 |
 |
Your daily |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
|||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
 |
| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
 |
|
along the Panama border By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Apparently stung by newspaper revelations that the southeastern border was an open door, security agents descended on the area around Sixaola in force this weekend. However, the police operation met with limited success. Just 12 persons were denied entry into the country out of more than 1,000 checked. Officials did seize two California licensed vehicles, but they did not say why. Some marijuana and handguns also were seized, they reported. The police campaign began Thursday and ended Sunday. Involved were the Policía Especial de Migración, the Policía de Fronteras, the Unidad de Zapadores, the Unidad Canina and the Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas. Zapadores are specialists in mines and explosives. June 1 the Spanish language daily La Nación published a lengthy series of articles pointing out the well-known fact that there is little police supervision of the Sixaola crossing from Panamá. The story said that the few officers assigned to the area remain in their small structure while hundreds of new arrivals pass by. The border with Panamá is the Río Sixaola and the usually entry point is a rickety bridge over the river. There is heavy traffic in the river, too, with small boats taking illegal immigrants from Panamá to the Costa Rican bank. Those expats who have traveled to Panamá along the Caribbean coast are aware of how lax the border controls are. During the show of force over the weekend, coast guard boats patrolled the river from its mouth to the community of Margarita upstream. Police units also made patrols at Cahuita and Puerto Viejo. The border was beefed up once before. In May 2006 then minister Fernando Berrocal sent a police detachment to the border to close it to illegal immigration. At the same time he announced that a boarder police force would be created. There now is a Policía de Fronteras, but Sixaola did not seem to be part of the beat. Gradually the police officers in place along the border were called away, and the regular force there was just a handful. Judiciary considers role of providers of alcohol By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
While lawmakers have yet to act on a measure to increase the drunk driving penalties, court officials plan a video conference today that questions the legal role and responsibilities of bar and package store operators in such cases. The 1 p.m. conference here is being televised from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. It comes on the heels of another death in a suspected drunk driving case. José Andrés Segura Alfaro, 11, died Saturday night while he walked home from Catholic Mass with his father. Detained was the driver of the car that hit the boy, identified by the last names of Herrera Espinoza, said the Poder Judicial. The death took place in San José de la Montaña, Heredia. Herrera faces a murder charge, but a judge gave him conditional release Monday until trial, said the Poder Judicial. Road may be reopened By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Transportation officials are expected to lift restrictions on the Interamerican Sur today. The road has been closed to all but emergency traffic since Tropical Storm Alma cut the road at Cerro de la Muerte two weeks ago. Recent temporary repairs allowed emergency officials to move supplies and other necessities. But travelers had to take the coastal route. Our reader's opinion
Private business ownersshould have smoking choice Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I have been following the heated letters about the smoking ban started by Barry Schwartz when he objected to the loss of civil Liberties. I can see both sides of the argument, but it seems to me that there may be a simple solution to the matter that would satisfy everyone. First let me say that the law should not tell people how to run their business right down to the smallest details. My proposal is quite simple. If we must have a smoking law, it should be this: All restaurants and bars must post a sign that designates whether the establishment is either a smoking or non-smoking establishment. In doing so it is up to the owner to decide which system would benefit his business based on the clientele that they may have at their own discretion. At this point the general public can choose for themselves, simply by reading the sign out front whether or not they choose to enter the business. This may be too simple to be accepted by our lawmakers but the benefit is obvious. Each group can have what they want without forcing their beliefs upon the other group. It will not require a lot of policing, and both groups get exactly what they wanted all along. Not smoking in public buildings and malls is understandable, but please let the restaurant and bar owners choose which group of clientele they want to cater to. Tom Roucek Broker
|
 |
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
|||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
| There
are volcanos, but then there are scary supervolcanos |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Under certain conditions a run-of-the mill volcano can erupt and convert itself into what scientists call a supervolcano. Such supervolcanoes produce extraordinary damage and may have long-term worldwide effects on climate. Researchers from McGill University and the University of British Columbia in Canada have simulated in the lab the process that can turn ordinary volcanic eruptions into supervolcanoes. Their results were just published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the universities reported. The study has implications for Costa Rica where much of the population live near active volcanoes. In fact, Volcán Arenal has been acting up for the last five days with frequent slides of volcanic ash from the cone to the skirts of the mountain. The volcano is one of the country's top tourist attractions. Supervolcanoes are orders of magnitude greater than any volcanic eruption in historic times, said the universities. The blasts are capable of causing long-lasting change to weather, threatening the extinction of species, and covering huge areas with lava and ash, said the university. Using volcanic models made of Plexiglas filled with corn syrup, the researchers simulated how magma in a volcano might behave if the roof of the chamber caved in during an eruption, according to a summary of the work. “The magma was being stirred by the roof falling into the magma chamber,” said John Stix, chairman of McGill University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “This causes lots of complicated flow effects that are unique to a supervolcano eruption.” “There is currently no way to predict a supervolcano eruption,” said Ben Kennedy, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia. “But this new information explains for the first time what happens inside a magma chamber as the roof caves in and provides insights that |
