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(506) 2223-1327               Published Friday, July 16, 2010,  in Vol. 10, No. 139        E-mail us
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New solid waste law has far-reaching implications
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

A new law covering trash and other solid waste is far reaching and covers producers of garbage right down to the housewife making salad.

Lawmakers passed the bill May 25 after they had been on the job little more than three weeks. There was hardly any discussion of the bill in the general press during the time the measure was being considered by the previous legislature.

Among other aspects, the law allows health ministry inspectors to enter without warning or a judicial order the premises of anyone generating waste or who is believed to be doing so. The wording is so broad that the section even covers private homes.

The law also established stiff fines, up to 100 times a base monthly salary, which now is about 244,000 colons. The law also establishes a fund to promote integrated waste management controlled by the minister of Salud or health.

As with many Costa Rican laws, the full extent cannot be determined until regulations are published. The government has six months to write these rules, but the law remains in effect even without them.

The law also controls importation of products that may produce waste. Read closely, the law seems to allow officials to prohibit the importation of products like newsprint if the material ends up as garbage. The law also allows exports to be limited or forbidden when the product has strategic value.

The law is being promoted as a boost to recycling. The measure requires governments at all levels to have a waste management plan in place. It also provides for licensing recycling centers.

There are incentives from the minister's fund, which will be supported by fines and even assessments for environmental damage levied by the Tribunal Administrativo Ambiental.

The law penalizes illegal burning of trash or other waste and also prohibits thefts from community recycling bins.

One section, article 29, instructs state agencies to pay 20 percent more for products that are reusable, recyclable, biodegradable or made with recycled products. The 20 percent advantage would be applied during the bidding process.

Considered major violations are burning, burying, storing or abandoning garbage in unauthorized places or to transport such material without approval of the ministry.

Lesser violations include taking material from depository containers in the public way, throwing garbage in the public streets or taking items from approved landfills.
Laura Chinchilla and regs
Casa Presidencial photo
Laura Chinchilla signs initial regulation for the new trash law. This happened Thursday.


The law also calls for two to 15 years in prison for importing, exporting or otherwise transporting or storing what are called dangerous materials. These are biowaste, radioactive material or other dangerous items. The same penalty applies to those who dump dangerous waste illegally. The penalty triples when the material is dumped in watersheds, protected areas, in the maritime zone or fresh or salt waters of the nation.

The law has an educational component, so health officials likely will be holding workshops and seminars on the new law for the benefit of firms that produce a lot of waste. Private organizations are expected to do likewise. The American Chamber of Commerce, for example, already has a link to the text of the laws in Spanish on its Web site.

The measure was published this week in the La Gaceta, a legal requirement. President Laura Chinchilla and María Luisa Ávila Agüero, the health minister, signed some of the new regulations Thursday at a ceremony in the former Río Azul landfill that is now a park.

"As of right now we have clear rules on how to handle the problem of the solid wastes," said the president. She said the new law would guarantee that Costa Rica is at the head of the Latin American countries as a good example.

Casa Presidencial said that managing solid waste and trash is a priority for the administration as part of its environmental agenda.

A.M. Costa Rica has published a number of articles on the lack of landfills, mainly in Guanacaste and Limón, improper handling of hospital biowaste and the frequent use of streams and rivers as dump sites.


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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 16, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 139

Costa Rica Expertise
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A.M. Costa Rica's professional directory is where business people who wish to reach the English-speaking community may invite responses. If you are interested in being represented here, please contact the editor.


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roadside erosion control
  A top-notch installation with temporary stabilization

Our reader's opinion
Super grass is used a lot
in Guanacaste roadsides

Dear A.M.Costa Rica

I read with great interest your article on vetiver grass.

You are doing a service to both your readership and potentially, the country by helping to raise awareness about the usefulness of vetiver in preventing many of the erosion caused problems faced by Costa Rica.

I say this based on 15 years of working with vetiver in Guanacaste. It has been used quite widely in the area south off Tamarindo by both farmers and developers — especially along roadsides where it can help prevent damage to road infrastructure and reduce off-site lowering of water quality due to excessive runoff.

The photo in your article, unfortunately, does not do justice to the holding power of vetiver nor — based on my experience — does it show a very "technically correct" installation.

Attached is a photo of a top-notch installation, with temporary stabilization provided by erosion control wattles.

If you ever want to do another "how to" article for the benefit of your readers, I would be happy to offer my time.

Keep up the excellent work.
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Guanacaste


GE Capital sells BAC
to Colombian bank giant


Special to A.M. Costa Rica

GE Capital Global Banking announced Thursday that it has reached a definitive agreement to sell BAC Credomatic GECF Inc. to Grupo Aval, Colombia’s largest banking holding group, for $1.9 billion.

