Free Republic

The president met with identity theft victims; and in Orlando, FL, talked about the Medicare prescription drug benefit program. He said that Iran's letter to the USA about their nuclear program doesn't answer essential questions about Iran not having a nuclear weapons program or the ability to make nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Rice said that any attempt to punish or coerce Iran through the United Nations Security Council is on hold while Britain, France and Germany renew diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to back down. Bush said he was open to pending proposals in Congress to expand oil and...

The President spent the weekend in Washington, on Saturday he Delivered the Commencement Address at Oklahoma State University and later in the day attended a family wedding in Washington. On Sunday as is his practise when in Washington he attended St John's, the first lady travelled to Costa Rica to attend today's swearing in of Costa Rica's President-elect Oscar Arias. The Vice President concluded his Eastern European trip over the weekend concluding it in Croatia. Today the President announced General Michael Hayden as his nominee to head the CIA The President also made a statement about the humanitarian disaster in...

Two pictures of Poas. Basically, though Poas hasn't (to my knowledge) erupted magmatically, it has a crater lake that comes and goes depending on the level of hydrothermal activity and the season (i.e., rainy season or dry season). A "phreatic" eruption is a gas/steam eruption, and Poas has them quite a bit. Apparently it had settled down for awhile, and now it's gearing up again. When it's dry and active, the lake turns into a big fumarole: When it's less active and there's more rain, it's quite pretty: Go here for actual pictures of the most recent activity: Fotografías del...

Media once again covers up Mexican reconquista message

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Crime and joblessness have long been part of the tough Leon XIII neighborhood of Costa Rica's capital, where residents such as Alexandra Martinez do their best to steer clear of broken pavement and street-corner drug dealers. But the 37-year-old homemaker says that things have gotten worse in the last few years. Her explanation: "There are a lot of Nicas here," she says, using a slang term for Nicaraguans. Martinez says these immigrants, many of them undocumented, are hard-drinking, aggressive people who compete with Costa Ricans for jobs and drain the nation's public services. She approves...

The election of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia in December prompted a rash of headlines declaring that Latin America has tilted to the left. Latin Americans are fed up, some say, with the "Washington Consensus" of free markets and fiscal discipline, which has failed to erase all their poverty and inequality, and as a result their governments are reverting to protectionism, state ownership of industries and unlimited social spending. But judging from the victory of my social-democratic National Liberation Party in Costa Rica's Feb. 5 elections, our country didn't get the message that all of Latin America is veering...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - A U.S. free trade pact with Central America, already delayed by a legal wrangle, has run into further trouble at presidential elections in Costa Rica where voters punished the main pro-trade candidate. Costa Rica's electoral board began a recount on Tuesday of the vote from the weekend, which ended with a near dead heat despite opinion polls showing free trade advocate Oscar Arias would win easily. Arias, a former president who strongly backs the U.S.-Central American Free Agreement, or CAFTA, won just over 40 percent of votes on Sunday, on a par with main...

The rise of the Libertarian Movement Party as a national force is the real story in the upcoming presidential election in Costa Rica. The party’s leader, Otto Guevara, has been able to do what no libertarian has achieved anywhere in the western hemisphere, including the United States. Mr. Guevara is currently running third, with 15 percent in the polls; far behind the expected winner Oscar Arias, but a close second to Otton Solis, a classic Latin American populist. The Libertarian Movement party is also well ahead of the Social-Christian Democrats and is set to obtain some 12 seats out 57...

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - A 38-year-old Santa Cruz man pleaded guilty Wednesday to having sex with a minor overseas while working with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica, prosecutors said. Timothy Obert admitted to sexually abusing a 14-year-old minor while volunteering with the Peace Corps. The U.S. government invoked the Patriot Act to give it jurisdiction. Obert faces as many as 15 years in prison when sentenced in federal court here later this year. Congress hurriedly passed the Patriot Act in the weeks following the 2001 terror attacks, and the measure broadly expanded the government's wiretapping and surveillance authority....

Oscar Arias is apparently returning to power in Costa Rica. The announcement that the former president, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is about to take center stage again comes from Borge and Associates, one of the best pollsters in Central America. According to the latest survey, Arias has 45.8 percent of the intended presidential vote in an elected scheduled for Feb. 5.In second place, with 17.9 percent, is economist Ottón Solís, a good man but also a low-intensity populist trapped in the old statist rhetoric, an adversary of the Central American Free Trade Agreement and a supporter of...

