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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 20 | |||||||||
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license plates for motorists By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Correos de Costa Rica will work with the Registro Nacional to provide new license plates to the nation's motorists. The Registro has decreed that each vehicle should exchange the existing plates for ones with secure features. There also is a sticker to put on the vehicle's windshield. The effort is to reduce license plate fraud. Correos said that motorists can get the job done at any of the 118 post offices in the country as well as the regional offices of the Registro Nacional. If the motorist chooses to turn in the plates at a Registro office, Correos said that it is prepared to deliver the new plates via its EMS courier service. The new plates cost 15,000 colons for passenger cars, and the courier service can be from 4,000 to 7,000 colons depending on the location. Motorcycle owners pay 8,000 for the plates. More information in Spanish is available HERE! Because a lot of ownership information is online at the Registro some of the usual paperwork is not required, but if someone other than the vehicle owner seeks to exchange license plates, a notarized special power of attorney is required. Talking about leaving a clue for the police By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
If someone plans to call in a bomb scare, using the household telephone probably is not a good idea. That is what the Poder Judicial said a man did Thursday when he called in a bomb threat to the courts in Heredia. The call came to the 911 service, and agents quickly traced the call to a home in San Pablo de Heredia. They arrested a suspect who lives in the home while he was walking some 100 yards away. They knew him. He just finished a sentence for aggravated robbery. The 3:30 p.m. call resulted in evacuating the building, said the Poder Judicial. Iberia will increase seats on Costa Rican flights By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo said Thursday that the Spanish airline Iberia would be increasing its capacity to over 234,000 airplane seats in 2012 for people traveling between Spain and Costa Rica. That constitutes a 5.5 percent increase in passenger capacity for people traveling from major tourism markets in Europe such as Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. Iberia offers daily direct flights between San José and Madrid. Iberia has a flight network branching out to 32 Spanish cities, as well as 41 European stops and 11 more in the Middle East and Africa, the institute reports. The tourism institute applauded the announcement because Spanish visitors account for the largest share of European tourism dollars spent in Costa Rica, about $58 million per year. In 2010 approximately 48,500 Spanish tourists came to Costa Rica and 82 percent came by airplane. The visitors stayed an average of 13 nights and spent about $125 per day, according to tourism statistics. The institute said that Iberia is the only airline that has flown continuously to Central America over the past 40 years.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica Third
News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 20 | |
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Jo Stuart |
Eduardo Echeverria does his work at a reliable, foot-powered machine that is an antique. |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Andrew Rulseh Kasper
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| New fashion trends mean more business for
a traditional craft |
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By
Andrew Rulseh Kasper
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff With sastrerias in relative abundance in downtown San José, it is apparent that in comparison with the United States the age old art of clothing repair still holds a strong place in Costa Rican culture. But according to one seasoned tailor, at least a part of his success in maintaining a traditional trade in the 21st century exists not in spite of the quickly modernizing world, but because of it. Eduardo Echeverria's one-man clothing repair shop is in the downtown at the Plaza de Los Artes. He said he attributes much of his success to his ability to change his style of clothing repair with the influences of the larger fashion world. The result is that his shop is not only bustling with elderly men looking to have their pants mended, but he claims he has been able to draw a fairly large amount of business from youth who just can’t let go of a good pair of torn jeans. This started about 10 years ago when torn jeans became commonplace in new stores, sometimes even costing more than their pristine counterparts. Echeverria has become a master in the art of detailed and fashionable jean repairs. The good prices don’t hurt either when it comes to attracting customers. Apart from that, his biggest workload is shortening pants that are too long for the sometimes vertically challenged Ticos and fixing the result of pants cuffs that have been dragging on the asphalt. To repair a damaged pair of cuffs and properly shorten the pants Echeverria charges about $4. It’s about the same price for the placement of a large patch to fix a hole. Customer service also has a different feel in a small shop like Echeverria’s. There exists a stronger connection when the relationship is direct between the customer and the vendor. On a sunny afternoon in San José Echeverria hemmed the pants of a loyal customer for free after he stopped in the store during his office lunch to inquire about the work. That's a far different practice than shipping consumer goods in need of repair back to the factory where it was made and praying they do the job right. The experienced tailor, who often makes use of his |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Andrew
Rulseh Kasper
A
quick zig zag of stiches renders work pants whole again.
foot-powered sewing machine,
realizes he is up against a gigantic
industry of quickly made, mass-produced products. Even if a repair only
costs a few dollars, that amount can be the same price or more as a
brand-new cheap factory garment or used pair of jeans in a used
clothing store.
