ESCAZU AND COSTA RICA NEWS!
"Leader Of May 11 Failed Prison Break Found Dead in His Cell"
"MOPT Encourages Carpooling"
"Tensions rise over Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border dispute"
"Chinchilla Asks Obama and Clinton For Support With Nicaragua Conflict"
"Zelaya pledges resistance, asks U.S. for sanctions"
"The USA Embassy Honors Veterans"
"Ambassador Andrew attended the new infusion pumps plant in La Aurora de Heredia"
"Shopping center for children opens in Escazú"
Leader Of May 11 Failed Prison Break Found Dead in His Cell
One of Costa Rica's most dangerous criminal, Jovel Araya and the leader of the group of prisoners in the attempted prison break of May 11, 2011, was found dead in his prison cell Sunday morning.
Officials of the La Reforma found Araya in his maximum security sector cell, slumped over and without life. Araya was in segregation and no signs of violence were found.
According to prison officials, the 45 year old man, suffered from a series of medical problems, mainly due to wounds caused by the five bullets he sustained during a prison break five years earlier.
However, family and friends say otherwise.
They claim that Araya was the victim of constant beatings by prison guards, especially following the latest prison break attempt and that he may have been poisoned.
This is the same prison block where the two alleged Mexican drug dealers are being held.
The ministro de Justicia, Hernando París, undermines the credibility of versions of the alleged poisoning, noting that Araya had several conditions that may have caused a natural death.
An investigation by prison authorities and the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) is underway.
Who was Jovel Araya?
Prison officials called the man "king of escapes", to his family and friends he was "Memo".
In declarations to a court in May 2008, Araya admitted to be one of the "capos" of the drug gangs operating on the south side of San José and that he moved more drugs into and out of Costa Rica than anyone else in the country.
He had so much money at times that he had to keep in burlap sacks.
On October 9, 2006, he made his first prison break. In that occasion, he took four hostages and made off with several other prisoners. He was later captured and sentenced to 65 years prison for the prison break and the death of one of the hostages and wounding of four others.
For the second time, Araya was at the front of the botched prison break of May 11, 2011. This time, two fellow prisoners, including perhaps the most dangerous Erlyn Hurtado, and one prison guard.
Araya's ex-wife, Xiomara Campos, told the press on Sunday, "they killed him because the dead don't talk".
MOPT Encourages Carpooling
Costa Rican Spanish, which has already borrowed many words from English (most are technical), is about to gain another one: carpooling.
The Ministry of Transport (MOPT) has relaxed the restriction prohibiting circulation of autos in the heart of San Jose one day per week between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. Which day is determined by the last number of the vehicle license plate but cars containing four or more persons are exempt.
The traffic regulation stemmed from the time in the Pacheco Administration (2002-2006) when petroleum process shot through the roof. In order to protect its balance of payments, MOPT put the measure into place.
The main object was to reduce traffic jams in downtown San Jose, when cars crawl along in stop and go streams, their idling engines using fuel. But the plan also reduced air pollution and driver frustration and remained in place when petroleum prices returned to some semblance of normality.
That was not the only government innovation of that time. The government revived the moribund nationalize railways system, INCOFER, creating the wildly successful commuter service between the capital and outlying areas such as Heredia and Belen. From adversity comes invention.
Later, the Arias administration instituted a special bus lane on the General Canas Highway. MOPT chief Francisco Jimenez said, however, that the plan to extend the circulation restriction of vehicles outside the congested downtown San Jose zone has been scrapped when it was found to have no effect on traffic in those areas.
Tensions rise over Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border dispute
Costa Rica is attempting to create an armed conflict with neighboring Nicaragua, Nicaraguan Army spokesman Juan Morales said citing counterintelligence information.
Relations between the two countries became tense in November when the Nicaraguan military began widening the waterway in the San Juan River Delta and began establishing a military camp on the disputed Calero Island, in particular a small island called Harbor Head to the east of Calero.
"According to our counterintelligence information, the Costa Rican side is planning to attack [Nicaraguan] security forces guarding the border. In order to do this, [Costa Rica] has trained a special group which will be dressed in Nicaraguan military uniforms. In this way the Costa Rican government is attempting to blame hostilities on Nicaragua," Morales said on Monday.
