Archive for November 11th, 2009
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
I am not one to normally spread negative news about Costa Rica. But you would have to be the proverbial ostrich with his head in the sand not to have noticed that things have gotten particularly more violent these days. And the numbers reflect the facts. Costa Rica’s murder rate has now achieved its highest level per 100,000 citizens in history, rising from the rate of 8 per 100,000 in 2007 to 11 per 100,000 in 2008.
Murders investigated by the OIJ, or the country’s main criminal investigatory body, rose from 369 in 2007 to 512 in 2008, a 39% rise. According to yesterday’s article in La Nación, the Pan American Organization of Health considers the situation to be particularly grave when the rate of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants of a country is between 5 and 8. Overall, the region of Central America has the highest murder rate of any region on the planet.
While the increase in violence experienced here in Costa Rica is no doubt alarming, it is nothing compared to other Central American countries, like Honduras (58), El Salvador (52), Guatemala (48), Beliz (32), Panama (19) and Nicaragua (13). Overall the murder rate in the region is 29.3 per 100,000. This compares to around 26 per 100,000 in South America and 8 per 100,000 in Europe.
The rate of increase in violence in San Jose, the nation’s capital, and Limón, its Caribbean province, is particularly alarming. The murder rate in Limón has grown from 9.2 in 2003 to 25.1 in 2008. San Jose has grown from 8.2 in 2005 to 14.9 in 2008. Of utmost concern are murders by delinquent youth, murders for hire (or, sicariato) and murders associated with increased narcotic traffic through the country.
Just recently a young college student was killed when she received a gunshot to the head during an altercation between rival gangs in a busy section of San Jose. Happenings such as this are all too frequent each morning when you open the day’s edition of La Nación. Somehow the country needs to get a handle on rising crime. A telling figure reported in the La Nación article is that of the 512 homicides reported, only 143 individuals received any sort of judicial condemnation.
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Just when I thought it was safe to get back on the road, a bridge over the Río Rincón in Puerto Jiménez, on the Osa Peninsula, collapsed on Friday (11/6) when a 95-ton crane attempted to cross it.
The Osa Peninsula, home to Corcovado National Park and deemed by National Geographic Magazine “the most biologically intense place on earth,” is a popular tourist destination for intrepid travelers.
According to La Nación (the country’s Spanish-language daily), the 50-year-old bridge was only meant to support only 35 tons.
Luckily, no one was hurt. But Dios mio! How’m I gonna get to Puerto Jimenez?
Or around the rest of the country, for that matter.
School bus plummets into river
About two weeks ago, on October 22, a bridge in Turrubares (a canton in the province of San José) collapsed and a school bus carrying 38 passengers plunged into the Tárcoles River. Five people were killed. The Turrubares collapse lead to serious questions about the Public Works and Transport Ministry’s competence to maintain bridges and forced the resignation of ministry head Karla González.
The National Emergency Commission (CNE) has declared a “red alert” over the state of bridges in Costa Rica, but engineers have an uphill battle figuring out which bridges to repair first.
Necessary tools for bridge repair: Google and YouTube
An article in the November 6 issue of the Tico Times reports that “engineers tasked with identifying dangerous bridges in order to prevent another fatal collapse are resorting to Internet images of Costa Rican bridges uploaded by tourists, such is the inadequacy of the government’s own infrastructure file.
Engineer Guillermo Santana of the University of Costa Rica’s National Laboratory of Materials and Structural Models (LANAMME), says there is no complete record of the country’s bridges and the maintenance they have (or haven’t) received. So the engineers have been “getting help from tourists who have uploaded holiday pictures of Costa Rican bridges onto Google and YouTube.”
Research on 418 of the country’s 1,450 bridges shows that half of the structures are more than 50 years old, while the remaining 40 percent have been in use for more than 30 years. Ninety percent of the bridges were thus considered close to or past their recommended life span.
The 10 bridges deemed “high risk” and which will be repaired first are located above the Río Aranjuez, Río Abangares, Río Azufrado, Río Puerto Nuevo, Río Nuevo, Río Chirripó on Route 32 and Route 4, Río Sarapiquí, Río Sucio and Río Torre.