The transaction is subject to certain regulatory approvals and other customary conditions, and the parties anticipate closing by the end of 2010, GE said.

“This is a good deal for GE, and furthers our objective of reducing the overall size of GE Capital,” said Dmitri Stockton, president and CEO of GE Capital Global Banking.   “We have enjoyed working with BAC’s shareholders and their world-class management team to successfully grow the franchise over the previous five years.  We believe this transaction will be positive for BAC, and will allow the bank to focus solely on its excellent prospects for future growth.”

Founded in 1952, BAC International Bank has operations in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico, with approximately $5.1 billion in loan assets, and $5.5 billion in deposits.  GE was advised in the transaction by Credit Suisse, and Latham & Watkins served as external counsel.

Grupo Aval is controlled by chairman Luis Carlos Sarmiento.


Paper gives anatomy lesson
with third dismemberment

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

No one can ever accused El Diario Extra of excessive sophistication. The popular Spanish-language daily ran a front page photo Thursday of a criminal technician fishing a human head out of a river.

Editors delicately placed a tiny black strip over the eyes of the dead man, Inside the anatomy lesson continued.

The week has been a good one for editors of sensationalistic popular papers. The newspaper's formula must work because it also ran a full-page ad Thursday showing its dominance in the youthful reader group over its principal competitor, the more sedate La Nación.

That rating is sure to go up. The dismembered body was the third to be found this week. Investigators have yet to discover a link, but the grim work of the killer is reminiscent of novels about the Sicilian Mafia.  Any Mafia dons in Costa Rica are at the beach, and agents think that the killings could be messages being sent by some drug gangs.

The most recent collection of body parts turned up Wednesday in the Río Sucio in Sarapiquí de Heredia. Lab workers fished them out and placed them in white garbage bags for the trip to the morgue. Another body turned up a week ago in the Río Virilla in La Uruca. The victim was described as a frequent user of drugs

July 7 police found the burned head of a woman, also in the La Uruca vicinity. She also was featured in a newspaper photo.

El Diario Extra already is linking the killings to a wave of similar murders that took place three years ago.

Have you seen these stories?



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A.M. Costa Rica guide

This is a brief users guide to A.M. Costa Rica.

Old pages
Each day someone complains via e-mail that the newspages are from yesterday or the day before. A.M. Costa Rica staffers check every page and every link when the newspaper is made available at 2 a.m. each weekday.

So the problem is with the browser in each reader's computer. Particularly when the connection with the  server is slow, a computer will look to the latest page in its internal memory and serve up that page.

Readers should refresh the page and, if necessary, dump the cache of their computer, if this problem persists. Readers in Costa Rica have this problem frequently because the local Internet provider has continual problems.

Searching
The A.M. Costa Rica search page has a list of all previous editions by date and a space to search for specific words and phrases. The search will return links to archived pages.

Newspages
A typical edition will consist of a front page and four other newspages. Each of these pages can be reached by links near the top and bottom of the pages.

Classifieds
Five classified pages are updated daily. Employment listings are free, as are listings for accommodations wanted, articles for sale and articles wanted. The tourism page and the real estate sales and real estate rentals are updated daily.

Advertising information
A summary of advertising rates and sizes are available for display and classifieds.

Contacting us
Both the main telephone number and the editor's e-mail address are listed on the front page near the date.

Visiting us
Directions to our office and other data, like bank account numbers are on the about us page.

For your international reading pleasure:

News of Nicaragua
News of Central America
News of Cuba
News of Venezuela
News of Colombia
News of El Salvador

News of Honduras
News of the Dominican Republic
News of Panamá
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 16, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 139

Rapid Respose
Rock n roll

A low-pressure system hangs over Costa Rica and the Caribbean. Weather experts say the system has only a 10 percent chance of becoming a hurricane, but they once said the same about Alex when it was an unconsolidated mass.
 
low pressure areas
U.S. Hurricane Information Center graphic

Weather systems likely to make drive home a wet one
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Once again there are dueling weather systems over Costa Rica. The clash could mean a wet weekend and a soggy drive home for mid-year vacationers.

The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that a low pressure area south of Costa Rica is generating abundant clouds as well as intermittent rains. The institute expects the situation to continue at least through Friday morning.

The south Pacific and central Pacific coasts are most likely to be the areas most affected, the institute said.

Meanwhile, an unconsolidated mass of cloudiness and showers exists over the Caribbean and eastern Costa Rica, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Information Center in Miami, Florida. The system is associated with a westward moving tropical wave. The system only has a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical cyclone in the
next 48 hours, the center said, but it added that the rains should continue for at least two days.

