Archive for July 4th, 2008
Friday, July 4th, 2008
“we are the National Army. You are free” were the sweetest words that could be heard by Ingrid Betancourt and 14 hostages rescued by the Colombian army from the FARC. In the photo Betancourt is seen hugging Colombian military general, Mario Montoya, after her arrival at the Bogotá military airport.
The FARC was established in the 1960s as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. The FARC originated as a guerrilla movement. The group later became involved with the cocaine trade during the 1980s for the purposes of fundraising, which caused an official separation from the Communist Party and the formation of a political structure it calls the Clandestine Colombian Communist Party.
According to the Colombian government, FARC has an estimated 6,000-8,000 members in 2008, down from 16,000 in 2001, making it the largest as well as the oldest insurgent group in the Americas. Other available estimates are higher, including up to 18,000 guerrillas. (more…)
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Friday, July 4th, 2008
Tears for a clown. Bozo is no more.
Larry Harmon, who entertained children for more than a half-century as Bozo the Clown, died at his Los Angeles home yesterday at age 83 from congestive heart failure, his publicist said yesterday.
“Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the child-like ways in all of us,” Harmon had said in a 1996 Associated Press interview.
Susan Harmon, his wife of 29 years, said Harmon was the perfect Bozo.
“He was the most optimistic man I ever met. He always saw a bright side; he always had something good to say about everybody . . . He was the love of my life,” she said.
He wasn’t the original Bozo but had portrayed the clown in countless appearances and licensed the character to others, including dozens of TV stations around the country.
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Friday, July 4th, 2008
After more than a decade of sensational buzz, Starbucks is struggling nationwide as it faces slowing sales growth and increased competition. The U.S.-based coffee chain has announced plans to close 600 stores in the United States in the next year due to the weak U.S. economy.
The Seattle, Washington-based coffee seller announced the move Tuesday during a conference call with reporters. The company says about 12,000 employees, or 7 percent of its global workforce, will lose their jobs because of the closures. Starbucks uses a substantial amount of Costa Rican coffee and also pays top dollar for the product.
Starbucks’ Chief Financial Officer Peter Bocian said many of the stores being closed were located near other Starbucks stores. Because of the company’s aggressive expansion practice, it is not uncommon in the United States to see two of the shops within blocks of or even across the street from each other.
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Friday, July 4th, 2008
The Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC) - national statistics and census board - said that the accumulated inflation for the last 12 months was 12.82%.
The month with the highest inflation was last month, June, at 1.4%, placing the inflation for the first six months of the year at 6.55%, which is pretty close to the predictions of the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) - Central Bank - of between 7% and 9% for the entire year.
Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez, president of the Central Bank said that the high inflation rate is mainly due to the rising cost of crude oil and food, which could not have been foreseen.
The Central Bank is expected to revise the economic outlook for the country during this month. (more…)
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