Water War in Monterverde
Monteverde, a quiet and tranquil location and one of the more important tourist destinations, is facing a fight between neighbours with protests and heated arguments on a regular basis.

What are they fighting about? Water.

The Guacimal river, one of the cleanest rivers in Costa Rica fed by streams and ravines, crosses Monteverde. And it is exactly at two of these ravines - the Cuecha and the Máaquina - were a group wants to build a dam.

Eight property owners of the area who operate hotels and restaurants say they need the water to use in the plantations, in an area where it rains more than 200 days each year. The project got underway in December.

Neighbours who noticed the construction decided to impede the machinery used in the construction by blocking their paths with cars and debris. They claim that the project puts at risk the purity of the water and endangers the wildlife in the area.

The builders of the project claim to have a permit by the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (Ministry of Energy and the Environment) and that their project will not harm the environment as critics say.

The decision now rests in the hands of the the Defensoría de los Habitantes. Ombudsman, José Manuel Echandi, is reviewing the case and getting information about the project and the impact on the environment and will hopefully be able to put an end to the "water war" of the area.

Corrales Wants Arias To Quit
Another war is heating up closer to home, between former president and current presidential candidate for the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), Oscar Arias Sanchez and former presidential candidate, José Miguel Corrales, who left the PLN last week.

Following his leaving the party which he led to a stand off with president Able Pacheco in the last election, Corrales was asked to give his seat in the Legislative Assembly, now that he does not belong anymore to the green and white flag party. Pacheco belongs to the Partito Undidad Social Cristiana (PUSC).

Corrales has maintained strong that he now sits as an independent in the Legislative Assembly, though the location of his seat has not yet physically been moved as the PLN has requested. The Legislative Assembly has been on a five week hiatus and the re-location of Corrales' seat in the house is expected this week.

Corrales sent a message to the PLN that he will gladly give up his seat in the house if Arias steps down as party leader and does not run in the upcoming presidential election.

The former presidential candidate opposes the Arias nomination and candidature on several grounds. One, his election to party leader was one sided. The election was not done democratically and neither was the appointment of candidates who will sit in the Legislature if elected. Corrales says that a presidential candidate should have the ability to appoint several people but not the entire slate.

The other point of contention for Corrales is the presidential re-election. The Sala Constitucional - the Constitutional Court - voted in favour of presidential re-elections some time back, paving the way for Oscar Arias to run. According to Corrales, the court's decision is still being questioned, as the Constitutional Court does not have the power to amend the country's constitution.

Since 1948 presidential re-elections were not permitted. A president can occupy the presidential chair for a term of four years and then move on. With the changes, a president can now run for re-election, waiting out one election in between terms.

Oscar Arias, who is Nobel Prize winner for peace, was elected president of Costa Rica in 1986, following Luis Alberto Monge. Rafael Angel Calderon  took the presidential chair in 1990, followed by José María Figueres Olsen in 1994, Miguel Angel Rodríguez in 1998 and in 2002 the chair was occupied by the current president who beat out Corrales in a first time ever in Costa Rican politics, a second presidential run off vote.

Both Calderón and Rodríguez are currently in La Reforma prison accused of corruption, while Figueres has been called before a Legislative commission on his role in the ICE-Alcatel scandal.

 

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German Tourist DID Have His Leg Amputated: CCSS and CIMA Doctors Confirmed Several weeks ago we ran a story about 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. The professor said he had gone to see a doctor at a hospital in San Jose because his left foot was swollen. See original story. Well, after receiving several letters of criticism, that the story could not be true, 'impossible to happen', 'it was all made up', authorities at the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) and the private hospital, CIMA, confirmed the amputation done on Roland Jursich. CIMA director, Hugo Villegas del Carpio, explained that the hospital got the call by Jurisch the day after the amputation. Villegas said the man had his leg infected by gangrene due to the man's diabetic condition. The amputation was done at the Hospital de Alajuela. Jurisch spend four weeks in intensive care at the CIMA hospital due to his delicate condition. The infection had been so severe that he trouble breathing and the infection had spread to his lungs, heart, kidneys and brain. Kemly Picado, Medical Director at the CCSS, said the amputation was necessary due to man's life was in danger and consent was given by Jurisch before the surgery. The facts of the case are as follows: - February 23, 2004: Roland Jurisch entered the Hospital de Alajuela with gangerine in right leg. Doctors decided that the leg needed to be amputated. - February 24, 2004: Jursich asks to be moved to the CIMA hospital, a private facility with better health care. On arrival he was placed in intensive care, where he remained for four weeks. - January 2005: the German newspaper BILD publish the story and it hits the wire services.   Gambling Sites Wait for Attacks As reported by Wired Magazine: "As Super Bowl weekend approaches, Mickey Richardson, general manager of BetCRIS, an online gambling site based in Costa Rica, readies himself for the action. But there's also a cloud hanging over his, and other gambling sites' profitable Feb. 6 weekend. An e-mail could come at any moment threatening to take down the site unless $40,000 or more is paid to an anonymous account. Online gambling was, and still is, an industry ripe for the picking and extortion attempts like these are fairly common, not just around the Super Bowl. According to gaming analysts River City Group, estimated 2004 revenues for online gambling reached more than $7 billion. About 350 companies run at least 1,700 gaming sites. It's also a largely unregulated industry -- many of these companies are headquartered offshore in countries without ample law enforcement resources to pursue hackers thousands of miles away, so the site operators often feel the pressure to pay.