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Second news page |
 Click HERE for photo tour of 526 properties for SALE or RENT in Escazú, Ciudad Colón, Santa Ana, Rohrmoser, Curridabat, Heredia and the Pacific Coast. |
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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| Transport
minister plans Heredia train by May By Silleny Sanabria Soto
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff The head of the transportation agency wants to have a commuter train route running between San José and Heredia before he leaves office in early May. Randall Quiros Bustamante, the minister of Obras Públicas y Transportes, said this Wednesday as he reviewed the work his agency has been doing for the year. The news was mostly depressing, except for the train, which now runs from Pavas to Universidad Latina in San Pedro each day. The Heredia route had been announced but the news now is that it will be opened so soon. Quiros said that a grant of 640,000 euros from the European Economic community would allow the government to set up a 30-minute commute on existing rails. Some of the money would be spent on preparing a new route from San Pedro to Ochomogo in Cartago. The success of the commuter train has been overshadowed by the nation's roads, which presidential candidate Ottón Solís calls with some justification the worst in Central America. Others are less diplomatic. Quiros outlined the problem facing his ministry, which includes the road repair agency. Quiros, said that one big problem was that the company COMESA, hired to repair roads in the south Pacific went bankrupt, and for that reason the work had to stop for three years. Storms and the landslides they caused along the Pacific are other reasons for the bad roads, he said. Damage is estimated at 28 billion colons or some $56.5 million. Quiros said that the San José-Caldera highway, which will shorten the trip from the Central Valley to the Pacific, is making progress. The bridges for the route were installed before the Abel Pacheco administration took over in 2002, but little construction work has been done. Quiros said The Consejo Nacional de Concesiones has approved the request of one company to withdraw from the deal. The government continued to acquire right-of-way with a 3.2 billion-colon investment, he said. That's $6.5 million. He said 337 parcels had been purchased.  A.M. Costa Rica/Selleny
Sanabria Soto
It's hard not to see potholes these days
Our reader's opinion
What has happened to the nation's roads? Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I have been coming to Costa Rica for 35 years. I now own a hotel in Paradiso. A couple of months ago I had to drive to Liberia from San José. I stayed the night on Tamarindo Beach. The next morning I had to fly out of Liberia. I will never drive there again and will never go to Tamarindo again, unless someone buys me a ticket to fly. I wish I had a better word to describe how HORRIFYING THE ROADS WERE. For the first time in 35 years I heard someone say they would not come back. At the airport in Liberia I saw more than a half dozen people angered and saying they would NEVER COME BACK, WHAT A SHAME THE GOVERNMENT HAS LET THESE ROAD GET IN THIS CONDITION. Cray Palmer
Paradiso Cahuita shooting leads to a confusing scene By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers in the Provincia de Limón captured four men suspected of briefly detaining a man identified by the last names Obando Obando in Cahuita, the officers said. The incident was reported late Tuesday. According to officers, there was a shootout and soon after unknown individuals ran off with Obando. At approximately midnight, there was a search through the center of Cahuita for Obando. He was found in a house, officers said. When Obando was found, the officers said that he looked as though he had received a number of blows to his body. Police arrested three persons who were also found at the home, officers said. They were identified by the last names Dixon Obregón, Brown Valentino and Soto Torres, police said. Later, officers arrested a fourth subject with a bullet wound to the right leg at the Hone Creek medical clinic in Cahuita. He was identified by the last names González García, officers said. Officers said they haven't been able to discern a motive. |
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| Joint drug operation yields a whopping catch of 2,095 kilos
in Pacific |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A drug patrol operation involving the coast guard of both Costa Rica and the United States yielded the arrest of the six crew members of the “Princesa de Drake” in Panamanian waters 27 miles south east of the Costa Rican border. The boat, registered in Quepos, was carrying 68 packages of cocaine, each of which weighed between 20 and 35 kilos, said the security ministry. In all, officers seized 2,095 kilos of cocaine, they said. That's 4,609 pounds. Though the boat was stopped by a United States vessel, a treaty between the United States and Costa Rica says that during a joint operation, a boat that is |
stopped closer to Costa
Rica than the United States
falls under Costa Rican jurisdiction. The six crew members detained were four Costa Ricans, identified by the last names Rosales Castillo, Centeno Ramírez, Álvarez Castro and Herrera González, said the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública. The other two sailors arrested were a Colombian identified by the last names Rodríguez Castro and a Guatemalan identified by the last names Del Cid Arroyo, the security ministry said. The Fuerza Pública, the Policía de Control de Drogas and the judicial police have seized a total of 9,812 kilos of cocaine this year, the most ever in a year. |
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| Evidence links cocaine abuse and Parkinson's disease |
