WORKS of Generosity: These artificial respirators that keep patients alive at Calderón Guardia Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit in San José are some of the many gifts the Japanese Embassy has bestowed upon Costa Rica though its Assistance to Community Projects program. Yesterday, the embassy offered the press a tour of projects it has supported around the San José area.

Officials from the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute (INTUR) yesterday announced they will forge ahead with efforts to promote their country as a travel destination for Central Americans, especially those from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras.

By Blake Schmidt
Tico Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net

Costa Rican authorities worked with the Peruvian and Ecuadorian consulates yesterday to find a way to repatriate 57 migrants the U.S. Coast Guard found stranded at sea Monday after an unsuccessful attempt to illegally migrate to the United States.
  
The migrants were held at an Immigration shelter in San José yesterday as authorities coordinated with Peruvian and Ecuadorian authorities to fly them home.
  
Migrants told The Tico Times they paid as much as $11,000 per person for a spot on the boat.

The smugglers "told us the boat would be comfortable, but it was very small," said Angel Alvarracín, an Ecuadorian man who had planned to take the boat from Ecuador to Mexico and then travel across the United States border by foot with his 10-year-old son Cristian. Some of the smugglers robbed his cell phone and what cash he had on him before escaping after the boat's engine failed, he said.

A U.S. Coast Guard ship rescued the abandoned migrants, and the Prosecutor's Office of the Pacific Puntarenas province has filed charges against three Peruvian men accused of human trafficking.

See this Friday’s print or electronic edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net

A giant inflatable blue whale bounced around one corner of downtown San José’s Culture Plaza yesterday, catching the attention of passersby and enticing children to jump on it. Although this festive attraction looked like something rented for a kid’s birthday party, it was intended to transmit a serious message: Costa Rica should support international efforts to protect whales from being hunted by the Japanese government.

Twelve international and Costa Rican environmental organizations united to bring the big whale to San José yesterday, one of several actions they’re taking to encourage the Costa Rican government to rejoin the International Whale Commission, an organization dedicated to whale conservation that opposes plans by Japan to resume commercial whaling for meat and scientific purposes.

Costa Rica has been behind on its dues to the commission for 20 years and must pay up to be able to vote to stop Japan from hunting, explained Damián Martínez, a marine biologist with Fundación Keto.

“There are towns on the Osa Peninsula (in the Southern Zone) that live from the tourism whales bring to the area, and these migratory whales could become the victims of hunting if Japan’s plan goes through,” Martínez explained. “Costa Rica would lose.”

A yellow sign attached to the inflatable whale sent a message to President Oscar Arias to make rejoining the commission a priority. “Mr. President, are you going to defend our whales?” it read.

“We want people to know that Costa Rica has whales that are born here that could fall under the hands of the Japanese if the government doesn’t take actions to protect them,” said Luis Diego Marín, president of the Association for the Preservation of Wild Flora and Fauna (APREFLOFAS).

Greenpeace, the Costa Rican Federation for Environmental Conservation (FECON), Marviva and the World Society for the Protection of Animals are among other groups that have united for the cause.

Officials from the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute (INTUR) yesterday announced they will forge ahead with efforts to promote their country as a travel destination for Central Americans, especially those from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras.

These countries are “priority markets with high potential,” said INTUR president Mario Salinas during a press conference yesterday.

During 2006, Nicaragua invested $26,000 to promote itself in Costa Rica and received 92,300 Tico tourists who spent $24 million.

In El Salvador, Nicaragua invested $15,000 in promotion last year and received 114,000 Salvadoran tourists who spent $30 million, while 150,000 Honduran tourists visited their southern neighbor last year, spending $36.5 million, Salinas said.

In addition to trying to entice more Central American tourists to visit, Nicaragua plans to position itself to become a hot destination for people from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Another niche Nicaragua is out to capture are foreign retirees; in the past two years, 128 retired people have been given residency there, and they invest an average of $1.5 million per year, Salinas said. Nicaraguans residing in the United States are another group the government plans to encourage to come back and vacation.

Nicaragua is behind other Central American countries in terms of tourism, but it plans to “catch up as soon as possible,” he said.

-ACAN-EFE