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Costa Rica’s new President Laura Chinchilla gestures toward the crowd after being sworn-in in San Jose, Saturday. At left is President of Congress Luis Gerardo Villanueva.
AP PHOTO
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica
Prez to rule with ‘humility’
Adios, peace prize winner. Hola, first female president.
Costa Rica inaugurated Laura Chinchilla as its first woman leader on Saturday, replacing Nobel laureate Oscar Arias with his former vice president and protege.
Chinchilla promised to rule with “humility, honesty and firmness” and said she’ll pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.
Elected in a landslide, Chinchilla has also pledged new protections for the pristine parks and reserves that make this Central American nation first in the world for land preservation.
LONDON
Al Fayed sells Harrods
Mohamed Al Fayed, a flamboyant businessman who has controlled Harrods department store in London for a quarter-century, has sold the landmark business to Qatari investors, his financial advisers said Saturday.
The sale price was not announced but the BBC and Sky News reported that it was around 1.5 billion pounds ($2.2 billion).
The Al Fayed family trust agreed to sell Harrods Group to Qatar Holding, Lazard International confirmed.
Al Fayed, a native of Egypt, joined with his two brothers to buy Harrods in 1985.
His son Dodi died with Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997, and in recent years Al Fayed has devoted much time and money to pursuing his claims that the couple were the victim of an establishment conspiracy.
SALT LAKE CITY
Utah GOP ousts Bennett
Republican Sen. Bob Bennett was thrown out of office Saturday by delegates at the Utah GOP convention in what represents a stunning defeat for a once-popular three-term incumbent who fell victim to a growing conservative movement nationwide.
Bennett’s failure to make it into Utah’s GOP primary — let alone win his party’s nomination — makes him the first congressional incumbent to be ousted this year and demonstrates the difficult challenges candidates are facing from the right in 2010.
Bennett survived a first round of voting Saturday among roughly 3,500 delegates but was a distant third in the second round. He garnered just under 27 percent of the vote.
CARACAS, Venezuela
Chavez is tops on Twitter
President Hugo Chavez is tops on Twitter in Venezuela less than two weeks after launching his account, surpassing Internet-savvy foes who dominate the social networking site and use it to oppose him.
Chavez’s account, “chavezcandanga,” had racked up more than 237,000 followers as of Saturday morning — besting the 234,000 who receive tweets from Globovision, the only TV channel that remains critical of the socialist leader.
In recent televised appearances, Chavez has trumpeted the meteoric rise of his Twitter popularity while downplaying the critical, often disparaging messages he receives.
“Some criticize me, others insult me. I don’t care,” he said. “It’s a form of contact with the world.”
The president joined Twitter on April 27 in an attempt to counter adversaries who have actively used the site to make accusations of human rights violations, organize protests and — above all — ridicule Chavez.