Last year was the hottest on record, or the second hottest, depending on the records climatologists look at. The planet has warmed .8 degrees C over the past 150 years, and scientists are generally agreed that greenhouse gases have played a major part in that warming. They also agree that the warming will continue in the decades to come. Many experts are concerned that warming may make two unpleasant things more common: extinctions and diseases. In tomorrow's issue of Nature (link to come here), a team of scientists report on a case that ties these two dangers together: frogs have...

There's a quiet movement building for international peace and economic justice centered on a document that would reorganize humanity around a sacred earth-worshipping mission. This Saturday, for instance, the University of Vermont will host a program called "We the People: Summit for Peace." The keynote speaker and, shall we say, the purse strings behind this movement is Steven C. Rockefeller. Rockefeller is chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and a trustee of the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica. From 1997 through 2000, he chaired the international Earth Charter drafting committee and is Earth Charter commissioner for North...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Tuesday refused a request by American Lori Berenson to review its ruling that upheld her 20-year sentence in Peru for terrorism. In a decision issued in November, the Costa Rica-based court - the legal arm of the Organization of American States - rejected Berenson's arguments that Peru violated her rights in a 2001 civilian retrial. It was Berenson's last formal avenue of appeal. The former New York City resident has denied any wrongdoing and maintains she is a political prisoner whose concern for social justice was distorted by...

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 29 - As he campaigned for the presidency in 2002, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva boldly pledged to clean up the sordid politics of Brazil. His, he vowed, would be an ethical, honest and moral government the likes of which Brazil had never seen. That pledge helped him win the votes of more than 50 million Brazilians and a sweeping mandate. But now, in a gloomy echo of what has happened time and again across Latin America, Mr. da Silva's government is mired in the biggest, most audacious corruption scandal in his country's history. A congressional...

Fire has raged through a major hospital in Costa Rica's capital of Sane Jose, killing at least 18 people and triggering mass panic as patients climbed down bedsheets to escape the flames. President Abel Pacheco rushed to the scene and declared three days of national mourning after confirming that 17 patients and one nurse had died. Emergency services said the toll would probably rise as rescuers had not been through all of the debris. Firefighters battled the blaze at the Rafael Angel Calderon Guardia Hospital for about three hours before it was brought under control. The blaze was concentrated on...

I am interested in the personal opinions of any FReepers who have spent time in Costa Rica. Hubby and I have been doing research into the country to gather information for a possible extended family adventure. I have corresponded with others who have spent time there, and now I want the FReeper take on it. I trust you guys. Well, most of you anyway!

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Eighty-eight South Americans lost at sea while trying to reach the United States were rescued after tying a message in a bottle to a passing boat's fishing line, and authorities were returning them to Ecuador, Costa Rican officials said today.The migrants were adrift for three days after being abandoned by smugglers because their vessel was taking on water.The migrants from Ecuador and Peru were out of food and water when they saw the long lines of a passing fishing boat and decided to write a message for help. They put the message in a bottle...

San Jose, May 30 (EFE).- Eighty-eight castaways adrift for nine days at sea after immigrant smugglers abandoned them to their fate were rescued on the weekend off Costa Rica's Pacific coast after a fisherman pulled from the ocean a bottle containing a desperate message for help written by one of the group. Marviva organization director Francisco Estrada told EFE that the group consisted of 48 Ecuadorians and 40 Peruvians, adding that 18 of them were women and the rest were men of assorted ages. The rescue was made Sunday morning in a joint operation by Costa Rican authorities and...

They may have paid $4000 to be registered in fake soccer teams. Authorities suspected because of wide-margin losses. This is the allegation made in a report published Sunday on Costa Rica's "La Nación" newspaper. All is part of an ingenious plan from a "coyote" (human trafficker) on the souther part of the country, who charges that sum for plane tickets and migratory procedures to people who want to fulfill their "American Dream", informed the daily. The "coyote" gathers the people in a fictitious soccer team, which, for reasons still under investigation, is able to secure participation in friendly tournaments in...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2005 – Six presidents of Latin American nations met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior officials at the Pentagon today. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the presidents of six Central American countries watch a full military honors pass-in-review arrival ceremony at the Pentagon May 11. Rumsfeld greeted Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos, Honduran President Ricardo Maduro, Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco, Guatemalan President Oscar Berger, President Antonio Saca from El Salvador, and President Leonel Fernandez from the Dominican Republic, when their motorcades arrived at the Pentagon. Protocol officials said they could not remember the...