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Wednesday is Veterans Day or Remembrance Day when fallen members of the military services are commemorated.
The U.S. Embassy will mark the day by closing, because Veterans Day is a U.S. holiday. The day also is a legal holiday in Canada, but that embassy has made no announcement.
In Costa Rica ceremonies are being postponed until Sunday where a joint afternoon service will be held at the International Baptist Church in Escazú.
Remembrance Day is what Nov. 11 is called in the Commonwealth of Nations, which includes Britian, Canada and Australia and South Africa.
The actual day is always Nov. 11, the day on which the guns of World War I fell silent and the war ended.
The day also is called Poppy Day because disabled veterans used to sell paper poppies to recall the flowers that quickly grew over the World War I graves. Now veterans organizations sell the flowers to collect funds for assisting their peers.
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
The members of the civic action group, Comité Cívico Pozeño, made of residents of Santa Ana, Mora, Puriscal, Turrubares, Orotina and smaller communities west of San José, are demanding the government to cancel the toll booths at Piedades de Santa Ana and to restore the rights of residents lost with the concession of the autopista Próspero Fernández.
The Piedades de Santa Ana toll booths are ready, however, the MOPT has yet to authorize the road concessionaire, Autopistas del Sol, to start collecting.
The action group argue that the autopista is not nothing more than the same road, only with a make over and a toll booth, which forces area residents to pay a toll, each way. The residents also say that their safety in the area has been threatened, as crossing the highway west of the toll booths have become even more dangerous by the high speed traffic.
The residents want the Consejo Nacional de Concesiones (CNC) to call on the government to pay attention to the problem and particularly asking the new MOPT minister, Marco Vargas, to listen to the complaints of the residents.
The arguments include the construction of the pedestrian overpasses on the autopista, east and west of the Santa Ana interchange, which appears to have been constructed without tought or planning of any kind.
The anger of the action group is that area residents have to pay the toll getting on and off the autopista at Piedades de Santa Ana, while through traffic does not. The estimate that some 11.000 vehicles are expected to cross the Piedades tolls every day, while some 40.000 vehicles are expected to drive through without crossing the tolls.
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
The US dollar dropped another ¢2 colones in the sell exchange rate Monday over the close on Friday. The sell rate today is ¢573.03, dropping from ¢586.31 last Monday (November 1) when it began it’s spiral downward.
The buy rate today is ¢563.03, compared to ¢575.44 last Monday.
The exchange rate is set by the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) each day based on market activity, used as benchmark by financial instutions.
However, the dollar is faring even worse on the wholesale market known as MONEX, where the sell rate is even lower, at ¢568.56 and the buy ¢565.56.
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
The Superintendencia de Pensiones (Supen) – insurance regulator – announced on Monday the approval of an increase in the compulsory insurance for vehicles that is part of the 2010 Marchamo.
The average increase will range between ¢2.196 for passenger vehicles and ¢344 for two wheeled vehicles, while the average cost for public buses will be ¢54.981 less and ¢7.101 less for taxis.
With Monday’s Supen decision, the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) can now publish the 2010 Marchamo cost that is payable by December 31.
Javier Cascante, the Superintendente de Pensiones, said that a new formula for calculating the insurance portion of the 2010 Marchamo was being applied, which can in some cases increase, while in others decrease the cost of the insurance portion of the annual vehicular circulation permit.
The new formula takes into account, for the first time, the claims history of the vehicle.
The Supen also approved the coverage of each person to ¢6 million colones from ¢3 million
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
United Arab Emirates (UAE) police have arrested five people in connection with the theft of 25 gold bars worth millions, which belong to a Malaysian jeweler.
The five suspects from Mexico and Costa Rica were on their getaway flight to Hong Kong from Abu Dhabi when police managed to sniff them out.
They were apprehended in Hong Kong and put on a flight back to Abu Dhabi where they were arrested.
The stolen items were recovered while being shipped to Costa Rica.
Brigadier Khalil Al Mansouri, criminal investigation general department director at Dubai Police, said the suspects had tracked the Malaysian gold trader at the Naif Gold Souk in Dubai.
The gang allegedly snatched a bag containing the gold bars while the victim was looking for a trolley at the Dubai International Airport.
Their first court appearance has yet to be determined.
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