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released in Guanacaste By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Early Saturday morning, the Fuerza Pública in Moracia, Guanacaste, arrested a man suspected of keeping his family, including his infant child, hostage for five hours,. A 911 call alerted authorities that the 24-year-old man, identified by his last names of Guzmán Ulloa, had been keeping three members of his family hostage inside his house since 4 a.m. that morning, said officers. The hostages included his wife, a 24-year-old woman identified by her last name as Guido, the 4-year-old child and an infant of nine months. After a period of negotiations described as long and intense between the suspect and the police, the family was released from the house at 9:26 a.m. The woman and children were taken to the Hospital de Liberia, while Guzmán, who had a cut on his left wrist, was treated by the Red Cross and then taken into custody. Woman held in vehicle that is chased by police By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Fuerza Pública pursued a man across San José in an early Sunday morning car chase, before arresting him and releasing the woman he had kept imprisoned inside his vehicle. A 911 call alerted authorities that an armed man, later identified as a 42-year-old suspect with the last names of Morales Fallas, was keeping a woman trapped inside his Mitsubishi Motora, which was parked to the east of the Casa Presidencial. Once the man realized that police units approached, he began driving rapidly towards the center of San José, with police cars close behind, officers said. The chase ended when police surrounded him near the Tribunales de Justicia at 7:30 a.m. The woman, identified by the last names Alfaro Sánchez, was treated by the Red Cross and was found to be unharmed, officers said. English passenger facing drug trafficking allegation By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A 32-year-old English airline passenger is being held after police at Juan Santamaría airport said that some four and a half kilos of cocaine (about 10 pounds) turned up in his luggage. The man was identified by the Poder Judicial by the last names of Gary James. The Poder Judicial said that he was on his way to Spain when he was stopped by the Policía de Control de Drogas last week. He is facing investigation for international trafficking of drugs, the Poder Judicial said. Our reader's Opinion
Text message malfunctionsreported in 'Idol' voting Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I have to wonder how many other people here in Costa Rica that tried to vote in the "Latin American Idol" contest* Thursday night got the same error message from the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad as I did. The problem is that ICE telephone networks cannot handle the traffic in peak hours let alone during a contest. From 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., there are twice as many text messages being sent than what the networks were designed for. ICE notes that the low prices have spurred an increase SMS usage. The Authoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos has twice rejected proposals from ICE to increase the cost of a message. The latest GSM network purchased from Ericsson with 600,000 lines was put into service in December of 2005. It only has the capacity to process 50 text messages per second. During peak hours, Costa Ricans are sending 105 text messages per second on this network. These statistics are based on third quarter 2006 reports from ICE. So they had 140,000 GSM lines available. Things are even worse now as no lines are available. Costa Rica has two other cellular networks which offer SMS text massaging. The oldest, being of TDMA technology, has 549,000 lines and the capacity for 70 messages per second. The other GSM network purchased from Alcatel with 400,000 lines is designed to process 66 messages per second. In the first quarter of 2007 ICE expanded the number of GSM lines available. However the messaging capacity was not increased. Add to all this, ICE has also made available free MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) for those that have subscribed to the Internet Cellular Access plan. And if things weren't bad enough you can visit: http://videomovil.ice.co.cr (from your cellular phone) for free TV on your cell phone, as if their system is not already horribly overloaded. Craig Salmond
Pavas, San Jose *EDITOR'S NOTE: María José Castillo came in second Thursday night because television show sponsors said she received fewer telephoned text message votes than a second finalist. She will be returning home today about 11 a.m. for a car caravan to her Barva de Heredia home.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| Mixed group Street performers really have a fusion group with U.S. Plains Indian headdresses and two members seeking to be Peruvians. They were downtown Sunday. Curiously, photos of a similar group with Plains headdresses and Peruvian instruments can be found on the Web after being photographed in London in 2007. |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Elyssa Pachico
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Día de Las Culturas
festivities center around museum
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Celebrations for Día de las Culturas today unrolled in full force Sunday in San Jose, with street performances in the Plaza del Cultura and festivities at the Museo del Banco Central. Once known as Día de las Razas, the holiday was changed to Día de las Culturas in 1994, a title perceived as more politically correct. “It's changed a lot over the years,” said Carolina Castillo from the museum's Departamento de Educación y Acción Cultural. “It was a holiday originally marking Columbus' |
