Nayib Bukele is one of the most controversial figures in El Salvador. (El Diario de Hoy)
Nayib Bukele is one of the most controversial figures in El Salvador. (El Diario de Hoy)
(Q24N) Nayib Bukele is the mayor of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. He won the position in 2015 on the official party ticket, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), after being mayor of Nueva San Salvador, a small municipality on the outskirts of the capital.
Bukele, whom many say will be the next presidential candidate for FMLN, has done many things during his tenure as mayor to raise red flags, including nepotism, obstruction of press freedom and cybercrime.
He has chosen social media as his favorite medium for communication. On Facebook, he has more than 922,600 followers, 318,000 on Twitter and 197,000 followers on Instagram. He shares news about his administration, his jobs plan and often talks about the media.
Bukele, 35, was born into a very affluent family in El Salvador with very diverse business holdings, including fast food chains, a motorcycle company, nightclubs and an advertising agency.
Nayib Bukele and freedom of the press
Last week he denied reporters from El Dairio deHoy, La Prensa Gráfica and El Mundo entry to a press conference. The Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES) condemned the move.
Serafín Valencia, President of APES, explained that no public official has the authority to prevent the work of the media.
“These are measures that violate freedom of expression and freedom of information,” he said. “He is a public official who is obliged to give information.”
In addition, Bukele is suing La Prensa Gráfica after publishing several articles highlighting a suspicious bidding process for government contracts.
Roberto Rubio, Director of the National Foundation for Development described the situation as absurd.
“Reacting in that irrational way does not have a legal basis,” Rubio said.
Nayib Bukele will sue La Prensa Gráfica for defamation. Bukele said La Prensa Gráfica has published misinformation about million-dollar contracts awarded by the municipality.
La Prensa Gráfica, who reportedly obtained official documents related to the deal, published articles on million-dollar contracts that the mayor of San Salvador granted to foreign companies that were going to install surveillance cameras.
The mayor reportedly bought the most expensive option for the project. The municipal council has made three appeals to review the contract.
Councilman Edwin Zamora of the ARENA party said a high level commission was created that will investigate the purchase process, with help from representatives of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
Bunker Trolls
Nayib Bukele has also been linked to Bunker, a digital marketing company contracted by Bukele to develop a mobile application for the mayor’s office.
In November 2015, Bunker employees were arrested, accused of copying the La Prensa Gráfica website before trolling it. More details and evidence about this came to light after officials analyzed Whatsapp conversations between programmers.
A few days later, Bukele called for a rally in front of the FGR. During his speech, Bukele denied the accusations against him:
“If someone did it, it was not me,” he said.
Bukele turned to the prosecutor during the rally and said, “I’ll tell you right now, prosecutor, count on us if you’re going to fight for the people. Now, how will the prosecutor prove it? Well, you can come down if you want … If you, Mr. Prosecutor, are going to work for this town, this town is going to be with you. If you, prosecutor, go to work for La Prensa Gráfica, this town is going to run you out of the office.”
“The Millennial One Who Will Save a Violent City”
Nayib Bukele has been mentioned in various international media, including DW, BBC News, Society and Die Zelt.
In October, the English newspaper The Guardian wrote an article called “Can a millennial mayor save one of the world’s most violent cities?”
The article narrates the violence that El Salvador suffers, and describes how the author met Bukele to hear his explanations about projects to reduce violence.
The article called El Diario de Hoy and La Prensa Gráfica enemies of Bukele, since they rarely publish stories about Bukele’s projects and instead publish critical reports about scandals in his administration.
The US magazine Foreign Policy included Bukele in its 2016 FP Global Thinkers list, under the category of “decision makers” for “plotting an urban face-lift” and for “planning a new urban look.”
Jimmy Morales has had to suspend his donations due to family problems (Diario El Informal)
Jimmy Morales has had to suspend his donations due to family problems (Diario El Informal)
(Q24N) Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has announced he will no longer be donating 60 percent of his salary.
Morales backed out of his promise this week, due to “the situation and the cost it represents,” but did not clarify beyond that. Many have speculated that the decision is related to the arrest of his son, who is being tried for corruption.
On his Facebook, Morales said the change would be temporary, and that he hopes everything “will return to normal soon.”
The salary of the president is US $5,610, of which he previously donated 60 percent. Additionally, he made US $ 13,375.25 in representation expenses.
According to Prensa Libre, the first donation from Morales was to the museum of the Church of Comalapa, Chimaltenango, for US $1,203. He also donated US $926,905 to a foundation in Petén.
Another contribution was given to the reconstruction of the Champerico dock, Retalhuleu, for US $1,000 — for the purchase of sandbags that could better control water channels.
However, Guatemalan courts recently detained José Manuel Morales, the president’s son, who is being held in jail at the Matamoros military base for fraud.
Morales is accused of having included three irregular adjudications for more than US $26,757 on the Property Registry in 2013 to help the family of his then-girlfriend.
Together with his Uncle Sammy, Jose Manuel Morales allowed the father of his girlfriend Mario Orellana López to win the public awards, which has been interpreted as an “illicit favor.”
The two are involved in three public awards for more than $ 25,000 from the General Property Registry in 2013.
Buenos Aires judge orders nationwide block of Uber
(Q24N) A Buenos Aires judge has ordered a nationwide block of Uber. Internet providers are to block Uber throughout Argentina starting Monday, January 30, Prosecutor Martín Lapadú said; however, the request to arrest the directors of the company was not approved.
Buenos Aires taxi drivers protesting in Dec. 2016. REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian
“Uber breached a court order that barred it from operating in the Argentine capital as of April 2016,” Lapadú said in explaining why the requests were made.
The Municipal Prosecutor’s Office released a statement saying that “their requests are based on the Uber executives never ceasing in their violations but rather continuing to completely ignore judicial mandates by continuing their illegal activity.”
Lapadu reportedly told local media that internet providers could close down Uber’s platforms as long as the blockade order actually spreads across the country.
Drivers for Uber as well as those employed to oversee the company’s activity in Buenos Aires, rejected the measure, saying their activities will not be affected.
“It is not possible to carry out the blockade because the local CABA (City of Buenos Aires) can not order measures outside that city. The normal operation of the application is guaranteed,” the company said in a statement.
Vehicle involved in Sunday morning’s multiple fatalities in in police custody, however, the driver is not.
What the F is going? Are the criminal court judges of this country so out of touch with reality that it in itself be called a crime?
The Costa Rica courts are sending a clear message to every driver in the land: drive as you want, kill as many as you want, don’t worry, nothing will happen.
At least it appears so to your truly and everyone I have spoken to in the last couple of days about the two separate and completely avoidable incidents, massacres rather, where five people lost their lives.
It was early Sunday morning. Five cyclists were headed to the Irazu volcano, part of their training. They were riding in the old road to Tres Rios, in Curridabat, near the Walmart store. This is a narrow road. The alternative would have been the autopista, with a shoulder. But this is a high-speed road and cyclists are banned.
Photo Adrian Soto, La Nacion
It was at 3:46am, the time from the stamp of a nearby security camera, where we see the cyclists appear on the screen, followed a few seconds later by the headlights of a fast-moving vehicle.
Although not in the field of vision of the security camera, four of the five cyclists are struck, what I can only imagine is like bowling pins. Three are dead at the scene, a fourth is taken to hospital in serious condition, where she remains still in intensive care.
The driver flees the scene, leaving the mangled bodies to be recovered by emergency crews who quickly arrive, but there is nothing to do for the victims. We can only be horrified as the images filter on the social media and the online news channels.
It was ten hours later when the killer driver game himself up, a call to police pointing them to where the killer car was.
By this time, if he had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs, it was pretty much out of his system, enough so that the breathalyzer test was negative. A blood sample will take a month to get results. If he was racing, as is common on many roads in urban areas, it doesn’t change anything. He still killed three people.
At this point authorities know they have the killer vehicle and killer driver. He is arrested.
Monday morning, a criminal court judge accepted the recommendation of the prosecutor’s office (Fiscalia) to let the driver go free, with the condition he not leave the country, sign in regularly (every 15 days) and banned from driving, while the investigation continues.
The same result with the driver of the bus, on the autopista General Cañas on Tuesday, that slammed into the rear of a pick up truck, with such force leaving it crumpled an accordion, in between two other large vehicles. No possibility that the two men, on their way to work that morning, had even a chance of survival.
Photo Jorge Navarro, La Nacion
Again, what did the courts do? Mr. bus driver, go home. Don’t worry about it.
Although the two cases are different, the end result is the same, blood is spilled.
I live a stone’s through from the Ruta 27, in Santa Ana. Almost nightly, in the quietness of the night, the roar of engines and screeching tires can be heard. The straight-away from the tool booths to the Santa Ana bridge is perfect for street racing.
At least once a month or more the sound of screeching tires is followed by a silence, replaced by the sirens of the ambulances and fire trucks rushing to the scene. I don’t need to wait for the morning television news, or the social media or online news to know what something bad had happened.
In the morning, the air is fresh and filled with the sense of what had happened a few hours before. The last one was a little over a month ago, a vehicle out of control slams into the columns of the pedestrian bridge, and bounces off onto the side road, stopping against a mound of dirt.
Another fatality is around the corner.
Back to courts. I understand there is the due process of law. But I think common sense has to prevail here. Heck, drivers aren’t using common sense. There is no room for it in the mix of machismo, alcohol and drugs.
Kylie Jenner lived it up in Costa Rica with sisters Khloé and Kourtney Kardashian. Since jetting off to a tropical paradise with friends and family last week, the girls have been sharing photos of their vacation non-stop. Though Kim Kardashian kept a low profile on the trip, her sisters definitely were busy snapping sexy photos. Needless to say, the FOMO is real!
Recently, Kourtney ditched her swimsuit altogether for some late-night skinny-dipping. In a steamy pic shared on Snapchat, the mom-of-three was seen standing in a pool naked with her back towards the camera.
Q COSTA RICA – Legislators on Monday approved in first debate reforms to the Ley de Transito (Traffic Law).
The following are the 19 changes contained in Bill 19.636:
Parking
1. Area will be defined for the exclusive use of loading and unloading for vehicles, including heavy trucks.
2. It will be prohibited to park trucks, buses and other vehicles with a gross weight of more than 2 tons in urban and suburban roads, unless they are in authorized stops or in defined loading zones.
3. Prohibited to park vehicles in defined loading and unloading areas.
4. The Traffic Police (Policia de Transito) may seize the license plates of vehicles obstructing public roads, including sidewalks, bike paths or parked in front of public service (bus and taxi) stops. The Traffic Police can even remove (tow) the vehicle in order to prevent further obstruction.
5. A fine of ¢306,850 is imposed on the driver who refuses to submit to a roadside breathalyzer test. The driver will also be taken to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
6. The driver may challenge the result of the roadside breathalyzer test and will be entitled to a second test. However, if the result of the second test is positive, the driver must pay for the cost of the test.
7. A fine of ¢306,850 is established for producing noise above the limits of decibels (dB) allowed by law:
Automobile: 90 dB
Lightweight vehicle and minibuses: 92 dB
Busetas (mini buses) and buses: 94 dB
Heavy-duty vehicle: 96 dB
Motorcycles up to 250 cc: 94 dB
Motorcycles over 250 cc: 96 dB
8. A fine of ¢306,850 and the seizure of license plates for vehicles whose gas emissions exceed the limits established in the vehicular inspection (Riteve).
9. Prohibited is the 100% obscurity polarization of vehicles, except for factory installed.
Impersonal fines and traffic cameras
10. The issuing of impersonal tickets is authorized, that is the driver does not have to be in the vehicle for the traffic official to issue the ticket, including infractions captured by traffic cameras.
Correct license for the class of vehicle
11. The removal of the paragraph of Article 86 authorizing a B-1 license (passenger vehicle) for scooters (bicimotos) and motorcycles of up to 125 cc, as well as tricycles and ATVs of up to 500 cc, on non-primary roads. That is the proper license for the type of vehicle will be required on all primary roads.
12. A fine of ¢104,600 (up from ¢51,316) will be issued to a driver without the proper license for the class of vehicle being driven.
13. The Traffic Police may seize the license plates from a public transport vehicle when the driver is driving without or with an expired or suspended license.
14. The registered owner of the vehicle will be fined ¢22,000 for allowing a driver to circulate without the respective license.
Vehicle Loads
15. A fine of ¢104,600 is imposed on the driver of a light or heavy load vehicle when they fail to comply with the following provisions:
Circulate with loose load.
The load obstruct the driver’s visibility or hindered the driving of the vehicle.
The load is transported in a way it could cause accidents (“inconvenientes” is the Spanish term) due to the load coming loose or hinders the transit of other vehicles.
The load must not obscure the vehicle’s lights or the license plate .
All equipment and accessories used to condition or protect the load, must meet the regulatory safety conditions.
