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Jet Blue announces
plan for daily flight in March By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Jet Blue Airways, which opened a hub for Latin America in March at Orlando, Florida, said Wednesday it would begin flights to San José March 26. The airline is known as a customer-oriented one that makes money. The Orlando route will give Costa Rican residents options to fly to New York, Boston and 11 other U.S. destinations, the airline said. The proposal is subject to regulatory approval. Jet Blue already flies to Bogotá, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. Costa Rica will be the first Central American destination, the firm said. The company has its main hub at New York's JFK International Airport. The company plans a flight a day leaving Orlando at 10:40 a.m. with arrival in San Jose's Juan Santamaría airport at 11:53 a.m. local time. The return flight will leave San José at 12:48 p.m. and arrive in Orlando at 5:55 p.m., said the company. Fares will run from $99 each way, the company said. Jet Blue is known for having a television set for each passenger seat. Refugee petition rejected for U.S. woman held here By Elyssa Pachico
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Immigration and security officials would not admit a petition for refugee status submitted by a U.S. woman wanted on an international kidnapping charge. The woman's lawyer, Jorge Rojas Torres, said Wednesday that the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policia y Seguridad Pública was unclear as to why officials would not admit the petition for refugee status, which was presented during the last week of November. The lawyer and his client have appealed the denial, he said, and expect an answer from the ministry Friday. The woman, Mary Anginette McBeth, 37, was detained by immigration police Nov. 21, in Montezuma, Nicoya. She and her son, Amedeo, 2, had been living in Costa Rica using a different name and false passport since September 2007. The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a kidnapping warrant against her April 14, 2007, for allegedly abducting her son from his father, Luigi Cuomo, 50. Fanny Cordero, a spokeswoman for the child welfare office, the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, confirmed that Ms. McBeth's son is in the custody of his father. However, she could not confirm that the two remain in Costa Rica. Ms. McBeth, a former resident of Surfside, Florida, first filed for divorce from Cuomo in Nov. 26, 2006, according to the Miami-Dade county courthouse records. According to Ms. McBeth, in March, she booked a round-trip ticket to visit her son from another marriage, Noah, 17, in Germany. Her husband, who knew she was going to Germany, filed kidnapping charges in her absence, she said. At the time she left for Germany in March, she and Cuomo shared joint custody of the child. Cuomo's lawyer, Lawrence S. Katz, who handled divorce proceedings in Florida, said that while there was no judicial order preventing Ms. McBeth from leaving the country at that time, by doing so she still violated Florida's interference with custody law. Additionally, in Florida's dissolution of marriage statute, a parent must give 30 days notice to the other parent before relocating the child, which Ms. McBeth failed to do, he said. “She never provided any information whatsoever,” he said. “She disappeared and we had no idea where she was.” Ms. McBeth said that on the second day of her arrival to Germany, her husband called her to make sure she had arrived safely. “He knew I was leaving,” said Ms. McBeth, who is being held in an immigration detention center in Hatillo. Cuomo had been named the sole parental custodian of Amadeo after April 30, 2007, the same day that the FBI issued a warrant order for Ms. McBeth, said Katz. According to Katz, Cuomo first asked for sole parental responsibility when filing a counter petition for the divorce Dec. 15, 2006, accusing Ms. McBeth of using marijuana in the presence of her child. Ms. McBeth denies the charge. In a Karlsruhe, Germany, court Ms. McBeth attempted to seek refugee status, accusing her husband of physically abusing her. The judge dismissed the charges due to a lack of credibility, said Katz, who called the accusations “patently false.” “There's never been a police report filed by her. There's never been a 911 call filed by her. There's never been anything in the divorce case filed by her,” he said. “There's no evidence, but more importantly were never any allegations filed in Florida. She's never made an allegation there before to the police or to any court.” Ms. McBeth's petition for refugee status is at the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería, an agency of the ministry. Religion is no barrier to driver's blood test By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man who claimed he should not be required to take a blood test for a driver's license has lost his appeal to the Sala IV constitutional court. In April, the man, identified by the last names of Núñez Herrera, sought to obtain a license renewal, but a new rule required him to get a blood test. The idea is that listing the blood type on a license will help aid workers and physicians in case of an accident. Although the man argued that his religion, which was not specified, prohibited him from giving a blood sample, the Sala IV rejected the case.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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Arias and staff going for a
train ride to Heredia Friday
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The first official trip on the renewed Heredia rail line will be Friday when President Óscar Arias Sánchez, his ministers, staff and reporters ride a train to a consejo de gobierno session in Heredia from San José. The line has been cleared, repaired and put back into service. Regular passenger service between Heredia and the former Estación al Atlantico near Parque Nacional is expected to begin in January. The rail line, once a vital transportation link, fell into disuse after rail passenger service was terminated in 1998. Some cargo shipments continued to be made from the port of Caldera to Tibás until recently. The Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles had to repair the trackage, install one bridge and repair others to bring the line back into service. There also was large quantities of garbage, soil and rocks dumped on parts of the track. Work crews have been using the track for months. The executive president of the rail institute, Miguel Carabaguiaz, and other government employees checked out |
the line Tuesday. They were in a
sports utility vehicle modified for operating on tracks when a
conventional vehicle bumped into them at a crossing. No one was hurt,
but the crash points out the type of problem that the valley rail line