Meanwhile yet another tropical wave is slowly moving westward in the Atlantic. The speed is about 15 mph, the center said. Little change is expected in the next day or so. Sometimes these systems turn abruptly northwest, as did what became Hurricane Alex last month. But even then a low pressure area that develops into a strong storm can have impact in Costa Rica.

A report from the weather institute here Wednesday said that the Atlantic water temperature is the warmest since measurements have been taken in the last 150 years. Such warmth is conducive to storm development.

Meanwhile in the south, the weather institute said that the  Río Corredores is cresting and that the Caño Seco is rising due to the local rain. A 7 p.m. bulletin warned of slides, flooding and fog on land and at sea.


Sure and begora it's the wee people who are doing art
 It seems the Guggenheim Foundation is collaborating with YouTube to make art.  That is, the foundation is asking as-yet-unknown artists of all media from around the world to send videos of their work.  These can be seen at the museum as well as on YouTube and eventually the best 20 will be picked to be displayed in Guggenheim museums in New York, Berlin, Bilbao and Venice from Oct. 22 to 24.

Recently The Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica, thanks to the joint inspiration of members Stacey Auch and Caroline Kennedy, asked its members for monologues on the subject of love. This past weekend they presented “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” an evening of monologues written and performed by LTG members.  It was an evening of nostalgia, drama, music, dance, comedy and even yoga.

Besides being a thoroughly enjoyable evening, it seemed to be another demonstration of a new age --  an era, if you will, of the Little People.  Of ordinary individuals showing off their stuff, their talent, skills, ideas.

I, like the Swedish gentleman with British Petroleum, mean no insult by the term “little people.”  I checked my New Oxford English Dictionary (2005) and it defines the term as ‘ordinary people in a country, organization, etc. who do not have much power.’  If you wish to extend it to its special usage, then, how about ’small supernatural creatures such as fairies and leprechauns’ (who are capable of magic)? Or perhaps “not-yet-famous people” would be more suitable.  But I like "little" because it seems more affectionate. (This must be the Tico influence on me.)

Semantics aside, I think this era paradoxically began with the advent of e-mail, then personal blogs on the Internet where individuals could send their prose, opinions, and even untruths for the world to read, without the sanction of a newspaper editor or publisher, a movement that has grown to include the various social networking sites mentioned in A M Costa Rica earlier this week.  I, too, agree with the suggestion that these networks will lose their popularity, at least the ones that are mainly small talk.

The good news is they offer the chance for people to share their creativity locally.  Like an accordion, Guggenheim is
Butterfly in the City
 
. . .  Musings from San José

By Jo Stuart
jostuart@amcostarica.com

Jo Stuart
 
expanding to recognize there are talents and new concepts of art out there and organizing to bring them from a flash in-the-pan popularity to local displays for local communities’ enjoyment.

This idea may be a bit far-fetched (my ideas often are), but I think all of this is part of a new era of "think local," or as Buckminster Fuller said so long ago “Small is beautiful.”  

Other signs include community gardens, buying what is locally grown and getting to know who produces and sells your eggs, making do, with second-hand clothes or furniture, bartering for services.  Here the Internet sites help by promoting access to local goods and services.  The Little Theatre Group of Costa Ricas showed that local writing as well as acting is entertaining and it can be enjoyed and later discussed in a gathering of friends. It gives us an opportunity that is more personal and spontaneous than the Internet.  

But of course I am not in favor of doing away with the Internet. It is as important to my life as it is to others — I don’t want to lose my news, discussions, and easy access to important information. It should be available to everyone.  But it should not replace person-to-person relationships. I’ve  recently returned from visiting my children and my sister and her husband, and I can say that sharing a laugh together beats the hell out of an “lol” or (in Costa Rica” “je je.”) on my computer.

The Internet can facilitate, not replace personal interactions, and I would like to say, first via the Internet, a fond farewell to Don Havener, a long-time friend to many, including me, and fellow columnist, who died this week.  I hope later to personally share with friends memories of this gifted and giving man.


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Republicans abroad
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 16, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 139

Escazú Christian Fellowship
xx
Guoadalupe Missionary Baptist Church


Crucitas mine officials try to go on offensive with Web

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Faced with a successful public relations stunt by opponents, the operators of the Las Crucitas mining project are trying to rally public support.

Although the company, Industrias Infinito S.A., has been doing some television advertising, its Internet blog domain, laverdadsobrecrucitas.com, only was registered May 25. Instead of being handled by some high-powered public relations firm, the blog seems to be operated out of an Internet service provider in Alajuela. There also are Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The company is sending out public relations material to its press list. One arrived Thursday while some 40 opponents were at Ciudad Quesada on their march from Casa Presidencial to the mine site. Opponents hope to get President Laura Chinchilla to reverse an Óscar Arias Sánchez decree that said the mine was in the national interest. She may be leaning in that direction.

