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 Comisión Nacional de
Prevención de
Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias photo Big backhoe at work on the Quebrada
Calabaza
Cleanup work continues
in flood-ravaged areas By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Emergency commission contractors were at work in Palmares Monday clearing away debris from a river and ditches so that any future rainfall will not cause the kind of damage inflicted last week. The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias said that similar work was going on in San Ramón and in Desamparados. The work in Palmares involved the Río Azul and the Quebrada Calabaza. Saturday geologists with the commission listed 16 landslide areas in Palmares. Although the commission said these are not high risk areas, it suggested that local officials keep an eye on them. Fortunately for the battered communities, a dry air mass over the Caribbean has caused sunny weather since Friday. The commission also was working to clear the Río Cañas that flows through Los Guidos and San Juan de Dios de Desamparados. In Guanacaste, the Río Sequito flooded some 20 homes Thursday. That was the same day that in Palmares some 150 homes were flooded out. Residents are now cleaning the mud and trying to repair the patios that was swept away by the water. In Palmares some seven bridges were destroyed. Gas prices cut again thanks to no hurricanes By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Gas prices are being cut again. The agency that controls prices said Monday that super was going down 14 colons a liter to 499 and that regular was going down 16 colons to 469. There are about 520 colons to the U.S. dollar. The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos said that the decrease reflected a dip in price on the world market, no hurricane threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast and anticipation that the U.S. economy is slowing. The new prices will take effect after the decree is published in the official newspaper, La Gaceta, probably by the end of the week. Port agency slush fund will go to pay its workers By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The agency that runs the two Caribbean docks got the go ahead Monday to pay the estimated 470 million colons it owes workers. After government officials wracked their brains for a week trying to figure out how to legally pay the dock workers, it turns out that the Administración Portuaria y Desarrollo Económico de la Vertiente Atlántica had a few colons salted way. Make that 10 billion colons, about $19 million. The money comes from fees shippers pay to have their goods loaded and unloaded at the two main Caribbean ports: Limón and Moín. The money owed to dockworkers comes from a 2005 agreement negotiated by the Pacheco administration. At first officials thought they could get big shippers, like the banana exporting companies, to pay the money. They had done so under similar circumstances in the past, but this time they declined. Curiously, it was the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos which broke the deadlock. This is the agency that is in charge of setting rates for public services, like taxis and the docks. Dock workers had threatened to strike and invoked their usual technique of stalling when there is work to be done. The board of directors of the regulating agency worked late Sunday to decide that the port administration could use its money to pay workers. The port administration would still have $18 million left. However, the regulating agency, in its summary of the case, said that it is obvious that the port administration has been charging rates that are too high for years. The regulating agency will begin a study. Police continue crackdown on home-brewed liquor By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A home business is fine unless you are brewing bootlegged alcohol. That's what the Fuerza Pública says was happening at a home in the Guadalupe district of Cartago. Two men have been detained. There were identified by the last names of Campos Arias and Rodríguez Arrieta. Officers said that the men were trading the alcohol for kitchen appliances, CD players and just about any other kind of device purchasers could bring. Police have stepped up action against illegal stills after several hundred persons became sick and nearly 50 died from similar illegal liquors in Nicaragua. Intel going really big screen Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Intel Corp. and Omnicom Media Group has announced a collaboration to develop "10 foot" or large screen advertising templates for Internet-delivered advertising to TVs connected to Intel® Viiv™ technology-based computers. Ad-supported interactive viewing in the "10 foot" environment will help fuel more compelling and premium entertainment experiences, the companies said. Intel Viiv technology delivers a variety of rich, entertainment content to the TV from the Internet and provides a foundation for interactive and highly targeted advertising in the living room. |
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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, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 191 |
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U.S.
