In March 1963, President John F. Kennedy received a very, very warm welcome in San Jose, Costa Rica In his speech, President Kennedy said that: “I want to express again our thanks to you, we could not feel more at home a thousand miles from the United States than here in Costa Rica.” It would appear that it was a great day – “un gran dia” for both John F. Kennedy and the Costa Rican people when he visited San Jose in 1963… The Ticos were shouting “Viva Kennedy!”
Rodrigo Kenton has no answers for Costa Rica’s slide; Costa Rica lost to Mexico by 3-0 at home and is now in fourth place.
After five Hexagonal games, Costa Rica looked well on their way to South Africa. Atop the Hexagonal, the rest of the field was in the rear-view mirror as the Ticos threatened to pull away.
But two games later, Costa Rica is the team on the outside looking in. Mexico beat Costa Rica 3-0 in Estadio Saprissa on Saturday and Costa Rica slid from first to fourth in a matter of 90 minutes.
“In these last two games, we’ve looked very bad,” Kenton said.
Costa Rica’s loss to Mexico was preceded by a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Honduras on Aug. 12. Costa Rica’s 12 points were good enough for first place entering Saturday but now the figure is the same as Mexico, but goal differential dropped los Ticos behind El Tri.
Mexico’s win complicated matters for Costa Rica. Los Ticos, who had been perfect at home, must now pull out results on the road. Costa Rica plays at El Salvador on Wednesday and closes out the Hexagonal round at the United States. Costa Rica’s final home game will be against Trinidad on Oct. 10.
However, the last two games could be very difficult of Costa Rica does not right the wrongs soon.
“Behind closed doors, we’re trying to figure out what happened,” Kenton said. “We’re going to keep discussing this until we figure out what is going on. This definitely cannot continue happening this way.”
Costa Rica likely will finish no worse than fourth place, but the fourth place side in CONCACAF does not go through directly. Such a finish would mean a date with a CONMEBOL team for a spot in the World Cup.
For their part, the Ticos are taking this setback seriously.
“Costa Rica has never looked like this, the way it’s looked these last two games,” Kenton said. “I hope from this moment on… we’ll start to try and figure out what is going on.”
About 25,000 rare books and newspapers, some dating from the 17th century, could be damaged by moisture in the wake of the rains earlier this weekend that flooded the basement of the Costa Rican National Library, the press reported.
No items suffered water damage, the National Library System said.
Experts, however, told the press that the high moisture levels in the building could harm the rare volumes in the medium term.
The cause of the flooding has not been determined, but officials said the water may have come from a clogged pipe or a nearby public works project.
Some 6,300 Costa Rican Art Museum works stored in the building escaped damage.
This is the first time that the National Library has been affected by flooding, Culture Minister Maria Elena Carballo said, adding that experts were working to determine what caused the water to enter the building and to prevent it from happening again.
The Costa Rican National Library, which opened in 1890, has a collection of nearly 700,000 books, newspapers, magazines and audiovisual materials.
An mild to moderate earthquake estimated at 4.5 magnitude took place at 11:02:46, Saturday on 9.5.09 in Costa Rica.
According to the U.S. National Earthquake Center said the epicenter was about 5 miles east and north of Golfito in the southern end of the Puntarenas Region of Costa Rica.
This is the second earthquake to hit the southern zone. On March 11 of this year, one registered 6.3 on the Richter Scale, with an epicenter near Golfito as this one was.
The quake, which had a duration of about two minutes, was felt in San José and along the Pacific coast. Almost all the seismographs at Universidad Nacional’s Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica (UOVSCR) recorded the temblor.
The ministerio de Salud says Costa Ricans should prepare themselves for the second wave of the AH1N1 influenza virus that is expected to hit Costa Rica by Christmas time.
Ana Morica, viceministra de Salud, said that this holiday season will be different as the second wave of the AH1N1 pandemic will be among the gifts and tamales.
Salud officials say that based on the behaviour of the virus, the second wave will be more aggressive that then first wave.
“We should see the second wave of the virus between the end of December and beginning of January, which we expected to be more severe”, said Dr. Ana Morice.
The viceministra added that the cases of infection is not expected to be centred in the San José metropolitan area, like the first wave, but, rather spread out throughout the country.
The AH1N1 has so far infected 1.115 people in Costa Rica, including Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and has claimed 33 lives.
Costa Ricans are mistrusting of their police and for good reason, as more cases of police officials tied to acts of corruption and crimes, like the case of the 12 Fueza Pública officials detained on Wednesday, come to light.
Many blame the lack of training and education police officers who are responsible for the security and well being of citizens.
The feeling of insecurity was heightened yesterday when a judge allowed the 12 arrested police officers free.
Each of the 12 have been suspended from their jobs pending the conclusion of the investigation against them for accepting payment from criminals to look the other way.
The dozen officers also had “medidas cautelares” (conditions of liberty) placed on them, which includes not being able to leave the country and sign in at the court office regularly.
However, the problem of police corruption does not end there. The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) has its sights on 70 more police officers of the same unit.
OIJ director, Jorge Rojas, said on Wednesday that not all those under investigation were detained so as not to produce total chaos in the Minsiterio Público, choosing to detain, for the time being, only those at the top of the corruption scheme.
Janina del Vecchio, the ministra de Seguridad Pública, assures that an administrative process has been commenced against the 12 that could end with the firing of the police officers and losing their seniority and severance pay.
The ministra also said that an internal investigation is ongoing throughout the country of all police units and commands to detect similar cases.
Del Vecchio said that her ministry has a “zero tolerance” policy against police corruption and would be increasing training and education programs for police officers.
“The daily supervision of commanders is the key to know what each police officials is up”, said the ministra.
With the arrest of the 12 last Wednesday, the total number of police officers arrested this year for corruption is now at 36.
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Rodrigo Kenton has no answers for Costa Rica’s slide; Costa Rica lost to Mexico by 3-0 at home and is now in fourth place.
Costa Ricans are mistrusting of their police and for good reason, as more cases of police officials tied to acts of corruption and crimes, like the case of the 12 Fueza Pública officials detained on Wednesday, come to light.