05/04/2005 By BRUCE SCHREINER / Associated Press Russell Winstead spent two years eluding Kentucky authorities who wanted him in the brutal slaying of his aunt, but his luck eventually ran out at a casino in Costa Rica. Winstead was arrested Tuesday by Costa Rican authorities at a casino in the capital city of San Jose. Kentucky prosecutors were eager to try him on murder and first-degree robbery charges. "It's a day we've been waiting for," Hopkins County Commonwealth's Attorney David Massamore said Wednesday in reacting to Winstead's arrest. Winstead, 40, fled in June 2003. A month later he was indicted...

We’ve all been had. The bottom has long since fallen out of the key group that master-minded the Kyoto Protocol credit scheme, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. It all began with the flight of Canadian Maurice Strong’s Earth Council from Costa Rica as noted by the National Post’s Peter Foster in May, 2004. With no fanfare, the Earth Council landed in CH2M Hill’s Consumer Road Toronto office towers. The Costa Rican government has been pursuing the Earth Council for payment of U.S.$1.65 million, for the wrongful sale of a tract of land it imprudently donated to the...

China's Latin influence is growing, general says China is taking advantage of a U.S. influence vacuum in Latin America because of aid cuts, the commander of the Southern Command says. By PABLO BACHELET pbachelet@herald.com WASHINGTON - The head of the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command Wednesday warned that China was increasing its influence among Latin American militaries, and partly blamed a policy that cuts military aid to countries that refuse to exempt U.S. citizens from International Criminal Court jurisdiction. In his first testimony before a House panel, Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, who heads the United States Southern Command, offered an unusually...

TRADE-AMERICAS: The 'Green' Promises of CAFTA MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 (IPS) - The ''green'' provisos of the free trade treaty between the United States, five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic say the parties will act in ''good faith'' and will create an Environmental Affairs Council, an arbitration group and perhaps a secretariat. Now these promises are being used as artillery by the treaty's defenders and detractors alike. Saying the trade treaty is pro- or anti-environment is a battlehorse for those debating the eventual ratification this year by the parliaments of the Latin American countries involved (Costa Rica, El...

La. delegation fears that CAFTA will burn sugar WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has moved five free-trade agreements through Congress in the past four years. None caused much of a political stir. That is about to change with consideration of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, likely to come up for a congressional vote this spring. Defenders and opponents of the trade agreement, called CAFTA, are prepping for a major fight over passage in the House of Representatives. Sugar producers -- in Louisiana and elsewhere -- textile manufacturers, labor and public advocacy groups have all sworn to defeat it. Business...

Men in Costa Rica can now be sent to prison for trying to chat up women.A new law says women can have men arrested for paying them unwanted compliments, reports Las Ultimas Noticias. Offenders face punishments of up to 50 days in prison or a fine if found guilty. A police spokesman in San Jose said: "It will be hard for us to tell if the flattery is offensive or not. "People are very different, but we will enforce the new law and trust women's judgement."

CARACAS - Venezuela recalled its ambassador in Bogotá on Thursday after the Colombian government admitted paying a bounty for a leading guerrilla allegedly kidnapped in Caracas and handed over to Colombian police. Colombian Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe, who admitted making the payment, was a ''participant in a crime which may have international implications,'' said Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel. The recall of Ambassador Carlos Santiago Ramírez was the latest and harshest step in the increasingly bizarre dispute over Rodrigo Granda, a senior member of the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The clash could affect relations...

A German professor who went on a dream holiday to Costa Rica woke up in an airport departure lounge to find his leg had been amputated. He is now seeking to take legal action against the hospital in San Jose.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) take note: You wouldn't be safe in Costa Rica. A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the al-Qaida leader, police said Tuesday. Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 20 miles north of San Jose. Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out...

