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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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in World Court over river By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica had the first of three days of arguments before the World Court in the Hague Monday to press its case for free transit on the Río San Juan. The case seeks to reestablish rights acquired over the years on the Nicaraguan river. The national boundary is the rivers' south bank and not the center. Costa Rica also has an appearance today in the court and a summary scheduled for March 9. The Nicaraguan lawyers have equal time. Costa Rican officials said they expect the court to make a decision sometime during 2009. The case has been many years in the making. Periodically Nicaraguan officials try to restrict the travel of Costa Ricans, Costa Rican boats and, more recently, the transit of armed Costa Rican police officers on the river. Costa Rica contends free passage is guaranteed by a number of international treaties. Further, officials have said that the river is the most efficient way to travel there and that policemen need to have their weapons in the area that is relatively lawless. Edgar Ugalde Álvarez, a vice minister of Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, is the lead presenter on the team that Costa Rica has assembled. Prison proposed in bill on campaign contributions By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A committee in charge of reforming the election laws has decided to specify prison terms for those members of the political parties who accept illegal private contributions to campaigns. The revision would also include the candidates themselves as those who would face a criminal case. The committee is the Comisión Permanente Especial de Reformas Electorales y Partidos Políticos. Off-the-books donations to political candidates seem to be the rule rather than the exception in Costa Rican politics. In addition, donations from foreign sources are supposed to be illegal. Under the revision being considered by the committee, the prison term could be from two to six years. Also approved by the committee is a penalty of from two months to a year for a party treasure who failed to file the correct list of donations. The penalties will be up for review when the committee decides to vote the entire revision to the floor of the Asamblea Legislativa. And then the full legislature will get a crack at revising the bill. Environmental minister has final say on tuna cages By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An environmental group said Monday that the fate of a proposed tuna rearing facility in the Gulfo Dulce is squarely in the hands of Roberto Dobles, the environmental minister. The group, Programa Resturación de Tortugas Marinas, said that the project has been approved by the Secretaria Técnica Nacional Ambiental but the group said that the approval was faulty. The project now goes to Dobles, minister of Ambiente, Energía y Telecomunicaciones. The tuna project proposes to install 10 tuna cages at the mouth of the Golfo Dulce to fatten yellow fin tuna provided by local fishermen. The project was suspended by court order May 9, 2007 due to a series of inconsistencies referring to contamination threats to the surrounding ecosystem and its impact on sea turtles, said the organization. The group said that the Secretaria Técnica did not address these inconsistences in its Feb. 16 decision even though the Sala IV constitutional court said it should. “It’s incoherent how SETENA chooses not to address the constitutional court’s doubts, while at the same time recognizing the project’s viability without even researching certain technical criteria that might show how the tuna cages will impact the Golfo Dulce,” said Miguel Gómez, the Programa's political campaigns coordinator. The Programa fears that the waste generated by the fish in the cages will affect the turtle nesting on beaches nearby. The Programa was joined in the court appeal by the Asociación de Vecinos de Punta Banco. Granjas Atuneras Golfito S.A. is the firm that wants to build the cages. Our reader's opinion
Courts need to resolvedomestic cases or else . . . . Dear A.M. Costa Rica: The Costa Rican courts needs to figure out that when it comes to laws and putting people out of homes that they built or paid for sooner or later blood will be shed. One day the Gringo or Gringa who was taken advantaged of will just spend a few hundred dollars and have the boyfriend, wife or girlfriend disappear. In the world that we are now living in and the problems with the world economy, more North Americans and Europeans will move here to escape the change that is in process in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Most have lost their jobs, only have a small amount of money to retire on, are under stress from the changes going on and are on a fixed pension. Not all of the people who come here are going to go thru the process of thousands of dollars on lawyers but rather just fix the problem themselves. Costa Rica needs to come to grips with reality and do something before someone gets hurt. The court system here is not stupid and must put a stop to this type of robbery. I know there are always three sides to every story, each of the sides and then the truth. Greg Bianchi
Cartago
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| Paint is cheaper Transport officials have let contracts to private firms to mark rail crossings on the new San José-Heredia line that will go into service by early April. Officials are installing vertical crossing markers made from recycled plastic instead of aluminum to reduce theft. The ministry has been criticized for not installing crossing gates. The valley train periodically smashes a vehicle and three persons have died. |
 Ministerio de Obras Públicas
y Transportes photo