In its e-mailing, the company correctly said that the mine project will bring more trees to the area. The mine project has been attacked because in order to dig a pit to extract gold, workers have to cut down trees, including the protected mountain almond tree (almendro amarillo in Spanish with the Latin name Dipteryx panamensis). The Arias decree specifically permitted cutting such trees, but prosecutors opened a criminal case to see if the president himself violated the law.
crucitas logo

On the company's blog there is such light reading as "Cyanide and acid drainage" in which the firm argues that there are 2,000 sources of natural cyanide. The company is under fire because of its plan to use cyanide to leech gold from crushed rock.

The headline on the blog is "I love nature, and you?" in Spanish: Yo (shape of heart) naturaleza ¿y voz?

The blog is filled with graphics that say the northern zone would be better with the mine in operation with more lakes, more environmental controls and more trees.

Meanwhile, the opponents have been getting television time and newspaper space very day of the march, which began Monday.

The e-mail Thursday was attributed to Juan Carlos Obando, identified as manager of corporate affairs. He explained that the company was starting an electronic message system to give information to the public. He promised objective responses.


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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 16, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 139

Medical vacations in Costa Rica

Chávez opponent may ask
U.S. for political asylum


By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

The head of a Venezuelan pro-opposition television channel says he cannot return to Venezuela where he could face arrest and that he could seek political asylum in the United States.

Globovision president Guillermo Zuloaga spoke in a Voice of America interview being broadcast today.  Zuloaga also said U.S. government officials and attorneys have recommended he request asylum. 

Last month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government ordered Zuloaga's arrest on criminal charges he and his son illegally stored 24 new Toyota vehicles.  Zuloaga — who owns a car dealership — denies the allegations.  Security officers went to Zuloaga's home to arrest him and his son, but they were not at the property. 

Last week, Zuloaga visited the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington to seek help from its human rights body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  Zuloaga told Globovision he went to the Organization of American States to seek the justice he said does not exist in Venezuela. 

Zuloaga has suggested Chávez ordered his arrest on trumped up charges. Chávez has rejected the criticism and was quoted Thursday as saying his government will have to request Zuloaga's extradition from the U.S.

Zuloaga disappeared after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest.

Zuloaga also faces charges for allegedly making false and offensive remarks about the Venezuelan president at a meeting in March of the Inter American Press Association in Aruba.

Zuloaga was briefly detained after he spoke about restrictions on freedom of expression in Venezuela at the gathering.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said earlier this year that it is concerned about the use of the punitive power of the state to silence opponents in Venezuela.

The commission also said in a report that Venezuela under President Chávez constrains freedom of expression and has placed serious restrictions on human rights.  Chavez called the report garbage.

Colombian rebel chiefs
reported to be in Venezuela

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

The Colombian government says it has evidence that leaders of outlawed rebel groups are hiding in neighboring Venezuela.

President Alvaro Uribe's office said Thursday it had proof that four leaders of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC and one from the Ejército de Liberación Nacional or ELN, were in Venezuela.

The government said the minister of defense will present documentation to back up the claim.

Among the rebels Colombia says are hiding in Venezuela is Ivan Marquez, a member of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias leadership.  There was no immediate response from the Venezuelan government.

President Uribe, who has had tense relations with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, steps down next month after two terms in office.  Colombia previously has accused Venezuela of financing and supporting the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, a charge Venezuela denies.

In 2008, Venezuela and Ecuador broke diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian troops raided a rebel camp in Ecuador, killing commander Raul Reyes and at least 20 other people.
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 16, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 139


Latin American news
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Argentine Senate OKs
gay marriage proposal


By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage. The Senate passed the bill early Thursday morning after more than 15 hours of debate. Demonstrators for and against the new law spent the night outside Congress while they waited for the result.

Lawmakers voted 33 - 27 in favor of the new legislation, which gives same-sex couples the same legal rights and protections as male-female couples. The legislation will also allow adoptions by same-sex couples.

The measure was strongly opposed by the Catholic Church, among other groups. The church and others are promoting a referendum in Costa Rica on the topic of civil unions. Gays and supporters object to a referendum on what they consider to be their civil right.

The Argentine lower house of congress passed the measure two months ago, and President Cristina Kirchner has already voiced her support, so the Senate vote was the last legal hurdle.

Supporters say the new law is a victory against oppression of minorities.

In recent months, five same-sex couples have married in Argentina, after receiving the legal authorization to do so.  Gay marriage is not specifically recognized under Argentine law.

Opposition to gay and lesbian unions remains strong throughout Latin America, although some cities have taken steps on their own.

Buenos Aires was the first city in the region to approve same sex civil unions in 2002, followed by a handful of other cities in Mexico and Brazil.  Uruguay is the only country to approve civil unions nationwide.

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