Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Thanks for the article by Christian Burnham on the Riptide Experience. In light of the many drownings each year, especially on the Pacific side, and many of these due to riptides, let me share some information that someday will save your life:

As a lifeguard, I am aware that much education is needed when it comes to this subject. People in general are quite ignorant about this phenomenon, Riptide, and its name does not do anything at all to clarify this. 

Let me give it a try. One of the reasons for a Riptide, especially the ones off the Costa Rican coast, is the amount of seawater, driven to the beach by the ocean's movement. All this water clearly can not pile-up or go uphill, so, depending on the local conditions, this "extra" water starts to flow back into the ocean. Most of the time this is hardly noticeable, but on occasion, it forms "rivers," that stream into the sea. 

Sometimes you can see these flows from the beach. Jaco has them, but, due to the gentle surf there, they are mostly very benign. Usually! Never take the ocean for granted! Playa Manuel Antonio seems to have a constant area where a very strong Rip Current is present most of the time. Many people there have succumbed to this. At Dominical even more so, due to the rugged geographical conditions there.

Now, as Christian indicated in his article about his personal experience, nothing was "ripping" or "grabbing" at him. If it had not been for visual references to the beach, he might not have even known that he had ended up in one of these currents. 

Of course, with a view of a quickly disappearing playa and loss of foothold, in spite of his common sense, he struggled anyway for five minutes. If the sea would have been rough enough for the waves 
to wash over his head, he might have drowned right then and there. Getting exhausted in the 

The technique that he used to finally make it back, this "riding the waves" is excellent. Use the power of the ocean to return to safety, but it would have worked better outside the riptide. 

Fortunately, Riptides or Ripcurrents are not very wide, one can swim across one in a matter of minutes. Instead of panicking and swimming against it, just relax and swim parallel to the beach. Do not attempt to swim towards the beach but rather "up or down." Pretty soon you will be outside the Rip Current and the seaward movement will have seized. Now you can either ride the waves back in, much like you would on a boogy board, or swim back.

If you are not a strong swimmer, you have no business going more than waist deep into any ocean. Know your limitations, keep an eye on the kids at all times, and never, never underestimate the power of Mother Nature!

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I was reading your article on how a rip tide incident almost ended up in disaster. The problem with this problem is that no education on the subject is ever published in Costa Rica, so many tourists and more Ticos die each year. 

There need not be ANY deaths. All a person has to do is swim parallel to the land when they are caught in a Rip Tide and they will swim out of it. Then they can swim to shore. Another way is just to go with the Rip Tide and it will quit pulling you out in a few minutes. Then you may have a longer swim to shore then the first way but you will live. 

I wish this would be posted on every beach and school in Costa Rica. Just a simple thing like that would save many lives per year. 

Drug police arrested a naturalized Canadian citizen Tuesday when he was on his way to Atlanta in the United States.

Police said he had ingested small packets that totaled 1.2 kilos of heroin. The man was identified by his last names of Morales Alvarado, 58, said police. He is Guatemalan by birth, they said.

Agents said they noticed the man acting suspiciously at Juan Santamaría Airport. The man’s body contained 98 packets of heroin that were removed at the Hospital De Alajuela, said police.

Some tourists to U.S.
will be fingerprinted

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Some foreign visitors to the United States will be fingerprinted and then checked against a criminal data base.

That was revealed Monday by Attorney General John Ashcroft as he announced that the Immigration and Naturalization Service next month will begin implementing new requirements for foreign visitors as they enter and exit the United States.

An evaluation and testing period for the new system will begin Sept. 11, the Department of Justice said. At selected ports of entry, a small percentage of entering foreign visitors will be fingerprinted; then, the results will be checked against a criminal database. The new system will also require that visiting aliens designated as high-risk keep authorities informed of their whereabouts through the duration of their stay in the United States.

Another source said that all tourists, students or businessmen from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria who are granted visas to enter the United States will be photographed and fingerprinted when they enter the country. Other visitors also may be fingerprinted.

Outlined in the USA PATRIOT Act approved by the Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the new system will be in effect at all U.S. ports of entry by Oct. 1, according to the department press release.

Concerns on water
conference keynoter

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Klaus Toepfer, head of the United Nations Environment Program, has called on world leaders who will attend the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development to tackle the growing global water crisis before it’s too late.

