The world’s most famous and legendary male erotic dancers will perform for the first time in Costa Rica in a little more than a month, and for many Ticas the next few weeks are going to feel like an excruciatingly long wait. Chippendales is a renowned dance troupe based in Las Vegas that has been touring since the 1980s. The troupe is famous for their male strippers, who not only have buff and chiseled physiques but also continuously practice and rehearse the Broadway-style choreography.
On Facebook and other online social networks, discussion about the upcoming Chippendales visit to Costa Rica kicked up a few notches when local production house RPM TV announced the event last month. The dancers are scheduled to make five appearances at the Convention Center of the Wyndham Hotel – Herradura, near the Real Cariari Mall . Chippendales will be in Costa Rica from August 30th to September 1st. With tickets starting at 27,000 colones (about $55), many Ticas are wondering whether they can score a quick glimpse at the dancers if they visit our beaches.
The 27,000 colones tickets are being sold as the “Shy Girl” experience, which means that Ticas will be on foot and will also have to jockey for position to get close to the stage. The “Naughty Girl” tickets go for 37,000 colones; these tickets are for seats at tables near the stage and are ideal for “Girls’ Night Out” groups up to ten. For 47,000 colones, the “Tender Torture” tickets guarantee Ticas a very close interaction with the male dancers. All tickets have a 3,000 colones surcharge, and the venue will offer 2,000 in food and drinks to the women who attend.
When the Chippendales dates in Costa Rica were first announced, it was the first time for many Ticas to learn about the dance troupe. The news were certainly well received, especially among older Ticas who wonder whether the ticket prices are justified. To this end, it is important to note that Chippendales shows always feature high production values; the lighting and stage equipment alone weigh about a ton. And though some Ticas will feign ignorance about this kind of entertainment, let’s not forget that trend of male strippers appearing at steamy divorce parties in Costa Rica.
The show is for adults only, and only women are allowed. It would be interesting to see if members of the LGBT community in Costa Rica have something to say about that longstanding Chippendales policy. To be sure, many admirers of the male physique who are not female would probably enjoy going to one of their shows, which sometimes feature celebrities. For example, actor Ian Ziering of 90210 and Sharknado fame is currently a Chippendales dancer, but it is not clear whether he will tour with the troupe when they come to Costa Rica; however, the former teenage heartthrob, who is in amazing shape at 49 years of age, recently name-dropped our country during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter while talking about his 90210 character:
I think Steve Sanders is busy in the cloud forest of Costa Rica where he’s the personal life coach to the World’s Most Interesting Man.
There is another connection as well, Sharknado was written by Thunder Levin, who directed scenes of his film AE Apocalypse Earth right here in Costa Rica. AE Apocalypse Earth is a mockbuster hit that emulates the After Earth movie starring Hollywood Star Will Smith, his son and the cloud forest near the Arenal Volcano.
Things seem to be going really well in the Central American region for Starbucks. According to a report by Luis Diego Quiros of Revista Summa, the Seattle-based coffee Goliath plans to open three more of its iconic coffeehouses in Central America by the end of 2013: One in Guatemala, one in El Salvador, and one in Costa Rica.
In fact, if things go better than expected, there may be a fourth Starbucks location in Costa Rica just in time for the holidays. According to Monica Bianchini, Operations Manager for Starbucks in our country,
“Our Costa Rican customers have shown great acceptance for consuming our excellent products in a pleasant environment. We have planned a third opening in October and we are contemplating a fourth at the end of the year.”
The third, and probably fourth, Starbucks retail locations in Costa Rica will arrive in the wake of the company’s acquisition of a farm near the Poas volcano for agricultural research purposes. The first two Starbucks stores were received with a mixture of contempt, scorn and disbelief at the fact that Costa Rica -a country known for her quality coffee that is often served in Starbucks- would yield to the machination of the world’s foremost coffee leviathan.
Coffee, Tea or Haterade?
Although there are very good reasons to dislike Starbucks, the knee-jerk reaction against their foray into Costa Rica has been largely overblown. The contempt seems to emanate from the fear that Starbucks presence will somehow manage to steal away the significant cultural and economic connections that Ticos have forged with quality coffee throughout history.
Others point to Starbucks’ invasion as one more nail in the coffin of Americanization that Costa Rica has been subject to for the last few decades. Those who venture into this kind of commentary are often the same who claim that the first McDonald’s restaurant opened outside of the United States is the one across from the Central Bank and next to the flower market in San Jose, which is incorrect -it’s not even the first in Latin America. The same kind of irrational opinion is applied to those who claim that the English language is gaining over Spanish in Costa Rica.
When the first Starbucks in Costa Rica opened in trendy Avenida Escazu in June of last year, there was a considerable amount of media coverage about the 30 or so people who lined up outside of the coffeehouse as early as 4:30 AM. They wanted to be among the first to purchase a cup of what is undeniably the most popular coffee in the world in a country that produces some of the best coffee in the world. But while those 30 or so people were enjoying their Caramel Crunch Double Grande Venti Au Lait Macchiato Strawberry-Chai Frappuccino, or whatever concoction is prepared therein, Ticos across social media circles seemed to be drinking copious amount of Haterade®.
For those of you who don’t know about Haterade, here’s the definition from Urban Dictionary:
“a figurative drink representing a modality of thought. those who consume it are themselves consumed by the negativity which with they speak.”
What transpired on the opening day of Starbucks in Costa Rica was elegantly summed up by Diego Delfino in an essay published by online Tico community 89 Decibeles. He defended those 30 people who lined up early outside of the cafe:
“I am actually surprised by that number. A line of 30 people is nothing. That’s just three more persons than those who got a job thanks to that establishment [Starbucks]
Do you want a relevant number? Published by El Financiero: between 2007 and 2011 Costa Rica increased its annual per capita coffee drinking from 4.45 kg to 5.54 kg. Looking good thus far, right?
Do you want a truly important statistic? Costa Rica is one of the three main providers of coffee beans to Starbucks, which has coffeehouses in 60 countries.”
To sum up Mr. Delfino’s essay: One Starbucks cafe or ten are not going to steal away the cultural identity of Ticos. In fact, Mr. Delfino cites another interesting statistic:
“I’ve heard that, in 2008, Starbucks opened in Argentina. Months later, the lines of people lining up from the register out to the sidewalk continued.”
This is in a country where yerba mate, a South American holly herb that is drank in a fashion similar to tea, is the national drink instead of coffee. What about those Starbucks locations in New York City where the line in front of the register is at least a dozen deep from the time the store opens until it closes? Those baristas must be kept on their toes by those caffeine-loving New Yorkers. So, the question is: Are those Argentinians or New Yorkers at risk of losing their cultural identity by being Starbucks customers?
What makes Starbucks superfluous in Costa Rica is the fact that, at just about any soda (cafeteria) in the country, you can get a fresh cup of excellent morning coffee plus a gallopinto for the price of one of the most elaborate drinks in the Starbucks menu. In the end, drinking at Starbucks or eating at McDonald’s is just a matter of personal preference and has nothing to do with national identity.
On Thursday Costa Rica’s leading newspaper, La Nacion announced the purchase of the Autódromo La Guácima speedway for US$12 million dollars, with the prospect of investing another US$28 million to turn the site into a centre for large-scale events.
Located on 28.2 hectares in La Guácima, Alajuela – twenty minutes from the San Jose International Airport and just thirty minutes from downtown San José – the Autodromo La Guacima is widely recognized as one of the finest racing facilities in Latin America. Inaugurated in 1974, it is in operation twelve months of the year and frequently hosts high profile international auto and motorcycle racing series.
Antonieta Chaverri, official spokesperson for La Nacion, said the speedway will be remodeled to faciliate more than just motorshports, but also exhibitions, concerts and conventions, among other events.
The opening of the new centre will be for the summer 2015, subject to construction and operating permit approvals.
Chaverri added that the purchase was approved by the La Nacion board of directors earlier this month and the company is using its owns resources to pay for the purchase.
Carlos Rodríguez, former owner of the speedway, said he had had seveal suitors for the property.
The decision for La Nacion to buy the property and invest in the remodelling is a decision “seeking to maintain and strengthen the solidity of the company and increase profitability in the medium term”, said Chaverri.
La Nacion sees the Autódromo La Guácima as an ideal place for marketing events and fairs.
Immigration Director Kathya Rodriguez has filed a report that indicates that seven people were lured into this country to sell an organ for surgical transplant and then abandoned. The director said that his her department feels a responsibility to the immigrants to offer protection for these victims under new legislation.
All these cases have been referred under the new Immigration Law of 2009. She said Immigration has given the victims medical, psychological and other attention. Among those attended are Costa Ricans.
“There are those who were fooled into giving up an organ in exchange for economic gain and thereafter abandoned,” she added. “Accredited victims receive special protection by the State and access to support services; moreover, if they are foreigners they get provisional documentation.”
Recent economic figures show that poverty in Central America is a stunning 50%. The Legislative Assembly is preparing a bill that will keep rings from preying on these desperate people in order to obtain organs, especially kidneys, for transplant surgery.
A Mexican newspaper recently charged that Costa Rica was a hotbed of illicit activity simply because, according to one local doctor, the country lacks sufficient legislative to prevent organ traffic.
Commentary: The fact that only seven have been reported so far is an indication that the traffic is not widespread but does exist and the lawmakers are right to pay attention. We cannot confirm Rodriguez’s figures but they do come from an authoritative source.
