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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 4, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 195 | |||||||||
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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ABC television news crew By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A 20/20 news crew was in Asunción de Belén Friday and took videotape of Andreas Roman Leimer Seiring, who is identified by the U.S. Department of Justice as a fugitive. Leimer is one of the last unconvicted associates in what the U.S. government says is a lottery scam that defrauded hundreds of U.S. citizens. The scam is one of a handful that have been operated out of Costa Rica over the past five years. There have been a number of arrests here and extraditions to the United States. Leimer is believed to be a Costa Rican citizen and immune to extradition. By coincidence one of those who has been convicted in the case will be resentenced today in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is Giuseppe Pileggi. He was convicted after a jury trial in January 2008 on one count of conspiracy and 22 counts of wire fraud, the Department of Justice said. The jury also returned a special forfeiture verdict of $8.3 million. Pileggi was sentenced on Sept. 24, 2008, to 50 years in prison incarceration, three years’ supervised release, and ordered to pay $8.3 million in forfeiture and $3.9 million in restitution. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered that he be resentenced. A resident of Residencial La Jolla, Asunción de Belén, said that the camera crew was accompanied by Brian Ross, of the ABC show "Brian Ross Investigates." The resident said that the television crew was able to get tape of Leimer about 8:30 a.m., but that the man was involved in a car wreck trying to evade the cameras. A number of police showed up, and there were employees from the U.S. Embassy present. Leimer is well known in the area for having a tall antenna on his roof. A total of 11 other persons have been tried and convicted in this lottery fraud. Taxi fares are going up, based on inflation, fuel By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The red fleet is getting a raise. The price regulating agency announced Friday that taxi fares would go up 4.21 percent. That means a 20-colon increase for the first and subsequent kilometers. The current rate is 510 colons for the first and subsequent kilometer. The new rate will be 530 colons or about $1.05. Rural taxis can charge 690 colons for the second and subsequent kilometers, according to the Authoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos. Taxis at Juan Santamaría airport got a 2.41 percent raise. The adjustment is done every six months to keep taxi fares in line with petroleum prices and inflation. The price regulating agency noted that tolls at certain highways are in addition to the taxi fare that shows on the meter. New $100 bank note delayed due to problems with paper Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The U.S. Federal Reserve Board has announced a delay in the issue date of the redesigned $100 note. This new design incorporates cutting edge, anti-counterfeiting technologies and the Federal Reserve imposes strict quality controls to ensure that users of U.S. currency around the world receive the highest quality notes, the Federal Reserve said. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing manufactures Federal Reserve notes and has identified a problem with sporadic creasing of the paper during printing of the new $100 note, which was not apparent during extensive pre-production testing, an announcement said. As a consequence, the Federal Reserve will not have sufficient inventories to begin distributing the new $100 notes as planned, it said. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is working to resolve this problem, and the Federal Reserve Board will announce a new issue date for the redesigned $100 note as soon as possible, the announcement said. The originally scheduled issue date was Feb. 10. Communist here note Mao's Chinese revolution By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Partido Vanguardia Popular-Partido Comunista de Costa Rica is celebrating the 61st anniversary of the Communist victory in the Chinese revolution and its author, Mao Tse Tung. A statement from the party said that China showed Costa Rica how to establish and develop marxism as a method and guide for action. The small political party accompanied the commemoration of the Chinese Communist revolution with a self defense against external criticisms and an essay by Chairman Mao. Mao brought about the cultural revolution in China that resulted in the deaths of many Chinese and set the country back economically for years.
