The Tico Times Online Daily Page

Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, January 14, 2003

SWEET HOME GUATEMALA: Formerly joined twins head home after five months in hospital.
photo/AFP

Coast Guard Searches for Missing
Crewmembers in Pacific and Atlantic
The Coast Guard this morning is searching for two men missing at sea off both coasts.
(Click for more)

January 14

Summer Classes For All Public in Universities

Technological Institute of Costa Rica (TEC)

Cartago Campus: guitar, Electric Tools Fixing, Drawing, Ceramics, Sexual Harrasment Social Reality, PDF, Excel, Word Bonsai, Menopause and Andropause, Journalism First Steps, Chocolate, Popular dances, Christmas Trees Production, Basic Car Maintenance, Remembering Tales, How to Take Care of Voice, Emergency Plans at Home, Insects World, Digital Photography, Handmade Paper, Mechanic, Communication with Deaf People, Beisbol.

San José Campus: Oils, Stain Glass, Floral Therapies, Collage, Protocole, Learning Languages, First Aids, Film History and Analisis, Art History, Wine Culture, Nutrition, Accounting.

San Carlos Campus: Portuguese, English, Paper Recycling, Basketball, Traditional Games, Learning about PC, Installation of Programs in PC. Registration January 15, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the closest campus, all levels and public, 550-2315, 550-2300, 550-2430.

Alajuela University College: Massage (digitopunture, sports, reflexology, limphatic drenage) for people over 15 years old; Basic Mechanics, Hydropony, International Cooking, Vegetarian Cooking, Sign Language; Computer Programs Management; Cartoons, Taekwondo, Cooking Classes for Children, Medicinal Plants, Basic Haircut, Makeup, Photography for Kids, Popular Dance, Folklore Dance. Registration Jan. 13-17, 300 m. west, 300 m. south of Perimercados, road to Villa Bonita, Alajuela, 443-1314.

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Coast Guard Searches for Missing
Crewmembers in Pacific and Atlantic

The Coast Guard this morning is searching for two men missing at sea off both coasts.

One man was reported drowned and a 15-year-old crewmember missing yesterday, when a small fishing boat flipped and sank in high seas five miles south of the Caribbean port of Limón. In a separate incident, a crewmember of a Bolivian registry tanker reportedly fell overboard off the southern Pacific coast of Golfito, according to a Public Security press release.

The Coast Guard, responding to an emergency call at 8:40 a.m., set out to find the distressed fishing boat. But when they arrived at the spot the boat had sunk. Rescuers were able to save only two crewmembers, identified as José Mayorga and 12-year-old Javier Solera. Crewmember Roger Martínez reportedly drowned when the boat flipped, and Luis Alonso González, 15, is still missing.

With waves as high as 3 meters (almost 10 feet), the Coast Guard was reportedly forced to postpone the search for the missing teenager until the seas calm. The Red Cross reportedly conducted its own search without success.

Meanwhile, a Chinese crewmember also was reported lost at sea yesterday, when a tanker en route to Panama reported Xiong Kejen, 23, had fallen overboard sometime in the early hours of the morning.

Kejen reportedly chose to sleep on deck while waiting his turn at the watch. The tanker's captain said the young crewmember must have fallen into the ocean in his sleep.

The shipping company instructed the captain to search for the missing crewmember for 72 hours, before continuing on to Panama and reporting Kejen missing to the Chinese Embassy.

The Coast Guard will assist in the search efforts, according to the release.

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Colombian Detained with Counterfeit Money

Acting on a tip from a money exchange house near the Panamanian border Saturday, police detained a Colombian man who tried to exchange $300 worth of counterfeit $100 bills near the southern frontier.

Identified by the last name García, the 60-year-old Colombian was found hiding 161 false $100 bills in his shoes and underwear, according to police.

After being arrested and questioned by police, the suspect admitted he was en route to Guatemala, where he planned to launder the money for a ring of coyotes who smuggle undocumented workers across the boarder.

García is being held in jail while authorities continue to investigate.
-AFP

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German Resident Commits Suicide

A 53-year-old German man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday afternoon in his home in Solania de Tilarán, Guanacaste, Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) officials said yesterday.

The man - whose name is being withheld until family members are notified - lived alone and was reportedly a client of the now-defunct high-interest personal loan business known as "The Brothers."

Authorities have notified the German Embassy and are continuing to investigate the matter.

Read Friday's TT print edition for full story.

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Separated Guatemalan twins Head Home

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Two twin girls formerly joined at the head bade farewell to doctors Monday as they returned home to Guatemala, five months after undergoing ground-breaking surgery to separate them.

The pair left the University of California at Los Angeles' Mattel Children's Hospital with their grateful parents after slowly recovering from a complex 23-hour operation that gave the girls the chance to live normal lives.

The 17-month old tots, María Teresa and María de Jesus Quiej Alvarez --dubbed "The Two Marías" by doctors and media, were separated Aug. 6 and have since made good progress, despite some complications in their recovery.

"The surgery enabled the two Marías to overcome an astonishing physical obstacle and to launch independently their healthy lives," Doctor Edward McCabe, the chief physician at the hospital, told reporters yesterday.

The "hard work of (the girls') caregivers has been rewarded in many ways," said the doctor whose surgeon's performed the operation free of charge, adding that the girls left a "legacy of new knowledge that will benefit teaching research and medical practice far into the future."

The two girls, who can now breathe and eat on their own, are expected to fully recover, doctors said. But they will need further treatment to reduce swelling to their brains and to monitor their brain activity and development.

"It was a year ago that we first found out about the twins," said Chris Embleton, co-founder of the charity Healing the Children that brought the twins to the United States from their home in rural Guatemala.

"We could only hope and pray for a miracle. And we got it. We absolutely have it,"he said.

Wearing matching pink and purple tiaras, the girls left the Los Angeles hospital in prams pushed by their 21-year-old father, Wenseslao Quiej, a banana packer, and his wife, Alba Leticia Alvarez.

The Guatemalan Pediatric Foundation is gathering donations to pay for the $1.5 million in hospital bills the girls have racked up as a result of their stay. The cutting-edge surgery that separated them, however, was carried out free of charge by hospital staff.

Conjoined skulls are the rarest of Siamese twins, making up only two percent of all known cases.

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