The southwest coast community of Ojochal de Osa experienced a series of robberies and assaults, so residents got together to see what they could do to improve security.

One result is the dedication Sunday of a new police station and the promise from police officials to assign four officers with a motorcycle and communications to the area.

Rogelio Ramos, mininster of Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública, is expected to be among those officials who make the trip to the community for the 11 a.m. dedication.

A release from the Ojochal Security Committee called the construction of the police station an unprecedented collaboration between nationals and expatriates.

This event, which will take place under the theme "Una planta para el futuro" (A plant for the future) is part of an effort to reestablish investors’ confidence towards a destination badly affected over the past months by a series of robberies and assaults, and to sensitize the population in general to the importance of offering its residents a safe environment, said the Security Committee.

Starting from the principle that in a society, weeds must be removed as much as in a garden, the elected members of the Ojochal Security Committee said they have chosen two converging avenues to its goals: action and education. 

Following various meetings held with the authorities in the beginning of this year, the Ojochal population entrusted its Security Committee with the responsibility of building a police station with standards that would meet the requirements of the ministry of Public Security. 
Johnny Morales is president of the committee, and Lucy Tessier is secretary.

Cie. Lomas del Mar provided a piece of land strategically located at the entrance of the village, next to the highway.  The committee then gathered enough funds, material and manpower to start its project. 

Since then, the committee kept collecting funds and has also initiated the creation of a development association that will supervise the security project along with all development projects initiated in the community, including health, education and roads, the comittee said.

Meetings with its neighboring communities, including Dominical, took place in order to develop a regional plan for public security. 

The committee said that to demonstrate its originality and its conviction that security concerns citizens of all ages, residents will inaugurate its police station under the symbol of education. 

In that spirit the theme "Una planta para el futuro" was selected. Residents of Ojochal and vicinity have been invited to bring the police station a plant at its inauguration.

These plants are meant to illustrate Ojochal’s will to replace weeds with good growths, the committee said.

The plants also will put the police station into an environment as green and welcoming as the village in which it is built. 

By embellishing the site of its new police station, the population itself will put the final touch to a community project achieved in record-time, said the committee.

The Teatro Nacional has set up a free bus service to bring patrons from five downtown public parking areas to the theater and to return them after performances.

The theater administration said it started doing this July 4 to provide more security. The microbuses are used whenever there is a function in the main hall of the theater, said an announcement. Pickups are made between 6:30 and 7:45 p.m.

Northern Parking areas that are pickup points for the microbuses are Parqueo Antigua Biblioteca, Avenida 1 opposite the Omni Building; Parqueo Avenida Primera between streets 5 and 7, and Parqueo Gigante, also on Avenida 1 between streets 3 and 5.

South of the theater, microbuses have pickups at Parqueo Avenida 6, two blocks south of the Banco Popular building and Parqueo Palacio Luna, on the south side of the Roman Catholic Cathedral on Avenida 4.

Suspect and clerk
wounded in robbery

Fuerza Pública officers wounded one suspect in the shoulder Wednesday during a shootout at the AM/PM supermarket in Sabana Sur. Also wounded was a clerk at the store.

The suspect, identified as Edgar Picado, is accused of being one of three men who held up the supermarket about 8:15 p.m., took money from the cash registers and took valuables from the six customers shopping there at the time. The holdup men had their heads covered with ski masks and at least one carried a machine pistol. Another had a revolver, said police.

The wounded clerk was identified as Paola Salas Acevedo. She suffered a bullet wound in the right arm delivered by one of the bandits as they were leaving, said officers.

Police had been notified by a passer-by and were waiting for the trio when they tried to leave the store. A brief gunfight ensued. But the bandits were outnumbered because at least eight patrol cars had arrived at the scene, according to the Fuerza Pública.

The other two men arrested have the surnames of Hernández and Montoya. The supermarket is on the Carretera Vieja de Escazú south of Parque La Sabana and about 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) west of the towering Contraloría General de la República.

Residency offices
on short schedule

The Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería will be closing the doors of its Departamento de Residencias at noon during the entire month of September to make unspecified reorganizations there.

This means that foreigners seeking to obtain residency documents or pick up approved identity papers will have to show up in the morning at the immigration complex in Uruca.

In addition, the residency department will be open from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, Sept. 6, specifically to allow persons to pick up renewed cédulas of residency, said an announcement.

Immigration officials also said that they have established a link on the official Web page www.migracion.go.cr where lawyers and other professionals in immigration matters can send in questions on specific cases. Answers will come as e-mails or via the telephone, said officials.