Although it would be easy for the press to sensationalize this story, La Nacion should be complimented on reporting just the facts. The new Immigration law, by giving aid to victims, shows the real core of this country’s people and their human sympathy.
U.S. expats flock to one of Latin America’s safest places
By Catey Hill, MarketWatch.com – Not long after you arrive in Costa Rica, you’ll likely hear at least one Tico (that’s what Costa Ricans call themselves) calling out a greeting. “Pura Vida,” he’ll say, which means “life is good.” Indeed, that’s likely to be true for many residents: Costa Rica frequently ranks at the top of lists on the happiest countries on earth (including in studies by researchers from Yale and Columbia universities and the New Economics Foundation, an independent think tank that focuses on economic change).
Among those expats were Gloria and Paul Yeatman, ages 56 and 66, respectively, who moved to Costa Rica 4½ years ago. The couple, who had been living in Baltimore, was hoping for somewhere warmer and less expensive where they still felt at home and safe.
They considered the southern U.S. and Mexico, but ultimately opted for Costa Rica in part because of the natural beauty, the decent and affordable health care and the “friendly people—both expats and Ticos,” says Gloria. They liked that the country has had a stable democracy for years, says Paul: “We just wouldn’t feel comfortable in a place where the government is unstable or there is a strong anti-American sentiment.”
Indeed, compared with most of its neighbors in Central America and the Caribbean, Costa Rica has been relatively drama-free for a long time. The country has been peaceful since 1949, when then-president Jose Figueres Ferrer abolished the army following an outbreak of military violence; his government and subsequent have redirected military funding toward the police force, education, environmental protection and cultural preservation.
To be sure, the U.S. Department of State notes that “the incidence of crime in Costa Rica is higher than in many parts of the United States.” But violent crime is relatively infrequent; Costa Rica’s homicide rates, for example are lower than anywhere else in Central America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and considerably lower than those in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Today Costa Rica is one of the most popular countries for American retirees, hosting about 50,000 U.S. citizens. (The total population is roughly 4.7 million.) “There are expats in nearly every town,” says Josh Linnes, the founder of Viva Tropical, a resource on retiring in Latin America—something that isn’t true in many other Latin American countries.
Many people are initially drawn to the area because of its natural beauty and wildlife. “You don’t come to Costa Rica for culture like a New York or Paris, you move to Costa Rica because the outdoors and nature is your museum,” says Dennis Easters, a real-estate broker who moved to the country in 2007 from Tampa. Costa Rica offers everything from Caribbean and Pacific beaches to lush rain forests to towering volcanoes. More than 10% of the country is protected national parkland, and it is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world.
Costa Rica also offers generally drinkable tap water, high-speed Internet and good phone service in most places, and a taxi and bus system that makes it easy to get around even without a car. Plus, the health care is high-quality and affordable, says Gloria Yeatman, who has had a number of procedures in the country. The Yeatmans pay about $55 per month for health insurance.
Americans who obtain residency status—which you can do by proving you have at least $1,000 in monthly income from Social Security, a pension or retirement fund—can enroll in Costa Rica’s public health-care system, where you pay a small monthly stipend based on your income and can get access to more than 30 hospitals and 250 clinics. International Living, a magazine and website devoted to living abroad, estimates that health care here is about a third to a fifth of its cost in the U.S. and that doctor’s rarely charge more than $60 per visit, even for house calls; private health insurance typically only costs about $60 to $130 per month.
While the cost of living in Costa Rica is generally more affordable than in the U.S., “it’s not as cheap as you might think,” says Erin Van Rheenen, author of Living Abroad in Costa Rica. “Health care and labor costs are a true bargain, but food is about the same, and cars are more expensive down here.”
The Yeatmans, who live in San Ramon in central Costa Rica, live on about $1,900 a month all included (they break down their living expenses here). But Linnes points out that other places that are more popular with tourists will likely be more expensive.
In some of the posh Pacific beach towns, you can expect to pay $4,000 a month or more to live in average accommodations near the water, and there are multimillion-dollar properties. While there are no taxes on foreign retirement income, gasoline in this country is expensive (often more than $5 per gallon) and though the country is small (about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined), it can take a long time to get around, as the roads aren’t the best, says Linnes: “As the crow flies, it’s all close together, but as a car drives is a whole other story.”
Still, it’s no accident that Costa Rica has become one of Latin America’s most popular retirement locales.
An unidentified farmer in Golfito, a community located in the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica and near the southern border with Panama, recently saved the life of a female sloth that had been subject to a horrific attack by two men thought to be in their 30s. According to news reports by daily newspaper La Teja, the sloth was hit by rocks and fists, particularly in her head and stomach.
The farmer confronted the despicable men, rescued the sloth and contacted local wildlife protection agents. Despite the farmer’s heroic intervention, the sloth was left in a delicate condition and was evacuated by aircraft from Golfito to Base Two of the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) in Alajuela. The arboreal creature flew aboard a Sansa commuter flight.
Once at SJO, the sloth was rushed to Zoo Ave Animal Rescue in La Garita. Zoo Ave is one of the premier wildlife refuge centers in Costa Rica; it is dedicated to rescue, research, rehabilitation, education, habitat conservation, and more. The sloth, which has been named “Sansita” by the Zoo Ave staff, is currently quarantined in a space that measures 20 meters in length. According to Sergio Gonzalez, spokesman for Zoo Ave, Sansita requires assistance with feeding and could end up blind. She requires dressing changes and antibiotic applications every two hours.
Caring for Sansita will probably cost Zoo Ave almost a million colones (about $2,000). She will eventually leave her quarantine space, but she will remain in the Zoo Ave rehabilitation forest.
The Sad Reality of Wildlife Abuse in Costa Rica
The abundant and diverse wildlife of Costa Rica enjoys certain protections; but, unfortunately, there are always a few irrational and inconsiderate humans who will prey on animals with abuse. Case in point: A porcupine under the care of Zoo Ave that was victim of three swift machete strikes. This two-year old animal was found in Heredia and underwent a four-hour lifesaving surgery; still, it lost an eye.
Sansita is not the only sloth at Zoo Ave that was victimized by humans; she is the fifth in recent months. One sad case is that of Florecita, a young, three-toed Bradypodidae female sloth that became an orphan when her mother was killed by soulless humans in San Isidro of Heredia. Florecita arrived at Zoo Ave in a state of confusion, disorientation and depression. She is slowly (no pun intended) growing up without her mother, and Zoo Ave staff believe that she could improve to the point of becoming a candidate for release in Guanacaste.
Sloths are gentle animals that have become emblematic among Costa Rica’s numerous forest species. They have done a lot in terms of promoting our country’s rich diversity and have even achieved celebrity status. They deserve better than to be attacked by insensitive humans.
Two important things to note:
Zoo Ave’s main source of revenue to fund their noble work is their ticket booth. This place is highly recommended for anyone to visit; kids in particular love learning about, and interacting with, the animals. Visiting one of the many sodas and restaurants in La Garita that specialize in ethnic Costa Rican cuisine after touring Zoo Ave has become a 21st century family tradition.
Despite La Teja’s reputation as a trashy tabloid that resorts to crude slang, sensationalism and photo spreads of scantily-clad curvy Ticas, the news daily does a great job of reporting animal abuse in addition to educating its readers about prevention and promoting respect for Costa Rica’s wildlife.
The Drug Treatment Program under Judicial Supervision aims to reduce prison overcrowding in Costa Rica. The prison system holds 13,213 inmates in 15 prisons, 3,400 more than its maximum capacity, according to the Social Services Department. (Courtesy of the Ministry of Public Safety)
Government program will provide assistance to inmates through expedited judicial proceedings and medical help.
SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica – Infosurhoy.com – To get the US$2 he needed to satisfy his crack addiction, Juan Carlos Alemán thought he had no choice but to steal a woman’s purse in Costa Rica’s capital of San José.
Costa Rica’s Drug Treatment Program under Judicial Supervision will provide treatment to addicts who commit crimes under the influence of drugs. Above, law enforcement agents arrest suspects on drug charges. (Courtesy of the Ministry of Public Safety)
On the afternoon of July 13, 2012, after smoking crack with one of his friends, Alemán found himself without any money and needing more drugs, so he started begging on the streets of the Barrio Cuba in San José. Frustrated by his inability to get the US$2 to feed his addiction, he threatened a woman and snatched her purse.
Alemán, 23, was arrested a few minutes after the victim alerted police.
He has spent eight months of his 20-month sentence in the minimum security block of San Sebastián Prison in San José.
“What people don’t understand is that you need to buy drugs,” he said from prison. “I had never assaulted anybody like that, but I didn’t have money and nobody would give me any because they could see that I was so high. The only thing I wanted was the money ($1,000 Costa Rican colones, or US$2) to buy a dose of crack.”
While authorities do not keep records on the number of drug addicts who commit crimes, many of them who wind up in prison do not receive treatment for their addictions, according to the government.
But that changes in September.
Since February, the Ministry of Justice and Peace, the Costa Rican Drug Institute (ICD) and the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (IAFA) have been implementing the Drug Treatment Program under Judicial Supervision, which officially will start offering treatment to addicts in September.
“The system offers [incarcerated drug addicts] a three-pronged approach: treatment, assistance with the criminal system [with reduced sentences and medical assistance] and social reinsertion,” Mauricio Boraschi, the country’s former drug commissioner, said when the program was introduced.
The plan, which costs $10.022 billion colones (about US$20.09 million), is financed through agreements with Brazil and the Organization of American States (OAS).
