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Narrowly alive: Nicaraguan Attorney General Hernán Estrada, right, with Chief of Police Aminta Granera, speaks Monday during a press conference in Managua after he survived an assault and a bullet wound to his neck. |
Mario López | EFE |
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Bowling against Belize: Costa Rica cricket team manager Sam Arthur pitches against Belize in the first game on Saturday morning of a weekend-long tournament. Five teams representing countries across Central America met on a field in Los Reyes, just west of San José, to compete in the Central American Cricket Championship. On the first day, Costa Rica lost against Belize, but rallied for a win in the afternoon against El Salvador. See The Tico Times video report at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89d2j-1sPxA. |
| Chrissie Long | Tico Times |
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| Costa Rica hosts its first international cricket tournament |
| Overshadowed by soccer and other sports, the game of cricket has seemingly escaped the interests of the Americas. |
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| Deaths from drunk driving in Costa Rica are down in 2009 |
| Fewer people died in drunk driving accidents in the first 90 days of this year thanks in a large part to a new law establishing steeper fines and stricter blood alcohol levels, said officials from the Public Works and Transport Ministry. |
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| UPS survey: Costa Rica execs see bright side of gloomy economy |
| More than half of Costa Rican small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain optimistic about growth in spite of the global economic downturn and reports of slow recovery, a new survey suggests. |
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| Europe ‘ready’ to listen to Nicaragua |
| BRUSSELS – The European Commission (EC) said Monday it will listen closely to Nicaragua in order to attempt to reach an agreement in trade negotiations with Central America, which stalled last week after Nicaragua walked out of the seventh round of talks in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. |
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Coffee-Table Book
Paints Portrait of Guanacaste |
Many cameras find themselves pointed west from Costa Rica's renowned northern Pacific coast, capturing fiery sunsets over the azure sea. |
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Costa Rica hosts its first
international cricket tournament |
By Chrissie Long
Tico Times Staff | clong@ticotimes.net |
| Overshadowed by soccer and other sports, the game of cricket has seemingly escaped the interests of the Americas.
Yet, with Costa Rica's first international cricket tournament hosted in Los Reyes this past weekend and with an effort to introduce the sport at some local schools, a handful of foreigners are creating opportunities to play and watch the sport in this country.
“The idea is to bring cricket to Costa Rica,” said Richard Illingworth, president of the Costa Rica Cricket Association. “It used to be played here 120 years ago, mainly among the Jamaicans on the Caribbean coast in Limón…At the moment, most of our players are fairly old…and many have something to do British Commonwealth. We want to get Costa Ricans involved.”
According to Illingworth, cricket is the second most played and watched sport in the world and, if it weren't for China, it would top the list.
How is the game
of cricket played?
The object of the game of cricket is to score as many runs as possible in the time it takes to field a ball. A pitcher (also known as a bowler) throws a ball at three long sticks at one side of the pitch, and a member of the opposing team swings at it with a paddle-like bat. If the batsman is able to hit the ball, he and a companion run back and forth along a dirt runway as the fielding team returns it to the three long sticks in attempt to get the batsman out. |
“The one part of the world where (cricket) is not as advanced in terms of the amount of people playing right now is in Latin America – that is South and Central America,” said Grant Dugmore, regional development officer for the International Cricket Council. “(Yet) cricket is virtually the number one sport in the Caribbean and that is right on Central America's doorstep.”
The cricket championship began three years ago in Belize and the home team proved victorious. The tournament was played in Mexico the following year, and Mexico won.
Yet the home field advantage didn't play in Costa Rica's favor during this year's championship. Despite several hard fought games from the players representing Costa Rica, the Panama team took home the trophy.
The six games were played in Los Reyes, just west of San José, where cricket players outlined a space on a private polo field. (See The Tico Times video report at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89d2j-1sPxA.)
In a three day tournament beginning April 4, teams from El Salvador, Belize, Panama, Mexico and Costa Rica competed in four games, lasting several hours each.
“The venue was well prepared and the matches went smoothly,” said Timothy Baker, a Costa Rica player. “Overall, it was a very successful event.”
See the April 17 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story. |
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Deaths from drunk driving in
Costa Rica are down in 2009 |
By Chrissie Long
Tico Times Staff | clong@ticotimes.net
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Fewer people died in drunk driving accidents in the first 90 days of this year thanks in a large part to a new law establishing steeper fines and stricter blood alcohol levels, said officials from the Public Works and Transport Ministry.
The number of deaths resulting from drunk driving sank 30 percent from 2007 and 60 percent from 2008; statistics they attribute to the introduction of new legislation in late December.
“These numbers are a consequence of the severity of the new legislation and of its effectiveness,” indicated Vice Minister of Transport Rosaura Montero in a press release.
The law cites individuals with a blood alcohol level of 0.49 grams per liter (the equivalent of a man drinking two beers within the hour) with a ¢ 200,000 ($370) fine. Previously, the fine for driving tipsy was ¢ 10,000 ($18.50).
Drunk drivers registering a blood alcohol level of 0.75 grams per liter (down from 1.0 grams before the law) risk losing their license for six months and may be sentenced to three years in prison.
“I know this law is harsh,” President Oscar Arias said when he signed the law into effect. “But rather than get scared, we should thank lawmakers for passing it. We have let (drivers) get away with too much.”
Twenty people died in drunk driving accidents in the first 90 days of 2007. In the first 90 days of 2008, 14 people died. And, as of March 31, only six people died in accidents relating to drunk driving in 2009.
