 |
 |
Your daily |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
 |
||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
 |
| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
 |
Click HERE for
great
hotel discounts
|
|
Puma pulled from
gulf will be relocated this week By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Coast guardsmen and animal rescue workers saved a puma near Isla Venado in the Gulf of Nicoya Thursday. Reports from the Guardacosta and from the national animal rescue unit, the Unidad Especial de Protección y Rescate Animal, said that the animal appeared rather suddenly off the coast of Isla Venado. Soon, it became apparent to witnesses than the animal was close to drowning. The puma was captured and then transferred to a safer location, said the Fuerza Pública. The animal is now under the care of a national conservation organization, which plans to release the puma into the wild during the upcoming week. A lost puma also appeared in Escazú in April 2006, but was killed during a botched rescue attempt. The president of the national animal rescue unit, Edgar Castrillo, said that the success of this recent operation was a testimony to the technical skills of animal handlers. Union in fact sufficient for residency, court says By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sala IV constitutional court has ruled that a foreigner does not have to be legally married to a Costa Rican to avoid deportation. Simply living together will do the trick. The court threw out a section of immigration law that said a union in fact has no legal effect and cannot be used to evade deportation or to seek permanent residency. The law was challenged by the Fundación Centro de Derechos Sociales del Inmigrante. The ruling is retroactive. The Costa Rican Constitution says that the family is to be protected, and the Sala IV said that the word family must be interpreted broadly, not just as a product of matrimony. The court also said that the immigration law discriminated against foreigners because a union in fact is recognized in many ways in Costa Rican law. Arias headed for Asia to promote his consensus By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Óscar Arias Sánchez is leaving for Qatar and Singapore Wednesday. Casa Presdencial confirmed on his weekly agenda that he is leaving. Qatar is an Arab emirate on the Persian Gulf. Arias is expected to promote his "Consensus of Costa Rica" there at a world summit of cooperation for development. The consensus is a proposal by Arias that the richer countries forgive debt of developing nations that have limited their expenditures on the military. Costa Rica, which does not have an army, would be high on this list. In Singapore Arias will be visiting with government officials. Comprehensive water study ordered at Playas del Coco By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sala IV constitutional court has ordered a detailed study of the aquifers under the communities of Playas del Coco, Ocotal, Panamá and Hermosa. In the same ruling the court ordered that no more permits for water wells be issued until the study is completed. The court was responding to an appeal by residents of the area who said that they feared water shortages and contamination due to development of tourist projects. The court rules that the study be done by the Ministerio de Ambiente, Energía y Telecommunication, the Servicio Nacional de Aguas Subterráneas Riego y Avenamiento, the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados, the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental, and the Municipalidad de Carrillo. The court said that the study should determine a rational and sustainable use for the underground water, which is vulnerable.
|
 |
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
 |
||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
| Cruz Roja workers seek
volunteers among flooded homes on the Caribbean coast. |
 Cruz Roja photo
|
|
Caribbean endures another
pounding by Mother Nature
|
|
|
By Elyssa Pachico
and the A.M. Costa Rica staff The Caribbean coast is taking it on the chin again with rains and flooding spawned by a cold front. Some 32 communities have been affected, and up to 2,100 persons are in shelters, according to the Cruz Roja, The national emergency commission said that rain had not let up Sunday in the coastal mountains, and rivers in Limón province continued to swell. The agency cited problems with the Barbilla and Chirripó rivers in Matina, the Pacuare and Reventazón in Siquirres, the Parismina in Guacimo, the Sarapiquí and the Sixaola. Isolated communities in the Talamanca are likely to be hard hit, but so far they are cut off from communications. On the coast, the community of Sixaola was awash from the river of the same name. Puerto Viejo de Talamanca suffered damage to a bridge leading to town, and pedestrians were forced to cross part of the way on two wood planks. The problems were not just confined to the Provincia de Limón. Five homes were damaged heavily in San Jerónimo de Moravia in the metropolitan area by a slide. There were slides around Parque Nacional Brauilo Carrillo on route 32, in the Cordillera central, the central mountains. However, passage remained open with some restrictions. Near Guápiles an ambulance with five persons aboard overturned due to the weather and three persons including a child were injured seriously. Driving all over the Caribbean coast and the northern zone was challenging because in addition to the rain and flooded highways, thick fog developed in places. The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias estimated that 1,244 persons were victims of the storm in Talamanca alone. The highway to the border with Panamá was cut in several places, officials reported. In Panamá itself, heavy damage was reported in Bocas de Toro. In Matina, the commission said that at least 400 homes were flooded out. The Cruz Roja had three boats circulating in flooded areas picking stranded individuals form the roofs of homes. Along the coast the sea was raging with waves as much as two meters (more than six feet) above normal. In the Central Valley high winds knocked down trees and power lines. |
