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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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Constitutional
court finds for trees in beach zones By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Score it trees 1, developers 0. After a three-year delay, the Sala IV constitutional court threw out a controversial decree that allowed developers in the maritime zone to cut some trees in order to install their project. A constitutional court case was filed shortly after the decree was issued, so beach development has been effectively stalled since. The decree, issued by former president Abel Pacheco permitted developers to cut down trees for ecotourism development, some 15 percent of primary forest and 25 percent of secondary forest that happened to be in the maritime zone. The goal was to advance ecotourism projects. The decree and the court case affect the maritime zone, that strip up to 200 meters above mean high tide line. The first 50 meters is for public use except in some special cases. The remaining 150 meters may be developed if those doing so obtain a concession, usually from the municipality and the Instituto de Turismo. The court said that its decision would be retroactive but those who acted in good faith will be protected, according to the Poder Judicial. A.M. Costa Rica wrote about the legal controversy extensively. News stories may be found HERE, HERE and HERE. Two cases were filed with the Sala IV on this issue. One in May of 2004, shortly after the decree, was filed by an environmental group. The other was filed in June 2004 by the workers union of the environmental ministry, called the Asociación Sindical de Trabajadores del Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía y Afines de Conservación. Both cases were combined into one. Promotional office opens for country in Big Apple By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Óscar Arias Sánchez has inaugurated a new promotional office for the country in New York City. It is the fourth to be located in the United States. The office was set up by the country's commercial promotion arm, the Promotora de Comercio Exterior de Costa Rica. The goal of the office is to promote the transition of Costa Rica toward an economy of service and to promote investments in strategic sectors, as well as to take advantage of marketing niches for exporters, officials said. Same sex union in fact sought before committee By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A legislative commission Thursday heard an argument for legal status between persons of the same sex. Appearing before the Comisión Especial de Derechos Humanos was Yashin Castrillo Fernández. He is legal adviser to the Red Nacional de Gays, Lesbianas, Bisexuales y Transexuales. He was there because the committee is studying a proposed piece of legislation on the topic. Castrillo said that what was involved was a human rights issue. He explained that what he was seeking was not marriage but the same kind of legal recognition that a couple of opposite sexes have under the law if they live together, a union in fact. Even phone company not immune to robberies By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Stickup operators made a haul this weekend when they intercepted a delivery driver taking BlackBerry cell phones to various outlets of the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. The institute said that the driver was confronted on the public street in La Sabana and that the crooks made off with 75 of the devices. The company is maintaining a list of series numbers in case would-be buyers want to consult them before completing a transaction. The phone company said that the devices had been disabled because the series numbers were given to the distributor.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| It is easy to see what was on
this prisoner's mind while creating this little man. The sign says
'Before being dangerous, a person was vulnerable.' |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Elyssa Pachico
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Busy hands in the prison
system turn out marketable crafts
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By Elyssa Pachico
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Painting tiny butterflies on shot glasses or carving cartoon characters on wooden cutting boards is a great way to make a living – especially for someone who just got out of prison, that is. According to Miriam Calderón, an art and culture director at the Zurquí penal center in Heredia, inmates can't expect much more than a career in artesanías after completing their prison sentence. Arts and crafts classes are held in the detention center not just as a way of alleviating stress for inmates, she said, but also as a form of career training. “This gives them a way to be independent once they complete their prison sentence,” she said. She admitted that it may be challenging to earn a living, making and selling arts and crafts. “They'll make enough to survive,” she said. “It's really not that necessary to make that much money. And it's a challenge for them to find other kinds of work once they have a criminal record.” Inmates created arts and crafts for the seventh annual penal art exhibition in the Centro Nacional de la Cultura, a three-day display intended to promote the human side of Costa Rica's penal system. 123 inmates from at least 16 penal centers displayed crafts such as bulky race cars made of straws and newspaper strips, or paintings of wide open spaces, such as a sun setting over the ocean. While each penal center takes a different approach to its art classes, said Paula Picado, a psychologist at the Centro Adulto Joven in San Rafael, in most cases the inmates pay part of the cost of the materials themselves. “Usually, they pay a certain quota, and then their family buys the materials for them and sends it to them,” said Ms. Picado, who counsels the 68 inmates at the San Rafael center. “But we also receive a lot of materials through donations, and for really cheap things like newspaper, we try to gather it together in the center.” Ms. Picado said she could not say how much the inmates at San Rafael paid per month for their art classes. Ms. Calderón said that the Zurquí penal center, which holds 40 inmates, estimates that materials for art classes totaled about 50,000 colons per month, a fee paid both by outside donations and by inmates. That's about $90. Costa Rican prisons are home to 8,070 persons, according to a September 2008 report issued by the Ministerio de Justicia y Gracia. One inmate from the Zurquí juvenile detention center, who attended the penal art exhibition, said that he did not spend a lot of time thinking about whether |
