The afternoon rain causes a crowd to gather under the protection of the entryway of the Gran Hotel Costa Rica.

Dry weather fooled some pedestrians into leaving their umbrellas home. Not a good idea from now until January.
 

If you think you have problems with unsolicited e-mail messages now, just wait.

The latest spam message, sent out with a false return e-mail address, promotes a software product that marketers claim can deliver 7 million e-mail messages a day and fool traditional blocking programs.

The program slightly varies the return address so message monitoring programs do not realize each message has originated from the same server. That way the program can dump thousands of e-mails on Hotmail.com and Yahoo.com accounts without being intercepted.

A.M. Costa Rica became aware of the program when unsolicited e-mails with forged A.M. Costa Rica return addresses began to bounce to the newspaper from deleted America Online accounts.

The message contains a Web page link that describes the products.

"Spam" is what computer technicians call unsolicited e-mails messages. There is concern that the dramatic increase in spam messages might destroy the Internet by making incoming e-mail messages difficult to read because of pure numbers and by overloading Internet computer servers.

Customers of the free Hotmail.com e-mail service now get upwards of 150 unsolicited e-mail messages a day.

Spammers also have software that can collect e-mail messages from Web pages, such as Internet news groups.

Casa Alianza, which has filed two criminal complaints against former Costa Rican officials, is mending fences with the new government.

Bruce Harris, regional director of the child advocacy organization, sat down to lunch with President Abel Pacheco Monday to discuss Costa Rica’s children.

Harris has documented what his organization says is the commercial sexual exploitation of thousands of children in Costa Rica. Former president Miguel Angel Rodríguez thought the number of exploited children was far fewer.

Harris, in a pre-lunch statement, praised the new government and said its change in attitude was like a breath of fresh air.

The organization filed criminal charges against two former ministers of Hacienda because they had not allocated 7 percent of the national budget to the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, as stipulated in the constitution. Officials have said there was not enough money to go around.

In addition to sexually exploited children, Harris’ group is interested in the plight of street children and in eliminating child pornography. The organization is active in other Central American states where street children are routinely killed by police or vigilante groups.

Long-time bartender
will be remembered

Friends will be gathering today about 1 p.m. to commemorate Jay Trettien, 54, a daytime bartender for 15 years at the Blue Marlin Bar in the Hotel Del Rey.

He died Sunday after medical treatment in a hospital, according to friends.

The gathering will be at the Monkey Bar, across Aveida 1 from the Blue Marlin.

Trettien, a U.S. citizen, lived in Barrio Escalante, was married and was a fan of motorcycles, according to coworkers at the bar. Hotel officials had no additional details.

Pacheco is bound
for San Juan River

President Abel Pacheco will go to the San Juan River between Costa Rica and Nicaragua July 21 and 22 to meet with his counterpart, Enrique Bolaños.

Navigation on the San Juan was a point of friction between the two countries under the presidency of Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Arnold Almena Lacey of Nicaragua.

Fisherman abducted
on way to Liberia

A 27-year-old fisherman was abducted by three men Monday night and held until 3 million colones ($4,900) in ransom was paid by an uncle, according to investigators.

The victim was identified as William Garcia Cambronero, who was en route from his home in Playa Junquillal on the Nicoya Peninsula Pacific coast to the Guanacaste city of Liberia, agents said. The abduction happened about 10 p.m.

U.S. boats can come,
assembly decides

After much debate and hand wringing, the Asemblea Nacional approved Monday night a plan to let 38 U.S. gun ships dock at national ports.

The boats are used in anti-drug patrols and to support U.S. operations in and near Colombia.

Some deputies voted against giving permission because they were not happy with the military presence in Costa Rican ports. They said the visits were unconstitutional.

The docking of such boats is covered by a joint U.S.-Costa Rican treaty, but the deputies have final say.

BARCELONA, Spain — Several dozen protestors disrupted a speech by Tommy Thompson, U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, Tuesday at the XIV International AIDS conference.

Blocked by the protestors and flanked by security, Thompson delivered his speech, though the crowd of several hundred delegates in attendance couldn't hear his remarks because of the din raised by the chants and whistles of the protestors. The demonstrators called for greater funding for the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to which the United States is already the greatest single contributor.

Speaking to reporters after he delivered the brief speech and the protestors disbanded, Thompson said he planned to work with the protest group during the course of the week. "I'm willing to work with them, and I want to work with them."

Thompson said the protestors are objecting to U.S. policy without realizing the details of the various HIV/AIDS initiatives the government has launched. He urged the protestors to take a closer look at the recently announced $500 million program to reduce mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus in African and Caribbean nations.

"I wanted to give a message that the United States is passionate about this issue," Thompson said, emphasizing that the United States is the leading global donor to international public health programs. With various actions to double funding for these programs, "The Bush Administration has gone light years in the last 18 months," Thompson said.

Rather than protesting his speech, Thompson suggested the activists would do better to take their demands for greater funding to governments, corporations and private foundations that have not yet made commitments on the scale of that made by the United States.

Autopsy fails to give
child’s cause of death

The autopsy on a 4-year-old boy believed kidnapped June 4 was inconclusive, according to investigators.

The boy was Osvaldo Faobricio Madrigal Bravo, the son of an anti-drug agent, who was found in a reservoir June 11 in Santa Ana. He had vanished from near his home a week earlier. He lived in Higuito de San Miguel de Desamparados.

A spokesman for the Judicial Investigating Organization said medical examiners were unable to determine a cause of death, in part because of the decomposed condition of the body.

The autopsy results seem to suggest that the boy was alive when he went into the water, wherever that was, but that there was no water in his lungs, as there would be if drowning was the cause of death.

The autopsy ruled out death by shooting or from a stab wound, and the boy’s skull was not damaged, said the spokesman.

The leading possibility for the cause of death is asphyxiation, either accidentally or by strangulation, although the autopsy could not confirm that either. When the body was discovered, agents suggested that asphyxiation was the cause of death.

Two men are in custody in the case, but investigators still are searching for a mysterious couple that they say the arrested pair gave the boy before they were nabbed. One man in custody is a neighborhood guard, and the other is a taxi driver.

Because the father also works with the Judicial Investigating Organization, activity on the case has been extensive. However, no new developments have been reported.

Would-be diplomats
have to face test

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of State announced that registration is open for the Fall 2002 Foreign Service written exam. Foreign Service officers are placed in Washington, D.C., and at 250 U.S. diplomatic posts around the world and serve as U.S. embassy and consulate employees. 

This is the first time in the department’s 221-year history that the exam will be given twice in one calendar year. The exam was last administered on April 13.

The exam will be held at hundreds of locations throughout the United States and around the world on Sept. 21. Online registration is available at www.careers.state.gov.
 

Three countries off
financial watch list

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States has relaxed scrutiny of U.S. financial transactions with Israel, Lebanon and St. Kitts and Nevis, the Treasury Department says.

The department said in a press release Tuesday that the governments of those three countries had made progress in fighting money laundering. The department noted that the 30-country Financial Action Task Force, which leads the international charge against money laundering, dropped the three countries from its list of non-cooperative countries in June.