Archive for March 5th, 2010
Friday, March 5th, 2010
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Thursday in Costa Rica for additional support programs for women in the Americas.Clinton arrived Thursday on a Latin American tour with previous stops in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, with another scheduled visit to Guatemala.In San Jose, Clinton took part in the forum Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas, where she called for a determined fight against poverty and social inequality and for broader access to the benefits of international trade. Talent is universal but opportunity is not, she told the audience.Pathways to Prosperity was launched by the United States in September 2008 to promote ”inclusive growth, prosperity, and social justice.”
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
The new traffic law, the Ley de Tránsito, went into effect only five days ago and in those first five days a total of 2.225 drivers are having to pay fines of up to ¢200 million colones collectively, for an average of ¢90.000 colones each.
This is not only a hard to the pocket books for Costa Rican drivers who are used to fines not exceeding ¢20.000, and that only for serious offences, but a great boom for the country’s coffers as the Ministerio de Hacienda (Revenue Ministry) has been scrambling to find new sources of income.
In a recent editorial cartoon from the daily print newspaper, La Republica, Hacienda minister is seen jumping in the air with joy, with the caption saying “why do we need tax reforms when we now have the ley de tránsito”.
All in all, drivers will continue to commit driving offenses. That will not change. What has changed is the amount of each offense.
As simple ¢5.000 colones fine for not wearing a seat-belt now costs more than 20 times that. Not stopping at a red light, stop sign or speeding can now cost a few hundred thousand colones, for each offense, rather than the old fine of ¢20.000 colones.
Just this past week one driver is facing more than ¢800.000 colones (us$1.400) in fines for multiple tickets during a routine traffic stop check. The driver did not have is drivers license on hand and the vehicle did not count with the 2010 Marchamo or Riteve inspection. In addition, vehicle’s license plates were confiscated.
In the days prior to March 1, when the new traffic law took effect, a driver in such a situation would more than likely receive one ticket instead of three, the maximum of ¢20.000 and probably would be allowed to get on his way home. Confiscation of license plates was usually reserved for more serious offenses like drunk driving or racing.
What surprises many is that, even though Costa Ricans have had more than a year of being told that the traffic fines were going up, many has still to get it.
The law was first introduced in December 2008, when only the drunk driving and reckless driving provisions were being enforced. The remainder of the law was to go into effect on September 2009, but postponed to March 1, 2010, allowing time for legislators to make amendments, which are still in the process.
So, there is no excuse, as many drivers caught on television cameras say they were not aware of the new fines.
According to the Dirección General de Tránsito only a small number of drivers, they report 10, have been issued multiple fines adding up to in excess of ¢500.000 colones.
Although legislators are busy at work with amendments that has already seen the removal of the point system, the amount the fines could be also reduced by as much as 40% across the board.
Even with such a reduction, drivers in Costa Rica have to come to grips that they have to adopt new driving habits, carry their license with them and the vehicle’s registration or face tough economic sanctions that have never been seen in Costa Rica before.
Many say that well “I will keep the car home” if I can’t pay the fines. True. But the new law also provides for interest of 3% and court costs to accumulate after 30 days of an outstanding balance. And the entire amount (fine and surcharges) must be paid up to renew a drivers license or get any official document from the Cosevi.
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
Prosecutors will appeal the judge’s decision.
A federal magistrate decided Thursday that an alleged bookie should be allowed to post bond in his tax-evasion case, even though the man reportedly fled to Costa Rica and spent more than three years there after a search warrant was served at his Bixby home.
David Michael Nigh, 41, was charged in Tulsa on April 8, 2008, with five counts of filing false federal returns for the 2001 through 2005 income tax years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Trent Shores said the prosecution will appeal U.S. Magistrate Frank McCarthy’s decision. That means Nigh will remain in custody at least until U.S. District Judge James Payne can review the issue.
Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Jason White testified that he started investigating Nigh in December 2005 after allegations surfaced that he was involved in a “bookmaking” business.
