Archive for April 22nd, 2008
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Parkour will be performed in San Jose, Costa Rica this weekend.
The Municipality of San Jose is at it again, with another strong effort to bring arts into the capital city of San Jose. This weekend on Saturday and Sunday a series of “urban arts” performances will take place from 10am to 7pm in the Plaza de las Garantías, on the south side of the Social Security building. Performances will be held by rappers, acrobatic skaters, bikers, jugglers and more.
A special break dance competition will also be held to decide which dancers will represent Costa Rica in this year’s Central American Break Dance Competition. Dancers will be judged on their style and creativity as they twist and lurch their bodies to the beat.
Another feature of the event will be performances by “parkour” artists. Parkour originates in Europe and involves jumping, climbing and flipping over typical city obstacles such as balconies, walls, stairs and railings, in an impressive show of acrobatics and gymnastics ability.
For the more musically inclined, performances by national electronic artists and DJs will be held, as well as a freestyle rap battles between some of the city’s most popular rappers.
Also present at the festival will be a plastic art exhibit, a painting workshop and information stands representing some of the local universities.
The Festival comes just after the closing of the 9-day International Arts Festival in San Jose that brought thousands of Ticos and visitors alike to La Sabana park as well as several other venues in Alajuela, downtown San Jose and Puntarenas. The festival featured arts from China, and included acts, groups and solo artists from 20 countries including Retouramont from France, and Costa Rica’s own Mal Pais, an alternative group with revolutionary leanings.
Here is the schedule of events:
Saturday
Bicycle and skate acrobatics: 2pm-3pm
“Parkour” Urban Acrobatics: 3pm-4pm
Rap Battle of the MCs: 4pm-5pm
Break Dance Competition: 5:15pm-7pm
Sunday
Circus Acts (juggling, stilt walkers, unicycles, etc.) 2pm-3pm
Experimental Electronic Performance by Digital 80: 4:30pm-5:45pm
PRODA Fest, performances by 8 National DJs: 5pm-8pm
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Saturday and Sunday more than 50.000 people took part in the Festival Imperial held in La Guacima, Alajuela, making the festival a total success.
On hand at the festival were also officials of the Policía de Tránsito who kept an eye on drivers to and from the event.
According to the Policía de Tránsito director, Germán Martín, 250 traffic tickets were issued over the weekend, 23 of which for over the legal limit and 11 vehicles were confiscated at the hands of drunk drivers.
In addition to the drinking and driving problems, Martín added that a number of tickets were issued to drivers of vehicles that did not have the annual inspection certificate known as Riteve, driving with bad or no lights and driving without a license.
Martín said that the majority of the drunk drivers were pulled over near the Panasonic plant in San Antonio de Belén and on the Alajuela-San José section of the autopista General Cañas.
On the positive side, Martín commented that the numbers of tickets and drunk drivers were surprisingly low given the large number of vehicles that visited the autdromo La Guacima between Saturday and Sunday.
“People for once paid attention, using designated drivers, travelling by bus or taxi”, said Marín.
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
In Costa Rica, the Government of President Oscar Arias Sanchez is moving quickly to stop Russian casino group Storm International BV from setting up casinos in the nation.
In an interview with the Spanish language daily Al Día, the country’s Vice-President, Laura Chinchilla, stated that Storm cannot be stopped under current regulations but that the administration would pass revise gambling legislation by July in order to stop the Russian operator.
Storm’s move to the Central American nation follows the passage of legislation under former Russian President Vladimir Putin stopping casinos operating in major urban areas such as Moscow. It courted controversy when it announced its move to Costa Rica while refusing to divulge the names of its Costa Rican partners. Rumours abound that the group is planning to move its casino operation to Escazu near the capital, San Jose, but the town’s mayor, Marco Antonio Segura Seco, stated that he had not yet received any such requests.
Chinchilla stated that the type of business proposed by the Russians is not welcome in Costa Rica and that current casinos operate only because of a vacuum in current laws. Casinos are required to be part of a hotel operation and current venues would be allowed to continue operations should any new regulations be passed to avoid the Government having to pay compensation.
She said that Costa Ricans don’t want to see their country overrun by casinos and that the revised regulations would strictly enforce the percentage of hotel floor space dedicated to casino activities along with more firm operating guidelines.