he would develop a career in
artesanías after finishing his sentence. “I like painting on glass, and I'm good at it,” said the inmate, who asked that his name be withheld out of respect for his privacy. “It's a distraction from the fact that you're in jail, and you like to keep busy.” Arts and crafts classes are not the only rehabilitation programs in Costa Rica's penal system. In other penal centers, inmates are trained in industries that include baking, cement-mixing, carpentry and even farming. In the female branch of the Zurquí penal center, women bake up to 14,000 buns a day, said Jorge Barrantes, who manages agro-industrial projects in Costa Rica's prison system. That's about 8 million buns a year – all of which are distributed only to other penal centers across the country. Male inmates at Zurquí who are trained in carpentry end up producing 50,000 school desks a year, which are sold to the Ministerio de Educación Pública. Similarly, inmates grow platano, yuca, papaya, and raise cows on any of the 11 farms across the country which also serve as detention centers. The largest farm involves 60 inmates on 213 hectares (about 526 ascres) at the Pococí penal center in Limón. Every week, inmates sell 10,000 platanos to the penal centers in San José, said Barrantes. In the many industries that run out of Costa Rica's penal centers, said Barrantes, none of them is profitable for any outside businesses or contractors. He said he estimated that the industries run through the penal system brought in about $2 million a year. “None of the money produced here is spent on anything else that isn't related to the penal system,” he said. “It is all self-sufficient, in terms of using money produced to meet production costs.” Inmates are not paid a salary for their work, said Barrantes, although in some industries in some centers, they may earn up to 1,500 colons ($2.70) a day, said Barrantes. In addition, for every two days of work, one day is eliminated from an inmate's prison sentence, he said. Profits from such industries are used for maintaining penal centers, he said, and for developing other agro-industrial projects. Profits from the penal art exhibition, meanwhile, go directly to the inmates if their arts and crafts are sold, said Ms. Picado. “Some of them save the money, some of them send it home to their families,” she said. “I think a lot of them are saving something special for the holidays.” |
| On bouncing back from being ill and too much Wolf Blitzer |
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| I’ve
barely peeped out from under my covers for the past week, but did
manage to check my mail enough to read one from Nicole about the three
drinks I tasted at La Flor. Nicole’s field of study and teaching
is Mesoamerica. So she knows more about their culture and customs
than anyone I know. Pinolillo, she said, is a national drink of Nicaragua. They call them pinoleros. Pinole is toasted corn with cacao. The word comes from the Náhuatl language of the Aztec [pinolli]. Cebada is barley. The word mozote refers to a plant whose seeds stick to your clothing. The fruit is spiny. It is used medicinally and in sugar cane presses for clarifying the juice. To be more specific about where La Flor is: It is just around the corner from 7th Street Book Store on Avenida 1 heading west. Meanwhile, back in bed, life is pretty boring, but fortunately, when one is sick enough, boring is good. Tuesday, for the first time I looked out the window with some interest in what was happening in the world outside. Otherwise my life has been centered on the TV and my books. With a sporadic attention span in search of something that is both consuming and will take me away from my present situation, I have tried a mystery, a police story, a novel reminiscent of "The Great Gatsby" – all discarded. Wolf Blitzer continues to repeat the news as if it were just breaking, and Neil Cavuto’s voice gets more and more gravelly. So I have retreated to my music and the English comedy series, "Fawlty Towers" with John Cleese. Music and laughter are noninvasive aids to healing. Finally, as a solid escape, I am re-reading "Howard’s End," by E.M. Forster. Certainly the lives of the wealthy middle class of Georgian society of early 20th century England is a far |
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Coverup alleged in CIA
downing of small missionary plane
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A senior Republican lawmaker says an internal CIA report raises serious questions about a possible agency coverup in the 2001 downing of a civilian plane carrying American missionaries in Peru. In the 2001 incident, a surveillance aircraft operated by a CIA contractor working on an agency-run drug interdiction program mis-identified a small Cessna plane carrying American missionaries as one transporting illegal narcotics. According to a 2001 State Department report, the surveillance team had doubts about its identification, but its attempt to rescind the order to shoot came too late. A Peruvian fighter aircraft fired on the small plane, killing 35-year-old missionary Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter. Bowers' husband and 8-year-old son and the pilot survived the resulting crash. Republican lawmaker Peter Hoekstra, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, has released unclassified portions of the CIA inspector general's report that he says, show the agency misled the Justice Department and Congress, and that CIA officers knew of and condoned violations of procedure: "Parts of the intelligence community, parts of the CIA, were acting outside of the law with the drug interdiction program at the time that the Bowers' plane was shot down [and] that there was an active cover-up in the community and it was enabled by a culture that failed to recognize either internal or external accountability," he said. In a letter he made public, Hoekstra asks CIA Inspector General John Helgerson to declassify portions the lawmaker |