Echeverria said he used to work in the textile industry, sketching different types of fabric and setting the machines to the appropriate calibrations. He learned the work in a specialized course he took in Germany. However, after leaving the field for several years to work in business administration, he tried to return to his previous line of work with fabrics. But he said in just that short time the technology had left him behind. So he made the decision to open the tailor shop in San José more than a decade ago. Now he can choose his own hours and work at his own pace. Echeverria's current job is analogous to the foot-pedaled sewing machine he uses in his shop. It demonstrates how a seemingly antiquated component of society can still find a place in the changing times. In his own words about the machine. “It’s old but practical. It never breaks. When it starts to sound ugly just pour some oil on it.” |
 Where
are the mountains?
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 A.M.
Costa Rica/Jo Stuart
Restful
view on the north side
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| High rise mania plays havoc on those mountain views |
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| There
is almost no way to stop change. Isolated societies have managed
to slow change as far as their environments are concerned, but those
of us who live in the city are overruled by forces beyond our
control. Sometimes those forces are called development. Sometimes
they seem to be “Let’s build another high rise.” Ever since the first double tower went up in Sabana Norte blocking the view of the mountains and Sabana Park from the unfortunates living behind it, (which includes my apartment building), the let’s build attitude has reached mania heights. (No pun intended.) Next came the sky-skimming stadium, two more towers in Sabana Oeste and Sabana Sur, and now we have a very large and modern MacDonald’s handily close to the Stadium. It is only two stories but the big M is visible for miles. That is the view I currently have from my guest room/office on the south side of my apartment. Once this view was as restful as the view from the north side of my apartment. This past week I had lunch with Grady in Sabana Sur. The changes there astonished us. Unlike the north side of the park that has lots of large homes, some discrete, if mysterious businesses, and is essentially suburban, the south side is made up of smaller buildings and small mom and pops type stores and restaurants. Times have changed. There are new strip malls with a variety of restaurants ranging from hamburgers to sushi, and beauty salons and an AM PM (which I think was always there), and now a huge three tower complex of condos/apartments is going up. I’d like to point out at this moment that my neighbor on the south side of my building says that the original high rise (the one blocking his view) seems sparsely occupied. Of the 52 condos he figures are there, 21 windows have drapes and only between seven and nine apartments are lit up each night. There may be many reasons, only one of which could be because nobody lives in the others. When it first opened, I looked at an apartment on the 12th floor. It had a balcony with a wonderful 180 degree view. The problem was the wind at that height was so strong, I could never stay put on the balcony. Since I love looking at apartments, I suggested to Grady that we visit the model apartment advertised on a billboard in front. A |
lovely young woman (they all are lovely and young in these offices, it seems) greeted us. There were diagrams of the units on the wall and three-dimensional models on a table. But we had in mind an actual apartment. As it turned out, the building is far from finished, and the elevators had not been installed, let alone, a furnished model. We started up the white tile staircase, alongside workers carrying various tools. I soon lost my eagerness to see anything but the ground floor and outdoors. But Grady continued. They were kind enough to unlock an apartment on the floor where I stopped so I could look at something. Something was a huge expanse of white space, floors and ceilings, probably nearly 40 feet long. That was the living room dining room area. Some would find it palatial, I felt as if I would be more comfortable in that space if I were wearing a straight jacket. I politely declined looking at the bedrooms. We learned later that the price of these condos is the hundreds of thousands – I couldn’t figure out the prices exactly because they are quoted in square meters and increase $50 per square meter with each floor. I am beginning to wonder if Costa Rica is going through its own building bubble and hasn´t realized that the customers are not there. Or maybe they don’t need customers. Ooooh dear. There is some good news in this long running complaint. The city has been planting native trees in Sabana Park to replace the trees they chopped down. And already birds are returning to the park to enjoy what the trees have to offer, small as they are. That is probably why I for one brief moment saw a beautiful scarlet tanager on my north side balcony recently. Note to my friends on the coasts. I hear the same has happened there. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M.