The Costa Rican government officially announced earlier that it was building additional helicopter pads and roads on the border with Nicaragua.
The territorial dispute between the two Latin American countries dates back to 1850. In 1858, the Canas-Jerez Treaty established that Nicaragua is the rightful owner of the San Juan River, but Costa Rica retained the right to use it for commercial navigation.
Calero Island with a total land area of 151.6 square kilometers (58.5 sq. miles) is internationally recognized as Costa Rican territory.
Costa Rica does not have an army.
Chinchilla Asks Obama and Clinton For Support With Nicaragua Conflict
A Constitutional Court ruling allows US navy ships to enter Costa Rican waters in a joint antidrug operations with the Costa Rican Coast Guard, under the Joint Maritime Agreement in effect since 1999.
The agreement permits the United States to enter Costa Rica's waters and ports preapproved every six months by the Costa Rican legislature.
The agreement, similar to other agreements the United States has with other Central American countries, allows Costa Rica's legislature to approve or reject which ships have permission to enter and dock.
The approval or rejection occurs every January 1 and July 1.
The approval of US ships has caused controversy as the US provides a list of all possible ships that will dock in Costa Rica, causing some to believe an invasion by US naval ships and personnel.
The court challenge to the latest approval was led by former first lady and legislator, Gloria Bejarano , along with legislators Luis Fishma, Rodolfo Sotomayer and Walter Cespedes.
Bejarano is the wife of former president Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier.
The group said the approval was unconstitutional, same as the agreement, arguing that it expired in 2009, as it was originally approved for only a period of 10 years.
The Constitutional Court ruling came Christmas Eve, the judges saying that the appeal was "without cause", paving the way for the US ships to continue their operations.
During December a group of legislators were invited aboard the USS Doyle that was docked in the port of Golfito to take on fuel and supplies, leaving behind some us$3 million dollars to the local economy.
Zelaya pledges resistance, asks U.S. for sanctions
LAS MANOS, Nicaragua -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has pledged continued defiance of a conservative-backed coup that sent him into exile and called on the United States to impose sanctions on his country's military and civilian leaders.
A Honduran man was found dead Saturday on a road close to Nicaragua as Zelaya came back to the border for a second day to attempt to return home.
"We are organizing the resistance," a defiant Zelaya declared, saying he had set up camp some 100 meters (yards) from the border with his country, but inside Nicaragua, where he planned to stay at least through Sunday.
"Let us not be afraid. We are going for social reform, we are doing this for the presidency of Honduras and to see the coup plotters expelled," the elected president told reporters in what he called a "symbolic show of sovereignty."
The former rancher, who veered to the left after taking office, was ousted amid fears he sought to extend his rule.
Almost a month after he was bundled out of bed by the army and sent into exile, about 100 supporters who arrived here over the past three days were rallying around their leader, decked out in his trademark cowboy hat.
Meanwhile, the Honduran Embassy in Washington announced that Zelaya had asked US President Barack Obama in a letter to prohibit bank transactions and cancel the US visas of individuals "directly responsible for my abduction and the interruption of constitutional order in my country."
The list includes de facto Honduran president Roberto Micheletti, Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi, public prosecutor Rosa America Miranda, and all the heads of armed forces branches led by General Romeo Vasquez Velazquez, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We believe that the measures that we are asking the US administration to take will exercise direct pressure on the perpetrators of the coup without causing any sort of negative impact on the people of Honduras," said Enrique Reina, Zelaya's new ambassador-designate in Washington.
But in a move seen as a step back from confrontation, the Honduran military expressed Saturday its full support for Costa Rica-mediated talks on resolving the Honduran crisis "in the framework of the San Jose Accord" and voiced its "unrestricted support" for a negotiated outcome.
The accord, proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, called, among other things, for Zelaya's restoration in power in Honduras, although with limited powers.
The Costa Rica talks have failed so far to produce a deal because the Micheletti regime has steadfastly refused to accept Zelaya's restoration to the presidency.
