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Not coming here: Rod Blagojevich, former governor of the U.S. state of Illinois, was refused permission by a judge to participate in an NBC reality TV show in Costa Rica. |
Tannen Maury | EFE |
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Brilliant Berliners: Violinist Andreas Neufeld, left, and violist Martin Stegner, both of the Berlin Philharmonic, perform Tuesday at the National Theater as part of the Tuesday at Noon concert series. |
| Ronald Reyes | Tico Times |
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Judge refuses Blagojevich trip to
Costa Rica for reality TV appearance |
| Rod Blagojevich, the indicted governor of the U.S. state of Illinois, isn't coming to Costa Rica any time soon. |
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| Arias administration pushes for tougher gun laws in Costa Rica |
| While President Oscar Arias has launched an international campaign to curtail the sale of firearms, he's also waging the battle against firearms on the home front. |
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| Fifth PriceSmart in Costa Rica sets up shop |
| The city of Alajuela, northwest of San José, has become the fifth Costa Rica home of a PriceSmart warehouse shopping club. |
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Guatemala’s Colom optimistic U.S.
will hit the gas on immigration reform |
| U.S. President Barack Obama told Central American leaders he will speed up the process to help migrant fieldworkers from this region toiling on United States farms, according to Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, who met with fellow leaders from the region and Obama this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago. |
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| Our Unsung Hero: Tropical Marine Bioproductivity |
Costa Rica's bio diversity has reached world consciousness and achieved fame and fortune. But do you know about this country's unsung hero, bioproductivity? While our forests boast a renowned terrestrial biodiversity rivaling any similar-sized area in the world, our oceans' surface waters, coasts and islands are not particularly high in marine biodiversity. |
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Judge refuses Blagojevich trip to
Costa Rica for reality TV appearance |
By Patrick Fitzgerald
Tico Times Staff | editorial@ticotimes.net |
| Rod Blagojevich, the indicted governor of the U.S. state of Illinois, isn't coming to Costa Rica any time soon.
According to news reports, a U.S. district judge on Tuesday denied the former Democratic governor's bid to travel outside the country in order to appear on NBC's “I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!” reality TV show that will begin production in Costa Rica next month.
The judge said Blagojevich, who pled not guilty to federal corruption charges last week, must remain in the United States to assist his attorneys in assembling a defense strategy.
In a statement last week, NBC confirmed that Blagojevich would be a contestant on the show pending the court's approval. The network has not released the names of the show's other contestants, but news and celebrity gossip Web sites have speculated that the show may include such celebrities and reality show regulars as talk show host Geraldo Rivera, MTV reality stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, former supermodel Janice Dickinson, former “American Idol” contestant Sanjaya Malakar and Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman.
Calls to NBC Tuesday were not immediately returned.
A remake of a popular British series, "I'm a Celebrity... Get me Out of Here” first ran on ABC in the United States in 2003. On that show, contestants were dropped in the Australian rainforest and forced to compete in such challenges as sitting in a tank of leeches and swimming through a snake-inhabited pool.
According to NBC, viewers decide which celebrities get booted off each episode, with the final winner being crowned “King or Queen of the Jungle” and winning a cash prize for their favorite charity. Multiple outlets reported that Blagojevich would have been paid $80,000 a week to participate in the show, which would have helped fund his legal defense.
Although the network has not confirmed exactly where and when the show will be filmed in Costa Rica, all signs point to the Sarapiquí region.
Selva Verde Rainforest Lodge is currently in negotiations with the network to house some of the cast or crew, a reservations supervisor told The Tico Times, while the daily La Nación reported that nearby Hotel Sueño Azul Resort would serve as the headquarters for production.
The resort would not comment when contacted by The Tico Times. |
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Arias administration pushes for
tougher gun laws in Costa Rica |
By Chrissie Long
Tico Times Staff | clong@ticotimes.net |
While President Oscar Arias has launched an international campaign to curtail the sale of firearms, he's also waging the battle against firearms on the home front.
Two days after returning from the Summit of the Americas – during which he used his floor time to speak against gun trafficking – his administration announced the progress of a bill that would amend the current Arms and Explosives Law.
The bill, which is currently before legislators, would prohibit the manufacture of weapons within Costa Rica, establish a limit on the number of firearms someone can have and adopt measures to avoid the possession of weapons by minors.
But the draft law goes further than that.
It would introduce clearer regulations regarding the use of firearms by police and private security guards, prohibit possession of firearms in bars and clubs and establish stricter requirements as to who can carry a firearm.
“These controls and requirements are vital, taking into account the number of dangers and fatal risks to individuals, their families and to third party (victims) such as young people,” said Rodrigo Arias, minister of the presidency. “For that reason, this bill is key for the government and, in general, for a Costa Rican society that puts security as one of its priorities.”
The minister of the presidency indicated that the World Bank Institute named Costa Rica one of the 50 safest countries in the world. And while he is pleased with the recognition, Rodrigo Arias said it doesn't change the administration's drive to make Costa Rica even safer.
“…We will continue to work in defense of our citizens' security,” he said. The effort to “reform the Arms and Explosives Law is vital and we hope it will become a reality as soon as possible.” |
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| Fifth PriceSmart in Costa Rica sets up shop |
The city of Alajuela, northwest of San José, has become the fifth Costa Rica home of a PriceSmart warehouse shopping club.
The warehouse, across from the Mutual Alajuela headquarters and the entrance to Barrio La Trinidad, raises to 26 the number of PriceSmart membership shopping clubs worldwide. The company has warehouses in a total of 12 countries, including Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and countries across the Caribbean.
Recession does not seem to be deterring PriceSmart buyers; in fact, the opposite appears to be true. The company announced a 34 percent increase in sales profit for the U.S. fiscal second quarter, according to Forbes.com.