arrival to Costa Rica, but really
what we are celebrating today is the fact that we are all mestizos.” Festivities at the museum included two musical performances, one by a calypso band and another by a marimba band from Guanacaste. Inside the museum, children participated in arts and crafts tables, making masks and bracelets. Outside, vendors sold books as well as crafts from the Boruca and Huetar native communities, including baskets and mugs. For lunch, visitors enjoyed traditional foods such as cassava, honey and tamales. “It's a moment of coming together,” said Pilar Herrera, the museum's director. “It's a way of opening new doors.” |
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Rainy month October continues
to live up to its name
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Another low pressure area is influencing the country's weather, and downpours of various amounts fell Saturday and Sunday. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that more rain, mostly in the afternoon, is expected today in the Central Valley and along the Pacific coast. Sunday was a clear day until mid afternoon, when downpours and then a steady rain started. In San José the rain continuing into this morning. The Cartago area, hard hit by heavy storms in the last two weeks got more of the same. Cartago had 25 mm (.98 of an inch) Saturday and 20.7 (.82 of an inch) since 7 a.m. Sunday. Tres Rios reported 58.4 (2.3 inches) Sunday. Turrialba reported 48 mm (1.9 inches) Saturday and 20.5 mm (.8 of an inch) Sunday. All |
the figures are from the
institute's strategically placed automatic weather stations. The area had seen loss of homes and heavy flooding, although there were no reports of similar problems Sunday. San José also got wet. There were 50 mm (1.98 inches ) from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with continual drizzle through the night. Juan Santamaría airport reported 33.9 mm (1.33 inches) mostly from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Pavas reported 40.7 mm (1.6 inches) most between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. The principal low pressure area is between Puerto Rico and the northern coast of Venezuela east of Costa Rica. The weather system has the potential to become a tropical depression with associated heavy rain, said the U.S. Hurricane Center. Also being tracked is Tropical Storm Nana that is in the central Atlantic. Forecasters expect the storm to weaken and to head to the northwest. |
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Seagoing robbers attacking
shrimp boats in Gulf of Nicoya
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Gulf of Nicoya is getting more dangerous for fishermen. Thursday night three men were tied up and dumped into the ocean by robbers who took their catch, personal belongings and the motors of their crafts. A gang of crooks attacked three small boats that each contained two men, said the Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas. A coast guard cutter was nearby because there is an embargo on commercial fishing in the gulf during October, and the crew of the cutter was enforcing the ban. So coast guardsmen were able to pull the three men from the sea before they drowned. They were shrimp fishermen not subject to the ban. |
But
catching these robbers is difficult, according to the Ministerio de
Gobernación, Policía y Seguriad Pública. Not counting the latest robberies, some six cases are being investigated. The crimes took place since the first of the year, said the coast guard. Between May 22 and June 22 five robberies took place, officials said. Five men were detained in these cases but were let go a short time later, said officials. Officials confiscated two small boats, called pangas, 14 motors and six cell phones, they said. Last Sept. 24 another shrimper was attacked by three smaller boats containing 15 persons. But those who were arrested were freed when the victims declined to press their case, said officials. |
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Economic crisis appears to
have tightened Canadian race
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
This is the last weekend of campaigning before Canada's general election Tuesday.The current worldwide financial crisis have made the economy the driving issue of the campaign. When campaigning started in early September, no issues were capturing headlines, and opinion polls were showing the ruling Conservative party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was headed for an easy re-election. Canada follows the British parliamentary system. Voters in each of 308 constituencies select a member of Parliament, or MP. The party with the most MPs usually forms the government, and that party's leader becomes prime minister. If the party wins less than 50 percent of the constituencies, as was the case in the last election in January, 2006, it is considered a minority government. Before the economic problems on Wall Street started to reverberate globally, the only question was whether Harper would get a minority or a majority government. That has now changed, with opposition parties quickly gaining ground and the Conservatives weakening. The most recent polls put only 4 percentage points between the Liberal Party, which is the official opposition, and the ruling Conservatives. The Socialist-oriented New Democratic Party is now close behind the Liberals. It was not until the last week of the campaign that Harper, a 49-year-old economist from the Western city of Calgary, released the party's election platform. This brought the usual heavy criticism from the opposition parties. Liberal leader Stephane Dion, a former university professor from the predominately French-speaking province of Quebec, has seen his campaign revitalized and his poll numbers rising. His rallies are growing louder with more supporters. At an event in Vancouver, the Liberal leader says the Conservative Party and its leader have been slow to react to the economic turmoil. "Mr. Harper is coming too little, too late. With little help |
