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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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those who eat the fins By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The producers of the documentary "Sharkwater" want to bring the message home to the Chinese who eat shark fin soup. The film was made, in part, in Costa Rican waters and has been shown here. The man behind the movie, Rob Stewart, said that he is seeking donations to a non-profit organization so that the movie can be translated into Chinese. "Shark populations have dropped more than 90 percent in 30 years, destroying the most important ecosystem for our own survival," said Stewart. "Conservation isn't just saving species and ecosystems, it's saving humans." Stewart said that Chinese, the largest consumer and trader of fins, may not know of the shark connection. He said the Chinese name of the soup translates as fish wing soup. Costa Rican fishermen have been catching such fish, and the use of Costa Rica as a collection point for shark fins has been highly controversial. Another director named for emergency commission By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The executive branch named a new executive president of the national emergency commission Wednesday. She is Vanessa Rosales Ardón, who will take over April 13, the same day that the current chief, Daniel Gallardo, leaves the job. Gallardo is under investigation for awarding contracts to companies with which he had a relationship. Ms. Rosales, a civil engineer, has headed a department within the emergency commission and also served as executive director of the agency, officially known as the Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias de Costa Rica. She also worked as development manager for Wal-mart Costa Rica. Ms. Rosales, 47, is a 1988 graduate of the Universidad de Costa Rica. Money laundering brings 10-year jail sentences By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two men, a Costa Rican and a Salvadoran, have been convicted of money laundering and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The case was heard in the Tribunal de Juicio de Pococi. The defendants were Walter Abarca Ramírez and Eilvi Oquili Lazo Alfaro. The government also confiscated $102,220 the pair were carrying when they were arrested on a highway on June 22, 2004. The state claimed that the money came from the sale of narcotics and that the men were trying to put the money into the Costa Rican banking system. Investigators said that they stopped the men because they had had an anonymous tip by telephone about them. Rules to be published on telecom quality By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The directors of the Authoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos have approved a series of rules that establish the level of service and protection afforded telecommunications users. The three regulations are extensive and were subjects of public hearings in January. They will be published in the La Gaceta official newspaper. The six regulations also establish ways rates are to be set and how the various telecom companies will connect to the common network. The rules are necessary because more companies are entering the telecom market that once had the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad as the holder of the monopoly. The regulations provide a framework for the new Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones. Puntarenas routes changed for those going by ferry By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Those vacationers who plan to take the ferry to Paquera and the southern Nicoya Peninsula will find changes in the traffic routes in Puntarenas. The transport ministry said that the changes are designed to improve traffic flow in Barrio el Carmen in the vicinity of the ferry terminal. The new routes take effect today, and transit policemen will be in the area to help motorists, said the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes. Some streets are being made one-way, and the area where cars line up to await boarding has been changed, the ministry said. The changes are being made because heavy use of the ferry is expected for Semana Santa. Resistant TB alarming world health professionals By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The director of the World Health Organization says drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are poised to spiral out of control. She is Margaret Chan, who says out of more than nine million people who are infected with tuberculosis every year, more than half a million contract a drug-resistant variety. "This is the true alarm bell," she said. "This tells us that resistant strains are now circulating in the general population, spreading widely and largely silently in a growing pool of latent infection." Last year's rates of drug-resistant tuberculosis were the highest ever recorded. Yet the World Health Organization estimates less than 5 percent of drug-resistant TB cases are detected, and fewer than 3 percent are treated. The disease is particularly widespread in countries such as China, Russia and Brazil. In addition, 55 countries have reported at least one case of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. That strain is virtually untreatable. China is second only to India in terms of drug-resistant infections, with 112,000 cases in 2007. In China, 4.5 million people have tuberculosis, and more than 200,000 a year die from the illness. Chinese efforts got a boost Wednesday, when philanthropist Bill Gates announced a $33-million partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and China to diagnose and treat tuberculosis.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, April 2, 2009, Vol. 9, No. 65 | |||||||||
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All nearly ready
for Heredia route By the A.M. Costa Rica staff A new station at the San José end of the new Heredia line almost is complete north of Parque Nacional on Avenida 3. Workmen have installed a new spur for the passenger train and constructed a covered waiting area, an important consideration in rainy Costa Rica. Officials are awaiting the arrival of rail cars from Spain, and working daily on the right-of-way. The Heredia line will allow passengers to avoid the continual traffic jams in La Uruca. No date has been announced for the start of service. |
 A.M. Costa Rica photos/José
Pablo Ramírez Vindas
A spur will carry trains to the new, covered station |
 Workmen continue with the concrete work in
the parking area of the station.
