by Rod Hughes, from media reports 

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Wednesday said publicly that Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he received in 1987 for his “peace offensive” in Central America that ended the bloody civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador during the 1980s.

The gratuitious attack seemed to take Arias somewhat aback when he appeared on national TV Thursday. Ortega stated flatly the the prize was more merited by Salvador’s then-president, the late Napoleon Duarte.

If Ortega’s style appears to smack of the blunt Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Ortega’s critics say this should be no surprise. The Nica Times of Nicaragua reported Friday that many feel Ortega is all too chummy with the flamboyantly outspoken South American.

Some point to the gift Ortega gave Chavez of two original manuscripts written by the great Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario—a gift that may have violated a law against exporting historical artifacts from Nicaragua.

Still, The Nica Times reports that Ortega, who was head of the leftist Sandinista regime in the 1980s, is receiving mixed reviews on his first two months in office. Many praise his cutting of government salaries and his directing funds toward social issues. And, the new president still is holding to his campaign promises of a mixed economy, very unlike the communist model followed by the Sandinsta regime.

Still, critics accuse him of violating several laws already in his administration of the country and worry that he may still have vestiges of the strongman style of yore, including a tendency to harshly criticize the press. Ortega’s bonding with Chavez only encourage these tendencies, his critics say.

by Rod Hughes
(News Freshly Brewed from Local Media)

Juan Valdez must feel like a U.S. soldier transferred to a Middle Eastern country.

The advertising symbol for the Colombian Coffee Growers’ Federation is the subject of a copyright law suit filed last year against the Costa Rican firm Cafe Britt over Britt’s alleged use of the Valdez image with the slogan, “Juan Valdez drinks Costa Rican coffee.” Now Valdez has gone on the offensive with the entry of Colombian coffee into the Costa Rican market, the daily Al Día reported today.

Of course the head of the Colombian Procafecol, Ricardo Obregon, insists that this is simply a marketing move that has nothing to do with the Federation’s suit against Britt. Costa Rica is a heavy coffee consumer and Obregon says he is targeting other countries in the region as well.

“We don’t intend to say we’re better or worse than Costa Rican coffee but we want to enter into a refined culture accustomed to drinking the fine coffee they have there and offer ourselves as an additional option,” Obregon told the Associated Press diplomatically.

Cafe Britt is a luxury coffee with overseas sales as well as a strong following inside Costa Rica. And it is not the only gourmet coffee brand in the country with sales abroad; Sun Burst Coffee also offers direct sales to the U.S. with a variety of roasts and flavored coffees.

“Costa Rica now makes 5% of its coffee production gourmet types.” says Obregon, “while we have only 2% in that category. Selling there seems a logical move.”

It is not known what brand of coffee Valdez’s burro, also a part of the ubiquitous advertising image, drinks.

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff

With the goal of facilitating safer travel for Costa Ricans and tourists during Easter Holy Week, or Semana Santa, next week, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) yesterday announced plans to beef up the Traffic Police force during this time and outlined roadway and airport repairs under way.

An estimated 1.8 million to 2.1 million people are expected to travel around the country next week, according to a statement from the ministry. Beginning Saturday, 819 traffic police will be stationed along primary roads leading to prime vacation spots, explained Traffic Police Director Gérman Marín.

Additionally, at 11 strategically placed checkpoints, officials will be looking for drunk drivers, stolen vehicles, alleged criminals wanted by police and illegal immigrants. These checkpoints will be placed at spots including the vicinity of the Juan Santamaría International Airport, just northwest of San José; La Lima de Cartago, east of San José; the road from Palmar Norte to Dominical, in the Southern Zone; and at the entrance to beaches in the northwestern Guanacaste province including Playas del Coco, according to the ministry.

The ministry has also sped up repairs to some heavily trafficked roads in preparation for this busy vacation week, explained Public Works and Transport Minister Karla González.

These include the road from Santa Elena to Guacimal near the popular north-central cloud forest preserve of Monteverde, the northern Inter-American Highway from Limonal to Cañas and the road between the Guanacaste beaches of Nosara and Sámara, which residents have recently decried for accident-causing clouds of dust (TT, March 23). Workers are trying to get this road in “acceptable” conditions, the minister said.