The Drug Treatment Program under Judicial Supervision aims to reduce prison overcrowding in Costa Rica. The prison system holds 13,213 inmates in 15 prisons, 3,400 more than its maximum capacity, according to the Social Services Department. (Courtesy of the Ministry of Public Safety)
The program is training judges and evaluating potential candidates for treatment.
The pilot plan will begin with 10-15 prisoners in the San Sebastián Prison and will eventually be implemented in the country’s 15 prisons, according to Judge Doris Arias, who heads the program.
Boraschi said the treatment will be provided by the IAFA, the governing body for drug prevention and treatment policies in Costa Rica.
The patients first will be evaluated to determine their levels of addiction. Relatives and friends also will be contacted to create a support network and facilitate reintegration.
Finally, when they complete the treatment, the IAFA will certify to the court the patient has completed the program and can return to society.
“This program manages to avoid recidivism and offers the possibility of social reintegration, which reduces our crime problem and overcrowding in our prisons,” Boraschi said.
From January to April of this year, San José registered 197 complaints of assaults, though there is no record specifying whether the assailants were under the influence of drugs, according to the Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ).
Marijuana consumption at the country’s prisons has reached 12.9%, which is 43 times higher than the overall population, while crack consumption is 6.6%, ,which is 66 times higher than the overall population, according to IAFA.
“[In prison], people get worse because there always is someone who can get you the drugs you want,” Alemán said. “I mind my own business, but there are other inmates who you have to watch out for. When you least expect it, they’ll be all over you. If you don’t give them what they want, they’ll cut you to teach you a lesson.”
The program also should help the Ministry of Justice decrease prison overcrowding. Costa Rica’s 15 penitentiaries collectively hold 13,213 inmates, which is 3,400 over capacity, according to Costa Rica’s Social Services Department.
“People who come in for relatively minor misdemeanors are mixed with others who have long sentences, and they become criminals,” Ofelia Taitelbaum, Costa Rica’s ombudsman, told reporters. “That’s why, once they’re released, they go on to commit more serious crimes.”
In Costa Rica, the criminal process is divided into five stages. A case can take, on average, four months to reach the third phase, the trial.
However, the new program will shorten this process through pre-trial agreements, according to the Ministry of Justice.
“The measures passed down by the judge at the end of the process can range from in-patient treatment to a gradual detoxification,” Boraschi said. “In the event that [the accused] abandons the process, they must return to the judicial phase.”
The initiative is part of the Drug Treatment Court program of OAS, which is being carried out in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
“Next year, I plan on applying to see whether they can help me get out,” Alemán said. “This isn’t the life I wanted. I want to get cured so I can go home to my mom and my sister.”
Article 52 of Title V -”Social Rights and Guarantees”- of the Constitution of Costa Rica states that:
“Marriage is the essential foundation of the family; it rests upon the equal rights of spouses.”
As clear and elegant as the above statement is, a civic group in Costa Rica would like to see it change by means of a proposed amendment to our Constitution. The group is called Civic Movement for the Rescue of Marriage, which goes by the initials REMA in Spanish; it is an amalgamation of other like-minded civic groups that share the same reactionary view against recent political inroads made in Costa Rica by supporters of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups.
Alexandra Loria, one of the leaders of the REMA group, told online news site CRHoy.com that they are seeking to amend the Constitution of Costa Rica to ensure that Article 52 specifically states that
“Marriage is the union between a man and a woman, it rests upon the equal rights of spouses, and it is the essential foundation of the family.”
REMA is busy collecting the 155,000 signatures needed to take this matter to the National Assembly, where legislators such as the controversial, ultra-conservative and reactionary Justo Orozco Alvarez will probably welcome such constitutional amendment. Legislator Orozco is the leader of the Renovacion Costarricense (Costa Rican Renovation) political party, which is an ultra-conservative Protestant movement. Oddly enough, Orozco also presides over the Human Rights Commission of the National Assembly in Costa Rica, a title that was bestowed upon him by means of backroom wheeling and dealing between the powerful National Liberation Party (PLN in Spanish).
It is important to remember that the PLN is opposed to just about everything that legislator Orozco supports, but PLN legislators need him out of the way on some other issues -hence his bizarre naming to preside a Human Rights legislative group.
Legislator Orozco is also the loudest voice among those who claim to have been duped by the PLN and Broad Front parties when their amendment to support the rights of Costa Rica’s youth, including young LGBT Ticos, was “accidentally passed” by the National Assembly. Orozco immediately called foul, insinuating that his fellow legislator Jose Maria Villalta -presidential candidate and Broad Front’s leader- had pulled a fast one on the assembly by sneaking a line about eliminating discrimination of young Tico couples, without regard to their gender or sexual orientation. Orozco asked for a veto from President Laura Chinchilla, who declined to use her veto powers and signed the law.
Legislator Orozco fears that allowing young LGBT Ticos to form “common law” unions opens the door to future passing of legislation that will approve gay marriage in Costa Rica. REMA does not take such an extreme view. REMA leader Loria explains that they are not opposed to LGBT unions; they are rather defending the importance of traditional marriage in Costa Rica as the basis to bring new life in the country. Loria added that:
“What we defend is not a matter of religious principle; it is a principle that has been around in the greatest civilizations throughout soicety’s [history]“
Should REMA be successful in amending Article 52 of the Constitution, the movement in support of gay marriage in Costa Rica would suffer a major setback. REMA has thus far collected 20,000 signatures of the 155,000 they need to take the matter to the National Assembly. Many of the signatures have been collected on REMA’s Facebook Timeline.
I’m going to “switch gears” and write about what I consider to be a moral, rather than a legal issue. I have long commented that Multiplaza (Escazú) Shopping Mall must be virtually the only suburban shopping mall, as opposed to an inner city shopping mall, which charges customers for parking private vehicles.
Until recently, the paid parking has been limited to underground, or covered parking.
I have now noticed parking ticket dispensing machines have been located at all parking lot entrances on the Multiplaza property and they will obviously be put into operation shortly. When this happens, any customer who arrives in a private vehicle to shop at Multiplaza will be forced to pay for parking.
This will undoubtedly lead to chaos on the streets immediately surrounding Multiplaza, with the majority of shopping mall patrons looking for opportunities to park without paying. This is clear from the efforts made to date by patrons to avoid parking in the existing paid parking areas of the shopping mall (parking on sidewalks, blocking emergency vehicle access, etc.).
If I was a tenant of Multiplaza, paying the exorbitant rents that are levied by the landlord, I would be outraged at the negative effect that this will have on my business at the shopping mall, especially if the Municipality of Escazú puts additional parking controls in effect for on-street parking in the vicinity of the shopping mall. The Administration of Multiplaza Shopping Mall charging for patron parking at the shopping mall is nothing less than “greed gone wild” in my opinion.
To contact Attorney Rick Philps about hiring him as your Costa Rican Attorney, please use the following information: Lic. Rick Philps – Attorney at Law, Petersen & Philps, San Jose, Costa Rica Tel: 506-2288-4381, Ext. 102; Email: rphilps@plawcr.com Website: www.plawcr.com
The crew, who identified themselves as missionaries and distributed bibles among the indigenous also carried topographic equipment, hi-tech mountaineering gear, sophisticated digital cameras, altimeters, GPS equipment, assault weapons, and machetes.
Accordig to resident eye-witnesses the so-called missionaries wore woodland pattern camouflage uniforms similar to the M81 Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) worn by United States military forces until 2006. This kind of uniform is also worn by several military groups around the world.
The men who descended from the helicopter identified themselves as Alejandro Cetrulo, Rodolfo Ortíz, Roque Revilla Candiotti, Isaias Romero Acuña, Travis Reid, Brian Bucek, Nual Richardson, and Josh Hyatt; their nationalities were later ascertained as one being Peruvian, two from Costa Rica, and five Canadians.
According to Bribri leaders who followed the men from a distance after they went door-to-door in the village distributing bibles, the visitors were clearly skillful in mountain survival. They did not carry water and did not drink from the rivers -they knew how to extract it from bamboo. They even caught a deadly fer-de-lance, killed it and tasted its meat, but not before taking some topographical measurements. At some point, the Bribri asked the men to lead them in Christian prayer, which they were obviously not trained for since they were unable to. The indigenous decided to call the police and the men scurried.
The COECOCEIBA press release explains that two Fuerza Publica officers arrived and checked the passports of the paramilitaries as they returned from the jungle, where it is suspected they cached their weapons for later retrieval. The police officers took away their machetes, knives and a pellet rifle. The villagers complained that the fake missionaries then became upset, retrieved their weapons, and threatened the community with returning at a later date. They said: “If the cops return, we will shoot.”
COECOCEIBA believes that these paramilitary visitors could be part of a reconnaissance unit sent by drug traffickers or Canadian mining interests looking to start prospecting for gold or other precious metals in the area. According to online news site CRHoy.com, however, the Ministry of Public Safety in Costa Rica maintains that the men were missionaries on a charitable mission.
The signs remain, but the cameras haven't operated since 2010.
It was almost two years ago (September 2011) that the traffic cameras went dark, after the Consejo de Seguridad Vial (Cosevi) found it could not “legally” notify speeding drivers.
Since there have been several attempts to revive the program, the latest involving a proposal with the autonomous state agency, the Radiográfica Costarricense (Racsa).
The traffic camera program involves installing a series of video radar cameras at strategic locations along the major highways, mainly in the greater metropolitan area of San José. With the reforms to the traffic law last year, the COSEVI now has the “legal” tool to notify speeding drivers picked off by the cameras.
