinese silver Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Costa Rica was once an island of democracy in a sea of miserable dictatorships, a free and powerful Sequoia in a forest of oppressing dwarfs. It was an oasis of peace and tranquility in the desert of brutality known as Latin America. She was a refuge for all who were hunted and persecuted for their political beliefs. Sadly, all that has changed, Costa Rica has renounced her honorable history, betrayed her noble accomplishments, reneged on her promise to protect freedom, and openly spat at the face of Liberty — all for the almighty buck. As a condition for trade with the Communist tyrants that rule China, Costa Rica has broken off all diplomatic ties with the tiny, but free people of Taiwan, for a few pieces of silver, and like a cheap and desperate prostitute, Costa Rica has sold her soul to please the despicable masters that call themselves a government at Beijing. The love of gold has made Costa Rica break all ties with brave Taiwan in exchange for sharing dirty bread with the butchers who in their brutal occupation of Tibet have strung-up hundreds of Tibetan monks that have dared to peacefully protest, the same sadistic sons of witches that cheerfully ordered their army tanks to run over tents containing hundreds of sleeping college students, the same sickos who presently employ slave labor. Shame on you, Costa Rica. You may enjoy China's blood-stained currency, but never again will you get a cent from me. A. Milanes
Elizabeth, New Jersey Sex tourist speaks out: He is great for economy Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I read your online paper every day, but I've got to say, I'm getting tired of your hate campaign against so called sex tourists. I visit here every year. I come for prostitution. I add thousands of dollars to the local economy. Your attempt to differentiate between sex tourists and nature tourists is pathetic. You think those Kansas nature tourists who stay at a six-buck-a-night hostels, spend $10 a day on food and $30 a day on nature B.S. equal what someone like me spends? Sex tourism accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in the local economy. Where do you think the dollars will come to replace it should you succeed in your laughable attempt to get rid of it? How are these women going to make a living, and who's gonna pay for their children, the government? Please . . . . I also love how you keep linking regular prostitution with TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN and UNDERAGE prostitution. Try to understand this: There IS no more underage prostitution. Foreign sex tourists almost always are found in the same 10 or so locations, all of which are legitimate. Parque Morazón hasn't had underage women in years, or didn't you know? Prostitution will be around long after A.M. Cost Rica is gone. FACT. So get off your high horses. Your anti-prostitution intentions are so obvious it makes a mockery of your so called journalism. Stop editorializing in the guise of news. You only make yourselves look bad. Joe Fierro
Eastchester, New York It's not smart to steal, and it is shortsighted Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Quoting some of Mr. Walter Bibb’s concerns for expats living in Cost Rica, “You have to put up with the crime, bureaucracy, few conveniences, poor services, and a general lack of the things that just make life comfortable . . . . ” I unfortunately agree. I had planned on retiring there. But it’s a sad situation when ALL the people of one country believe it’s smart and honorable to steal from ALL the people of another country. That’s just unacceptable! Thievery under any guise is shortsighted. That mentality dooms its citizens to everlasting poverty because the honest people who are the victims will get tired of it and leave. I sure did. The Ticos better wake up and fundamentally change their mentality or they’re doomed to permanent third-class status and everlasting serfdom. Doug Hicks
Tampa, Florida Union needs to think ahead and seek more training Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I read your recent article about the union slowdowns in Limón. I had the privilege of working in Japan for about 15 years. What was interesting there was that when it came time for contract negotiations, the Japanese unions increased production. It is unfortunate that more people (including governments) don’t realize that slowing things down just accelerates the death process for an area. Witness what happened in the U.S. post 9/11. The terrorists succeeded in slowing us down (and putting some money in the pockets of a few security companies). If I were the union in Limón, I would be negotiating the most advanced training and equipment for my group. Thus they could produce a better service and justify higher wages or benefits. Mark Mobley
San Jose, Costa Rica Don't measure Costa Rica by standards of U.S. Dear A.M. Costa Rica: After reading a comment made by an expat (soon to be one myself) about Costa Rica in your newsletter, I just had to express my humble opinion. I once heard an “American student” say to a friend of mine: “if you don’t like it (USA), leave it.” Now I’d like to say the same thing to foreigners in Costa Rica, people who come over buy the land for peanuts and make loads of profits from it, exploit the people in many ways, live in a peaceful, beautiful, great weathered environment and yet complaint about how bad it is. Well then, go back home, see if you can survive on your retirement or SS. I’ve spent 27 years in the U.S. military, jumping out of airplanes in the Marine Corp and Air Force. I‘ve put my life on the line for it. It’s not perfect either, but I do not criticize it, I appreciate it, I try to improve it where I can, and be a good citizen. Costa Rica is not the U.S.A., of course not, but it does offer a good way of life that I hope to enjoy soon. So if you don’t like it, then simply leave, or try to improve it, but don’t criticize it for not measuring up to U.S. standards. Obviously you haven’t been to inner cities in the U.S. Go see Miami slums or deep into New York, Detroit, L.A. Heck, our capital, Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rate in the world. Or other countries and compare the “quality of life.” Take a closer look and see how Costa Rica measures up then. Fabio "Cid" Cedeño