could be useful when making hazard
maps of such an eruption.” The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 — the only known supervolcano eruption in modern history — was 10 times more powerful than Krakatoa and more than 100 times more powerful than Vesuvius or Mount St. Helens, according to the university. The blast caused more than 100,000 deaths in Indonesia alone, and blew a column of ash about 70 kilometers (about 43 miles) into the atmosphere, it said. The resulting disruptions of the climate led 1816 to be christened “the year without summer.” "And this was a small supervolcano,” said Stix. “A really big one could create the equivalent of a global nuclear winter. There would be devastation for many hundreds of kilometers near the eruption and there would be global crop failures because of the ash falling from the sky, and even more important, because of the rapid cooling of the climate.” In an earlier study, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, discovered that a massive injection of hot magma underneath the surface of what is now the Long Valley Caldera in California sometime within 100 years of the gigantic volcano's eruption was what likely triggered that supervolcano, which coated much of the western half of the United States with ash fallout 760,000 years ago. That work, based on trace metals, was reported in the March 2007 edition of the journal Geology. The 20-mile-long Long Valley Caldera was created when the supervolcano erupted. It is one of the world’s largest volcanic craters, said Rensselaer. In a 2004 report researchers from the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and National Taiwan University concluded that the explosion of a volcano in western Indonesia took place at the beginning of the earth's last ice age. Researchers found evidence that glass shards from an earlier eruption on the same site were hurled more than 2,000 miles. They suggested that the ash from the explosion could have caused the cooling leading to the ice age. |
| Lottery
scam indictment dismissed against California man |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Prosecutors have dismissed an indictment against Scott Henry Walther, who was indicted in 2007 stemming from his association with a Costa Rican-based lottery scam, according to documents and an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California. The assistant U.S. attorney, Ellyn Marcus Lindsay, who worked on the case, would not elaborate on the exact reason for the dismissal but confirmed that the decision was satisfactory to prosecutors. She was reached by telephone at her Los Angeles office. “I felt that it was in the interests of justice that the charges be dismissed,” she said, “I think the resolution was appropriate.” Walther of California originally was indicted in a fraudulent lottery scheme wherein solicitations were sent by e-mail guaranteeing increased chances of winning foreign and domestic lotteries. The company misrepresented itself as a government-backed or legitimate lottery company affiliate. Victims of the scheme lost approximately $20 million. The scheme itself lasted for more than 15 years before federal agents shut it down in July 2006 according to an |
A.M. Costa Rica article published
about the case on March 14, 2007. According to Ms. Lindsay, Walther's case was delayed when his lawyer fell ill and died. With no representative to meet with, prosecutors were unsure of Walther's role, if any, in the scheme. When the lawyer died, U.S. officials were prevented from getting Walther's story until after the indictment Ms. Lindsay said, “As a prosecutor you'd like to hear both sides based on all the evidence you can possibly get, and with Scott Walther we felt ambivalent because the evidence against him looked really, really bad” at first. Walther, who brought the dismissal to the attention of reporters, was one of six men indicted in the fraud case. Henry Walther, Scott Walther's father, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and international money laundering March 6, 2007. Henry Walther currently is serving time. Charges against Dennis Emmett, William Cloud, James Ray Houston and Sonny Vleisides remain. Emmett is being extradited to the United States from Costa Rica, said Ms. Lindsay, and Vleisides is being extradicted from Italy. Cloud is also being extradited from Amsterdam, and Houston has not been apprehended, according to Ms. Lindsay. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
 |
||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Del Monte expands its
holdings here in $403 million deal
|
|
|
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. said Monday that it has acquired the shares of a banana producer and a pineapple producer in Costa Rica as well as a related sales and marketing company. The price was $403 million. The production companies are Desarollo Agroindustrial de Frutales, S.A., a producer of high quality bananas in Costa Rica, and Frutas de Exportacion, S.A., a major provider of gold pineapples in Costa Rica. The group has the name of Caribana. This transaction further strengthens Fresh Del Monte's position as one of the world's leading fresh produce companies, the firm said. "We are enthusiastic about the financial and operating advantages that the acquisition of Caribana creates for Fresh Del Monte Produce, and ultimately, our customers and shareholders," said Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh, Fresh Del Monte's chairman and chief executive officer. "Caribana is a natural fit with Fresh Del Monte," he added. "Their products perfectly mirror those that we currently offer. This transaction substantially increases Del Monte branded banana and Del Monte Gold Extra Sweet pineapple production for us from Central America. Acquiring Caribana dramatically expands our ability to supply |
high-quality products to our