The Racsa proposal is simple, Racsa would install and maintain the cameras and notify drivers of their infraction. The cost to Cosevi is US$5.500 dollars per month. The proposal calls for the installation of 150 cameras, for a monthly cost of US$825.000 dollars to Cosevi, which would keep 100% of the the fines collected.
Carlos Rivas, legal advisor to the Cosevi, explained that the roads council rejected the Racsa proposal for being too costly. Rivas explained that it would be “unsustainable” for the Cosevi to pay that amount each month.
The Racsa proposal is quite different than the deal signed in 2011 where Racsa would retain 70% of all traffic fines collected from the traffic cameras, the Cosevi would be left with the balance.
That deal was terminated in 2011 by mutual accord when Cosevi suspended the program, unable to legally collect on the fines during the six weeks of operation that saw more than 15.000 vehicles picked off by the cameras. Some 3.000 drivers “did the right thing” by paying their fines on time, the balance did not and the tickets were nulled.
Despite the latest setback, the Cosevi says it plans to have the cameras working in 2014.
Here we are forced into buying new license plates for our vehicles, not because the existing plates need to be replaced, but for the inefficiency and inability of the Registro Nacional to have maintained a secure registration system.
So, rather than work on fixing the problem on their end, the solution is to force every vehicle owner to buy new license plates, each pair costing ¢15.000 colones (US$30) dollars.
If you do the math, more than 1 million vehicles multiplied by ¢15.000 equals ¢15.000.000 colones in revenue.
For ¢5.000 colones (US$10) – total cost for the new plates ¢20.000 – the BCR will process your order at any of its branches. The post office charges ¢4.600 (¢400 colones less for the same process) at any of its post office loations in the Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM) – Greater San José Area and ¢5.570 at all other post offices. In San José, for ¢10.000 they will deliver the new plates to the customer.
Several delivery companies have also gotten into the game, though their cost is on average more than double that the BCR or Post Office. One company will come to your home or office to pick up the order and the deliver the plates.
In reality, it makes sense – if you can afford it – to spend a little extra and avoid the mayhem of long lines and save the time to go to the Registro.
Legislators are proposing to rename Avenida Segunda in downtown San José the “Avenida del Libertador Juan Rafael Mora”. The declaration, if approved, would coincide with the bicentennial of the birth of Costa Rica’s president (1849 to 1859).
Mora’s great-great-great-niece is American actress Madeleine Stowe.
The initiative is called the “Declaración del año 2014 como ‘Bicentenario del Libertador Juan Rafael Mora Porras’ (Declaration of 2014 as ‘the Liberator Bicentennial Juan Rafael Mora Porras)”.
According to Carmen Muñoz, head of the Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) fraction in the Legislature, the initiative is about rescuing “Costa Rican identity values”.
Mora already has another road named after him, the Ruta Nacional No. 1856, popularly known as “La Trocha“, a road construction project that synonymous with all that is corruption in the country.
Mora, born on February 8, 1814, first assumed the presidency following José María Castro’s resignation and was subsequently reelected in 1853 and 1859.
His administration modified the constitution, increasing the requirements to hold citizenship. A high yearly income was required to be a citizen; this left the majority of the population without the right to vote or run for office. The previous electoral system required citizens to be male, to be born in the country, and to be of age to have electoral rights.
This dramatic change coincided with the privatization of the commons; the landless peasants who depended on the commons were left helpless since they had no political representation and no means of achieving it given the changes in the new constitution.
Mora performed a series of military reforms that not only increased the size of the army to 9000 able men, but also sought to professionalize it. To this end he hired Polish and French military advisers and purchased state-of-the-art equipment from Great Britain.
In 1856 he led his country’s forces in Central America’s war against William Walker and his filibuster regime in Nicaragua.
For Costa Rican historiography the war is divided into three parts: The First Campaign (March–April 1856), The Second Campaign or Transit Campaign (October 1856–May 1857), and The Third Campaign (August–December 1857)
Mora, along with Bishop Anselmo Llorente had previously given a series of speeches to arouse the people preparing for the upcoming war. The speeches emphasized the threat posed by the Protestant filibusters to the country’s Catholic identity.
The president gave his brother José Joaquín the supreme command of the army. Three battles were fought during the First Campaign: Santa Rosa, Sardinal and Rivas; these series of battles managed to stop Walker’s invasion to Guanacaste — at the time known as “Moracia” in the president’s honour.
During the Rivas Battle Cholera spread out on both filibuster and Costa Rican forces. Costa Ricans under the impression that cholera was acquired on “ill-aired” locations fled from Rivas taking the water-borne disease into the country causing the death of 10% of the population.
For Costa Ricans the war was postponed until October 1856, the starting point for The Second Campaign. The emphasis of the Second Campaign was to cut off Walker’s supply route which used the San Juan River and the steamboats taken by the filibusters from the Accessory Transit Company.
There is no knowledge of the Third Campaign.
There is still discussion on the intellectual authorship of the capture of the Rio San Juan. Some Costa Ricans, like historian Rafael Obregón Loría, claim it was Mora who planned the capture. However, Mora met on November 1856 with Silvanius Spencer, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s agent, who offered his help on the capture of the San Juan river.
In spite of earning acclaim as a national hero for his efforts in that endeavor, he was overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by his opponent Jose Maria Montealegre in August 1859. He fled to El Salvador, where his supporters convinced him to launch an attack on Costa Rica and recoup the presidency. After initial victories, in which he succeeded in seizing the port of Puntarenas, he was defeated, captured, and, on 30 September 1860, brought before a firing squad.
By Nikolas Kozloff, HuffingtonPost – For many in the United States, Costa Rica is a land of exotic beauty and natural rainforests. The small Central American nation has long promoted its eco-tourism industry and foreigners flock here in search of native wildlife such as sloths and jaguar.
Unlike other countries in the region, Costa Rica has seen little civil strife over the years and has no standing army. Such political stability has attracted U.S. senior citizens, who see Costa Rica as the “Switzerland of Central America” and an attractive retirement destination.
Chinchilla government would probably prefer that the NSA scandal simply vanished from the headlines as soon as possible
Given Costa Rica’s pacifistic history, recent news of U.S. espionage comes as something of a surprise.
According to Brazilian newspaper O Globo, Washington has long conducted electronic surveillance on the tiny Central American country through the super secret National Security Agency or NSA. News of the spying program has led to something of a political firestorm in Costa Rica, and recently President Laura Chinchilla called for an “international debate” about the espionage. “To me, as a citizen of a disarmed democracy like Costa Rica, these things bother me, I don’t like it,” Chinchilla said.
Since we don’t have the precise NSA memos on Costa Rica, it’s difficult to know why Washington has been so busily gathering information on the small Central American nation. Perhaps, however, the NSA sees Costa Rica as an increasingly more important link in the Latin American drug trade. As I reported earlier, the NSA has incestuous links to whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s former intelligence company Booz Allen. Together with the Drug Enforcement Administration or D.E.A., the two collaborate with the Mexican military to help prosecute the drug war at the regional level.
The Drug War Comes to Costa Rica
Whatever its scenic attractions, Costa Rica has been touched by the ever widening war on drugs which has engulfed Central America and Mexico. As I reported as early as three years ago, smugglers use Costa Rica as a transshipment point for drugs coming from Colombia and Panama. Without any armed forces and with long coastlines and poorly guarded borders, the country is vulnerable to the machinations of technologically advanced drug cartels. In San José, the government is woefully unprepared to fight the drug war, and has requested and received financial assistance from the U.S. through the so-called “Mérida Initiative.”
Even with such aid, however, a flood of cocaine threatens to erode Costa Rica’s peaceful image. In recent years, some of Mexico’s most feared drug cartels have set up shop here, including the Familia Michoacana, Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel. Moreover, Costa Rica’s role in international trafficking has spurred the growth of local drug markets, criminal enterprises and other crimes including homicide and burglary. Overwhelmed, the Chinchilla government has turned to the Obama administration, which has funded coast guard operations, donated interceptor boats and provided police training and special gear such as night goggles. In addition, the U.S. funds Costa Rican police training with other Latin American special operations forces at an annual exercise conducted by the U.S. Southern Command.
Despite such collaboration, the NSA may suspect that Chinchilla is wavering in her support of Washington’s draconian clampdown on drug trafficking, and might have even believed that keeping tabs on Costa Rica’s leader was politically expedient. Recently, many Latin American governments have expressed frustration with the Obama Administration’s military strategy, and Costa Rica is no exception. Indeed, Chinchilla has said that drug legalization in Central America deserves a “serious” debate even if this goes up against stern U.S. opposition. “If we keep doing what we have been when the results today are worse than 10 years ago, we’ll never get anywhere and could wind up like Mexico or Colombia,” she has said. Chinchilla adds that even though the Obama administration wants to continue the drug war, Central Americans “have the right to discuss it” because “we are paying a very high price.”
Combating Chávez’s Successor
In addition to fighting the drug war in Latin America, the NSA has a wider political agenda in the region. As I explained in a recent article, the U.S. spying agency has conducted high level espionage on Venezuela, including the cataloguing of telephone calls and access to the internet. According to reports, the NSA collected information on everything from Venezuelan military purchases to the South American nation’s oil industry. Angered by the disclosures, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says the United States has “created an evil system, half Orwellian, that intends to control the communications of the world.”
