Archive for November 9th, 2009
Monday, November 9th, 2009
A security guard who works for a company being investigated in connection with a paparazzi shooting outside the Costa Rican wedding of Tom Brady [stats] and supermodel Gisele Bundchen has been detained by police, officials say.
The Colombian security agent, Alexander Rivas Barahona, was taken into custody on Thursday, Agence France Presse reported. Police were seen raiding the Avahuer security company in Costa Rica, the news agency said.
AFP photographer Yuri Cortez and freelancer Rolando Aviles were covering the Patriot QB’s April 4 wedding reception outside Bundchen’s vacation home when bodyguards approached and demanded their cameras, according to a lawsuit AFP filed in New York.
The photographers refused and as they drove off in an SUV “one of the Brady/Bundchen bodyguards opened fire with pistols and shot at Cortez and Aviles” shattering a window of the SUV, the lawsuit alleges. The glamazon princess is expecting the couple’s first child in December.
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
Wal-Mart announced that it will be hiring an additional 500 people and opening 11 more stores in 2010 in Costa Rica, half of the company’s investment in the region.
The announcement comes amid economic uncertainty where some companies have decided to decrease staff, some even closing entirely.
Marcos Samaha, president of Wal-Mart in Costa Rica, confirmed the expansion and hiring, saying that the company is committed to service and low prices and the expansion demonstrates a sign of confidence in the country’s investment climate.
The announcement was made at the inauguration of the company’s new offices in Forum 2 in Santa Ana and in the presence of Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias.
Samaha said that the majority of the new stores will be the Palí, the company’s chain of warehouse style supermarket and low prices. Wal-Mart in Costa Rica also operates the Maxi Bodega, Más X Menos and Hipermás stores.
Last February, Aquileo Sánchez, director of communications for Wal-Mart, announced that the company would be opening 22 new stores in the region (Central America) and hiring an additional 1.000 people. Yesterday’s announcement confirms that Costa Rica will receive half of the company’s investment in the region.
Samaha said that the company will invest us$29 million dollars in Costa Rica to open 7 Palí, 3 Más X Menos and 1 Maxibodega stores. No details were give as to where the stores will be located.
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
One Person’s Opinion!!!
The presidential crisis in Honduras has come to an end in a way that appears to restore sound democratic practice to that Central American nation.
In June, the Honduran military grabbed the president, Manuel Zelaya, bundled him onto a plane and sent him off to Costa Rica. In his place, it installed the speaker of the parliament, Roberto Micheletti.
The coup, a bad old ghost from the Latin American past, was justified to head off an attempt by Mr. Zelaya to modify the constitution by fair or foul means to get himself a second term as president, although the constitutional limit was set at one term.
The rest of Latin America, and the United States to a degree, hit the roof, refusing to accept the Micheletti regime. Mr. Zelaya eventually sneaked back into Honduras and took up residence in the Brazilian Embassy while Latin American, U.S., and other negotiators tried to work out an agreement that would legitimize the new government.
The U.S. role in the maneuvering was complicated by the fact that the Micheletti group hired lobbyists who were active in Washington. Another angle for the United States was the fact that the Pentagon had a point of view that was influenced by, first, a previous close relationship with the Honduran military and, second, by U.S. use of a base in Honduras. The United States considered the base important in spite of the recent agreement with neighboring Colombia for the use of seven bases there by American forces.
Last week Mr. Micheletti agreed to let Mr. Zelaya reassume office until presidential elections, scheduled for Nov. 29. Both agreed that neither would be a candidate. The agreement remains to be put into effect, pending the Honduran legislature’s approval.
The elections will still have to take place, free of military interference, but it appears that the matter has come to a satisfactory close. Honduras will have a democratically elected president and its neighbors won’t have to live with the bad precedent of a successful military coup, hearkening back to bad old days in that part of the world.
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
Although the country needs 1.8 million doses of the AH1N1 vaccine, the ministra de Salud, María Luisa Ávila, said Costa Rica will be receiving only 900.000 doses.
Ávila said that she was informed by the Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS), which is making purchases of the vaccine en masse for Latin countries, that Costa Rica’s allotment will be short a million doses.
The ministra said that in the Americas, excluding the US and Canada, there will be a first shipment of 35 million doses, 15 million of which will be distributed in December and the rest in February 2010.
The reduction also affects the arrival of the vaccine in Costa Rica. Ávila said that Costa Rica was to have received its first shipment in December, but now cannot say exactly when.
The change will also mean a change in priority for those to receive the vaccine.
In Costa Rica a total of 1.596 cases of AH1N1 have been confirmed, resulting in 38 deaths.
Currently between three and five new cases a week are reported.
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
Based on a rise in organized criminal activity by foreigners and entry of “undesirables”, the Dirección General de Migración y Extanjería (Costa Rican immigration service) has been busy to install a new electronic or digital system of entry to Costa Rica.
The new system that recently went into place at the Juan Santamaría (San José) international airport uses a digital system to detect undesirables attempting to enter the country and a digital imprint in the passport, replacing the traditional rubber stamp.
The new system will be able to tell the immigration officer on the front line if the person is barred from entering the country and if he or she is wanted on an international warrant.
The system attempt those intent on evading entry controls and those individuals using fraudulent entry stamps in their passport to bypass immigration checks.
The director of Migración, Mario Zamora, said that the digital signature in the passport avoid the problems of the past.
The imprint includes the date and time of entry, as well as a digital code that used by immigration officials to detect falsification. In the past a rubber stamp and the official’s initials were the only details entered in the passport.
Immigration officials say that there are between 250.000 and 300.000 foreigners with “irregular status”.
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
The reign of terror by the group of Jamaicans that resulted in a shoot out with police in Escazú last week, killing one Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) agent, began in 2006.
The OIJ has identidied two of the group that has been responsible for killings in Costa Rica, including the murder of Nehru Trace Haughton, in April 2007, who was gunned down in a blaze of gunfire while rising in a taxi near the La Gallito in Goicoechea.
Lionel Perkins is now believed to be the leader of the group according to the OIJ who was the victim of a kidnapping of another Jamaican in November 2006, one Mc Gordon Kirkpatrick, who was killed in a shootout with the oIJ.
The group ran a betting house in San Antonio de Escazú. The OIJ have been able to piece the pieces together with the detainment of two of the gang members, identified as Campbell and Salmon, who are believed to be under the command of Perkins.
Perkins is currently in preventive detention for a year accused of the murder of Milena Madriz Muñoz on October 29, captured during a shootout with the OIJ last Tuesday in Escazú, which saw the death of OIJ agent, Rándall López Garita.
A 17 year old Jamaican youth was also detained and currently in preventive detention under the order of the Juzgado Penal Juvenil.
OIJ agents uncovered a cache of large calibre weapons following the raid on the Escazú home, including AK-47 assault rifles that penetrated the bullet proof vest worn by agent López, which are not apt for large calibre weapons.
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