Archive for April 8th, 2009
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
At stroke of midnight tonight bars will have to call it quits to service alcohol as the “dry” law kicks in for Semana Santa, which suspends completely the sale of all alcohol products in the country for 49 hours.
All bars, restaurants, casinos and anywhere alcohol is served, must shut down their sales and lock up their liquor cabinets and beer coolers as the “ley seca” kicks in.
Supermarkets have to close off their beer and liquor sections or remove the products from their shelves completely, liquors generally close entirely for the 48 hours.
The dry law starts at 0 hour on Thursay and end at midnight Friday.
The local municipalities are responsible to place “sellos” (seals) on liquor cabinets, beer coolers and doors of establishments that dispense alcohol. Janina del Vecchio, ministra de Seguridad, said that 10.652 police officials of the Fuerza Pública will ensure that the dry law is respected and will enforce regulations where municipalities fail to do so.
The sanction for violating the “ley seca” is possible jail time and loss of a liquor and beer license.
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
The sudden death of thousands of fishes in Playa Lagarto, northwest of Costa Rica, a national tourist zone, is the object of investigations by the National Fishing and Aquaculture.
Luis Dobles, its executive president, told the press that by now, the causes of the phenomenon cannot be confirmed, though it was seen by fishermen and other people last Sunday.
Close to the shore, there were a lot of poisoned fishes and witnesses told reporters there had been an explosion in front of Playa Lagarto.
For others, the cause was a spill of a chemical substance by ships, and others attribute the facts to so-called “red tide”, which is the proliferation of algae with contaminant effects.
A biologist, and expert in conservation of the flora and fauna, Gino Biamonte, told local newspaper La Prensa Libre that the “red tide” is normal in this time of the year, and also a cause of the high temperatures in the last days.
Close to the place of the accident there is a community of 1,500 inhabitants, dedicated to fishing.
Specialists advised not to eat fish coming from Playa Lagarto and adjacent places, and tourists not to take their baths on the zone.
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
The Costa Rican government will collect a tax this year from 388 companies that are polluting rivers around the country with wastewater and the funds will go to improving the water treatment system, the local press reported Tuesday.
The Environment Ministry intends to penalize those firms, homes or government institutions that dump sewage, soaps or other pollutants such as agricultural chemicals, solvents and untreated human waste into rivers.
The tax will vary according to the level of pollution, and it will be different for companies and homes, according to the daily La Nacion.
The Costa Rican government hopes to collect some $8 million by the end of the year by assessing the tax, funds that will be used to build sanitary sewage systems and to treat wastewater from firms and individual homes.
Ministry official Jose Miguel Zeledon said that the effort will benefit the municipalities that do not have an adequate system for disposing of liquid waste.
About 60 percent of the money collected will go toward improving the water system, 20 percent toward monitoring the points at which pollutants are being dumped, 15 percent toward promoting environment-friendly production systems and the remaining 5 percent toward environmental education.
Official figures indicate that in Costa Rica only 3 percent of the wastewater receives treatment to make it safe to dump into the environment. EFE
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Costa Rica is a small country, but it has big economy potentials that place it on the number eleven position of the largest economies of Latin America. Tourism, Agriculture and the technological services have placed Costa Rica in the top positions. Over the past ten years, poverty has been reduced. During the 90’s, poverty levels were between 21% and 22%, while nowadays the index has dropped down to 16.7%, and the economic growth has gone from 0% to approximately 7%, registered in the past few years. (more…)
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