Archive for September 22nd, 2008
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
During President Oscar Arias’ recent visit to Spain, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero offered Costa Rica $35 million to be invested in the development of water treatment projects.
The donation made by the government of Spain places Costa Rica as the first country to benefit from the 1.5 billion Euros fund created by the European country for water related projects.
Government officials have already determined which coastal areas will receive funding for the proper treatment of its waters. The Central Pacific coastal town of Puntarenas will receive the largest cut at $18 million for the development of a water plant which will extract contaminating substances from used water before it is discharged into the sea.
The project will benefit Puntarenas’ 120,000 residents as only 30% of the current population counts with appropriate water treatment plants. Puntarenas has evolved from being one of the country’s most contaminated beaches to one of the cleanest beaches in just over a year.
The Costa Rican government expects Puntarenas to become a pioneer in water treatment by building a large water treatment plant as well as a modern sewer system. Costa Rican authorities must present Spain a detailed plan of how the funds will be invested.
The remaining funds will be distributed among other remote areas within Costa Rica which present the characteristic of having a tourism attraction potential but still needs potable water.
Seven million dollars will be invested in the province of Limon in Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast while Golfito in the South Pacific Coast and San Carlos in the Northern plains will receive $5 million each.
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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
Its Cannes in a much smaller and humbler proportion, the Icaro Film Festival gathers documentaries, short films and reports from all Central America and presents them to the Costa Rican people.
For the 2008 Costa Rican Icaro Film Festival, the organizers will give movie buffs the opportunity to see all 17 nominated films as well as the winners of each category from the Central American Icaro Video and Film Festival held in Guatemala last year. Film categories range from reports, to documentaries and short films.
During the festival’s closure, Costa Rican filmmakers will present their new proposals to the judges for an opportunity to represent Costa Rica in the next Central American festival this coming November in Guatemala.
Issues such as cultural diversity, human rights and environmental threats are the main subject of the films which participate in the Icaro Film Festival. The festival was started by the Guatemalan production company Casa Comal, Arte y Cultura and is the first and only film festival of its type.
The Variedades Movie Theatre in downtown San Jose will be presenting last year’s films as well as this year’s Costa Rican artists’ proposals. Films by the Costa Rican artists will be judged by Brazilian producer Fernanda de Capua, Puerto Rican filmmaker Freddy Marrero Alfonso as well as Costa Rican filmmaker Antonio Iglesias.
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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
The director of Costa Rica’s Immigration Department has denounced 24 of the department’s officials for illegally selling entry stamps to citizens.
Immigration officers stationed mainly at the Juan Santamaria International Airport in Alajuela had been making quite a profit over the years by charging from $150 to $300 for stamping Costa Rican’s passports with the official entry and departure seal.
The illegal actions carried out by immigration officers were well known to authorities as well as hundreds of Costa Ricans who traveled to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream.
Immigrants would leave for the U.S with a tourist visa which has a legal validity of 6 months. In order to “fool” U.S Immigration Department, several of these immigrants would mail their passports to Costa Rica in order for an officer to stamp its pages to make it look as if the person had actually traveled to Costa Rica.
In a few other occasions, it has been reported that some of the Costa Rican immigration officers even traveled to the United States to stamp passports abroad.
After the accusation carried out by the Costa Rican Immigration Director, the United States deported over 200 Costa Ricans as well as cancelled visa permits previously given out to Immigration officers thus prohibiting their entrance to the U.S.
Officers are currently being investigated by legal authorities in order to determine how they will be sanctioned.
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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
Colombia’s Chief Prosecutor Mario Iguaran has weighed into the battle to get lCosta Rican lawmakers to get serious about the Law Against Organized crime. Speaking at a conference of presecuting attorneys in Cartagena, Colombia, last week, Iguaran warned that Costa Rica could become another Colombia–or worse.
