Costa Rica will contest
Arizona immigration law


The foreign ministry said Friday that it had instructed its embassy in Washington to seek permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting México's case against Arizona.

Arizona lawmakers passed a law instructing policemen to check the legality of any individual who otherwise comes in contact with law enforcement.

The Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto said that the federal court brief would protest racial profiling and discrimination. The government here also said it wanted to support U.S. President Barack Obama in his effort to reform the immigration laws.


Giant stone spheres among
ancient pieces confiscated


Prosecutors in Heredia and judicial agents confiscated 108 archaeological pieces from a property in San Rafael de Heredia Friday. The pieces included 14 stone spheres, some of them engraved, that had to be removed with a flatbed trailer.

The complaint came from the Museo Nacional which invoked a law giving the state rights to all archaeological artifacts found in the country.

The pieces were in the possession of a family who has been negotiating with the museum for several years.


Investigators wonder why
Cañas woman got to Heredia


A young woman in Cañas, Guanacaste, left her home July 7 to attend night classes and to study with friends.

Seemingly without reason her body turned up six days later in a field in Barrio El Socorro in Santa Domingo de Heredia.

The woman with the last name of Obando was 19 when she was murdered. She was a student at the local branch of the Universidad Latina. She had been tied up and strangled.

The investigation was confounded for several days while agents tried to learn the identity of the corpse. DNA tests showed Friday that the victim was the Cañas girl.

Still to be determined is how a Cañas college student ended up being a murder victim who was dumped so far from home.


When in Caracas, eat
at Uncle Hugo's Areparía


Venezuela's Hugo Chávez has gone in the food business.

Correo del Orinoco International reports that a government-run restaurant in the La Rinconada neighborhood in Caracas is designed to sell food at a fair price and not as a commodity. Being quoted is commerce minister Richard Canan.

The restaurant serves arepas, the Venezuelan-style fry bread that usually is served as a sandwich.

The government has seven trial restaurants competing with private ownership, the publication said.

Canan bragged that the socialist restaurants sell arepas for 7.5 bolívars or about $1.74. He said that private restaurants sell the same thing for from 20 to 30 bolívars each, from $4.65 to $6.98. He said the one restaurant already has sold 693,000 arepas.


Exports show increases
in double digits over 2009


Exports for the first half of 2010 totaled $4.9 billion in Costa Rica, according to statistics from the Promotora del Comercio Exterior. The organization said this was an 11.9 percent increase over 2009.

Industrial exports were 73.5 percent, it said. This figure includes microchip components. That amount is 19.6 percent greater than in 2009, the organization said.

Agricultural exports jumped 32.2 percent when compared to 2009, which was at the depths of the economic recession.


Havener memorial set


Friends of Donlon Havener plan a memorial service for him at the Tom and Norman Home for unwanted adults that he supported for years.

The service will be Aug. 22 at the facility in La Rita de Pocosi. After the service, Havener's remains will be placed in the chapel of the home, which will be his final resting place, friends said.

Havener died July 13 at 91.

BULLETIN: Reports from the Nicaraguan border today say that the fugitive couple in the story below were intercepted by an army patrol while on the Río San Juan. They appear to have been attemptng to cross the river to Nicaragua.