If the NSA is conducting espionage on the Maduro government in Caracas, the spying agency is most certainly monitoring Venezuelan activity throughout the wider region. In light of earlier and suggestive WikiLeaks documents, it seems rather unlikely that Costa Rica would be ignorant of such espionage and indeed may have even collaborated with Washington. As far back as 2004, former Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco met with U.S. diplomats to express concern about Hugo Chávez’s intelligence gathering activities in Central America. According to the Americans, the Costa Rican government was “surveilling the activities of the Venezuelan cultural attaché in San José.”
The attaché was believed to be an intelligence officer who was “meeting secretly with labor union officials, and has brought 200,000 USD into Costa Rica to pay labor activists to stage ‘provocations,’ perhaps during the upcoming Ibero-American summit in Costa Rica.” Alarmed by alleged Venezuelan spying, Pacheco asked the Americans if the U.S. could provide needed intelligence on the matter. It’s unclear whether Costa Rica and the U.S. deepened their intelligence ties as a result of perceived Chávez meddling, though American diplomats promised to refer Pacheco’s request to higher authorities.
What’s Behind the Story?
In light of such history, it seems unlikely that Chinchilla was unaware of U.S. spying. Perhaps, Costa Rica did not know of specific NSA surveillance programs, but the San José government has already proposed looser wiretapping laws in response to the escalating drug war. Moreover, Washington has spent more than half a million dollars to help build a so-called police crime-mapping computer network in Costa Rica, and a U.S. Treasury expert on money-laundering is “embedded” with local law enforcement.
Perhaps, like her Panamanian counterpart Ricardo Martinelli, Chinchilla is aware of U.S. spying but lacks high level access to all intelligence. As I reported in late 2010, Panama President Martinelli found himself under siege following revelations that he had sought U.S. assistance in setting up wiretaps on his rivals. According to WikiLeaks documents, Martinelli requested U.S. help “in building infrastructure to conduct wiretaps against ostensible security threats as well as political opponents.” Appealing to the Americans, Martinelli said that Panama urgently required cutting edge technology when it came to fighting corruption and crime.
Specifically, Martinelli sought assistance from the D.E.A., which had set up a counter-narcotics wiretap operation in Panama known as Operation Matador. Under the program, the Americans collaborated with the Panamanian police and security forces but only under strict legal guidelines requiring a court order. In conversations with U.S. authorities, the Panamanians expressed frustration that Matador did not allow for “enough flexibility to select targets.”
Apparently, Martinelli pressured the Americans to surrender their technology and employed “a variety of tactics ranging from straightforward requests to intimidating threats.” Sounding the alarm bell, U.S diplomats suggested that if Martinelli succeeded in setting up his own independent wire program under the D.E.A., “he could blame it all on the gringos if it were exposed, which in this tiny country it inevitably would be.”
While it’s unclear whether the Americans finally gave in to Martinelli, WikiLeaks cables illuminate high stakes tensions between Washington and small Central American nations. Perhaps, as Costa Rica becomes more embroiled in the drug war, politicians will also seek access to sensitive U.S. intelligence or even try to blackmail the Americans like Martinelli in neighboring Panama.
Cautious Costa Rica
For the time being, however, the San José government has been extremely non-confrontational. Though Chinchilla has said that she would like to encourage a “debate” about NSA, she has not indicated what might be a suitable forum for such a wider discussion. In an odd aside, the President added “I think the healthiest thing happening is that it [the NSA scandal] has opened a broad discussion on what should be the balance between the protection of the security of a nation and its citizens, as opposed to respecting the rights of other nations.” Chinchilla has said that Costa Rica is ready to encourage a “civilized dialogue” about electronic espionage “without demagoguery.”
Meanwhile, Costa Rican ministers have had little to say about what the San José government might do in response to the allegations. Carlos Ricardo Benavides, the Presidency Minister, even declared that it would be “impossible” to undertake any concrete measures since recent reporting had not documented specific NSA activities in Costa Rica. “We take it very seriously but our response needs to be proportionate,” Benavides added.
Perhaps, Costa Rica hasn’t raised an international furor over NSA spying because the authorities already have access to the intelligence, or if not officials might wish to secure further access in future. Whatever the case, Costa Rica would find it difficult to hold the U.S. to account for its espionage as San José has deeper links to Washington than other Central American nations. Currently, the Chinchilla government receives hundreds of millions of dollars in annual tourism revenue from the U.S. as well as substantial amounts of real-estate investment, especially in retirement and vacation homes. In addition, Costa Rica’s lack of an army makes the nation dependent on U.S. security largesse.
In light of all these factors, the Chinchilla government would probably prefer that the NSA scandal simply vanished from the headlines as soon as possible.
Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left.
Infosurhoy – How dangerous has practicing journalism become in Latin America? Since the start of 2012 until the end of June 2013, an average of more than one journalist a month has been killed for doing his or her job.
A total of 20 journalists in Latin America have paid the ultimate price for the freedom of speech in six countries during that time span, according to Reporters without Borders (RSF).
Twenty journalists in Latin America have paid the ultimate price for the freedom of speech in six countries from Jan. 1, 2012 through June 2013, according to Reporters without Borders (RSF)
Brazil has been home to a region-high eight deaths of media members (5 in 2012, 3 in 2013), followed by Mexico (6,1), Honduras (2,0) and Colombia (1,0), Ecuador (1,0), Paraguay (0,1), which have each had one journalist killed during the 18-month period.
However, Honduras’ total could grow, as the list doesn’t include journalist Aníbal Barrow, a news anchor on Globo TV whose remains were found by Honduran police in the northern city of Villanueva on July 9. Barrow, 58, was abducted by gunmen on June 24 in the city of San Pedro Sula.
Meantime, RSF is trying to determine whether the murder of photographer Luis Choy Yin Sandoval, who was fatally shot outside his Lima home on Feb. 23, was linked to his work for the Peruvian daily El Comercio.
RSF includes a journalist’s murder on its list after the organization determines “the victim was killed because of his/her activities as a journalist. It does not include cases in which the motives were not related to the victim’s work or in which a link has not yet been confirmed,” according to its website.
In 2012, the 15 killings of media members in Latin America represented 16.9% of the 89 journalists slain worldwide, while in 2013, the five deaths in the region represent 18.5% of the 27 journalists who have been murdered throughout the world as of July 15.
In 2012, Somalia and Syria were each home to a world-high 18 journalist murders, followed by Pakistan (9) and Mexico (6). This year, Syria leads the world with eight killings, followed by Pakistan with six and Brazil with three, according to RSF.
“Violence against journalists in Latin America is no longer a threat, but rather an appalling reality that is causing massive self-censorship in countries such as Mexico, Honduras, some areas of Brazil, Peru, Paraguay and Colombia, where criminal routes of drug traffickers have already been established as a force,” said Claudio Paolillo, president of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).
Paolillo said the killing of journalists is a direct attack against freedom of speech throughout the region.
“The death of a journalist implies that citizens, as a result of this crime, will be much less informed about issues that might interest them,” he added. “And it is not just because the murdered journalist can no longer report, but because colleagues will fall into a system of self-censorship, consciously or unconsciously, because they will not want to suffer the same fate as the person who died.”
Benoît Hervieu, the director of RSF’s office for the Americas, divides the region into two groups, with each one posing major obstacles for journalists.
The first is made up of countries mentioned by Paolillo that have high rates of violence, organized crime and narco-trafficking. The second is formed by countries with strong political bias, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina.
“They are countries where, in the 2000s, the population voted for new governments,” Hervieu added. “They quickly had a strong confrontation with the traditional press, which is aggressive and questioned the legitimacy of these governments. This made polarized situations and political confrontations appear, which have serious effects on pluralism, public debate and the balance between the different faces of opinion.”
Laura Tresca, the officer for the Freedom of Expression program of the organization for the defense of freedom of information (Article 19) in Brazil, said lawsuits against journalists are another common threat that’s carried out throughout South America.
“Sometimes, just responding to a criminal case ends up inhibiting [the journalist] from speaking about the problem,” Tresca said.
Impunity and exile
Lydia Cacho, an investigative journalist and Mexican activist, left her country in August 2012 after receiving death threats. Winner of several awards, Cacho has highlighted violence against women and children and published a book denouncing a child prostitution ring. (Felipe Caicedo/AFP)
Recent threats against journalists covering sensitive issues in Latin America illustrate how difficult it is for members of the media to do their jobs without fearing for their lives.
In the Colombian city of Valledupar in the department of Cesar, eight journalists covering the restitution process of lands dominated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), conducted by the government, received death threats in May. In a letter, the Group against Land Restitution gave journalists 24 hours to leave the city.
Colombia’s Interior Ministry placed the journalists under government protection.
In the same month, journalists León Valencia, Gonzalo Guillén, and Ariel Ávila opted for exile after the Colombian government discovered an assassination plot against them.
Self-imposed exile also has been a common option among Mexican journalists. Mexico ranks eighth in the world – and first in Latin America – in these cases, with three journalists forced into exile between June 2012 and May 2013, according to a ranking released last month by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Mexican Lydia Cacho, an investigative journalist and activist, left Mexico to Colombia in August 2012 after receiving death threats. Verónica Basurto Gamero, another Mexican journalist, moved to Europe in March after receiving death threats. Jorge Carrasco, a journalist with news magazine Proceso left Mexico temporarily after receiving threats for his investigation into the murder of his colleague, Regina Martínez, who was found dead in her home in April 2012.
“I will never return to investigative reporting because of the lack of protection on the part of the Mexican government, which should ensure the safety of my family and my freedom of expression,” Basurto Gamero said in a video released by RSF. “Unfortunately, many journalists live in fear while working.”