for the
industry and the manufacturing sector and the aerospace industry," he
said. "We have much more in our platform. We have much more in rich tax
credit for research and development. For buying green machinery and
equipment. To attract investments around the world to here in British
Columbia and everywhere in Canada. Much more, but he is coming with
this too little to late. His retail politics is not a vision." Friday, the conservative government announced a plan to buy insured mortgage pools worth $25 billion Canadian — more than $21 billion U.S. — to help the country's banks. But the government advocates strict limits on public spending as it deals with the economic crisis. At a recent campaign event in Vancouver, Harper said the choice is simple, that Dion's Liberals will increase spending and taxes that will worsen the economic situation. "There will be one of two outcomes: There will either be a Prime Minister Dion who will tackle our economic problems by increasing spending that we can't afford and increasing taxes to pay for it," he said. "Or our government, which will keep spending under control and keep taxes going down. Those are the two choices to deal with the economic problems in front of us." Coming in an increasingly close third place in national opinion polls is the New Democratic Party, or NDP. The party and its leader, Jack Layton, could possibly form a coalition government with the liberals. Layton says the conservative prime minister is ignoring the crisis to the detriment of everyday Canadians. "There's a whole lot of families that are really struggling to make ends meet and they're watching their savings disappear in front of them," he said. "And they're very worried about their pensions and this, what, me worry? attitude that we have seen from Mr. Harper is wrong." Two smaller political parties are also playing a role in this election. For the first time, the Green Party and leader Elizabeth May got a place in the televised debate of party leaders earlier this month. They have been polling between 10 and 13 percent nationally. The separatist Bloc Quebecois is only running candidates in the province of Quebec and is not expected to be a part of any prospective coalition government. |
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Ambush that killed 19 persons
in Perú attributed to Shining Path Guerrillas
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Peruvian military says suspected Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) guerrillas killed 19 people in an ambush late Thursday. The military says 12 soldiers and seven civilians, including a child, were killed in the attack in the southern Huancavelica province. It says four military vehicles were attacked as they returned to base in the mountainous region. |
The Shining Path led a brutal
insurgency that started in 1980 and left
tens of thousands of people dead. Violence declined sharply after the capture and conviction of rebel leader Abimael Guzman in 1992. Remnants of the Shining Path continue to carry out small attacks, primarily in remote areas used to produce coca, the raw material in cocaine. Some fear that the rebels are building in strength. |
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hemispheric press group Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter American Press Association has expressed outrage at the murder of Miguel Angel Villagómez, editor of the Mexican newspaper La Noticia de Michoacán, and urged the authorities to begin an immediate investigation to determine who carried out the crime and who was behind it. The body of Villagómez, who was also the founder of the newspaper located in the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, was found at 5 a.m. Friday beside a highway leading to the city of Zihuatanejo in the neighboring state of Guerrero near the town of La Unión. He disappeared at 10 p.m. Thursday night, according to local press reports. He bore bullet wounds on his back and neck. “We continue to protest how freely in Mexico murderers act and go unpunished after eliminating those they regard as a nuisance,” declared Robert Rivard, of the Texas newspaper San Antonio Express-News. He is the recently appointed chairman of the press group's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information. “It’s urgent that Mexican authorities put an end to the violence unleashed by organized crime, in particular against the press and individual journalists,” he said Rivard quoted the conclusions of the organization's recent annual meeting, held in Madrid, Spain, which stressed the negative consequences of the violence generated by organized crime in Mexico, especially by drug traffickers, in their effort to obstruct newsgathering in that country. Since 2006 in Michoacán, regarded as one of Mexico’s most violent states, La Opinión reporter Gerardo Israel García Pimentel and freelance news photographer Jaime Arturo Olvera Bravo were murdered, while the whereabouts remain unknown of Mauricio Estrada Zamora of La Opinión, radio and television personality Juan Pablo Solís and José Antonio García Apac of Ecos de la Cuenca. |
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