Any load protruding from the rear, front or side of the vehicle, should be marked with red flags and with reflectors at night. The load must not make contact with the road.
Vehicles of more than four thousand kilograms (4 tons) must respect the weigh stations.
16. A fine ¢104,600 for overcrowding the vehicle, that is exceeding maximum capacity of the vehicle as per the Marchamo.
17. A fine of ¢104,600 is imposed on the driver who transports passengers in the trunk or in the open back of the vehicle (ie a pick up truck), with the exception for the transportation of workers for agricultural activities, maintenance of public services, emergency care and the transfer of persons on gravel or dirt cantonal roads.
Disrespect Of Traffic Officials
18. A fine of ¢51,316 will be imposed on the driver who disrespects the directions of a traffic official.
Taxis
19. A fine of ¢ 51,316 for operating a taxi or special area passenger service in unauthorized areas.
Final Approval
For the bill to become law and go into effect, it requires second and final Congressional approval, the signature of the President and published in La Gaceta, the official government newsletter.
Some readers may be wondering why the Traffic Police is would prefer to seize license plates in lieu of the vehicle itself. This can be answered in two parts.
One, the Transito lots are full to the brim of seized vehicles, mainly due to the lack of regulations to quickly dispose of the vehicles, which in many cases are in police custody for years.
And two, the Traffic Police has a limited number of tow units, requiring contracting outside tow trucks and passing on the cost to the owner of the vehicle. Now, let’s say the fine or fines are higher that the value of the vehicle, what motivation would the owner have to reclaim the vehicle and paying the costs associated with the fines and tow.
Confiscating the license plates is the quick and inexpensive solution for authorities. Given that the process of reclaiming seized license plates is a ‘complicated’ one, the sanction seems to be an effective deterrent.
Source: La Nacion, with additional editing from the Q.
Refusing a breathalyzer test will be sanctioned under the new reforms to the Traffic Law
Q COSTA RICA – With the aim of reducing the carnage on the roads and demand more respect of drivers, Congress has approved reforms to the Ley de Transito (Traffic Law) that calls for the maximum fine of ¢306,850 colones(US$550) for refusing a roadside breathalyzer test.
Currently, there is no sanction for a driver refusing to a breathalyzer when requested by a Transito (traffic official).
The Traffic Law reforms was approved in first debate by a 37 votes in favor and one against. The bill is expected to be presented for second and final debate within the coming week, after which it requires the signature of the president and publishing in La Gaceta, the official government newsletter, to take effect.
Among the new sanctions included in the reforms are:
A fine of ¢104,600 for overcrowding the vehicle, that is carrying more passengers than permitted (based on the Marchamo certificate).
The same ¢104,600 applies to drivers carrying passengers in an open vehicle, for example the back of a pick up truck, a common practice mainly in rural areas.
The ¢104,600 fine also applies to drivers in a vehicle without the corresponding license. That is, a driver behind the wheel of a minivan or bus without the specific license for the type of vehicle. The Ministry of Transport (MOPT) issues various licenses for vehicles such as a motorcycle, passenger vehicle, heavy truck, small and large buses, among others. It is not uncommon for a driver without multiple vehicle classifications to carry multiple licenses.
A fine of ¢307,000 will be applied to drivers with “excessively noisy vehicles”. The MOPT has standards that are applied at the time of the vehicular inspection (Riteve).
A ¢51,316 for taxi or special services vehicles operating in authorized areas or if they disobey a direct order of a Transito. The example of this is at the San Jose airport, where the red taxis are not allowed to pick up fares on the fly or at bus stops where taxis use the bus bays to wait for fares.
The Traffic Law reforms also takes aim at drivers that add to the vehicular congestion gripping the greater metropolitan area (GAM), giving power of seizure of license plates of illegally parked vehicles.
For example, if and when a vehicle obstructs public roads, sidewalks, bike lanes or parked at bus stops, handicap ramps, fire hydrants, emergency exits and blocking driveways or entrances to parking garages, public or private, a Transito can pull the tags even if the owner if not present. That is not the case today.
“This is key to combating road congestion,” said Liza Castillo, deputy minister of transport, in a statement to the press issued by Casa Presidencial.
According to the Cosevi, last year (2016) a total of 18,392 tickets were issued to illegally parked vehicles.
Cindy Coto, director of the Consejo de Seguridad Vial (Cosevi) – Road Safety Council, said “it is clear that it is not enough. With the reform we can sanction the vehicle without the driver necessarily present, which is something thatwe cannot do today”.
Another change is sanctioning the registered owner of the vehicle in the even the driver (if the driver is not the owner) is not carrying a valid drivers license, or his or her license is expired or suspended. In such cases, Transitos can also seize the license plates of the vehicle. Currently, only the driver is sanctioned.
Vehicles in the country with foreign plates will also be targeted with seizure of license plates if found circulating in the country past the three-month limit.
Transitos can also seize license plates of vehicles used illegally for public transport. On this, the MOPT statement was not clear if it was targeting drivers working with Uber.
Coto said the breathalyzer requirement to be the most relevant change in the reforms: “We have some rebellious drivers who refuse to take the test, and with the reform they may refuse, but We will issue the maximum fine. Likewise, they will be charged for the cost of the test if they blow positive”.
Souces: La Nacion; Casa Presidencial; Cosevi; MOPT
Monday night many visited the site where the three cyclists were bowled over by a speeding driver in the early hours of Sunday morning. Photo Adrian Soto, La Nacion
Monday night many visited the site where the three cyclists were bowled over by a speeding driver in the early hours of Sunday morning. Photo Adrian Soto, La Nacion
The driver who killed three cyclists in the early hours of Sunday morning in Curridabat is free.
On Monday the Juzgado Penal de Goicoechea allowed the 32 year-old man, identified by his last name Mora Monge, free on condition that he sign in every 15 days, not leave the country and banned from driving.
Photo Adrian Soto, La Nacion
What is firing up the social media is the report that the Fiscalia (prosecutor’s office) did not ask for preventive detention, as would normally be in cases of multiple deaths. However, the same occurred last week, the same court releasing the driver of the bus that killed two in a traffic accident on the autopista General Cañas.
It was early Sunday morning, minutes before 4:00am, when five cyclists were making their way to the Irazu volcano, in Curridabat on the old road to Tres Rios, when a vehicle struck four of them: three were killed, the fourth continues in serious condition in the Calderon Guardia hospital. The fifth cyclist escaped injury when seconds before she stopped to take a sip from her drink bottle.
A video security camera released on the social media shows the seconds before the incident, the cyclists appearing in the frame followed by a speeding vehicle seconds later. The impart was beyond the camera’s field of vision.
The driver turned himself in some 10 hours later, when authorities received an anonymous call telling them where to find the vehicle, a later model Mustang. As expected, a breathalyzer test resulted negative, results of the blood sample are expected to be the same. Police seized the vehicle and took the driver into custody.
Photo Adrian Soto, La Nacion
A report by La Nacion reveals that the driver accumulated a total of 9 traffic infractions between 2003 and 2009. The facts are recorded on the Consejo de Seguridad Vial (Cosevi) website, however without details, the summary list of traffic infractions include damage to property, failing to respect a stop sign, several parking violations, driving without windshield, not having the vehicular inspection and having another person in arms while driving. No infractions were recorded after 2009.
OIJ investigators are all over the vehicle involved in the fatal accident.
“This Fiscalia was very sensible, it did not bow down to public pressure… This is a very different crime, although the result is appalling (…) It is a person with roots (in the country): he has a house, a job and family, that is to say, he does not have the minimum principle of flight,” said defence lawyer Jose Pablo Badilla.
The lawyer added that his client “is shocked, feels bad … If he left the scene it is because he was in shock”, saying he has spoken very little with his client because, “he is going through a great post-traumatic impact”.
Investigators say based on the physical evidence at the scene, the vehicle was travelling over 100 km/h.
The victims were identified as Mario Enrique Retana Pérez, 49; Lenin Manrique Ortiz Quesada, 46; and, Pablo Enrique Alcócer Alcócer, 54.
At the site a makeshift altar has been created, a cyclist t-shirt with the words “respect the cyclist” hangs by the rail fence, at the edge of the road three crosses mark the spot close where the three cyclists lost their lives.
Lucía del Carmen Mata Durán, 38s, who survived the impact continues in the intensive care at the Calderón Guardia hospital in San Jose.
Q COSTA RICA / Karla Rivera-Cáceres, a University of Miami biology graduate student, plays a harmonious duet of singing wrens from a recording she captured out in the field during a recent trip to Costa Rica.
“The song sounds like one bird but if you listen closely, it’s a male and female wren singing a duet in perfect unison,” said Rivera-Cáceres.
Along with songbirds, many animal species perform duets, an uncommon vocal interaction that can occur between mated or unmated species, such as frogs and crickets. But the coupled wrens Rivera-Cáceres recorded in Costa Rica sing alternating phrases, or parts, of the song so smoothly and with such complexity and fast tempo that the untrained ear may hear just a single bird.
For years, Rivera-Cáceres studied the “duet codes” (non-random association of song types) of paired wrens and wondered if the ability to perform their complex and seamless music was a skill the birds were born with or learned during juvenile or adult stages of life. Now, after two months of intense listening in Costa Rica, she knows that they can learn new songs with new partners, even as adults. She says the newly learned songs are akin to prenuptial agreements.
“It’s like the birds think: If you’re willing to invest the time and energy to learn a new duet code, then I am sure you are not going to leave me because if you do, you would lose a big investment and would need to learn a whole new duet code with another partner,” she said.
According to Rivera-Cáceres, a male wren has his set of songs and a female wren her own set. When paired, the birds link their song types in a non-random way; for example, if the male sings his type “A” song the female may respond with her type “C” song and if the duet fits, the wrens will perfect their duet code until it becomes seamlessly unified.
“I selected this particular species for my research because their duets are very complex,” said Rivera-Cáceres. “The birds need to be in sync, so when one bird sings the other remains silent, and they do this in a very fast tempo while avoiding any overlap.”
Past studies on duetting wrens focused on the function and evolution of the songs, not necessarily the birds’ development to perform them.
“Understanding the development process of duetting and whether the wrens invest the time and energy to duet with their partners is key to determine if these duet rules are difficult to acquire and thus demonstrate the birds’ ability and skill to learn a new song when paired with a new mate,” said Rivera-Cáceres.
Her research, “Neotropical wrens learn new duet rules as adults,” illustrates the complex behavior of duetting wrens by explaining the process of how the birds acquire the ability to duet throughout their lives. It was published in the journal .
“Paired wrens that are together for a longProceedings of the Royal Society B time keep the same rules across years but each pair in the population will have its own rules. In other words, pairs from the same population do not duet the same,” said Rivera-Cáceres. “It didn’t make sense to me that wrens don’t continue to learn new duet codes during adulthood because if they did have fixed rules, which they learn during the juvenile stages, when the birds got older they would be unable to pair with another bird singing a different set of song rules.”
To prove that wrens learn new duet rules instead of repeating a learned rule from their juvenile stages, Rivera-Cáceres performed a “removal experiment” in Costa Rica, moving either a male or female wren from one territory to another to test if their duet codes changed when they found new partners. To relocate the wrens, she played a recording of another wren’s song in a pair’s territory. When one of them flew to the speaker to investigate the “intruder,” she captured it in a thin net and released it elsewhere in the forest.
“At first, the new pairs struggled in their coordination and duet code adherence but they caught on over time,” said Rivera-Cáceres. “What I did find interesting was that the male wrens changed their duetting rules more than females. The females normally kept the responses they had with their old mates, while male duet codes appear to be more flexible. It did take the new pairs months to perfect their new duet codes but over time, they did get better and better.”
Good Prospects for MIG-35 Fighters in Latin America
Good prospects for Russia’s MIG-35 fighters in Latin America
Q24N (Prensa Latina) Russia forecasts today good prospects for the trade of the MIG-35 multifunctional fighter in Latin America, following the world launch of the new aircraft at the MIG Aircraft Construction Corporation on the outskirts of this capital city.
‘Everything is fine for Latin America’, Russian deputy prime minister for issues of the corporation and the special field Dmitri Rogozin told the news agency Prensa Latina at a press conference held at the test field of the new fighter aircraft.
Moments after the landing of the 4++ generation fighter plane, which made an exhibition flight, Rogozin said that the Russian air force is seeking to replace previous models by these modern and lighter ones, MIG-35.
Rogozin, who was accompanied by head of the Russian Aerospace Force Viktor Bonderev, said that because of its good quality and price, as well as its possibilities near a medium or heavy fighter aircraft, they expect it to have a good trade in the international market.
The construction company MIG plans to manufacture 24 planes a year, MIG 35 is able to follow up to 30 targets at the same time, at a distance of 160 kilometers and destroy six air targets and four land targets at the same time, both day and night.
