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| Tico circus: Street performers El Circo de la Pena yesterday keep the festivities going in San José's La Sabana Park, where the International Arts Festival has been drawing crowds all week and ends on Sunday. |
| Ronald Reyes | Tico Times |
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| Google denies plans for Costa Rica office |
Following a media frenzy over its alleged intent to open an office in Costa Rica, the Internet giant Google yesterday denied having such plans. |
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| Judges blowing whistle on building permits |
Environmental officials say employees at Talamanca Municipality, and some from their own ranks may have rubber-stamped permits that allowed homes and hotels that could damage prized forests and wetlands along the Caribbean coast. |
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| Forest fires charring large swath of Costa Rica park |
Some 500 hectares of the Santa Rosa National Park in the northwestern province of Guanacaste have been scorched by a fire that began Wednesday, the daily La Nación reported. |
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Edited By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net |
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| Click here for this weekend's International Arts Festival program, with activities all day today, tomorrow and Sunday in San José, Alajuela and Puntarenas. |
| April 18 |
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Toda tierra es tu tierra
Performed by ACNUR, 4 p.m., in front of Costa Rican Art Museum, La Sabana Park. April 19, 3 p.m., Colegio Universitario de Puntarenas, in front of Paseo de los Turistas, Puntarenas.
“El Cántaro Roto”
Heinrich von Kleist's comedy “The Broken Jug” in Spanish, Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m., Teatro Dionisio, Café Britt, 500 m north, 400 m west of Auto Mercado, road to Barva, Heredia, 2277-1600.
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| April 19 |
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Festival Imperial
Smashing Pumpkins, Incubus, Café Tacvba, Babasónicos, LePop, La Guácima, Alajuela, www.festivalimperial.com.
'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'
Performed by Kamuk School, Saturday, 7 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.; Monday and Tuesday, 7 p.m., National Auditorium.
Monologue Historia de Ixquic
By Rubén Pagura, including dance, music, and theater, 7 p.m., Colinas de Poás, Poás de Alajuela, 2-482-1212, 2-430-4113.
Trip to Río Celeste and Danta Lagoon
With the Organization for Tropical Studies, Saturday and Sunday, biocursos@ots.ac.cr
Paraíso Horse Parade
Noon, Paraíso, Cartago.
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| April 20 |
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Festival Imperial
Duran Duran, Seal, Pospartes, Zoé www.festivalimperial.com
China Kichá fair
8:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Pérez Zeledón, Southern Zone.
Trova Concert
By Miguel Cabrera, 12 a.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro.
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| Google denies plans for Costa Rica office |
Following a media frenzy over its alleged intent to open an office in Costa Rica, the Internet giant Google yesterday denied having such plans.
“For the moment, we are not planning to open regional headquarters in Costa Rica, but we do wish to improve the attention to our customers (there),” Alberto Arébalos, Google's corporate communications and public affairs director for Latin America, told newswire EFE.
The statement contradicted a government news bulletin Wednesday, which made front-page headlines in some of Costa Rica's major dailies. The release said a top Google executive at the Economic Forum on Latin America in Cancún, Mexico, told President Oscar Arias of his company's “short-term” plans to base its regional operations here. |
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| Judges blowing whistle on building permits |
By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net
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| Environmental officials say employees at Talamanca Municipality, and some from their own ranks may have rubber-stamped permits that allowed homes and hotels that could damage prized forests and wetlands along the Caribbean coast.
An April 7-11 sweep of construction sites in the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge and nearby towns led to a clampdown on several building projects of private homes and lodges, including the reputedly ecofriendly Hotel Almendros y Corales.
The inspections also revealed that some landowners obtained building permits for projects that encroach on the 50-meter no-building zone along the shore, according to press release from the Environmental Administrative Tribunal, the judicial arm of the Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE).
“There are lots more than we expected,” José Lino Chaves, the tribunal's chief justice said of allegedly illegal buildings, tree cutting and burning.
The tribunal said it will probe high-level employees of the Limón branch of the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), also a part of MINAE, the release said.
SINAC directors were not available for comment, nor were members of the Talamanca council, whom the environment judges suspect might also be turning a blind eye to harmful construction in the region.
See today's Tico Times for more on this story. |
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| Forest fires charring large swath of Costa Rica park |
Some 500 hectares of the Santa Rosa National Park in the northwestern province of Guanacaste have been scorched by a fire that began Wednesday, the daily La Nación reported.
The fire reached an area of vegetation that is in the process of natural regeneration, stated the National Emergency Commission (CNE). The emergency staff is focused on preventing the flames from spreading to other areas of the park.
Last Monday, officials of the Guanacaste Conservation Area, volunteers and firefighters put out a separate fire in the Santa Elena section of the park that burned two acres of pasture and scrubland.
Roberto Dobles, the Environment Minister, said that this year 70 fires have scorched protected areas. They have been caused by agricultural burns or by people lighting fires in retaliation because they were prohibited from hunting.
Also this week, firefighters battled flames in an area adjacent to the Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge near the Nicaraguan border, where a wildfire burned some 150 hectares.
This fire came on the heels of an April 10 blaze that blackened 300 hectares of wetland vegetation in the Caño Negro region. |
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