The New York Times said the Honduran military communique, posted of the armed forces' website was drafted in Washington after days of talks between mid-level Honduran officers and US congressional aides and was "significant" because it was the first sign of support for the San Jose accord by a powerful sector of the de facto government.
However, two Republican members of the US Congress - Representatives Brian Bilbray of California and Connie Mack of Florida - showed up in Tegucigalpa on Saturday in a display of support for the Micheletti government.
Mack told reporters that Micheletti supporters "did the right thing in confronting Zelaya" because of his attempts to "destroy the constitutions."
Tensions soared on the border, with some 3,000 army and police staff rolled out to enforce the will of Micheletti.
Zelaya supporters defied a daytime curfew, which was extended to 54 hours Saturday, in gathering near the border in hopes of welcoming back their president. They blamed Honduran police for Saturday's death of the man identified by friends as 23-year-old Pedro Madriel Munoz Alvarado.
The body was found next to a coffee field, bearing knife gashes and signs he had been beaten.
Aides would not confirm whether the deposed president would again attempt to cross into Honduras, as the interim regime tightened control on the region close to Nicaragua.
Soldiers expelled Zelaya from the country at gunpoint on June 28 in a move supported by Honduras's courts and legislature as he sought to hold a referendum on changing the constitution to allow him to seek reelection.
Meanwhile, Micheletti said that he has invited representatives from Germany, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Panama and Japan "to join as observers of the dialogue that takes place in Costa Rica" under the mediation of Arias, the 1987 Nobel Peace laureate.
Regional powers, including the United States, have backed Zelaya's quest to return constitutional order in Honduras, but many urged him not to come back for fear of bloodshed.
The USA Embassy Honors Veterans
The USA Embassy Honors Veterans. The U.S. Embassy joined with Americans everywhere in honoring the veterans who have served and sacrificed to preserve our way of life. In the photo,
Ambassador Anne Andrew views a floral tribute placed in the American Citizens Services area of the Consular section and reads President Obama’s Veterans Day Proclamation (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/05/presidential-proclamation-veterans-day).
Ambassador Andrew attended the new infusion pumps plant in La Aurora de Heredia
Ambassador Andrew attended the November 4 inauguration of Hospira’s new infusion pumps plant in La Aurora de Heredia, Costa Rica.
The plant represents a $21 million investment in Costa Rica and is the company’s second largest manufacturing facility in the world, after the plant in the United States.
With a market capitalization of about $10 billion, Hospira employs 2,650 people here and approximately 7,400 employees in the United States. The company specializes in specialty pharmaceuticals and medication delivery devices.
Hospira is Costa Rica’s second largest exporter. With approximately 85% of inputs to the operation in Costa Rica coming from the U.S., and 79% of the company’s total sales reaching across the Americas, Hospira is an example for free trade in the Americas.
The U.S. Ambassador congratulated plant manager, Pedro Castillo and Senior Vice President of Operations James Hardy on Hospira’s leadership in its industry and its expansion. Costa Rica’s Minister of Foreign Trade, Anabel González also delivered remarks that Hospira’s expansion in Costa Rica attests to the country’s capacity to diversify into export markets in areas of high technology products and services.
Shopping center for children opens in Escazú
The services include day care for children, toy shops and hairdressing.
The supply of shopping malls in Escazú, San José, is diversified, this time with a small mall for kids.
The site, located opposite Mediplaza in Guachipelín, has 10 business shops in 1,200 square meters area and 100 square meters for parking.
The idea of opening a commercial center for children comes from Costa Rican businesswoman Sully Ramirez, who worked for decades in the business of florists in San José.
However, eight years ago, when the sale of flowers began to fall and competition proliferated, thought of an alternative project and teamed up with Panamanian businessmen.
"What better than to create something for children? We built this place with the form of train, with a party room, toy store, barber shop, video games, costumes, books and classes of fabric for parents and children, "said Ramirez.
Ramirez even thought of moms who need someone to care for their children. The business offers care for children in the party room Smiling Games (capacity 50 children), where six girls work and take care of the place.
Responsible for the shopping center did not specify the amount of the investment.
She added that despite the financial crisis, decided to continue the project because the niche that is new and ventured further, it was important to diversify their business in Costa Rica and the rest of the region.
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