(Q24N) U.S. President Donald Trump’s confirmation that he will keep his campaign promise and build a wall along the Mexican border has outraged the Latin American ruling classes. Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox eloquently wrote on his Twitter account that his country “is not going to pay for that f***ing wall.”
The Latin American media has echoed Fox’s sentiments in an attempt to ignite regionalist indignation against the US government. “Trump confirms wall and Latin America rejects him,” ran a headline in Bolivian newspaper El Deber.
Behind the media’s fury at Trump’s concrete plans to build his “Mexican Wall” lies the assumption that any Mexican or other Latin American has an inalienable right to simply walk into the United States and settle there permanently. This doesn’t just involve the search for work and opportunity, for which there are the legal mechanisms that are so often bypassed and ignored; it also involves the belief that newly arrived Latin Americans should immediately have unbridled access to US schooling, infrastructure, and even welfare despite not having paid a penny into the system from which they hope to profit.
While I personally support a passport-free global immigration system of the type that prevailed in pre-First World War Europe, I realize that Milton Friedman was absolutely correct when he said that “it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs; it is another to have free immigration to welfare.” Hence the Cato Institute’s sensible slogan of building “a wall around the welfare state, not around the country.”
But these are merely theoretical considerations. In practice, Latin American governments’ immigration policies are not only not free, but in many cases are considerably less free than US policies. In fact, some of the following nine measures taken by different Latin American regimes against Latin American immigrants are, in my view, truly cruel and inhumane, while the much derided Trump Wall appears to be designed as a mere defensive structure, à la Hadrian’s Wall or the Athenian Long Walls, with a strong component of economic protectionism, which is a folly under any circumstances.
In other cases, Latin American governments’ anti-immigrant measures are completely hypocritical in the face of their tacit or open demands for the United States to accept all immigrants from the region regardless of their background. If the Latin American media were interested in rational debate, one would expect them to engage in a minimum amount of introspection and criticism toward their own governments prior to raising their cri de coeur of Trump Wall tempestuousness. Alas, one would expect rationality from them in vain.
1. The (other) Mexican Wall
In July 2014, well before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president and launched his proposal for a wall along the Mexican border, Ferrosur, a Mexican railway company, built a wall in the southern city of Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, in order to deter immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador from seeking refuge in Mexico. Although Tierra Blanca is not a border city, it does lie along a 3,200 kilometer-long railway line connecting Tapachula in the state of Chiapas, which is not far from Mexico’s border with Guatemala, with Mexico City and, eventually, the northern border.
As the PanAm Post reported in 2014, thousands of Central American immigrants risk their lives each year by illegally boarding a series of freight trains that run across all of southern and central Mexico along the Tapachula-Mexico City line. The perils of the journey include falling from the undercarriage of a moving freight train onto the tracks or from the top of a moving train, where immigrants ride in order to avoid detection. Due to the high number of immigrant casualties and accidents leading to lost limbs, the freight trains have been labelled “La Bestia,” “The Beast.” Those who survive The Beast and reach the Mexican capital after a 20-day journey try to board other trains that might take them across the northern border and into the United States.
Ferrosur’s wall is a kilometer long, 1.5 meter high structure topped with barbed wire. Its purpose is to prevent Central Americans arriving on The Beast from detraining in Tierra Blanca and seeking refuge in a Catholic shelter which opened in 2003 in order to provide humanitarian aid to illegal migrants. Although built by a private company, webzine SinEmbargo reports that the Tierra Blanca wall is part of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s “Frontera Sur” plan, a semi-Trumpian strategy launched in 2014 to “contain the flow of (Central American) migrants into the country.” This is a fact Peña Nieto tends not to mention when he piously claims that “Mexico does not believe in walls.” What he means is that his government is against walls that keep its own citizens out of the United States, but unhesitant to build walls that keep Central Americans out of Mexico.
Loud-mouthed Vicente Fox has also avoided mentioning the Tierra Blanca wall while he offers CNN his anti-Trump tirades. For some Mexicans, however, there is need for a much more robust border wall. Last July, Mexican daily El Mañana published an editorial titled “Yes to the Border Wall… But in the South of Mexico.” According to the authors,
Mexico’s southern borders with Guatemala and Belize bring no benefit to the country. On the contrary, they cause only problems because they serve as an invasion route for Central Americans who use our country to enter the United States…
When Central American immigrants stay in Mexico, the editorial states,
many of them do not find an honest way of earning a living and dedicate themselves to crimes including armed robbery, kidnapping, and extortion. In the worst of cases, they join organized criminal bands…
Hence, El Mañana claims that Mexico should join Donald Trump’s efforts to build a border wall, except that it should be erected along the country’s southern border so as “to stop the illegal arrival of Central Americans and to demand that foreigners entering Mexico present proper documents to the authorities.”
Don’t hold your breath if you hope to hear much about Mexico’s draconian, anti-Central American attitudes toward immigration in the US progressive media.
2. Colombia refused to let Jewish WWII refugees into the country
While approximately 95,000 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany arrived in the United States between 1933 and 1939 and 137,450 European Jewish refugees settled in America between 1942 and 1952, Colombia received a mere 6,000 Jewish refugees in the 1930’s and 1940’s according to journalist Lina Leal. Argentina, meanwhile, welcomed 45,000 Jews during the same time period. Brazil, meanwhile, allowed 25,000 Jews to settle and Chile another 15,000.
The relatively low number of Jews who entered Colombia during the era of Nazi persecution is no coincidence since anti-semitism was a semi-official government policy. Luis López de Mesa, Minister of Education under President Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934-1938) and Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Eduardo Santos (1938-1942), the current president’s great uncle, claimed that Jews “had a parasitic orientation in life” and denounced their “invertebrate custom” of engaging in “trade, usury, barter, and trickery.” On the other hand, López de Mesa claimed that “Aryan” Germans were “disciplined, laborious, patriotic and… strong.” This last characteristic, he claimed, was especially important for mixing the races and obtaining the results he desired. Germanic lineage, López de Mesa pontificated, was the cause of the “ordered temperament” that made the Germans great “organizers.”
Due to López de Mesa’s standing in high government circles, the Colombian state began to put his crackpot racialist theories to practice. As a Colombian newspaper reports,
In September, 1938, the Colombian government implemented decree 1723, which was designed to hinder access to visas for Jews whom Hitler had deprived of their nationality. According to the decree, ‘(Colombian) diplomats will not be able to grant visas for passports of individuals who have lost their original nationality or who have no nationality without the special and concrete approval of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’
Two months later,
the Colombian consulate in Berlin issued only six visas. In the four months prior to the decree, Colombian consulates in Germany and in another 10 European countries had issued 1,190 visas. In November, 1938, Colombia’s ambassador in Berlin asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for guidelines concerning German Jews’ applications for political asylum. López de Mesa responded:
‘we request that you reflect carefully on the problems that (granting asylum to Jews) could cause. An unexpected consequence could be that we end up being forced to bring them to Bogotá or to shelter them indefinitely.’
López de Mesa, of course, didn’t foresee in 1938 that the seemingly invincible Germans would ultimately succumb to the Allied war effort, leaving him and his ilk on the wrong side of history when the concentration camps were liberated. Since he served as Foreign Minister during the apogee of Hitler’s power, however, he did ensure that Colombia would become one of the many countries with a World War II record of which to be ashamed.
Although current Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has apologized publicly for numerous events in which the Colombian state used violence in response to the armed insurrection’s violent tactics, including the M-19 guerrilla’s drug-financed and bloody attempt to take over the Supreme Court in 1985, he is yet to apologize for his great uncle’s government’s refusal to help thousands of Jews survive the Holocaust. Once again, don’t expect that apology to come any time soon.
3. Mexico deports more Central Americans than the United States
According to Mexican daily El Universal, Mexican authorities deported 118,000 Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadoreans between January and September, 2015. During the same time period, meanwhile, the United States only deported 55,744 Central Americans.
Valdete Wilemann, a Brazilian nun in charge of a migrant help center in Honduras, told El Universal that “massive deportations (of Hondurans) are coming from Mexico, not the United States.” She added that Mexico “is capturing immigrants, trapping them in a sack, so to speak, placing them in a bus and kicking them out of the country.”
In July, 2016, Univisión reported that, between January and April of last year, Mexico didn’t allow nine out of every 10 migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to enter the country. According to the report, Central Americans fleeing violence in their native countries faced “an invisible wall” when attempting to enter Mexico.
Conveniently, President Peña Nieto ignores Mexico’s terrible recent history in dealing with migrants from its neighbors to the south whenever he lectures the US authorities for discriminating against Mexican immigrants.
4. Colombia cracks down on Chinese merchants
In May, 2016, merchants in the Bogotá commercial district of San Victorino held a protest against a supposed “invasion” of Chinese shopkeepers in their neighborhood, demanding that the Colombian government raise tariffs on textile and manufactured imports in order to protect national industries. According to one protester with a limited understanding of competition, Chinese immigrants harm Colombia by “importing goods with low tariffs and receiving additional benefits once they sell them.”
The Colombian customs authorities responded to the “threat” of cheap products for Colombian consumers by launching at least 68 operations against Chinese shopkeepers in Bogotá and seizing some USD $3 million worth of goods. When China’s ambassador to Colombia visited San Victorino in order to speak to some of his countrymen, he had to be escorted by the police and was taunted with cries of “¡fuera chinos!” As usual, anti-trade rants go hand in hand with despicable nationalist abuse.
For his part, Bogotá City Council member Manuel Sarmiento, who hails from the left-wing Polo Democrático party, expressed his “solidarity” with Bogotá’s merchants in a press release, claiming that “the Chinese takeover of (the) San Victorino commercial district is yet another blow that the free market has dealt Bogotá’s economy.” Sarmiento offered his support in preventing the Chinese from further damaging “national production and employment.” In Colombia, one can always count on extreme leftists to advance Trump-style commercial policies. At the consumer’s expense, of course.
5. All Ibero-American countries (except the Dominican Republic) require a visa for Cubans, leaving them at Castro’s mercy
Since Cuba is an island, the late communist autocrat Fidel Castro didn’t have to build a Berlin Wall-type structure around his country in order to force people to stay against their will. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Cubans fled any way they could, often risking their lives on rafts at high seas in an attempt to reach the coast of Florida and gain the opportunity to lead a decent life. In 1980 alone, when Castro temporarily allowed Cubans to leave for the United States, South Florida was left with a humanitarian crisis following the arrival of 125,000 refugees from Castro’s communism.
Latin American leftists often claim that the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which, pre-Obama, allowed any Cuban who reached US soil to remain in the country, was an effort to sabotage the Cuban economy since that supposed privilege only applied to migrants from Cuba. What the Castro apologists fail to mention is that, with the exception of the Dominican Republic, no Ibero-American country allows Cubans to enter its territory without a visa. Given the difficulty of obtaining visas— or the money to pay for them, for that matter— under the oppressive Castro regime, the visa requirement for Cubans severely reduces most people’s chances of escaping the island.
Since Ecuador stopped requiring visas for citizens from all countries in 2008, Cubans could suddenly travel to that country visa-free. As a result, an increasing number of Cubans began flying to Quito before embarking on a northward journey by foot towards the United States. On December 1, 2015, however, the Ecuadorean government reinstated its visa requirement for Cubans in response to pressure from Costa Rica, Nicaragua and other Central American countries looking to halt the arrival of Cuban refugees in their territories.
In other words, the same governments that are now claiming to stand with Mexican migrants as they face the wrath of an evil Donald Trump didn’t think twice before shutting the door on Cuban immigration to their own countries.
6. Ortega mobilizes the army against Cuban refugees
Reacting to the inflow of Cubans walking into Nicaragua from Costa Rica as they headed to the United States, strongman Daniel Ortega decided not to bother with building walls to keep Latin American migrants out of his country. Rather, Ortega, who is serving his fourth term as president after he made sure the courts banned his main rival from running in last year’s elections, deployed the Nicaraguan army against Cubans trying to enter his nation’s territory.
As the PanAm Post reported,
On Sunday, November 15, the Nicaraguan government deployed the military and police and ordered them to close down the border, preventing nearly 1,000 Cubans from continuing their travels. The migrants had entered Costa Rica the day before using special transit visas.
Despite the Nicaraguan government’s best efforts, around 700 Cubans still managed to cross the border. However, nine kilometers into Nicaraguan territory, the group of migrants clashed with a small battalion of Nicaraguan security forces in anti-riot gear, who then expelled them from the country.
Needless to say, no Latin American government expressed any outrage over Ortega’s anti-immigrant brutality. Ortega, meanwhile, felt that, despite mobilizing troops against defenseless Cuban migrants, he had sufficient moral standing to denounce Donald Trump for “ranting and raving against our Mexican brothers.”