Costa Rica’s Prosecutor General Francisco Dall’Anese had been frank with the conference in laying out his troubles trying to get the Legislative Assembly to speedily pass an effective law that would not only treat crime but also terrorism. But lawmakers here have taken their time (as is their wont), first separating the organized crime portion from the Comprehensive Crime Bill originally presented, then dawdling through in committee.
But Iguaran was blunt. “We exhort countries like Costa Rica to develop laws and instruments with which they can dismantle transnational narcotics and terrorist organizations,” he said, adding that Costa Ricans, if they do not act promptly, “will have the same horrific and difficult experiences that we Colombians have had.”
In a recent appearance before the Legislative Assembly, chief of Costa Rica’s Police Intelligence and National Security Agency, Roberto Solorzano, used nearly identical words. Dall’Anese himself has also exhorted the lawmakers, complaining that he does not have the legal tools to counteract destabilizing organized crime. Costa Rica’s criminal conspiracy statutes in particular are so weak they are all but nonexistant.
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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
Costa Rica’s state insurance monopoly sought yesterday to calm clients worried about the fate of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which reinsures 22 policies here and narrowly avoided bankruptcy this week.
We want to tell all Costa Ricans, and especially our clients, not to worry, said Guillermo Constenla, president of the National Insurance Institute (INS). The institute is financially and technically sound.
The 22 policies, which range from fire insurance to worker compensation, belong to multinational companies and state entities, including Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela, west of San José. If disaster struck every client at once, the total cost would be $940 million, with AIG bearing most of the burden, Constenla said.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s $85 billion takeover of AIG Tuesday calmed nerves at INS and persuaded the institute to stick with AIG, which reinsures less than 1 percent of INS policies, Constenla said. Still, if AIG’s credit rating drops further, he said, INS will switch the policies to another reinsurance agency.
We have to remain alert, he said. If the rating goes down, we’ll start to worry. Then the red light goes on.
AIG’s troubles come amid a worsening global credit crisis that has led the investment bank Lehman Brothers to file for bankruptcy protection and the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch to seek takeover by Bank of America. Yesterday, as bank lending came to a near halt, the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the world’s other major central banks pumped $180 billion into money markets overseas, according to wire reports.
Top U.S. congressional leaders were meeting late Thursday with the Fed to come up with a possible major U.S. government bailout, possibly similar to that in the late 1980s when the savings-and-loan failure threatened the stock markets.
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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
A team of researchers in Costa Rica’s Alberto Manuel Brenes Reserve have been searching for plants that might help cure the mosquito-transmitted disease known as malaria. While not a common disease in Costa Rica, the country’s tropical rainforests have a wide diversity of plants that sometimes cannot be found elsewhere in the world– and some of these species might contain medicinal properties to help stop malaria and other diseases. An estimated 1-3 million people die each year from malaria.
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Monday, September 22nd, 2008
In a recent visit from India’s ambassador to Costa Rica, Deepak Bhojwani, he mentioned his country’s interest in opening a consulate in Costa Rica.
According to Bhojwani, the only issue that is setting them back at the time is the lack of budget to do so. Bhojwani, who is stationed at India’s embassy in Bogota, mentioned that previously there was very little exchange between Costa Rica and India thus the need of a local embassy was irrelevant.
Due to an increase of imports and exports between both countries, India is now very interested in having an embassy in Costa Rica. Costa Rica has also stated that budgets are being adjusted in order to open a Costa Rican Embassy in India as well.
Bhojwani was recently in Costa Rica to present a book written by pacifist Gandhi called “The Story of My Experiments with Truth”. Costa Rica’s current president and Nobel Prize Winner Oscar Arias, attended the ceremony in which he and Bhojwani met.
Costa Rica exportation of goods to India has increased from $10.5 million USD in 2006 to $28 million USD in 2007. This increase moved India from rank 37 to 30 within Costa Rica’s exportation destinations.
Costa Rica exports mainly computer parts as well as unprocessed wood to India. In addition, imports from India to Costa Rica also increased to $40.2 million USD in which the main goods are medicine and textiles.
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