Posts Tagged ‘San Jose’
Written by admin on 31 January 2012
San Jose (Costa Rica), Jan 31 (IANS/EFE) When he was little, Cesar Millan dreamed of being the ‘best dog trainer in the world’ and says his mother told him he could achieve whatever he wanted – and that, plus his method of dog psychology, won him the worldwide fame he enjoys today as the ‘Dog Whisperer’.
The 42-year-old Millan, who was in Costa Rica over the weekend to put on his first show in Latin America, said in an interview with EFE that more than being a dog whisperer, he is the one who has always been whispered to by them.
Despite the fame he has won with his television series, his books and the fame of his clients, many of them Hollywood stars, Millan never forgets his humble beginnings in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, and says he still dreams the same way he did 21 years ago when he crossed the border illegally into the United States.
‘When you’re poor you have nothing to lose and dreaming is all you can do, so you dream and you dream and when you have a mom like mine that keeps pushing you ahead, there’s no limit to what you can do,’ Millan said.
‘I learned all I know from my father, but the inspiration came from my mother. When I was 13 I asked her, ‘Do you think I can be the best dog trainer in the world?’ and she very proudly told me, ‘You can be whatever you want’, though she really had no idea what being a dog trainer was all about,’ Millan said.
Forever accompanied by his pitbull Junior, Millan defends the role of the family in training people and their dogs.
Dogs are pack animals, he says, so to rehabiliate wayward pets, the owner must be trained to be the leader of the pack.
He says that 90 percent of owners have problems with their dogs because they don’t know how they think and, above all, don’t know how to organize their priorities.
‘The priorities of humans are to study, earn money and buy a home, and to do that they leave the family behind, and a dog is part of the family,’ Millan said.
‘Humans have to prioritize a dog’s needs; the dog doesn’t know that you have to go to work every day to make money so you can put food on his plate,’ the dog trainer said.
Millan said that every day before going to work, he gets up at 5 a.m. to take his pack for a walk and in that way ‘I lower their energy so they can stay calm the rest of the day’.
‘You have to challenge dogs physically and psychologically, and afterwards show them affection. But people often give them affection, affection, nothing but affection, which is energy they’re giving them that must be absorbed with mental and physical exercise,’ Millan said, referring to his method of ‘calm-assertive leadership’.
Owners’ mistakes are the same everywhere and have the same effects – anxious, aggressive, hyperactive or frightened animals, the dog trainer said.
‘A dog simply has it limits. It gets food, water and a lot of loving, then people come and pile on more and more affection and excite it so much it’s beside itself. That’s the truth,’ Millan said.
Which is why Millan says he has a lot more work ahead of him.
‘I feel like I’m just beginning. (Mark) Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and I think the same way, I don’t feel I’ve yet landed where I want to be, I feel I’m still on my way up, still on the road to where I’m going. I haven’t done all I have to do and I have the same energy and will power, the same way of dreaming as when I crossed the border. I’ve been in the United States 21 years and I haven’t changed,’ Millan said.
Millan describes himself as a calm-assertive person who knows how to keep quiet and doesn’t place too much importance on money. He loves what he does and for that reason plans to continue rehabilitating dogs and training their masters for a long time.
Tags: Costa Rica, San Jose
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Written by admin on 28 December 2011
San Jose, Dec 28 (IANS/EFE) The forests of Costa Rica provided the setting this year for science to discover 53 new species of insects, fungi and plants.
The National Biodiversity Institute, or INBio, said that it is still too soon to say if all these species are endemic to this country.
‘We can’t say if they are endemic or unique to Costa Rica because this is the first description ever made of them. It’s very probable that, with time, we’ll begin to discover them in other countries as well,’ said INBio’s director of science, Jesus Ugalde, as cited in the daily La Nacion.
This year 26 new species of insects, 19 of plants and eight of fungi were discovered in the Central American country.
Costa Rica’s biodiversity inventory includes some 500,000 species, of which 75 percent are easily distinguished on sight because they are insects.