will launch effort against Pacific coast prostitution
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
The U.S. State Department is bankrolling an effort to attack prostitution in Costa Rica's Pacific coast. Appropriately, the kickoff will be Friday in Jacó, which is considered a major center for prostitution. Predictably, the effort will involve an international agency, the 55-year-old International Organization for Migration. Also involved is Fundación Rahab, which provides temporary and permanent housing, education and job training to women who leave prostitution. The name of the program is prevention, protection and attention to persons who are victims of trafficking in the Central Pacific region of Costa Rica. The project will not be fully outlined until Friday when representatives of key Costa Rican agencies are expected to attend the meeting in the Hotel Best Western Jacó Beach. These include the ministries of Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública, of Trabajo and of Turismo; the Instituto Nacional de la Mujer, Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social, the Dirección General de Migración and the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, the child welfare agency. Prostitution by those 18 and over is not treated as a crime in Costa Rica. So these Costa Rican agencies have been slow to take steps against prostitution, although immigration conducts occasional sweeps of tourist areas and detains Dominican, Panamanian, Nicaraguan and Colombian prostitutes they |
may find there. In fact, only
six years ago Costa Rican officials were denying that child
prostitution exists. Then when they were faced with clear evidence,
they claimed that child prostitution was a plague caused by North
American tourists. One solution was to hang posters at the airport. Prostitution in Costa Rica is a long-time cultural phenomenon that exists even in communities tourists hardly ever visit. The relative prosperity of Costa Rica and the presence of First World tourists lures prostitutes and would-be prostitutes here. The United States has declared zero tolerance for human trafficking, although many of the self-employed prostitutes here can hardly be characterized as victims. Many come to Costa Rica seeking that type of employment. Immigration has not had a lot of success because savvy foreign prostitutes quickly arrange fake marriages with locals here, and this allows them to stay in the country. For a time Russian and east European prostitutes were entering Costa Rica on visas that said they were Spanish-language students. Jacó is in the middle of a boom, and many business people, including prostitutes, have left the Central Valley for work there. A young Russian prostitute died there two years ago, the presumed victim of someone who wanted to collect a debt. A year earlier, an underage Nicaraguan prostitute died of a drug overdose after a party on a boat at the Los Sueños Marina, also on the central pacific coast. Fundación Rahab says that its work with former prostitutes includes spiritual counseling. |
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Fourth news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 191 |
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Crack
user is principal suspect in murder of U.S. expat in Rohrmoser apartment
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
A local crack addict has emerged as the principal suspect in the murder of a U.S. citizen in Rohrmoser last week. Investigators are working on the theory that the female addict tried to steal items from the home of the victim and that two men accompanying her committed the murder when the victim unexpectedly woke up. The crime is believed to have happened early Thursday. The victim is Mark Judson Watkins, 58, a retiree here who came from Florida. He had lived in several places in the metropolitan area over the last several years. |
Watkins was known for spending money on the
disadvantaged he encountered. A driver located his body when he came to pick up Watkins Thursday about 8:30 a.m. The man was not fully dressed and suffered three stab wounds to the body. An employee of the Morgue Judicial said that no results of an examination there would be available to be released for several days. The theory of the burglary turned to murder is supported by neighbors who reported seeing a trio leave the area in a vehicle early Thursday. |
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Defense
chiefs will meet next month in Managua to discuss common security
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Special to
A.M. Costa Rica
Western Hemisphere defense ministers will discuss forming common approaches to addressing transnational threats, strengthening regional security cooperation, and emphasizing the links among democracy, security and economic opportunity at the seventh Western Hemisphere defense ministerial, to be held Oct. 1 to 5 in Managua, Nicaragua. U.S. Department of Defense officials will join defense ministers of the 33 other democratic nations at the meeting. Representatives also will discuss peacekeeping operations in the hemisphere, response to natural disasters and other humanitarian operations, and the removal of land mines from the region, according to the Defense Department. Other scheduled participants include José Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States; Brazilian Brig. Gen. Jorge Armando de Almeida Ribeiro, chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board; Edwin Carrington, secretary-general of the 15-nation bloc of |
Caribbean nations known as CARICOM; and Marcela
Donadio, executive secretary of the Argentine-based Security and Defense Network in Latin
America, known by its Spanish acronym of RESDAL. The last group describes its mission as bringing together civil and military leaders throughout the Americas to discuss relations between governments and military. The Nicaraguan government said in its statement that it will be the first Central American nation to host the hemispheric defense ministers’ forum. The government added that the designation of Nicaragua to host the forum represents a “hemispheric recognition of the leadership our country has been developing in the areas of security and defense.” Nicaragua said it is promoting a regional program for arms limitation and control “to reach a reasonable balance of power in Central America,” the “unilateral destruction of a significant part of Nicaragua’s inventory of surface-to-air missiles,” and the destruction of the country’s total arsenal of anti-personnel land mines. |
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Leftist
rebels in Colombia may be getting ready to make a hostage swap
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services
Colombian rebels have released a video of lawmakers they have held hostage since 2002. The pictures released Sunday showed 12 hostages sending greetings to loved ones. The rebel Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia kidnapped the lawmakers more than four years ago in the city of Cali. |
Release of the video is seen as an
indication that the rebel group is seeking to exchange its hostages for
jailed rebels held by the government. The rebels asked for a demilitarized zone near Cali from which it can negotiate a prisoner swap with the government. The 12 politicians are among scores of hostages held by the leftist rebels. They were kidnapped in April 2002 by rebels disguised in military uniforms. |
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