7. Corrupt Colombian officials demand bribes from Cuban refugees
As I wrote in 2015, Cuban migrants traveling from Ecuador to the United States stated that, of all their trip’s costs, the greatest amount was spent paying bribes to the Colombian authorities, whose members demanded a payoff in order to allow the refugees to pass through the country. The main Colombian media outlets didn’t cover this scandal as far as I’m aware. They didn’t lose a nanosecond, however, before attacking Trump for the anti-immigrant rhetoric which, as the El Espectador daily assured its readers, would cost the real-estate magnate the US election.
8. Colombian government deports Cuban refugees
On January 1, 2014, 11 Cuban citizens arrived at the Bogotá airport from Ecuador hoping to be granted political asylum and permanently escape the Castro dictatorship. Eight days later, however, Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied six of the Cubans their request; the other five didn’t even try. The Colombian government claimed that, despite their fear of returning to Cuba, they could not officially apply for asylum since they had not technically entered the country but remained in an international transit zone. And why were they unable to enter the country? Because they did not have the visas which the Colombian state absurdly requires from Cubans in order to allow them in (see point # 5).
This typical example of Colombian pettifoggery was due to the Santos government’s cowardly stance toward the Castro regime, which the president has cravenly appeased from the first day of his administration. His goal: to impose the disastrous results of his negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, which took place in Havana under the Castros’ patronage, upon an unwilling Colombian citizenry.
9. Maduro deports Colombian immigrants
In August, 2015, Venezuelan despot Nicolás Maduro deported 1,113 Colombian citizens from Venezuela. This was obviously a desperate attempt to distract Venezuelans’ attention from the economic plight they suffer as a direct result of Chavista socialism.
Maduro, however, claimed that the deportation of Colombians would stop the smuggling of basic goods such as soap and toilet paper into Venezuela. In truth, such goods are severely scarce due to price controls, hyperregulation, and the general destruction of the country’s production system under Chavista misrule.
The Colombian citizens forced out of their homes in Venezuela had to cross the Simón Bolívar International Bridge with as many of their belongings as they could carry before entering Red Cross refugee camps in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta.
Just this week, however, Maduro met his match in Colombia when current Vicepresident and future presidential candidate Germán Vargas Lleras told the media that Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia were to blame for a rise in crime in the Colombian city of Barranquilla. Earlier, Vargas Lleras, sensing that he could gain an electoral advantage with anti-immigrant rhetoric, had stated before a crowd of his supporters that Venezuelans would have no access to “free” housing in Colombia.
So much for free immigration between two countries with nearly indistinguishable cultures and peoples. And so much for the late Hugo Chávez’s fantasies of reuniting Venezuela and Colombia in a rehash of the failed 19th century Gran Colombia experiment.
Article by Daniel Raisbeck originally appeared on Panampost.com
Q COSTA RICA – A bloody weekend. Eight people died this weekend involved in traffic accidents, three of which were cyclists struck down early Sunday morning by a speeding driver who fled the scene.
The three victims were struck down like bowling pins in Curridabat by a driver who hours later gave himself up to police after an anonymous. A fourth rider and fifth rider (riding with the tree victims) survived, Lucía del Carmen Mata Durán, 38, is currently in the intensive care unit of the Hospital Calderón Guardia, the other escaping injury when seconds before stopped to take a drink
Photo from La Nacion
The five cyclists were, as they did most Sunday mornings in their love of the sport, on their way to the Irazu volcano.
Witnesses say the vehicle, later recovered to be a late-model Mustang, was travelling at a high-speed. The hit and run occurred at 4:11am on the old road to Cartago, near the Walmart store.
Photo from La Nacion
A OIJ investigator estimates the speed at more than 100 km/h based on the evidence at the scene.
Photo from Teletica
Ten hours after the hit and run, a tip to police led them to a home in San Juan de La Unión, Cartago where they found the vehicle, registered to a 32-year-old man identified by his last name Mora Monge.
Photo from Teletica
Police say the driver gave himself up voluntarily and without incident.
Photo from La Nacion
The house was only 500 metres from the Walmart store.
So far this year, there have been 48 deaths record on the roads of the country, an average of almost 2 per day.
Despite not saying Trump’s name aloud, both leaders made it clear where they stand on the issue of a US-Mexico border wall. (andina)
TODAY COLOMBIA – The Presidents of Peru and Colombia expressed their support for Mexico this weekend regarding the wall US President Donald Trump is planning to build along the border to out immigrants.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peru and Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia both made statements about the controversial border wall plan at a meeting in the southern region of Arequipa, Peru, during which they called for strengthening the so-called Alliance of the Pacific.
“We are seeing at the moment that (Mexico) is facing serious difficulties that are not of its doing,” PPK said in reference to Trump’s border wall, as well as the 20-percent tax he plans to impose on all goods coming over the border to pay for its construction.
“We have to show solidarity in our ideals, in world trade, which has done so much good,” PPK said.
President Santos stressed the need to “join the call of countries that highlight the principles that have done so much good for the world,” and added that “there are uncertain clouds floating around the world and the way to proceed now is to reaffirm the internal solidity between countries and the alliances between countries.”
“We want to join in this call to countries to uphold those principles that the world has so agreed upon, principles of free trade, respect of treaties, a joint search for multilateral solutions to multilateral problems,” he said.
None of the leaders in Colombia and Peru mentioned Trump directly but stressed the importance of respecting trade agreements and global integration.
Hamaseh Tayari, who holds an Iranian passport but is a resident in UK, remains in Costa Rica after Donald Trump’s Muslim ban came into force while she was on holiday
Q COSTA RICA – Hamaseh Tayari, on vacation in Costa Rica for the last week, is on an extended stay, stranded in the country, not being able to return to the UK due to Donald Trump’s so-called
Hamaseh Tayari, who holds an Iranian passport but is a resident in UK, remains in Costa Rica after Donald Trump’s Muslim ban came into force while she was on holiday
Muslim ban.
Tayari holds an Iranian passport, was due to fly back to Glasgow via New York on Saturday following a holiday with her boyfriend.
The executive order passed by U.S. President Donald Trump which imposed a 90-day ban on entry to the United States for nationals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, prevented Tayari from leaving Costa Rica, whose alternative is purchase a ticket back home.
Her options include a direct flight on British Airways, or indirect to Europe on Iberia via Madrid and Air France via Paris. Tayari could also fly Avianca with connections to Europe via El Salvador and Colombia or Copa via Panama.
In all cases, it means a layout of US$1,605 dollars, the lowest fare on a one-way flight from the San Jose airport (SJO) to LGW on Tuesday (January 31).
Tayari, who grew up in Italy, has never experienced anything like this. She told he Guardian: ‘This has really shocked me. We just discovered (what Trump did) at the airport when we went to check in. I want people to know that this is not just happening to refugees. I am a graduate and I have a PhD. It has happened to a person who is working and who pays tax.
‘We had been saving for months for this holiday and it will cost me a month’s salary just to get home.
‘I am destroyed. I did not know that I could cry for so long. It feels like the beginning of the end. How this is possible? I am really afraid about what is going on.’
United Airlines told Hamaseh Tayari she had been prevented from travelling
President Trump’s order has barred all refugees from entering the US for four months, and indefinitely halted any from Syria. He said the ban was needed to keep out ‘radical Islamic terrorists’.
The Q has tried to confirm Tayari’s situation, learning this morning that she was able to find an alternative flight, though we are not sure if she on her way home or not yet.
The Kardashian clan arrived at the Liberia, Guanacaste airport (LIR) on Thursday, arriving in a private airplane and whisked (by car) to the Papagayo.
Photo Diana Méndez, La Nacion
The clan is here in on vacation, but also to film an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
What is notable is that Kardashians travel about with relatively little security. According to area residents, who spoke to the La Nacion in anonymity, the famous visitors made several (helicopter) trips around the area on Friday and Saturday.
Photo Diana Méndez, La Nacion
They say Scott Disick is the only who preferred to walk, with bodyguards, between the homes the clan are renting.
The Kardashian-Jenner clan are expected to leave Costa Rica Monday, January 30.
(Q TRAVEL via Thrillist.com) America’s classic shut-down line is “Love it or leave it,” which, strictly speaking, is a false choice. You can love your country and leave it. Now might be one of those times.
Where to go, though, is an open question. Americans are much better at welcoming immigrants than emigrating themselves, but the State Department guesses that somewhere between 3 million and 6 million American civilians live abroad — not a small figure! That’s like a Missouri’s worth of us, out there roaming the world.
The hurdles to moving can obviously be significant … or they might mean simply applying to college abroad or stringing together tourist visas. Regardless, if you get the itch to try out a different life in a different land, this list will help you shop. In many cases, you might find the price tags to your liking. We’ve used the price index from the website Expatistan to quantify costs of living in each country’s major city — the global index reaches as high as 295 for Zurich, Switzerland, and as low as 65 for Kiev, Ukraine. But whatever the cost, you might find a spell abroad pays you back in ways you’ve yet to discover.
Cost of city living: Prague (price index 100) is half as expensive as San Diego. Proportion of English speakers: One-fourth Americans living there: Eurostat tallies about 3,000.
Why you’d want to live there: The Czech capital of Prague is known for a healthy-sized expat scene, but the masses have yet to unlock it — and drive up prices — as they have in Berlin or Amsterdam. Newcomers there enjoy the liberal European attitudes, the stunning medieval architecture, a charming Christmas market, and even a few gentrified neighborhoods like Žižkov and Vinohrady. Outside of Prague, the Czech Republic may be one of Europe’s most beautiful countries, packed with green countryside and spa escapes.
What’s the catch: The hardest part of settling is getting up to speed on the Slavic-descended language. Most rent-controlled apartments are only advertised in Czech, and you’ll likely need to hire a translator or Czech-speaking agent for visa appointments.
Red tape can be relentless. Just look at all it takes to get a driver’s license. Other European countries will replace an expat’s American license for one of their own. But in the Czech Republic, anyone staying over a year is required to get a Czech license. That’s right: You’ll have to relive 10th grade all over again and the whole shebang of lessons, exams, and practice hours. Only this time, it probably won’t be in English. — Barbara Woolsey, Thrillist contributor
Queenstown, New Zealand | Ruklay Pousajja/Shutterstock
New Zealand
Cost of city living: Auckland and Wellington (price index 218) are as expensive as Los Angeles. Proportion of English speakers: Virtually everyone Americans living there: The 2013 New Zealand census found more than 20,000.
Why you’d want to live there: Australia’s funkier, more outdoorsy sibling is an entire day’s flight away from America — you can scarcely get further away on the planet. Yet Kiwis also speak English, so you’ll feel vaguely at home, especially if you’re into hiking, scuba diving, skiing, winemaking, or Lord of the Rings scenery. Maybe you just want to keep exploring, and use it to jump off to Australia, Indonesia, and Oceania, but you can always stick around and work a while. There are a range of obtainable options for work permits and emigration visas, if you’re under 56 and ready to relocate.
What’s the catch: You’re not going to find the bargains of, say, Southeast Asia. The cost of living in New Zealand is about 9% higher than the United States, which isn’t great if you want to keep up your American standards of housing and dining out. Rent and home prices in Auckland are notoriously rising, with The Guardian dubbing the city the “hottest property market in the world.” New Zealand. So hot right now. — Melissa Kravitz, Thrillist contributor
Munich, Germany | Shutterstock/Sean Pavone
Germany
Cost of city living: Berlin (price index 161) is as cheap as Salt Lake City. Proportion of English speakers: 70% Americans living there: Eurostat says maybe 110,000.
Why you’d want to live there: Besides cheap beer and wine, schnitzel and the Autobahn, Germany’s got much to offer the American expat. Being smack in the middle of the continent, it’s prime territory for weekend getaways. From Munich, a four-hour drive will get you to Switzerland, Austria, or Italy. A two-hour flight will take you almost anywhere in Europe. A diverse expat scene is thriving in Berlin, the fatherland’s most international city, where a reasonable low cost of living meets a tech startup boom and parties galore. In gentrified neighborhoods like Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg, you’ll hear English quite often on the streets — sometimes even more often than German.
What’s the catch: Didn’t you hear that ze Germans love bureaucracy? Americans can enter the country on a three-month visa on arrival, but an official move requires multiple visits to various government bureaus, where you’ll need to fill out applications and registrations and provide streams of documentation. Simply opening a bank account or getting a mobile phone takes its own paper snail trail.
Also, the secret about Berlin is out. The job market for foreigners is very competitive these days, and the struggle is especially real when it comes to finding a place to call your own. Showing up at apartment viewings against 20-some other hopefuls is just the name of the game. — B.W.
Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica | Michael G Smith/Shutterstock
Costa Rica
Cost of city living: San Jose (price index 128) is cheaper than Boise. Proportion of English speakers: Low, but you can use it to get around Americans living there: The State Department guesses it could be 100,000.
