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A.M.
Costa Rica
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Published Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, in Vol. 17, No. 154
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 154
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Government
issues a warning to migrants
By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
The central government restated Thursday its position opposing the entry of more illegal migrants. The announcement follows an outline of plans to handle migrants that was released Wednesday. A Casa Presidencial statement said that some 2,000 foreigners already were in the country and that there are large groups of Cuban migrants who want to leave Colombia on the way to the United States. President Luis Guillermo Solís was quoted saying that the country was respectful of human rights and dignity of migrants but that current conditions do not permit the entry of migrants or the possibility that they stay in the country. The government said Wednesday that about 80 percent of the migrants now in the country were from Haiti, although they have been considered of African origin. All are seeking to cross the U.S. southern border illegally, but Nicaragua has closed its borders to such migrants trapping them in Costa Rica. There are similar groups trapped in Panamá and Colombia. Casa Presidencial said that the government has put into operation an effort to detain migrants who have not presented themselves to immigration officials for temporary permission to stay. The government said the plan was to deport the illegals to their country of origin. The government said Wednesday that from 100 to 150 illegals are entering the country each day. Of course, these individuals are assisted by traffickers at the border, and the assistance of officials there could not be ruled out. More police have been ordered to the southern border. Tourist family of four dies in water mishap By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
A family of vacationing North Americans, believed to be U.S. citizens, was swept away by a water surge Thursday afternoon. Three persons are dead, and searchers were to start early today to seek the body of the fourth person, a boy. The four were believed in a pool of the Rio Negro, which flows through the Hacienda Guachipelín hotel and resort north of Liberia at the edge of the Parque Nacional Rincón de la Vieja. The hotel promotes its hot pools with water produced by the volcano. Reports from the scene said that an unusually big slug of water containing debris swept over the family. The first person encountered by rescue workers was a man in his 30s, they said. Later the bodies of another man and a woman were located. Bar presumed to be a victim of arson By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Another upscale bar has been torched with substantial loss of property. This is the Bar Rapsodia, which is a block east of Parque la Sabana on Paseo Colón at the southwest corner of Calle 40. An investigation has been launched because someone firebombed the front door of the establishment a week ago without much effect. Fire officials said the alarm came in at 3:35 a.m. after closing hours. The entire second floor was ablaze when fire fighters arrived. Another downtown bar suffered a firebomb attack that did little damage. But then a short time later it was gutted by fire.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Ro
Colorado S.A 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 154
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| Platina
bridge once again loses some concrete and slows traffic |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Back in 2009, the so-called Platina bridge was a joke. By now the inability of the government to make permanent repairs has turned it into a financial black hole. The concrete deck of the bridge gave way again Thursday leaving a hole in the eastbound lanes. Officials plan to close the bridge Tuesday and Thursday nights for repairs. The bridge was closed overnight into this morning while workers installed a metal plate over the hole. The initial effort to put a wood panel on the hole only lasted a short time Thursday afternoon. Naturally, there were major traffic jams. The government has reinforced the underside of the bridge in anticipation of widening it to three lanes in each direction. The Autopista General Cañas is three lanes on either side, so the |
bridge
is a choke point for traffic. There are plans to
resurface the entire bridge at the end of the year. The best the traffic police could do Thursday was to put up some cones and an orange plastic barrier over the hole. But motorists had more to worry about Thursday than the bridge over the Río Virilla. There were heavy afternoon rains in some sections. Avenida Segunda near the Fuente de Hispanidad in San Pedro was flooded and some vehicles stalled. There were some accidents on the Circunvalación to which rain may have contributed. The central government has begun allowing public employees to report to work in shifts with the goal of reducing peak hour jams. But the initial result is that the jams are now prolonged. The first shift begins at 6:30 a.m. Some workers also have the option to work just four days a week. There also is a bill in the legislature making provisions for telecommuting. President Luis Guillermo Solís urged motorists to have patience. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this
Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced
anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 154
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| Rural
school in Nicoya is this year's heritage award winner |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The government will invest 120 million colons, about $220,000, to restore a rural school in Quebrada Honda de Nicoya. That was announced Thursday as part of the program held every year to finance the restoration of heritage structures. The Escuela Andrés Briceño Acevedo is 115 years old and suffered damage in the 2012 Nicoya earthquake that reduced the use of all its space. The project was presented to the Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural with the Chorotega name Proyecto Neenda Yokue. The school now hosts about 30 primary and pre-primary students, said the center, an agency of the Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud. Cedar and pachote wood was used to build the school, said the center. The proposal is to restore the full use of the building and change the electrical system as well as reinforce walls and floors and change the windows. A complete paint job is part of |