Hervieu added that in many countries, including Mexico and Brazil, threats also come from the authorities when law enforcement agents don’t arrest suspects in cases of violence against journalists.
“Impunity also nourishes the threats,” he said.
Paolillo agrees with Hervieu.
“When they see that nothing happens to the murderers of their colleagues, journalists decide, in many cases, to stop informing and investigating,” he said. “The result is a disaster for freedom of information.”
Hemorrhagic dengue, a fever carried by mosquitos, has accounted for three deaths this year. This was confirmed by Maria Ethel Trejos, director of Costa Rica Public Health’s vigilance section.
There have been hundred of cases of a milder version of the fever occupying beds in hopitals, especially in coastal areas where standing rainwater during the rainy season offers and inviting incubator for the eggs of the female insect, that is the one that does the biting.
The first patient to die was a Chomes woman, 50, from Puntarenas province, who also suffered from diabetes, hypertension and high levels of blood cholesterol and triglycerides. The second victim was an Orotina man, also 50, who also was debilitated by disease.
The third to die from the fever was a Garabito canton Nicaraguan between the ages of 25 to 30. He did not suffer from a health problem but entered the hospital late, well along in the disease.
There have been at least 20 cases of serious dengue, said Trejos, not all hemorrhagic. There are several types of the disease carried by the Aedes agypti insect.
Dengue Prevention US Center for Disease Control – The best way to reduce mosquitoes is to eliminate the places where the mosquito lays her eggs, like artificial containers that hold water in and around the home. Outdoors, clean water containers like pet and animal watering containers, flower planter dishes or cover water storage barrels. Look for standing water indoors such as in vases with fresh flowers and clean at least once a week.
Only in a Spanish-speaking country — or maybe a French one — would one find oneself looking over his or her shoulder when writing. But, believe it or not, this otherwise democratic country (Costa Rica) makes it illegal to write bad Spanish. The law was introduced in the late 1970s even as a Nicaraguan dictator was threatening to invade this country.
Those lawmakers were sure they knew what was right and proper. They would be gratified to know that more than 40 years later, their Commission the Protection of Spanish (Law 7623) is alive and well and on error patrol.
The Defense of the Costa Rican Spanish Language and Indigenous Tongues was finally passed in 1996. It states that each canton should have a commission appointed to watch for misspelling and other awful ills. The Commission for Alajuela is made up of philologists Marcos Bravo and Flora Jara; and writer Ani Brenes.
They aren’t youngsters admonishing their elders, either — Bravo is 59, Jara is 78 and Brenes is 62, and they are stern, if unpaid. They meet every two weeks where they lay out their findings. First comes a verbal admonition then a written document. If the offender ignores the warnings, they can only nag–like so many Costa Rican laws, the deputies neglected to include a penalty.
English speakers may scoff, how dangerous is a skidding written word? Well, they started with the word “alajuela,” boldly made of free-standing, three dimensional waist-high plastic letters in Costa Rica’s second city near Juan Santamaria Park.
Oh the horror! It lacks a capital “A” as any literate person can tell and don’t try to tell them it was done that way for artistic license. Wrong is wrong but they thankfully don’t have the power to burn anyone at the stake for it.
Want more terrors? Just steps away, signals La Nacion, is Carlos Luis Fallas Boulevard. Except that it is on the sign in French, “boulevard.” Naughty, naughty! The word in Spanish is “bulevar.” You see, Costa Ricans prefer to cut to the chase and forget a terminal consonant. Even if it is written, they still neglect to pronounce it. And Spanish as a language tends to back them up.
This makes Emglish, a huge amorphous blob of a language, extremely difficult for Spanish speakers to learn properly. Add in the rapidly changing idiomatic phrases and slang and you have a real nightmare for the novice.
One commonly mistaken word is “botar,” to throw away. Since Costa Rican style is to make no distinction between the “b” and the “v” sounds, sort of falling into the crack between sounds. In Escazu, there was a vacant lot with an elaborate sign, as well made as any street sign, that said “No vote basura.”
Unfortunately, this translates as “do not vote garbage,” instead of advising not to throw garbage in the lot. This reporter wanted to dig up the sign as a guide for lawmakers one dark night and plant it as a warning at the Legislative Assembly. His wife wouldn’t let him…
To Costa Ricans, language is a strugggle. They learn English so they can “defend themselves” in that language, as if they were entering battle. With English spelling as it is, one can sympathize with them.
The United States topped Group C thanks to a 1-0 win over Costa Rica on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t easy. Using a five-man defense, the Ticos frustrated the Americans all night and turned the match into more of a continued scrum than soccer, but an 82nd minute strike by Brek Shea got the U.S. all three points.
The two teams will face each other in finals on September 6 in Costa Rica
Very little in the first half could be described as “soccer.” Costa Rica forced the U.S. to play long balls over the top, which they cleared without a problem and with the referee letting both teams play, the physicality ticked up the midfield,. That didn’t lend itself to beautiful soccer and the first 45 minutes passed without many chances on either side.
Things opened up a bit in the second half, but not by much. The Ticos stretched themselves a little more and tried to muster some sort of attack as they went in search of the win that would send them to the top of Group C, which opened some space behind them. But just like the Costa Rica struggled to generate chances even when they showed more ambition, the U.S. failed to take advantage of the space afforded to them.
Finally, the U.S. did find space in behind the Costa Rica defense and when Patrick Pemberton collided with his own defender, they had a chance. The ball fell to Chris Wondolowski, who had a shot from 25 yards and while Pemberton saved it, he was outside of the box. The referee blew his whistle and despite the Americans’ appeals for a red card, the Ticos had a defender in the box that the referee must have ruled could have saved Wondolowski’s shot. That would make it no longer a clear goalscoring opportunity and instead just a yellow card, which Pemberton was shown.
It took a set piece for Costa Rica to finally get a chance at goal, and it looked like it would win them the match. Alvaro Saborio got free at the far post on a corner and headed towards the top corner for a sure goal, only Sean Johnson made an amazing diving save to deny him.
The save spurred a U.S. counterattack, with Joe Corona hitting a ball to free Landon Donovan down the right. Donovan got to the ball at a full sprint and with his first touch he sent the ball back to the middle. The ball found Shea right in stride and all alone against the goalkeeper, Shea took one touch to settle before firing home to win it for the U.S.
The Americans took a perfect nine points from their three matches to top the group, which earns them a quarterfinal match-up against El Salvador on Sunday. Costa Rica finished the group in second place with six points, which matches them up against Group B winners Honduras.
In Costa Rica, a quarter of all mail never reaches its destination
In many parts of Latin America, these are not just the directions you might be given by a friendly local, but an actual postal address. For example, “from the Fogoncito restaurant (or Plaza Mayor if you don’t know where the Fogoncito), one block west, to the right”, is the address for the new offices of Convergys, in Pavas.
Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua are among the countries that use landmarks, such as schools, parks, or even fast food restaurants, to locate houses and businesses in bizarre address systems that make mailmen “more like detectives,” said one regional newspaper last month.
A reader asks, why don’t Ticos give you the full address? For example, another typical direction for the Convergys office would be, “from the national stadium, go past the Oscar Arias house, call me when you get to Plaza Mayor”. At the Q we don’t have the answer, if you do, use the comment section below.
Inefficient post can seriously impact a country’s economy, according to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), so countries across the hemisphere are making efforts to modernize.
Ecuador and Colombia last month became the latest Latin American countries to introduce a postal code system. Their aim was to reduce the millions of mail items lost every year and give their nations “an identity at the global level,” says Ecuador’s National Postal Agency’s (ANP) director Maria de los Angeles Morales, who has overseen the $1.2 million project.
Around 1.7 million mail items were lost in Ecuador last year, despite the use of street names and house numbers, and Ms. Morales estimates $75 million worth of gasoline was wasted on failed deliveries.
In Costa Rica meanwhile, a quarter of all mail never reaches its destination. A 2008 study estimated that the lack of systematic addresses and signage costs the country US$720 million annually.
An envelope once arrived to the capital city of San Jose’s central post office headquarters addressed: “To the man who is sometimes outside the post office.” That letter did apparently reach its intended recipient.
“People know all about the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez but they don’t realize that in many ways Latin Americans are actually living it,” says Pablo Villalva, communications head at Ecuador’s ANP. “We want to change that, make our public services modern and efficient, in line with the rest of the world.”
ANP’s staff are very proud of their postal system overhaul, seeing it as an illustration of Ecuador’s transformative progress under President Rafael Correa’s “Citizen’s Revolution,” both domestically and on the global stage.
“We want to get rid of this image of a ‘banana republic,'” says Mr. Villalva. “Germany has had post codes since 1941 – why are we so far behind? This is going to be very important for the strategic sector of the Ecuadorean economy.”
Comprehensive street naming and house numbering is essential for a country’s socioeconomic infrastructure, according to the UPU. Not only do they improve public services, but they facilitate business and trade, thus impacting national development. Studies have found a positive correlation between a lack of street addresses and income inequalities, and a negative correlation between a lack of street addresses and the income per capita in a country.
Ecuador has been divided into 1,140 postal zones, each containing around 6,000 homes and 30,000 inhabitants. The many private mail companies operating in the country have been involved in the process, and a major publicity campaign has been launched.
Efforts to name streets and introduce postal codes in Costa Rica have so far failed to really catch on, and getting Ecuadoreans to use the new system is now ANP’s greatest challenge, says Morales.
Making post efficient in a country with no such tradition will require a “change in culture,” she said – right down to teaching people “that mailboxes are for putting post in, not trash.”
