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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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 A.M. Costa Rica/Saray
Ramírez Vindas
Agents take away the bike ridden to the bank by Agustin Rafael
López Prado moments before the holdup try.Was the man with bike
one of the criminals? By Saray Ramírez Vindas
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff If you are a bank robber, riding to work on your bicycle probably is not a good idea. Investigators are trying to figure out if that is what a Nicaraguan man did Tuesday. They wonder if he might not just be someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two men in a car drove up to the Banco de Costa Rica branch on Paseo Colón about 9:15 a.m. A few minutes later they were in conversation with the third man, the one who had biked to the bank and chained up his bicycle outside. One of the men who came in the car gave a teller a note demanding money and pulled a gun. A bank guard responded by shooting him once in the leg and once in the stomach. The wounded man was identified as José Antonio Ortiz Prado, 35. His companion from the car fled. But also taken into custody was the bike rider, Agustin Rafael López Prado, 39. Investigators were checking to see if he had any kind of criminal record. Comisario Walter Navarro Romero, director general of the Fuerza Pública, said that the wounded man went to Hospital San Juan de Dios. He praised the quick response of his men in securing the scene. Agents unchained the bike and took it away in a pickup. Agents were puzzled by the identical last names of both men and that they seemed to know each other before the robbery attempt. Planting trees can deplete ground water, study says By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and special reports Planting trees is not always the panacea for the environrment. A U.S. study suggests that tree plantations deplete ground water, increase soil salinity and use up nutrients. The study looked at growing tree plantations to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to mitigate global warming — so called "carbon sequestration." The study concluded that this activity could trigger environmental changes that outweigh some of the benefits, a multi-institutional team led by Duke University suggested in a new report. "We believe that decreased stream flow and changes in soil and water quality are likely as plantations are increasingly grown for biological carbon sequestration," the 10 authors wrote in a paper published Friday in the journal Science. Tree planting for eventual harvesting and reforestation are major environmental activities in Costa Rica. Assessing the impact of converting land to trees, the study showed that the larger water demands of growing trees rather than crops or pastures dramatically decreased stream flow within a few years of planting, the authors wrote. Water use within existing tree plantations of all ages resulted in average stream flow reductions of 38 percent, with losses increasing as the trees aged. Moreover, "13 percent of streams dried up completely for at least one year," the study said. Overall, about 20 percent more of the water provided by precipitation was removed by current tree farming, the study estimated. Of course such biological activity could also reduce dangerous runoff. The researchers added that more of these plantations would also release more moisture into a region's atmosphere as tree roots removed water from the soils and discharged some portions as water vapor emanating through leaf pores. Economic incentives for planting trees are provided under so-called “carbon trading exchanges” encouraged by the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union’s Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme, the study noted. More moisture released into the air seemed to be more likely in tropical regions than in temperate zones, the study said, because the sun is stronger and more energy is created to disperse the water. Trees, by using surface ground water also can help brackish and salty water flow up from subsurface deposits, said the report. “These mechanisms have been linked to more than five-fold increases in groundwater salinization in southern Australia and in the Caspian steppes of Russia,” the study’s authors wrote. In temperate areas, the use of evergreens which drop needles can increase acidity of soils, said the study. However, the study noted that tree plantations can lower water tables in areas contaminated by substandard subsurface water. |
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 Sebastian León Marchena, 6, dances
to the music. His mother is Karen Machado Cordero.
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 Jaquelyn Pérez Alvarez of Los
Cuadros de Guadalupe helps recycle beer cans.
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 The Barva group Los Chapetanos has masks
of Abel Pacheco, television personality Mr. Bean and Óscar
Arias.
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| Carnival
takes its time to weave through downtown |
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| By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Thousands of persons stood and sat through the longest carnival on record Tuesday. The first contingents of antique automobiles began moving at 1 p.m., and the last marchers passed through the downtown at 8 p.m. All took place under occasional showers and mostly cloudy skies. Photos By
José Pablo Ramiez Vindas The carnival with its bands, floats and scantily clad young ladies may not be the biggest crowd of all the San José parades but because the line of march covers less distance spectators are packed in. Avenida 2 was lined with spectators and bleachers from 9:30 a.m. on. Marchers assembled near Parque La Merced and traveled to Plaza Víquez in south San José. The Cruz Roja had 70 persons mobilized and operated seven aid stations during the carnival. Police |
 Raquel Pérez Garcia and Yolanda Pérez Vega of the 60-person Alajuelita Imperio del Sabor have participated in the carnival for five years. The feathers of their outfits come from México. also were very visible with a heavy show of force. The Cruz Roja emergency personnel took care of six persons even before the parade began, said Eddy Orozco, who was in charge of operations. Later, a 37-year-old woman who is two months pregnant had to be taken to Hospital Calderón Guardia, from the vicinity of the Plaza de la Cultura. The Cruz Roja said that those treated earlier fell victim to the strong sun, but |
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as the skies clouded over there was
less need for emergency
action. A total of eight persons were treated at the carnival, and
three more were treated at the Zapote festival, said the Cruz Roja.
