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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 198 | |||||||||
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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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probably will slip again By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There still is danger above Santa Ana. The Chitaría summit above Salitral in the hills above Santa Ana is likely to produce more landslides when more rain hits. But there is good news, too. What is now Subtropical Storm Otto is headed due north and already is north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Another low pressure area in the Atlantic seems to have dissipated. Otto was a dangerous low pressure area that was headed directly towards Central America two days ago. It is now likely to parallel the U.S. coastline and break up over the North Atlantic. The center did note that there is a small low pressure system in the Pacific far off the coast of Nicaragua. It probably will head north without having much of an effect on Central America. The country could use the break. The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes said Wednesday that work on fixing a temporary bridge over damage to the roadway of the Autopista del Sol is talking longer than normal due to wet weather. Workers are using two bailey bridges that will carry traffic at the location between Atenas and Orotina. However, some 30 piling must be driven into the ground to support the ends of the bridges. The 15 pilings on the Orotina end have been installed, the ministry said Wednesday. But officials said they did not expect the route to be open to traffic until Sunday at the earliest. In Santa Ana Wednesday there was rain. The Quebrada Canoa, which carried away the bulk of the material that fell from the peak in two events, was running normally but muddy. Geologists continue to study the mountain. Last week the first landslide sent rocks, mud and trees down the stream and clogged it, leading to flooding of some of the homes along the banks. Municipal workers have been deepening the waterway with heavy machinery and removing some of the large trees and rocks. The Canoa empties into the Río Uruca. Contraloría orders changes in mobile phone bidding By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Contraloría General de la República has found fault with the proposed bidding documents for private telecom services. The agency accepted the complaints of three firms, Cable & Wireless Costa Rica S.A., Claro CR Telecomunicaciones S.A. and Centennial Towers SR S.A. The findings are against the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones, which is handling the auction of the radio spectrum. The complaints were technical and involved the awarding of microwave bandwidth and interconnections. The Superintendencia said that such disputes were common with such procedures and said its experts would study the Contraloría decision and perhaps modify the timetable for the auction. The agency will award three sets of bandwidths to three firms. They will compete with the existing Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. For the consumers, the dispute might lengthen the bidding process and put off access to private cell phone service longer. The Sala IV has ordered the Superintendencia to speed up the process. Caja union worried over aguinaldos By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The union that represents the workers at the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social says that the government does not have enough money to make the annual Christmas bonus payment to retired workers. The union is the Unión Nacional de Empleados de la Caja y la Seguridad Social. It said the government is supposed to pay 28.2 billion colons, about $55.7 million. The statement comes at a time when lawmakers are considering the annual budget. The Christmas bonus or aguinaldo is usually equal to a month's pay. Pole fitness demo planned By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A benefit in Manuel Antonio Friday will highlight aerial pole fitness. The event is called the Cirque de Soiree Charity Cocktail party and show. It is at the Karolas Restaurant and Lounge from 8 to 11 p.m. The 3,000-colon entry helps the community, organizers said. Spa No is participating.
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 198 | |||||||||
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| Security reinforced for popular carnival in Limón |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers plan heavy security in Limón for the 2010 carnival, which officially starts today after a typical last-minute Costa Rican decision. The carnival is a big tourism draw, but the minster of health waited until late Tuesday to give the go ahead. The carnival had been canceled before for health reasons, ranging from swine flu fears to excessive garbage. The security ministry said that 164 officers, 16 of them on horses, are assigned to the carnival area. That does not count others on routine patrol elsewhere in the city and province. Juan Carlos Arias, head of the police in the region, said that the bulk of the officers will be at the carnival but that there are other activities, such as concerts that will require additional reinforcements. The description of the police assigned to the carnival range from the Unidad de Intervención Policial, basically tactical |
squad members, to
anti-drug officers. There also are undercover operatives. The Municipalidad de Limón also has private security officers assigned to the week-long carnival. There also are Tránsito police officers and the Cruz Roja in attendance. The full name for the event is the Festejos Populares Carnavales de Caribe — Limón 2010. The organizer is the Comisión de Carnavales Limón. The bulk of the activity is on the grounds of the Junta de Administración Portuaria y Desarrollo Económica de la Vertiente Atlántica. There is a horse parade and other activities that run until Oct. 17. The carnival hung by a thread because Tuesday was the last day for organizers to submit paperwork. Among these was a security plan and proof of insurance. The decision came down to the wire with the Ministerio de Salud approving the plans by late afternoon after day-long meetings. The uncertainty of the carnival had an effect on tourism, although there are many visitors who will attend from the Central Valley. |
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Famous works adapted
to address modern causes By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Artist Francisco Munguía appears to have a lot of fun when he adapts famous works or art to deliver messages mostly about animals. The artist has a show at the Museo Calderón Guardia in Barrio Escalante on San José's northeast side. Munguía produces works that have as their main characters various types of animals replacing the humans in the more famous works. He is doing so to promote castration of animals, something many Costa Ricans do not support. He also has works protesting violence toward animals, chicken fights and other forms of mistreatment. The works are cartoon-like but they clearly call up the images of the famous works. An archive of his works and explanations in Spanish is HERE. |
