Your daily
English-language
news source
Monday through Friday
|
|
Your daily |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Costa Rica Second news page |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
 |
 Click HERE
for great
hotel discounts
|
 A.M. Costa Rica/Saray Ramírez
Vindas
A long, deep pothole caught this Suzuki Sidekick Wednesday
night in Barrio Lomas de San Rafael Arriba de Desamparados.
Municipal workers fixed the road about three months ago but heavy rain
undid the work.Flooding hits Palmares,
but drier air expected By the A.M. Costa Rica staff About 100 homes in Palmares were flooded out by heavy rains Thursday, and some residents had to seek shelter. The good news is that the Instituto Meteorológica Nacional says that the weekend will be drier, thanks to a mass of dry air over the Caribbean and stronger winds from the north. Other flood-prone areas of the Central Valley were fighting rising streams Thursday, but the rains dwindled off about mid-evening. Official scurries for money to pay Limón dock workers By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Dock workers in Limón and Moín are threatening to strike again because the government has not paid them the $1 million it promised again and again since 2005. The executive president of Administración Portuaria y Desarrollo Económico de la Vertiente Atlántica talked to other officials about legal ways to raise the money. Government officials were expecting big exporters to ship and raise the money. The reached the latest accord with dockworker unions Aug. 9. But, according to Wálter Robinson, the executive president, the money never came through. Shippers had been asked in the past to ante up money for the dock workers. Robinson said he met with Roccio Aguilar, the contraloria de la República, and Fernando Herrero, the regulador general, seeking some legal way to pay the debt. Robinson also met with Rodrigo Arias, the minister of the Presidencia. The situation is important because the docks of Limón and Moín handle much of the country's exports, including bananas, fresh fruit and other produce. The money was promised to the dock workers by the Pacheco administration as part of the settlement to keep workers on the job. Housing scandal erupts involving Cartago project By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A scandal has surfaced involving a 480-unit public housing project in Oreamuno de Cartago. Judicial Investigating Organization agents staged four raids Thursday. Searched was the municipality, Banco Promerica in San José and two other San José locations. The investigation involved a 3.1 billion ($6 million) colon financing package from the state-operated Banco Hipotecario de la Vivienda set up during the Pacheco administration. There are complaints that the land and construction was way overpriced and that dead people and others who were not qualified are listed as the recipients of the housing, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. Our reader's opinion
He just doesn't like Blackwater 'profiteers' Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Kudos to Mr. J. B. Call and his fellow defense contractors based in Honduras. Their humanitarian work in Nicaragua was indubitably well done and much appreciated. That said, damn the mercenaries with Blackwater, et al. And the war profiteers that employ them (Isn’t that treasonous anymore? I guess not when oil men are in charge of our government). Aside from the fact that the war in Iraq is based on a deceptive premise: (where did they find those weapons of mass destruction again?), Irrational: (good thing we’re there instead of having sufficient forces to deal with the real threats offered by North Korea and Iran. We can’t “cut and run” because avoiding more America deaths would dishonor those who have already died?!?) Delusional: (Isn’t that democracy doing great? And gosh, maybe we can be the first invading forces in history to win a guerrilla war! If not, maybe we can just watch the civil war from the green zone!) The sociopathic killers (er, civilian contractors) with Blackwater are reportedly offered as much as $1,000 a day for former special-operations personnel to provide “private security,” compared with about $150 a day that the Pentagon pays a Green Beret with 20 years of experience. Is that really how we can best support our troops?!? Jim Shapiro
Carlsbad, Calif. |
|
 |
 |
|
on our real estate page HERE! |
|
Costa Rica Third news page |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| San José,
Costa Rica, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 189 |
||||||
 |
 |
| Place your bets on the wheel or on the unknown restaurant |
|||
| There have been some
requests
that I write about the new roulette wheel at the Club Colonial, the
casino on First Avenue. So I ventured out to try to understand it. The Colonial, next to the Del Rey, is probably one of the most popular casinos in the city. It has some of the best bocas in town and offers free dinners (buffet style) to players on Fridays and special holidays. It is undergoing some major interior construction, but for roulette players the electronic roulette wheel is the most interesting addition. Players sit at a large octagonal table in front of their individual boards — miniature roulette layouts. In the center of the table is the recessed wheel. Once you insert your 5,000-colon note (a bit less than $10 and the highest denomination it will take), you can place your bets, but only when it says, “Ponga sus apuestas,” and the creeping timer begins making its way across the bottom of your board. It will give you about 30 seconds to push the numbers you wish to bet. The numbers are in front of you and are not easy to push. When the ball drops the winning number appears under the miniature board in front of you, which is helpful since it is difficult to see it on the wheel. One of the keys on the left allows you to bet two fichas per number (Each ficha is worth 100 colons or about 19 cents.) Another allows you to repeat your bets from the last play. This is a good idea because I found this roulette to be more stressful than any of the human run-games. Casinos are popular here with both tourists and locals. Recently, with friends, I went to a restaurant that seems not to have caught on with either as yet. We were a group of long-time expats who seldom go to “tourist places” so we left the Cariari where we had had a meeting and headed for a restaurant called “La Cocina de Lena.” This is a popular concept here — meats roasted over wood fires. Lately I had been hungry for wood-roasted chicken so it sounded like a good idea to me. There was an old fashioned iron stove in view when we arrived, but I saw no spit turning as it browned whole |
