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A.M. Costa Rica
Your daily English-language news source Monday through Friday |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 200 | |||||||||
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Our readers opinions
Tourism colegio
proposalwill be expense, restrictive Dear A.M. Costa Rica: The proposed national tourism employee colegio should be seen for the publicly detrimental power grab that it is. A group of self-appointed administrators wish to allegedly self-police their profession by erecting barriers to entry for new competitors. Where is the evidence that the current system is producing harm? No doubt a few 'victims', including straw men, will be cited as the need for complete control over a new brotherhood by a few at the top. We can expect a slow, if any, growth in operators (less choice) and higher prices (again, less choice in the face of growing demand) because those already in the profession wish to shelter themselves from competition. The practical, empirical, historical evidence is overwhelming. Is this what is good for Costa Rica? Do Ticos really wish their country to become like the over-regulated, over-licensed U.S. with fewer opportunities? Troy
Matz
Texas, on my way to Guanacaste Elections are a farce because elite always win Dear A.M. Costa Rica: It may seem funny but it actually is worrisome that Americans just as well as law-abiding citizens in most other countries have not yet realized that presidential elections really are a farce, a cleverly-designed 'Elite-owned' media show, popular deceit disguised as a lollipop. Politics are decided by others than the popular wanna-be politicians on their campaign trail. Their puppeteers in the background laugh their butts off at the gullibility of the masses that are glued to the TV set or the morning paper becoming infused with the absurdity of blind discussions about which one of the candidates would be best for the country, which one is more gods-fearing while the chosen candidates only utter remarks contemptuous of humanity worshiping their psychopathic super-egos. Sorry, democracy though benign in its original definition has become a hideous tool of covert dictatorship; democracy has been hijacked as has the entire planet. Never forget what a wise man said: 'No matter how you vote the government always gets in'. Axel
Marquardt
Berlin, Germany Genetically
modified foods
are more than a cross-breed Dear A.M. Costa Rica: My understanding of what is commonly called GMOs today is that they are transgenic. It's not just crossing one variety of peach with another to make a third type of peach or crossing a plum with an apricot to make plucot. Both of which can also be considered genetically modified. Transgenic GMOs are different. They cross different species with each other or plant with animal, like mating one of my goats with a bird or a bacteria or God knows what. GMOs feeding the world is a myth, too (as is big farming in general). That's just pure PR. I mean, come on, Monsanto, the company that brought the planet death with dioxin, agent orange and aspartame, is now concerned about the starving poor? There's plenty of calories in the world and plenty of potential to produce more. It's not a farming practices problem. Pura vida. Albert
Lusk
San Isidro Heredia
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page | |
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 200 |
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| Economics ministry survey finds that
Palí offers the best prices |
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By
Aaron Knapp
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Investigators at the economics ministry reported that the prices for basic foods and household products can vary by over 100 percent depending on the grocery store. This was the latest of the continuing surveys of the marketplace. Investigators found that particular brands of tortillas, spaghetti and soap were the most varied depending on the store and the location. Researchers took the prices of dozens of necessary household products of various labels and found the cheapest and costliest. The chain Palí had some of the cheapest prices and the chain AutoMercado had some of the most expensive. For this study, investigators from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio visited 41 groceries in all provinces, between Aug. 23 and Sept. 3. Of those stores, 31 were chains and 10 were independent. They specifically looked at 39 types of food and 14 cleaning and personal hygiene products. Some of their findings were obvious. For example, the report indicates that a Gillette razor blade at Super Cristal in Curridabat is more than four times expensive than a Super-Max razor blade at Palí in Chacarita, southern Costa Rica. |
However, the report also said that a
250-gram package of Milano spaghetti costs 125 percent more at the
Megasuper in Puntarenas than at the Súper Rosvil in Grecia. Of the 41 stores researched, they found the five stores with the cheapest prices on 49 basic products to be Palí el Roble with an overall cost of almost 93,000 colons for all of them. That store was followed by Maxi San Isidro, Palí San Felipe, Palí Heredia Centro and Palí Nicoya. The most expensive store for these products was the AutoMercado in Heredia with a cost of nearly 117,000 colons. By province, stores in Puntarenas had the cheapest prices and products, but the greatest variances in prices were found to be in Heredia and San José. The report focused primarily on the extremes between products and stores. Researchers did not include median or average prices in their findings. Researchers also investigated 14 stores specifically to see if they had proper tags on cheese and ham packages. They found that only 29 percent of these stores had correct tags on all of these products that were in stock. Overall, these violations were on cheese products because they lacked a list of ingredients or instructions on preserving the product. |
