Birthday party draws
mixed crowd of 75

Some 75 people showed up to celebrate the third birthday of A.M. Costa Rica Friday.

The party, held at the newspaper offices, was open to all readers, advertisers and friends. The weather cooperated as afternoon showers stopped before the 4 p.m. start.

The success of the party encouraged the newspaper editors to plan a similar event for next year.

The newspaper’s birthday is Aug. 15, but the party was held Friday, Aug. 20, because employees do not have to produce a Saturday edition.

Honduran security
beefed up at embassy

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The United States is taking additional security measures at its embassy here in the wake of press reports that al-Qaeda made threats.

The U.S. State Department made that disclosure after the department’s daily press briefing. Reporters had asked Adam Ereli, the department’s deputy spokesman, if the possible presence of a terrorist suspect triggered the terror alert.

Ereli said he did not know, and the written statement came after the briefing.

"The Embassy in Honduras has not received any direct threats," said the statement. "We are aware of press reports about the security situation in Honduras and are taking appropriate measures in coordination with Honduran security authorities."

The suspect is Adnan El Shukrijumah, who has been reported to be in the vicinity.

Event is a full house

Democrats Abroad say they have a full house for a picnic and voter registration drive Saturday at which Diana Kerry, sister of the U.S. Democratic presidential nominee, is expected to attend.

The event will be in Aserrí south of San José.

A.M. Costa Rica
Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.

James J. Brodell.........................editor
Saray Ramírez Vindas.... associate editor

Avenida 11 bis, Barrio Otoya, San José

 In Costa Rica:                    From elsewhere:

  A.M. Costa Rica                    Consultantes Río Colo.
  Apartado 12909-1000           SB 11
  San José, Costa Rica              P.O. Box 025292
  (506) 223-1327                    Miami, FL 33102-5292
 

The last and choicest mountainside 35.387 m2 (8.7 acres) development property offered at wholesale price Only $28 per square meter with easy bank & owner financing! Breathtaking 270º views Central Valley, Ciudad Colón, unpolluted fresh air & climate only 8 minutes from FORUM Office Center, quick access Prospero Fernando Freeway, shopping, new hospital, 20 minutes to San José. Zoned and ready to go. Contact Captain Haines, globaltrade@racsa.co.cr Tel (506) 249-4758 Fax (506) 249-1559 

The performance of Latin American economies improved significantly in 2004, but the region must maintain the disciplined macroeconomic policies and advance the legal, regulatory and institutional reforms to increase long-term economic growth, a U.S. Treasury official says.

Recent economic data indicate that the economic recovery in the region is getting stronger thanks to better economic policies and other factors after the difficulties in 2002, said John Taylor, Treasury undersecretary. He spoke Monday to a business group in Florida.

Taylor cited Brazil as a country where the impact of sound economic management on economic growth is most evident.

However, he said, much remains to be done in the region to improve the climate for investment and entrepreneurial activity.

Although the economic expansion has been partially boosted by high commodity prices, it also may derive from enduring structural changes, which are 

"This makes further progress on regional trade liberalization ... all the more important to the region's future prospects," he said.

Taylor expressed hope that the recent success in advancing World Trade Organization talks will carry over to the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations.

The agreement the 34 nations reached in Miami in November 2003 calls on all trade area participants to negotiate minimum levels of commitments in each of nine negotiating areas, while allowing countries that want to seek stronger ties to pursue their goals along separate tracks.

Taylor also highlighted Bush administration efforts to support economic growth in the region, increase international trade and promote policies that strengthen small business and encourage investment. He cited as examples the U.S. role in financial crisis prevention and containment, the U.S.-Brazil Group for Growth and the U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity.

I think you should start a new section . . .  to point out all of the stupid things that Costa Ricans passively put up with.

For example:  the stupid yellow hearts painted on the highways to indicate where people have died in car accidents. First of all, in most countries, anything yellow on a street means "do not cross" and anything painted within a lane should be in WHITE not yellow. 

Finally, do you think the families of those that died 

Anyway, maybe if you started a section to post "stupid things in Costa Rica" (posting pictures would be great) it might get the attention of those committing the stupid acts and finally get them to rectify them. It might also help boost your readership as many of these things are STUPID to the point of being entertaining.......

Another example:  The people squatting on government-owned land near the airport have delayed a $70,000,000 runway expansion project. 

JUST move the people. They have no rights to the government land.  Give them some land in Cartago — anything just get them to move. It is ridiculous that people with no rights can steal government land and stop an important project like the airport.

Just an idea, but one which I think should be started!

Officials have identified the Canadian tourist who died in the Río Pacuare Sunday as 19-year-old Cristina Dennett.

She was on a raft in the river, a famous whitewater

Ms. Dennett was with a group of tourists visiting the country for a short time, agents said.

Since 1914, when the new Panama Canal connected two oceans, rerouted the Chagres River on Panama's Atlantic slope into the Pacific Ocean and connected watersheds across the continental divide, fish from the Atlantic and Pacific sides of Panama have intermingled. 

But the mix has not resulted in extinction of fish in tributaries on either slope, according to a U.S.-Canadian research team. 

In 2002, scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Canada's McGill University visited the Chagres and the Rio Grande Rivers to collect fish. They found that three new fish species had colonized the Chagres River and 

This work makes a significant contribution to the understanding of biological invasion, according to a Smithsonian press release, because it shows that dispersal — the active or passive movement away from the area where the fish hatched — played a more significant role than local ecological interactions in the structure of the fish communities in these two rivers, even after many generations of this great natural experiment.

The study is published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

Agents have detained a 30-year-old man they say was part of a gang of robbers who have been preying on educational institutions in the San José area.

The man was detained Friday at a home in Sabanilla de Montes de Oca, agents said. The man, who has the last name of Rugama,  is a resident of Hatillo and was believed to be hiding out in Sabanilla because he knew investigators were seeking him.

The stickup took place at the Colegio Adventista in Hatillo 1, a high school in a southern suburb. A vacationing investigator stumbled on a band of 

The man arrested Friday had an apparent bullet wound on the back of the right leg, agents said. They hope to learn the names of other suspects from the man.

The haul at the high school was about some 1.4 million colons, about $3,200.

A spokesman for the Judicial Investigating Organization said at the time of the Hatillo heist that the gang probably was the same one that held up Instituto Jiménez on Avenida 2 a week earlier. That, too, is an educational institution.

The Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional has a new director general. He is Juan Francisco Sans of Caracas, Venezuela.

He takes over from Dimas Madriz, according to an 

Chosei Komatsu is the director of the symphony and was reported to be enthusiastic over the appointment of Sans, a pianist who has a lengthy record of accomplishments in the music field.