Have any good traditional recipes typical of the Heredia area?

If so, the Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes wants you to sign up for the Sept. 12 contest for typical food and drink of that province.

The event will be in the Escuela Joaquín Lizano in Heredia center.

The event is under the auspices of the Centro de Investigación y Conservation del Patrimonio Cultural of the ministry. The idea is to keep alive regional dishes. Similar events have been held in Guanacaste, Puntarenas and Cartago.

Three categories are available: main dishes, bread and deserts and drinks. Prizes range from 50,000 to 125,000 colons, $114 to $284.

On the day of the event, the public will be invited free and those who show up can buy and help sample the foods.

The judges are asking that contestants serve the foods in traditional utensils, such as wooden bowls. Signup is available at the Municipalidad de Heredia or via 223-2533, 255-3523 or 258-1512.

Boston music group
plays here Sunday

The Ensemble Algarabía from Boston. Mass. will be offering a free concert Sunday at 5 p.m. in the Teatro Eugene O’Neill in the Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano in Barrio Dent.

The three-member group features Gina Caldwell on the viola, Lorena González on the piano and soprano Pamela Lowry.

In addition to the centro, other sponsors are the U.S. Embassy and the Academia Música Bach.

The centro is 200 meters north of the Los Yoses gasoline station.
 

Another passenger
faces drug count

Anti-drug police arrested a 25-year-old Costa Rican man Tuesday and said he was trying to leave Juan Santamaría International Airport with more than two kilos of cocaine.

Policía de Control de Drogas agents identified him by the last names of Gutiérrez Nordstrom. He was headed for Stockholm, Sweden.

He became the 28th person arrested on drug trafficking charges at the airport this year.

Stray round hits woman

A woman sitting in a bar in the Cristo Rey section of San José was the victim when two men opened fire against police nearby.

The woman, Marisol Cerdas Jiménez, 33, was struck by a stray bullet in the left arm and stomach. She was hospitalized.

Fuerza Pública officers and agents from the Judicial Investigating Organization were trying to detain the two men, who fled.

Hunter’s body found in river

Rescue workers have found the body of Armando Padilla Piedre, 24,  who fell into the Río Parritón near Quepos while hunting Saturday.

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Saray Ramírez Vindas.... associate editor

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The Pacheco government is taking a firm hand with strikers and would-be strikers.

The Consejo Técnico de Aviación Civil Wednesday approved the start of a procedure to fire the 115 or so striking air traffic controllers. The six-week strike has been declared illegal in three labor courts.

Meanwhile, President Able Pacheco was to sign a decree setting the raises for public employees for the last half of the year at 4.5 percent. That is far lower than public employee unions wanted. The unions are expected to respond with a general strike.

The government’s position was not strengthened by the release Wednesday of statistics showing inflation was pushing prices higher by more than 1 percent a month.

The last seven months show an annual rate in excess of 12 percent. 

The air traffic controllers have been on strike since June 26. They say that an agreement in 1994 promises them the opportunity to make 35 percent higher pay but that changes in the structure of the organization have eliminated that possibility.

The air controllers union representatives warn of 

Right now controllers imported from other Latin American countries are running the air traffic net.

The decree setting the salary increase for public employees came after negotiations broke down. Union leaders wanted at least a 6 percent raise. The government originally offered 3.5 percent.

The increases reflect the fact that the national currency, the colon, continues a programmed devaluation. Nearly 200,000 public employees are involved in the negotiations. The 4.5 percent raise actually would represent a slight pay cut based on the current inflation rate.

The raises will become law when the decree is published in La Gaceta, the official newspaper. Employees will be paid retroactively.

The government has complained that it does not have the resources to pay higher salaries. Pacheco is counting on the legislature passing the fiscal reform package and its host of new taxes. The government estimates that the new taxes will bring in $500 million more a year.

Giving in to the public employees and the air controllers could jeopardize passage of the tax package.

The InterAmerican Court of Human Rights says Costa Rica violated the liberty of expression of a La Nación newsman. The legally binding decision vacates a criminal conviction against the newsman, Mauricio Herrera Ulloa.

The case stems from articles Herrera wrote in 1995 about Felix Przedborsky, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Commission. Przedborsky sued the newsman and La Nación for defamation, which is a crime here. The articles involved a $250 million arms deal in Belgium.

Eventually in 1999 Costa Rican courts found that Herrera had defamed the diplomat and ordered him to pay 60 million colons in damages and to be listed as a convicted criminal.

The InterAmerican court stayed the payment of the fine in 2001 while it studied the case.

Today, its decision awards Herrera $20,000 in emotional damages, $10,000 in legal fees and it orders that his name be stricken from the list of convicted criminals.

Costa Rica recognizes the authority of the InterAmerican court, which is based in San José and part of the Organization of American States. The Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto responded to the decision by saying Costa Rica respects the jurisdiction of the court. There is no appeal from the right court decision.

Residents of the Northern Zone got a chance to air their views over the weekend about a proposed open pit gold mine there.

The Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental held a public hearing as part of the permit process.

The Canadian firm Vanessa Ventures, and its 

Opposition exists in Nicaragua, too, because the site is only three kilometers from the San Juan River.

The statements at the hearing will become part of the record.

SAO PAULO, Brazil — John Danilovich, the former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, says his country applauds the emergence of Brazil as a world leader.

Danilovich, who has been on the job here for just a week, gave his first major speech as the U.S. ambassador to Brazil Tuesday. He said the United States welcomes the roles that the South American nation has assumed in the Western Hemisphere.

The talk was at the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Institute here. Danilovich outlined the commonalities that shape the U.S.-Brazil relationship. He noted that both nations value democracy and free trade, while also sharing concerns over problems such as poverty, illegal narcotics and social exclusion.

Danilovich said that Brazil’s president,  Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was continuing the country’s active internationalist diplomacy of the previous administration and that this is something the United States welcomes. "We see Brazil as a partner, a good partner, a robust partner, a democratic partner with real weight and importance," he said. He expressed confidence that the two nations can work together 

The ambassador said the United States encourages the leadership roles that Brazil has assumed in resolving crises in Haiti, Bolivia and Venezuela. More broadly, he said the United States is pleased to note Brazil's elevated global profile.

"We have watched with admiration and respect as Brazil becomes a beacon for citizens of developing countries everywhere, giving them hope and a voice on the international stage that they would otherwise not have," Danilovich said. "We applaud the emergence of Brazil as a world leader."

Danilovich said he looks forward to working with Brazil's government, private sector, and civil society to advance the common agenda of the United States and Brazil.

Da Silva, a former union leader popularly known as Lula, is Brazil’s first leftist president in nearly 40 years. He succeeded Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a two-term president, whose center-right government enacted free-market reforms. Da Silva has toned down his socialist rhetoric although Brazil conntinues to be a stumbling block in the formation of a hemispheric-wide free trade area.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Leaders of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation say union president Carlos Ortega has returned to the country more than a year after seeking exile in Costa Rica. 

Union officials say Ortega returned over the weekend, but could not confirm his location. 

Ortega told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he planned to join opposition efforts to oust President Hugo Chavez. He said he returned to support democratic groups in the nation and was willing to fight the Chavez regime by any means necessary. 

Earlier this year, Costa Rica asked Ortega to leave the country due to his plans to work against Chavez's government. 

Marco Badilla, director general of Migración y Extranjería, confimed in San José Wednesday that Ortega left the country July 30. The union leader was on an American Air Line flight to Miami.
However, no one in Costa Rica could confirm that the union leader was back in Venezuela where a referrendum on Chavez is scheduled for Aug. 15.