Why you’d want to live there: Because it feels like California broke off from North America, headed south, and grew a rainforest. A steady democracy that spends its money on education instead of a military, Costa Rica has been chummy with the US for more than 150 years, making any culture shock minimal. A million Americans a year visit the country, and the Ticos have put those dollars back into infrastructure — reliable airports, deluxe highways, huge conservation districts — that make the country easy to get around and easy to enjoy. It has volcanoes, mountains, beaches, and oodles of badass animals. The literacy rate is one of the world’s highest. If you have a full-time job you get Aguinaldo, a law where at Christmas you get an extra month’s salary. People here seem, overall, pretty dang happy.
What’s the catch: Food costs more than you’d expect. Property crime is a thing; if you have nice stuff, or even the appearance of nice stuff, someone may try to steal it. There are no addresses, so if you need something mailed down, you might have to wait for a friend to bring it in a suitcase. Tourist visas are a cinch but residency can be slow in coming for anyone who’s not working for a big company, and foreigners have already snatched up most property bargains. If you’re really into looking at the next up-and-coming American-friendly isthmus? Keep driving till you hit Panama. — Sam Eifling, Thrillist Travel editor
Thai street food | noBorders – Brayden Howie/Shutterstock
Thailand
Cost of city living: Bangkok (price index 112) is half the price of Boston. Proportion of English speakers: One-fourth Americans living there: Educated guess? Maybe 30,000.
Why you’d want to live there: Thailand is the most livable of tropical paradises, with a storied history of friendliness to outsiders, strong infrastructure, and incredibly low living costs. Bangkok, the capital, is a vibrant, thrumming metropolis where $600 a month will get you a furnished apartment in a high-rise complex, with a pool, sauna, and on-site gym. Good thing rents are cheap, because foreigners aren’t allowed to own land in Thailand (though you could buy yourself a condo).
Perks like taxis, massages, and street food are all inexpensive here. And if you can do without city life and go for a little more simplicity, there are even better deals on island bungalows. Being rather centrally located in Southeast Asia also makes Thailand a great hub for exploring other countries (and with the budget airline AirAsia, you can do it for cheap). No wonder so many digital nomads call it home base.
What’s the catch: Tight visa rules make long stays in Thailand tricky. Every expat’s nightmare is something called a “visa run” — a 10-hour bus ride to a border and back just for a fresh passport stamp. Long-term work visas are unicorns. Companies are hesitant to give them because of a law stating four Thais must be employed for every foreign worker. The Land of Smiles has also been racking up military coups and violent protests in recent years, and that was before the king of 70 years died. Thailand has been under army rule since 2014, stabilizing the country for the time being, but worrying many about the long-term state of human rights. — B.W.
Paris, France | gianni triggiani/shutterstock
France
Cost of city living: Paris (price index 215) is Seattle plus change. Proportion of English speakers: More than a third Americans living there: Eurostat found almost 50,000 in 2005.
Why you’d want to live there: Here’s the norm in France: 35-hour workweek, 90-minute lunch breaks, wine at pretty much every meal, no open-container laws, unpasteurized cheese, great soccer… living the dream, in short. Recent terror attacks have the politics in a jumble, but if you want calm, simply grab a coffee by the Seine to pass all the time you have off. In addition to the short workweek, French employees are given five weeks of paid leave along with 12 federal holidays a year. Prowl the restaurants of Lyon, the museums of Paris, the beaches of Cannes, the vineyards of Champagne. As you work less in France, you’ll live more.
What’s the catch: The French aren’t renowned for their embrace of foreigners. And no, high school French and an admiration for Amelie aren’t going to help you cozy up to the cool Parisian crowd. If you don’t have a French-born significant other, expect some serious social isolation. You’ll most likely find your social circles among other expats, but hey, Jazz Age Americans in Paris essentially invented expat cool. Also, getting a work visa is notoriously difficult, so if you don’t have full-time employment in France, expect to live below the law. — M.K.
Vancouver, Canada | Pete Spiro/Shutterstock
Canada
Cost of city living: Montreal (price index 153) is cheaper than Tulsa. Proportion of English speakers: Most everyone Americans living there: 300,000+
Why you’d want to live there: Because it’s like Alaska mated with Vermont. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a gorgeous face and progressive politics. You’ll already know the language and can skip the culture shock in favor of cultural immersion: get into fringe theater and circus arts in Montreal, or become a gypsy tree planter in British Columbia. The US dollar is strong against the loonie right now, so your lower cost of living also comes with eco-consciousness, diversity, amazing food, low crime rates, excellent public education, healthcare, a stable economy, and most importantly, more nature than you can even bother to care about. (Canadians are so obsessed with nature that their version of The New Yorker is named after a sea mammal.) Wander around Canada’s mountains and glaciers and beaches and islands to ski, surf, kayak, dive, hunt, hike, or just hibernate in a house on the prairie.
What’s the catch: Canada’s notoriously livable cities are getting silly expensive. Foreign investors have made real estate prices rocket in the likes of Toronto and Vancouver, despite limited job opportunities. Canadians are oddly cliquish when it comes to hiring. They tend to value “Canadian experience,” whatever that is, over the skills you bring from abroad, especially if you want to be in the forefront of the tech, business, or arts sectors. All that wilderness can get lonely in the long, harsh, gray winters. — Laura Yan, Thrillist contributor
Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, South Korea | Vincent St. Thomas/Shutterstock
South Korea
Cost of city living: Seoul (price index 169) is less expensive than Orlando. Proportion of English speakers: Half of younger Koreans say they understand some English. Americans living there: 130,000
Why you’d want to live there: Between the enduring popularity of K-pop, K-dramas, and Korean cuisine, South Korea is having a pop-culture moment. But expats love it there for the metropolitan behemoth that is Seoul, which holds home-grown treasures of the entertainment, culinary, and cultural varieties, as well as pleasures from home (Shake Shack, anyone?). This mountainous, low-crime nation is crazy modern, with some of the fastest Wi-Fi speeds in the world. Public transit is a breeze, with most signs in English, and you can get from Seoul in the north to the beachy Busan in the south in fewer than three hours. Baseball and boozing are pastimes, with open-container laws allowing for soju in the streets. Housing can be pricey sans roommate, but, otherwise, the cost of living is surprisingly low.
What’s the catch: Unless you’re in English education, visa-sponsored jobs for expats can be hard to come by. Vegans will find this pork-obsessed place tough. Weather is extreme here, with long, frigid winters and blazing, humid summers. If you’re WWIII paranoid, updates about Kim Jong-un’s nuclear aspirations may not sit well. It’s 12 hours to the westernmost point in the US, so forget weekend jaunts home. Finally, online censorship is real, so have a virtual private network (VPN) handy. — Farah Fleurima, Thrillist contributor
MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY | DFLC Prints/Shutterstock
Uruguay
Cost of city living: Montevideo (price index 152) is comparable to Indianapolis. Proportion of English speakers: Very low Americans living there: Just a smattering — maybe 3,000
Why you’d want to live there: It’s the rare land in the Americas with a stable economy and almost no inequality or violent crime. It has a functional political system with little corruption, a highly educated population, and progressive LGBTQ laws and attitudes. Marijuana is legal to grow and to possess for personal use, and public transit in the culturally rich capital city is good enough you won’t need a car. The wine, the beef, and the national soccer team are all world-class, the Atlantic beaches are among the best in the world, and the temps in the winter never fall below freezing.
A nation the size of Washington State, Uruguay has maintained its even keel during the political and economic turmoil of its neighbors Argentina and Brazil. Particularly since the 2010-2015 tenure of former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, who famously spent his presidency living in a humble farmhouse on a dirt road, the country has become the darling of the liberal first world. Native Uruguayans will be the first to tell you that their country is far from perfect, but they’re an incredibly welcoming lot, so they’ll tell you in the most friendly and helpful of ways.
What’s the catch: The cost of living, while not as high as many places in Europe, definitely ain’t free. Food’s cheap and rent won’t bankrupt you if you have a roommate. But if you want to own a car (and unless you’re living in Montevideo along with half of the country’s population, you’ll need one) you’ll pay double what it would cost in the States. Bring your smartphone from the States because electronics are expensive as hell. And while violent crime is quite low, the common thefts and muggings in Montevideo require constant vigilance. Still, it’s not overly burdensome for foreigners to buy property in Uruguay, and there’s a path to residency — and a nice social safety net that comes with it — that does’’t require bribery. But to navigate the bureaucracy — and daily life in Uruguay — you’ll need near-fluency in Spanish, because almost no one speaks English. — Bison Messink, Thrillist deputy editor
Stockholm, Sweden | Scanrail1/Shutterstock
Sweden
Cost of city living: Stockholm (price index 197) is more expensive than Portland but cheaper than Chicago. Proportion of English speakers: 90%, and with excellent proficiency Americans living there: Eurostat says 15,000 or so.
Why you’d want to live there: You already know Sweden, so you might as well go. It’s the home of ABBA, IKEA, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and brilliant design, and residents will converse with you in English comfortably. While the cost of living in this magnificent northern land isn’t cheap, compared to New York City and other major American metropolises, Stockholm is a bargain. The nation has a strong economy with plenty of industries hiring and your native English may actually be an asset in finding work. The Scandinavian country with the most Americans living there is also absorbing immigrants — many of them Syrian refugees — at a truly heroic clip. And unlike the weak-kneed nationalists in places like France and the United States, the Swedes are making every effort to assimilate newcomers into a country that offers some of the finest education, healthcare, and public services in the world.
What’s the catch: Winter’s not just seriously cold (January and February temperatures hover between 20 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit), it’s bleakly dark. Also, the Swedish language is tricky (try and pronounce the names of your IKEA furniture, then conjugate that Hemnes bed into a past-tense verb) and learning Swedish really isn’t going to help you anywhere but in Sweden. — M.K.
Lima, Peru | Fotos593/Shutterstock
Peru
Cost of city living: Lima (price index 104) is half as expensive as Philadelphia. Proportion of English speakers: Very low Americans living there: Indeterminant; about 450,000 a year visit
Why you’d want to live there: You’ll eat like a king every meal of every day. Lima, Peru’s capital, rocks a food scene among the finest anywhere, a mix of Chinese, Andean, Japanese, and even lasting Incan influence. Put it this way: No country that cultivates 5,000 different varieties of potatoes is anything but deadly serious about its eats. When you stand up from the table and head out into the country, you’ll find a beautiful and incredibly diverse land, and one that is dotted with incredible history as seen in the Inca Trail, Machu Picchu, and Nazca Lines, as well as plenty of Pacific beach towns.
Under President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a mild-mannered centrist who comes off as kind of a joker, the relatively stable democratic republic has invited business investment and tourism dollars. Dentistry and medical care are bargains, and quite good, especially in Lima. If you want to go kick the tires for six months, you can: Your tourist visa is good for 183 days, more than enough time to stumble into the Amazon to try ayahuasca. And above all, Peruvians seem to genuinely like Americans, which you won’t always find in many other countries.
What’s the catch: You’ll be unemployable if you don’t speak Spanish, though there is a need for people who can teach English. Some parts of Lima are not terribly safe. Society at large is more socially conservative and traditionally macho than you might find strictly comfortable, especially if you’re not, you know, a man. And despite its status as a world destination, Peru doesn’t feel pressure to run on time. Of course, depending on your disposition, this might be a huge plus. — Tim Ebner, Thrillist contributor
Thessaloniki, Greece | Kiev.Victor
Greece
Cost of city living: Athens (price index 129) is slightly cheaper than Memphis. Proportion of English speakers: Roughly half speak some Americans living there: Estimates run as high as 100,000.
Why you’d want to live there: If you are a prospective expat with some money in the bank, or have a steady, work-from-anywhere income, then you should go directly to Greece and live far, far beyond your means. The cradle of Western civilization happens to be a bargain these days, which is bad news for the Greeks, but good news for long-term visitors. You’ll be rolling in fresh feta and tzatziki — maybe even literally, if that sort of thing gets you going, ’cause that’s how affordable fresh feta and tzatziki are in Greece these days. “Greece” is so expansive and vague; I am thinking specifically of Thessaloniki, the nation’s gorgeous cultural capital, set on the Aegean Sea in the country’s northeast with Mount Olympus looming on the horizon. Go there, now, and burn through your savings like a pirate. English is widely spoken, beauty abounds, and memorable meals at brilliant restaurants like Omikron and Nea Folia can be had for a song.
What’s the catch: Greece is cheap because of an epochal debt crisis that has sapped the nation’s spirit and left a million people out of work. The destructive austerity measures imposed on Greece by the troika — the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund; if you move to Greece, you will hear a lot about the troika — have had disastrous and destabilizing consequences. The coffee shops are crowded with unemployed Greeks who will linger over a single cup all day. You probably won’t be able to find a job there, but if you go with money in the bank, you won’t need to. — Justin Peters, Thrillist contributor
Article from October 2016 originally appeared at Thrillist.com
The daily traffic nightmare lived all around the greater metropolitan area of San Jose. Photo La Nacion
Since last Monday, with the partial closure of the ‘platina’ bridge, commuters are spending up two hours in the mornings and two hours in the afternoons to get to and from work. By mid-week, the congestion became all day.