State university gets Japanese giftUSMC / USAF Afghanistan By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The editorial department of the Universidad Estatal a Distancia will buy a new offset press with a $351,842 donation from the Government of Japan. The university, one of the country's four big public institutions, is a leading producer of educational books with more than 200 titles being produced a year. The Japanese ambassador, Yoshihiko Sumi, signed an agreement with Costa Rican officials Friday. He noted that higher education is fundamental to development. The university is celebrating 30 years in existence and counts some 30,000 students who can attend classes and take courses without geographical barriers. |
| We had another great month for readership in May. We served up more than 1.1 million pages. If you do business in Costa Rica, you should be seeking customers here! |
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on our real estate page HERE! |
| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 25, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 124 | |||||||||
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| This
career criminal seems to have a get-out-of-jail-free card |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Law Enforcement officials are wondering how a career criminal caught inside a San José jewelry store June 3 managed to get out of jail to be caught inside a San Ramón business Sunday. The suspect is Felix María Araya Arias. When he was caught June 3 inside the Joyería Leonardo Davinci at Avenida 1 and Calle Central, officials issued a press release. The man is so well known in police circles that he is instantly recognized. Officials figured the 67-year-old man had been put away in preventative detention based on an extensive police record. Still unknown is how the man managed to avoid being put in detention after the San José crime. He was detained Sunday when Fuerza Pública officers responded to a burglar alarm in San Ramón de Alajuela. The location was the Coopeservidores offices, a local financial cooperative. There police officers arrested Araya inside the facilities, they said. With him was a man identified with the last names of Mora Abarca, who also happened to be a suspect in the San José burglary. At the time of the June 3 burglary the Fuerza Pública said they had handed over custody of Araya and his 38-year-old associate Mora to the Ministerio Pública, the |
nation's prosecutorial agency. It
would have been the responsibility of
the prosecutors to evaluate the danger the two men presented to society
and ask a judge to take restrictive measures, such as pretrial
detention. There are great similarities between the two burglaries. Entry was gained by cutting locks and raising the metal curtain that protects many business establishments. In the San José case, men were seen breaking into the jewelry store and police got the alert. In San Ramón burglars tried unsuccessfully to deactivate an electronic alarm. Araya did a long prison term for murder, kidnapping and a number of other criminal acts, officials said. The associate, Mora, was apprehended July 23, 2003, on a charge of aggravated burglary and again July 21, 2004, on a charge of aggravated robbery. In the latest report on the San Ramón case, a spokesman for the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública expressed frustration with the way criminal suspects are out on the street almost immediately after their arrests. In the last several months a downtown task force has been picking up a number of criminal suspects with the aim of reducing armed robberies in the center of the city. It is not known by the general public how many of the several hundred persons detained are back out on the street. |
| Those
little colorful phrases that punctuate daily speech |
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| Muletillas In Spanish muletillas are pet words or phrases that often serve as filler in one’s conversation. They also frequently become rather monotonous parts of the rhythm of many people’s everyday speech. A few English examples of muletillas are, “Know what I mean?” “Understand what I’m saying?” or just “you know” or simply “uh.” In Spanish, speakers tend to use common words or phrases like este and o sea. In Panamá there is an interesting variation. Panamanians often punctuate their spoken dialogue with eto or ete. The words they are really using are este or esto, but because of the Panamanian penchant for dropping the letter s, these words come out sounding like eto or ete instead. Once in Panamá my family and I were having lunch in a small café. The waitress kept coming to the table asking if there was something else we would like, to which we answered in the negative. Finally after the third or fourth instance of this my father asked the young lady if there was something we were doing that attracted her attention. She replied that all she could hear from our corner of the room was “sss, sss, sss,” so