 Centro de
Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio
Cultural photo
The Escuela Andrés Briceño
Acevedo
the plan, according to the center. Each year the center selects one project from those submitted by mainly architects for a government subsidy. This year the winning project came from Josué Rodríguez and Jazmín Granados, said the center. There were 15 submissions. |
Here's reasonable
medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents
of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 154
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to Iran as not being secret By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. President Barack Obama denied that a payment of $400 million in cash to Iran on the same day as a hostage release was some nefarious deal and said that the transfer was announced in January, a day after implementation of the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran. "It wasn't a secret," he said. "We were completely open about it." He said the one new piece of information, reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, was that the payment was made in cash, in non-U.S. currencies, delivered in an unmarked plane. Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Obama said there was a reason the payment was made in cash. "The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with Iran, so that we could not send them a check and could not wire the money," he said. Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. does not pay ransom, in response to criticism of the payment on the same day Tehran released four American hostages. U.S. officials said the January payment was partially to settle a decades-old dispute over an aborted arms deal. But critics, especially those who oppose the Iran nuclear deal, have termed it a ransom payment. U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said in a statement that "paying ransom only puts more American lives in jeopardy. We already know the Iran nuclear deal was a historic mistake. It keeps getting worse." House of Representatives Majority Whip Steve Scalise cited Iranian media reports quoting senior defense officials as saying they considered the cash as a ransom payment. "By paying Iran $1.7 billion in what Iranian officials themselves are calling a ransom, the Obama administration is showing us once again how horrible their nuclear deal is for America's national security," he said in a statement. "It is an insult to American taxpayers that their hard-earned dollars are being literally airlifted by the hundreds-of-millions to the world's leading state sponsor of terror." The U.S. stacked the cash in euros, Swiss francs and other currencies on wooden pallets and flew it into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane. It was the first installment on a $1.7 billion settlement stemming from the failed U.S. weapons pact with Iran in 1979 just before its last monarch, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was toppled. The U.S. dispatched the cash in foreign currencies because any transaction with Iran in dollars is illegal under U.S. law. On the same day, last Jan. 17, Iran released four Americans, including The Washington Post's Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian, Marine veteran Amir Hekmati, Christian pastor Saeed Abedin and a fourth man, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, whose disappearance had not been publicly known before he was freed. The cash transfer and the release of the hostages came at the same time as Iran's deal with the United States and five other world powers restraining Tehran's development of nuclear weapons, along with the lifting of sanctions that had hobbled Iran's economy. President Barack Obama said at the time, "With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well," referring to the 37-year-old arms deal that was never carried out. But Obama did not disclose the $400 million payment, a fact revealed by The Wall Street Journal in a Wednesday story. Iranian media reports have quoted senior defense officials as saying they considered the cash as a ransom payment. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, of complicity in the payment. GOP leaders’ concern grows over Donald Trump’s slide By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
If Hillary Clinton is elected president in November, Republicans may look back on the week just passed as a turning point in the race. Republican Party leaders are increasingly concerned about recent national and state polls that show the Democratic nominee surging into a lead over Republican Donald Trump. Polls in battleground states such as New Hampshire, Michigan and Pennsylvania show Clinton leading by substantial margins. These came on the heels of national polls by CNN and NBC that showed Trump trailing by at least 8 percentage points. The surveys came in the wake of last week’s Democratic National Convention, which appeared to give Mrs. Clinton a 5- to 7-percentage-point boost, a normal occurrence after a party convention. But they also seemed to reflect the fallout from a series of controversies involving Trump that have sparked negative reactions from not only Democrats but also some prominent Republicans. Trump remained defiant on the campaign trail despite the fretting by Republican leaders. He told a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, Wednesday that his campaign was in fine shape and remained on track to win in November. “So I just want to tell you the campaign is doing really well. It has never been so well united,” Trump said to cheers. Trump’s difficult week began with his feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Muslim American parents of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in the Iraq War in 2004. Khizr Khan denounced Trump at last week’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia, and Trump’s combative reaction to the Khans drew a negative response from key Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Trump also sparked a backlash among party leaders for refusing to endorse both Ryan and McCain in upcoming primary elections. The controversies swirling around Trump have some Republican leaders worried that his undisciplined approach to the campaign is helping Mrs. Clinton and could hurt Republican hopes to hold their majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives. Mrs. Clinton appears in lead with state electoral votes By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. presidential elections are only nominally national contests and are not decided by the popular vote. The outcome is decided in the 50 individual states as the