By Christopher Howard, Live in Costa Rica Blog – I wrote an article similar to this one a while ago. My son is a university student here in Costa Rica and I feel blessed. That is to say my wallet feels blessed. Why? Their affordability.
My son attends a private university, ULACIT, located in San José. I pay a whopping $3,000 a year for his tuition. He works for an American company and attends the university at night.
The University of Costa Rica which is the largest public university in Costa Rica charges its students less than $500 a year.
The bottom line: Retirees and other foreigners living in Costa Rica with University age children and grandchildren can save a lot of money on a college education here. While universities here aren’t as prestigious as those in the United States most degrees are recognized abroad so their graduates can can continue their advanced studies in many countries.
Just look at the cost of a university education in the United States and compare the cost with a quality education here. The top 10 schools there all have an average total cost of more than $55,000 per year. Total cost is defined as tuition, fees and room and board.
1. Sarah Lawrence College
Total Cost: $61,236
Tuition: $45,900
Room & Board: $14,312
Fees: $1,024
2. New York University
Total Cost: $59,837
Tuition: $40,878
Room & Board: $16,133
Fees: $2,826
3. Harvey Mudd College
Total Cost: $58,913
Tuition: $44,159
Room & Board: $14,471
Fees: $283
4. Columbia University
Total Cost: $58,742
Tuition: $45,028
Room & Board: $11,496
Fees: $2,218
5. Wesleyan University
Total Cost: $58,202
Tuition: $45,358
Room & Board: $12,574
Fees: $270
The annual pilgrimage to Cartago or “Romeria” that takes place on August 2 will continue to be green for the third consecutive year.
This year the “Eco Romeria” will be expanded to some 20 kilometres of the route that leads to the Basilica de Los Angeles in the “viejo metropoli” (old metropolis) that is Cartago.
José Zaghlul, Earth University president, said waste collectors will be placed starting many points between Plaza del Sol in Curridabat (east side of San José). Last year the starting point was the La Galera.
“Costa Ricans are conforming. If they have a place to discard their waste they will do it”, according to Zaghlul who added that this year the effort has the support from more sponsors and that the initiative is becoming a tradition.
The goal this year is to collect more than 90% of the solid waste. Last year 87% of solid wast was collected, according to Zaghlul.
More than 2.000 volunteers will be taking part in the environmental challenge.
The writ of amparo (also called recurso de amparo) is a remedy for the protection of constitutional rights in Costa Rica and other countries. In some legal systems, predominantly those of the Spanish-speaking world,the amparo remedy or action is an effective and inexpensive instrument for the protection of individual rights.
Amparo, generally granted by a supreme or constitutional court, serves a dual protective purpose: it protects the citizen and his or her basic guarantees, and protects the constitution itself by ensuring that its principles are not violated by statutes or actions of the state that undermine the basic rights enshrined therein.
In many countries, an amparo action is intended to protect all rights other than physical liberty, which may be protected instead by habeas corpus remedies. Thus, in the same way that habeas corpus guarantees physical freedom, amparo protects other basic rights. It may therefore be invoked by any person who believes that any of his rights, implicitly or explicitly protected by the constitution (or by applicable international treaties), is being violated.
Anyone can file an amparo and for any reason. It can even be scrawled on a napkin. It is then up to the Court to decide to accept the filing and rule on it.
Here is the form for the do-it-yourself.
– – – – – CUT AND PASTE TO YOUR EDITOR AND PRINT (Replace the coloured text with yours – in Spanish – – – – – – – – – –
Recurso de Amparo
Señores: Sala Constitucional
El suscrito, __________________________________________________(nombre, apellidos completos) portador de la cédula de identidad número __________________________si la persona es menor de edad, se hace la siguiente indicación: sin número de cédula por ser menor de edad, interpongo RECURSO DE AMPARO en contra de___________________________________ (nombre de la autoridad recurrida) motivado en los siguientesHECHOS:
CLEARLY DESCRIBE the events that occurred, THE PLACE WHERE IT HAPPENED, IF YOU CAN THE DAY AND RIGHTS AUTHORITY violent. How lodge an appeal?
DERECHO VIOLENTADO:
Considero que con el actuar de la Autoridad recurrida se me han violentado los siguientes derechos: INDICATE THE RIGHT TO BE CONSIDERED violated, IF YOU DO NOT KNOW, YOU MUST WRITE CLEARLY DEVELOPMENTS.
PRUEBAS:
Ofrezco como pruebas las siguientes: LIST THE PROOF, EVIDENCE, IF DOCUMENTS INDICATE THE NUMBER OR DATE ISSUED DOCUMENT
PETITORIA:
Solcito que se declare que_________________________ WRITE WHAT IS REQUIRED TO DECLARE THE SUPREME COURT IN THE JUDGMENT
NOTIFICACIONES:
Las mías las recibiré en el fax (indicar el número) rotuladas a mi nombre o bien, rotuladas a nombre de__________________________________ (indicar a quien se le dirige la notificación).
Las del Recurrido se deberán remitir a_________________________________(señalar lugar para notificar al “demandado”)
San José, (o lugar donde vivo)_____________________________(indicar día, mes y año)
By: Wilberth Villalobos, VozdeGuanacaste – The Municipality of Nicoya has contracted several companies to install drainage in areas of Nosara and Samara.
In Nosara, the company MABE expanded the road and placed 2,500 cubic meters of material, with a total budget of 5.6 million colones ($11,200), according to the Road Management Technical Unit (UTGV).
Meanwhile, in Samara Transportes Falquesa worked on the route from Matapalo to Santo Domingo with a total of 14.5 million colones ($29,000), which included placement of 62.5 meters of pipe and 152 cubic meters of fill material.
In addition, according to Ivan Cubillo, an official with UTGV, the company RAASA is in charge of mechanically patching the Matapalo-Santo Domingo route.
The installation of these drainage systems is essential in rainy season because it allows rainwater to be channeled properly and reduces the risk of flooding in communities.
In this illustration by CRHoy we see PUSC presidential candidate, Dr. Rodolfo Hernandez (he is a real doctor), asking his patient … “let’s see… stick out your tongue and repeat…we want a salary for the candidates…”
By Rob Eshman, JewishJournal.com – I spent Egypt’s second revolution in Costa Rica, in the jungle. It’s amazing what the past of one country can teach you about the present of another.
Our trip didn’t take us to San Jose long enough for us to visit the small but active Jewish community centered there. We landed and headed straight for Manuel Antonio National Park, a large stretch of Eden about three hours northwest of the capital.
It’s not news that of all the countries in Latin America, Costa Rica stands apart. It ranks No. 1 in environmental performance, No. 1 in press freedom, No. 3 in prosperity, No. 2 in democracy and No. 4 in business environment. According to the New Economics Foundation’s 2012 Happy Planet Index, Costa Rica is also No. 1 in happiness. Not just in Latin America — in the world.
When I asked Costa Ricans how this all came about, they all had one answer: It started in 1948 — with a coup.
Yes, just like what’s been taking place in the streets of Cairo. But, no, very different. The country had long periods of peace after it became independent from Spain, but in the mid-1940s, its conservative government was mired in electoral fraud and corruption.
The opposition found a leader in the unlikely figure of José Figueres Ferrer. Son of an elite family, Figueres was an MIT-trained engineer who made his fortune growing coffee. He named his farm La Lucha Sin Fin —Struggle Without End — and turned it into a 1,000-worker socialist paradise. The studious, self-described “farmer-philosopher” stood just over 5 feet tall but carried a big mouth. After speaking out against corruption, he fled for his safety to Mexico.
There, he assembled a 700-strong Caribbean legion and stormed back. His forces defeated communist-led guerillas and the Costa Rican army in the bloodiest conflict in the country’s modern history — 2,000 dead and the farmer became president.
This is where it gets interesting. President Figueres immediately abolished the Costa Rican army. He saw Latin-American militaries as the primary threat to democracy, and he replaced Costa Rica’s with a national police force. The money the country would have spent on armaments, it spent on education and infrastructure, trading, as Figueres put it, an army of soldiers for an army of teachers.
Figueres went even further: He instituted a national literacy campaign, gave women the right to vote, pushed through basic welfare legislation, outlawed the Communist Party, oversaw a new constitution that ensured civil rights for all, established a less corruptible civil service system, nationalized banks and guaranteed universal public education.
Then he did something truly astonishing. After 18 months in office, Figueres resigned. In subsequent years, he would serve two more terms, promoting the Pan-American Highway and strengthening Costa Rica’s middle class. Figueres ignited deep, revolutionary changes while ensuring the peaceful democracy that has taken root in Costa Rica ever since.
Figueres died in 1990 at the age of 83, the George Washington of Costa Rica, all but forgotten elsewhere. I read everything I could on him, which wasn’t much. Scoundrels get all the best books and movies.
“Once there was a very tiny country, surrounded by war and killing, blessed with a good leader,” Newsday eulogized.
Not every country can be Costa Rica, not even Costa Rica. Despite its exceptional achievements, the country’s infrastructure is still underdeveloped, corruption remains a problem, and drug cartels are creeping into some areas.
The people are deeply unhappy with the administration of current Prime Minister Laura Chinchilla, whose approval rating of 26 percent earned her the title of least popular leader in all Latin America.
“Figueres did what he said,” a tour operator told me. “She doesn’t do anything.”
The problem with the Muslim Brotherhood that ruled Egypt until the military-led coup last week is that it did what it said, and it didn’t do anything. It was true to the Brotherhood’s founding mission — to impose its religious vision on the world, and President Mohamed Morsi was incapable of enacting the reforms the country needed.