she thought we were trying to summon her to our table. Then, however, she realized that we were a family of Ticos, and that’s just the way we talk. I have been exchanging e-mails with one of my readers about the different ways Latin Americans talk; how we sound to each other, the way that indigenous words get mixed up with Spanish, and how words and expressions can often mean totally different things in different places. In Ecuador, for example, one’s little sister is referred to as ñaña. But in Costa Rica ñaña is what we call dog excrement. When we lived in Ecuador, you can imagine how my sisters just adored being referred to as ñañas. Also Ecuadorians call an ordinary plastic or paper bag not just a bolsa but funda. In Costa Rica a funda is a pillowcase. Not only language but social custom also varies from one Latin American country to the other. Once on a bus in Perú I stood up to offer my seat to an elderly lady. She seemed surprised by this, but thanked me with a smile. A few stops later a pregnant woman boarded. The bus was completely packed, so I suggested to a man sitting in front of where I was standing that he might give his seat to the expectant mother. With a shrug he replied, “Why should I? I got here first.” Of course one might encounter such seemingly inconsiderate behavior anywhere, but in Perú people appeared to me to be inured to it as though it were simply part of everyday experience. In any case, back to our muletillas: In Costa Rica we often use verdad or its variant pronunciation veaa, which actually sounds like the present subjunctive form of ver, “to see, to behold, to look at.” But what is actually meant |
in both cases is “truly, frankly, or sincerely.” The intention is to reaffirm what one is saying. We do use vieras, a subjunctive form of ver also as a muletilla in the sense of “you see,” or “you understand.” This adds a note of drama to what is being said. You might start off your tale of what happened to you at the market, for example, with: Vieras que ayer fui al Mercado y . . . . “You see, yesterday I went to the market and…” Here are a few examples of some muletillas and how to use them: Vieras, que en el Mercado me robaron la billetera. “You see, at the market someone stole my billfold.” ¡Juepucha! Ya no se puede, donde vas hay maleantes. "Son-of-a-gun! You can’t go anywhere that there aren’t thieves lurking." ¡Veaa! Y lo peor es que no tenia nada de plata para comprar la comida “Really! And the worst part was I had no money to buy dinner.” A word to the wise about the use of ¡juepucha! Employ this muletilla advisedly for, though it is fairly ubiquitous in Costa Rican cant speech, some people may find it quite offensive. It is a variant of hijo de puta, meaning “son of a whore,” but has the same vulgar connotation as the expression “son-of-a-bitch” in English. Another variant is simply putis, which you might overhear being used, something like this: ¡Putis, mae! Usted si que es lento, which rather politely translated means: “Damn it, man! You are so slow.” My sister’s favorite muletilla is ¡ayyy oiii! This she will invariably exclaim upon hearing any tale beginning with vieras que. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
| A.M. Costa Rica would like to know if you experienced a crime here If so, we would like to hear about it: e-mail us (in confidence if you wish) Our goal is to build a data base and hold officials accountable |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
A.M. Costa Rica rates Display and classified rates have increased as of June 18, 2007. The average display increase is between 6 and 8.5 percent. This is the first rate increase in the six-year history of the newspaper. The new rates are posted here: As usual, the bulk of any income goes to get you a better newspaper. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 25, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 124 | |||||||||
| Public
bank places ad to distance itself from Quintavalle |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Banco de Costa Rica said Sunday that it has no relationship with Matteo Quintavalle or his fledgling Depository Pacific Bank. In addition, Banco de Costa Rica in a half-page ad in the Spanish-language daily La Nación said it has warned Quintavalle about using the word bank in his startup corporation or sociedad anonima. Banco de Costa Rica has been stung by suggestions in the news media and from associates of Quintavalle that it somehow was operating jointly with Depository Pacific Bank. This was "an unauthorized use of our name, image and reputation," said the bank. Quintavalle and four associates face fraud allegations in Pavas as a result of his investment scheme here. Wednesday the Juzgado Penal de Pavas ordered him and four associates not to leave the country while the allegation of fraud was investigated. In addition to Quintavalle, the judicial order covers associates Marvin Hernández Zúñiga, Ricardo Urbina Paniagua, Chistopher George Coulther and Ismail Gelle Fosia. Coulther is a former investment adviser in Florida. |
The initial criminal complaint was
filed by 17 U.S. investors, said the Poder Judicial. Quintavalle, a 34-year-old hotel owner and Italian citizen, became a public figure earlier this year when he tried to purchase a soccer franchise and then began signing contracts with top soccer players with the goal of starting his own team. He says he owns a string of hotels in the beach communities. Earlier this month the Banco de Costa Rica closed out 11 accounts he had there. The bank said Quintavalle moved $10.5 million through those accounts in a year. Bank officials suggested he had crossed a legal line by getting investment money from others and putting the money in the account. Quintavalle's corporation is in the process of filing paperwork with the Superintendencia General de Entidades Financieros to become a registered institution, he has said. Costa Rican law prohibits individuals from collecting money from other persons for investments unless there is registration. This is the same law that was involved in the conviction of Oswaldo Villalobos Camacho last month and is called financial intermediation. |
