Foreigners caught working
illegally along Caribbean

Immigration police cracked down on persons working illegally in three Costa Rican provinces this weekend and reviewed the residency status of 400 persons.

On the Caribbean coast, immigration agents found eight foreigners working illegally in Cahuita, Puerto Viejo and Limón center. They were seven Nicaraguans and a Dutch citizen. The eight were taken to San José to begin deportation for violating their tourism visas.

The individuals were employed in bars, restaurants and other nightspots.

In Heredia some 40 foreigners were interviewed, and seven had some form of irregularity with their paperwork, agents said. Three persons appeared to be here illegally, they added.

Meanwhile, in Los Chiles near the Nicaraguan border, agents uncovered what they said was a refuge for illegal immigrants from Nicaragua. They found seven members of a single family in a building near the local hospital. They will be deported, said agents of the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería.
 

Colon therapy results 
in raid and investigation

A 41-year-old Colombian is under investigation for the illegal practice of medicine. He operates a clinic for hydrocolonic therapy.

The clinic had its own resident publicity director, who used television to promote the clinic, said a spokesman for the Unidad Especializada of the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública.

The spokesman identified the operation as Clinica de Terapía Integral in western San José.  Agents conducted a raid to confiscate evidence. Hydrocolonic therapy. involves flushing out the lower intestines.

The complaint was presented by the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos, the medical trade group, and the Ministerio de Salud. The man under investigation was identified by the last names Matews Castro.

Fireworks investigations
are going to the dogs

Police along the Nicaraguan border are using especially trained dogs to find hidden stashes of fireworks which are illegal here.

The dogs initiated several arrests over the weekend, including one case in which a man is suspected of carrying the fireworks in a suitcase in the trunk of his car. He was identified by the last names of Garcia Garcia. Officials said he lives in Playas del Coco.

Although fireworks are traditional at Christmas, officials have cracked down to avoid injuries to youngsters. A new law provides for three to seven years in prison for transporting fireworks.
 

Brazilian soccer star 
scores then drops dead

BANGALORE, India — Brazilian football striker Cristiano de Lima, Jr., died Sunday after he collapsed on the field after colliding with other players in the final of the Indian domestic league's Federation Cup tournament. 

After receiving first aid at the scene, the 25-year-old player was transported to Hosmat Hospital in Bangalore, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The cause of his death was not immediately known.

De Lima scored both goals in Dempo Sports Club's 2-0 win over Mohun Bagan. He scored his second goal in the 78th minute, but he fell to the ground immediately after the collision with other players near the net.

Armed guard kills self

An armed guard in the Zapote outlet of Cemaco accidentally shot himself fatally in the stomach Sunday. He was identified as Gilberth Jiménez Valverde, 30. The wound was from the man’s 9-mm. pistol.

Tortuguero, yet another crown jewel of Costa Rican tourism, finds itself swamped with garbage.

Workers at the town’s recycling center say that plastic bags of garbage are falling into the adjacent water and end up contaminating the ocean and the nesting grounds of the green turtle for which the community is famous.

"Garbage is everywhere," writes Sara Chiapponi Madden, who wrote an impassioned letter to newspapers. She blamed the failure of political institutions to live up to the promises that they made four years ago when the recycling center started.

Photographs she sent show plastic garbage bags piled up higher than the head of a man.

Tortuguero is on a sandy spit with the Caribbean to the east and the Tortuguero Canal to the west. The town is only about a half-mile wide and located in northeastern Costa Rica adjacent to the Parque Nacional Tortuguero. 

There are no roads to the community. Many tourists have enjoyed the boat ride north to Tortuguero. This is the same route that supplies must take. Garbage goes in the opposite direction. The garbage is supposed to go by boat to Pavona and then via truck to a landfill in Guápiles.

But getting the garbage bags to Pavona does not solve the problem. Thanks to support from some local hotels, 

workers managed to ship out several boats full of garbage to the dock, but a promised truck never showed up, said the letter. Now the garbage is leaking and contaminating the canal at that point, too, the letter said.

Because the site is being inundated with garbage and because workers there have been exposed to every kind of pest and insect, the recycling operation is being suspended, according to the letter. Ms. Chiapponi predicts dire consequences for the country and tourism if the problem is not solved.

Some 300 youngsters competed Sunday to have their art work selected as one of 12 to illustrate a calendar for the Organización Internacional para las Migraciones. Winners will be named in a few days.

The event was at the Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes and sponsored by the Ministerio de Educación Pública and a private foundation.

"When I see the clown, I’ll laugh." In other words: When I see the goods, I’ll let you know what I think. This dicho expresses the notion that we shouldn’t respond until we know all the facts. Don’t believe something that seems too good to be true, because chances are it is.

