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A Christmas Classic: Chaikovsky's “The Nutcracker” ballet comes to the National Theater in San José Friday, with 10 performances until Dec. 16. For more information and tickets, call 221-5341 or visit www.teatronacional.go.cr. |
| Photo courtesy of the Culture Ministry. |
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Afternoon Quake Hits San José |
“I was watching TV at my friends house when suddenly there was a heavy tremor,” said Paola Vega, 16, describing the earthquake yesterday afternoon that was registered 3.1 on the Richter scale by the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI), based at National University. The National Seismological Network, based at the University of Costa Rica, measured it at 3.9. |
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Decree to Guarantee Jobs to Disabled Costa Ricans |
In honor of the International Day of Disabled Persons yesterday, President Oscar Arias signed a decree to guarantee these Costa Ricans access to jobs. |
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More Drugs Wash up From Pacific Bust |
A confiscation of cocaine aboard a small fishing boat named Yorleny II is turning out to be one of the biggest at-sea drug busts this year as police continue to find hidden drugs. |
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Costa Rica Tips its Hat to Venezuelans |
The Costa Rican government yesterday congratulated the people of Venezuela for completing the “democratic exercise of a referendum,” a vote which resulted in an unprecedented, albeit narrow, defeat for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. |
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Report from the End Zone |
I found my editor, Dan Ferguson, in an unusually jovial mood. “The old,” he said, “are not like us; they got here first.” I thought that was pretty good, until I realized it was just a paraphrase of an old F. Scott Fitzgerald quip about the rich. But Dan went on without waiting for applause: “So get out there and find out what they're up to.”
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Afternoon Quake Hits San José
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By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net
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“I was watching TV at my friends house when suddenly there was a heavy tremor,” said Paola Vega, 16, describing the earthquake yesterday afternoon that was registered 3.1 on the Richter scale by the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI), based at National University. The National Seismological Network, based at the University of Costa Rica, measured it at 3.9.
Many residents in and around San José province felt the quake, which hit the capital at 2:05 p.m. Vega was in Alajuela, northwest of San José, at the time. She said it lasted about a minute. “My friend was scared, but I wasn't,” she said.
According to National University's seismology experts, the earthquake started 14 kilometers below the ground, in the canton of Dota, southeast of San José.
No one was hurt, the daily La Nación reported.
Some residents hardly felt a thing. Katherin Morales, 19, noticed the quake “more or less,” she said, while tending to customers at the Super Tico shop, in court district of eastern San José. She was chatting with friends when the store shook a bit. “Nothing major, just a little shake,” she said.
Eduardo Gutiérrez, 28, was sitting at his stall nearby in the Artisan Market at the Plaza de la Democracia, making earrings, when he felt “a weird vibration.”
“The street always shakes a little, because of traffic. But this was different,” Gutiérrez said, gesturing with his hand up and down.
But others missed the wave completely, such as Antonia Gaede, 21, who seemed shocked by the news. “I was meeting friends at the Teatro Nacional. We didn't feel anything.”
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Decree to Guarantee Jobs to Disabled Costa Ricans
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In honor of the International Day of Disabled Persons yesterday, President Oscar Arias signed a decree to guarantee these Costa Ricans access to jobs.
The Decree of Inclusion and Labor Protection mandates that 5% of public jobs under the Executive Branch be reserved for people with disabilities. It also sets the goal of eventually reserving 2% of government jobs for disabled people, according to a statement from Casa Presidencial.
About 400,000 of Costa Rica's 4.5 million inhabitants have some kind of disability, Arias said, adding that only 45 countries have legislation in place to protect the disabled from discrimination.
In Costa Rica, the Law of Equal Opportunities is in place to protect the disabled, and the country has also signed the international Convention for the Protection of the Rights of Disabled People.
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-Tico Times
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More Drugs Wash up From Pacific Bust |
A confiscation of cocaine aboard a small fishing boat named Yorleny II is turning out to be one of the biggest at-sea drug busts this year as police continue to find hidden drugs.
U.S. and Costa Rican Coast Guard authorities intercepted the boat Wednesday night 250 nautical miles off the coast of the northwestern Guanacaste province near the Nicaraguan border. The seven-member crew was transferring packets of the drugs to a Mexican boat. Upon seeing authorities approach, they began throwing their cargo overboard.
Drug Control Police first estimated there to be about 800 kilograms of cocaine aboard, but they have since found a total of 4.5 metric tons of the drug hidden aboard the boat, on the ocean floor and on the Mexican boat, the Jurel IV.
The seizure is the biggest made by a joint effort between U.S. and Costa Rican Coast Guard authorities so far this year, according to a statement from the Public Security Ministry.