| Another holiday, Día de las
Culturas, coming up in a week |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A week from today is another holiday. Oct. 12, Columbus Day in the States, falls on Friday. But the observance is today in the United States, so the U.S. Embassy will be closed. Although Oct. 12 is a Friday, Costa Ricans will celebrate the day Monday, a week from today. The U.S. Embassy will be closed that day, too, as will public schools and most private schools. The holiday is called día feriado de pago no obligatorio, but that is misleading. Salaried workers get the day off with pay. Under some circumstances hourly workers do not receive pay. The day is called the Día del Encuentro entre las Culturas here as a way overlooking the impact of the Spanish invasion. |
Unlike many Latin country's
Costa Rica still treats Christopher Columbus well. The currency is even
a colón, his name in Spanish. The name of the day also is a way to recognize not only the native culture here but the Caribbean culture that grew from imported laborers from Jamaica. Costa Rica has been making some moves to reach out to the native groups. An 18th century revolutionary leader, Pablo Presbere, was honored by the legislature in 1997 as a defender of liberty. He was executed by the Spanish in 1710. Technically, the BriBri in southeastern Costa Rica are still at war with the white colonists. The Caribbean residents center the Carnaval in Limón of the Día de las Culturas. This year the event runs from Thursday to Oct. 21. The two-week event is a big tourist draw. |
| Two highway accidents claim three lives
over the weekend |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Three persons died in two unrelated accidents when the drivers appear to have lost control. On Ruta 27 east of Santa Ana a man and a woman died when the car went off the road and collided with a utility pole. That was in the area known as Alto de las Palomas, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. The time was about 3:40 a.m. The |
man was identified by the last name
of Rodríguez, and the woman was identified by the last name of
Borbón, said agents. In an area known as La Palmera near San Carlos, a motorcyclist ran across the road Saturday night and collided with an automobile. That was about 11:10 p.m. Judicial agents identified the man by the last name of Carvajal. He was 37, they said. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 200 | |||||
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| Traffic police encircle reporter who took
their photographs |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The transport ministry has launched an investigation to see why seven traffic officers detained a CRHoy reporter and her taxi for about 25 minutes Friday morning. The reporter, María Siu, said she attracted the officer's attention when she took photos showing them congregating and conversing near the Holiday Inn in downtown San José. Rodrigo Rivera Fournier, the acting minister of Obras Públicas y Transportes, said Friday that he has ordered a preliminary investigation. Diego Herrera Hidalgo, director general of the Policía de Tránsito, said the same thing. According to a news story in the Spanish-language publication written by Ms. Siu, she was on her way to another assignment |
when she saw the group of traffic
officers. CRHoy, a relatively new arrival on the mass media scene, has been critical of the lack of traffic officers at key times in the Central Valley. Ms. Siu said that the motorcycle officers put three of their vehicles ahead and three behind and blocked the street that runs east of the Holiday Inn. She said that the officers said the taxi driver was not wearing a seat belt. She said the officers recorded and photographed her. The Colegio de Periodistas lodged a protest with the ministry and said that Ms. Siu was detained under unfounded excuses and intimidated by the group of officers. The journalists' professional group said it supported Ms. Siu and offered her legal help if she decides to take action. |
| Hugo Chávez wins presidential race
for a fourth term |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Venezuelan election officials say President Hugo Chávez has won re-election, taking more than 54 percent of the votes in Sunday's polling. His opponent, Henrique Capriles, congratulated Chavez late Sunday for the victory. The election council says 81 percent of the nearly 19 million registered voters went to the polls, with Chavez getting more than 7.4 million votes, beating Capriles by more than 1.2 million votes. Fireworks erupted in downtown Caracas outside the presidential palace where supporters of the president were celebrating after the announcement was made. Analysts say Sunday's vote was the toughest election leftist President Chavez had faced after nearly 14 years in power. |
While Chavez's base remains strong
among the country's poor, Capriles electrified the opposition. The 40-year-old lawyer conducted a national door-to-door campaign, criticizing the president on Venezuela's power outages, food shortages and high murder rate. A persistent question in the race was the president's health. Chavez says he has fully recovered from the cancer that was first discovered more than a year ago. The exact nature of his cancer has never been revealed. By winning his fourth term, the 57-year-old Mr. Chavez could serve until 2019, which would mark his 20th anniversary as Venezuela's president. Chavez is an outspoken critic of the United States and supports anti-U.S. governments around the world. He has spent billions of dollars of Venezuela's oil money on social programs. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M.
Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 200 | |||||||||
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| Space
station delivery vehicle blast off into Florida sky By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The California-based company SpaceX has launched the first of a dozen missions to deliver critical supplies to the International Space Station for the U.S. space agency. On the eve of the mission, the launch weather forecaster said there was a 40-percent chance that poor weather could delay the launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida Sunday night. But the craft took off on schedule. The SpaceX unmanned Dragon capsule rides atop a Falcon 9 rocket toward the International Space Station for the second time ever. The company made history in May when its space capsule became the first private vehicle to dock with the space station SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Saturday evening that the rocket and capsule in this first operational mission are largely the same as the ones used in the successful demonstration flight. "I'm not sure any of the engineering team, frankly, or myself feels like this is substantially different than the last one with the exception that we got there once," said Ms. Shotwell. "We demonstrated we could do it. So there might be a teeny, teeny bit of relaxation. Uhm, not a lot though." NASA has awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to provide 12 supply flights to the space station. Space station partners Russia, Europe and Japan have the ability to deliver cargo, but their cargo vessels burn up in the atmosphere during reentry. The United States has not been able to send supplies to the station since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet last year. The Dragon carries about 450 kilograms of supplies, including materials critical to scientific research. At the end of the month, the capsule will return to Earth carrying space station hardware as well as scientific materials, including research samples. Britain announces plans to thwart cybercriminals By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Britain has launched a multi-million-dollar global initiative to help fight organized criminals and terrorists using the Internet. The plan was rolled out at an international gathering in Budapest aimed at making the Internet more secure. Speaking at the international Budapest Conference on Cyberspace, British Foreign Minister William Hague said his country wants to lead a worldwide effort to stem the rapidly growing number of cyberspace attacks threatening companies and governments. "It has never been easier to become a cybercriminal than it is today," said Hague. "It is now possible to buy off-the-shelf malicious software designed to steal bank details for as little as 3,000 pounds, including access to a 24-hour technical support line. As foreign secretary, I see frequent evidence of deliberate and organized attacks against intellectual and government networks in the United Kingdom." He said that when London hosted the Summer Olympic Games, some 200 emails and dozens of British government departments were targeted by cybercriminals attempting to obtain sensitive government information. Hague explained that earlier this year, hackers managed to steal the equivalent of 20 million pages of sensitive information from what he called "a well-protected international company." A large manufacturer allegedly was targeted during negotiations with an unidentified foreign government. Hague said the attacks prompted his government to allocate an additional amount of roughly $1 billion over the next four years to improve the nation's Internet capabilities. Additionally, Britain will invest more than $3.2 million annually to help other less fortunate countries tackle cyber crime. "Cybercriminals and terrorists should have no refuge online, just as they should have no sanctuary offline. I can therefore announce today that the United Kingdom is a developing a new center for global cybersecurity capacity building in the United Kingdom," said Hague. "And, we will be investing 2 million pounds a year to offer countries independent advice on how to build secure and resilient cyberspace, improving coordination and promoting good governance online." Hague said concern over illicit Internet activities should not be used as an excuse to limit freedom of expression, even in some established democracies. The minister did not mention conference host Hungary, although the country was criticized about legislation that opponents say limits press freedom and increases government control of online and traditional media. Hungary's center-right government says the media law is in line with international standards. Biggest radio telescope array ready to probe for secrets By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A powerful new super telescope in the Australian outback is set to begin probing the origins of stars and galaxies. The Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder lies in the western Australian desert. The