Archive for January 28th, 2010
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
The new highway will be a boost to tourism.
Finally, after more than three decades of planning, promises, starts, stops and delays, the San José – Caldera highway, is a reality. Travel between the interior of Costa Rica and the Pacific coast is at least 45 minutes faster.
On Wednesday, Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, officially inaugurated the highway at a ceremony in Orotina..
The highway officially was opened to traffic Wednesday night and the toll stations began collecting at midnight.
Even though the highway is now open and the tolls are being charged, parts of the road is still missing signaling, bus stop bays, lighting and rail guards.
What the highway means to many is a savings in time, fuel and wear and tear on their vehicle, however, Ruta 27 is not cheap. A round trip between the Sabana, San José and Puerto Caldera, Puntarenas, costs ¢3.860 in tolls (¢1.930 in each direction), for the 77 kilometer trip that takes less than an hour.
Until yesterday, the only routes to and from the Pacific coast from San José was the Cambronero or the Desmonte (Aguacate), which took almost two hours to make the trip between San José and Puntarenas.
The new San José – Caldera highway now means the trip takes less than an hour and no mountains to climb or descend. Also, the new road offers passing lanes at points where there some gentle climbs, allowing slow moving traffic to the right.
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
It could be a matter of weeks before an Ozarks father can finally bring his daughter back to the United States. Last week, Roy Koyama traveled to Costa Rica to get his daughter Emily back.
In February 2009, Emily’s mother Trina was charged with parental kidnapping and she traveled overseas.
On Tuesday, Roy says a judge in Costa Rica has accepted his trial and is now working on translating and doing the paperwork. Roy says he’ll most likely be going back in about three weeks, once the trial wraps up.
The U.S. State Department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have helped Roy in this legal battle.
He says his ex-finance may be extradited to face her charges. She says she is just trying to protect her child.
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
If Starbucks has slowed coffee buying in Costa Rica and Guatemala, as Reuters reported, then maybe it’s helping make up for it with Peruvian coffee beans.
The Peruvian Coffee Chamber said that Starbucks has boosted buying there, because the quality of the coffee has improved.
Starbucks did not confirm, but spokeswoman May Kulthol said that 78 percent of its coffee came from Latin America in 2008. The company bought about 383 million pounds of coffee that year, according to its global responsibility report, at an average $1.49 a pound.
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
In light of the upcoming presidential elections in Costa Rica set for February 7, the country’s bishops issued a statement reminding the faithful that their Catholic faith is not just another aspect of their lives, but rather has “unavoidable implications in the field of political morality and public life.”
In their letter the bishops urged Catholics to vote by discerning the best choice “with the help of the Lord” and to use sound reasoning in the search for what is best for the country.
After noting that “politics is a noble activity,” they added that it must be guided by “paths of justice, respect for human life, marriage, the family, religious freedom and the search for the common good.” The bishops then pointed to the various challenges the next president must address such as the country’s breakdown in security, violence, disrespect for life, ongoing poverty, unstable families, unemployment, corruption and drug trafficking.
The letter reminded Catholic voters they must not check their Catholic identity at the door of the polling booth, and stressed that the Christian faith “has unavoidable implications in the field of political morality and public life.”
The bishops also exhorted “all people of good will to analyze ahead of time and to attentively discern, guided by reason and ethics, the proposals set forth by candidates, in order to cast a vote that is responsible and reasoned.”
“At this time in our history,” they said, “we invite the entire People of God to invoke the help of the Lord and the maternal protection of Our Lady of the Angels, so that we may once again feel her intercessory presence and she may guide us to strengthen our democracy in peace, justice and freedom.”
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
The ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been flown out of the country after spending four months under siege in the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa.
He is thought to be travelling to the Dominican Republic, having failed to serve out the final months of his single term in office.
Mr Zelaya was arrested by the Honduran military in June 2009 and taken to Costa Rica before returning to Honduras clandestinely in September.
Mr Zelaya left his refuge hours after his successor, the conservative businessman Porfirio Lobo, was sworn into office.
Mr Lobo has promised national reconciliation after months of confrontation, and granted an amnesty to all those involved in the coup as his first act in power.
He must now try to win support from major Latin American countries, including Brazil and Argentina, both of which refuse to recognise his election in November.
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
•Pizza is the No. 1 search word on Google.
•Americans eat 100 acres of pizza every day, about 350 slices per second.
•There is one pizzeria for every 4,000 Americans. In Italy, there is one pizzeria for every 1,400 Italians.
•50 percent of an average pizza’s total food cost is the cheese.
•25 percent of American adults ages 18 to 24 eat pizza five-plus times a month.
•Some of the more popular toppings around the world are pickled ginger, minced mutton and tofu (India); eel and squid (Japan); coconut (Costa Rica); green peas (Brazil) and mockba, a combination of sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon and onions (Russia).
•The largest pizza ever baked was 122 feet in diameter, made at the Norwood Hypermarket, Norwood, South Africa, 1990. Ingredients included 9,900 pounds of flour.
•A slice of a Domino’s hand-tossed large pizza contains 248 calories — 72 calories from fat, 40 calories from protein and 136 calories from carbohydrates.
•David Smith II from Smith’s Pizza Plus, Emporium, Pa., won for the largest dough stretch (72.25 cm) at the 2009 American Pizza Championship.
•The soldiers of Darius the Great (521-486 B.C.) baked bread flat upon their shields and then covered it with cheese and dates during long marches. Cato the Elder, in his history of Rome, described a “flat round of dough dressed with olive oil, herbs and honey baked on stones.’’
•According to Domino’s Pizza Tracker, which allows customers to track their pizza after they order online, Republicans spend more per order than Democrats, rely more on credit cards and tend to order two large pizzas at a time. Democrats rely more on delivery and like more variety with their orders, going for more side items.
•Carryout accounts for 36 percent of all pizzeria orders, while delivery accounts for 31 percent.
•Three of the top 10 weeks of pizza consumption occur in January. More pizza is consumed during Super Bowl week than any other week of the year.
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