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Tuna farm idea aired at legislative committee By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Opponents of an underwater tuna farm in southwest Costa Rica brought their arguments to the Asamblea Legislativa Thursday for a hearing of the Comisión Especial de Ambiente. Opponents have filed a Sala IV constitutional court appeal to stop the project. They argue that the environmental studies were incomplete. That is the same argument that Denise Echeverría of Vida Marina gave the committee Thursday. Noah Anderson of the Asociación Protectora de Tortugas Marinas said that his group also has filed a complaint with the Tribunal Ambiental y Secretaría Técnica Ambiental of the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía, the environmental ministry. A man identified as Guillermo Baltodano of Punto Bravo said that the residents of the area were never notified of the project and that publication of legal notices in the official La Gaceta was not sufficient. A representative of the Cámera de Turismo also said that this group opposes the project. The firm Granjas Atuneras de Golfito S.A. plans on having underwater cages of some 2 kilometers long below the ocean surface to feed captive yellowfin tuna. Opponents argue that the tuna will generate waste and scrap food, attract predators and generally degrade the pristine Gulfo Dulce. Committee members said they would call in government environmental workers to add more information. The committee has the option of creating legislation related to such projects. U.S. tourists, two others held on robbery claims By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Three men, including a 25-year-old tourist from the United States, face robbery allegations after two gasoline stations were held up in the Jacó area. The men, the tourist and two Costa Ricans, 32 and 33, were arrested Wednesday at a cabina in the center of Jacó. they also face allegations that they held a taxi driver hostage for two hours, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. The U.S. tourist was identified by the Fuerza Pública as Vincent Michael. Police on patrol saw a vehicle containing three men enter a service station in Coyolar de Orotina about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Because the men left the station rapidly, the police on patrol decided to follow them. The car then entered the property of another service station, this one in La Pita de Tárcoles, and then left at high speed, said agents. The police on patrol followed the vehicle to the center of Jacó and learned where the occupants lived. However, the police did not make any inquires at the service stations. The next day, however, a robbery complaint was filed, and police began plans to arrest the men. Another complaint came from a pirate taxi driver who said that he had been kept in his vehicle for two hours and stripped of his cellular. The type of vehicle coincided with that used in the robberies, police said. Police said when they raided the cabina where the men were staying they found a cellular that appeared to be the one owned by the taxi driver. Gas prices to take dip following world prices By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Regular gasoline is going down 15 colons to 485 a liter, and super is going down 15 colons to 513, according to the government agency that controls the prices. One U.S. dollar is worth about 517 colons at the current exchange rate. The decrease was sought by the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo. Also being cut are the prices of jet fuel, kerosene and other petroleum products used commercially. The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos said the prices will become effective once the new rates are published in the official La Gaceta newspaper. The same agency announced a cut in liquid natural gas prices Wednesday. The reason is a decline n the world price of petroleum. Architect of new Estonia will visit Costa Rica By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Mart Laar, the former prime minister of Estonia, will be visiting Costa Rica next week. Laar is credited with developing policies that led to the amazing economic recovery of his country after the fall of the Soviet empire 15 years ago. Estonia has developed a stable currency, eliminated price controls and instituted a flat tax, said an announcement. Among other groups, Laar will be speaking to the American Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce. That will be Tuesday. Monday the visitor has a date with President Óscar Arias Sánchez. Estonia also has developed an electronic government in which many transactions are done over the Internet and paperwork is eliminated. The country has reduced the cost of government and corruption, said the announcement. Costa Rica also seeks to institute a form of electronic government. |
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on our real estate page HERE! |
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Costa Rica Third news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 184 |
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| The color of houses, belly buttons and a special list |
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| My friend Sandy had the best
explanation of the sudden appearance of such colorful paint on
houses. She said that it was only about 10 years ago that a
greater variety of colors appeared in the paint stores. When she
first came to Costa Rica in 1990 and wanted to paint her house in
Grecia, all she could find was white and what she calls “Portuguese
blue.” That is the color that people paint on the lower part of
their houses so that the mud splashed by the rain is not as
visible. (Sandy has seen the same color scheme in pictures of
Portugal.). Now we can go to another concern expressed by my friend Dos. Why, she wonders, do all of the Ticas wear their hair so long, their necklines so low and show their belly buttons? “It looks awful,” she says. “I think that’s a matter of opinion,” I say. “Well, see if you can find out,” she says. I try to explain to Dos that a careful study of women’s styles over the years will show that what streetwalkers and ladies of the night wear one year will show up on respectable ladies sometime in the next two years. That is why some men are befuddled as to whom they should or can approach. (The warm climate in Costa Rica might have something to do with the popularity of that fashion here.) It would be easier on everyone involved if we did what was done in ancient Greece. Pericles (I think it was Pericles), decreed what prostitutes should wear. This was a diaphanous mini-toga-like affair, which he designed himself. He also ordered them to dye their hair blond. All of this was not to make the women more attractive, but rather so that men did not mistakenly approach and pester respectable women in public. Of course, another reason young women wear their hair long, their necklines low and show their navels, is that they are imitating someone famous. In this case, I would guess that it is Brittney Spears, and it now is the fashion. This too, Dos, shall pass. That was last week. This week began with the anniversary of the hijacked planes’ destruction of the World Trade |
Center, the crashing into the Pentagon and downing of another plane in Pennsylvania. In 2001 I attended a Mass When I arrived, a woman and a very large man were standing at the
entrance to the park. She asked me for my name and began looking on a
sheet of paper with names on it.
