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To the extreme: Spain's Danni Torres carried out just one of the impossible-seeming motorcycle stunts at Saturday's XKnights Freestyle International event at Ricardo Saprissa Stadium, in Tibás, north of San José. With at least 25,000 spectators in the stands, Torres' tricks scored 96.5 points out of 100, beating favorite Eigo Sato of Japan to become two-time champion. |
Ronald Reyes | Tico Times |
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| Duran Duran, Incubus confirm first-ever dates in Costa Rica |
Eighties pop icons Duran Duran and ‘90s alternative rockers Incubus will make their Costa Rican debut at a rock festival here in April, management of national beer brand Imperial, the festival's organizer, said Friday. |
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Pope: Costa Rica should
'revitalize deep Christian roots,' beware of factions |
| On their first visit with Pope Benedict XVI, Costa Rican bishops took instruction to keep Catholicism alive in their changing society. The Pontiff called on the seven bishops, who comprise the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, to “constantly revitalize their ancient and deep Christian roots” and beware of their compatriots' faith becoming “lethargic and superficial,” the Catholic News Agency (CNA) and the daily La Nación reported Friday. |
| See More... |
| Centrist candidate wins Liberation election |
| The National Liberation Party (PLN) kept its centrist bent by electing Antonio Calderón as secretary general Saturday. |
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| Back to school in Costa Rica |
| A group of disadvantaged schoolchildren will show up for the first day of class this morning equipped with notebooks, rulers, colored pencils and other supplies thanks to the San José-based Association for Children's Smiles (ASONI) of Cristo Rey. |
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| Facebook launches Spanish-language version of site |
| Facebook has announced the launch of a Spanish-language version of its social-networking Web site and said French and German language editions will follow in the coming weeks. |
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Plants at a Glance:
Scallions & Chives |
Common name: Scallion / chive
Spanish name: Cebollina / cebollín
Latin name: Allium cepa var. aggregatum / A. schoenoprasum
Family: Liliaceae
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Duran Duran, Incubus confirm
first-ever dates in Costa Rica |
By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net
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| Eighties pop icons Duran Duran and ‘90s alternative rockers Incubus will make their Costa Rican debut at a rock festival here in April, management of national beer brand Imperial, the festival's organizer, said Friday. The bands will join other confirmed acts including Costa Rican groups LePop and Porpartes for the 2008 Festival Imperial, scheduled for April 19 and 20 in La Guácima, a town in the Alajuela province (northwest of San José), the newswire ACAN-EFE reported. Best known for early-career hits “ Rio ” and “Hungry Like the Wolf,” new-wave fav's Duran Duran came out with a fresh release in November, “Red Carpet Massacre,” their first album since 2004's “Astronaut.” The CD sees the boys from Birmingham, England, outfitted with spruced up beats and rapping bits by hip hop producer Timbaland, plus intermittent vocals by Justin Timberlake. But despite the contemporary veneer, hints of the classic Duran Duran style – labeled “new romantic” – still show through. Incubus, by contrast, creates a harder, more guitar-driven sound. Although, like Duran Duran, the California band fronted by singer Brandon Boyd features vocals front and center. This can be heard in the ballad “Love Hurts” and other tracks on the November 2006 album “Light Grenades.” Harder still was Incubus' 1995 disc “Fungus Amungus,” with the thrashing first single, “Take Me To Your Leader.” Incubus initially scheduled to play in Costa Rica in December, according to the daily La Nación, but rescheduled for the Guácima event. For a taste of the latest material by the bands, visit their MySpace profiles at www.myspace.com/duranduran and www.myspace.com/incubus. To follow Festival Imperial as its lineup gets pieced together or for ticket information, check out the event's Web site: www.festivalimperial.com. |
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Pope: Costa Rica should
'revitalize deep Christian roots,' beware of factions |
On their first visit with Pope Benedict XVI, Costa Rican bishops took instruction to keep Catholicism alive in their changing society. The Pontiff called on the seven bishops, who comprise the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, to “constantly revitalize their ancient and deep Christian roots” and beware of their compatriots' faith becoming “lethargic and superficial,” the Catholic News Agency (CNA) and the daily La Nación reported Friday.