Until now lawyers and others had to stand in line at the facility to ask questions in person. However, the Web page and link did not appear to be working Thursday night.

Two women arrested
as drug band leaders

Two women are being held as the leaders of a narcotics band that distributed their wares throughout the Central Valley.

Raids took place Wednesday night by officers of the Policía de Control de Drogas in San Felipe de Alajuelita, Cristo Rey and San Diego de la Unión, Cartago. Women with the last names and ages of Castro Serrano, 45, and Sánchez Castro, 23, were detained.

In Cristo Rey agents said they arrested another woman, with the last name of Campos Villafuerte. She is 33.  In San Diego de Dos Ríos, agents also arrested a man with the last name of Gutiérrez Herrera. He is 33.

Two missing girls
turn up on coast

Two missing teenage girls turned up in San Rafael Gordon de Cahuita Wednesday, ending fears of foul play.

The pair Catherine Paola Solano Gallardo, 15, and Kristin Solano Gallardo, 14, had been reported as missing. They live in San José. Fuerza Pública officers reported they found the pair in the company of a 16-year-old boy in a mountain cabin near this Caribbean coast settlement.

Two men passing by a home in Rincon Grande in Pavas Thursday night pulled out guns and killed a youth, about 20, who lived in the dwelling and was standing outside, said Fuerza Pública officers.

The shooting followed an early evening of disturbances in the area that included gangs of rock throwers, an arson fire and another shooting incident.
 

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HELSINKI, Finland — The largest survey of youth smoking in the world reveals that girls today are using tobacco at higher rates than young women did in earlier generations. The finding released Thursday at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health likely means that future cases of tobacco related disease will be greater than currently predicted because today's projections are based on lower rates of smoking among women. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and other governments and agencies produce the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, which tracks tobacco usage among more than 1 million adolescents in more than 150 countries. 

"This finding could raise the projection of 10 million tobacco related deaths per year, by the year 2030, which does not reflect these high rates of tobacco use among girls," said Vera da Costa e Silva, project manager for the World Health’s Tobacco Free Initiative. 

The survey tracks tobacco use habits by regions of the world, and a CDC press release says comparisons among regions and generations are difficult because of variations in survey methods. 
 

In Southeast Asia, the ratio of male to female smokers among adults is about 11 to 1; among youth, however, the ratio is about 4 to 1. Among African adults, male smokers outnumber females by 7 to 1. Among African adolescents, the ratio is just about 2 to 1. 

Results also show that girls and boys are using non-cigarette tobacco products such as spit tobacco, bidis, and water pipes at similar rates, and that these rates are often as high or higher than youth cigarette smoking rates.

Only the Eastern Mediterranean Region had a majority of sites with boys significantly more likely to smoke cigarettes and use other tobacco products.

The new survey also found that young people's use of cigarettes and other tobacco products varied dramatically by site. For example, cigarette smoking among boys ranged from 0.5 percent in Delhi and Goa, India, to 41.8 percent in Bamako, Mali. Use of other tobacco products among girls ranged from 0.4 percent in Macao, China, to 62.2 percent in the Northern Mariana Islands.

The Department of Homeland Security is downplaying a news report that the government has sent aviation security experts abroad to determine whether major foreign commercial airports can be defended against terrorists who might try to shoot down passenger planes. 

Department spokesman Brian Roehrkrasse confirmed that experts have been sent to consult with security officials in Iraq, Europe and Asia, but says concerns about such attacks are long-standing. The New York Times says the move follows recent intelligence reports suggesting that terrorists may be planning to use shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles to target passenger airplanes. The Times quotes administration officials as saying the attacks could be imminent. 

The Homeland official says teams have been sent to Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, as well as the capitals of Greece, Turkey and the Philippines. He confirms there are no indications that such weapons pose a threat within the United States. 

The spokesman added that the concern in Iraq comes from forces loyal to the former government of Saddam Hussein. Elsewhere, the threat is believed to be linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network. Al-Qaida terrorists are thought to have been responsible for a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet last year in Kenya. 

But the spokesman disputed the Times account that the teams were dispatched several weeks ago in secrecy because of concerns terrorists might strike before the experts could do their work. 

Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security warned U.S. airport officials to pay closer attention to passengers' electronic items, including cameras, saying terrorists may use them to hide explosives.

Powell said recall
good for Venezuela

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says that putting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to a recall vote is an important step toward preserving democracy.

Secretary Powell told foreign journalists here Thursday that a referendum would be a democratic and constitutional way to deal with the conflict in Venezuela. He also said it would allow the people of Venezuela to speak and be heard regarding the nature of their government.

