Archive for December 7th, 2009
Monday, December 7th, 2009
Consumer prices in Costa Rica fell by 0.16 percent during the month of November, marking the second time in 2009 that the country has experienced deflation. For the year, the inflation rate was at 2.57 percent, the lowest annual consumer price increase since 1972. At this point in time last year, the rate of inflation stood at 16.30 percent.
The largest decrease in consumer prices was felt at the gas pump, as the cost of gasoline fell more than 0.11 percent for the month. The price of gasoline is traditionally the driving force for fluctuation in the inflation rate, as the high inflation rate of 2008 stemmed largely from the high price of fuel. The overall cost of transportation has risen only 0.91 percent in 2009.
Average consumer prices also fell for car purchases, chicken, papayas and cable television. Increases in prices were seen in bus costs, sweet peppers, casados (a staple lunchtime dish featuring meat and rice and beans), home rentals and tourist packages.
In September, the Central Bank of Costa Rica predicted the inflation rate for the year would reach between 4 and 6 percent. Barring a huge leap in consumer prices, those figures will not be met. The highest increase rate in 2009 was seen in July, when the consumer price index rose 0.92 percent.
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
Members of Costa Rica’s four police forces will be getting a raise in their salaries in the coming year following an agreement signed by Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias and leaders of the various unions representing the country’s police forces.
The agreement, that is being called historic, will raise police salaries an average of 15%.
Present at the signing ceremony at Casa Presidencial was the ministra de Seguridad Pública, Jannina Del Vecchio, the director of Migración (immigration), Mario Zamora, the viceministro de la Presidenica, Roberto Thompson and for the unions, Albino Vargas of the ANEP and Xiomara Rojas of the Siteco.
On hand were also the top brass of the police forces: Fuerza Pública (police), Policía Penitenciaria (penitentiary police), Policía de Tránsito (traffic police) and Policía Migratoria (immigration police).
The agreement calls for increases in salary based on tenure and position and varies from police force to police force.
For example, officers of the Fuerza Pública penitentiary officials will receive a 25% hike retroactive to October 2009, while Tránsito officials will see a hike between 8% and 50% taking effect on December 11. Immigration police officials will get a ¢32.000 colones a month increase in their base salary.
In a speech after the signing ceremony, president Arias took the podium for more than a half hour to praise the national police forces and criticized anyone who says Costa Rica is an unsafe country.
“Everything is relative”, said Arias.
Arias added “if compared to Brazil that has a militarize police force and very few criminals, we can conclude that the country has a lot of crime. But, if we make the comparison to El Salvador where they have some 4.000 murders a year – on average 10 a day – we are doing ok”.
Arias blamed the media for giving the perception that Costa Rica is unsafe, talking about crimes and murders constantly.
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
She says poor health services delayed treatment. She is wanted in Costa Rica in a murder case.
A Costa Rican woman who was on an international most-wanted list after a 1997 slaying until her U.S. arrest last year has sued over what she says is a lack of health services in New Jersey – so severe that her advanced stage of breast cancer went undetected.
A lawyer for Maria Magdalena Pacheco Bolanos, 39, said his client had gone from a young woman who panicked and fled Costa Rica after the death of a prominent newspaper executive to a mother of three living in a $1 million home on Long Island, N.Y., where she ran a successful landscaping business.
Attorney Gil Garcia alleges Pacheco’s former boyfriend was responsible for the slaying. Pacheco is charged as an accomplice.
The international police organization Interpol caught up to the woman in April 2008. She was arrested on Long Island and is in the Hudson County Correctional Center in New Jersey pending extradition to Costa Rica.
Garcia said his client had not had access to a doctor or undergone medical tests for 10 months of her detention, despite repeated complaints to medical staff that she felt a lump in her breast.
When an immigration judge ordered Pacheco taken to a doctor, advanced breast cancer was diagnosed, and she had a mastectomy, Garcia said.
“It’s not so much the issue of a latent diagnosis,” he said, but it’s tantamount “to cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. If you commit cruel and unusual punishment – and it could be tantamount to a death sentence in this case – they have to pay for it.”
The suit was filed Wednesday in federal court in Newark.
Jim Kennelly, a Hudson County spokesman who handles jail inquiries, said he would look into the complaint, but had no immediate comment. A representative of the Costa Rican consulate in New York said inquiries about the case must be submitted in writing and would be referred to government officials in Costa Rica.
Garcia denied the lawsuit was an attempt to delay his client’s extradition. He said she was cooperating with U.S. and Costa Rican authorities on her transfer. Meanwhile, he said, her requests for timely radiation treatments have been delayed.
“Inmates have many more medical issues than the general population, and receive much worse medical attention,” Garcia said. “They are in jail for a reason – there’s no doubt about that – but to deny them the proper medical care adds an extra layer to their punishment that is not contemplated by the law.”
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – People in Costa Rica have become more critical of Óscar Arias as the year continues, according to a poll by Unimer published in La Nación. 44% of respondents rate their president’s performance as good or very good, down three points since September.
Arias won the February 2006 presidential election with 40.92% of all cast ballots as the candidate for the National Liberation Party (PLN). Arias had headed the government from 1986 to 1990, and was able to run again after the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly opted to bring back presidential re-election in 2003. He was sworn in for the second time in May 2006.
On Dec. 2 in Spain, Arias discussed the achievements of the 20th century, declaring, “From a material standpoint, we’re better than ever, but we had never seen so much barbarity, so many millions of people dying in civil wars.”
The next presidential election in Costa Rica is scheduled for Feb. 7, 2010.