EDITORIAL – In his opinion column for Crhoy.com, Edgar Espinoza, writes about nightmare that has gripped us all who live and work or visit the capital city, blaming the massive number of vehicles, government negligence and national neglect as the cause for the traffic congestion of San Jose.
In his column, Espinoza says the capital city is condemnation of total paralysis is beginning to be fulfilled, the best evidence is the overflowing imagination of people who, impotent, propose unusual solutions.
After day of one the ‘presadillas’, a word I coined two words “presas” (traffic congestion) and ‘pesadilla’ (nightmare), one of the ‘creative solutions’ was the offer by a Pavas airport company to offer a 5 minute flight between the Pavas and Alajuela (San Jose international) airports for ¢28,000 colones, per person. And there were takers.
Espinoza writes, “in the current circumstance, the idea does not seem crazy, but the problem, rather, is how to get to and from Pavas and Alajuela without dying in the attempt, taking into account that everything, absolutely everything, is collapsed. A drone, a hang glider, a kayak? Fantasy has no limits.”
The columnists said someone suggested a 10-seater ski lift (aerial tramway) over the Central Valley with stations at different points. Great.
“In the realm of entropy, everything, even delirium, is valid,” says Espinoza.
The urban subway, with routes to areas such as Heredia and Alajuela, is not an answer, as it would take a long time, especially in Costa Rica “where eternity needs extensions.”
The commuter train is of no use, one it cannot meet the demands and the almost daily crashes with vehicles takes it constantly out of service. This month alone there have been almost 20 crashes between trains and vehicles, the average being 2 crashes every 3 days.
Espinoza writes that a neighbor of his had to make the unprecedented decision this week, renting a hotel room near the airport to ensure that his daughter and grandson would not miss their flight back to Europe.
So many tourists, even as famous as the Kardashians, prefer to land at the Liberia (Guanacaste) airport and totally avoid San Jose.
“We would have been fascinated to see Kim walk her pride on Avenida Central,” says Espinoza. “I know people who have left their homes to live near work centers; People who buy a bike and risk their lives and even friends who pay a psychologist to teach them to endure with stoicism the four hours a day spent waiting in traffic congestion.”
As many have quickly needed to adapt, “the consequence of the catastrophe ‘Josefina’ (San Jose) is that the nights are no longer for sleeping but for an advance to avoid the following day’s traffic congestion, as is the case with certain delivery trucks and, in particular, the residents of San Ramón, Palmares, Naranjo and Grecia who, on the subject of ‘platina’, leave their homes in waves at 4 in the morning to work and not even saved from the road presidio”.
TODAY NICARAGUA (Managua) A simpler scheme for importing materials is one of the new features included in the new regulations announced to facilitate procedures for free trade zone (zona franca in Spanish) companies.
The leaders of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada – COSEP) announced that the new technical circular for free zone companies will be in effect from February 1, and includes, among other things, adjustments to the time and costs incurred by companies when transporting goods.
“… According to the goal setting worksheet to be implemented in the free zones, provided by the Cosep, there will be a saving of 100% in time when moving goods from warehouses to free zones, and an extended schedule has been agreed, until 10:00 pm, at customs points at the request of companies.
Jose Adan Aguerri told Elnuevodiario.com.ni that “…Also agreed is a scheme of accumulated statements for exports with expedited authorization from the General Directorate of Customs (DGA). Another achievement is a scheme for importing materials, equipment and accessories, that do not exceed a specific weight and volume, so they can be entered into the system through the airport accompanied by a passenger who is an employee of the company.”
Starting March 1, ICE will set limits to postpay mobile internet use and punish customers with excessive use
Starting March 1, ICE will set limits to postpay mobile internet use and sanction abuse of data downloads.
Q COSTA RICA – If you are ‘postpay’ customer of Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad’s (ICE) internet cellular service prepared to be punished for excessive use. The state telecom, operating under the Kölbi brand, plans to apply its “fair use” policy to all postpaid customers starting on March 1.
The decision, according to ICE, is in compliances with a resolution of the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL) – telecommunications regulator, “which facilitates equity in accessing mobile network resources.”
Basically, starting on March 1, Kölbi postpay customers who exceed the permitted download limit will see their connection drop to avoid ‘excessive consumption’ by certain users that affect the quality of the service of others.
As ICE explains, on March 1, each postpaid mobile internet plan will be assigned a “transfer capacity” – the limit on the upload and download of data according to the contracted speed during the monthly billing period.
“Postpay Kölbi customers will always be able to surf the net, and once this capacity is exceeded, they will continue to enjoy Internet service with a connection speed of up to 128 kbps at no additional cost. The original capacity and speed will be restored by restarting the billing period according to the contracted plan,” ICE said in a statement.
The change is to “sanction abuse” of data downloads. ICE says that each customer will receive a notification, via text message, when the consumption reached 80% or 100% of the assigned data transfer.
ICE implemented such a policy back in 2014, but after a few months scrapped it.
San Juan del Sur is a municipality and coastal town on the Pacific Ocean, in the Rivas department in southwest Nicaragua. It is located 140 kilometres south of Managua.
San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, is a coastal town on the Pacific Ocean that would be within reach of less than 2 hours from Costa Rica’s Liberia airport with the construction of Pacific Coastal highway and a land crossing border post at El Naranjo.
Q COSTA RICA – In a, if you can’t have the province, take its tourists attitude, tourism operators in Nicaragua believe that the construction of the Costanera (Pacific coastal highway) will allow European and North American tourists arriving at Costa Rica’s Liberia, Guanacaste airport (LIR) to head to their country
A report by Today Nicaragua explains that Nicaragua’s National Chamber of Tourism (Cámara Nacional de Turismo de Nicaragua – Canatur) says a tourist land border crossing in the El Naranjo, would increase the flow of vacationers from Costa Rica to Nicaragua.
The Liberia, Guanacaste airport is only 90 minutes away from Nicaragua’s El Naranjo.
The Liberia airport is about 90 minutes from El Naranjo, about the same time it takes to reach Tamarindo and Flamingo, for example. If the El Naranjo border post is created, it would be less than 30 minutes from La Cruz on Ruta 1, on the Salinas Bay where the Nicaraguan developer Pella has already built the upscale Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica resort.
“We have proposed setting up a border (El Naranjo) post for all the problems in Peñas Blancas,” said Canatur President Lucy Valenti. “Very close to El Naranjo is the Liberia airport, which receives about one million tourists a year.”
For his part, the president of Nicaragua’s Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep),José Adán Aguerri, a proposal is being made to the Nicaragua National Tourism Commission (Cantur) to develop the road project.
Aguerri added that the Costanera will also boost the tourism sector in the region. According to Aguerri, the El Naranjo border post will be proposed at the meeting between Costa Rica and Nicaragua officials.
“It is a project that will not only bring investments but will provide opportunities for (Nicaragua’s) coastal areas to develop and grow, because small businesses are going to be created that will provide services to other investments,” said Valenti.
The implementation of the Costanera and El Naranjo border is expected to consolidate Nicaragua’s efforts “to strengthen the country as an important tourist destination.”
“There was a time when there was a lot of emigration, however, in recent years we have been able to confirm that there has been an improvement in the family structure in Tola (Rivas) and in San Juan del Sur, because many people have found work in construction and in new hotels,” said Raúl Calvet, general manager of Calvet y Asociados, a firm specializing in investment advice to Nicaragua’s tourism industry.
Experts in Nicaragua believe the construction of the Pacific coastal highway to be a catalyst for the tourism industry, perhaps in the same way the completion of the Costanera along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, from Puntarenas to the Panama border, boosted tourism to the country’s southern zone.
Q COSTA RICA / The procedures for obtaining operating permits and municipal licenses are the things that cause the most difficulty for companies who are trying to formalize their operations in Costa Rica.
Despite constant complaints by entrepreneurs, excessive bureaucracy (‘trabas’ in Spanish) remains one of the main obstacles to the formalization of companies in the country. According to a business survey developed by Uccaep, Union of Costa Rica Chambers of Commerce, the procedures for obtaining operation permits from the Ministry of Health and municipal ‘patentes’ (licenses) are the most difficult tasks to carry out and those which take the most time.
Elfinancierocr.com reports that “…Despite the significant drop in informality reported between July 2015 and July 2016, four out of five employers (80%) say the government has not taken steps to reduce formal employment.”
According to the union, “… bureaucracy remains a major obstacle, even though the government has already taken some action. In 2015 the government pledged to reduce the time associated with obtaining operating permits from the Ministry of Health, which since 2011, has been described by the Uccaep as being the most complex. A year later, they had managed to improve 60 transactions in that category, decreasing by 80% the price paid for permits (going from $100 to $20) and also allowing automatic renewal for five years for companies.”
Q COSTA RICA NEWS / Several traffic officials had to intervene, in time, a dispute between two drivers, one of whom took out a weapon during the verbal confrontation.
The incident occurred Friday night, near the Riteve station in Lagunilla de Heredia.
A user, filling his motorcycle at the Uno gasoline station, was able to film the event. “I tell you, if the Transitos (traffic officials) had not been there, he would have killed the other,” wrote the man who protected his identity.
The video was posted by the Policia de Transito (Traffic Police) on their official Twitter.
At the corner where the gasoline station is located, it is typical during afternoon rush hour to have one or two traffic officials directing traffic at the intersection. The ‘platina’ closure has required additional officials in the entire area.
In the case on Friday, the police presence avoided a tragedy. A tragedy that could have the roots at the nightmare traffic conditions this week due to the partial closure on the autopista General Cañas.
NO CARBON IN PARADISE: Costa Rica aims to eliminate fossil fuel use nationwide. Photo from Onearth.org
NO CARBON IN PARADISE: Costa Rica aims to eliminate fossil fuel use nationwide. Photo from Onearth.org
Q BLOGS / I have read at least twenty digital news sources not to mention our local info such as La Nación and televisions’ Teletetica. On a more global level, there have been commentaries on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC not to mention BBC referring to Costa Rica as little more than a drug infested paradise, the land of prostitution while also pitching its achievements in ecology to attract business.
After a year or so of reading and listening, I have concluded what and the hell is so politically divisive about cleaning up the environment?
Smokestack factories are pretty much a thing of the past with the exception of Asia. The lonely polar bear should never have happened and it only takes us, humans, to cure the problem.
Why then is this so damn political?
We pretty much agree that greenhouse emissions are bad for society and that losing the ozone layer is equally as bad. But in simple terms, it makes no sense to pollute except for business profit and laziness.
“Sure,” as some say global warming is not man-made. But who cares? Man can contribute to reversing the effect. (Or is it too late?)
Let the pundits looking for funding battle it out in the media. In the meantime, let us control the gasses and pollutants we emit into the air just in case the anti-global warming and political soothsayers are wrong? Why take the chance? Just clean up the air we breathe!
We have already begun, in Costa Rica, with alternative energy replacing carbon-driven. Why stop? Has anyone been hurt by solar, windmills, and forest?
Why cut trees and majestic plants to build condos, hotels or anything else that will make money when our claim to Pura Vida is only “eco” tourism?
Let’s stop now this political nonsense! Costa Rica can and should offer the world at large plenty of uncontaminated air, pristine beaches, water and a jungle no other country on the planet can claim.
But all this is a populist effort, where we each can and should make one small contribution that will add up to a monumental change of which we shall be proud.
From an economic standpoint, the country has and should thrive on tourism. That translates to clean air, birds who fly freely and monkeys that howl and do not cough.
Municipal police officers outside the New Fantasy Thursday afternoon, while OIJ agents inside were conduting a raid of the premises. Photo from San Jose municipal police
Authorities estimate the number of sex workers in San Jose to be about 800, howver, the real numbers could be double or triple that
Q COSTA RICA / Many living and visiting Costa Rica’s capital city know about San Jose’s other side, the side where in bars, massage parlors and night clubs women (and men) offer sexual services for payment.
A recent report by Crhoy.com says that 800 people offer sexual services in San Jose. However, confidential sources to the Q say that the number is more like double or triple or more.
The San Jose municipal police estimates there some 75 commercial premises where some kind of sex trade has been discovered, a number that has grown from an estimated 70 in 2015.
The operative word here is ‘discovered’, the same confidential sources told the Q the number of massage parlors, for example, and not including bars and night clubs, where prostitution is the order of the day at is more than 100, anything from a small operation of one or two rooms with less than a handful of women, to like the Thursday afternoon raid on a massage parlor in Barrio Amon, that includes more than 20 rooms, a sauna and steam room.