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 Casa Presidencial photo
President Laura Chinchilla and some of her ministers inspect
an area that subsided on the Autopista del Sol. The president made the
tour Friday. |
 Photo by Loren B. Ford
Trucks are backed up as they await theirturn to cross the temporary bridge installed on the Interamericana. |
 Photo by Loren B. Ford
This is the culvert that a resident believes willsoon wash out again because the pipe is too short. |
| Rain damage continues but forecast contains some hope |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Cerro Chitaría above Salitral, Santa Ana, produced another large landslide Saturday night, and the continuing rain raises the possibility that more will follow. There are late reports of a similar slide near Ciudad Colón, and the major highways are again closed, mainly as precautionary measures. The Quebrada Canoa took the brunt of the rocks, mud and trees from the slide upstream Thursday, and Santa Ana municipal workers were using heavy machinery to keep the stream flowing. Until Saturday nearly 60 persons had been in shelters because their homes were jeopardized by the backed up stream. The debris periodically creates a dam upstream until there is sufficient water to break through. When that happens a wall of water rushes downstream sweeping away all in its path. One bridge was destroyed and another was jammed with debris. Escazú officials said they had to destroy a bridge over the Río Chiquero in San Antonio de Escazú because it became blocked with debris. The alternative would have been flooding of adjacent properties, they said. Marco Antonio Segura, Escazú mayor, reported Saturday night through the canton's communication department that dozens of localities had been affected by rising rivers. These areas included Barrios Hollywood, Carmen, Calle Lajas, the Bigusa sector, Calle Adoquines, Bajo Anonos and Escazú Centro. Some areas of the Central Valley got a break Sunday when morning skies were sunny. But rain moved in after noon and a drizzle persisted most of the evening. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that the Pacific coast, the Central Valley, the mountains of the northern zone and the Caribbean would get the most rain. Still, a motorist reported no trouble driving from San José to Puerto Viejo Sunday morning. He said that Route 32 through the Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo was not affected over Saturday night. It had been the scene of a massive landslide earlier this year. The weather institute predicted an increase in winds this week and a reduction in the evening rains in the Central Valley and Guanacaste. The report also said that there might be an increase in precipitation in the Caribbean. President Laura Chinchilla visited trouble spots Friday. |
Highway officials tested the bailey
bridge at the Interamericana
between San Ramón and Esparza, the section that had been closed
to
heavy traffic. President Chinchilla's first visit on the Interamerican
Norte was to the highway collapse at Kilometer 84, located on a
geologic fault and long a problem due to the highway surface sinking
into the unconsolidated and drainage-deficient subgrade, a resident
said. From there, the president's caravan continued to the
temporary
bailey bridge erected over the new overflow culvert installed to
replace the old culvert washed out, along with the overlying highway,
the night of Sept. 9, according to the resident, Loren B. Ford. Ford said he witnessed five large trucks following an escort of two transit police vehicles and followed by a third approaching the temporary bridge. These trucks turned out to be empty according to an officer at Kilometer 84, and the first of a number of trucks allowed to pass over the sunken area to test whether contractors' maintenance efforts had improved the highway sufficiently to restore truck traffic, he said. Highway officials decided to open up the route at 6 p.m. Friday, but as that time approached a trucker in a tractor-trailer headed west died of an apparent heart attack, and traffic was halted for hours, Ford said. The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes said that the route only would be open during daylight hours. When the highway reopens Monday, the daylight rule probably will continue. Ford said that his career working closely with road engineers in the U.S. Forest Service told him that the a new culvert at Kilometer 87 was not long enough and that water flowing through it was likely to erode underneath the roadway quickly. "If this rain continues at its present intensity for any period of time it's entirely possible that the creek flow will exceed the capacity of the new culvert, which will cause the water to rise over the current fill, possibly washing out the new culvert and maybe even undermining the bailey bridge, which rests at either end on the old highway surface, with no newly established bases that would withstand high water," Ford said. The Autopista del Sol also was closed at Atenas Sunday as a precautionary measure. There were no reports of large slides there yet. The national emergency commission blamed the slide above Salitral on saturated ground, steep slopes and deforestation. There also were homes there and elsewhere constructed without regard to the potential for flooding. |
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 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública photo/Paul Gamboa
Young patrons are given the once over by police at Iron's bar |
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| Massive police sweep covers most of San
José province |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Police were out in force Saturday night and conducted searches of bars and nightspots in Tibás, Desamparados, Alajuelita, San Sebastián, La Uruca, Escazú, Moravia, Zapote, Coronado, Guadalupe, San Pedro and San José Centro. They said they sought identification form 3,363 persons, checked out 366 four-wheeled vehicles and 55 motorcycles. Police also confiscated two firearms from individuals who |
did not have a