candidates look to win the Electoral College, with each state's impact on the outcome dependent on its population and representation in Congress. Both Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of State, and Republican Donald Trump, a real estate tycoon seeking his first elected office, are trying to get to a majority 270 of the 538 electors to claim a four-year term in the White House. Now, new polling released Thursday shows her surging to leads over Trump in four key battleground states, even as she pulls further ahead in national voter surveys. Other projections show her with a wide edge over the one-time television reality show host in Electoral College projections, but often not yet reaching the 270 majority figure as they fight to win swing states where Democratic and Republican support is almost evenly divided in U.S. presidential elections. One political analyst, Amy Walter, said this week, "She has more options to get to 270 than he does. She is clearly the favorite. But, this race is not over." The latest battleground polling shows Mrs. Clinton opening a 9-percentage-point edge in the midwestern state of Michigan, a 15-point advantage in the northeastern state of New Hampshire, an 11-point lead in the eastern state of Pennsylvania and a 6-point margin in the southeastern state of Florida. All are states where Trump has campaigned and is looking to reverse Democratic voting trends in recent elections to gain an edge in the November election to replace President Barack Obama when he leaves office in January. National polls also show Mrs. Clinton, seeking to become the country's first female president, surging to bigger, but not insurmountable leads over Trump. In an average of polls, Mrs. Clinton is ahead of Trump by about six points, 47.4 percent to 41.5, although the most recent poll by Fox News pegged her lead at 49-39 in the days after she and a raft of speakers denounced Trump at last week's Democratic National Convention. Veterans denounce Trump over stand on minorities By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. military veterans denounced Donald Trump and delivered petitions Thursday to Capitol Hill, urging Sen. John McCain and other Republican elders to withdraw endorsements of their party's presidential nominee. "Donald Trump's reckless ignorance about America's responsibilities in the world shocks me to the core," said Marine veteran Alexander McCoy. "We have listened as he praised and has been praised by brutal dictators. We have listened as he threatened to abandon our most loyal allies. . . . I am done listening. "We cannot afford to have Donald Trump as commander in chief," McCoy added. "Donald Trump's hate speech, bigotry and unabashed incitement to violence against minorities, to include the Muslim community, desecrate the very values of liberty and equality which we as American military veterans swore an oath to protect," said Muslim Navy veteran Nate Terani. "It should be the solemn duty of lawmakers like Senator John McCain to denounce and unendorse Donald Trump." Trump has faced a backlash, including from prominent Republicans, for belittling Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Muslim parents of the U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. Khizr Khan, who runs an immigration business, blasted Trump's proposed ban on Muslim immigrants, drawing the candidate's ire. The episode is the latest in which Trump's words have put Republicans on the defensive, including many lawmakers seeking reelection in November. Meanwhile, a few prominent Republicans have offered tepid defenses of Trump's comments about the Khan family. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who competed in the Republican presidential primaries, has said the Khans and Trump should apologize to each other. Trump initially took to Twitter to complain that Khan does not know him but viciously attacked him at the Democratic National Convention and in subsequent television interviews. Obama says briefing required for presidential candidates By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
President Barack Obama said Thursday that his administration was required by law to give national security briefings, including classified information that is not disclosed to the public, to major presidential nominees. This includes Republican Donald Trump, whom Obama has called unfit to serve as president. During the past year of political campaigning, Trump has become known as a public speaker who often ignores prepared texts and relies instead on spontaneous remarks that are sometimes seen as unusually frank or critical of other American public figures. That has prompted concern in some quarters about how Trump would treat information gained from national security briefings. "If they want to be president," Obama, speaking of party nominees, told reporters at the Pentagon, "they've got to start acting like a president, and that means being able to receive these briefings and not spread them around." The main reason for the nominees' briefings, Obama said, is to ensure that a president-elect, whether a Democrat or a Republican, does not step into the job unprepared. Trump, meanwhile, has told supporters at campaign rallies that he is concerned the U.S. election in November will be rigged against him. Obama dismissed that claim Thursday as ridiculous. Libertarian and Green picks getting more media exposure By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
With U.S. voters continuing to hold unfavorable views of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, parties outside the two that dominate the country's politics are getting rare national exposure. The last president who was not either a Democrat or Republican left office in 1853, and while many different parties field candidates each election, few ever get any real support. Some of that has to do with systemic hurdles that keep those candidates from getting their message to a large enough number of voters. But on Tuesday, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and his running mate Bill Weld appeared on a CNN town hall for the second time during this year's campaign, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her choice for vice president Ajamu Baraka will get their chance Aug. 17. Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, and Ms. Stein, a physician, were the most successful third party candidates in the 2012 election, but even their third and fourth place finishes were not in the same league as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. Obama got 66 million votes to beat Romney's 61 million, while Johnson had 1.2 million and Stein about 500,000. Just after the Democratic and Republican conventions in 2012, polls showed 4 percent of voters supporting Johnson and 2 percent supporting Ms. Stein. Polls during the past week show each has double that level of support right now. The candidates need to do even better to reach the 15 percent support needed to be allowed in the three planned presidential debates. They also need to convince voters that choosing them is not wasting a vote on a candidate who cannot win. "There’s no chance of winning without being in the presidential debates, and I base that too on last week a projection that the first presidential debate is going to garner more audience than the Super Bowl," Johnson said Wednesday. "So our really our strategy is to win this thing outright, and some extraordinary things have to happen, but has there ever been a more extraordinary political year in our lives?” Weld said he has no problem with people wasting a vote, though he had a different outlook on what that would mean. "If we get in the debates we’re going to win this whole thing," he said. "If you want to waste your vote on Trump or Clinton, be our guest.” Another challenge the smaller parties face is the massive disparity in fundraising between them and the major parties. But Weld said Wednesday politics has entered a new era. “When you get further down the election cycle it’s not like the old days where if somebody had a two-to-one edge in their campaign account that they were going to win the election on that account," he said. "Not with the free publicity from the debates and the fact that campaigns can move 10 points in the polls based on something going viral on the web.” Johnson predicted their fundraising will make a significant jump, while also characterizing their more frugal campaign as an example of how they would govern. "We'd do the same thing in office, providing the best bang for the buck," Johnson said. Weld said their administration would work in a much less partisan fashion that would be refreshing and include bringing in the best staff regardless of party affiliation. Libertarians can be seen as a kind of mashup of typical Democratic and Republican policies, more liberal on social issues like the Democrats and more fiscally conservative like the Republicans. "We want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom, and I tell you the polling shows a majority of Americans think that," Weld said. Johnson described a foreign policy that would work to protect the United States from terrorism, but not support the type of regime change abroad that he said has led to "unintended consequences of making things worse." He also advocated the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, saying that should have happened within the first year of the war and that any consequences of leaving that exist now would still be there if the decision were to be made 20 years from now. Republican candidate Donald Trump is campaigning under the slogan "Make America Great Again," something that many Democratic leaders countered in speeches at their convention saying the country is already great. Johnson said that despite some challenges that need to be addressed, "I don't think life in America has ever been better." |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents
of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 154
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Study says music skews
views of sharks
By the University of
California, San Diego news staff
In a new study, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego found that the background music in shark documentaries affects viewers’ perceptions of sharks. The researchers suggest that ominous background music could hinder shark conservation efforts. Scripps scientist Andrew Nosal and a colleague at Harvard University recruited over 2,000 online participants to share their attitudes toward sharks after watching a 60-second video clip of sharks swimming. They compared the results of the participants who watched the clip set to ominous background music to those watching the same video clip set to uplifting background music or silence. Participants who viewed the video with ominous background music rated sharks more negatively than those who viewed the clip with uplifting music or no music. “Given that nature documentaries are often regarded as objective and authoritative sources of information, it is critical that documentary filmmakers and viewers are aware of how the soundtrack can affect the interpretation of the educational content,” said Nosal, the lead author of the study published in the journal PLOS ONE. One killed in Quepos shooting incident By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A shootout left a man dead in Quepos Thursday afternoon. The Fuerza Pública said that they were told that men in a car were engaged in a shooting in the center of the community. A short time later, police located four men in a car near the local hospital. One of the vehicle occupants was dead, they said. The remaining three men were detained, and the Judicial Investigating Organization is in charge of the case. German kiddie porn probe leads here By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Based on a tip from German police, judicial agents here said they traced a computer IP address to a location in San Francisco de Dos Ríos where they detained a man on a child pornography allegation Thursday. Agents said they confiscated computers and other electronic devices. They said that the German federal police obtained the computer address in a 2014 investigation and that the office of the International Police Agency there alerted them. |
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| From Page 7: Miami center will store and ship Tico products By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
The Costa Rican Trade Center has opened in Miami, Florida, giving exporters here better access to the U.S. market. The center gives Costa Rican firms the option of storing their wares until they can be distributed to buyers. This is a public-private undertaking to make imports to the U.S. and distribution easier, said the Promotora del Comercio Exterior de Costa Rica. Some Costa Rica food firms already are using the facility for storage of cookies, pastas, palm products, jams and jellies, sugar, teas and chocolate, said the promotional organization. Some Costa Rica firms already store quantities of their products in the United States for quick delivery, but the accumulation of various firms using this center appears to have generated interest in the country’s products. Some 80 representatives of buyers were present at the opening of the center, said the promotional organization. |