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Business group wants
cooling-off period for ruptured EU negotiations
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Central American business community has called on negotiators to impose a six-month moratorium on discussions with the European Union. This came after Nicaragua pulled its negotiating team Tuesday from the seventh round of talks in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The business representatives, the Consejo Empresarial Centroamericano, said that it wants the negotiations to |
continue
eventually but with certain conditions. Among these is the hope that
all countries be represented. The group said it also wants the interest of all countries safeguarded in the negotiation process. The two-year-old negotiations seeks to reach something less than a trade agreement. The goal is an association agreement that will include trade and political assistance. Nicaragua withdrew when its proposal for a slush fund for Central American states was rejected. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, April 2, 2009, Vol. 9, No. 65 | |||||||||
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Authoritarians putting more
pressure on Internet publishers
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A U.S.-based rights group says more governments around the world are trying new ways to control and monitor the Internet. But its report says even in countries that limit on line access, people are becoming more creative in resisting government-imposed restrictions. The Freedom House report examined disparities in Internet freedom in 15 countries based on factors such as barriers to access, content and violations to users' rights. Sarah Cook, assistant editor of the report, said that as the number of people accessing technology has been increasing — in some cases exponentially — the protection and safety of users has been declining. "You have more and more countries censoring political content, arresting bloggers, sentencing bloggers to prison or taking other kinds of steps like that, that restrict the way in which people are able to use this technology, particularly for communication about political or social issues," said Ms. Cook. The majority of the countries examined received a partly free ranking including Egypt, Georgia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Russia and Turkey. Cuba ranked the lowest overall due to the Castro government's dominant control over access to the Internet. Three other countries ranked "not free" include China, Iran and Tunisia. Ms. Cook says these countries use sophisticated technology to clamp down on material authorities find offensive. "China, Tunisia and Iran, one of the ways they do it is they |
centralize
the backbone of the Internet system," she said. "And that centralization is what enables them to filter so pervasively and monitor a lot." Freedom House did find one bright spot to its report, which is that civic activism is increasing in many of these countries that impose Internet restrictions. Ms. Cook says users are inventing code words for sensitive topics and organizing themselves through social networking sites. "There is definitely a sense that as people are trying . . . use this more and more to mobilize, especially in ways that the government may not be too happy about, that you have various different kinds of mechanisms and techniques that these governments are using to try and put a stop to that," said Ms. Cook. Ko Htike is a Burmese political blogger based in London. Although Burma is not one of the countries examined in the report, its military government frequently censors politically sensitive Web sites and monitors its citizens. Htike says he gets about 2,000 hits a day from people around the world, even some from inside Burma, where his site is blocked. He says Burmese users risk going to his blog because they want information from outside the government-controlled media. "If someone from inside Burma, if they want to know about the news and about the opposition groups, or whatever it is about the political news, if they want to know that, they have to get it through the blog and read it in the blog," said Htike. "Because inside Burma there is no freedom of expression, there is no freedom of press at all. Ms. Cook says she would like to see democratic countries make a more concerted and strategic effort to help and support these ordinary online citizens. |
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Arrest warrants issued
in Guatemalan bus killings Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Guatemalan authorities with the support of a United Nations-backed anti-crime commission have issued arrest warrants in the allegedly drug-related murders of 15 Nicaraguans and one Dutch citizen traveling on a bus that was forced off a Guatemalan highway last November. Attorney General Amilcar Velásquez and Carlos Castresana, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, revealed the warrants at a joint press conference Wednesday in Guatemala City. The officials named 11 suspects in the killings, at least one of them a former police officer, saying they were members of a Guatemalan cocaine and arms trafficking gang that stopped the vehicle in search of illegal narcotics and then killed all of the persons on board before burning the vehicle. One suspect is under arrest and others remain at large, the officials announced. They appealed for cooperation from Guatemalan citizens in locating the remaining fugitives. Castresana said the group had international connections and presumed links to public servants. The burned bus was discovered in the eastern Department of Zacapa Nov. 8. It had begun its journey in Nicaragua and continued through El Salvador before being diverted shortly after crossing the border into Guatemala, the officials said. Since its emergence from a 36-year armed conflict, Guatemala has become an increasingly important transit point for illegal drug shipments between producing countries in South America and the United States market, exacerbating already high rates of violent crime and impunity. The U.N.-backed commission, which goes by its Spanish initials CICIG, began operations last year under an agreement between the U.N. and the government of Guatemala. Its mandate is to help the Central American country fight impunity by assisting in the identification and dismantling of criminal networks. Castrana, a former prosecutor and judge of the supreme court of Spain, was named to his position by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. |
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| Latin
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Fighting
in Colombia displacing 600 residents Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Heavy fighting in southwestern Colombia between government troops and leftist rebels uprooted some 600 people at the weekend, the United Nations humanitarian arm reported today. Members of five Afro-Colombian and native communities have escaped armed clashes in the rural town of El Charco, the area most affected by the mass displacement of 2007 when 15,000 people were forced from their homes. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is monitoring the situation and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has sent an assessment team to determine the basic needs of those who have fled their homes. The refugees commission reported about two weeks ago that some 2,000 indigenous Embera people were displaced last month from their collective territories in different areas along the Baudó River in the Colombian department of Chocó as a result of threats and conflict between two illegal armed groups. In addition, more than 1,000 Embera were displaced in March in the Upper Baudó region in southern Chocó, along Colombia’s Pacific coast. According to commision, at least 27 different indigenous groups are considered to be at risk of extinction in Colombia, largely as a result of armed conflict and forced displacement. Their survival depends greatly on being able to remain on their traditional lands. The rebels are the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. Embassy closed for holiday By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Thursday, April 9, and Friday, April 10, are holidays in Costa Rica and the U.S. Embassy, continuing its tradition of being closed for all Costa Rican and U.S. holidays, will be closed those days. Other embassies also are expected to close, but there have been no other announcements. |
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