The Costa Rican national soccer team beat Guatemala 3-2 Wednesday night and took over undisputed third place in the North, Central American and Caribbean Confederation. 

The confederation sends three teams to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

At the start of the game, Costa Rica was in a three-way tie with Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago. But México beat Trinidad, leaving the Tico team alone in third place. The U.S. team beat Panamá, an expected victory against the weak Panama squad.

The Mexican team has 13 points, and the U.S. team has 12. Costa Rica has seven, three more than Guatemala and the Trinidad team.

The next and deciding series of games will be played in October.

In Wednesday’s game at Ricardo Saprissa stadium Costa Rica took a 2-0 lead and then saw the edge vanish as Guatemala evened the score. Paulo Wanchope put in the third and deciding goal.

Hearings planned
for bus rate hikes

Two bus companies are seeking to raise rates, and the regulatory agency plans two public hearings next week.

The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos said that TRACOPA, which carries passengers between San José and Paso Canoas on the Panamá border wants a 45.17 percent increase from 3,315 colons to 4,815. The new rate would be about $10.

A hearing on this request will be Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the Casa de la Juventud in Río Claro.

The company Buses INA-Uruca seeks a 33 percent hike in the rate it charges from 120 colons to 160, some 34 cents. A hearing on this request will be April 16 at 4 p.m. in the authority building in Sabana Sur.

Free concert planned
for downtown Saturday

Classical music lovers will be treated to Beethoven and Schubert Saturday at another edition of music in the vestibule at the Teatro Nacional.

One of the three artists will be North American Catherine Hayes, a violinist who plays here with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional.

Also playing will be Eduardo Madigal and Roberto E. Vargas, pianist. Beethoven’s Opus 17 and a piece for a trio by Franz Schubert will be presented.

The trio calls itself the Grupo de Cámara.

The free concert is one of six that the theater puts on each year.

Community hymn sing
scheduled for Saturday

A community hymn sing is planned for Saturday at noon, in the auditorium of the International Church in Escazú.  This will be an opportunity to enjoy the traditional hymns of the Christian church and also some special instrumental and vocal music, an organizer said. The Davidson girls will sing, and Christy Peterson will be at the grand piano, he added. 

The program will last an hour and will be followed by coffee, juice and snacks. There is no sermon and no collection, and all seats and secure parking are free, the spokesmasn said.

The church is located on the highway to Santa Ana, north side, a half mile west of MultiPlaza. More details from Sandy 263-6933, Ken 395-9653, or Ron 446-3840.

Bank in Escazú robbed

Three men held up the Scotia Bank branch in San Rafael de Escazú Wednesday morning and made off with an estimated 20 million colons, some $42,000. They escaped in a stolen auto.

Louisville man defends
Jo Stuart’s descriptions

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

In Defense of Jo Stuart’s column of June 3, 2005.

The point of her column has obviously been vindicated by the fact that some responses have been so disrespectful and rude. Public civility in the U.S. is at an all time low. Even a "liberal" such as C.K. Hobbs, in his/her response of June 6, refers to a beautiful country, Costa Rica, as a "run-down-corrupt-third-world-sinkhole." It is embarrassing to have a U.S. citizen, liberal or not, use such rude language in referring to Costa Rica. Perhaps he/she could take some lessons in etiquette from the people of Costa Rica.

I took part in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. I marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. I can remember that and the controversy over the Vietnam war, Watergate, and other national issues that divided the people of the U.S. Never, however, have I witnessed the degree of hostility that is taking place today.

I am reporting from a Blue City, Louisville, from within a Red State, Kentucky. I can tell you that the Christian fundamentalist, pro-corporate, neo-conservative element is making the quality of life within the Red States very unpleasant. Disagreements are so extreme that my family and other families I know are unable to communicate without getting into shouting matches.

We are now living in a country where the news has been suspended. The corporate media now only reports such nonsense as the Michael Jackson trial, the latest selected missing person to be chosen as celebrity for a few weeks, who is still in a vegetative state, etc., while the real news can only be found on the Internet, BBC or Canadian news. 

In this country the corporations are being deregulated while the people are being increasingly regulated. Government of the people, by the people and for the people is now a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations and all supported by the rising Christian Taliban. 

Now the Christian fundamentalists, allied with the neo-conservative movement, are suspending science. Evolution is now only a theory and Revelations - Last Days Prophecy, is now fact. The "heresy" of Galileo of discovering that the earth revolves around the sun may soon face an official reversal with the likelihood that the earth, fewer that 10,000 years old, will be pronounced flat as a pancake with the sun circling this flat planet which was created in only 7 days.

When we progressives object to such outrageous teaching, we are called heretics and traitors. The education level of the U.S. has sunk to the point that we are around 29th in the world in literacy. Educated scientists and engineers from other nations are taking many jobs that are no longer filled by U.S. citizens.

I am looking forward to my relocation to Costa Rica.

Agents have arrested six men and linked them to a kidnapping and extortion ring that targeted slow payers in a loan-shark operation.

Agents provided a list of some 12 victims who were kidnapped for periods ranging from one day to a week from 1998 to last May 8. The locations of the kidnappings were all over the Central Valley, including Heredia, Curridabat, Desamparados, Barva, Grecia, Pavas, Guápiles and Aserrí.