Those 11 persons brought to 67 the number treated over the first three
days
of the festival. The carnival helps promote the Zapote festival, so it takes place right after Christmas instead of right before the religious period of Lent that leads up to Easter when most other carnivals take place. The parade is strongly supported by beer distributors and producers of guaro, the uniquely Costa Rican white lightning. |
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| Pothole foils abduction of Cañas restaurant owner |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A big pothole foiled the abduction of the owner of a Cañas Chinese restaurant, investigators said. They reported that the man received a call for the delivery of food Monday night, and he took the dinner by motorcycle to a place in Barrio Vergel in Cañas. There he was confronted with kidnappers who tied him up, gagged him and put him in a van. The idea was to seek some $80,000 in ransom, agents for the Judicial Investigating Organization said. The criminals fled for the Nicoya Peninsula but three |
kilometers (about 1.8 miles) east of the Puente de Amistad over the Río
Tempisque the tires on the right side of the van fell into a long
pothole and the rear tire blew. The kidnappers fled from the van and left the restaurant owner tied up inside, He was discovered about 5 a.m. Tuesday when a passer-by called police to report a vehicle abandoned with its doors open. Agents and police rounded up five suspects at various points in Cañas. They included four Asians and a Costa Rican who was born in Panamá, they said. Agents said kidnappers had reduced their demand to $30,000 by early morning. |
| Bolaños aide Ernesto Leal dies of pneumonia in a
Florida hospital |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Former Nicaraguan foreign minister Ernesto Leal, 60, died Monday of pneumonia in a Miami, Florida, hospital. Leal had been serving as chief of staff to Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños in a position called secretary of the president. Born in Managua in 1945, Leal was politically active in Nicaraguan politics for four decades. He was also heavily involved in working with the Organization of American States. |
Earlier this year, he
competed for the post of assistant
secretary-general of the OAS, but lost to former Surinamese ambassador
Albert Ramdin by five votes. OAS officials say Leal worked tirelessly for reform of key institutions, including the Central American Parliament and the Central American Court of Justice. They also say he took part in the 1993 special OAS Mission to Guatemala and Haiti, countries undergoing constitutional crises at the time. The Nicaraguan government said a memorial service was held Tuesday in Florida. |
| Leaders of social movements will be invited to inauguration
in Bolivia |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
LA PAZ, Bolivia — President-elect Evo Morales says he plans to invite leaders of South American social movement groups along with Nobel Prize laureates and heads of state to his Jan. 22 inauguration. A spokesman for Morales said the future president has sent invitations to the leaders of Brazil's landless movement, Argentina's unemployed workers' groups and several Ecuadorian Indian groups. |
Also on the invitation
list are Nobel laureates Nelson Mandela of South
Africa, Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, Adolfo Peerez Esquivel of
Argentina and Gabriel Garcia Márquez of Colombia. Heads of state on the guest list include the presidents of Venezuela, Cuba, Paraguay and Peru. The spokesman said Morales plans a traditional inauguration ceremony followed by a traditional Indian ritual. |
| Chile's high court won't drop human rights charges against
Pinochet |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
SANTIAGO, Chile — The Supreme Court has again refused to drop human rights charges against former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. In Santiago Tuesday, the court rejected an appeal made by Pinochet's lawyers that he is too ill to stand trial. A day earlier, the court rejected similar appeals in other cases against the former dictator, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet is charged in connection with a series of |
alleged human rights
abuses related to Operation Colombo, in which some 119 political
opponents disappeared in the mid-1970s. He also has been indicted for tax fraud and other crimes related to some $27 million he allegedly hid in foreign banks. In recent months, Chilean courts have steadily stripped Pinochet of immunity from prosecution on a case-by-case basis. He has been under house arrest since late November. |
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