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in death of Canadian By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Canadian tourist slipped and fell into a hotel pool in Playa Sámara Monday afternoon, and investigators are awaiting an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The man was identified as Alfred Hunsinger, 75, of Toronto. He had entered the country Saturday and was staying at the Hotel Belvedere, a hotel employee said. He was alone in the country. Hunsinger fell into the pool around midday, and he was dead when rescuers got him out, according to the Judicial Investigating Organization. The hotel employee said that Hunsinger suffered minor falls several times during his stay at the hotel. The autopsy will try to determine if the death was from natural causes, drowning or an injury. Man caught in New Jersey will face rape charge here By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
U.S. immigration officials have detained a Costa Rican national wanted to face a rape charge in Pérez Zeledón criminal court.
Officials here said he agreed to return to Costa Rica and is expected on a flight Friday. Grupo Nación exec dies in car-motorcycle crash By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The commercial director of Grupo Nación died Tuesday night in a head-on crash between his motorcycle and a car, the firm said. He was Luciano Cisneros Gallo, 47, a 22-year employee of the company which includes the La Nación newspaper. The accident happened in La Uruca. He is survived by his wife and five children. Ninth orchestra performance will be this weekend By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional presents its ninth concert of the season with Cyrus Ginwala of San Francisco, California, as the invited conductor Friday at 8 p.m. and again Sunday at 10:30 a.m. in the Teatro Nacional. The featured performer will be violinist Narciso Figueroa who will interpret the work of Costa Rican Benjamín Gutiérrez "el Concierto para Violín y Orquesta." Other works on the program are Stravinsky's "Firebird," Giuseppe Verdi's "The Power of Destiny" from the opera of the same name and Franz Liszt's "The Preludes." Figueroa is from Puerto Rico and a member of a well-known musical family there. He is a Julliard School graduate and University of Michigan State alumnus with an extensive history of performances, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Our Reader's Opinion
U.S. special interests pushedInternet gambling measure Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Re: your article on the U.S. Internet gambling ban, the media-at-large reports the business community itself has no trouble identifying the U.S. gambling industry, hiding behind the skirts of the religious right, as the real force behind the legislation. The established Internet gambling corporations are largely foreign controlled and get half their business from U.S. customers. Naturally enough, U.S. corporate gambling interests — including casinos and racetracks — don't appreciate the competition. It is all an unpleasant reminder of the power of U.S. private interests in U.S. policy, achieved by the legal conduit of cash political donations by Washington lobbyists. As for any free trade challenges by the foreign losers, and no matter what any treaties say, they will be no match against the power of U.S. private interests, something Costa Rican free traders might want to keep in mind. A good recent example is the never ending U.S.-Canada lumber spat, where Canada appealed illegal U.S. tarriffs as free trade treaty violations. In this case, and despite the repeated successful appeals in Canada's favour, the U.S. administration simply ignored the rulings, allowing its own lumber interests to prevail. Whatever all this says about morality, it also says a lot about the almighty dollar. When our governments tell us about right and wrong and what's good for us, let's be sure they are not really talking about money — and who gets it. R. Martin
Toronto/Quepos EDITOR'S NOTE: The United States and Canada reached a deal on the softwood lumber dispute in July. Canada would be reimbursed $4 billion of an estimated $5.4 billion that the United States imposed as duties on imported Canadian lumber. The Canadian Parliament still has to approve the deal. |
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Costa Rica Third news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 197 | ||||||
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Free
trade gets a rousing endorsement at Casa Presidencial
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By Saray
Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff There was no disputes over the benefits of free trade Tuesday when President Óscar Arias Sánchez met with Felipe Calderón, the president-elect of México. Arias noted the many common elements that exist between the two countries and said the best way to generate wealth, provide employment and grow the economy was free trade, according to a summary provided by Casa Presidencial. Calderón said he wanted to relaunch the projects involved in Plan Puebla-Panamá and those regional projects that unite México and Central America. "I share the vision of the future that President Arias has," said Calderón. He said he sought mechanisms to strengthen commercial exchanges between México and Costa Rica. "The greatest percentage of investments received in México was linked since 1994 to the exportation sector and the free trade treaty," said Calderón, referring to the agreement between México, the United States and Canada. "Almost 74 percent of the new jobs are linked to the growth of international commerce derived from the North American Free Trade Agreement and the salaries of the NAFTA sector are almost 42 percent greater on average than the national salaries." Arias said he had no doubts over the benefits of free trade and that he has defended the need for Costa Rica to enlarge its markets because this is the motor of growth for a small country of just 4.5 million inhabitants, he said. The Asamblea Legislativa is studying the free trade treaty with the United States, and a vote is anticipated before the Christmas break. "For economies so small as the Central Americans, commerce is vital," said Arias. "We have to be the Phoenicians of the 21st century. We ought to be more and more merchants." Phoenician traders dominated the Mediterranean for as many as 2,000 years before Christ. |
 A.M.