For that reason experts found it unsurprising that most of the species discovered this year were forms of mites, bumblebees, fruit flies, wasps, lice and moths.
Tags: San Jose
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Written by admin on 27 October 2011
San Jose, Oct 27 (IANS/EFE) Salsa singer Marc Anthony arrived at the Costa Rican city of Limon to hold auditions for the television talent search program ‘Q’ Viva! The Chosen’, which he will produce along with his ex-wife Jennifer Lopez.
Vargas Park, in the central part of the Caribbean coastal city, was the site of many of the auditions.
According to the media, the artist arrived in Costa Rica last Sunday and was staying in an exclusive beachfront hotel.
On Tuesday, during the time he was in Limon, Anthony was friendly and smiled at the dozens of people who came to see him and try to greet him or get an autograph.
The singer watched, among other acts, a dance number mixing tap and flamenco, presented by three local dancers, and then he visited the port city’s most emblematic building, the Black Star Line, to hold more auditions.
‘Q’Viva! The Chosen’ is the creation of XIX Entertainment, which also produces ‘American Idol’.
The show is scouring 21 countries in search of undiscovered musical talent. ‘Q’Viva! The Chosen’ will be taped in English, Spanish and Portuguese and is to be aired simultaneously in all the countries included in the competition.
Tags: San Jose
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Written by admin on 25 August 2011
San Jose (California), Aug 25 (IANS/EFE) Cuba’s Los Van Van, dubbed ‘the Rolling Stones of salsa’, will perform in Los Angeles Sep 15.
The concert was originally set for Aug 4, but had to be postponed when US authorities refused to issue a visa for one of the band’s members, a press release said.
Los Van Van has found another musician to replace the drummer barred by the State Department.
Founded in 1969, Los Van Van has forged a new style of salsa that incorporates Afro-Cuban, funk, hip hop and rock elements as well as electric guitars, synthesizers and violins.
The band has more than 30 albums to its credit, including the Latin Grammy-winning ‘Van Van Is Here’ (‘Llego Van Van’), and a devoted following in Cuba and abroad.
Tags: California, San Jose
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Written by admin on 01 July 2011
San Jose, July 1 (IANS/EFE) A total of 580 knives, many homemade, as well as drugs, liquor and cash were seized Thursday by Costa Rican authorities at the La Reforma prison, the country’s main such facility.
In all, police seized more than $6,000 in cash from the prisoners, 68 litres of liquor, 10 cell phones and 800 grams of drugs such as crack and marijuana, Justice Vice Minister Fernando Ferrero told reporters.
According to Ferrero, the operation came within the framework of the measures being taken to strengthen prison security after an escape attempt May 11 in which one guard and two prisoners died.
Thursday’s raid at La Reforma, which is located about 20 km northwest of San Jose, was participated in by some 1,000 agents or officials from different jurisdictions and lasted several hours.
Among the items found in the prisoners’ cells were weapons fashioned from cigarette lighters or cell phone carriers.
Regarding the liquor, authorities found it hidden in old soda bottles and even in buckets, since the prisoners had been manufacturing that type of beverage inside their cells using yeast, grated carrots and even dirty clothing or worms to quicken the process.
‘People’s ingenuity is incredible, but unfortunately they’re using it for bad purposes and not for anything constructive,’ said Security Vice Minister Walter Navarro.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: San Jose
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Written by admin on 22 June 2011
San Jose, June 22 (IANS/EFE) Two pilots died Tuesday when their crop-dusting aircraft collided over a town on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, authorities said.
Fernando Salazar Aguilar, 43, and Ricardo Joaquin Venegas Espinoza, 45, were killed in the accident.
The two men, who worked for the same company, were spraying pesticides over fields in Cariari de Pococi, a town in Limon province, Costa Rican media said.
Police and personnel from the National Civil Aviation Directorate told reporters they have begun an investigation of the accident.
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