But make no mistake (and I’m speaking to you, David Brooks), it’s not just an Islamic issue — it’s what happens when fanatic religious ideology takes power. It’s not that Islamists are uniquely unsuited to rule — all fundamentalist minds are.
“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power,” Eric Hoffer wrote in The True Believer. Fanatistan, whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu or commie, is never a vacation destination.
Morsi’s loyalty, as is true of all religious fanatics, was not to each and every citizen, but to his faith. But faith doesn’t need clean water, fresh food or a middle class. People do.
I returned from Costa Rica amid the Mavenocracy’s full-throated cries for President Barack Obama to “do something” in Egypt, along with the stunning insight that he faces no easy choices. But even in the midst of chaos and coup, it should be easy to tell who puts the needs of citizens and country first.
The simple test for Obama and for Egypt is to ask: WWFD — What Would Figueres Do? Opposing religious fanaticism in all its forms — that is today’s Lucha Sin Fin.
Rob Eshman is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. E-mail him at robe@jewishjournal.com. You can follow him on Twitter @foodaism.
Paul Watson is shown in this May 23, 2012 file picture. THE CANADAIN PRESS/AP,Markus Schreiber
Paul Watson is shown in this May 23, 2012 file picture. THE CANADAIN PRESS/AP,Markus Schreiber
Diana Mehta, The Canadian Press – He’s been sailing the world’s oceans for a year to avoid arrest, has been forced to become an observer at one of his most cherished campaigns and hasn’t held his young granddaughter since she was a newborn.
But the Canadian founder of the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd remains as self-assured as ever.
“I intend to weather it out no matter what the consequences are. Whether they apprehend me or not, Sea Shepherd’s campaigns will continue to go on,” Paul Watson tells The Canadian Press in a phone interview from a ship on the Southern Ocean.
The 62-year-old — whose exact location remains a closely guarded secret — maintains he’s being unjustly hunted down by Japan and Costa Rica, who’ve laid charges that form the basis of two Interpol arrest alerts against him.
“If I get sent to Costa Rica … it’s just a conduit to Japan,” says Watson, who has disrupted the Asian country’s whale hunts for years and now believes he’s been made a target.
“I find it completely reprehensible that that’s the way the judicial system has come down.”
Despite his fiery statements, the fact remains that Watson has now been at sea for a whole year. But it’s a decision he says has helped him avoid indefinite incarceration in Japan.
“I’m not really a fugitive. It’s just that if I enter a border point then that will immediately send a message to Japan to have me arrested and then extradited,” he says.
“The oceans are the last free place on the planet.”
Watson believes Sea Shepherd’s campaigns against Japan in the waters around Antarctica have saved more than 5,000 whales since they began.
“We look at ourselves as pirates of compassion in pursuit of pirates of greed,” he says. “If the oceans die, we die, simple as that.”
The past year of Watson’s life reads like the script of a Hollywood film.
The environmentalist known for his clashes with the law was transiting through Germany last May when he was arrested at the behest of the Costa Rican government, which claims he endangered the crew of one of its fishing vessels in Guatemalan waters in 2002.
In July last year, Watson, who was under house arrest after being released on bail, says he received a tip warning he was to be extradited from Germany, not to Costa Rica, but to Japan.
“I decided I know if I go to Japan I’m not going to be released, ever. So I left Germany,” he says.
In August, Interpol issued a “red notice” for Watson at Costa Rica’s request related to his escape from Germany.
That was followed by another in September based on Japanese charges of breaking into and damaging a Japanese whaling ship during two incidents in the Antarctic Ocean in February 2010.
After fleeing Germany, Watson made his way to the Southern Ocean to disrupt the Japanese whale hunt but had to become an observer after receiving a scathing ruling from a U.S. court in February.
“You do what you have to do,” he says when asked if it was hard to hand over control to Sea Shepherd’s Australian branch, which wasn’t covered by the ruling.
The appeal court ruling last December castigated Sea Shepherd for its methods and overturned an earlier decision dismissing a lawsuit by Japanese whalers who wanted a halt to Sea Shepherd’s aggressive tactics.
Now, as his lawyers work to combat the charges against him, Watson spends his days at sea writing a book on his clashes with the Japanese and lending his input to various Sea Shepherd campaigns.
His one regret is being unable to spend time with his daughter and granddaughter.
“I’m getting used to it,” he says of his long haul at sea. “My daughter lives in Seattle and she had my granddaughter last April. The last time I saw her was the day she was born.”
The worries which keep Watson at sea are quite legitimate, says one international law expert.
“He’s not kidding. He goes ashore and he’s in danger,” says Robert Currie, a law professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
“He could very well be arrested in quite a large number of countries and the countries where he couldn’t get arrested are probably countries where he wouldn’t want to go.”
Currie notes, however, that Watson’s situation is the way the international criminal co-operation system is supposed to work.
“No safe haven is how the philosophy is often termed,” he says. “This is a choice he made. He could have fought that out in Germany.”
Watson could have argued his case in a German court, explains Currie, but even if he had succeeded, his win would have only secured his freedom in that country.
“He’s always been an international traveller, you can see him making that calculation,” Currie says of Watson’s decision to flee. “He’s in a very difficult situation.”
There are some, however, who admire Watson’s doggedness.
“It is an eternal consistent set of beliefs and as far as I’m concerned it’s admirable,” says Daniel Pauly, a professor at University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre.
“We need to have people who push the envelope.”
When asked about the effectiveness of Watson’s campaigns, Pauly says Sea Shepherd’s tactics create room for less aggressive conservationists to succeed.
“It makes other people look reasonable and it might be possible for other organizations to close deals that they otherwise might never get,” he says.
Meanwhile, Pauly argues Sea Shepherd’s core mandate of marine conservation is an important one.
“We must give value to the world that surrounds us. A value that is not economic,” he says. “That’s what Paul Watson forces us to do.”
Costa Rica’s version of hydroelectric planning surfaced to public view Saturday when La Nacion revealed that ICE, the electricity monopoly, and the Costa Rican railway system (INCOFER) are at loggerheads over an historic stretch of abandoned track to be covered by ICE’s Reventazon Dam reservoir water in 2016.
The eight kilometre section of track on the bank of the river was built between Limon and Turrialba by railroad pioneer Minor Keith between 1879 and 1881. The track was abandoned when ex-President Jose Maria Figueres decided that railroads were a thing of the past and reduced INCOFER to a shadow.
But railway president Miguel Carabaguiaz is not giving up the line without a fight. “We all understand the importance of the ICE project, but we must also understand the importance of right of way to activate cargo transport in the Caribbean. We have to maintain the route,” he told La Nacion.
The only other alternative is to construct a totally new line that would add two kilometers to the route but would bypass the area to be flooded by the reservoir, explained INCOFER spokesman Elberth Duran. This would require two tunnels and the purchase of dozens of lots from private persons for right of way.
But there’s no stopping the dam, envisioned to go on line the first quarter of 2016 and 44% now built. It will produce 305 megawatts of much needed power at a cost of $1.4 billion.
Carabaguiaz has a modest proposal: Let ICE pick up the tab for the right of way purchases and the tunnels. Neither ICE nor INCOFER know what that price tag would be but La Nacion gives a hint about railroad construction costs today — a kilometer of new track contains 1,600 ties at $100 per unit plus 240 sections of rails at $800 per ton.
Comment: We find it hard to comprehend why INCOFER did not understand that the Reventazon River would not be the same size as now when the reservoir fills. Nor can we fathom why ICE’s vaunted (and expensive) engineers would not realize that they should tell everyone behind the dam what is going to be flooded out.
As the grumpy father says to the kids on a car trip when they ask to stop, “Why didn’t you take care of that before we started?”
The U.S. Commercial Service is organizing a Certified, Multi-industry Trade Mission and Business Development Conference to Costa Rica at the Hotel Real Intercontinental, starting 8:00am today (Tuesday, July 16).
The mission is open to U.S. companies from a cross section of industries with potential for growth in Central America, but focusing on best prospects including construction equipment/road building machinery, medical equipment and devices, and safety/security.
Today, representatives of 22 various U.S. companies will take part in a series of lectures o how to do business in Cental America. On Wednesday, the delegation will participate in business meetings in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua, with the primary aim of promoting the export of goods and services from the U.S. and help small and medium businesses Americans to achieve success in their exports.
In the case of Costa Rica, 12 U.S. companies have business meetings in specific areas such as road construction, medical equipment, safety and security, and devices and instruments for scientific laboratories. Each company will meet with eight Costa Rican entrepreneurs, starting at 9:00 am at the Hotel Real Intercontinental.
The conference and business meetings are organized by the International Trade Administration and Trade of the Americas Conference on Opportunities in Central Business development in San Jose. The mission is designed to provide essential knowledge and strategies for participants to enter and expand their opportunities in Central America.
Since 2009, the International Trade Administration has helped approximately 15,000 U.S. companies and record about 47,000 export successes.
On Facebook and other online social networks, discussion about the upcoming Chippendales visit to Costa Rica kicked up a few notches when local production house RPM TV announced the event last month. The dancers are scheduled to make five appearances at the Convention Center of the Wyndham Hotel – Herradura, near the Real Cariari Mall . Chippendales will be in Costa Rica from August 30th to September 1st. With tickets starting at 27,000 colones (about $55), many Ticas are wondering whether they can score a quick glimpse at the dancers if they visit our beaches.