Only those invited could attend, I was told. I told the woman that I
was a columnist and she asked the name of the paper. I told her and
she looked unimpressed. I left, disappointed, then walked back and
asked, “Are you from the American Embassy?” (From his size I knew he
was.) Both allowed as how they were. |
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Aid flows in for Nicaraguan alcohol poisoning tragedy
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The emergency was not an earthquake or a flood. Instead, the culprit was bad bootlegged alcohol, and the U.S. military was among those called upon to provide help. The U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua confirmed that more than 45 people there died from the alcohol poisoning and hundreds more were left ill. The victims died after drinking a toxic batch of alcohol mixed with a chemical called methanol, also known as "wood alcohol," which, when ingested, can cause blindness, organ damage and death from respiratory failure. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. military's Joint Task Force-Bravo, based in Honduras, responded. The task force said its military personnel responded to a request for help. The unit, comprising U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy personnel, conducts and supports humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations throughout Central America. The taskforce said it had provided more than $185,000 worth of medical equipment and supplies for the medical staff at the public hospital in the Nicaraguan city of León, at the center of the epidemic. It also said it provided support personnel and a three-man medical team for the hospital in León. A U.S. Embassy official in Managua said that vendors sold |
the contaminated brew primarily to the country's poorest population because the liquor costs less than rum or beer. Paul Trivelli, the U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, declared Sunday that there was a need for emergency assistance to Nicaragua to prevent further loss of life. The U.S. Agency for International Development said that its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance is providing up to $50,000 through the Pan American Health Organization to buy dialysis equipment and urgent medical necessities. U.S. Army Major Shawn Macleod, a family-practice physician on the medical team sent to León, said that the U.S. mission was "to go in, assess the situation at the hospital and provide any medical equipment and assistance that we could to help save the lives of those who had ingested the moonshine." Nicaragua's Health Minister Margarita Gurdian was quoted as saying that although Nicaragua's government had declared a state of emergency in León, "irresponsible vendors" were still selling the poisonous alcohol. She added, "what also worries us is that people continue to drink illegal rum, even though we have told them, using the media, to stop doing so." Minister Gurdian said Nicaraguan authorities had confiscated 47,893 liters (12,650 U.S. gallons) of the alcohol. News reports said the alcohol poisoning was first detected Sept. 3. |
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New pay phones will take money and a variety of cards
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The telephone company says it has begun the job of transforming the nation's 8,000 pay phones into uniform devices that accept money, phone card with an embedded chip and two other types of phone cards. The initial work has begun in Tres Rios, said the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. Phone users have been frequently frustrated by telephones |
that would not accept phone cards with chips or those that would not accept coins. The company announcement said that 2,000 of the new phones would be set up to send text messages, a service that is now only available from cell phones. The work will mean that some phones will be out of service, the state monopoly said. The company said that vancalism was taking it toll, too. |
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Fourth news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 184 |
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Earliest
evidence of writing yet attributed to Olmec culture
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services
Archaeologists have uncovered what they say is the oldest writing system by ancient people in the Americas. Experts say the hieroglyphs are not as sophisticated as those of early Egyptians and Chinese, but the writing system confirms the widespread influence of the oldest civilization in the Americas. The civilization is that of the Olmec in what is today Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The civilization flourished between 1,100 and 1,200 B.C. It was marked by the construction of large cities, colossal head sculptures and religious symbolism that formed the basis of civilizations throughout Mexico and northern Central America for centuries that followed. Now, researchers have uncovered a tablet with 62 lightly etched hieroglyphs depicting everyday life of the influential Olmec. Robert Houston is a member of an international team of archaeologists that is analyzing the stone tablet. The relic was found in the late 1990s by construction workers in a pile of rubble by the side of the road in an area known as Lomas de Tacamichapa in Mexico. Houston calls the discovery of a new writing system a once-in-a-lifetime event, but not surprising. "To be honest, what's surprising is that we hadn't found any evidence of literacy before because the full package of civilization seems to be there with the Olmec, and it wouldn't be shocking to anybody that they were that literate," he said. |
 Brown
University photo and graphic
Sixty-two signs incised on a
block of serpentine date to the first millennium B.C. and are thought
to be the earliest writing in the New World. The tablet, known as the Casajal block, measures 26 by 31 centimeters, and weighs almost 12 kilograms (about 26.5 pounds). Houston says the tablet depicts images of everyday life, such as an Olmec throne, corn and possibly fish. However, interpreting the writing is going to be difficult, Houston said, because the block appears to contain a number of different texts. "It has some icons that might refer to rulership," he said. "It does not appear, as far as we can tell, [to have] any numbers on it, which is what we would have expected, had it been an early accounting or tribute document." |
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Fidel
Castro says that he lost 42 pounds because of his illness and surgery
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has told an Argentine newspaper he is recovering from his surgery in July and regaining the weight he lost. In an article published Thursday, in the daily Pagina, Castro told Argentine journalist and congressman Miguel Bonasso that he lost nearly 19 kilograms after intestinal surgery, but has put back on about half of that. He said he has to take his recovery one step at a time. That's about 42 pounds. Castro has remained in seclusion so far as the Non-Aligned Movement meets this week in Havana. But the media coverage has raised hopes that he may still make a formal appearance before the meeting ends on Saturday. |
Wednesday, Cuban state television broadcast new
photographs of a thin
Castro, wearing a dark robe and seated at a table as he met with
Bonasso. Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said Castro has been giving orders over the phone. The Cuban leader's brother, Raúl, told the Communist Party newspaper, Granma, that people should not think Fidel Castro is lying back in bed. Raul Castro says his brother is keeping up on everything that is happening. Raúl Castro is serving as acting president while his brother recovers. |
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