customers in an environment of rapidly rising global demand." Caribana's production and packing facilities are close to the existing Del Monte Costa Rica operations, he said, suggesting that this would result in savings. Caribana sells approximately 18 million boxes of bananas annually. In 2007, Fresh Del Monte purchased approximately 5 million boxes of bananas from Caribana, the company said. The acquired gold pineapple production is estimated to be approximately 11 million boxes per year, the company added As a result of the acquisition, Fresh Del Monte's current land holdings in Costa Rica increased by approximately 13,000 hectares, about 32,123 acres. In the transaction, Fresh Del Monte also acquired state-of-the-art packing facilities, as well as modern farming equipment, the firm said. The Caribana group is a major producer of bananas in Costa Rica with a management team that has more than 25 years of experience in growing bananas for U.S. and European customers. The group is also a well-established pineapple producer that supplies gold pineapples to customers in North America and Europe, sold under the Linda brand. |
|
U.S. urges Chávez to
take firm action on Colombian rebels
|
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States Monday challenged Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to follow through with concrete actions on his call Sunday for an end to the long insurgency in Colombia. The Venezuelan leader called on Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias guerrillas to put down their weapons and release hostages unconditionally. The comments appear to be a major reversal in policy for the Venezuelan leader, who has been a strong verbal supporter of the Colombian rebels and also, allegedly, a financial and material backer of the insurgent movement. In his weekly television program Sunday, Chavez said he believed the time has come for the rebels to release all its hostages without conditions as a humanitarian gesture. He further called for an end to the organization's five-decade-long military campaign against the Bogota government, saying guerrilla warfare is out of step with the Latin America of today and "is history." The Chavez remarks have drawn a cautious welcome from Colombian officials and also here in Washington, where State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Venezuelan leader should back up the words on the rebels with tangible action. "Those are certainly good words. And we would encourage Venezuela to follow those good words with concrete actions," he said. "And Venezuelan government should make every effort, public and in private, to distance itself from any relationship it may have had with the FARC. And I say that based on the news reports that we've seen |
concerning a relationship in the
past between Venezuela and the FARC." The Furezas Armadas Revolucaionarias de Colombia has long been listed by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization and three U.S. military contractors are among the hundreds of people held hostage by the group, some of them for many years. Venezuela's relationship with the group drew international attention in March after Colombian troops raided a rebel camp just across the border in Ecuador and killed a senior guerrilla commander. Colombia said it seized computer evidence in the raid showing large-scale Venezuelan financial and material support for the guerrillas, including the provision of weapons and ammunition. Under questioning here, spokesman McCormack said U.S. experts are still examining evidence from the raid provided by Colombia, and said he would not speak publicly about information the United States may have obtained independently on the Venezuela-rebel relationship. Several members of the U.S. Congress, citing the Colombian accounts of the computer evidence, have urged the Bush administration to cite Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism. In his broadcast comments Sunday, Chavez said rebel activities have become an excuse for the United States to threaten Venezuela. He has in the past depicted the group as a legitimate insurgent force to which countries in a region should give de facto recognition. |
 |
|
| News from
the BBC up to the minute |
BBC sports news up to the minute |
| BBC news and sports feeds are disabled on archived pages. |
|
| A.M. Costa Rica fifth news page |
Are
you
still
spending 70 percent You need to fill this space ASAP! |
||||||||
| Home |
Tourism |
Calendar |
Classifieds |
Entertainment |
Real
estate |
Rentals |
Sports |
About us |
|
|
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
|
U.S. Southern Command begins new headquarters Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The U.S. Southern Command broke ground on a new state-of-the-art, $237 million headquarters facility Friday in Doral, Florida. The facility is scheduled to be finished in 2010. Hensel Phelps Construction Co., with oversight by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is building the new 630,425 square foot headquarters on 55 acres adjacent to the current facility in Doral. The new facility will be large enough to accommodate the command’s entire staff, said a news release. The U.S. Southern Command relocated from its previous home in Panamá to Miami in 1997 after the Panama Canal treaties were signed by the U.S. and Panamanian presidents on Sept. 7, 1977. Miami was selected as the new home for the command from among 100 proposed military and civilian sites because of the city’s strategic linkages to the 32 countries and 13 territories in the Caribbean, Central and South America that make up the command’s area of focus, said the release. The organization is a joint command comprised of more than 1,200 military and civilian personnel representing the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and several other federal agencies. World's military spending reported to up 45% By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A Swedish research organization says global military spending has increased 45 percent over the past decade, while noting increased support for new arms control talks. In its annual report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says international military spending reached nearly $1.4 trillion in 2007 — a 6 percent increase from the previous year. Arms sales by leading manufacturers during the same period jumped 8 percent. Commenting on the data, institute chief Bates Gill said there is growing urgency around the globe to bring a mainstream momentum to arms control. He also said disarmament by the largest nuclear powers — the United States and Russia — could play a critical role in spurring reduced military spending elsewhere in the world. The report says arms sales by the world's 100 largest manufacturers totaled $315 billion in 2006 alone. It identified the United States as the largest arms supplier to other countries since 2003. It says the U.S. plus Russia, Germany, France and Britain accounted for 80 percent of all military sales over the period. |
| A.M. Costa Rica Sports news local and from the wires |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