First they tried sailing to freedom in a retrofitted 1951 Chevy. Then it was a floating '59 Chevy pickup truck. Finally, the family of a Cuban migrant who masterminded the escapes in vintage trucks has found freedom. They arrived Wednesday in Costa Rica -- not in a vintage Chevy -- but on a flight paid for by the U.S. government. Luis Grass, 30, a master mechanic dubbed a ''truckonaut'' for his conversions of the classic vehicles into seaworthy escape vessels, was among the 20 migrants taken from the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay to Costa Rica on Wednesday. He...

A strong, early-morning earthquake shook presidents and prime ministers attending a Costa Rican summit from their beds Saturday and killed eight people, including several who were frightened into having fatal heart attacks. The Red Cross said most of the eight victims died from heart attacks. None of the participants in the ongoing 21-nation Ibero-American Summit was hurt. The quake cracked major highways, toppled water towers and knocked pillars from under a house, causing it to collapse atop a parked car. The National Emergency Commission said 500 homes were damaged. Power lines also were downed in some areas. The U.S. National...

Former Costa Rican President Rafael Ángel Calderón Jr. (1990-1994) is in prison. Former President Miguel Ángel Rodríguez is in house arrest (1998-2002). And former President José María Figueres (1994-1998) is now under the watchful eye of the Prosecutor's Office. All three – who headed the country in consecutive four-year terms, from 1990 to 2002 – have been linked to the two largest corruption scandals the country has seen in recent memory, which some have begun to refer to collectively as a “ring of corruption.”

The new secretary general of the Organization of American States resigned yesterday because of accusations that he took a bribe in 2001 while president of Costa Rica. In a letter to the 34-nation organization, Miguel Angel Rodriguez denied he did anything wrong. "With humility, pain and anguish, I ask you and your countries for forgiveness for making you endure this difficult period," Rodriguez said in his letter, which was read to OAS members here yesterday by Costa Rica's ambassador to the OAS, Luis Guardia. Rodriguez wrote that he was leaving because he did not want to expose the OAS to...

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - In a major embarrassment for the premier political institution of the Americas, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, resigned Friday, pressed by a corruption scandal in his native Costa Rica and just weeks after assuming his post. In his resignation letter, Rodriguez said he didn't want to submit his family to the costs of a "long-distance defense" and wished to spare the OAS "a cruel and lengthy persecution of its Secretary General, not only in the judicial sphere but also in the media." "With humility, pain and anguish, I ask...

U.N. ignores pro-Life and anti-cloning references in its report on speech NEW YORK, September 24, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco gave a spirited defence of the right to life before the United Nations General Assembly Thursday. However, without an actual transcript of his talk the world would never know about it. The notable speech called for international protection for life "from the moment of conception." The United Nations press release covering Pacheco's remarks totally omitted this call as well as his call to join the comprehensive ban on human cloning. President Abel Pacheco told the UN, "As...

http://www.nbcolympics.com/soccer/5039280/detail.html

Four people were killed inside Chile's embassy in Costa Rica after the policeman in charge of security at the building took seven people hostage, the government said. "When we went in a few minutes ago, we found four people dead," said Costa Rican Security Minister Rogelio Ramos, who said the hostage-taker was one of the dead. Ramos earlier identified the hostage-taker as Orlando Jimenez, a Costa Rican police officer who has been part of the embassy's security detail for several years.

Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama are on alert for the possible entry of suspected terrorist Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, after Honduran authorities warned that the 29-year old suspect, referred to by law enforcement sources as "the next Mohammed Atta," may be seeking to cross into one of the countries. Costa Rica is bordered on the north by Nicaragua and on the south by Panama. Shukrijumah, who is considered one of the FBI's "top 5" terrorist concerns, allegedly was spotted in Honduras on May 27 at a Tegucigalpa Internet cafe Adnan G. El Shukrijumah "We found out that this man was...

  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/uskhai.htm Magnitude 6.1 - OFF THE COAST OF COSTA RICA2004 June 29 07:01:33 UTCPreliminary Earthquake ReportU.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information CenterWorld Data Center for Seismology, Denver A strong earthquake occurred at 07:01:33 (UTC) on Tuesday, June 29, 2004. The magnitude 6.1 event has been located OFF THE COAST OF COSTA RICA. The hypocentral depth was estimated to be 22 km (14 miles). (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco on Friday joined a growing chorus of world leaders calling on Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to consider stepping down to avoid a blood bath in the Caribbean nation. "If I saw my citizens rising up in arms and the capital about to fall, I think I would say, 'Well let me go and let me see how to hand over in the best way not to have a blood bath,'" Pacheco told a news conference. "If I had been Aristide, I would have left but that is just my...