has been having because there are no crossing gates or signals. The train engines on the Heredia line are distinctive for repeatedly blowing their horns because of the number of unprotected street crossings. Officials have said that they would like to electrify the entire valley train system. The line is complete from Caldera on the Pacific to a point north of San José where the line enters the central mountains. Train service also is available for cargo along the Caribbean coast and from Limón inland about 60 kms or about 37 miles. Officials have made no public statements about restoring the damaged link through the mountains. The consejo de gobierno is the president's cabinet meeting. The session is normally private but usually followed by a press conference. The one Friday will be at the Palacio de los Deportes. |
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Special session to air
legislative flap over telecom panel
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The legislature will meet in special session Friday morning for what may be an all-day debate over three board members of the new Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones. The Authoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos has selected five candidates out of about 80 applicants. Under the new telecommunications law, the Asamblea Legislativa can vote to confirm or reject the candidates. Members of the Partido Acción Ciudadana are unhappy with one choice, that of Vanessa de Paul Castro Mora, 44, a lawyer who served in the legislature from 1998 to 2000 as a representative of another political party, Unidad Social Cristiana. Under the law, if the legislature does not vote one way or the other within 30 days, the candidates are confirmed automatically. So part of the debate in the legislature is exactly when the names were proposed. The regulating authority announced the choices Nov. 13, but it is not clear when the nominations formally reached the desk of the assembly president, Francisco Antonio Pacheco Fernández. Acción Ciudadana also said it is not happy with the selection of Juan Manuel Quesada Espinoza, a 30-year-old lawyer for the agency, as the panel's substitute member. Ms. Castro, in addition to being the member of a rival party, also is too closely associated with Repretel, the |
television network, according to
Acción Ciudadana. And Quesada is suspect because of his
employment with the agency. The five panel members would have broad authority over the rates and quality of service in the telecommunications field, which is being opened to private competition. The telecommunications law, part of the implementing legislation for the free trade treaty with the United States, eliminates the former monopoly held by the government's Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. There is another factor. Pacheco, the assembly president, noted Wednesday that the appointments are the last official actions necessary to bring the free trade treaty into effect. The deadline for Costa Rica to get its legal house in order is Dec. 31, but lawmakers are going on a holiday break soon, which is why a special session has been called. Acción Ciudadana opposes the free trade treaty. The panel members are expected to be named to their posts because Pacheco's Partido Liberación Nacional, Unidad, Movimiento Libertario and two independent lawmakers constitute a two-thirds majority in the assembly. But assembly rules allow prolonged debate. In addition to Ms. Castro and the substitute board member, Quesada, the other two nominees are Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez Gutiérrez, 50, an economist with a specialty in public finance, and George Petrie Miley Rojas, 33, who has seven years experience in the telecommunication field, the agency reported Nov. 13. |
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Gold mining firm warns it
will arbitrate lack of permits
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
via The CAFTA Report A Canadian-American mining company has filed a notice that it intends to seek arbitration to be reimbursed some several hundred million dollars from the government of El Salvador. The claim is being pursued under the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The company, Pacific Rim Mining Corp. of Vancouver said Tuesday that its subsidiary, Pac Rim Cayman LLC, a Nevada corporation, was making the claim. The company left open the door that an informal resolution might be made within the next 90 days. A mine design for the company's El Dorado gold project was submitted to the government of El Salvador in its final form in October 2006, over two years ago, the company said. But the government has yet to issue the needed permits, By exploring, discovering and delineating gold deposits in El Salvador while at all times operating in full compliance with El Salvadoran law, Pacific Rim has developed |
precious metal assets higher
in value than
the investment of over US $75 million undertaken in El Salvador by the
company and its predecessors, the company said. "With the mine operating, Pacific Rim would be the single greatest contributor to the tax revenues of the country, and rather than providing thousands of new lucrative jobs for El Salvadorans, we have had to dismiss over 200 local workers in the past few months," said Tom Shrake, president and CEO of Pacific Rim. The company said it would press the claim through the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, D.C. This arbitration system is set out in the trade treaty. Some Central Americans object to the arbitration provision because it puts their actions under international review. This has been a criticism in Costa Rica, too. However, international investors like the idea of an arbitration review to counter governmental high handedness. |
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Study said trace element
molybdenum is key to rainforest
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By the Princeton University news service
A team of researchers led by Princeton University scientists has found for the first time that tropical rainforests, a vital part of the Earth's ecosystem, rely on the rare trace element molybdenum to capture the nitrogen fertilizer needed to support their wildly productive growth. Most of the nitrogen that supports the rapid, lush growth of rainforests comes from tiny bacteria that can turn nitrogen in the air into fertilizer in the soil. Until now, scientists had thought that phosphorus was the key element supporting the prodigious expansion of rainforests, according to Lars Hedin, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University who led the research. But an experiment testing the effects of various elements on test plots in lowland rainforests on the Gigante Peninsula in the Barro Colorado Nature Monument in Panamá showed that areas treated with molybdenum withdrew more nitrogen from the atmosphere than other elements. "We were surprised," said Hedin, who is also a professor in the Princeton Environmental Institute. "It's not what we were expecting." The report, detailed in the Dec. 7 online edition of Nature Geoscience, will be the journal's cover story in its print edition. Molybdenum, the team found, is essential for controlling the biological conversion of nitrogen in the atmosphere into natural soil nitrogen fertilizer, which in turn spurs plant |
growth.