In a keynote address to the Stockholm World Water Symposium, Toepfer said it is vital that countries start implementing the Millennium Declaration goal to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who do not have access to safe drinking water — currently 20 percent.

Quoting a recently released third Global Environment Outlook report, Toepfer said 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion lack access to improved sanitation.

Toepfer called for revisions in water pricing to reflect the true cost of the resource, taking account of the economic, social and environmental value of water.

Water is one of five central issues on the agenda of the world summit that starts in Johannesburg, South Africa Aug. 26. Heads of state from more than 100 countries are expected to attend the summit.

Population instability
blamed on misuse

A top United Nations official says the world's population faces long-term instability unless nations cooperate on conservation of natural resources. 

Undersecretary General Nitin Desai told a news conference Tuesday that he hopes President George Bush will join around 100 other leaders to discuss the problem at a world conference on sustainable development in Johannesburg, South Africa. The so-called "Earth Summit" is scheduled to take place from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4. 

Desai says global participation is essential to develop policies on resource use. He says three million people die each year from the effects of air pollution, while two million more die from contaminated water. 

A U.N. Department for Economic and Social Affairs report released Tuesday concludes that the planet faces interrelated crises in five areas - water, energy, agriculture, biodiversity and health. 

The study says sea levels rose and tropical forests, mostly in Latin America and Africa, were destroyed at unprecedented rates during the 1990s. 

Enterprise winner
stresses responsibility

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Peruvian credit union, a Nicaraguan foundation that provides micro-credit, and a non-governmental organization that supports the poorest regions in Brazil are the 2002 winners of the Inter-American Awards for Micro-Enterprise Development, presented by the Inter-American Development Bank.

The bank said Monday that the winner of its annual award for social entrepreneurship is Oded Grajew, founder of the Ethos Institute, a Brazilian organization that advocates corporate social responsibility.

The Peruvian award-winner is Municipal Savings and Loans of Arequipa, a credit union cited for its leadership and innovations in client services and financial performance. The credit union serves more than 100,000 clients through its 13-agency network in southern Peru and has plans to expand to Lima.

The Nicaraguan winner is the Foundation for the Support of Micro-Enterprise. This foundation overcame the upheaval triggered by Hurricane Mitch, which struck the country in 1998, to boost efficiency and maintain profit margins even after cutting its interest rates, said the bank.

The non-governmental organization World Vision Brazil won for providing technical service, training, and marketing services to small farmers and indigenous communities in some of Brazil's poorest areas. 

Toledo defends
wife in scandal

LIMA,  Peru —President Alejandro Toledo has publicly defended his wife, Eliane Karp, from accusations that her $10,000 a month bank consulting job is unethical. 

In a televised address Monday, Toledo blasted attacks on Peru's First Lady as a bid to undermine him politically. "Above everything, she is my wife and I demand respect for her," he said. 

His comments were his first public reaction to a scandal that has been broiling since the newspaper, La Razon, disclosed Friday that Ms. Karp had been working since January, 2001, for the Wiese Sudameris Bank.  The bank is under investigation for its links to Peru's former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and former president Alberto Fujimori concerning a corruption scandal.  The president's wife was not in Peru to respond to the widening scandal. She has been on vacation in Tahiti with their daughter, Chantal. 
 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Argentina's economic crisis has had "multiple" negative effects on that country's neighbors, says a United Nations economic agency for the Americas.

The repercussions of Argentina's crisis for neighboring countries has adversely affected trade in goods and services, inflows of foreign resources and remittances from migrant workers, the banking system, and the profitability of foreign companies with investments in Argentina and the region, says the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The agency said Argentina's crisis is "exacerbating" the difficulties that countries in the region were already facing "as a result of their own domestic problems and the shocks they have sustained in recent years."

The agency's conclusions were made in a recently released report called "Current Conditions and Outlook: Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2001-2002."

"The greatest danger of all is that these disturbances" in Argentina "could be transmitted to other economies," the report said, adding: "Contagion of this sort could trigger a systemic crisis in the region and perhaps even in other emerging economies. This threat is particularly serious because of the current fragility of the world's financial system." The report said the economic problems currently confronting Brazil have fueled these concerns.
 