White testified that a search warrant was executed at Nigh’s home in Bixby in May 2006. He said Nigh was told then that agents were looking into whether he was involved in bookmaking — taking bets on sporting events — or had filed false tax returns.
Testimony during Thursday’s hearing suggested that Nigh decided to head for Costa Rica in December 2006 because of the investigation.
Nigh’s attorney, Martin Hart, told the court that his client made a “bad decision” to go to Costa Rica.
According to testimony Thursday, Nigh divorced his wife and remarried while in Costa Rica, had his two juvenile daughters visit him there more than once and had his elderly more than once and father move to the country to live with him.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Leitch told the court that getting a suspect extradited from Costa Rica is difficult and becomes even harder when the person has married a Costa Rican citizen.
Shores said Nigh was arrested Feb. 12 in Cancun, Mexico, where Nigh had gone on vacation. Nigh appeared in federal court in Houston on Feb. 16, records show.
McCarthy said conditions could be set to ensure that Nigh would show up for future court dates in Tulsa.
The magistrate said he was “particularly impressed” by testimony from two ex-wives of Nigh’s as well as a brother of the defendant, who all said Nigh was ready to face the charges.
Hart said Nigh intends to plead guilty once the amount of tax loss can be determined. Some prison time appears likely, he said.
The bond conditions McCarthy outlined include electronic monitoring, frequent visits with probation officers and strict monitoring of Nigh’s finances. Hart surrendered Nigh’s passport to the court Thursday.
The indictment says Nigh’s actual income ranged from $59,803 to $246,952 during the years in question. Evidence introduced during Thursday’s hearing suggested that the Bixby house he had lived in was valued between $600,000 and $800,000.
White testified that Nigh had about $250,000 wired to him while he lived in Costa Rica. Before that, Nigh was making about $30,000 a month through a combination of “casino hosting” and an automobile business, White testified.
Claims are circulating on the Internet that Nigh has been connected to an online sports-betting operation that, according to its Web site, “operates legally in the beautiful country of Costa Rica.”
No testimony about that was presented during the hearing, and neither Hart, Leitch nor Shores would discuss the topic outside the courtroom.
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived early Thursday in the capital of San José, Costa Rica to meet the country’s leaders as well as ministers from 16 Central and South American nations for a conference to discuss economic and democracy reform issues.
Mrs. Clinton will meet with president-elect Laura Chinchilla, set to become Costa Rica’s first female head of state, in talks expected to focus on economic and development issues.
As the top United States diplomat, Secretary Clinton will also meet President Oscar Arias, who hands over the presidency to Chinchilla on May 8, 2010.
Clinton flew in from Brazil where she faced strong resistance to the US-led push for sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program.
In San José she sits down with female entrepreneurs and attends a Pathways to Prosperity round-table, a Bush-era initiative involving 14 regional countries whose foreign ministers meet to promote economic development, democracy and women’s rights.
The group includes six Central American countries as well as Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, the United States and Uruguay.
Costa Rica is the fifth and second to last stop in Clinton’s week-long, six-country Latin America tour. She has already visited Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Friday will be Secretary Clinton’s final stop in Guatemala where she will attend another meeting with regional leaders.
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
Costa Rica is one of the few safe countries to visit in the Central America region. It is a must see for it’s natural beauty with much of the country protected as a national park providing a rare opportunity to see an unspoiled and pristine environment.
Most tours begin in San Jose, the largest city in Costa Rica. From there, you can enjoy several guided tours of your own choosing. Costa Rica is Spanish-speaking but many tourist areas have those who understand English and the accommodations are generally first-rate.
Some guided tours will take you to the Heredia Highlands, the perfect spot to view the huge Poas Volcano and its nearly one mile wide steaming crater the largest volcanic crater in the world. Then you’ll spend some time on a naturalist-guided tour of the La Paz Waterfall Gardens with five waterfalls, an aviary and a butterfly garden.
