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EL Gordo: Those who bought tickets for the annual El Gordo Christmas lottery watched eagerly Sunday night as the lucky numbers were drawn. Yesterday, winners from around the country brought their tickets to the lottery's organizer, the Social Protection Board in San José, to collect winnings up to ¢100 million ($194,174). |
| Ronald Reyes | Tico Times |
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| Puntarenas Ready to Process Passports |
Luis Diego Arnáez, coach of the Pacific port city of Puntarenas' soccer team, yesterday became the first Costa Rican to process paperwork for his passport in that city rather than having to travel to San José. Arnáez's tramite, or bureaucratic step, toward getting a passport, marked the beginning of a new system aimed at decentralizing Costa Rica's notoriously slow Immigration Administration, according to Public Security Ministry spokeswoman Marielos Barboza. |
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| Toll Booths Free in Afternoons |
Drivers in the San José area are receiving a Christmas gift of sorts from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) – through the end of this month, they can drive through several toll booths for free during the afternoons Mondays though Fridays. |
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| Year Sees Growth in Exports and Investment |
Costa Rica will close out 2006 with an 18% growth in exports over last year and foreign direct investment of more than $1.5 billion, a 75% increase over last year, Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said yesterday at a press conference. |
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| Germany Gives $39 Million for Environmental Protection |
Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno and German Ambassador Volkner Fink yesterday signed an agreement for Germany to beef up its funding for conservation efforts here to 30 million euros, or $39 million, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry. |
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| Say What? We Heard It on the News |
Sometimes the news on TV or radio is so perplexing it leaves us wondering if we heard it right. Even more surprising is that the reporters deliver such news with straight faces. Here are some examples: |
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Puntarenas Ready to Process Passports
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By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net
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Luis Diego Arnáez, coach of the Pacific port city of Puntarenas' soccer team, yesterday became the first Costa Rican to process paperwork for his passport in that city rather than having to travel to San José. Arnáez's tramite, or bureaucratic step, toward getting a passport, marked the beginning of a new system aimed at decentralizing Costa Rica's notoriously slow Immigration Administration, according to Public Security Ministry spokeswoman Marielos Barboza.
Through an alliance with Banco de Costa Rica, Immigration obtained the equipment necessary to process passport paperwork from several points around the country, explained Immigration Director Mario Zamora in a statement from the Public Security Ministry.
Those who choose to request their passport in Puntarenas can pay the necessary fees and have their fingerprints and photos taken at the local Banco de Costa Rica, the statement said. This information will then be sent to Immigration's central office in San José, where passports are made, and sent back to Puntarenas within 15 days, saving people a trip to the capital, the statement said. Alternatively, they can travel to San José to pick up their passports.
Immigration plans to bring this service to other cities in 2007 including the northwestern Guanacaste city of Liberia, and the Caribbean port city of Limón.
The service is part of Zamora's plans to improve Immigration, an infamously inefficient organization. He also hopes to computerize the disorganized paper file system, Zamora told The Tico Times earlier this month (TT, Dec. 8).
In addition to making paperwork processing more efficient, Public Security Minister Francisco Berrocal said he hopes this new system will “eliminate certain practices of corruption” seen at Immigration, such as users paying someone to stand in line for them, the statement said. |
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Toll Booths Free in Afternoons
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By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net
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Drivers in the San José area are receiving a Christmas gift of sorts from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) – through the end of this month, they can drive through several toll booths for free during the afternoons Mondays though Fridays.
The ministry decided to let drivers onto the highways for free in the afternoons to ease December's congested holiday traffic, said MOPT spokesman Omar Segura.
The toll booth at the entrance to the Florencio del Castillo highway, running from San José to the eastern province of Cartago, is closed from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., while driving on the General Cañas highway, which runs from La Sabana, on the western edge of San José, to the Juan Santamaría Intern ational Airport in Alajuela, northwest of San José, is free from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. The toll booth for the Próspero Fernández highway, which connects the capital with the western suburb of Escazú, does not charge from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
These free hours went into effect Dec. 11 and will continue through Dec. 31. From noon Dec. 24 until noon Dec. 25, all toll booths will be free, the statement said.
Additionally, toll booth workers are allowing cars to pass through without paying anytime the line grows longer than 500 meters, and they resume charging once the line goes down. |
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Year Sees Growth in Exports and Investment |
Costa Rica will close out 2006 with an 18% growth in exports over last year and foreign direct investment of more than $1.5 billion, a 75% increase over last year, Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said yesterday at a press conference.