The law enforcement actions that led to the arrests were outlined Wednesday by Francisco Segura Montero, the No. 2 man at the Judicial Investigating Organization. He said that 25 agents, Fuerza Pública officers and a tactical squad were involved in the arrests because the suspects, many of whom work as guards, also are believed to be experts in the martial arts. 

Three of the suspects are Costa Rican, and three of the suspects are Chinese, although one is a naturalized Costa Rican, said Segura. Later Wednesday, a  spokesperson for the Poder Judicial said that a seventh person, a Nicaraguan who was a naturalized Costa Rican, also was involved.

The bulk of the arrests took place at a parking lot at Avenida Central Tuesday, said Segura. Raids for evidence took place all over the Central Valley

Although without being too specific, the Judicial Investigating official said there was a relationship between the kidnappings and extortions, high interest loans and gambling.

Segura said that the interest on the short-term loads were as high as 100 percent. Another investigator said later that the customary transaction was $1 in interest for every $2 borrowed.  Loans were frequently in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. After victims were kidnapped, they were set free after they had promised to make payments. This is the basis of the extortion allegations.

The victims were businessmen, and some operate restaurants. Agents said the case was under investigation for six months, but the effort was difficult, in part, because of language problems with Chinese speakers.

Officials planned a lineup so victims could identify suspects. For that reason, law officers kept a lid on photos. They identified the arrested individuals by their last names and towns where they lived: Morales of Pural, Mena Rivera of Coronado, Salazar of Tibás and Wang, Wei Choi and Hou, all of Curridabat.

A tropical depression is growing in the Caribbean off Honduras, and the storm is generating rain in Costa Rica.

Weather experts expect the influence to last until at least Friday. They also suspect that the depression may grow into the first tropical storm of the year in the Caribbean. Such storms can become a hurricane.

Both the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional and the Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias issued bulletins Wednesday alerting the population to the possibility of heavy rains. The 

However, the rain in the metropolitan area stopped in time for most of the Costa Rica-Guatemala soccer game and even early Thursday there was no sign of heavy rain. The tropical depression was moving north at about 6 mph.

The emergency committee opened two shelters Tuesday night Tres Ríos and Calle Blancos as a precautionary measure. There were many complaints of storm sewers being backed up.

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Protesters have taken over several oil fields of a Spanish oil company after weeks of demonstrations demanding the nationalization of the country's energy industry. The protests have forced President Carlos Mesa to offer his resignation.

Bolivia's Congress is scheduled to meet today in a special session to decide if it will accept Mesa's resignation and appoint a successor. The president resigned Monday — for the second time since March — in the face of mounting public opposition to his government's policies.

Wednesday, officials said, a group of indigenous protesters took over several oil fields in the eastern part of the country. Growing public protest is bringing the country's economy to a standstill. President Mesa

He was referring to lawmakers' suggestion that he should be replaced by the unpopular Senate leader Hormando Vaca Diez. The president asked Vaca Diez not to accept the post, and called for new elections instead.

Thousands of demonstrators have clogged the streets of La Paz and other Bolivian cities for weeks, calling for the nationalization of the country's energy industry. They are also demanding a new constitution that would give the country's indigenous population greater say.

President Mesa has warned Bolivians the public disorder is bringing the country to the brink of civil war and called for an end to demonstrations.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Despite some advances in the past year, the Western Hemisphere has experienced serious threats and setbacks to the protection of human rights, says Claire Roberts, president of the inter-American human-rights body of the Organization of the American States.

In a statement, Roberts said the setbacks have grown out of an environment characterized by deteriorating economic and social conditions in various countries in the region.

The setbacks have also resulted from corruption in the public and private spheres, increases in crime and citizen insecurity, and the marginalization of sectors of society through social exclusion and discrimination, said Roberts.

Roberts presenting the report by the Inter-American

Roberts also expressed concern about the effect of Colombia’s internal armed conflict on the country’s civilian population, particularly indigenous peoples, African-descendant communities, and displaced persons.

These concerns notwithstanding, the Organization of American States official noted that the demobilization of right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia has moved forward despite complaints over the violation of the agreed cessation of hostilities and the lack of an appropriate legal framework clarifying the conditions under which those responsible for the commission of crimes are to demobilize.

The priorities for marine conservation on the North American Pacific coast are identified in a new book and atlas published this week by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. 

The publications identify 28 aquatic environments that marine experts consider essential to safeguarding the biological diversity of the west coast of North America, according to a CEC press release.

The CEC includes the heads of the national environmental organizations of Canada, Mexico and the United States and reflects a continental effort to monitor environmental conditions across North America. The organization was launched in conjunction with the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

"The selection of this set of marine conservation areas is a major achievement," says Hans Herrmann, head of the commission's conservation of biodiversity program.

The atlas, "B2B: A blueprint for conservation from Baja California to the Bering Sea," identifies the entire region as a high priority for conservation by the three nations.

The atlas and accompanying map mark the seven marine ecoregions and their distinct characteristics and biological life in this area of the Pacific.  The commission effort also identifies the priority conservation areas where biodiversity and uniqueness are under threat from human activities.

The blueprint for conservation also outlines ways to enhance conservation and management in the identified areas, and to protect and restore the migratory species, according to the document.