Archive for August 1st, 2008
Friday, August 1st, 2008
Today is the big day for pilgrims on their way to Cartago. An estimated 2 million persons will either be on the route involved in worship at the basilica there.
Many pilgrims come to Cartago annually, to visit the national’s principal church, the enormous Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles, on the feast day of the Virgin of the Angels . The church has a statue of the Black Madonna known as La Negrita, who supposedly had great healing powers. The sick come to her statue in hope of a miracle from La Negrita.
According to folklore in Costa Rica, the statue was found by an indigenous girl in 1635. She brought it home several times, but it mysteriously reappeared at its original site. The rock where she found it is now kept in a backroom in the basilica and is revered as a sacred relic and object of inspiration. The rock is supposed to be in the same location it was when La Negrita was found, but it has been moved as the basilica was rebuilt (see below). It is common for pilgrims to touch the rock in reverence.
The central park in Cartago includes the “ruins” of the main church of Cartago (the “parroquia” of Santiago Apóstol), about five block west from the basilica. Despite their beauty, they are not real ruins but an unfinished building, which was badly damaged by the 1910 earthquake and then interrupted. The city’s government is declaring 100 blocks as “the Cartago’s historical center.” This is a way to keep the historical buildings alive in the future, as many cities in the world have done. In the other hand, the Government of the city and JASEC (the company that offers the electrical service in the city) has been working both to light some of the most important historical buildings and to attract inhabitants and tourists to the city at night.
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
Two U.S. marshals were waiting in San José July 17 to escort Chere Lyn Tomayko to the United States, where she would face trial on kidnapping charges.
But Tomayko, a U.S. citizen, never got on her 1 p.m. flight that day. Costa Rica’s highest court had stopped the extradition that morning. A week later, Tomayko, 46, was given refugee status and released from jail.
It was the final chapter in an emotional saga that has engrossed the public and the press, angered the U.S. State Department and weakened an extradition treaty, but that has also possibly bolstered rights here for domestic violence victims. (more…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
The Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio (MEIC) advises consumers to double check prices at the supermarket after it found that a number of supermarkets sell their merchandise at higher prices than that offered on the shelf sticker.
The MEIC sees the practice as thievery, according to the vice-minister of the MEIC, Eduardo Sibaja.
In a study of 20 supermarkets around the country in the first week of June, the MEIC found a number of inconsistencies between the prices on the shelf label that charged at the checkout stand.
The MEIC offered as an example were the Muñoz y Nanne supermakert in San Pedro sold a two kilogram bag of rice for ¢980 colones.
The price of a two kilogram bag of 80/20 rice is set by the government at ¢914 colones. An increase of ¢205 colones per bag will take effect on August 8.
The Perimercado La Gran Vía in downtown San José was found to be displaying a price of ¢763 for a loaf of Breddy white bread, but in effect it was charging customers ¢837 at checkout.
The MEIC has many more examples of the practice which appears common in many supermarkets.
Cynthia Zapata, director of the Apoyo al Consumidor says that supermarkets face a fine from ¢1.5 to ¢6.5 million colones and unfortunately even though the retailer is found in violation more than once, it can only be fined once, with the fined based on the degree of the intention to deceive.
Sibaja added that the rice is the only product that is regulated by government controls.
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
Last Saturday some 20,000 people from around Costa Rica dressed in white t-shirts paraded down a main street in San José to express their opposition to a legislative proposal to make gay marriage legal.
The Legislative Assembly’s commission on human rights is currently studying a proposal that would legalise same-sex unions.
“We are making a call to legislators against the proposal that is currently before the Legislative Assembly, that would consent the union of homosexuals,” march participant Reynaldo Salazar said, according to CostaRicapages.com.
The march was organised by the Costa Rican Evangelical Alliance two weeks after the Bishops’ Conference of Costa Rica made a formal plea to lawmakers, asking them to reject a law that would grant gay civil unions the same legal status as marriage.
In their formal plea the Bishops warned that politicians “cannot and should not legislate against correct reasoning, because if they pass the law, it would loose moral force.
“Laws favourable to homosexual unions are contrary to correct reasoning because they confer legal guarantees proper to the institution of marriage to unions between people of the same sex.
“Considering the values in question, the State cannot legalize these unions without failing in its duty to promote and protect an essential institution for the common good, which marriage is.”
Although Costa Rica has a substantial level of gay tourism such as gay-only resorts, the Roman Catholic Church wields considerable influence.
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
Less than 10 percent of English teachers in Costa Rica’s public schools and colleges have a good command of the language, according to the Ministry of Public Education, citing its own study Wednesday.
Only 315 out of 3,193 English teachers from educational institutions across the Central American country were able to show they could give good lessons to their students.
Most teachers showed serious weaknesses in one or several of the areas of reading, comprehension, speaking and writing, said the study, carried out with the Fundacion Costa Rica – United States, which promotes English here.
The problems were worse in more developed tourist areas, where there is a growing demand for English-speaking staff, the study showed.
Several recent polls among Costa Rican businesses show that the country’s labor market suffers from a lack of good English speakers.
The deputy education minister, Alejandrina Mata, told reporters that the ministry was working with universities to increase the number of improvement classes for teachers.
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