technology is expected to capture radio images with unprecedented sensitivity and speed across large areas of sky. Australian scientists say the new facility opening Friday on the country’s remote west coast will be one of the world’s most important radio telescopes. The isolated site was chosen because it is remarkably quiet, with a small population and few man-made radio signals that could interfere with the faint astronomical data. The antenna array will give astronomers the power to investigate some fundamental questions about the universe, including dark matter, the nature of gravity and the origins of the first stars and galaxies. The super telescope is 100 times more powerful than any previous design. John O’Sullivan, a scientist at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, says these are exciting times. "It is a number of telescopes; 30-odd telescopes that are each 12 meters in diameter. They are not very big telescopes but it is still a very, very powerful survey instrument to start to get a look at the origins of galaxies, and it looks a long way back towards the beginning of the universe," he said. "My personal interest has been partly on the technology and partly on the, you know, big questions about where do we all come from, how does the universe operate and so forth. It is the beginning of a great new period, I think." The power of the telescope in Western Australia will, however, be dwarfed by what is to come. It will become part of an even greater astronomical adventure, the Square Kilometer Array project. It aims to build the world’s biggest radio telescope spread across different continents. Its main components will be constructed in Australia and South Africa, with additional facilities in New Zealand. The super telescope will be made up of thousands of antennas. Combining their signals will create a telescope equivalent to a dish with an area of about one square kilometer. This means that very weak signals from space can be detected. The Square Kilometer Array will take well over a decade to finish. Among its tasks will be to search for alien life. |
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| Some of our other titles: |
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| A.M. Panama |
A.M. Colombia |
A.M. Guatemala |
A.M. Honduras |
A.M. Havana |
A.M. Nicaragua |
| A.M. Venezuela |
A.M. Central America |
A.M. Dominican Republic |
A.M. Ecuador | A.M. San Salvador |
A.M. Bolivia |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M.
Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica,
Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 200 |
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Latin America news |
New Canadian
ambassador
presents her credentials
Sentence in hotel shooting being appealed in San Carlos By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The case of a Nicaraguan security guard in La Fortuna, convicted of killing a 16-year-old student from Kansas, will go to an appeal panel, according to court officials in San Carlos. An official at the criminal court in San Carlos, Alajuela, confirmed that the defendant’s lawyer has submitted an appeal. The accused, Jorge Guevara, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Sept. 30 for the murder of Justin Johnston, which took place June 2, 2011. Additionally, Guevara and his employer, La Cangreja Hotel in La Fortuna, were ordered to pay about 323 million colons (approximately $650,000) to Johnston’s family. At the time of his death, Johnston was visiting Costa Rica and was staying at La Cangreja with a group of students from his high school in Kansas. Guevara, a Nicaraguan citizen, was a security guard at the hotel, for which he carried an illegal .22-caliber revolver, the court concluded. Johnston had left his room at night with a group late in the early morning of June 2, and was trying to sneak back into the hotel unnoticed. Guevara spotted them and thought he and his companions were thieves. He said that he meant to only fire warning shots with his gun, but one of the bullets hit and killed Johnston. Court officials said it will take approximately two more weeks before the appeal to be formalized. One of Guevara’s defense lawyers is Otto Giovanni Ceciliano Mora, the former mayoral candidate of Barva, Heredia. Teen, 15, held in death of another teenager By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Agents detained a 15 year old boy Thursday evening in the murder of a 17 year old boy that occurred that same evening, according to a bulletin. As in some states in the United States, the Judicial Investigation Organization cannot legally disclose the names of minors involved in crimes. The bulletin says that the two youths were with other friends when they got into an argument. The 15-year-old went home to obtain a knife, came back to find the other boy and stabbed him in the armpit, said agents. The stabbing occurred at around 7 p.m. according to the bulletin near an unspecified eating place in San Juan de Dios de Desamparados. |
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