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Police shoot it out with
bandits after Santa Ana robbery
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Four men broke into a Santa Ana home Friday night, hit the occupant on the head and took two flat screen televisions. But police intervened a short time later and engaged the men in a shootout. Two suspects were wounded and two fled, according to the Fuerza Pública. The only casualty on the side of the police was a patrol car that took bullets in the tire, the body and the windshield. The home invasion took place in the neighborhood of Quintas Don Lalo in Santa Ana centro between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Police did not give the identity of the homeowner but other sources said the home had been the site of invasions twice before. Such crimes are common in Santa Ana and |
Escazú. The bandits
wore ski masks and carried handguns. The Fuerza Pública said a man with the last names of Masis Sukin suffered two bullet wounds to the back and a companion, identified by the last names of Rojas Martínez, suffered a bullet wound to the right leg above the knee. Police learned of the crime while it was taking place and set up roadblocks. When the bandits arrived at the blocked street, the shootout took place, police said. One of the men who fled may have been wounded, police said. When they inspected the suspects' vehicle police reported they found ski masks, 9-mm pistols and a scanner radio. The wounded men went to Hospital San Juan de Dios. |
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Oxcart parade, festivities
will inaugurate boyero monument
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There is no community more identified with the boyero and the oxcart than San Antonio de Escazú. The concept of the brightly painted carreta originated in Escazú at the turn of the 20th century. And the parade of oxcarts each year on the Dia del Boyero runs from the center of Escazú uphill to San Antonio where the local priests bless the carts and the animals. The boyero has the same mystique as a U.S. cowboy. The bueyes, the large oxen, pulled the carreta loaded with coffee, the golden grain, to the Pacific ports until the train arrived. So it is in San Antonio Thursday that a massive monument |
to the boyeros
and their animals and equipment will be unveiled. The monument is
a
65-meter-long (213-foot) work by painter Mario Parra Brenes. The unveiling will be preceded by a parade of oxcarts from the center of Escazú to San Antonio. Coincidentally, Sunday is the 27th Dia del Boyero, and a more elaborate and larger parade of bueyes, oxcarts and drivers will follow the same route. Local officials will be at the unveiling Thursday, and a play will be presented, appropriately called "El Camino," with Carmen Salazar as the lead. There also will be live music and folk dancing. The parade starts at 8:30 and the festivities in San Antonio are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. |
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Uncertainties linger over
México's petroleum resources
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Mexico has announced the allocation of more than 170 new sites for oil and gas development in an area in the country's northeast region. This comes at a time when production at the country's main field is falling dramatically, leading some analysts to say that the oil exporter could become an oil importer within five years. At least one Mexican governor is disputing that grim vision and calling for more investment in energy development. Coming before an audience of energy industry representatives and academics at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, the governor of Mexico's Veracruz state, Fidel Herrera Beltran, hailed the new opening in his nation's oil sector. "It is a great time to invest in Mexico in areas that were closed or not open before," said Herrera Beltran. Herrera Beltran said an energy reform bill passed by the Mexican congress last year after heated debate has opened the way to some limited partnerships with foreign companies in Mexico's oil and gas fields. The Mexican constitution establishes all energy resources as state owned and, until now, the government-owned oil company, Pemex, has offered only contract work to outside companies. But Mexico's situation has changed in recent years as production at its main field, called Cantarell, has declined. Since Pemex lacks the technology to explore and develop deep-water fields, some international experts have said the country's oil exporting days were coming to an end. But, in an interview, Herrera Beltran hailed the development of newly discovered oil deposits in Chicontepec in his state that may offset the decline in other fields. "The acknowledged amount of oil and gas is about four times what we had in Cantarell," he said. "So that at the same time Cantarell is running out, Chicontepec will be taking off. Not only in the continental area, but also offshore drilling is at this very moment taking place." But the recent reform does not allow joint partnerships with private oil companies just yet and that may complicate the |
Chicontepec
investment picture. Herrera Beltran said state-owned companies like
Brazil's Petrobras may be among the first invited in to help Mexico