In the Thursday afternoon raid on the New Fantasy, located behind the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) building, in downtown San Jose, a massage parlor than has been in operation for more than decade, the Organismo de Investigation Judicial (OIJ) and the San Jose police inside found 15 women, the majority Costa Rican and Nicaraguan and several clients.
Municipal police officers outside the New Fantasy Thursday afternoon, while OIJ agents inside were conduting a raid of the premises. Photo from San Jose municipal police
Authorities confirmed that prices for sexual services ranged from ¢12,000 colones for 30 minutes to ¢18,000 colones for an hour for “nationals” or “locals”; if they were foreigners, the prices ranged from US$35 dollars (¢20,000) for a half hour and US$50 (¢28,000 colones) for the hour. According to OIJ investigators of the Crimes against Physical Integrity, Trafficking of People section that led the raid, the women split the money 50-50 with the business.
Detained for the suspected crime of “proxenetismo” (pimping) is a 60 year-old man believed to be the manager, as well as the owner of the bar/massage parlor, a man identified by his last name Fallas and who has been under the investigative eye of the OIJ since 2014 when the Judicial Police received the complaint that, within the premises of the business, there was prostitution.
Police say they also confiscated evidence to support the claim of pimping and the business operated as brothel continuously from 10:00am.
Important to note here tha prostitution is not a crime punishable by the laws of our country. That is, women (or men) can freely offer sexual services in lieu of compensation without repercussions. This also goes for the customer
Hoover, what is a crime is pimping (obtaining benefits from prostitution) and trafficking of people (trata de personas in Spanish).
Marco Rodríguez of the police intelligence unit of the San Jose municipal police says the target of the raids in pensiones (hotels licensed to offer rooms for short-term), massage parlors and night clubs is to discover possible crimes reported to the OIJ.
Rodríguez added that the San Jose mayor’s office is currenly working on the process of definitive closure of six commercial premises identified with the sex trade, however these processes take years.
“What we do is to perform intelligence work to identify possible crimes, then we conduct searches (raids) and send the report to the OIJ to initiate the judicial investigation,” said Rodríguez.
The focus of authorities continues to be the area known as “Gringo Gulch” (la quebrada del gringo in Spanish), an area between Avenidas 1 and 3 and Calles 7 and 11.
According to Eduardo Mora, investigator for the Universidad Nacional (UNA), In a study conducted in 2012, located in Gringo Gulch there were at least 10 hotels and 20 bars frequented mostly by North American (US and Canada) visitors, and an estimated 500 sex workers earning an estimated ¢20 million colones (US$35,000) every night.
Mora says that the latest reports is that sex tourism has now moved to the Pacific coastal areas like Jaco and Tamarindo and that Gringo Gulch, although it continues to attract foreigners, there is also now a large number of nationals, resulting in a drop in revenue for the sex workers.
“The national customer goes to the bar, drinks a few beers and haggles with the price,” said Mora.
In contrast, and the reason for sex workers’ preference is that foreign (sex) visitors rarely haggle with the price of sexual services.
More photos of the Thursday afternoon raid on the New Fantasy.
Incredibly, a number of flight operators have a two-tier pricing structure for local and international users
Q TRAVEL / In much of the globe, air travel has been completely revolutionized over recent years as budget “no-frills” airlines have sprung up. In places like Europe and Southeast Asia this has brought the cost of international air travel crashing down and made it far easier to just hop on a plane and go explore somewhere new.
If you’re used to these sorts of travel markets, then you’re going to get a bit of shock when you start looking into flights in Latin America. Though internal flights within a given country can be reasonably priced (and sometimes even positively cheap), things get a lot more expensive as soon as you start looking at cross-border journeys.
Look up a short-haul flight between two Latin countries and you’ll face the unpleasant surprise that a trip of just a couple of hours can cost several hundred bucks. All this means that it probably isn’t as feasible as you might hope to fly between countries to avoid marathon bus journeys. If you’re only just finding this out now, it could be time to adapt your travel plans to take this into account.
The obvious answer to the problem is just to avoid getting flights as far as possible and stick to overland travel. But, sometimes flights are really the only way to get where you want to go. While we cannot promise to make air travel within Latin America cheap overall, there are a few tricks which you can try to keep flight prices down as low as possible:
1. Put Airline Websites into Spanish
Incredibly, a number of flight operators have a two-tier pricing structure for local and international users. As a result, foreigners can get charged more, sometimes much more, for making the same journey as a Latin American national.
The best way to work round this system when searching online for flights is to try and pretend that you are indeed a local. This means changing the site language to Spanish (usually offered as an option at the top of the page) and altering the currency of flight quotes from US dollars to the local equivalent. On some airlines this small trick can generate substantial reductions in the price of the flight.
2. Use Incognito Browser (Private Browsing) on Airline Sites
A similarly underhand trick of some airlines is to increase the prices for returning visitors to their website. Their logic for this is as follows: if you’ve previously come to their website, searched for a specific flight and then left before buying, the next time you come back to look for the same journey, it is because you now have your card in hand and are ready to make the reservation.
Because you’ve already mentally committed to buying, some airlines put the price up a bit on your second visit, knowing that you will very likely proceed with the purchase anyway.
To avoid such extra charges, you will need to hide your identity a bit when returning to their webpage. You can do this either by searching for the flight on a different computer, or by using the “incognito mode” in the Google Chrome or “Private Browsing” in Firefox web browser. Other browsers also have similar privacy options. This prevents the firm from accessing any information that it had previously stored on your computer about any prior visits, meaning that the surcharge will not be applied.
3. Look for Budget Carriers
Admittedly, these companies are still pretty thin on the ground, but there are a couple of no-frills flight operators in Latin America. They mainly operate domestic routes, but some international options are emerging. Colombia’s VivaColombia, for example, now operates routes between Bogota and Panama City, as well as with Quito in Ecuador. Chile’s SkyAirline also runs flights to Argentina, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, while Mexico’s Interjet operates flights to a few different destinations in Central America and the Caribbean. Between these options, there may be a no-frills carrier offering cheap flights on the particular route you are looking at.
In Costa Rica, Volaris, Wingo and Veca airlines are now offering “low-cost” regional flights from the San Jose airport to destinations such as Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala. This has forced the “traditional” carriers such as Avianca and Copa airlines to offer deals on these destinations and others.
4. Use Flight Comparison Websites
There are a number of flight comparison websites which you can use to help keep costs down. The best we’ve used is SkyScanner, which allows great flexibility to help you track down the cheapest option. The advantage with this site as opposed to others is that if you set the search to display all flights within a particular month, it will give you a clear overview of what the cheapest possible days would be.
Those with even greater flexibility can also select the option ‘search for cheapest month’ and the site will return the cheapest dates in the whole year to make your selected journey. This really appears to be the optimal way to find the cheapest possible time to fly.
The Silver Lining
If you’ve tried all the above tricks and nothing has saved you much money, then never fear: other decent transport options are still available.
In fact, one positive outcome of Latin America’s comparatively expensive air travel, and the near complete lack of regional rail infrastructure, is that the local buses have had to up their game significantly. The result is that in some parts of Latin America (and particularly in Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil) luxury overnight coaches represent a surprisingly comfortable alternative to flying.
The best of these companies offer their passengers fully reclining chairs, in-journey stewardess service, food and drinks, and a wide selection of films to help while the hours away. OK, the journey may take some order of magnitude longer than a flight would, but it will at least be much more comfortable than cramming yourself into an economy class plane seat.
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – The puzzle is complex, but the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ), little by little begins to put the pieces together, in its work solving the massacre of five people in Liberia, Guancaste last week.
The pieces include the testimony of the 14 year-old survivor, still in hospital clinging to her life, the autopsy and toxicology tests of the murder of Joseph Briones, Stephanie Hernández, Dayana Martínez, Ingrid Méndez and Ariel Vargas.
All five mortal victims were between 20 and 25 years of age and students at the University of Costa Rica (UCR). Two of the victims photo from Teletica via Faceboook
Since Saturday when the a sketch of the only suspect in the massacre was published in the media, the OIJ says it has received so far 50 ‘reliable’ tips.
The OIJ continues to insist that the crime was committed by a sole attacker, using a kitchen knife – that until now has not been found – as the weapon to slash the throat of the victims, all attacked in one single room.
Investigators are waiting on the toxicology report to learn if the victims had been drugged.
There was no forced entry. No one heard anything. The alarm came hours after a neighbour’s wife received a phone message from one of the victims, finding the gruesome discovery in the morning following up on the message received by his wife.
Outside the crime scene
Neighbours say the five students of the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) were quiet, didn’t party, no scandals. The 14 year-old was a cousin of one of the victims, visiting on the day of the attack.
The OIJ says the entire Liberia delegation is working the case along with experts from San Jose and other law enforcement agencies following up on confidential sources.
The Minnesota parent company of Suttle Costa Rica announced the closure of the company’s Alajuela plant.
Q COSTA RICA (BUSINESS WIRE) Communications Systems (ommsystems.com), a global provider of connectivity infrastructure and services for deployments of broadband networks, announced it is closing its Alajuela, Costa Rica production facility, Suttle, located in the Parque Industrial
Zona Franca Alajuela.
The Suttle Costa Rica plant founded in 1989, whose operations include fiber termination and injection molding production.
The company says it is consolidating production into its Minnesota facilities. The closure is intended to increase the efficiency of Suttle’s operations and improve the lead time and availability of its products, according to a statement by the CSI.
According to the Suttle website, Suttle Costa Rica employs 170 plant workers and 20 support staff including management, engineers, designers, quality assurance, procurement, materials, and logistics.
At the time, Bruce Blackwood, president of Suttle Apparatus, explained that the announcement also responds to an expansion in the business activities developed in the country, which will include business development, sales, product management, and Engineering and Design, that included the hire of 50 more employees.
On Wednesday, Roger Lacey, CSI’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “Suttle has had a presence in Costa Rica for over 28 years and the decision to close the Alajuela facility was not easy. Because we remain optimistic about Suttle’s market opportunity we did consider alternatives to closing the facility. But we are facing the reality that customers, primarily in the United States, demand quick turn around on orders, prefer American-made products and demand value for money spent, thus we are unable to maintain our two production facilities.”
Mark Fandrich, CFO, commented, “We expect the closing to create operational efficiencies and reduce costs. Total cost to close the Costa Rica facility is expected to be approximately US$1.6 million (…).”
CSI provides connectivity infrastructure and services for global deployments of broadband networks. From the integration of fiber optics in any application and environment to efficient home voice and data deployments to optimization of data and application access, CSI provides tools for maximum utilization of the network from the edge to the user. With partners and customers in over 50 countries, CSI has built a reputation as a reliable global innovator focusing on quality and customer service.
(Q COSTA RICA By Amanda Zúñiga, Vozdeguanacaste.com) Yolanda Gutiérrez lives in Nosara, and like many in this Nicoyan district, she has no garbage collection.
Without any other option besides burning or burying her trash, at least her family first separates it in the house by removing all recyclable materials such as plastic, glass, aluminum and paper. Later, she takes the recyclable materials to a collection center about 1 kilometer from her home.
She also reuses all organic products in her garden.
According to Juan José Lao, an attorney, doctorate in environmental economy and founder of the companies WPP Coriclean and Non-traditional Environmental Waste Solutions, if all homes practiced composting, it would eliminate between 55 and 60 percent of all waste. Recyclable materials account for between 15 and 20 percent of all garbage. In other words, up to 80 percent of accumulated garbage could be avoided.
Following are some tips to better manage your garbage:
Reduce. This step is extremely important. The less you consume, the less trash you’ll end up with. That will make the recycling process easier, as well as the process of eliminating trash.
Use composting. It enriches the soil and can be used in mini-gardens in the home.
Separate recyclable trash and make an effort to send it to collection centers in the canton.
Avoid burning trash. In addition to causing pollution, it’s also a dangerous practice.
Speak out. You can communicate your ideas to the municipalities or development associations in order to find solutions together.
Article originally appeared on Vozdeguanacaste.com and is republished here with permission.
El Solito, one of the oxen, is so enamored with Güicho that he is jealous of the oxherd’s grandchildren.
El Solito, one of the oxen, is so enamored with Güicho that he is jealous of the oxherd’s grandchildren.
Q COSTA RICA (By Wilberth Villalobos Castrillo, Vozdeguanacaste.com) José Luis Villareal Villareal, known as “Güicho Pizarro,” is a species in danger of extinction. Being a bullring groundskeeper and an oxherd – even in Guanacaste – isn’t common these days in the era of Uber and pickup trucks, but while Güicho’s oxcart doesn’t go over 10 kilometers per hour, it has years of Liberian history behind its wheels.