The country's goal is to reach $18 billion in exports in 2010, which means growing 25% annually during the coming years. In terms of foreign direct investment, the country hopes to bring in $1 billion each year for the next four years.
To reach these goals, the Foreign Trade Ministry has two main objectives for 2007: ratifying the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) and negotiating an association agreement with the European Union.
Additionally, the ministry has its sights set on opening new markets for exports with Asian countries, which receive 17% of Costa Rica's exports.
Costa Rica's primary exports are parts for microprocessors, banana, medical equipment, pineapple and coffee.
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-ACAN-EFE
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Germany Gives $39 Million
for Environmental Protection
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Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno and German Ambassador Volkner Fink yesterday signed an agreement for Germany to beef up its funding for conservation efforts here to 30 million euros, or $39 million, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.
The funds will go toward a program to help small and medium businesses that protect the environment started by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau German credit institute.
Yesterday's signing ceremony was held in the spirit of an agreement signed in July 1965 between the two countries to help the environment. Germany has donated 170 million euros ($222 million) to Costa Rica since then for cooperation projects, the statement said. |
-Tico Times |
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Say What? We Heard It on the News
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Sometimes the news on TV or radio is so perplexing it leaves us wondering if we heard it right. Even more surprising is that the reporters deliver such news with straight faces. Here are some examples:
A man from Alajuela, northwest of San José, had an enormous marijuana plant growing in his yard. He explained to the police that he didn't know it was marijuana and he was saving it for a Christmas tree. (Just wait till they burn the Yule log – holy smoke!)
A woman was electrocuted when she plugged in the washer and they took the husband to the hospital in shock. (Is that right?)
A man went to a phone booth to make a call at two in the morning wearing only his underpants, and he was held up. (What on earth did he have to steal?)
Because here they use decimal points instead of commas to denote thousands, this item has a potentially huge margin of error. An economic report stated that the annual per-capita income in Estonia is $14 million. (Adios, Costa Rica. Hello, Estonia !)
The skeleton of a mermaid turned out to be a hoax. (No fooling.)
An Alajuela man accused his wife of spousal abuse for farting at him. The judge threw out the case, saying that it is not a crime to fart. (Prison conditions are bad enough without adding farters.)
The nude body of a man in an advanced state of putrefaction was discovered in a dam in Santa Ana, southwest of the capital, but remained unidentified because there were no reports of missing persons matching the description. (If you knew anyone like that, would you claim him?)
A headline in the sensational daily Diario Extra read “Woman Strangled by Brassiere.” (Why didn't she get a larger size?)
“Informe Once” news program reported that someone in the northwestern province of Guanacaste found a mushroom in the shape of the Virgin. (No comment.)
In the daily La Nación's Sunday magazine Proa, an article on the Minute Men, U.S. vigilantes who dress in military fatigues, carry rifles and station themselves along the Mexican border to stop illegal immigrants from crossing over, quoted one of the men as saying, “What did Mexico ever give us?” (Tacos, burritos, tortillas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California …)
A commercial for a casa de empeño (pawn shop) claimed it had parking for 40 cars. (What does that say for the state of the economy?)
Thieves stole 1,000 full sheets of El Gordo, the Christmas lottery, but the door opened on the getaway truck and they all fell out. (Next time, take a minute to buckle your seat belt.) Eight hundred sheets were recovered, but 200 were still missing. It seems a taxi driver found them but didn't know what they were. He never buys lottery tickets because gambling is a vice. (You bet.)
In Spanish, a jack is called a gata, the same word as a female feline. A want ad for a hydraulic jack came out in the pets column. (The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, once ran an ad in the boating section for a wench with good teeth.)
Channel 42 is Diario Extra's TV station, and the evening news always starts out with sucesos: crime, shootings, traffic accidents and drownings. One night, the big news was that nothing bad had happened that day and there were no sucesos.
Bewildering news happens. This strange statement was in a U.S. magazine: “The black rhinoceros is distinguished from the white rhinoceros by the size of its snout.” (In case you're color blind.)
And, alas, even The Nica Times can confound. In the Oct. 20 issue, just before Halloween, there was a report of a new “boo store” in Managua. (Boo who?) |
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