The bishops were fulfilling their obligatory quinquennial ad limina visit to the Vatican that began last Monday (TT, Jan. 25).
Benedict, elected in April 2005, said that in Costa Rica's developing society, the Church must seek “new ways to announce Christ” emphasizing “the missionary character of all pastoral activity,” according to CNA.
The agency is a news source with global coverage of the Catholic Church.
Its report said the Pope also noted a tendency taking root throughout Latin America that is the rise of Evangelical and Protestant factions.
Here 76.3% of the population professes to be Roman Catholic, while 13.7% are Evangelical, 1.3% Jehovah's Witness, 0.7% Protestant and 4.8% belong to other groups, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's “World Factbook.”
The remaining 3.2%, the factbook says, claims no religious faith.
Within this country's transforming society, people with “lethargic and superficial faith” risk falling into “the multiple promises of easy and immediate well being … or the spread of ideologies which, while claiming to exalt human beings, actually debase them,” the Pope said according to the Catholic agency.
Recent reports have suggested that an increasing number of Costa Rican couples are moving in together before marriage and choosing to either hold off on children or to forego having kids altogether – tendencies that do not reflect the portrait of the traditional Catholic Central American family of past generations.
The Pope spoke to the Episcopal Conference's fears raised by this phenomenon. “You are right to be concerned at the increasing deterioration of the institution of the family, which has such grave repercussions on the fabric of society and on ecclesial life,” he said.
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-Tico Times |
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| Centrist candidate wins Liberation election |
By Gillian Gillers
Tico Times Staff | ggillers@ticotimes.net |
The National Liberation Party (PLN) kept its centrist bent by electing Antonio Calderón as secretary general Saturday.
Calderón, backed by President Oscar Arias' administration, roundly defeated the more leftwing candidate Rolando González in an internal party election. The secretary general helps define the party's ideology and influences the selection of a candidate for the 2010 presidential election, which Liberation is favored to win.
The party's National Assembly, with 124 representatives from across the country, gave 73 votes to Calderón and 41 to Gonzaléz. There were one blank and one null vote, and the remaining delegates were absent.
Calderón, 49, is a practicing lawyer and member of the party's political board. He has less party experience than González, 57, who was secretary general for six years and legislator for four.
Calderón campaigned for the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), while González remained publicly neutral.
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| Back to school in Costa Rica |
A group of disadvantaged schoolchildren will show up for the first day of class this morning equipped with notebooks, rulers, colored pencils and other supplies thanks to the San José-based Association for Children's Smiles (ASONI) of Cristo Rey.
The back-to-school gift pack came as a donation from Hotel Presidente and is set to benefit 315 children from two of the association's shelters, one located in the San José barrios of Cristo Rey and Sagrada Familia.
“We firmly believe that the best way to guarantee a healthy and successful future for children is through education. Education is the best way to keep youngsters off the street and safe from its dangers,” said Hotel Presidente's operations manager Katherine Carter in a statement. The hotel gave the gift, worth ¢3 million (about $6,000), as part of its corporate social responsibility program.
However, unlike these supply-carrying pupils, the schools themselves will not be so prepared. Costa Rican children by the busload (almost 1 million) are descending on schools this morning for the first day of the new academic year, but public education authorities haven't done their homework – and there might not be enough buses to get the kids there.
As of last week, the Education Ministry was still scrambling to hire school-buses and teachers.
Many school buildings are in dire shape and many more lack desks, ministry officials told The Tico Times.
Read the current print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on Costa Rica's back to school blues. |
-Tico Times |
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| Facebook launches Spanish-language version of site |
Facebook has announced the launch of a Spanish-language version of its social-networking Web site and said French and German language editions will follow in the coming weeks.
Web users can choose to see Facebook's interface in Spanish and the site will open today in that language by default if the person is accessing it from a Spanish-speaking country, said the network's developers Thursday.