Costa Rica's Fourth news page
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 20 | |||||
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Jo
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| Nation's 2011 exports estimated at a
successful $15.4 billion |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Exporters and officials are declaring 2011 a successful year for international business conducted from Costa Rica. According to the annual report of Promotora del Comercio Exterior, or PROCOMER, the country as a whole achieved $15.4 billion in total exports in 2011. That figure includes $10.4 billion in goods and $5 billion in services. Both were significant increases over 2010. The exports are compiled of more than 4,300 products that originated in 2,412 companies operating in the country. Those products reached a total of 145 different destinations across the globe, the report said. Agricultural products such as bananas and pineapples and industrial products such as electric cables and tires, among others, saw marked increases in exportations over 2011. Costa Rica as an exporter is known for its high-technology goods and medical supplies. The Ministerio de Comercio Exterior reports that Costa Rica is the largest exporter of advanced technology products in Latin America and fourth in the world. The ministry also said Costa Rica is the second largest exporter of medical devices in Latin America, only trailing Mexico. Many of these goods are manufactured in the so-called free zones where manufacturers do not have to pay import taxes on raw materials. |
The general manager of Promotora,
Jorge Sequeira Picado, said in a
press release that products originating in the free zones saw an
increase of nearly 10 percent over 2010 in value of exports. The
ministry also reports that the free zones are where more than half of
all the country’s exported goods are generated and a third of all the
exported services. The ministry also reports that businesses in the
free zones attracted $470 million in foreign investment in 2011, making
it the sector of the Costa Rican economy that receives the largest
percentage of foreign investment. The free zones are being eyed by lawmakers for more taxes and to allow municipalities to assess levies. Promotora opposes this idea, which is why the emphasis was placed on the free zones or the zonas francas. Apart from exports the ministry reports that 30 percent of all private sector jobs, and 13 percent of all jobs, in Costa Rica are generated by the free zones. The official report indicates that in 2011 several large corporations such as Bridgestone, Intel, IBM, Helix medical and GW Plastics decided to new installations in these zones. The United States represents the largest receiver of Costa Rican exports with a 38 percent share. Holland is the second most valuable destination for Costa Rican goods with about 7.1 percent of the share. China is in third with 6.9 percent. |
Until the job is done, traffic is continuing to move but in a restricted fashion. |
 Consejo
Nacional de Vialidad photo
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| Long wall used to salvage Puriscal route
that washed away |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Heavy rains sometimes wash roadways downhill. That happens frequently in Costa Rica. One example is on Ruta 239, the road from San José to Puriscal at the Alto de Quitirrisí. Here the highway lane closest to a steep grade into the valley gave way, and highway engineers had to figure out a way to repair it. The solution has been a 400-meter retaining wall with the new |
highway
lane fastened to the rest of the road with steel anchors. There are
several layers of steel-reinforced concrete. The distance is a bit more than 1,300 feet. The job is costing 800 million colons or about $1.6 million. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad said the work is being done in the daylight and noted that the highway was the only route between Puriscal and the Central Valley and was frequented by tourists. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M.
Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 20 | |||||||||
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| Lobo
in Honduras moves to regulate journalism Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter American Press Association Thursday voiced concern and surprise at an announcement by President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras that he plans to send to congress a bill to regulate the practice of journalism and news media. Lobo made the announcement Wednesday night during his speech opening the third legislative session, but he gave no details of the bill’s content. After praising the role of the news media in exposing wrongdoing committed in his government, Lobo justified the need to regulate the media so they would not be at the service of special interests, explaining that journalism is a true vocation. Gustavo Mohme, chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information of the Inter American Press Association, expressed surprise at Lobo’s announcement. “It is important that Honduras maintains its respect for freedom of the press and for the work of journalists as democratic values,” he said. Mohme, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, declared that “journalism has no greater virtue than that which democracy demands, that is to say to be a watchdog over the powers that be, create public opinion and have the necessary freedom to practice the profession in accordance with its own editorial criteria.” “Whatever law – if any were necessary – should underscore these democratic principles,” he added. President Lobo signed the Declaration of Chapultepec last February during a ceremony in Tegucigalpa, pledging to defend the principles of freedom of the press and free speech. The Inter American Press Association sponsored that document. The organization's officers are planning to meet with Lobo late next month and among other matters discuss the difficult situation of the press in the Central American country in the face of violence unleashed by organized crime and drug traffickers. In the last three years 17 journalists have been killed in Honduras. The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. The parent firm of A.M. Costa Rica is a member. Three buildings collapse in downtown Rio de Janeiro By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Rescue workers in Brazil have pulled at least five bodies from the rubble of three collapsed buildings in downtown Rio de Janeiro. At least six people were injured and 15 others are still missing. Emergency crews found the five bodies Thursday as they used search dogs and heavy machinery to sift through the wreckage of the buildings that collapsed late Wednesday. "We really hope to find survivors," said police officer Julio César Mafia. "That is why we are carrying out the debris removal very carefully, to be sure that we won't harm any survivors.'' The three buildings that fell were between four and 20 stories high. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said the collapse appeared to be caused by structural problems and not a gas leak as earlier suspected. "We won't speculate about the accident's causes, but we have ruled out the possibility of a gas explosion," he said. "What has probably happened was a structure failure in the tallest building that led to the collapse of the three structures.'' Authorities told Brazil's Globo television network that construction was being carried out on one of the buildings and could have contributed to the collapse. Witnesses said they heard what sounded like an explosion Wednesday evening, and then with a rumble, the top floors of the buildings began collapsing, covering vehicles with a thick dust. One unidentified witness likened the scene to that of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. Officials say the buildings were for commercial, not residential, use. Television reports say police have cordoned off the area around the destroyed buildings, and that electricity has been cut off over concerns of a possible gas leak. The infrastructure problems come as Brazil makes improvements before hosting the 2014 World Cup and the Summer Olympics two years later. Experts warn that Haiti many see more quakes By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Experts are warning Haiti to brace for more strong earthquakes over the next several decades. A study by the Seismological Society of America says the magnitude 7 quake that wrecked much of Port-au-Prince two years ago was centered in the same place as a 6.6 quake in 1701. That was followed by three more powerful earthquakes in 1751 and 1770, before 240 years of quiet that preceded the 2010 quake. The experts say the 2010 earthquake may be the start of a new period of strong seismic activity. They say earthquakes are impossible to predict, but they call on Haitians to prepare by putting up stronger buildings. The 2010 earthquake killed 250,000 people. Parts of Port-au-Prince are still in ruins. Scientists say the Caribbean island of Hispanola, which is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, was one of the earliest European colonies and has extensive seismology records dating back more than 500 years. |
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| Some of our other titles: |
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| A.M. Panama |
A.M. Colombia |
A.M. Guatemala |
A.M. Honduras |
A.M. Havana |
A.M. Nicaragua |
| A.M. Venezuela |
A.M. Central America |
A.M. Dominican Republic |
A.M. Ecuador | A.M. San Salvador |
A.M. Bolivia |
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| A.M.
Costa
Rica's sixth news page |
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| San
José,
Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 20 |
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Latin America news |
 Casa Presidencial photo
President Laura Chinchilla
Miranda is accompanied by Hernando París, minister of Justicia
and Paz as they tour the new structure.New Registro
building
houses intellectual property By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The president and other officials get a look Thursday at the new $9 million addition to the Registro Nacional in Zapote where information about authorship and other intellectual property data is stored. The Registro, said President Laura Chinchilla Miranda, is a leader in providing online service and the new multi-story structure will strengthen this service. The Registro handles more than just authorship. There also are trademarks and business names that are protected by a series of laws. Ms. Chinchilla said that by protecting intellectual property, the country is defending creativity and innovations at times when frauds within the Registro Nacional are history because of modernization of the administrative processes of the agency. The Registro also maintains data on property holdings, vehicle and other personal goods. The president also said that a big battle is taking place to defend the sustainability of public policies with financing of public institutions. She was critical of protests, strikes and work stoppages. That appeared to be in reference to public employees who staged a protest Wednesday over a 5,000-colon monthly pay raise that the president has decreed. There also is a threat of a general strike. She also is trying to get more taxes passed. Casa Presidential, in its summary of the visit, made no mention of the situation in which the Registro has frozen online access to corporate ownership records because the Sala IV told officials not to charge for the information. Because the data is not available online for a small fee, those who need such documentation must visit the Registro or its regional offices. |
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James
DeRoy
