About 130 radio stations in Costa Rica observed one minute of silence at 7:03 a.m. yesterday to protest the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s decision not to renew the license of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV).

The station has long been an outlet for opposition parties, according to CNN’s Web site. Chávez has accused RCTV of supporting the failed 2002 coup against him and violating broadcast laws. The 53-year-old station was scheduled to go off the air at midnight last night and be replaced a state-run station.

Costa Rica’s National Radio Chamber (CANARA) organized the moment of silence, and all its member stations participated, as well as a few others, according to director Juan Sepúlveda.

The chamber considers Chávez’s action “a threat against freedom of expression,” he said. Latin American governments should regulate broadcasts, but should do it “with tolerance in the political realm.”

The Costa Rican Institute for Press and Freedom of Expression (IPLEX) also expressed its “complete rejection” of the decision to close RCTV.

-ACAN-EFE

I’m going to make this work right, yet.

The first picture was of the concrete in the trenches. It surrounds a long cage of rebar. The columns in between the block walls are also full of rebar, and a corona will be poured around the top of all the walls, with everything linked together by rebar. They are using enough rebar for a two story house, so I am hoping nothing shifts.

by Rod Hughes
Seven Costa Rican soccer stars will play with clubs in the Champions’ League (European soocer federation), a tournament the daily La Nacion calls “the most relevant tourney of clubs in the world.”
Injury-plagued Gilberto (Tuma) Martínez, recuperating from a persistent knee injury, hopes to be recovered enough to play with his AS Roma team in the competition. The defender missed the last Champions’ League with the injury but was able at least to accompany his team to the quarter finals last April 11–in time to see Manchester administer a horrible 7-1 beating. But AC Roma is back, having finished second in Italy’s Serie A. June 9 will be the year’s anniversary since he last played but he hopes to be on the pitch in September.
Then there is Winston Parks whose Czech Republic team Slovan Liberec finished second. But second was enough to get into the tourney.
The seven stars in champions’ League include a woman, Shirley Cruz, to play with Olympique of Lyon in the women’s version of the tourney.
Ronald (La Bala) Gómez would have been playing with his European team, Apoel of Nicosa, Cyprus, but he opted to return to Costa Rica to play with Puntarenas.
Avaro Saborío will be with Switzerlands FC Sion, Luis antonio Marín with Isreal’s Maccabi Netamya, Bryan Ruíz and Randall Azofeifa with Belgium’s K.A.A. Gent.
During the season Saborío accounted for 14 goals, topping is own team and placing second in the Swiss league in goals.
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LATEST NEWS BULLETIN:
The National Champion Saprissa soccer club has just sold star striker Alvaro Saborío to Sion of Switzerland for $1 million!
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But not all the Ticos in Europe will have a chance to play in the tourney. In Austria, Pablo Chinchilla and Froylan Ledezma had the bitter experience of playing with a team, Altach, that ended up in eighth place. Chinchilla began playing regularly later in the season and was instrumental in keeping his team from sliding into the Second Division. He will stay with Altach next season while Ledezma will go with Augsburg in Germany’s Second Division.

this is just another experiment

5/29/7

Just trying to get some pictures on When it works, I will post more. The house is going well.
I got caught speeding yesterday, and expected to pay the usual ten thousand colones bribe. Unfortunately he was honest and showed me a ticket he had written earlier for the same speed. It was twenty thousand. He proceeded to write out the ticket as we talked, he in English, and I in Spanish, and when he gave it to me, it was for a bad light, two thousand colones. What a pleasure after paying or fighting not to pay corrupt officials for two months.
Well, it didn’t work again. Back to Russ.