Costa Rica/Saray Ramírez Vindas
Felipe Calderón at Casa
PresidencialPlan Puebla-Panamá is a regional integration scheme that includes tourism, education, health, highways, electrical generation and gas. The area of concern includes the nine southern states of México (from the city of Puebla south) and all of Central America. The plan is promoted by the Interamerican Development Bank. The plan is controversial and environmentalists say rain forests would be destroyed and rural residents displaced. Vicente Fox, the outgoing president of México, strongly supported the plan, which seems to have become mired down in recent years. Both Calderón and Arias are skillful and successful politicians. Calderón just won his nation's presidency by a mere half a percent over a rival who is more to the left. Arias defeated Ottón Solís of the Partido Acción Ciudadana by a bit more than 1 percent of the popular vote. Solís choose not to contest the results, but in México Andrés López Obrador, who came in second, has declared himself a shadow president. |
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Couple
who rowed Atlantic embarking on speaking and film tour in Canada
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
The Canadian couple, Julie Wafaei and Colin Angus, who rowed the Atlantic and then biked to Canada have produced a 55-minute documentary about the around the world experience. The couple landed at Limón Feb. 26, a bit off-course from the Florida port they had planned. But they did cross the Atlantic from Portugal in five months during a record hurricane season. They were the first to do so under their own power. Angus actually circled the whole world on his own muscle power. Ms. Wafaei joined him in mid-trip. The pair used zero-emissions travel to highlight issues with global warming and to inspire others to use non-motorized transportation. Now, they have left their home in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island to travel across Canada in a speaking tour beginning today that will also premiere this documentary, “Beyond the Horizon,”according to a release. The Expedition Canada Show will include a 50-minute presentation by the pair where they share their adventures around the globe followed by the film premiere, the release said. Angus has produced two other adventure films. The Expedition Canada Tour includes 24 shows across Canada with the first stop today in Courtenay, British Columbia. The full schedule is on the tour Web site. |
 A.M.
Costa Rica file photo
Colin Angus and
Julie Wafaei when they
arrived in Limón last Feb. 26.
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Fourth news page |
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| San José,
Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 197 |
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Miami
Herald publisher reverses firings and then resigns
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By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services
The publisher of The Miami Herald newspaper has resigned and reversed the recent firings of two reporters who accepted payment from the U.S. government for broadcast work. Jesus Diaz was publisher of the English-language paper and its Spanish-language edition, El Nuevo Herald. He announced his resignation, Tuesday. Diaz authorized the firings and he said he still believes the reporters in question had a conflict of interest in accepting payments from the government's Office of Cuba |
Broadcasting. But he said in a letter to
readers the fired
reporters will be allowed to return to the newspaper. The Office of Cuba Broadcasting paid the journalists to appear as guests on programs beamed to Cuba. The dismissals caused controversy in the Cuban-American community. Diaz said an investigation revealed that several other employees of the newspaper also had accepted payments from Radio Marti and TV Marti for appearances. He said they would not be disciplined. He said it was clear the newspaper had not communicated well its conflict-of-interest policy. |
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U.S.
launches 10 new task forces against human trafficking
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Special to
A.M. Costa Rica
The U.S. Department of Justice is intensifying its fight against human trafficking by providing additional funding to build partnerships between law enforcement agencies and victims’rights organizations in the United States. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced Monday almost $8 million in additional funding to create 10 new anti-trafficking task forces. Gonzales explained the objectives of the task forces in a keynote address at the 2006 National Conference on Human Trafficking, taking place in New Orleans. Conference participants include law enforcement professionals, victims' advocates, nonprofit groups, academics and government employees. The additional funding, Gonzales said, will help cement partnerships between law enforcement agencies and victim-services organizations and aid the task forces' work of identifying and assisting victims of human trafficking as well as apprehending and prosecuting the perpetrators. For example, one of the grants will go to the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement to work with the state sheriffs' association in fighting trafficking along the Interstate Highway 10 corridor in Louisiana. That corridor, Gonzales said, has become a magnet for human traffickers taking advantage of the labor needs in hurricane-damaged areas of the state. “The task force,” he said, “will use regional response teams to identify and rescue victims in targeted areas and put a stop to the exploitation and abuse of laborers.” “In these task forces,” he explained, “service providers and law enforcement rescue victims and help restore their human dignity.” Gonzales said that partnerships, information-sharing and cooperation “cannot be underestimated when it comes to fighting a crime like human trafficking — an act that is sinister to the point of feeling overwhelming at times.” According to the attorney general, an estimated 17,500 people — mostly women and children — are forced into |
prostitution, sweatshops and domestic servitude
every year in the United States alone. But he acknowledged that it is difficult to estimate accurately the number of trafficking victims in the United States or worldwide. “We do know,” Gonzales said, “that programs funded by the Justice Department have served more than 1,500 victims in the past three years.” Progress in fighting the criminals, however, is somewhat more easily measured, Gonzales said. For example, since 2001 the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorneys' offices have prosecuted more than 300 human trafficking defendants, secured more than 200 convictions and guilty pleas, and opened nearly 650 new investigations, he said. The U.S. Department of Justice’s “Innocence Lost Initiative,” spearheaded by its Criminal Division, has resulted in 543 arrests and 94 convictions, in both the federal and state courts, of pimps who prey on children, Gonzales said. There are 16 “Innocence Lost Initiative” task forces around the country and more will be established, the attorney general said. The Justice Department also has developed a model state law that has been endorsed by the U.S. Senate and sent to state governors and legislative leaders. In 2004, Gonzales said, only four states had laws against trafficking. Today, more than two dozen have enacted tough anti-trafficking laws that reflect the principles of the department's model criminal statute. Gonzales condemned human trafficking as “a violation of the human body, mind and spirit.” “The victims of human trafficking are often lured to this country with the promise that they will enjoy the great gifts of liberty,” Gonzales said. “This is an insult to our country, and it is personally disappointing because my own family came here from Mexico to find a better life. The thirst for freedom and opportunity is part of the human spirit and is very strong in this world — to offer it as a lure for purposes of a crime is unconscionable.” |
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