Clowns are very symbolic. They represent that which is comical, ridiculous, and entertaining, but they also symbolize that which is sad, sinister, complex and potentially evil, id est the thoughts, emotions and personality of the person who is concealed behind all the grease paint and funny clothes. A good clown is a consummate artist. 

Clowns throughout history, right down to our present-day stand-up comedians, have occupied a unique position in society. By disguising it as comedy — sometimes albeit rather thinly — clowns are often permitted to speak the truth when the rest of us cannot or will not do so. Because of this innate ambiguity, it is often difficult to say with absolute certainty who the clown really is. This illusive nature of clowns also lends an ambiguous twist to today’s dicho. 

I was in Italy a few weeks ago. My companion and I thought we had a reservation in Rome for what we believed was a decent hotel. But when we arrived at the reception desk we were told that our reservation had been cancelled because they had been unable to confirm it. This, despite the fact that we had tried repeatedly to reach the hotel by telephone over the preceding days to do just that, but no one had ever answered the phone. 

In any case, the young man behind the desk was very apologetic and told us he could get us a room in another nearby hostelry that was even nicer than the one we would have occupied in his hotel.  Being travel weary, we eagerly took him up on his offer, and he called the other hotel to make the necessary arrangements.  Arriving at the new hotel we were greeted by a rather surly Chinese woman who escorted us to our room. 

The way we say it By Daniel Soto

Well, if this was the clown, we certainly were not laughing! The room was small, dark, and crowded. But the oddest thing about these accommodations was the bathroom. It had all the necessary fixtures, but the shower consisted of a showerhead suspended by a pipe above the middle of the room. 

So, without benefit of curtain or stall, when one wanted to take a shower all articles including towels, toiletries, shaving kits, and even toilet paper had to be removed from the bathroom to prevent them from getting soaked. 

The following morning we were due for another surprise. Since breakfast was supposedly included, the grumpy Chinese lady gave us vouchers and told us we could collect our breakfast at the quick lunch stand on the corner. There we were provided with one stale croissant and one cup of bad coffee apiece. That was breakfast! 

Well, actually our plight began to seem so ridiculous that we finally did end up laughing about it. After all, we were only in Rome for two nights, and we hadn’t come there for the hotel room. But who, in the end, was the payaso? You can make up your own mind.

NAIROBI, Kenya —  An international conference to ban landmines ended Friday here in the capital city. Some organizers have called the week-long summit a success, others say there is more to be done. 

As the first-ever Nairobi summit for a mine-free world drew to a close, the consensus of event organizers is that more needs to be done to compensate victims of landmines, and to convince the leaders of the world's most powerful nations to sign on to the global anti-landmine treaty.

In one of the conference's most measurable successes, Ethiopia became the 144th nation to ratify the 1997 Ottawa Convention to ban the use, production and stockpiling of landmines. 

Austrian Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch, one of the top organizers of the summit, says the international campaign to ban landmines already has had successes. 

"We have now over 37 million stockpiled landmines destroyed," he said. "We need to imagine what it would have meant, if they would have been planted. The financial cost to demine, the human cost, this is just an incredible progress. We need to forcefully continue to do this, and, of course, we need to see that time limits on demining are also met."

Petritsch's figure of more than 37 million stockpiled landmines destroyed so far represents about a fifth of the world's total number of stockpiled landmines, according to officials. Those that are planted kill or maim roughly 8,000 people every year. 

Petritsch echoed the appeal of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki for the leaders of the world's most powerful nations to cease the production and use of landmines.

"Now, in the age of international terrorism, any weapon that one can get rid of altogether is a contribution to overall security," he said, adding: 

"And, of course, the United States as the world leader should appreciate this. So, therefore, I would like to join Kibaki in appealing to the United States. Let's join forces, and let's get rid of one type of weapon, and then let's go on and eliminate others."

The anti-landmine treaty requires its member nations to destroy all mines within four years, and demine their countries within 10 years. Under the treaty, countries are required to help provide long-term care for people maimed by landmines. 

Anti-mine campaigners say compensation for landmine victims has flagged for the past three years. 

The next summit for a mine-free world is scheduled for 2009. By then, Petritsch and others hope, all countries will have banned what he calls the world's most primitive weapon. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  U.S. Sen. John McCain and other leading lawmakers say Major League Baseball must enforce stronger rules against steroid abuse by players. He says baseball should make the changes on its own, but that Congress will require changes by law if necessary. 

The senator plans to introduce legislation next month that requires a drug-testing regimen for players, a bill he believes President George Bush would sign into law. 
However, McCain says he will wait to see what happens at a meeting of the players' union executive board this 

The baseball players testified as part of the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, which the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has named as the source of the designer steroid THG and other drugs. McCain says the most important issue is not Barry Bonds or other major league stars, but the high school athletes all over America who believe taking steroids is the only way they can be successful.