In the neighborhood La Carreta, between the cananga trees, a figure appears wearing a worn-out canvass hat and walking patiently while commanding his oxen. In his right hand is a special walking stick made of jaborandi wood, ideal for guiding animals because it’s strong and light, he says.
Güicho often can be seen in the center of Liberia with his oxen, faded blue shirt and weather-beaten chest leathered by the sun. His appearance is a contrast to the city’s modern cars and bright asphalt.
A canvas hat and unbuttoned shirt: the mandatory outfit for a Guanacastecan oxherd. Photo by David Bolaños
It might be true that he’s not the only oxherd in Liberia (or the last), but he is the most loyal to the tradition. Every day, Güicho awakes at 3 a.m. to fill his oxcart with sand, stone and wood, sometimes even traveling to Liberia’s municipal dump to leave organic disposables like tree branches that the garbage truck has left behind.
Why an oxcart and not a pickup truck? His answer is simple and logical: “The oxcart can go where cars can’t.”
Güicho will literally leave a load on a customer’s front doorstep or patio if the customer requests it. People pass his home in the Condega neighbor and tell him, for example, how many meters of sand they need and where it can be delivered. The next day, the load is there.
Can you make a living as an oxherd? Pizarro says you can. For a meter of sand he charges ¢10,000, and for rock, ¢14,000. A bundle of wood costs ¢15,000. Thanks to his business, he says, he’s been able to provide rice and beans for his family of five children.
Better an Oxherder Than a Cattleman
As a child, Pizarro, born 68 years ago, dreamed about being a sabanero, or rancher. But in those days in Guanacaste, being a rancher hand was tough.
“Being called a rancher was prestigious and something to be proud of. But it was hard. If the cattle got out, the bosses would punish you,” he says.
One punishment was tying the ranch hand trainee to a dead vulture at the top of a tree and leaving him there all day with the decomposing bird.
Güicho gives demonstrations in schools to preserve the symbol and culture of the oxherd.
Pizarro says he never had the pleasure of that experience, but some of his friends did. So he decided to become an oxherder, which he had learned as a kid because his father, Teodoro Pizarro, would always take him in the family oxcart to the river to fetch sand.
If his father hadn’t insisted Güicho work with him instead of going to high school, his life might be different today.
“I was good at math – so good that my sixth-grade teacher, Manuel Córdoba, enrolled me in the Agriculture High School, but my father wouldn’t let me go.”
Frightened By the Monkey Lady and the White-Haired Woman
Since then, Güicho Pizarro has lived many stories with his yoke of oxen and has plenty of anecdotes.
He remembers the time the monkey lady of Costa Rican legend laughed at him through the branches of a tree, scaring his animals.
“Once at daybreak, the monkey lady laughed at me, shaking the tree branches at me. She shouted at me, whistled at me. I couldn’t see her but that rascal really scared my oxen,” he said.
Another fright happened when he was 30 and on his way to Bebedero de Cañas. It was almost dawn, and as passed a place called La Enagua Negra (“The Black Skirt”), he suddenly got goose bumps. He spun around to see a white-haired woman sitting in his oxcart.
“When I saw that woman there in the back of the oxcart, I scared the oxen so they’d get out of there fast. I turned back around and she was gone. It was incredibly frightening,” he recalls.
His Legacy: The Liberian Oxcart
Pizarro believes his greatest legacy are his three oxcarts. One has wooden wheels, Guanacaste-style. Another is more modern, with rubber-coated wheels. His favorite, the “Liberian Oxcart,” has iron wheels, or “lightning bolts,” as he calls them.
He made it himself with laurel wood, and it cost him ¢100,000 about 40 years ago. Having rolled along for so many years, he decided to name it the Liberian Oxcart because it’s traveled on every street in Liberia.
Güicho is proud that his oxcart still has iron wheels.
It’s also the oxcart he brings to special events like festivals honoring oxherds.
He has stories from those events, too. The one he remembers most happened in 1994, when he participated in his first festival in San José.
“I was unloading the yoke from the truck and I saw all those other oxcarts nicely painted and neat, and the oxherds were wearing these nice long-sleeved shirts. I felt like a dog in a sack,” he said.
Nevertheless, organizers of the event awarded him first place because he was the only one who represented the true oxherd.
“I think they recognized the love that I have for this,” he said.
In December 2015, Güicho was named marshal of the White Christmas festival along with his friend Rafael Zúñiga, aka “Parrot Skin.”
“You think you’re the last Liberian oxherd?” I asked him.
“I think so,” he answers confidently.
Adds Güicho: “Being an oxherd requires a lot of patience and love for the oxen. These days, no one bothers getting up on the oxcart.”
Original article appeared on Vozdeguanacaste.com, and is republished here with permission.
Gregorio Gigliotti, picture here with his wife Eleonora, was found guilty of trafficking more than 50 kilos of cocaine stuffed inside yuccas. (CBS/CBS)
Eleonora Gigliotti, pictured here with her husband Gregorio who trafficked more than 50 kilos of cocaine stuffed inside boxes of yuca (cassava) from Costa Rica. (CBS/CBS)
Q COSTA RICA NEWS / Eleonora Gigliotti, 56, considered the matriarch of an Italian family dedicated to the trafficking of cocaine in New York, United States, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and with this admits to having paid large sums of money to suppliers in Costa Rica.
The confession was made Monday afternoon in Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York.
Gigliotti pleaded guilty to the top charge of conspiracy to import cocaine. She faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in prison and also agreed to pay a US$1.625 million dollars in forfeitures. Gigliotti could be face the maximum of 17 1/2 years behind bars. Her sentencing was scheduled for April 12.
The wife of the mob-connected Queens pizzeria restaurant owner was slated to go to trial at the end of March for smuggling more than 50 kilos (110 pounds) of cocaine from Costa Rica in shipments of yuca (cassava) to her family’s restaurant, Cucino a Modo Mio.
The Gigliotti’s Italian restaurant and pizzeria, Cucina a Modo Mia, in Corona, Queens. Photo from New York Daily News.
At trial, Gigliotti could have been convicted to life in prison, authorities said.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Gigliotti spent three days in Costa Rica in August 2014 to pay US$360,000 for the illicit drug. Also, a nephew of hers, Franco Fazio, also was in the country in September of that same year to pay an additional US$170,000. The latter is being held in Italy and awaiting trial.
However, according to Costa Rica’s immigration service (Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería), records indicate Gigliotti made six to Costa Rica, arriving and leaving by way of the Juan Santamaría International (San Jose) Airport.
The first one was in September of 2012, then in February, April, May, June, with the final record in August 2014. All these visits lasted between two and four days, immigration records indicate.
Eleanora’s husband and Gregorio and Angelo Gigliotti, aged 60 and 36, were found guilty of smuggling 55 kilograms of cocaine from Costa Rica.
All told, smuggled was over US$1 million worth of drugs.
Authorities in Costa Rica say they were alerted in October 2014 to a group led by Cuban national of sending the illicit drugs from Costa Rica to the Gigliotti.
The organization in Costa Rica was composed of the Cubans identified as Denis Batista Cuenca (leader) and Pedro Casas Rodríguez and the Costa Ricans, Juan José Campos Mora, Héctor Zúñiga Arias and Carlos Zúñiga Arias.
Costa Rican authorities arrested the group on October 14, 2015 and sentenced by the San Carlos criminal court to from 9 to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty on November 21, 2016.
Two other defendants, surnamed Montero Picado and Guzmán Rojas, preferred to undergo a trial, the date of which is still to be established by the Criminal Court of San Carlos.
The group used yuca and pineapple exports to ship the camouflaged drugs to the United States and Europe. In Rotterdam, the Netherlands, authorities discovered three tons of cocaine hidden inside 137 cases of yuca. The drug was hidden in the edge of the cartons, shipped in containers by sea from the port of Limon.
In the United States, the first seizure was on October 20, 2014, in the port of Wilmington, New York, where port authorities seized 43.6 kilos of cocaine.
The second was on December 29 of the same year in Philadelphia, where authorities found 15 kg of cocaine, also hidden in boxes of yuca. That cargo was shipped from Costa Rica to the Fresh Farm Produce Export Corporation, a company owned by Gregorio Gigliotti.
COSTA RICA EXTRA / Miss Costa Rica Carolina Rodriguez will be wearing beer cans, literally, for the ‘national costume’ segment of the Miss Universe pageant that is to take place this Sunday, January 29, in Manila, Phillipines.
Designed by students of the Universidad Creativa (Ucreativa), Veronica Morales and Ingrid Alvarado, the gown to be worn by Carolina “represents Costa Rica’s biodiversity“.
The gown, made of recycled beer cans, cardboard, beads and organza, a thin, plain weave, sheer fabric traditionally made from silk, represents the bird of paradise flower say the young designers.
Morales and Alvarado were the winners of a contest in which several students submitted designs to be worn by the Miss Costa Rica candidate.
The gown is a two piece: the top with leaves made of aluminium, the bottom a long skirt in green tones made with organza.
Morales said 500 aluminium leaves, using an embossing technique to make them look three-dimensional, went into making the gown, under the supervision of fashion designer and director of the Ucreativa, Rob Chamaleo and the requests by Carolina Rodriguez, who since the beginning of the Miss Costa Rica competition stressed her interest in environmental conservation.
“After analyzing the most representative aspects of Costa Rica, the theme of environmental preservation was recurrent. Besides representing approximately 5% of the world’s biodiversity, the country is committed to the conservation of the environment, betting on protected areas, tourism, renewable energy, among others. So nature is not only part of the landscape, but also of our culture and being Costa Rican in general,” the Carolina is quoted on her website.
Boracay, Philippines: Miss Universe Argentina, Estefania Bernal, Miss Universe Mexico, Kristal Silva, Miss Universe Costa Rica, Carolina Rodriguez Duran visit Boracay in the Philippines on 14, January 2017. Photo by Benjamin Askinas/WME IMG
The gown competition of the 86 Miss Universe candidates can be seen live in Costa Rica on Saturday night (January 28) starting at 7:30pm. The broadcast will on Teletica, the local television station that owns the rights to the Miss Universe franchise in Costa Rica.
The 'Atlantic Station (Estacion Atlantico) in San Jose Monday afternoon. Photo La Nacion
The Atlantic train station (Estacion al Atlantico) in San Jose Monday afternoon. Photo La Nacion
Q COSTA RICA NEWS / The plan was great. The government told us, “take the train” as a measure to lessen the road congestion caused by the partial closure of two lanes of the ‘platina’ bridge on the autopista General Cañas.
But, as authorities and passengers quickly learned on Monday, the commuter train (tren urbano in Spanish) operated by the State railway, the Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles (Incofer), cannot handle the capacity of passengers taking the train between Alajuela and San Jose.
Long lines at the trains stations, people inside the passenger cars pressed up against each other to maximize the number of people on each run, were common on Monday.
The Atlantic train station (Estacion al Atlantico) in San Jose Monday afternoon. Photo La Nacion
The first day of the train service from the Alajuela station was not exactly what had been expected.
The Minister of Public Works and Transport (MOPT), Carlos Villalta, and the president of the Incofer, Cristian Vargas (a former MOPT official) acknowledged Monday afternoon that the train service had failed to meet the demands and promised to make ‘adjustments’ in the coming days, but the words were short on what those changes would be.
It is important to understand that the Alajuela – San Jose train doesn’t make a direct track between the two cities; the train goes through Heredia, perhaps with the highest high commuter train ridership.
The current Alajuela – Heredia – San Jose (as January 23, 2017) train schedule from the Incofer website
The MOPT minister admitted that the service has limitations. It does not have enough cars and locomotives to meet the demand. In addition to the Alajuela – Heredia – San Jose line, the Incofer must meed the demands of the Cartago – San Jose and the San Jose – Pavas – Belen (Heredia) commuters.
The Atlantic train station (Estacion al Atlantico) in San Jose Monday afternoon. Photo La Nacion
In addition, the almost daily occurrence of accidents involving the train has reduced the number of passenger cars and locomotives in use. Last April was perhaps the single most blow to the Incofer with the front end collision between two trains in Pavas, crippling even more the already struggling railway.
“We have to make changes, but these changes do not happen overnight. We have to monitor the behavior of the passengers better. We cannot be changing schedules that are fixed because there are cross trains to consider,” said Vargas.
One of the options, according to the Incofer chief, is to take trains from the Cartago route, for example, to expand the Alajuela route.
The ‘platina’ reconstruction is only affecting the west side of San Jose, that is in areas like Cartago and San Pedro, the traffic congestion is the ‘normal’.
The Atlantic train station (Estacion al Atlantico) in San Jose Monday afternoon. Photo La Nacion
When things couldn’t get any worse,. We have to keep in mind that in less that two weeks time, on February 6, is the beginning of the 2017 school year. That is to say, the traffic mess drivers live today does not take into account the many people still on vacation, that will soon be returning to the capital city.