Paraguay to get
$200 million credit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Monetary Fund  announced Tuesday that it will recommend a $200 million in stand-by credit arrangement for Paraguay. This recommendation is conditional on the Paraguayan government’s passage of important fiscal reforms, a law to help resolve problems in the banking sector, and introduction of lending limits on the state-owned development bank, the fund said in a press release.

Paraguay had requested IMF support for the economic reform program it is implementing to allow the nation to better address the effects of economic turbulence in the region, according to fund Deputy Managing Director Shigemitsu Sugisaki.
 

Brazilian official
cools to free trade

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — A top Brazilian official says his country may not join the proposed western hemisphere free trade zone if the United States does not eliminate trade barriers to Brazilian products. The official, who spoke Tuesday, said he expects difficult negotiations ahead. 

The official is Trade, Development, and Industry Minister Sergio Amaral, who gave a cautious appraisal Tuesday of Brazil's prospects in the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. 

The U.S.-promoted FTAA was first proposed in 1994, and aims to establish a hemisphere-wide free trade zone in 2005. Negotiations to achieve this goal received a boost last week when President Bush signed legislation giving him expanded authority, commonly known as "fast track", to negotiate trade deals.

But speaking to foreign reporters in Rio, Trade Minister Amaral said despite Fast Track, Brazil is concerned about U.S. trade barriers on its products, especially in agriculture and steel. For this reason, Amaral said, his government views FTAA trade talks with caution. 

"Brazil is cautious, because the main export products to the United States face some kind of trade restrictions," he said. "Sometimes very high tariffs, for instance on orange juice; sometimes very small quotas; sometimes safeguards like on steel; sometimes a very significant subsidy [or] domestic financial support for producers that in effect take Brazilian products out of the U.S. market."
 
 

Professional Directory A.M. Costa Rica debuts its professional and service directory where business people who wish to reach the English-speaking community may provide a description of what they do. If you are interested in being represented here, please contact the editor. Dentists United States Dentist in Costa Rica: Dr. Peter S Aborn, Prosthodontics and general dentistry private practice. 25 years in New York City. 5 years in Costa Rica. Professor and director of postgraduate prosthodontics Universidad Latina de Costa Rica. Former chief of prosthodontics Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City. Education: N.Y.U College of Dentistry; Westchester County Medical Center; Eastman Dental Center; University of Rochester Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry. Location: 300 meters from the U.S. Embassy. Telephone: 232-9225. Cellular 379-2963. E-mail: jopetar@amnet.co.cr.  7/15/02  Lawyers American/Costa Rican attorney located in Costa Rica. Specializing in business law, commercial law, real estate sales, immigration law. Lic. Gregory Kearney Lawson. KEARNEY LAWSON & Asoc. Tel/Fax: (506) 221-9462 gkearney_lawson@hotmail.com 7/15/02 Legal and Consulting Specialists for Foreign Residents and Business Owners • Reliable and Responsive •  Excellent References Stafford, Obregón y Valle • Consultants • Lawyers • Notaries Apdo. 11846-1000, San Jose, Costa Rica Tel: (506) 253-9655   Fax: (506) 280-4576  Cel: (506) 386-9324 Email: ulimar@costarica.net 7/16/02 Real estate agents Coldwell Banker Coastal Properties Escazu www.coldwellbankercostarica.com Nancy Bruno nbrdsing@racsa.co.cr 289-5790 office 387-6820 cell Located in the new Plaza Itskazu, next to the Court Yard Marriott Escazu #203 MARGARET SOHN  of Carico 15 years Costa Rican real estate experience Member of the Costa Rican Real Estate Association, Lic. #1000  Member, Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce margaret@caricohenderson.com www.caricohenderson.com (506) 232-5016 home   (506) 233-8057 office  (506)382-7399 cell  2/9/03 Web design Professional Web site design and development in English, Spanish and Italian. Our services include: design and layout of Web site, search engine optimization and submission, Web  site hosting, e-commerce solutions (sell your products on your website by accepting credit cards online), registration of domain names and professional Internet consulting. We have complete 'one price' Web site packages that include design, marketing and hosting at low prices and includes a listing on our Web sites.  Visit www.istarmedia.net or e-mail us at webmaster@istarmedia.net or call at 399-9642 7/16/02