“We have better prices and special packaging, which is very good for savings,” said PriceSmart's Costa Rica marketing manager, Carla Chaves, who pointed out that the club's shoppers purchase products in three, four and six packs.
The 5,000 square meter Alajuela warehouse, which opened doors Friday, cost about $14 million to build and is creating 120 new jobs in the area, according to a company press release. |
-Tico Times |
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Guatemala’s Colom optimistic U.S.
will hit the gas on immigration reform |
U.S. President Barack Obama told Central American leaders he will speed up the process to help migrant fieldworkers from this region toiling on United States farms, according to Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, who met with fellow leaders from the region and Obama this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago.
“President Obama made us a concrete proposal to accelerate the initiative for temporary agricultural workers, to reach an agreement between employers and (Central American) governments,” Colom said Monday.
The statements came one day after a meeting between heads of state of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and Obama following the Summit of the Americas, during which U.S. immigration held a prime spot on the agenda.
Colom said leaders of SICA – made up of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador – welcomed Obama's words and are optimistic he will follow them with action.
“This will benefit the thousands of agricultural workers, mainly from our country, thousands of whom travel to (the U.S. )” to take up jobs in the field, the Guatemalan leader said. Colom said Obama's remarks during the meeting showed the White House's “will and intention to promote integral immigration reform.”
Long seen as a divider in the United States, the subject of immigration reached a milestone this month, when groups traditionally protective of the country's jobs –the trade unions – chose to endorse the idea of legalizing undocumented workers.
However, during his visit with Central American leaders late last month in Costa Rica, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said immediate action on immigration would be politically difficult under current economic conditions (see story at http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2009_03/033109.htm).
See the April 24 print or digital edition of The Tico Times and The Nica Times for more on the Trinidad summit and Central American sit-down with Obama. |
-EFE and Tico Times |
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| Our Unsung Hero: Tropical Marine Bioproductivity |
Costa Rica's bio diversity has reached world consciousness and achieved fame and fortune. But do you know about this country's unsung hero, bioproductivity? While our forests boast a renowned terrestrial biodiversity rivaling any similar-sized area in the world, our oceans' surface waters, coasts and islands are not particularly high in marine biodiversity. The unexplored deep sea bottoms might hold world-class biodiversity, but we do not know yet. What we do have is perhaps the world's highest tropical marine bioproductivity. And bioproductivity is just as cool as biodiversity.
While other places boast tens of thousands more marine species than Costa Rica's ocean area, our high marine bioproductivity means that we have tens of thousands more animals in a given area, just of fewer species. Imagine 100 beautiful masked booby seabirds, then 1,000 frolicking spinner dolphins, with 10,000 rocketing yellowfin tuna below and 50,000 Audubon's shearwaters and brown boobies whirling and swooping above. Throw in 500,000 shimmering rainbow comb jelly plankton and a few million finger-sized lantern fish forming shape-changing bait balls. Not so many species, but a lot of animals. That's bioproductivity, and it's a unique quality of Costa Rica's Pacific.
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| Strength in Numbers: Spinner dolphins congregate by the thousands off the Osa Peninsula. High bioproductivity is a unique feature of these Pacific waters. |
Shawn Larkin | Tico Times |
This doesn't mean the nation's coral reefs are not wonderfully biodiverse ecosystems; they are, but they are nowhere near the most biodiverse in the world. The Indo-Pacific contains probably tens of thousands more marine species than Costa Rica's Pacific. Take our coral, for example: Our Pacific surface waters have just a few dominant species of corals, with about 30 or 40 species total, and most places covered with fewer than 10 species. Costa Rica's Caribbean grows perhaps 80 species of coral in coastal waters, more than twice as biodiverse as the west coast. But waters in Indonesia explode with hundreds or even thousands of coral species. The story is the same for shellfish, algae, starfish and urchins, sea cucumbers, sea grass, sponges, fish and others. Simply put, the Indo-Pacific has the world's greatest known marine biodiversity.
One indicator used by ocean hunters, naturalists and scientists to gauge marine bioproductivity is birds. The more birds you see, the greater the bioproductivity. Thousands of birds would not be flying over a slice of ocean without a reason, and the reason is food: small fish, crustaceans, plankton and other marine life that abound in and define productive waters.
Flying offshore of southwestern Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula, you can see congregations of more seabirds than seems possible to count, indicating that the marine bioproductivity must be off the scale. Large numbers of other top predators such as dolphins, tuna and commercial, sport and artisan fishers also act as flags to high bioproductivity and confirm a Costa Rican natural treasure: world-class tropical marine bioproductivity.
The Americas' equivalent in terrestrial bioproductivity may have once been the North American great plains, where roamed vast herds of buffalo, deer and antelope, with sky-darkening clouds of Carolina parakeets covering whole states, plenty of bears, wild cats, beavers, otters and mink mixed throughout. Birds of prey such as eagles and hawks were so common that many people made clothes out of their feathers. Of course, now these ecosystems are more the stuff of song and legend than reality.
Costa Rica is blessed with living, intact, astounding bioproductivity that you can see on a day trip in a boat. Vast pods of dolphins stretching out of sight, flocks of seabirds darkening the sky and fish clouding the sea. This ecosystem is as wonderful a natural attraction as anything in Costa Rica, a true world marvel, yet few besides fishermen know it. Though very underdeveloped here, pelagic or open-ocean tourism holds great potential, as an infrastructure of boats and facilities is already in place. The high bioproductivity could soon lead to greater human economic productivity, if the resource is managed well.
Luckily, there is still time to sing praises and perpetuate some of the world's greatest tropical marine bioproductivity.
Contact Shawn at 8835-6041 or shawndive@yahoo.com, or check out www.costacetacea.com, updated weekly.
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