Eight of the country’s 24 airstrips for national flights are also being worked on. The ministry invested more than ¢1.1 billion ($2.1 million) in improvements to airstrips and terminals at airports in the Southern Zone towns of Golfito, Drake and Palmar Sur, and others around the country, the statement said.

by Rod Hughes

TALCA, Chile–Costa Rica’s All Star soccer team tied their Chilean counterparts last night 1-1 after the Ticos had trailed through most of the game 1-0. And the tying goal was made by veteran Rolando Fonseca, the 1,000th goal since the formation of the All-Stars in 1921. That’s 1,000 in 524 games.

That tying goal was a thing of art. Fonseca whirling to sink a perfect feed from Harold Wallace. And it appeared during the first half as if it might not happen against a surprisingly strong Chilean 11 that was recently reported split and demoralized.

But it was not the strength of Chile that was so surprising during the first period as were the defects in Costa Rica’s game–a weakness in midfield and an isolation of the attack zone so that it might as well have been on a different planet. When Chile’s Reinaldo Navia took Humberto Suazo’s pass and blasted it past Tico goalie Jose Francisco Porras after only three minutes of play, fans might have been excused for turning off the TV for an early bedtime.

But, at halftime, Costa Rica’s coach Hernan Medford straightened things out and when the Ticos took to the field again they were a different team entirely. In fact, they got better as the game wore on, turning Chile’s domination around completely.

Medford may turn out to be the master of tactics that his mentor, Alexander Guimareas, was when he guided the team.

And what about embattled Chilean coach Nelson Acosta? Will the tie, after Brazil’s trashing of his team (4-0), mean the beginning of the end for him? Southern Cone fans no doubt were hoping that Chile would perform the same vivisection on Costa Rica.
It just didn’t happen that way.

The international computer component-manufacturer Intel has donated 900 of its lightweight laptop computers to the Ministry of Public Education to further the ministry’s drive to make this country’s youngest generation computer literate as fast as is economically possible. Each $300 Classmate comes with two gigabytes of memory and contains a 900 megahertz processor.

Intel has a large microchip plant in Costa Rica and the donation coincides with the visit of board of directors Chairman Craig R. Barrett to this country, where he visited classrooms already equipped with computers.

In an interview with the daily newspaper La Nacion, Barrett reviewed his 33 years in the computer field. When he first began, he related, the “new technology break-through,” transistors, could be viewed with the naked eye. Then, as chips miniaturized, an optical microscope was necessary. Today, an electron microscope is needed. “Soon,” he said, “You can carry the Internet in your pocket.”

Currently, the private Omar Dengo Foundation is working with the Ministry of Education to place a computer at the disposal of every school child in the country. Barrett related that Intel has already been working with the Foundation, which as directed its attentions toward training the teachers in computer skills.

By Leland Baxter-Neal
Tico Times Staff
At the behest of the Public Security Ministry, researchers at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) are preparing a total redesign of the ministry in hopes of making it a leaner, meaner crime-fighting machine, according to Mayela Cubillo, director of the University of Costa Rica’s (UCR) School of Public Administration.

The school is meeting with scholars, lawyers, public officials, researchers and others as they tackle an infamously inefficient ministry. A final report with recommendations for an overhaul of the ministry’s structure is expected in October.

Cubillo said the Public Security Ministry has eight duplicated offices, including two press offices, two human resources offices and two legal departments. She also noted that Costa Rica has 17 different police divisions with distinct and often limited powers.

Part of the blame for the overlap is traced back to the administration of Miguel Angel Rodríguez (1998-2002), when the Public Security Ministry was joined with the Governing and Police Ministry, she said.

Lack of public security “is an issue for the state — it is a public issue,” Cubillo told The Tico Times yesterday, adding that the private sector, especially the media, also play a large part. The director said media has helped fuel both a higher perception of crime than is reality, and a real increase in crime.

“Our idea is that (with a restructured ministry) we can diminish both the real and perceived crime rates,” she said.