But statistics remained level for other causes of car accidents: 24 people died in pedestrian accidents in the first 90 days of this year (up from 18 the year before) and 21 people died in accidents relating to excessive speeding (down one from the year before.)
The December 2008 law also raised the maximum fine for traffic violations (such as speeding or driving without a license) to $410 from $36. Neglecting to wear a seatbelt, holding a cell phone or ignoring traffic lights now carry a $310 fine.
For more on the traffic law, read Bad Drivers Have It Coming. |
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UPS survey: Costa Rica execs
see bright side of gloomy economy |
More than half of Costa Rican small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain optimistic about growth in spite of the global economic downturn and reports of slow recovery, a new survey suggests.
According to U.S. delivery company UPS's Business Monitor Latin America (BMLA) released this week in Miami, more than half (51 percent) of Tico executives surveyed projected economic progress for their companies over the course of the next 12 months. The region's overall percentage was 47 percent – a considerable drop from last year's 84 percent.
Higher still were expectations of SME leaders in countries such as Colombia (62 percent), Brazil (54 percent) and the Dominican Republic (54 percent).
Fifty-one percent predict an uptick in global trade.
“The results from the latest BMLA study demonstrate that although Latin American SMEs are enduring a difficult business climate, they are looking forward to continued growth down the line,” said Stephen Flowers, UPS Americas President, according to newswire EFE.
The BMLA surveyed more than 900 leading SME executives in eight Latin American countries.
However, a more sober projection came about in relation to the impact of the United States' volatile economy: 69 percent said trouble up north will have a negative impact on their business this year, while 61 percent don't foresee the U.S. economy improving before 2010.
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-Wire reports |
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| Europe ‘ready’ to listen to Nicaragua |
BRUSSELS – The European Commission (EC) said Monday it will listen closely to Nicaragua in order to attempt to reach an agreement in trade negotiations with Central America, which stalled last week after Nicaragua walked out of the seventh round of talks in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The EC External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton released a joint statement saying, “We are ready and willing to listen attentively to Nicaragua's requests.”
The latest round of negotiations ended abruptly when the Managua delegation tried to present a proposal for a €60 billion regional cooperation fund without having attained a consensus with the other participating Central American countries.
The commissioners said they deeply regret that the talks halted, adding that “in the next few days” negotiators will meet to evaluate the situation in an effort to resume negotiations.
Roberto Echandi, Costa Rica's chief negotiator, has said an informal meeting will convene in Brussels on April 23 and 24 to discuss the next steps.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has said his government's pull-out from the talks “is not definitive.”
Read the latest print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story. |
-EFE |
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| Coffee-Table Book Paints Portrait of Guanacaste |
Many cameras find themselves pointed west from Costa Rica's renowned northern Pacific coast, capturing fiery sunsets over the azure sea.
In “Guanacaste: Life Portraits,” a book of photographs published last year, photographer Zoraida Díaz turns around and trains her lens on the landscape and people found inland from the “Gold Coast.”
“I found that Guanacaste was like a secret. Everybody knows Costa Rica because of its natural beauty, and that includes the beautiful beaches of the northern Pacific and the volcanoes,” Díaz said. “But I felt that nobody really knows how amazing and diverse the culture of Guanacaste is, and nobody had really taken a look at these people and done a cohesive body of work on that.”
Throughout the book, Díaz presents a rich and textured vision of the province she has called home for the past several years, capturing the fiestas, traditions, towns, characters and natural settings of Guanacaste.
Díaz, a Colombian-born photojournalist who spent much of her professional life covering South America for the news agency Reuters, draws many of her photos from the pages of The Beach Times, a newspaper she co-founded in 2004 with former husband Ralph Nicholson in Playa Potrero.
“The project was born of the last five years of work at The Beach Times. At the end of 2007, I just had so many images, I didn't know where to put them,” Díaz said.
Habitual readers of the paper, now online only, may recognize some of the images, which anchored the paper's front page and illustrated its stories on development, politics and life in the northwestern province. Other photos came from the archives of unpublished images, and many more were added as Díaz worked on the book, looking to fill in areas she felt were missing.
The images tell of the often simple life of the region, traditionally built around cattle and farming and now adapting to an unforeseen boom of tourism and construction.
A young girl peers out from the coffee bushes where she works harvesting beans. Three men – one mounted on horseback – sip beers outside the town store. Baby turtles push up through black sand. A doorman in a jacket a few sizes too large waits for tickets outside a circus called Chicharrón y sus Estrellas (Pork Rind and his Superstars). Page after page shows both the daily rituals and special occasions that make up life here, set to the backdrop of Guanacaste's landscapes.
The book is split into sections touching on the people, the sea, the festivals and other themes in Díaz's photography. These sections are prefaced with short essays, presented in Spanish and English, by some of the region's most knowledgeable and authoritative voices, including folk singers Guadalupe Urbina and Eduardo “Balo” Gómez, journalist José Manuel Peña and marine biologist Giovanni Bassey.
“Being a photographer, I always thought that you don't need words if you have good pictures,” Díaz said. “But in the end, it seemed like there was something missing.”
“(The words) really added to the book. It was like the voice of Guanacaste made my pictures stronger,” she said. “The collaboration was amazing.”
“Guanacaste: Life Portraits” is available for about $43 at Universal department stores, Librería Internacional bookstores, Café Britt souvenir shops, Jaime Peligro bookstore in Tamarindo and Marie's restaurant in Flamingo.
In addition, some 13,000 copies of the book were donated to the nonprofit after-school center CEPIA, based in Tamarindo, which is selling them in several coastal towns in Guanacaste. Proceeds will help fund the group's programs.
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