"Just like trace amounts of vitamins are essential for human health,
this exceedingly rare trace metal is indispensable for the vital
function of tropical rainforests in the larger Earth system," Hedin
said. Molybdenum is 10,000 times less abundant than phosphorus
and
other major nutrients in these ecosystems. The discovery has implications for global climate change policy, the scientists said. Previously, researchers knew little about rainforests' capacity to absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. If molybdenum is central to the biochemical processes involved in the uptake of carbon dioxide, then there may be limits to how much carbon that tropical rainforests can absorb. The biological enzyme, nitrogenase, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into soil fertilizer, feeds on molybdenum, the researchers found. "Nitrogenase without molybdenum is like a car engine without spark plugs," said Alexander Barron, the lead author on the paper, who was a graduate student in Hedin's laboratory and earned his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton in 2007. He now is working on climate legislation in Congress. Molybdenum, a lustrous, silvery metal, is found in soil, rock and sea water and in a range of enzymes vital to human health. Traces of the element have been found in Japanese swords dating back to the 14th century. In modern times, its high strength, good electrical conductivity and anticorrosive properties have made molybdenum desirable as an element of rocket engines, radiation shields, light bulb filaments and circuit boards. |
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Investigators might get right
to actually question crooks
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Here's a great idea: Suppose after capturing a criminal suspect police sit the individual down and ask questions about the crime. No rubber hoses, No waterboarding. Just a discussion in the presence of the suspect's lawyer or public defender. Coffee and a cigarette optional. Of course this is a scene daily on the television where clever detectives obtain incriminating admissions or useful information from a suspect. |
But you can't do that in Costa Rica.
That is considered a violation of rights. The special legislative committee considering security issues decided to change that law Wednesday and approved a motion put forth by Luis Carlos Araya Monge that a suspect can be questioned by investigators within the first six hours after apprehension. However, a summary provided by the legislature said that information developed during this questioning can only be used to further the police investigation and cannot be considered a confession on the part of the accused. |
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into pieces of metal junk By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Óscar Arias Sánchez presided Wednesday as some 1,759 firearms were chopped up at Casa Presidencial. The goal was to reduce the number of weapons in circulation. These weapons had been confiscated during various police actions. Some 642 of the destroyed weapons were long guns. Arias said that he alway raises his voice against arms in the schools, in the high schools, in the university and in the international organizations. He is promoting an international treaty at the United Nations that would require nations to keep track of the guns that are produced within their boundaries and shipped to other countries. Officials estimate that 61 percent of the nation's murders are accomplished with firearms. In addition to Arias, present at the destruction were Janina del Vecchio, the security minister, and Luiza Carvalho of the United Nation's Development Programme. More cell telephone lines promised over four months By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The telephone company said it will be offering 100,000 new GSM cell phone lines in two weeks. This is in addition to the 60,000 that are being offered Monday to those who have signed up. Eventually the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad said that it would get 300,000 total new lines by installing some $50 million in equipment from Ericsson. The next batch of 100,000 will be available in about two months, and the final 100,000 will be available in about four months, the company said. The 60,000 lines that go on sale Monday has come from individuals and firms that have surrendered them. EARTH plans graduation By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Universidad EARTH, the Escuela Agrícola del Trópico Húmedo, in Guácimo will graduate 96 students Friday, and among the spectators will be José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the president of Honduras who is visiting. Among the graduates are 10 from Honduras. |
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