develop its assets. "Mexico is now open to joint ventures with other state-owned oil companies such as Petrobras," said Herrera Beltran. "In the offshore drilling, we will necessarily have partners to do that. Certain areas of the oil chain are open to investment to bring in through Pemex or with Pemex technology and investment." But most international oil analysts are not as optimistic about Mexico's plans to develop new fields. Some still believe the country will have trouble meeting its own rapidly rising demand for oil and soon become a minor exporter. Baker Institute energy analyst Amy Jaffe, who helped organize Thursday's conference on energy policy in Latin America, says much depends on what Mexican political leaders do next. "I think the fundamental principle is what becomes Mexican government policy," said Ms. Jaffe. "Because we have seen over the last few years the lack of ability for the government to reform Pemex and to come up with a productive system for investment." Ms. Jaffe says that if the initial, limited reform passed last year is not followed by more substantive reforms and a clear opening to outside investment, Mexico could cease being an oil exporter and even become an oil importer to meet its own domestic needs. "That is going to have severe fiscal consequences for the government and maybe that will help focus peoples' minds on why reform is necessary," she said. Mexico is currently one of the top oil exporters to the United States, but Mexicans pay more at the gasoline pump than their neighbors across the border because Mexico lacks refinery capacity and sends much of its crude to other countries to be refined. Herrera Beltran says Mexico is on the right path to reforming its energy sector and is also developing a variety of other sustainable energy sources including ethanol from sugar cane, geothermal and wind power. |
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Cuban cabinet changes are
first shakeup by Raúl Castro
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Cuba's President Raúl Castro has reassigned several top government ministers in the first personnel shakeup since he took office last year. Cuban state media reported that the changes included 10 ministers and were intended to create a smaller, more efficient government structure. Named in the announcement were Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque -- prominent officials who have stood out because they are younger than many others in Castro's ruling circle. The report said Pérez Roque, who was a personal secretary to former Cuban President Fidel Castro, was being replaced as foreign minister, a position he held for nearly a decade. It said the 57-year-old Lage will no longer serve as cabinet secretary. Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst for the Lexington Institute near Washington, says it is unclear what will happen with Pérez Roque. But he says Lage continues to hold a key role in the government. "He retains his job as vice president of the council of state, which is a much more important position, which, in fact, puts him in line of succession for the presidency," he said. The announcement named several other ministries, |
including the offices of finance,
food and fishing and heavy industry. Since Raúl Castro formally took over Cuba's presidency in February of last year, observers have been watching for the signs of change in the government that had been ruled for decades by his brother, Fidel. The aging ex-leader has not been seen in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in 2006. Peters says there are no real surprises in Monday's announcement because many of the individuals named to head the ministries are veterans in the Cuban government. He says the changes show Raúl Castro is following through on a promise to make the government more nimble and responsive to people's concerns. But Peters says it does not mean break with the policies set out by Fidel Castro. "To me, it would be something to get worked up about if there was a clear sign in here that there was a change in direction in the government. But there is no sign of that," he said. Peters says many analysts in the United States are watching Havana for a change in tone toward Washington, now that the U.S has a new president. But he cautions that the reorganization in Cuba does not necessarily indicate a thaw in the decades-old tensions between the two governments. |
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trade mission to San José Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The Minority Chamber of Commerce kicks off the first U.S. trade mission to Costa Rica, this week. The mission’s goals include increasing export opportunities for U.S minority companies, investors recruitment and advocacy on behalf of the chamber’s international programs. An estimated 20 U.S. minority companies will have a chance to explore new opportunities in Costa Rica, and will gain firsthand market experience through meetings with key government officials and potential business partners, said the chamber. The objective of the mission is to assist U.S minority exporters and importers in establishing representatives in Costa Rica, said the chamber, adding that this is because many of these firms do not have the resources or experience to go into the international marketplace and locate a representative without assistance. “Costa Rica’s economic growth rate rose by 6.8 percent and their commercial development is diversified with tourism/hospitality services, information technology, and medical equipment/instrumentation taking prominent roles," said Doug Mayorga, national director for the Minority Chamber of Commerce. The trade group will be headquartered at the Hotel Radisson Royal, said the Miami-based chamber. The chamber also said it was opening a trade office in Escazú as of March 20 in the HSBC building near Muiltiplaza. Woman stabbed to death By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man confronted an ex-girlfriend on the public street in Barrio El Carmen in Puntarenas early Monday and stabbed her multiple times resulting in her death. The victim was Lennia Serrano Villegas, 34. The Fuerza Pública detained the attack suspect nearby. He was identified as a 35-year-old with the last name of Jiménez Zamora. The dead woman had two children. The Fuerza Pública said the man fled the scene waving a knife in his hands and then threw the weapon into the nearby inlet when police closed in. |
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