 The monkey mimics a 1893 work "Scream" by Edvard Munch. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| Villalobos group goes to court and
fears e-mail sabotage |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The small group of Villalobos Brother investors who still believe in the validity of the high-interest scheme have gone to court again. This was revealed Wednesday by member Fred Pitts, who also reported that the mailing list of the organization had been hacked. Pitts called the hacking attack sabotage and speculated it could be linked to the group filing the lawsuit Friday. The nature of the suit was not disclosed, but the group, known as United Concerned Citizens & Residents has continually claimed that the investigative raid on the Villalobos money exchange house and other locations July 4, 2002, was illegal. Their claims were supported by an analysis by the lawyer they hired, David E. Romero Mora. Romero has said that he thinks the case against the government has a high probability of success. The group argues that the raid disrupted the Villalobos business and caused the brothers to go out of business. |
Their suit will be
hampered
by the fact that one brother, Oswaldo, has been convicted of aggravated
fraud and illegal banking by a trial court that characterized the
operation as a ponzi scheme. The United Concerned Citizens opposed the criminal action against Oswaldo Villalobos and urged other investors to withdraw their claims. Many did and did not participate in the money awards that were part of the sentence. Many of the members of the group expect the fugitive Luis Enrique Villalobos to return and pay them off when the statute of limitations on the criminal allegations takes effect in 2012. Perhaps as much as $1 billion was lost by investors when the high-interest scheme collapsed. Not only that, the crash reverberated through other similar schemes run by others during the early part of 2002. For example, The Vault high interest scheme run by Roy Taylor, had substantial investments with the Villalobos Brothers. Taylor shot himself when police came to arrest him. Romero has said that "The action of Costa Rican authorities, through a series of deeds completely corrupt and invalid, damaged all of these people who believed in good faith that Costa Rica had a rule of law protecting them." |
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| The electrical generating
company will continue biological monitoring projects like this one
during the cleaning of the dam area, which will put a lot of sediment
into the river. |
 Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad photo
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| Peñas Blancas dam cleanup will
cause flucuations in river |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The electrical generating company will be cleaning the dam at the Peñas Blancas hydroelectrical plant in San Ramón and has issued a warning that the flow of the river will be affected. The work is scheduled to start today and continue through Sunday. The river level is expected to rise at times to the same level that a strong rain might produce, said the company, the |
Instituto
Costarricense de Electricidad. It urged residents not to take chances
with the river. The plan is to eliminate sediment due to human activity, landslides and rains. The company has been making contact with residents in the nearby communities of Boca Arenal de Cutris and San Isidro de Peñas Blancas, it said. It also said that it would be making an effort not to damage the fish downstream. The company maintains a continual biological program in the river as well as at other hydro sites. |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
10-year
study documents abundant life in oceans By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An ambitious 10-year project to explore the world's oceans finds that marine life is richer, more connected and changing faster than expected. The first Census of Marine Life, one of the largest scientific collaborations ever, discovered 6,000 new underwater species. Since the census began 10 years ago, 2,700 scientists from 80 countries logged 540 expeditions to document the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life. Oceanographer Paul Snelgrove, a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, sums up the 10-year effort in his new book "Discoveries of the Census of Marine Life: Making Ocean Life Count," released with the census. "With a fair degree of confidence we now know about 250,000 described species for the ocean," said Snelgrove. "And that this is about 25 percent of what actually lives there. So there are still three to four species yet to be discovered for every one that we know about." Scientists have deployed robots to explore the ocean depths and established an underwater network of microphones to track salmon and other migrants from Alaska to Mexico. More than 4,000 marine creatures of 23 species have been tagged with electronic sensors. Researchers are also building a database of DNA records. Snelgrove says a publicly accessible digital archive is one of the single greatest legacies of the census. "This dataset is available to managers, to conservation groups or even to individuals who want to know what sorts of animals live near them in the ocean." Among the newly discovered species are a hairy crab, a carnivorous sponge and an ancient shrimp thought to have gone extinct 50 million years ago. The census also determined that — by weight — up to 90 percent of all marine life is tiny microbes. Over the decade, census scientists published 2,600 academic papers. Snelgrove says he is already seeing the research put to practical use. "There are areas in the Arctic and in the Antarctic and also along the mid-Atlantic Ridge which have received elevated protection as a result of information of data that the census has provided. And I think in the future there will be many more protected areas in the ocean and with this data we have much more useful knowledge on where to best locate them." The knowledge the census has provided about sea life is just a beginning, Snelgrove said. Much of the ocean remains unexplored, leaving many unanswered questions in its depths. "We see this tremendous array of species, but broadly speaking most of the species in the ocean we don't know what they do for us and what they do for the ecosystem. And so that raises the question of course, if you lose those species, does that change the ecosystem does it compromise the health of the oceans and so that's something that needs to be a priority in the coming years." Snelgrove hopes the Census of Marine Life ignites a sense of urgency to protect the ocean, which he says is key to our own survival. "I think that we need to accept the fact that we need the fish that we extract from the oceans and the other sorts of fisheries that we have, but we do need to find a way to make them sustainable and to find a way to preserve the biodiversity in the oceans as well as those fisheries because the two of those are very strongly interlinked." The 10-year $650 million Census of Marine Life received initial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and later from governments, institutions and laboratories around the world. |
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