Police arrested six Costa Ricans aboard the ship identified by the last names Espinoza, 27; Gómez, 36; Mora, 27; González, 38; Espinoza, 36; and Cambronero, 47; as well as a Nicaraguan identified as Novoa, 45.
They face drug trafficking charges before the Prosecutor's Office of the Pacific port of Puntarenas, and a court yesterday sentenced them to three months preventive prison.
Police assume the drugs were being carried from the Colombian port of Buenaventura, suggesting a link between Colombian, Mexican and Costa Rican drug-trafficking operations.
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-Tico Times
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Costa Rica Tips its Hat to Venezuelans
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The Costa Rican government yesterday congratulated the people of Venezuela for completing the “democratic exercise of a referendum,” a vote which resulted in an unprecedented, albeit narrow, defeat for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
“Costa Rica experienced something similar last month,” said a statement from the Foreign Ministry, pointing to the country's referendum on the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA).
Costa Rica's Oct. 7 vote, however, ended in a victory for the nation's President, Oscar Arias, who has made CAFTA a centerpiece in his administration's agenda.
In the hopes of pushing through reforms of Venezuela's constitution, Chávez has been less fortunate.
In one of the first majority thumbs-down in the leftwing president's rule, 50.7% of participants rejected Chávez's proposed reforms, which called for a lift on presidential term limits and other changes viewed as pushing forward a 21 st century socialist revolution.
The 49.2% in favor was not enough to buoy Chávez's plan; 44% of voters abstained.
Among the proposals rejected were plans to shorten the working day and lower the voting age from 18 to 16. However, Chávez's bid for indefinite presidency stirred the most controversy, at home and abroad.
Opposition in Venezuelan society to reforms, and even growing dissent from within the president's own political camp, could be what tipped over the vote, commentators said.
“We believe strongly, those who voted against this constitution, that it would have excluded a large section of this country,” student leader Francisco Hernández told the BBC. “The victory was only possible today because Chavistas (Chávez supporters) voted against these reforms.”
However, despite losing at the polls, Chávez appeared calm and collected in a televised speech to announce the outcome of the referendum.
“This is not a defeat,” Chávez said, and pledged to “continue working toward socialism within the framework of our (current) constitution.”
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-Tico Times
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Report from the End Zone
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I found my editor, Dan Ferguson, in an unusually jovial mood. “The old,” he said, “are not like us; they got here first.” I thought that was pretty good, until I realized it was just a paraphrase of an old F. Scott Fitzgerald quip about the rich. But Dan went on without waiting for applause: “So get out there and find out what they're up to.”
All of which was so typical of Dan that it took no time to figure out that as the National Health (Revision) Bill was coming up for a first reading in July, he probably wanted to know which way the senior vote was likely to go. But Dan was not the kind of man to explain himself to a rookie reporter, and as he was my boss, I did as he asked.
My first stop was at the Bide a Wee retirement home, which admitted only seniors over 80, unisex. There were several dozen inmates and, to my surprise, at least eight women to every male, which tells us something about the frailty of man.
But even more surprising, each male had his own circle of complaisant females. Not that moral considerations were likely to arise here, but, probably because the ladies had grown up in a patriarchal society, now long gone, they found it comfortable to defer to the nearest male.
Actually, nearly a quarter of the inmates had long ago retired into their own private world of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or intractable pain, and remained unresponsive to questioning. But the rest were quite alert and eager to talk to someone from the outside world, even if he was just a nosey reporter, except that they had apparently lost all interest in politics.
So far as I could make out, after decades of broken promises, they had all decided that no politician of any stripe could be trusted to give them so much as the time of day, either before or after an election, so why bother with the bounder?
Disappointed by this negative reaction, I went on to several other retirement homes, and concluded that fewer than one percent of their inmates had the slightest intention of voting in the next general election, let alone supplying an opinion about the upcoming bill.
So much for Dan's news story.
My last group was made up of self-employed professionals such as doctors, lawyers and architects who were still practicing at an advanced age. These busy people, being disinclined to wait around in public clinics, generally belonged to private health groups and so had no interest in the fate of Dan's bill.
But aside from politics, from the answers they gave to my questions, it was evident that this group, males and females alike, rarely took sick and even then resisted going to a doctor until virtually at death's door. Presumably there is something about self-employment and keeping busy that protects these people against the ills that beset us common folk.
So in the end I didn't have much to give Dan, other than the standard advice we all get and routinely ignore: choose the right parents, eat and drink wisely, stay involved and avoid politicians like the plague. As I was leaving Dan's office, I added, “And by the way, the old don't give a damn about your National Health Bill!”
And I slammed the door behind me.
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