Archive for November 4th, 2009
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Honduran Congress to seek opinions before vote
A Honduran lawmaker says congressional leaders will seek the opinions of several government entities before convoking the full legislature to vote on reinstating ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Ramon Velasquez says the leaders decided Tuesday to consult the Supreme Court, which ordered Zelaya’s June 28 ouster, the Attorney General’s Office and Honduras’ commissioner on human rights. They were given no deadline.
Also Tuesday, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos arrived to monitor implementation of a U.S.-brokered pact that calls for lawmakers to vote on Zelaya’s reinstatement.
Governments have threatened to not recognize Nov. 29 elections if Zelaya is not returned to power.
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Gary Stephen Kaplan, founder of the online sports wagering business BetOnSports, has been sentenced to 51 months in prison on multiple charges related to the illegal overseas operation, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Kaplan, age 50, also agreed to forfeit US$43.7 million as part of his plea agreement, made Aug. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Under the “complex” plea agreement, Kaplan pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute, conspiring to violate the Wire Wager Act and violating the Wire Wager Act, the DOJ said.
The Wire Wager Act prohibits businesses from running gambling operations over communications networks.
Kaplan was sentenced Monday in St. Louis.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, Kaplan set up businesses in Aruba, Antigua and eventually Costa Rica to provide sports book services to U.S. residents through toll-free telephone numbers and Web sites, including BetOnSports.com, the DOJ said.
BetOnSports advertised “heavily” to solicit U.S. residents to place sports wagers by telephone and over the Internet, the DOJ said.
Kaplan’s toll-free telephone lines terminated in Houston or Miami, and then were forwarded to Costa Rica by satellite transmitter or fiber-optic cable. Some of Kaplan’s Web servers were located in Miami and were remotely controlled from Costa Rica. U.S. residents became customers of BetOnSports by depositing funds on account and placing wagers over U.S. toll-free telephone lines and via the Internet using the deposited funds.
BetOnSports attracted a large number of U.S. customers, the DOJ said. By 2004, the company’s headquarters in Costa Rica employed about 1,700 people. In 2003, BetOnSports had close to 1 million registered customers and accepted more than 10 million bets totalling more than $1 billion, the DOJ said.
In mid-2004, Kaplan took BetOnSports public on the London Alternative Investment Market, and the initial public offering netted him more than $100 million, the DOJ said.
“Kaplan was unique in the scope and scale of his illegal operation,” acting U.S. Attorney Michael Reap of the Eastern District of Missouri said in a statement. “Despite his immense profits, he is living in federal custody. This case should serve as a warning to others who might choose to defy the laws of the United States on such a grand scale.”
Kaplan has been in custody without a bond set since his arrest in March 2007.
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Costa Rica’s government has launched a tender to design, build and operate a new container terminal at the Limón-Moín port complex in Limón province, national concessions board CNC project design director Eduardo Navarro told BNamericas.
The new terminal will handle cargo that previously went through the Limón port, which will stop receiving cargo in 2015 and be converted into a tourist port.
The new terminal, budgeted at US$560mn, would have a capacity to move 1mn TEUs in a first phase, while a second phase, costing US$250mn, would further expand capacity, Navarro said.
The tender process for the terminal first began in April, but was delayed while the comptroller general and CNC amended the bidding rules, according to Navarro.
Modifications to the bidding rules are scheduled to be published in the country’s official gazette on November 4.
Interested parties should submit offers on January 15, Navarro said.
PRIVATIZATION
The new terminal is part of the government’s master plan for port development over the next 35 years, and represents the first step in the process to concession the Limón-Moín port complex, Navarro said.
A study carried out previously by Dutch consulting firm Royal Haskoning indicated two possible options for the complex: either privatizing both ports, or building a new, competing facility next to Moín.
The government originally proposed that the Limón-Moín complex be offered in concession to a single private developer.
However, the move faced opposition from different sectors, including exporters’ chamber Cadexco, which said the port should be offered to multiple operators to avoid a monopoly.
Costa Rican President Óscar Arias originally expected to complete the concession of Limón-Moín before his term ends in May 2010.
However, this is now unlikely to happen, as the contract for the new terminal will not be awarded before end-2010, according to Navarro.
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
If Carlos Gutiérrez, legislator of the Movimiento Libertario, has his way prisoners in Costa Rica will have to earn their keep.
The legislator presented the bill to force prisoners to work while being incarcerated, not only to help financially their families on the outside, but to compensate their victims and defray the cost to the state to keep them locked up.
The bill would reform the Código Penal (Penal Code) and include a 10% tax break to companies that create jobs for prisoners.
