Big San José Yule festival
begins tonight downtown


The Christmas season comes in with a rush tonight in downtown San José.

The Banco Central will be inaugurating its Christmas tree in

The bank's tree

the Plaza de la Cultura at 7 p.m. along with a Yule choir concert. Further on the pedestrian walkway at Calle Central the municipality will be beginning its Avenidazo or cultural nights along the boulevard. That will begin at 6 p.m. During the afternoon bands will be going up and down the avenue and the well-known musical group Marfil will perform at 5:30 p.m. The celebrations with various groups and banks continues through Saturday, Dec, 17. Saturday the activities will be held in conjunction with the Festival de la Luz, the gigantic Christmas parade. In the past holiday participants threw white confetti at each other, sometimes with great force and in a great amount. The municipality is trying to discourage this practice.

Possible smuggler shoots
at coast guard officers


One of seven men in a boat Saturday began shooting at Coast guard officers when they approached in an inlet near Matina, Limón. Officers returned fire.

Then the occupants of the boat jumped in the water and fled into the underbrush, said the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública.

The Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas confiscated the boat that contained large containers, some filled with gasoline.

There is speculation on what the men were doing. The open boat is the type that smugglers use to move drugs. The men may have been prepared to make a fuel transfer at sea or the boat may have returned from a drug run to Nicaragua, officers said. There were empty fuel containers on the boat, too.

A short time later officers detained a Colombian who they suspect was one of the seven men. No one was hurt in the exchange of fire. The man on the boat used an AK-47, and ammunition for this weapon was found on the craft.


Murderer of U.S. citizen
gets 12 years in prison


A man who killed a U.S. citizen got 12 years in prison in the  Tribunal de Juicio de Puntarenas. The charge against the man identified by the last names of Briceño Campos was reduced to homicidio simple, even though the murder took place during the commission of a robbery.

The victim, John Daniels Tornwell, 60, thought he was helping a woman. At the time of the crime the Judicial Investigating Organization said that Tornwell left a bar where he had been enjoying the company of a fellow U.S. citizen to give money to a local women.  The woman, identified by the last names of Solano Valverde, had been begging for money. That was Sept. 24, 2008.

Briceño had just been released from jail and used a knife to kill Thornwell. He was detained with a bloody hand still holding the knife.

Drama highlights child labor


The organization Defensa de Niñas y Niños-Internacional  estimates that at least 11,400 underage youngsters are involved in domestic employment.

As a way of countering this, a drama group from Alajuelita is giving a show called “La Brujita Buena” or "The Good Witch."  It is being presented for the last time Tuesday in the Cine Magaly at 2:30 p.m. Specifically the show tries to relate the psycho-social consequences of child labor, the organization said.