The emergency commission continued
high alerts for the Caribbean and the northern zone. Limón experienced 125 mm (about 5 inches) of rain Saturday with 85 mm (3.3 inches) more Sunday, according to the automatic weather station at the Limón airport maintained by the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional. Reports from Puerto Viejo say that four straight days of rain have overwhelmed the road to Cahuita with landslides, fallen power lines and trees. Additionally, the concrete bridge at the main entrance to Puerto Viejo was jerked askew by flooding. That is where people have been forced to walk over a makeshift bridge consisting of two planks. The emergency commission has been monitoring several at-risk areas in Limón, re-evaluating possible risk of floods every three hours, it said. Two temporary refuges haves been created in Matina for people forced to evacuate their homes, one for 42 people in Hone Creek and another for 96 people from 4 Millas. Another temporary refuge was created in the Escuela Caterina in Sixaola to prepare locals for the possibility of rising waters. Officials hoped that by relocating the population early on, residents will avoid worst case scenarios, such as seeking shelter from rising floodwaters on rooftops, or being forced to call for emergency rescue at night. Some 230 people sought refuge in Hone Creek, with two families consisting of 12 people seeking refuge at the local school, Escuela de Catalina. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional has said that the rains are likely to continue the rest of this week, even though the cold front that has ravaged eastern Costa Rica is slowly dissipating. Most of the rainy weather has been caused by a low-pressure front stretching from Panama to the Caribbean coast. This weekend alone, winds in San José became as strong as 90 kph (56 mph). Today, winds in San José, the Caribbean region and Guanacaste are expected to be as strong as 30 to 70 kph (18-44 mph). In the Caribbean, winds will continue to be as strong as 30 to 35 kph (18 to 22 mph) with waves as high as two to three meters (from 6.5 to 10 feet). The Pacific will see winds between 50 and 55 kph (31 to 34 mph), with waves as high as 2.3 meters (7.5 feet). Neither ocean is suitable for sailing this week, said the Comisión de Emergencias. The real extent of the damage will not be known for several weeks. In addition to flooded homes, damaged roads and bridges and washouts, agriculture and tourism have taken big hits. |
|
Arias is expected to approve
aid for public banks today
|
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Óscar Arias Sánchez is expected to approve a supplementary budget allocation today giving both Banco Nacional and Banco de Costa Rica $50 million each as a short-term fix for their credit problems. Both banks have tightened credit requirements to some extent out of necessity. State banks also are supposed to receive a similar infusion of cash from China, thanks to a deal negotiated last week. Meanwhile in the private sector, Citigroup, the owner of |
two
Costa
Rican banks, is continuing to face cash-flow problems of its own. The
international banking group purchased Grupo Cuscatlan and Banco
Uno
and just started operating under the Citi name two months ago. The
Grupo Cuscatlan deal was for $1.5 billion in cash and stock. It is
that stock that has taken a plunge and lost more than 50 percent of its
value over the last few days. Citi also maintains a small financial service center in Santa Ana. The U.S. government has been considering purchasing some of Citi's least liquid assets as a bailout measure. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
 |
||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
| Rosibel Araya (mother), Kevin
Araya (cousin), Enrique Araya (uncle), Magdiel Araya (grandather), and
Maria Elena (grandmother) are members of the family of Christian Rojas
Araya, 16, who was beaten to death during a 2006 robbery in his home.
|
 A.M. Costa Rica/Elyssa Pachico
|
|
Families march to push for
tougher criminal penalties
|
|
|
By Elyssa Pachico
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Families affected by urban violence held mass marches across Costa Rica Sunday as part of a push for stricter crime laws, which many families say let felons off easy. “The victims receive less rights than the victimizers,” said Hannía López Cadilla, a special education teacher in Desamparados. Her son died in a shootout earlier this year. “You can even see it on the TV – my son's body is broadcast over and over again tossed across the ground, but his assassin is broadcast with his face covered up.” A collection of 50 families, who together form the basis of a political organization and support group for those affected by homicide, the Associación de Familiares de Victimas de Homicidio: Justicia y Paz, hope that the public demonstrations will pressure the Asamblea Legislativa into confronting crime more aggressively. They managed to rally more than 500 persons to march in San José Sunday. The group is pushing fiercely for stricter sentences against minors, arguing that youngsters should be tried as adults in homicide cases. Many families complain that minors receive relatively light sentences and receive more favorable treatment from the courts than homicide victims, said Ms. Cadilla. Such was the case with a couple from Tibás, Luis Obanda, who works in business administration, and Clara Alpizar, a housewife. They lost their son-in-law, Fabio Rodriguez Sequeira, during a car robbery Feb. 9. “Since the only witness was a minor, the judge ruled that he wasn't allowed to testify since that would have gone against minor protection laws,” said Obanda. The Araya Guzmán family from Alajuelita said that the two suspected killers of Christian Rojas Araya, 16, were also granted impunity because they were minors who attended Araya's school, the Instituto Boston. Araya was killed in his home Aug. 25, 2006, after two minors beat him to death and stole cash, a cell phone and some video games. “His parents came home at eight o'clock and found their son dead,” said Magdiel Araya, grandfather to the victim. “And two years later, those responsible are still running around loose because the judge said that they didn't have enough evidence to try two minors.” Elizabeth Fonseca Corrales, a lawyer with the Partido Acción Ciudadana who also attended Sunday's march, said that many suspects accused of homicide never go to trial because of shoddy police work. “What often ends up happening is judges rule that they're forced to let a delinquent go free because part of the police work was done badly,” she said. “Either there's |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Elyssa Pachico