WASHINGTON (AP)--The Bush administration reached an agreement with Costa Rica on Sunday that will allow that nation to join four of its neighbors in creating a Central American Free Trade Area with the United States, officials of the two countries announced. The deal must be approved by Congress. The agreement came after two weeks of intense negotiations aimed at overcoming differences in such areas as telecommunications and insurance that had prompted Costa Rica to back out at the last minute from completing the CAFTA talks last month with the four other nations, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Administration officials...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) - A strong earthquake shook the border of Costa Rica and Panama early Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries. The magnitude-6.3 tremor struck at 2:11 a.m. local time at a depth of 21 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Overcoming a last-minute snag on textiles, the United States reached a free trade agreement on Wednesday with four Central American countries. Negotiators reached agreement in all areas, including textiles and agriculture, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and the trade ministers from the four Central American Countries scheduled a news conference for later in the day to formally announce the breakthrough. The countries who completed the negotiations were Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. A fifth nation, Costa Rica, abruptly left the talks on Tuesday complaining about...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused Costa Rican government officials of backing his opponents in an alleged coup plot from San Jose to topple his leftist government. Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, in September cut off crude supplies to the Dominican Republic during a diplomatic dispute over similar vague charges Chavez made against the government of President Hipolito Mejia. Chavez, a fiery, outspoken former army paratrooper who often denounces conspiracies against him, did not provide details about how Costa Rican officials were involved. "I have information that there are sectors of the Costa...

Trade focus: Central America A deal could open markets, lead to wider agreements, and support democracy. BLOOMBERG NEWS Negotiators from the United States and five Central American nations are trying to reach agreement on cutting tariffs on factory goods and creating rules for investment as a step toward reaching a free-trade accord this year. Procter & Gamble Co., Intel Corp., and other U.S. companies are urging the United States, during talks in Houston this week, to ensure that any agreement will make it easier for them to build factories, invest in government-owned utilities, cut piracy, and tap new markets to...

Sorry for the vanity but today at work some liberals were trashing Bush over Iraq- one was touting Ted Kennedy claiming that the only reason we're in Iraq is because Saddam tried to kill Dubya's father. That's when I lost it and said that I was sick and tired of the liberal lies about the war and that there hasn't been another attack in this country since we went into Afghanistan. I was then informed that another attack is imminent. The conversation got around to the libs saying that we don't have any support from the world and we should...

August 12, 2003 The Other Guevara Reason interviews Costa Rica's Libertarian revolutionary Julian Sanchez You'd expect that if a libertarian political party could expect success anywhere, it would be in a country founded on a respect for individual rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But between candidates who look like Smurfs, "guns for tots" programs that distribute toy guns at inner city schools, and allegations of misuse of party funds, even the most strident free-marketeers often have trouble working up much enthusiasm for the prospects of the US Libertarian Party. Even without those stumbling blocks, an...

Mindy Slavis, a New York mother, had run out of ways to deal with her unruly teenager: She had been to parenting classes and tried a series of private and public schools. Her 17-year-old daughter, Alexandra, was cutting classes, smoking and taking drugs. When she stole her father's credit card and went on a spending spree, Mrs. Slavis decided she had to take drastic measures. She began looking on the Internet, searching under terms such as boot camp. She found what seemed like the ideal solution: a "behaviour modification" school in Costa Rica for struggling teens. The Web site for...

The panel postponed action Wednesday after Costa Rica proposed tougher language censuring Cuba for human-rights abuses. Cuba took the opportunity to introduce its own amendment, amounting to a strong indictment of U.S. policies toward the island. ''Enough with the hypocrisy,'' declared Cuban Ambassador Iván Mora Godoy. His remarks against the embargo drew the only round of applause from delegates during the debate.

PALM BEACH -- Their cold reception to his weekend antiwar speech at the Four Seasons left Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias hot about the audience that walked out on him. "I expected to find more tolerance and respect for freedom of speech in the democracy of Jefferson and Lincoln," Arias wrote to The Palm Beach Post Wednesday. "If people in Palm Beach only want one point of view, they can continue watching American TV networks." As many as 150 guests took issue with Arias' remarks at a fund-raising event Saturday. They marched from the room, with some gathering in...