Today's Stories: Trial Begins for Two Suspects for Abuse of Minors ICE Directors Dismissed 50% of the 15.000 GSM Lines Sold in Two Days Costa Rica's Team Bitter Return California University Professor Wins Award for Geophysical Research News Briefs

Gerado Redondo, manager of the ICE agency in Pavas, hard at work activating our GSM cellular lines. Mr. Redondo told his his team of customer service professionals had been working extra hours to meet the demand of the last few days for GSM service, though he did no agree with press reports of the high number of sales. Mr. Redondo personally active our GSM service, and believes ICE needs to greatly improve customer service. Cellular Telephony A cell phone is a portable telephone which receives or makes calls through a Cell site, or transmitting tower. Radio waves are used to transfer signals to and from the cell phone. more...

Air Traffic Controllers Strike Continues into Day 24!

The trial began yesterday at 8:00am in the Tribunal de Juicio de San José, Grupo 03, with the reading of the charges by prosecutor for Sexual Crimes, Líliam Gómez Mora.

According to facts presented in court, the two men are charged on 99 counts that include rape, sexual relations with minors, production and distribution of pornography, drug related charges and spreading disease.

The court heard that a total of 26 minors were abused and/or raped by the two men.

Cochran, who is 38 years old, has been coming and going from Costa Rica since 1991. Casa Alianza, the child protection agency, filed a formal complaint against Cochran in 2001, charging that the man was involved in the production of pornography of minors.

The case took time to develop and bring to trial for lack witnesses. However, Casa Alianza did not give up, and that same year presented another complaint against the man, this time suspected of filming minors around the San Pedro Mall.

Police finally caught up Cochran in January of 2003, when police raided the man's apartment in Rohrmoser, an affluent neighbourhood west of San José.

At the time of the raid, the Cochran was found in bed with a 14 year old Nicaraguan girl. In the raid, police also confiscated more than 1.000 photos of naked children, along with pornographic movies, magazines and sex toys.

According to a police report, the man was suspected of offering street children food, drugs and shelter in return for sexual favours.

During the investigation, the Costa Rican, Pérez Chaves, was found to have been involved with Cochran.

The trial is expected to run for several weeks, ending by 21 August.

ICE Directors Dismissed
The turmoil at ICE - Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad - stemming from a trip made my managers of ICE to the Czech Republic, resulting informal meetings with the managers of Ericsson, who was subsequently awarded the contract to install 600 GSM cellular lines, is resulting in firing of managers while others are still under investigation.

The ICE press office yesterday announced that Hernando Pantigoso and José Antonio Lobo were relieved of their duties as directors of the state owned telecommunications monopoly.

Ricardo Toledo, Minister for the Presidency, said that after reading the reports, the decision was made to dismiss the two directors.

President Abel Pacheco was asked if the dismissal of the two and ongoing investigation will affect the purchase made from Ericsson. "Everything will be done according to the law. I don't believe there will be any setbacks...", was the President's reply.

Pablo Cob, executive president of ICE, told the press that the internal investigation is coming to a close and that by the end of the month the whole situation should be resolved.

Meanwhile, sub-director Álvaro Retana, is still under investigation and recent reports say that Retana has not been seen or active at the ICE offices for months, fueling speculation that he will be dismissed as well.
 

50% of the 15.000 GSM Lines Sold in Two Days
In only two days, it is estimated that 9.500 of the 15.000 GSM cellular lines were sold.

The sale of the GSM lines began Monday, following an expected an announcement by ICE - Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad - the state owned telecommunications monopoly, who says these are lines that customers failed to make payments or switched to the TDMA.

Gerardo Redondo M., manager of the ICE agency in Pavas, in an exclusive interview with ICR, told that the demand for GSM lines was heavy, however, he did not agree with the daily Spanish newspaper report La Nacion that 5.000 lines were swallowed up in the first day of the offering. He suggested that only about 3.500 lines were activated, and that by the end of the day (Tuesday) only about 50% of the lines would be sold.