chickens. The menu, which was on brown paper bags, did
not
feature chicken a la leña either. We asked the waiter and
were
told that there was nothing cooked with wood — that was just the name
of the restaurant. |
||
| Taxi fares shaved a bit because
of bureaucratic oversight |
|
|
By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
In the complex world of Costa Rican governance, a failure to hold a public meeting resulted in a reduction of taxi fares. The culprit was the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos. A recent Sala IV constitutional court decision voided that latest increase in taxi fares. The increase that figured in the decision was the second step of an increase put through in the last administration. There had been hearings for the overall plan. Still, Fernando Herrero, the regulador general. said that hearings are a sham because the average citizen does not |
really particpate. He said efforts would
be made to change that. The next audience is being called soon at the request of the Federación Nacional de Cooperativas de Taxi R. L., taxi drivers, who want an increase. Until then the first kilometer in an urban taxi will be 330 colons instead of 350, and additional kilometers will be 300 instead of 320. Taxis in rural areas have slightly different scales. 20 colons represents about 4 U.S. cents. Also Friday, the regulating agency authorized a reduction in diesel fuel from 364 colons a liter to 342, about a 6 percent drop. The decrease reflects the world price of petroleum. Liquid natural gas and aviation fuel dropped, too. |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
Fourth news page |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| San José,
Costa Rica, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 189 |
||||||
|
Even
Democrats are irked by Bush barbs by Hugo Chávez
|
|
|
By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services
Remarks by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, who hurled insults at President George Bush, brought a response Thursday from congressional Democrats. Two key lawmakers said they resented the Venezuelan leader's behavior on American soil. When U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel calls a news conference, it's usually to criticize President Bush and others in his administration on everything from domestic economic and social issues, to Iraq. But the veteran New York lawmaker paused before addressing reporters to watch a U.S. television network broadcast live remarks by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez in Harlem, the district in New York City that Rangel represents. The Venezuelan leader antagonized many Americans when he used his speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York to hurl insults at President Bush, who he called the devil. Chávez continued his verbal tirades Thursday, using an appearance at the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Harlem to call Bush, in the Venezuelan leader's words, "an alcoholic and a sick man." Rangel said the Venezuelan president should understand that however critical of President Bush he and other Democrats are, nothing justifies the kind of personal attacks made this week: "He has to understand that while we have problems politically sometimes with President Bush, that he is still |
our president and that we resent foreigners
coming and condemning our
president, whether it is at the United Nations or whether it is in my
congressional district," said Rangel. Earlier, the Democratic leader in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, had this angry reaction to the Venezuelan president: "Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had speaking at the U.N," said Ms. Pelosi. "In doing so, in the manner which he characterized the president, he demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela. Hugo Chávez fancies himself as a modern day Simon Bolivar, but all he is . . . an everyday thug." The interesting defenses of the president come as congressional Democrats are otherwise ramping up criticisms of Bush on foreign and domestic policy issues just a few weeks before November mid-term legislative elections. Republican congressional leaders offered no similar high profile responses to Chávez. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, dismissed the Chávez remarks saying they didn't warrant a response. The Venezuelan president coupled his new insult of Bush with the announcement that Venezuela will double the amount of discounted heating oil shipped to the United States to assist low-income Americans in the winter. Chávez has described the heating oil program as a way to help poor Americans neglected by the U.S. government. U.S. officials say it is politically-motivated and aimed at trying to burnish Chavez' image with Americans and help boost his credibility at home. |
|
Tuna
firm spokesman defends project as taking advantage of nation's potential
|
|
|
By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
A representative of the firm that wants to put a tuna farm underwater in southwestern Costa Rica said Thursday that the country should take advantage of its undersea resources. The representative is Eduardo Velarde Silva, and he spoke to the Asamblea Legislativa's Comisión Especial de Ambiente. China has 174,000 square kilometers of territorial waters and it is the No. 1 aquaculture producer, he said, noting that Costa Rica has 600,000 square kilometers and great potential. The commission heard a series of environmentalists speak |
against the project last week. As news of
the
project by Granjas Atuneras de Golfito S.A. spread, a firestorm erupted
among tourism officials and nature lovers. The project would put two-kilometer long cages beneath the sea to raise yellow fin tuna. Opponents say the project will litter the Golfo Dulce with dead sardines used to feed the tuna and cause a host of other problems. Velarde said that the project would be run in an environmentally conscious manner and that if the ocean were degraded, so would be the tuna business. |
| News from
the BBC up to the minute |
BBC sports news up to the minute |
| BBC news and sports feeds are disabled on archived pages. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