Powell made his remarks just days after the Venezuelan Supreme Court gave lawmakers until the end of next week to select an electoral council to organize a referendum on President Chavez's rule.

The court said Monday that if the National Assembly cannot select an electoral authority, the court will make the selection. Venezuelan law requires an electoral council before any balloting can be held. Chavez supporters and opponents have been arguing over the composition of the council.

Under Venezuela's constitution, a referendum on the president's rule can be held at the mid-point of his term. In Chavez's case, that would be on Aug. 19. A May 29 agreement negotiated by the Organization of American States set out the framework for the recall referendum.

Ecuador's ruling alliance
collapses over labor bill

QUITO, Ecuador — The ruling party and the political wing of the country's powerful Indian movement have severed ties over a labor reform bill. 

President Lucio Gutierrez's spokesman, Marcelo Cevallos, announced late Wednesday the three Pachakutik cabinet ministers have been asked to step down from their posts. 

The Pachakutik helped put President Gutierrez in office seven months ago on promises he would help the poor. But the Indian group's political branch has criticized what it calls Gutierrez's support for the right and its loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. On Wednesday, the alliance collapsed when Pachakutik legislators voted against an IMF-required labor reform bill in Congress. 

A Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador spokesman is calling on its supporters to "mobilize." President Gutierrez's Patriotic Society Party holds only a small number of seats in the 123-member National Congress, making alliances with other parties necessary in order to push bills through the legislature.

Today culural officials will be in Grecia to inaugurate a new location of the Instituto Internacional del Arte y la Cultura. The event will be in the Centro de la Cultura de Grecia at 7:30 p.m. with Guido Sáenz González, minister of Cultura, Deporte y Juvendud as the leading guest.

Also on the agenda is the opening of the exposition "Encuentros," a postumous homage to local painter Laudencio Durán,

The institute will provide classes in all types of art and music and promote open-air shows in the town.

This same weekend in Santa Cruz, Judicial officials will be inaugurating a new court building Saturday at 10 a.m. after a parade through the nearby streets.

Volkswagen’s land
clears of squatters

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Faced with eviction, thousands of landless Brazilians have abandoned a shantytown they built on the outskirts here after hundreds of police came to remove them forcefully.

Some of the 5,000 squatters, who were on land owned by German car-maker Volkswagen, set fire to their makeshift homes of plastic sheets, wood and cardboard before leaving the camp Thursday.

The police were acting on an eviction order that Volkswagen had recently won in court. Last week, Brazilian police stormed a hotel in central Sao Paulo to evict hundreds of squatters in the building.

The evictions come as Brazil's landless poor have increased invasions of rural land. Several activist groups are seeking the redistribution of land to Brazil's poorest people.

More active season
seen for hurricanes

U.S. weather experts say this year's hurricane season will be even more active than predicted.

The National Hurricane Center on Thursday predicted there will be seven to nine hurricanes, with about half of those being major storms, during the remainder of hurricane season, which lasts through November. They are expected to hit areas of the Atlantic coast, the Caribbean islands, and states bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

In May, forecasters predicted six to nine hurricanes this season, already higher than the average six hurricanes per year.

Experts say hurricanes are more likely this year because of warm sea surface temperatures and a strong African jet stream. They say the period between 1995 and 2002 has been the most active for hurricanes in the past half-century.

Colombian justices
OK senator’s extradition

BOGOTA, Colombia — The Colombian Supreme Court has cleared the way for a former senator to be extradited to the United States to face charges of narcotics trafficking. 

The high court said Wednesday that it had authorized the extradition of former Sen. Samuel Santander Lopesierra. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe must still approve the decision. 

Lopesierra was arrested last October. Authorities say he has belonged to a drug trafficking network since 1999 and helped transfer multiple shipments of cocaine to the United States. 

Cuban exile back
to push reforms

HAVANA, Cuba — Miami Cuban exile who once served 22 years in prison for rebelling against Fidel Castro's government has returned to the island to work for democratic reforms. 

Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo announced Thursday, after vacationing on the island that he would not return to Miami, where he has lived since the mid 1980s. Instead, Menoyo said he will work for the legalization of opposition groups in the Communist country. The Cuban government, which has allowed him to return to Cuba to visit family during his exile, has not immediately responded to the activist's decision. 

In 1959, Menoyo fought in Cuba's revolution against then-President Fulgencio Batista. But he later fell out with Fidel Castro, and led an unsuccessful uprising against the Cuban leader in 1964. He was jailed for 22 years before he left for exile in Miami.