Redondo said that he expects that the lines will continue for the balance of the week, which by then there won't be any more GSM lines until the next offering or the introduction of the new GSM service that is expected to be introduced sometime next year.

The wait at the Pavas branch was up to three hours, as customers patiently waited their turn, in the newly constructed and spacious air conditioned offices, where the chairs are comfortable and with 10 customer service agents. At other locations, like the smaller ICE agency on Avenida Segunda, lines were up two blocks long as customers waited in the sun for their turn at the counter to connect their GSM telephone.

Redondo told us that his team had worked until 7pm on Monday and was expected to do the same Tuesday and maybe into Wednesday, as they handled customer requests well after the 5pm closing of the doors.

As at 19 June of this year, ICE has 833.670 cellular telephone customers. 400.000 of these are using GSM, while the rest are on the TDMA service.

Today, a customer who wishes to have cellular service, can make a choice between the two technologies and after waiting his or her turn in line, can leave the ICE offices with their telephones working, unlike the months of waiting of the past.

Customers wanting cellular service in Costa Rica, need only present to ICE two copies of the receipt for the purchase of the equipment, their cedula and pay a deposit $12.500. Foreigners who are visiting Costa Rica or live here but don't have a residency cedula cannot obtain cellular service.

Costa Rica's Team Bitter Return
Angry Costa Rican players are arriving home in dribs and drabs from the Copa America quarterfinals because their national federation made travel plans expecting them to fall in the first round.

Costa Rica shocked Chile 2-1 on July 14 and qualified for the quarterfinals, leaving federation officials to scramble to find new airplane tickets home from Peru, and the players bitter.

Only seven players arrived home by midday yesterday, two days after a 2-0 loss to Colombia ended their run at the tournament.

Most of the others didn't arrive until late last night - following a 10-hour wait at Lima airport. Some more were arriving on today.

Federation official Milton Castro said the team was expected to crash out of the competition in the first round, even though it made the quarters at the last Copa in 2001.

Castro blamed tournament organizers for the travel snags.

"This is the fault of the Copa organisation, which did not prepare for enough flights for the teams that were eliminated," he said. "This isn't the fault of the national administrators."

The federation had little faith in Costa Rica's chances at the Copa because it appointed a new coach only 14 days before the start, and two leading players decided not to take part.

California University Professor Wins Award for Geophysical Research
Retired University of Califarnia Santa Cruz (UCSC) professor Karen McNally is only the second person to receive a prestigious medal from the National University of Costa Rica.

She played a key role in establishing a modern geophysical observatory in Costa Rica, one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, and developing a program to monitor seismic activity there.

Costa Rica also is home to seven of the 42 volcanoes active in Central America.

The award, presented July 2, recognizes her "exemplary inspiration in the construction of a more humane and complete society."

McNally led a team of UCSC and Costa Rican scientists who set up a national seismographic network in 1984 with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

She invited James Gill and Eli Silver, both professors of earth sciences at UCSC, to join the project.

The observatory operates a network of 25 stations covering the country and transmitting to the headquarters at National University in Heredia. Research conducted at the observatory has helped the government develop programs to reduce the hazards of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

UCSC faculty maintain active collaborations with researchers at the observatory in Costa Rica, several of whom received their doctoral degrees from UCSC.

News Briefs

• A woman who was on the lam following her conviction in 1997 for drug trafficking, was arrested yesterday. Jeannette Jara Chavarría was arrestedin Alajuela. She was sentenced in May of 1997 for selling "crack", along with four others who also received a 10 year sentence. Chavarría had been at large, evading police capture for all these years.
   
• The searching of backpacks has returned to the schools following a three month moratorium as the Constitutional Court studied a motion alleging that the search invaded the student's privacy. Earlier this year, a high school student fired a gun that he carried in his backpack and injured two fellow female students. A search of all bags was instituted, to stop any type of weapons from entering school grounds.
   
• Truckers and taxi operators filled the streets of San José, leaving the La Sabana park, making their way to the Presidential House to protest the re-inspection charges that Riteve - the vehicular inspection firm - started charging last Friday.