Facebook developer Javier Olivan told newswire EFE that the goal is to “offer the largest number of languages as soon as possible,” and that the California-based group decided to begin with Spanish because there are 200 million Spanish speakers on the Internet. “In the Latin environment, people prefer to use Facebook in their language,” Olivan said, adding that the number of users has grown rapidly in Spain and in some Latin American countries such as Colombia and Mexico.
A total of 25,612 users, as of late yesterday, belong to the Costa Rica network, according to this country's community page.
Approximately 60% of Facebook users live outside the United States and the Web site estimates that it has around 2.8 million active users in Latin America and Spain.
The translation of instructions, alerts and other information that make up part of Facebook's user interface was done by the members themselves with the help of a special application, which allowed individuals within the Web community to offer their translations and vote on those of other participants. “We did it that way because the users are the experts on Facebook,” Olivan said.
Almost 1,500 Spanish-speaking users of the Web site translated the text of the site – some 43,000 phrases – over the course of less than four weeks.
“The result is a great product that sounds very natural,” Olivan said.
For example those involved in the translation process agreed to use the phrase “ dar un toque ” for the English expression “poke,” which in Facebook lingo means to attract the attention of another user.
Facebook, the most popular social-networking site after MySpace, surpassed the milestone of 50 million users in 2007. |
-EFE |
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| Plants at a Glance: Scallions & Chives |
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Common name: Scallion / chive
Spanish name: Cebollina / cebollín
Latin name: Allium cepa var. aggregatum / A. schoenoprasum
Family: Liliaceae
Geo-distribution: Scallions or green dividing onions originated in the Near East; settlers from the Old World introduced them to the neotropics. They are found growing in home gardens from low to high elevations in Costa Rica. Chives, a close relative to scallions, are also well distributed.
Botanical Description: The scallion is noted for its long (up to 60 centimeters), green, hollow leaves, typical of the onions, which arise from numerous bulbs in the soil. These bulbs continually divide as new offshoots. There are many varieties of scallions, some with a red or white paper-like skin surrounding the bulbs. The flowers range in color from violet to white. Chives also come in many varieties and can be distinguished by their smaller (30 cm) green leaves and bulbs.
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| Green Onion: Scallions grow best in rich, fertile soil and full sun. Eating fresh scallions is a good way to prevent many health problems. |
Ed Bernhardt | Tico Times |
Medicinal Uses: Scallions and onions, like garlic, have been used for centuries as both food and medicine. Eating fresh scallions is a good way to prevent health problems. They have been proven effective in reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol, and are known to be a strong antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal agent.
Onion juice has been shown to inhibit numerous harmful microbes and fungi, including Candida albicans. Traditionally, fresh onion juice has been used to treat upper respiratory infections, including pneumonia, coughs, sore throats and bronchitis. Thrush or yeast infections are also treated with onion juice. Recent research demonstrates that onion juice is also beneficial in aiding asthma, arthritis, cancer, circulatory problems, colds, flu, infections, insomnia, liver disease, sinusitis and ulcers.
Preparation: Adding plenty of fresh onion greens to your diet is an excellent way to help prevent health problems. For treating coughs, colds and flu, blend or extract the juice of several scallions, strain, and mix with 15-30 milliliters of honey in a clean glass container. This is an excellent home remedy for treating children, since the honey hides the pungent taste of the onion juice. Dosage: One to six tablespoons per day. You will also find that blending scallions and orange juice together provides a helpful health drink. Fresh onion juice can also be applied orally on the tongue in cases of yeast infection.
Gardening Notes: Scallions and chives are much easier to grow than the bulb onions you buy at the store. Leading agricultural supply stores offer seeds for planting in flats or cups in prepared potting soil. Though the seeds are slow to germinate and grow, once they are well established they can be transplanted to garden beds or containers with rich, fertile soil located in a sunny area. Three months after planting, the onions will begin to produce new offshoots from the mother plant, which can provide a steady supply for replanting.
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