asserts detail actions by CIA
personnel to avoid and possibly obstruct criminal and civil liability
stemming from the incident. He wants the Justice Department to review the CIA report, and the department's previous finding in 2005 that criminal charges stemming from the incident were not appropriate. When the Justice Department ended its investigation in 2005, Hoekstra said he agreed with the decision not to prosecute. But he told reporters on Thursday that the department now must examine whether the CIA was being truthful. "The most disappointing thing is rather than the individuals standing up and being held accountable for this, they covered it up. It is a blot, a dark stain, this is a sad day for the CIA, a sad episode, and this is why there needs to be a change of culture within the CIA of accountability and rule of law." As summarized by Hoekstra, the report also finds that violations of procedure also occurred in at least 10 other shoot downs under the CIA program, which he did not detail, contradicting the agency position that the Peru incident was an isolated error. Hoekstra says he asked CIA Director Michael Hayden in October, before Congress recessed for the U.S. presidential election, to take steps to ensure that the appropriate people are held accountable. Hoekstra says there was a significant delay before the CIA inspector general's report, apparently completed in August, reached the House Intelligence Committee. While any hearings on the matter should include testimony from former senior CIA officials, Hoekstra says it is not possible to say at this point who may have been specifically involved in what he calls "the agency's cover-up." |
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Escazú restaurateur
ready for another long run at Bistango
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By Elyssa Pachico
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Even restaurant connoisseur Mike Badalian will admit that the loyal crew of expat customers who used to frequent Chango, his former restaurant, are still peeved with his decision to shut the place down. “They still complain to me about it,” he said. “There was no reason for closing it. It was becoming very routine – you know, why do you change your house, why do you change your clothes? You change when you need the energy.” Badalian hopes to be channelling some of that energy with his new business, Bistango, a restaurant-bar in the Centro Comercial Paco in Escazú. The restaurant, which opened five months ago, mixes Californian, Peruvian and Mediterranean dishes on a menu Badalian helped design. While Chango cultivated a more casual, American-lounge vibe during its 10-year run, said Badalian, his new restaurant is all about giving customers the same personalized attention they received there with a more serious emphasis on cuisine. “Chango's was more about the bar than dining, and this place is more about dining than the bar,” he said. “But we still like to get to know you here. We sell service. We don't just sell food.” Especially enticing on the menu is the Mediterranean chicken special for 7,250 colons. The secret behind the dish, said Badalian, is that the tangy lemon marinade is actually influenced more by his native Armenia than by the Mediterranean. While business has been far from blockbuster so far, something that Badalian attributes to a dragging economy, |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Elyssa Pachico
Olga Efimenko, bartender at Bistango
he said that he has no doubt that Bistango's mix of tasty dishes with personalized service will soon be leading to a packed house every weekend. Special services include wine-tastings, house parties up to two times a week, and a king-sized Thanksgiving dinner planned for Thursday. “It's gonna have all the trimmings,” said Badalian. “Family style.” |
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launched in San Ramón By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
If there is an announcement of a contest for portales, can Christmas be far behind? The Centro Cultural José Figueres Ferrer made such an announcement Thursday and invited residents in selected communities to participate in three categories. Eligible are those living in the central districts of San Ramón de Alajuela, said the center: San Juan, San Pedro, Volio, Concepción, San Isidro, La Unión, San Rafael, Los Ángeles and Santiago. A portal is a nativity scene. Nearly every home, office or school has one during Christmastime. This is the center's 11th annual contest. One category is the traditional portal that contains costumes and items relating to Costa Rica. The second category is the Biblical portal, using figures and structures current at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. The third category is being called the artistic portal which allows artists to express themselves. The deadline for enrolling is Dec. 6. Awards will be handed out Dec. 13 at the center in San Ramón. Ecuador seeks loopholes in paying off foreign debt By the A.M. Costa Rica wire service
A commission auditing Ecuador's foreign debt says it has found what it describes as illegality in the obligations. The finding may prompt President Rafael Correa to suspend Ecuador's bond payments. The audit commission says in a new report that Ecuador's debt has grown to the benefit of financial sectors and transnational companies and gone against the country's interests. It is reportedly recommending that the government suspend payments on three bonds amounting to nearly $4 billion worth of debt. Last week Correa withheld a $30 million interest payment on a 2012 bond, saying he will use a month-long grace period to consider the legitimacy of the external debt. Standard and Poor's has also downgraded Ecuador's debt rating by three notches (from B- to CCC-) over concerns the country will default and find ways to avoid repaying its foreign debt. It is not clear whether Ecuador will seek to restructure its obligations. |
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