|
|
 |
| CHRISTMAS Lights: As San José tradition goes, the National Children's Museum was illuminated for the Christmas season Monday night during a Caribbean-style celebration complete with calypso music and the choir Master Key singing Christmas carols. The border of the museum's castle-shaped façade was lit up with huge light bulbs while fireworks exploded overhead. |
Mónica Quesada | Tico Times |
 |
| Immigration Director Promises Drastic Changes |
Mario Zamora, who heads the country's troubled General Immigration Administration, has announced significant changes designed to take the heat off of his organization as it undergoes an overhaul – and keep its users out of day-long lines. |
|
| Rapid Winds Whip through Central Valley |
Gusts of wind as fast as 70 kilometers per hour lashed through the Central Valley yesterday and Monday, said National Meteorological Institute (IMN) meteorologist Luis Fernando Alvarado. |
|
| Arias Addresses OAS, Offers Advice to Region |
| Continuing his visit to Washington D.C. yesterday, President Oscar Arias addressed representatives from the Organization of American States (OAS), offering words of advice for his fellow Latin American leaders. |
|
|
|
December 05
Guitar and Violin Recital
5:30 p.m., José Figueres Ferrer Cultural Center, San Ramón, Alajuela, northwest of San José. Info: 447-2178.
National Symphony Orchestra Christmas Concert
Performing works by Verdi, Bach, Sanz Meza, Tchaikovsky, Portilla Guzmán and Handel, 7:30 p.m., Parroquia del Pilar, Tres Ríos, east of San José. Info: 240-0333.
Edited By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net
|
|
Immigration Director Promises Drastic Changes
|
By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff | kstanley@ticotimes.net
|
Mario Zamora, who heads the country's troubled General Immigration Administration, has announced significant changes designed to take the heat off of his organization as it undergoes an overhaul – and keep its users out of day-long lines.
Regional Immigration offices are soon to open outside San José, and early next year, Costa Ricans will be able to obtain or renew their passports at Banco de Costa Rica offices. As soon as July, foreigners seeking to renew their residency permits will be able to do so at the bank as well, eliminating lengthy trips to Immigration headquarters, Zamora told The Tico Times yesterday.
What's more, an executive decree soon to be published in the official government daily La Gaceta will automatically renew, for one year, foreigners' cédulas (id cards) that expired between Dec. 1 of this year and July 1, 2007. The decree also applies to foreigners whose cédulas expired before Dec. 1, but who are still waiting for a renewal appointment. Waits for such appointments can last up to 10 months (TT, Sept. 29).
This decree has already decreased the once-massive lines of foreigners at Immigration headquarters in La Uruca, in western San José – giving the institution's personnel much-needed time to continue organizing the chaotic paper filing system, Zamora said. The next step will be computerizing the system so that nationals, then foreigners, can conduct most Immigration paperwork at Banco de Costa Rica. (The process will start with 29 Banco de Costa Rica sites in early 2007, then increase to 70 by year's end and 180 in 2008, he said.)
See this Friday's print or pdf edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.
|
|
Rapid Winds Whip through Central Valley |
|
Gusts of wind as fast as 70 kilometers per hour lashed through the Central Valley yesterday and Monday, said National Meteorological Institute (IMN) meteorologist Luis Fernando Alvarado.
Winds this speed are “totally out of the ordinary,” in the Central Valley, where wind speed averages about 30 kilometers per hour, Alvarado said. The cause: a cold front sweeping through North America that has blasted winds over Central America.
The strongest winds were recorded in Alajuela, northwest of San José, and Guararí de Heredia, north of San José, where gusts blew a tree over three houses, destroying two of them completely, according to Channel 7 TV News.
By yesterday afternoon wind speeds had begun to slow down and are expected to continue decreasing to normal speed today, Alvarado said.
|
| |
Arias Addresses OAS, Offers Advice to Region |
Continuing his visit to Washington D.C. yesterday, President Oscar Arias addressed representatives from the Organization of American States (OAS), offering words of advice for his fellow Latin American leaders.
Not surprisingly, Arias' speech was based on three themes that have oft left his lips so far during his administration: free trade, education and reducing military spending.
He called free trade the way to “contribute to the creation of greater well-being for our citizens,” using Costa Rica to exemplify the challenges globalization has brought developing countries.
“If we aren't capable of exporting more goods and services, we will end up exporting more people,” reads a copy of Arias' speech provided by Casa Presidencial.
Touching on education, Arias lamented that in Latin America, one in every three young people does not continue his or her studies through high school.
“Today more than ever, we have to understand that the failures of education today will be the failures of the economy tomorrow,” Arias said, explaining that inadequately educated youth won't be able to compete in the globalized world.
Finally, Arias evoked the values of peace and disarmament that earned him a Nobel Peace Prize during his first administration (1986-1990), praising his country for abolishing its military and encouraging others to support his proposed Costa Rica Consensus, an initiative to reward developing countries for investing in social development over arms when evaluating their debt.
Yesterday afternoon, Arias was scheduled to meet with several U.S. senators including former presidential candidate Democrat John Kerry and Republicans Richard Lugar and Charles Rangel, according to a statement from Casa Presidencial. Today, he is scheduled to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush. |
|
|
|
| 
| Exchange Rates