The Costa Rican all-stars, the national soccer team, is on its way to Chile for an exhibition game, flushed with last weekend’s rout of a hapless New Zealand 11 at Ricardo Saprissa Stadium here, by a 4-0 score.

Expectations have been for a much tougher game ahead than the last one—but things have not been going well for Chile, an understatement if there ever was one. First, coach Nelson Acosta brushed aside Chile’s resounding defeat, 4-0, at the hands of Brazil.

This casual way of dismissing the defeat deeply disturbed many of Chile’s players, who are reported to be seriously divided about the general well-being of the national team. Then, to top it all off, the Chilean team missed its return flight.

These exhibition games provide valuable experience for national teams and Chilean fans can console themselves that it is better to have these problems now than during the runup to the World Cup. But soccer fans, especially in the Southern Cone countries, take even exhibition games seriously, so Acosta had better watch his back…

Cristian Samper, a Costa Rican-Colombian expert in biodiversity, has been named internal general director of Smithsonian Institution, according to the daily La Nacion.

The scientist joins one of the most prestigious scientific and historical organizations in the world, which operates some 20 museums worldwide as well as the Washington D.C. Zoo, the paper reported today.

Samper, 40, who received his doctorate degree from Harvard University, was named to replace Lawrence M. Small who came under criticsim from the institution’s board of regents for expenditures in housing, travel expenses and his office, as well as his way of administering the wide-flung network of museums. Small, who resigned Monday, managed to work his way up from an already generous salary to a point in which he was costing the institution an average of $2,500 per day.

Born in Costa Rica but raised in Columbia, Samper said he hoped that the museums under his direction would reflect the ideals of his native land.

Low water levels behind Arenal Dam are raising fears of authorities that electricity will have to be generated by the much more expensive method using fossil fuels if electrical demand for the new two months is to be met. In the first three months of this year, the level of Costa Rica’s main generating reservoir has dropped some 10 feet, according to the daily La Nacion.

Water for all purposes is low in the country this dry season due to the the climatic phenomenon known as el Nino and the season is not due to end until May when, usually, rains resume.

But engineers for the Costa Rican Electrical Institute (ICE, its Spanish acronym) have high hopes for an energy source far less expensive and less polluting than fossil fuels—the sugar cane stalks that form the principal byproduct in the making of granular sugar. Although this process only accounts for a minor amount of electrical generation currently, conversion of sugar cane refineries is relatively simple without affecting the production of granular sugar.

ICE engineers speculate that generators could be on line and producing 60 megawatts by 2009. In the process, the cane that is pressed and has given up its juices is then burned, giving up still more vapor that passes under high pressures through the turbines. Three large sugar producing plants exist in Guanacaste province, northeast of San Jose.

Costa Rica, a small country hungry for energy, is no stranger to alternate energy sources. Currently a large generation plant exists on the flanks of Rincon de la Vieja Volcano using super-heated volcanic steam and in other parts of the country a few generators use wind power.

During the past two decades, governments have attempted to wean the country away from using supplemental diesel generators during the dry season when water levels behind dams usually drop.

An international group dedicated to the banning of depleted uranium weapons has sought the support of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an outspoken proponent of arms control, reported Central America’s leading English-language newspaper today.

The group met with Arias and, although no concrete results were divulged, the President says he is in agreement with the group’s aims.

Depleted uranium is used in the making of anti-tank shells that will pierce armor, in the words of Tico Times reporter Blake Schmidt, “like a sword through flesh.” These shells, 1.7 times the weight of lead, produce intense temperature when they hit and were used in the 1991 Gulf War and then again more recently against Saddam Hussein’s tanks in the Iraq War.

Depleted uranium is cheap, being a byproduct of nuclear energy production, but retains 60% of its radioactivity, reports the paper, and the group’s spokesman, a former U.S. soldier, says that it is harmful to anyone around the shells. The U.S. Defense Department maintains the health effects are minimal.

The group would like Arias to present a resolution to the United Nations, taking advantage of the President’s worldwide prestige as a symbol of peacemaking.