permit to carry one, they said. The also found four persons were fugitives and eight more for whom warrants were outstanding. They also confiscated quantities of crack, cocaine and marijuana. All this was done in two hours, said police. Fuerza Pública officers were able to find stashes of drugs hidden in two bars, one in Concepción de Alajuelita and another in Desamparados, they said. At one place the drugs were hidden in the ceiling. |
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| Pineapple firms get heat from British news reports By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The British newspaper The Guardian has taken a shot at Costa Rica's pineapple growers. The articles Friday and Saturday were sponsored by consumers International, which says it is fighting for a fair, safe and sustainable future for all consumers in a global marketplace increasingly dominated by international corporations. The articles were developed starting in a June visit by writer Felicity Lawrence and a film crew. They were making a documentary, too. Ms. Lawrence has also taken on Peruvian asparagus in a Sept. 15 piece entitled "How Peru's wells are being sucked dry by British love of asparagus." The Guardian ran a story promoting the articles Friday, and a pair of articles ran Saturday. They were "The truth about supermarket pineapple" and "Pineapples: Luxury fruit at what price?" The thrust of the articles was summarized Friday by this excerpt: "UK supermarket price wars are wrecking lives in the developing world, according to a new campaign launched tomorrow by Consumers International (CI). Recent deep cuts in the price of pineapples on the British high street have inflicted unacceptable damage on those living and working on plantations in Costa Rica, the consumer group says. An investigation by Guardian Films with funding from CI, has found a catalogue of environmental and social damage caused by intensive tropical fruit production in Costa Rica, from where three-quarters of pineapples sold in the UK come." Ms. Lawrence was accompanied on her travels here by an officer of the pineapple worker's union and a Universidad Nacional professor who studies toxic chemicals. She failed to find a smoking gun. Although residents of El Cairo complained of water polluted by chemicals, there was little note of the actions of government agencies. And the statements from Pineapple companies said they were continuing to take steps to solve problems. The Tribunal Ambiental Administrativo, the environmental watchdog, ordered Del Monte to close its pineapple production facilities in Siquirres in May 2009 because of what it said were high levels of chemicals in the local water sources. Del Monte had just purchased the facility and said at the time that the concentrations of herbicides and insecticides found in the drinking water was less than the limits published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Periodically, residents of El Cairo and nearby communities blockade Ruta 32 to make their point. Brazil's election goes to an Oct. 31 runoff By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The ruling-party candidate fell short of an outright victory in Brazil's presidential election Sunday, setting up a second-round of voting later this month. National election officials said with more than 90 percent of the votes counted, Workers Party candidate Dilma Rousseff had 46.9 percent of the vote compared to 32.6 percent for Jose Serra of the Brazilian Socialist Party. The strong third place finish of another female candidate, Marina Silva of the Green Party, who won 19.4 percent of the vote, could give her a strong influence over the eventual outcome of the race. The runoff vote will be Oct. 31. Ms. Rousseff is a former chief of staff of outgoing President Luiz Inacio da Silva and also his preferred successor. If elected, she will be Brazil's first female president. Brazil's economy has remained strong under da Silva, despite the world-wide recession. Da Silva was barred from running for president again because he has served the maximum two consecutive terms. |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
Direct
flight from Britain will begin to Liberia Nov. 2 By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The British travel wholesaler via its Thomson Airlines will begin operations between London's Gatewick Airport and Daniel Oduber airport in Liberia Nov. 2. The flights on Tuesday will be with a Boeing 767. The direct flight takes 11 hours, and the plane has a capacity of 258 passengers. The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo said that the flights will generate an increase in British tourists. First Choice had flights to Liberia in 2007. Gasoline prices dropped, regulating agency reports By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Both plus and super gasoline is going down 14 colons a liter this month, and diesel is going down 11 colons to 487 colons (96 U.S. cents). A liter of plus will cost 548 colons ($1.08), and a liter of super will cost 573 colons per liter or $1.13. The dollar prices are based on today's exchange rate of 507 colons. The price regulating agency, the Authoridad Reguladora de Servicos Públicos, said that the price change was due to the changes in the international price of petroleum and the exchange rate of 510 colons to the U.S. dollar. This is a monthly announcement by the agency. Prices will go into effect when the action is published in the La Gaceta official newspaper. More countries change telephone number system By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two other Latin American countries are adjusting their telephone numbers to accommodate growth. They are Perú and Honduras. Costa Rican numbers went to eight digits March 20, 2008, to accommodate growth as well as the increase in the number of cell telephones. Now Honduras reports that it will also use eight digits with 2 being inserted in front of existing land line numbers. That will happen Nov. 14. Last Sept. 4 Perú instituted a system where cell numbers would be prefaced with a 9. |
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