Family displays photo of a man killed Feb. 9 when a bandit
shot him and took his car, a so called bajonazo.incomplete information, or the police officer took down the wrong names or addresses.” There are currently two laws that would reform the criminal justice system before the legislative assembly. Sunday's demonstration was intended to pressure representatives into voting before the assembly takes a recess Dec. 1, said Ms. Fonseca. The first law, intended to combat organized crime, would authorize limited use of telephone wiretapping in order to prosecute suspected criminals. It would also authorize police forces to investigate citizens who report a drastic increase of wealth, possibly due to illicit activities, said Ms. Fonseca. The second law before the assembly would create stricter sentences, especially for minors or for felons caught while committing a crime, by increasing the equivalent of a one-year jail sentence to 365 days. According to Ms. Fonseca, under the current system felons sentenced to one year in prison are sentenced for 216 days, a number which is often reduced due to conditional bail. Those who attended the march said that such legal measures would symbolize more government support for families who are trying to navigating a tricky legal system, while also dealing with the trauma of losing a loved one. The department intended to assist grieving families with the legal process, the Oficina Atención a la Víctima at the Poder Judicial, is currently only staffed by three persons, said Ms. Cadillo. “Families aren't told where to go, how to get a lawyer, even where to go to identify the body, while the victimizers are automatically given a judge and a lawyer,” said Ms. Cadilla. “The victimizers are given more orientation than the actual victims. It has to change.” The San José march terminated at the Corte Suprema de Justicia building where the participants heard speakers. |
|
Rally in Alajuela also
opposes increase in street violence
|
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
As part of a national push for stricter crime laws, hundreds of people from 10 cantons met Sunday in Parque Juan Santamaría in Alajuela to protest against a perceived increase in street violence in Costa Rica. Janina del Vecchio, the secuirty minsiter, attended the event, as did Juan José Andrade, the director of the Fuerza Pública in Alajuela. Many citizens gave personal |
testimonies regarding urban
violence, culminating with a presentation by school
children from San Ramón, who wore police uniforms in honor of
local law
enforcement. Another national protest is planned for Tuesday, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. One demonstration, which will take place outside the Sala Constitutional at 12:30 p.m., will protest against the recent ruling by the Sala IV that a domestic violence law is unconstitutional. |
| News from
the BBC up to the minute |
BBC sports news up to the minute |
| BBC news and sports feeds are disabled on archived pages. |
|
| A.M. Costa Rica fifth news page |
|
||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
to avoid protectionism By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Leaders from across the Pacific Rim — which accounts for roughly half of the world economy — are declaring war on protectionism. They say for the next year — no matter how bad things get — they will refrain from raising any new barriers to trade and investment. In a joint declaration, the 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum also pledged to push for revival of world trade negotiations that collapsed in July. Throughout this summit, held in Lima, Perú, leader after leader has warned of the perils of protectionism. In a speech to a meeting of corporate executives — held concurrently with the summit of presidents and prime ministers — U.S. President George Bush warned of a pending disaster if the nations of the world respond to the global financial crisis by turning inward. He invoked the turmoil of the economic depression that began in 1929. "One of the enduring lessons of the Great Depression is that global protectionism is a path to global economic ruin," he said. In taking these steps, forum leaders endorsed the principles outlined last weekend at a meeting in Washington of the world's 20 largest industrial and emerging economies. Chávez allies win big in Venezuelan elections Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Venezuelans gave the party of Hugo Chávez 17 governorships, but the opposition candidates won three gubernatorial elections and also took the mayoral election in the metropolitan district of Caracas. The results are based on about 95 percent of the vote, said the Consejo Nacional Electoral. The winner in Caracas was Antonio Ledezma, who gave a speech of conciliation. Opposition politicians had hoped to win at least seven governor posts. Chavez said he needed his allies to win in key states in order to continue to build a socialist nation. He had threatened to cut off funds, or even deploy tanks, in areas the opposition wins. Chavez's brother, Andán Chávez Frías, appears to have won the governor's job in the state of Barinas. The elections come a year after Mr. Chavez suffered a defeat of a referendum that would have allowed him to seek re-election indefinitely. Mr. Chavez has been in office since 1999. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