Chinchilla said that Storm wants to relocate to Costa Rica because the nation is viewed as careless when it comes to regulations. She stated that the Government would do everything in its power to avoid sending a ‘come to Costa Rica because there is no regulation’ message.
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and the Dominican Republic were awarded the financial infrastructure “Project of the Year” prizes at the 4th Yearly Latin American Leadership Forum, held in Miami. The San Jose-Caldera Highway was chosen as the project with the best outlook for the future. Panama earned the “Long-Term Profit” and the “Strategic Project of the Year” awards, while the Dominican Republic earned the “Values and Jobs” one for a bio-diesel refinery. Finally, Mexico won the award corresponding to “Engineering”.
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Tourism in Costa Rica is going through a few growing pains. The tourism industry is the largest contributor to GDP and brings millions of dollars of revenue into the country each year.
The rapid growth in tourism is changing the landscape of areas such as the Pacific coast of Guanacaste, and sadly, the expectation of huge corporate profits has caused the large hotel chains and other businesses to turn a blind eye to the natural environment.
The companies bring revenue to small beachfront communities and the local governments are too ineffective and too primitive to resist the corporate giveaways.
The hotels and condominium owners, especially the big ones, are having to build their own infrastructure such as roads, just so their clients can have access to their facilities.
In the town of Playa del Coco, a half hour from Liberia airport in Guanacaste, the ‘Pacifico’ chain paved a two-mile stretch of road from the downtown to their beachfront facility. This project also has a huge residual benefit since a large subdivision of condominiums; their owners, tenants and the localworkmen use the newly paved road every day.
However, the abundant development in this area is not being controlled by the municipality and the locals, but by the developers, whose main purpose is to exploit an area and to produce profits.
We’ve seen the Caribbean islands deal with unplanned tourism, and local people have watched hopelessly as most of the profits left the islands, with their environments irreparably changed forever. The same thing is happening in Costa Rica.
Basically, you have a lot of local people living in shanty-type houses. Some are situated next to the tourism projects.
These people have lived in Costa Rica for generations, but they have now been marginalized. Tourism development squeezes the local people out, and they eventually have to pay the higher prices because of the tourists.
They are promised jobs in the tourism industry, and it’s true that many of them do benefit, but the people of the country are being taken advantage of.
As you walk the streets of “El Coco” and surroundings you see the contradictions and the shortcomings.
You see million dollar condos and hotels, some with a panoramic view of the ocean, complete with 24 hour security, elaborate gardens, fenced perimeters, swimming pools, casinos, fancy restaurants and much more.
However, in center town and along the beach, there is garbage everywhere, the storefronts are shabby and tacky, the sidewalks are poorly planned and inconsistently paved, and the shoulders of the road become a sea of mud in the rainy season. Yet the local people seem oblivious to the optics.
One thing that impressed us was the high quality of Costa Rican food: fresh food without preservatives, MSG, and artificial sweeteners like aspartame. The meat and fish are fresh each day, fruit and vegetables are locally grown and overall the food tastes much better than in Canada. Basically you can eat nutritious food for 40% less than any equivalent you could buy in Canada.
But things are changing fast in Costa Rica, and the natural environment is already under siege from the big hotel chains, which are showing little consideration for the future. Government health officials closed down hotels in Tamarindo and Playa del Coco after it was discovered that they were knowingly dumping untreated sewage directly into the ocean. The English-language newspaper, the Tico Times, ran several editorials deploring the many violations of the public health laws.
The Occidental Hotel was one of the hotels involved near Playa del Coco, and in late January the hotel was closed and over 400 guests had to be transferred to other hotels while health officials conducted their tests.
The Pacific coast of Costa Rica is an attractive area of the country and has become a popular tourist destination, but the large hotels and condos are shooting themselves in the foot if they think they can ignore health regulations and put tourists and the local people at risk.
More collaborate planning is needed between the locals and the incoming tourism businesses in order to find a favourablebalance in environmental outcomes.
Otherwise, the tourist revenue will seek out safer destinations.
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Increasing the supply of drinking water and improving sewage treatment at beaches demands a $500-million investment in the coming years. Half of the resources do not yet have an identifiable source, said the head of the Costa Rican Water and Sewage Institution Ricardo Sancho. He added that a large part of the resources now available come from the developers of tourist projects, but that there are still $250 million yet to be found.
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