Archive for September 22nd, 2009
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
The family and friends of a Chicago man missing in Costa Rica since August 11 are pinning their hopes on the story of a man who says he’s seen him.
It’s understandable, says David Gimelfarb’s friend Christine Shaw. Understandable how people might think a Costa Rican farmer who says he’s seen David twice might be mistaken – or making the story up.
After all, Shaw says, David Gimelfarb has been missing for 40 days now.
“But you just can’t give up hope. This is the first kind of real sighting of David or any kind of information that we’ve gotten.”
Shaw says the Costa Rican farmer identified Gimelfarb as short.
“He was right on about that. And also he said David wasn’t wearing his glasses, which, for many people that know David, he doesn’t wear his glasses very often. So it was pretty convincing.”
Shaw says the farmer says Gimelfarb ran away from him.
“The logical explanation for this, which is physiologically possible, is that he has had some sort of head trauma or his body chemistry is not operating properly due to lack of nutrition or he has gotten some kind of infection.”
Shaw says she and Gimelfarb’s parents are hoping someone will help supply a dog team that can follow the trail.
Shaw says she has hope. And she says she knows many people will believe it’s false hope.
But, she says, she just can’t give up.
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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
The Caja-Fischel trial may come to a close today, Monday, as defence lawyers will end their summations and give the last word to the Ficales (prosecutors).
The rules of the court could also allow Walter Reiche and Randall Vargas, two of the eight accused and the only to give testimony in the trial, to address the three judges before they retire to consider the case and hand down a decision.
The Caja-Fischel case also involves Costa Rica’s former president, Rafael Angel Calderón, who is also the current presidential candidate for the PUSC party in the 2010 elections, accused of embezzlement and fruad.
The trial has been running since last year and had expected to have ended by now.
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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Ten Costa Rican police officers have been arrested for aiding Colombian drug traffickers, authorities said.
Costa Rica’s Drug Control Police (PCD) have also arrested three Colombian nationals who were allegedly involved in the crime along the Pacific coast.
Former head of anti-drug programme in central Pacific region is among the detainees.
The officials ensured that the drugs reach a warehouse in Central Valley, warned traffickers of anti-drug operations and tipped them off about the areas under surveillance, the PCD said.
Police have made three seizures, totalling more than 2.5 tonnes of cocaine, since July, officials said, adding that these drugs were linked to the suspects in this case.
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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Thousands of residents of San José may have to start rationing water come 2015 according to a report by the Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA) which since 2008 has been been attempting to contract an expert to determine locations where to collect water.
The Spanish daily, La Nación, reports that the greater metropolitan area will be hardest affected by a water shortage that is mainly due to numerous appeals that have delayed necessary projects to guarantee the supply of drinking water.
The delays in awarding the contract for the study, which is required before any construction of infrastructure can begin, is jeopardizing the AyA’s ability to deliver fresh water.
Ricardo Sancho, president of the AyA, is hopeful that the utility can award the study contract in the coming weeks.
However, the clock is running out. The study is expected to take about 20 months to complet, and only then a master plan for the supply and distribution of water in San José can then be put into place.
According to Sancho, is the contract is awarded next month (October), the earliest the report could be available would be in June 2011, then time is required to build the aqueducts. Sancho said that if there are no more appeals, crossing his fingers, fresh water for San José will continue to flow.
The AyA chief explained that the Orosi aqueduct that is currently supplying much of the water to San José will not be able to keep pace with the demand that is expected by 2015.
Orosi went online some 22 years ago and currently provides 2.000 litres of fresh water per second, depending on the season, of which some 1.800 litres per second make it to San José, the rest used up by the residents of Cartago.
The current aqueduct that feeds the metropolitan area has a capacity of 1.1 million residents. The AyA projects the growth to be by 400.000 by 2015.
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