“It is not conceivable that honest people have to work hard to food on the table, while criminals can choose to work or not”, said Gutiérrez.
The legislator said that the proposal adheres to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the American Convention on Human Rights (signed at the Inter-American Specialized Conference on Human Rights, San José, Costa Rica, 22 November 1969) and the Costa Rica’s political constitution.
The bill proposes that a judge can impose a prisoner to work while incarcerated, based on the criteria of the Adaptación Social (prison system).
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Here are the different types of Costa Rican citizenship:
By birth: Children born within the territory of Costa Rica, regardless of the nationality of the parents, have the right to Costa Rican citizenship.
By decent: Children born abroad have the right to Costa Rican citizenship if at least one parent is a citizen of Costa Rica.
By naturalization: Central Americans, Spaniards and Latin Americans by birth who have lived in the country for at least five years can apply for Costa Rican citizenship. Central Americans, Spaniards and Latin Americans, other than by birth, as well as foreign nationals who have lived in the country for at least seven years can also apply for citizenship.
Foreigners who have married a citizen of Costa Rica can apply for Costa Rican citizenship after two years.
What is dual citizenship?
A person is considered a dual national when he or she owes allegiance to more than one country at the same time.
Can one keep U.S. citizenship after becoming a Costa Rican?
Yes. However, the U.S. government does not encourage this as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause.
Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country, and they are required to obey the laws of both countries.
The country where a dual national lives generally has a stronger claim to that person’s allegiance.
Recognizing the trend, the United States is tolerant of dual citizenship despite the stern wording in the U.S. naturalization oath where one renounces allegiance to all other nations.
In other words, the United States looks the other way. The United States is merely accepting a growing reality.
One of the most important reasons the United States permits dual citizenship with Costa Rica is because there is no army here and one does not have to swear to protect the country, just to uphold the constitution.
One of every 100 people on earth lives outside their country of birth. Transmigration in recent decades has reached an unprecedented scale. With the shrinking of the world through cheap travel and telecommunications, governments are beginning to catch up with an unstoppable trend — dual or even multi-citizenship.
A second or even a third passport has become not just a link to a homeland but also a glorified travel visa, a license to do business, a stake in a second economy, an escape hatch, even a status symbol.
There are also practical reasons to carry two passports. It is much easier to travel in countries that are antagonistic to Americans with a passport from Costa Rica, which is known as a peaceful country, sometimes referred to as “Little Switzerland.”
On a personal note, this writer is very happy to have gone through the process to become a naturalized Costa Rican citizen even though the “tramite” or “red tape” took two years and six months. The new identification card or cédula will take some getting used to. It now reflects two last names, both father’s and mother’s. My mother’s is a very long and difficult to pronounce Russian-German name. Nobody in Costa Rica can pronounce Garland let alone Brungardt. In fact, this is why the process took so long. No one at the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones could get it right.
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
The National Chamber of Ecotourism (CANAECO) and the National Fund for Forestry Financing (FONAFIFO) have announced a historic agreement that will allow Costa Rica to offer travelers the option of traveling to a carbon neutral destination. The agreement, announced during the First International Planet, People, Peace Conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, will have an initial contract period of three years.
The program, dubbed Climate Conscious Travel (CCT), is an agreement that has been exclusively designed by CANAECO and its distribution chain that will allow the tourism industry to share the costs of offering a carbon offsetting program to visitors while allowing tourism entities to assume responsibility of the industry’s CO2 production. Moreover, such programs will allow Costa Rica to more easily reach its carbon neutral goal of 2021.
With tourism being one of the main sources of income for Costa Rica, the effects of carbon emissions from the transportation industry, airlines in particular, have become of great concern for the country. Through this program, the industry will be helping to mitigate the nearly 6,723,000 tons of CO2 that is produced from the approximate 1.3 million visitors who arrive to Costa Rica every year.
Other projects supported by FONAFIFO were also highlighted during the First International Planet, People, Peace Conference, including a presentation of its work with Mapache Rent a Car, the country’s first carbon neutral rental car operator.
Costa Rica has long been considered a pioneer in environmental conservation since the creation of its National Parks System in 1977. By declaring 26% of its land as protected territory, Costa Rica has been able to develop one of the most intense biodiverse places on Earth which, today, accounts for approximately five percent of the Earth’s flora and fauna.
In 1997, as a response to its booming tourism, the Costa Rica Tourist Board designed the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program to assure a healthy growth of its tourism offering without taking away from its main attraction, its environmental beauty. Today, the CST program is considered to be one of the strictest certification programs in the world and includes more than 130 operators and growing.
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