Rafael Arias stood with his arms crossed, watching bulldozers claw down tin homes and smoothing over the mud that was left behind in the Costa Rican capital city.

He – along with dozens of police officers and work crews – hoped to make it through 11 neighborhoods in Pavas, on the western fringes of San José, on Thursday, plowing through nearly 400 makeshift homes.

“This is what the communities want,” said Arias, an aide to San José Mayor Johnny Araya. “They want their parks back. They want peace.”

The homes – nothing more than cloth tents, boarded stalls and slanted sheet metal – were built illegally atop steep ravines, at the foot of alleyways and within common spaces.

“It's better this way,” said Yadira Lamas, looking out over the open space from the front step of the house she has called home for more than 20 years. “Now that it is clean, the kids will have a place to play.”

But as 27-year-old Margo Vargas watched her home scooped up and dropped into a dump truck, she shook her head.

“This is unnecessary,” she said, “Everyone will come back tonight. There's no where else for them to go.”

Holding up her fingers as if she was shaking a fan of bills, she said, “Think of all the money the government is spending on this.”

Vargas has been living with 80 people, packed onto a sloping public park space no bigger than half a football field in size. She has a job, but it doesn't pay her enough to afford a house or an apartment.

“The government hasn't offered us an alternative,” she said. “Some have families to return to, but others are homeless.”

Arias shook his head when asked about another option.

“No, there is no organized alternative for housing,” he said. Adding quickly, “But no one has asked. If they request help, our emergency services can find them a place to stay.”

The bulldozers arrived in select neighborhoods in Pavas, at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. Like an unwelcome alarm clock, the beeping of the construction vehicles drew Vargas and her neighbors out of their makeshift homes, following a long night of heavy rains caused by Tropical Storm Ida.

This is not the first time the government has flattened squatters' homes, but similar events might be making headlines more often.

Under a new program introduced Oct. 1, new taxes on “luxury homes” will be used to improve shanty towns. This, according to legislators, means finding housing for people like Vargas.

Homeowners with a property valued at $172,000 or more will see their taxes go up this year. New taxes on such homes vary between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent, depending on value.

But, until that money is available to fund alternative housing, money spent on evicting the squatters is money that's falling through the government's fingers, Vargas said.

“It's a waste,” she said, nodding to the trucks. “We'll be back tonight.”

Costa Rican telecommunications officials have authorized Internet access for 125 cafés this week, most of which are in the Central Valley region, the Superintendent of Telecommunications (SUTEL) said.

The businesses, including 104 in the Central Valley region where the capital San José lies, will be allowed to provide Internet access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

According to SUTEL, 77 internet cafés and stores had been authorized previously and another 400 are in the authorization phase.

The influx of Internet cafés is evidence of the increased interest in companies grabbing a piece of the country's telecom market, which was opened for competition in the beginning of 2009. The telecom market was controlled by the monopoly of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) until Costa Rica joined the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) on Jan. 1 of this year.

Of the 125 internet cafés, 88 will offer Internet access and 37 others will offer both Internet access and VoIP, which allows telephone calls to be made via the internet.

Meanwhile, seven Costa Rican companies participated in a trade mission known as “Costa Rica IT & Telecoms Network” on Thursday in New York. The mission, which was organized by the Foreign Trade Promotion Office, was used to develop potential commercial relationships with U.S.-based companies interested in participating in the Costa Rica telecom market.

“The opening of the telecommunications market in our country, without question, offers a range of opportunities to companies in the information and communications industry,” said Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz. “For that reason, activities of this nature promote opportunities for New York companies to make contacts and participate in our telecommunications market.”

The price of a liter of gasoline in Costa Rica has dropped ¢11, while the price of a liter of diesel fuel has gone up ¢4.

It's the sixth time this year that gasoline prices have fallen.

A bigger drop in gasoline prices had initially been approved by the Public Services Regulatory Authority (ARESEP), except that an inflation-driven adjustment to the fuel tax of 1.69 percent will be added, resulting in a lower than predicted drop in price.

The cost of super gasoline has gone down from the current ¢575 to ¢564 and regular from ¢558 to ¢547. Diesel has increased from ¢484 to ¢488.

Five hours after making landfall Thursday morning in Nicaragua's South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS), Hurricane “Ida” was downgraded from a Category 1 tempest to a tropical storm Thursday early afternoon.