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Adults who abuse cocaine might increase their risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, and pregnant women who abuse cocaine could increase the risk of their children developing the ailment later in life, according to results of laboratory studies performed by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The study’s findings are important because there are currently more than 2 million cocaine abusers in the United States today, the researchers said. Many individuals who abused the drug during the height of the cocaine abuse epidemic of the 1970s and 1980s are now entering their older years, when symptoms of Parkinson’s are likely to emerge. A report on this work appears in the online, prepublication edition of Neuroscience. The St. Jude team showed in laboratory models of both the adult and fetal brains that exposure to cocaine alters the nerve bodies in the region of the brain called the substantia nigra. This damage made the neurons more susceptible to MPTP, a toxin known to cause symptoms of Parkinson’s. The nigrostriatal system is a pathway of nerves that originates in the area called the substantial nigra pars compacta and spreads out into certain other parts of the brain. The neurons in the substantial nigra pars compacta make the neurotransmitter dopamine, and degeneration of this area and the nigrostriatal system is one of the major hallmarks of Parkinson’s, according to Richard Smeyne, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology. “Our findings suggest that cocaine makes the SNpc in adults susceptible to further damage from environmental toxins that can cause Parkinson’s disease,” Smeyne said “The findings also strongly suggest that women who abuse cocaine during pregnancies put their children at an increased risk for developing Parkinson’s disease.” Cocaine is also known to disrupt the normal function of the dopamine transporter, a protein that sweeps up dopamine from the synapse after it stimulates its target nerve, he added. Disruption of this process causes an abnormal rise in the concentration of dopamine in the synapse. This poses a threat to the brain because dopamine can interact with other chemicals to become a free radical — a highly reactive molecule that can damage tissue. “So the increase in |
the amount of dopamine
in the synapse can lead to high levels of
destructive free radicals that damage this area of the brain,” Smeyne
said. The St. Jude team studied the effect of cocaine in laboratory models that are resistant to the toxin MPTP, which is known to cause Parkinson’s-like damage in the brain. The investigators used this model to determine if cocaine altered the nigrostriatal system so it became sensitive to MPTP. Exposure to cocaine did not affect the number of cells in the substantial nigra pars compacta of adult and fetal models but did make them more susceptible to damage from MPTP, the researchers reported. Furthermore, in both the adult and fetal models, cocaine exposure disrupted the balance between the proteins that sweep up dopamine from the synapses and bring them into the pre-synaptic cell and the sacs that package them in those neurons. Specifically, the ratio of transporter proteins to the sacs increased by 27 percent in the fetal models and by 28 percent in adult models, the investigators reported. “This means that the transporter proteins were pumping more dopamine back into the pre-synaptic nerves than could be repackaged in those sacs,” Smeyne explained. “And that was allowing dopamine to accumulate freely inside the cell, where it can produce free radicals. That kind of stress can make the nerve susceptible to other environmental toxins. Smeyne theorizes that toxins that enter the body could then cause damage in the substantia nigra that leads to Parkinson’s disease. The study also found that cocaine exposure decreased the number of certain dopamine receptors called D2 autoreceptors. These autoreceptors control the production and/or release of dopamine. When the receptors are in short supply, the level of dopamine in the synapse rises. This in turn leaves the synapse (connection between nerves) vulnerable to free radical damage, according to Smeyne. “Based on these findings it might not be surprising to see a rise in the number of cases of Parkinson’s disease in the next 10 or 20 years or so,” said Steven A. Lloyd, Ph.D. the first author of the article. Lloyd was a graduate student in Smeyne’s laboratory during this work and is now an assistant professor of psychology at Rhodes College in Memphis. Smeyne’s team previously published their findings that exercise confers protection on mice that otherwise would have developed Parkinson’s. |
| U.N. pact against corruption would target stolen assets all
over world |
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The United Nations Convention against Corruption, a major obstacle to development in poor countries, came into force Wednesday, providing the first legally binding global instrument for the return of assets illicitly acquired by dishonest officials, as well as preventive steps to detect plundering of national wealth as it occurs. “Time and time again, countries’ assets have been looted by corrupt leaders, while in the corporate world, many shareholders have been robbed by corrupt managers,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, which is the custodian of the convention. “This convention demonstrates that governments are no longer prepared to tolerate a destructive practice which is as old as history and as wide as the globe. It gives nations the legal tools they need to transform their economies,” he added. The convention, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in October 2003, signed by 140 countries and ratified by 38, rests on four pillars: prevention and criminalization of corruption, international cooperation and asset recovery. Costa Rica signed the document Dec. 10, 2003, but has not ratified it. "The tough new provisions on asset recovery represent a major breakthrough,” Costa said. “The fact that nowhere in the world will be exempt from |
the obligation to
return looted assets, and that old
excuses such as banking secrecy will no longer be an impediment, will
be of major assistance in preventing corruption.” Under the treaty, states are required to return money and other assets obtained through corruption to the country from which they were stolen. “This sends a warning to corrupt officials everywhere that they can no longer expect to enjoy the fruits of their crimes by moving stolen assets abroad. It is also a message of hope to millions of people who have grown angry and frustrated at seeing their country’s wealth plundered by criminals,” he added. The 90-day countdown for Wednesday’s entry into force was started at the U.N. World Summit Sept. 15 when Ecuador provided the required 30th ratification. Costa appealed to all Member States to ratify the convention. “This new instrument must be only the beginning of our redoubled efforts to prevent and control corruption. We must all make sure that the momentum that made its negotiation and entry into force possible is not allowed to dissipate,” he declared. Implementation, which rests firmly in the hands of governments, would be a word devoid of meaning if the convention did not become the global standard that it was intended to be, he said. His office has been assisting countries in developing anti-corruption strategies, prevention measures and the institutions they need to fight corruption effectively. |
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