| Traffic
death toll for the weekend is at least seven persons |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Incomplete reports on weekend traffic deaths show at least seven persons died. Alcohol was suspected to have contributed to a number of the mishaps and some of the drivers face investigation. A pedestrian, Rónald Bolaños González, 48, died Friday night on the San Rafael de Escazú-Santa Ana road when he was hit by a car. Bicyclist Mauricio Alexis Castillo Navarro, 35, died in San Carlos about 7 p.m. Saturday when he was hit by a vehicle. Two hours later Michael Jiménez Godínez, 40, died after trying to cross a highway in Heredia. |
A vehicle passenger, Carlos
Durán Carvajal, died in Vuelta del Río
Bermúdez, Heredia, when the car went off the road and overturned
several times. In Bananito, Limón, Eleana Martínez Chacón, 23, died under similar circumstances when the vehicle she was in hit a utility pole. Rosa Mora Matute, 52, died about 2 a.m. Sunday when the vehicle she was in collided head-on with a second. This was in Guácimo de Limón. In San Rafael de Escazú Rony Saffati Piszk died about 3:30 a.m. Sunday when the vehicle in which he was riding collided with a bridge railing on the San Rafael-Santa Ana road in the vicinity of the Hotel San Gildar. |
| Grecia
supermarket operator dies in confrontation over severance pay to worker |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Grecia supermarket owner died Saturday night after a man later identified as an ex-employee pulled a knife and stabbed him at least five times, said the Fuerza Pública. The dead man was identified as Ronald Alfaro Rojas, operator of the Supermercado El Pueblo. The 21-year-old suspect was identified by the last name of Ocampo. He was in custody. |
The dispute was believed to be about
severance pay. In another case Friday afternoon, a 35-year-old man was found dead in his room in the downtown Hotel Del Rey . A Fuerza Pública officer identified him as Daniel Antonio Rahyli. A security guard at the hotel found the man in the room, the officer said. There was no immediate indication as to the cause of death. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, June 25, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 124 | |||||||||
Planned blackout Tuesday By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Workers from the electric company will be back in Goicoechea Tuesday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. doing preventative maintenance, said the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz. Barrio San Gerardo, Barrio Las Flores, Barrio Santa Cecilia and Barrio Cristal will be blacked out, as will a number of businesses, including the local branch of the electrical company and the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social clinic. |
Venezuelan official rips
U.S. hike in Latin radio By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Venezuela has criticized a proposal to increase U.S. government broadcasts to the South American nation to counter the influence of President Hugo Chávez. Venezuelan Information Minister Willian Lara accused the United States Friday of escalating a media campaign against Venezuela. Lara also defended his government's decision not to renew the broadcast license of an opposition-aligned television station, Radio Caracas Television. Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday approved an amendment that would provide $10 million to boost U.S. broadcasts to Venezuela and other parts of Latin America through the Voice of America. Republican Connie Mack proposed the amendment. Mack said the Chavez government is targeting opposition voices because of their massive reach, appeal and influence throughout Venezuela. He said press freedom died in Venezuela on May 27 with RCTV's shutdown. President Chávez said he decided to close RCTV because it supported a brief coup against his government in 2002. The station said the government produced no evidence to support the claims against it. RCTV was replaced with a state-funded channel, Venezuelan Social Television. RCTV continues to report and broadcast news on the Internet. U.S. gives warning on soccer tourney visits By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. State Department says Americans who plan to travel to Venezuela for the Copa America soccer tournament should be aware of continuing security concerns there and possible changes to official entry requirements. The tournament begins Tuesday and runs until July 19. A public announcement issued Friday says Americans considering travel to Venezuela should carefully consider the risks to their safety and security. Officials warn that violent crime has become a daily occurrence in the capital, Caracas, and that the murder rate there is one of Latin America's highest. Additionally, the State Department says Americans should be aware that uncertainties in the availability of tournament tickets has led to local protests. |
| A.M. Costa Rica Sports news local and from the wires |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 25, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 124 | ||||||
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