Polling Data
How would you rate Óscar Arias’ performance as president?
|
Nov. 2009 |
Sept. 2009 |
May 2009 |
| Good / Very good |
44% |
47% |
37% |
| Bad / Very bad |
22% |
17% |
14% |
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
A move by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) delays the entry of new operators for cellular service and opening of the cellular market in Costa Rica until at least 2011. The reason for the delay is due to ICE’s, the state telecom, stall in providing the government the radio frequencies that are to be used by the competition
Last year legislators passed the Ley General de Telecomunicaciones which opens up the telecommunications market in Costa Rica, a market which had been a ICE monopoly for decades.
Following the passing of the law, the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel) was formed on January 23 of this year, a government agency to license and regulate the telecommunications market.
The Sutel says it is ready to begin the tender process for three new operators, but it cannot until ICE hands over, as requested, the radio frequencies that will be used by the competition.
With the delay, ICE, although it no longer holds the monopoly, it continues to be the exclusive provider of cellular service in the country.
The frequencies are state property. In September the Ministerio de Ambiente Energía y Telecomunicaciones (Minaet) asked ICE for six of frequencies that operate between the 843.5 and 849 MHz; 888.5 and 901 MHz; 1730 and 1805 MHz; 1825 and 9120 MHz; 1935 and 1990 MHz; and, 2125 and 2170 MHz.
The above frequencies would be used by new cellular operators and to compete with ICE.
George Miley, president of the Sutel, said that once the frequencies are relinquished by ICE, it will be at least a year before the competition can begin offering services to the public.
Miley explained that the process takes between four to six months for the approval of the operators, if there is no appeal, and at least six months for each operator to install its network and have it operating.
As such, competition in the cellular market cannot begin until 2011 at the earliest.
According to Miley, has everything ready to begin the tender process, less the frequencies.
Pedro Pablo Quirós, president of ICE, says the handing over of the frequencies is on “standby”, but rejects the idea that ICE is stalling on purpose.
Quirós explained that since the middle of October the ICE board of directors has been missing a member with the resignation of Félix Delgado. Delgado resigned as director following a conflict between ICE and Consultores Económicos y Financieros S. A. (Cefsa).
The absence of a director does not permit and concrete decisions by the ICE board. And a new director can only be appointed by the Consejo de Gobierno (government cabinet) and according to the Presidencia de la República (president’s office), no decision on a replacement member has yet to be made.
Hannia Vega, viceministra de Telecomunicaciones, is however more optimistic. Vega said that there are still three working weeks left this year and that means that competition in 2010 is still possible.
Currently there are 1.8 million users of cellular service in Costa Rica, all customers of ICE. In addition, in the coming weeks ICE begins unrolling 950.000 lines of its 3G network.
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
Costa Rica is facing a serious problem of insecurity, of that there is no question. And now, worrying judicial authorities more is the serious problem of overcrowding of jails, such that, in some cases, some older or less offensive criminals have been let go free to allow room for newer criminals.
The problem is so severe that many recently apprehended criminals are spending up to a week or more in the “calabozos” (dungeons) of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) that to is to be used to hold prisoners for up to 24 hours, as established by law.
The OIJ holding cells are called the dungeons for they lack proper sanitary facilities, no fresh air, garbage and food in the hallways and have been the scene of acts of mutiny and suicide.
The problem is so serious that some judges have been forced to let go criminals who should be behind bars under preventive detention measures or sentenced to minor crimes, as the Adaptación Social (jail officials) is not able to properly handle the increased volume.
The courts, as well as the director of the OIJ, Jorge Rojas, have come to the conclusion that the treatment of these prisoners is a violation of human rights. But, there is not much they can do.
A solution to the problems seems far away.
Currently, according to officials reports, there are cases where the prison and jail cells are so overcrowded that up to 43 people are being held in a cell that is designed for 20. In the case of the temporary holding cells, it is not uncommon to have 30 people in a cell designed for 10.
Thus, the practice of letting some criminals go to make room for others has become a common as the judicial system struggles and buckles under the pressure of increased crime.
Hernando París Rodríguez, ministro de Justicia y Paz, says the problem has increased due to the government’s aggressive position on combatting crime, the exaggerated use of the preventive detention measures of the justices, the creation of the “tribunales penales de flagrancia” (a speedy trial court that can try and sentence a criminal in hours) and the changes to the Ley de Tránsito (traffic laws), but no one anticipated the consequences wich is an unusual and rapid growth of prisoners that need to be handled by the Sistema de Adaptación Social.
The system allows for a maximum of 8.478 prisoners. Currently there are 9.256 people housed in the country’s jails and prisons.
Conservative estimates show that the overcrowding of the prisons will grow from the current 778 to 1.331 by next March, but in reality it could be worse, as overcrowding could reach as high as double of the conservative estimate.
The solution is to build more jails. But that takes time.
So, in the meantime, prison officials will be looking for some more creative solutions to the problem, like letting go those prisoners who behind bars for being behind in the child support. That decision alone would free up 160 beds at the La Reforma prison in Alajuela and save the state ¢290 million colones. At the San Sebastián holding jail in San José, the move would free up another 30 spaces.
Minister París recently told the justices of the Corte Plena that plans to build some 20 prefabricated structures of “low containment”, prefabricated structures that can hold up to 30 prisoners adequately, with proper sanitary conditions.
The minister said the prefabricated structures can be ready in 90 days, much less time than building a prison and that the plan is undergoing floor plan design and should go for approval by the Contraloría in a matter of days.
If the budget for the plan is approved, minister París, said that the first 600 units, spread across thec country, could be ready for occupancy within 120 days.
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