The storm, which only reached hurricane-force winds for about six hours in the morning, still managed to cause considerable material damage in the remote Caribbean communities of Laguna de Perlas and Sandy Bay Sirpe, 100 kilometers north of Bluefields, the regional capital of the RAAS.

Preliminary reports from Civil Defense suggested many ramshackle homes had their roofs torn off by the winds, which also snapped trees and downed power lines. There was also reported flooding in the river communities of Prinzapolka and Río Grande, as some 3,500 people were evacuated, including many island residents from Corn Island.

At press time Thursday afternoon, there were no reported deaths or serious injuries, and Nicaraguan authorities said the worst of the storm appeared to be over.

However, some of the more rural communities were still incommunicado, after the winds knocked out several radio antennae used to communicate with the rural population.

Though Ida never made it past a category 1 storm, with winds touching 120 kilometers per hour, it was a very slow moving storm, giving it time to do inflict considerable damage where it made landfall, and to some of the offshore cays.

Civil Defense says it has some 850 troops in the region and will helicopter more support and food aid into Bluefields by Friday morning, once the winds calm enough to allow air travel.

In Costa Rica

The Costa Rican Red Cross and the National Emergency Commission (CNE) maintained yellow alert levels for several regions on Thursday afternoon, just hours after the category 1 hurricane swept ashore in Nicaragua.

The alert is in effect for the entire Pacific coast, the Central Valley and several counties in the northern zone at least through Friday morning.

The storm did not touch Costa Rica and only sustained hurricane force winds for six hours before being downgraded to a tropical depression. But the National Meteorological Institute (IMN) reports that the system has had indirect effects on Costa Rica and has caused strong rainfall.

Meteorologists said the excessive water has caused some rivers to rise in the northern Pacific region of the country, but that no serious flooding has been reported.

According to the CNE, the extra rain provoked the collapse of a sewer in Cartago, east of San José, which led to leaks in some homes. The rain also induced small landslides in Guararí de Heredia, north of San José. Three homes were affected and five families evacuated.

No mandatory evacuations have been issued and IMN meteorologists say the worst of the side effects have past.

Costa Rica's Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT) was scrambling for funds Thursday for much needed bridge repairs after the World Bank denied the country's request to use $15 million of loan money meant for emergency relief projects.

The request came in the wake of the Oct. 22 collapse of a 1920s hammock-style bridge over Río Tárcoles that killed five people. Following the accident, MOPT officials pledged to launch a $15 million project to repair 10 other bridges at risk of collapse.

Marco Vargas, on his first day in office Wednesday since replacing the former Public Works and Transport Minister Karla González, confirmed that the government would not be entitled to the money because it was reserved for response to emergencies rather than the prevention of them.

“The World Bank considers the reconstruction of the 10 bridges a preventative act, rather than an emergency, so we will have to go through other channels to raise the money,” MOPT spokeswoman Eugenia Sancho told The Tico Times Thursday.

“The minister has just had his first meeting today (Thursday) with all of the groups concerned, including the National Roadway Council, MOPT and the National Emergency Commission, which has put forward $12.5 million. MOPT is expected to raise the final $2.5 million.”

Sancho said MOPT officials are confident their new chief will rise to the occasion.

“The minister has been in government a long time and has plenty of experience overcoming such problems. We will raise the $15 million and work will continue as usual,” she said.

On Oct. 23, one day after the bridge over the Río T árcoles collapsed, President Oscar Arias called on the Finance Ministry to inject $15 million into a repairs project, which reportedly could be drawn from a $65 million credit line from World Bank called the Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (CAT DDO).

Last year, after the World Bank approved the CAT DDO, Gloria Grandolini, the institution's director of banking and debt management said, “ This is just one instrument as part of a World Bank effort to deliver customized financial solutions and help plan efficient responses to catastrophic events. The CAT DDO is most effective as part of a broader risk management strategy. ”

The 10 priority bridges are located above the Río Aranjuez, Río Abangares, Río Azufrado, Río Puerto Nuevo, Río Nuevo, Río Chirripó on Route 32 and Route 4, Río Sarapiquí, Río Sucio and Río Torres.

A Japanese expert in engineering is expected to arrive in Costa Rica at the beginning of next year to oversee the repairs.

Experts have warned that Costa Rica lacks sufficient data to locate all the bridges – of the country's more than 1,000 total – in need of repair.