After an overnight stay in Arena, most guided tours of the area will take you on a hike over the beautiful Arenal Hanging Bridges. Some visitors may instead elect to take a spa treatment or go on a canopy zipline tour an adventurous way to spend the morning. You can also take a walk around the town of La Fortuna and spend the afternoon relaxing at the Tabacon Hot Springs and, yes, they’re really hot! If you’re lucky, you can catch a glimpse of the smoldering lava flow of the Arenal Volcano at night.
Next, you may wish to catch some waves at one of Costa Rica’s beaches. Many guided tours of the area will allow you the opportunity to stop along the way at the Las Pumas Refuge, a hospital of sorts for injured large cats, monkeys and birds. Another favorite spot on Costa Rica’s guided tours is the Tamarindo Wildlife Refuge. This is the natural habitat of many species of birds, waterfowl and the howler monkey. This is a tour done by boat and you’ll want to have your camera ready. As the refuge is near the beach, you can also schedule a fishing lesson, a surfing lesson or just hang out at the beach, soaking up the Costa Rican sunshine.
From the beach back to San Jose, many guided tours will take you to Guaitil, an artistís colony of sorts, in which you can watch how the artisans make their distinctive pottery just like their ancestors did a thousand years ago. Another fun place is called Sarchi. This little village is considered the craft capital of Costa Rica.
In Costa Rica, there are guided tours for everyone not just for the nature minded. You can take a cooking and spa guided tour that includes a visit to the hacienda of the Ortuno family where you can learn about growing sugar cane, coffee and macadamia nuts. You can also learn about the medicinal uses for foods in the Latino culture. There are even guided tours of Costa Rica that involve those things related to black history and black heritage. Visitors will learn about their African roots and how Africans first came to Costa Rica in the 1800s to build the railways and to work on banana plantations.
There are truly guided tours for every taste and style in this beautiful country. Explore the choices on the internet until you find one that fits your interests and fitness level.
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
The rush to obtain or renew a drivers license began on Monday and continues as thousands daily line up from the early hours of the morning at the Cosevi offices in La Uruca (San José) and regional centres across the country. All to avoid being fined the ¢88.000 colones under the new Ley de Tránsito for driving without a drivers license.
The Consejo de Seguridad Vial (Cosevi) estimates that 400.000 of the 1.8 million registered drivers have their licenses expired.
The reason for such a high number is that in the past the fine for driving without a license in hand or with an expired license was only ¢2.000 colones and many admitted on national television that is was just laziness for not getting it renewed.
In 2009 alone the Policía de Tránsito reports issuing 31.000 tickets for expired licenses.
Germán Marín, the director of the Policía de Tránsito said that many prior to March 1 preferred to pay the ¢2.000 colones fine that waste their time to line at the Cosevi to renew their license. “For many it was similar to the cost of going out to a restaurant”, Marín said in an interview with the La Nación.
However, that all changed at 12:01am Monday, March 1, when the Ley de Tránsito multiplied the fine by more than 40 times, which for many represents a major portion of their monthly salary.
The rush to avoid the fine has completely saturated the Departamento de Licencias, in La Uruca, who in its first day on Monday attended 1.300 people. On Tuesday, licensing office personnel started handing out numbers and said would only attend the first 1.000, as well as extending its hours of operation from 8am to 6pm instead of closing at 4:30pm.
At La Uruca, people began lining up on Tuesday morning from before the break of dawn, some just coming minutes late to be attended that day.
The same situation occurred at regional licensing offices, although the number of people at each centre was considerably lower.
According to the Policía de Tránsito driving with an expired license was the fourth major cause of all tickets issued in 2009. Taking first place in the number of tickets issued for an offence last year was failure to obey a traffic signal (86.087), seconded by speeding (38.546) and in third place, obstructing traffic (31.161).
All those infractions came with a ¢5.000 colones fine before March 1.
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Friday, March 5th, 2010
The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day.
JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth’s rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27 quake. Using a complex model, he and fellow scientists came up with a preliminary calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).
Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth’s axis. Gross calculates the quake should have moved Earth’s figure axis (the axis about which Earth’s mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches). Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet).
By comparison, Gross said the same model estimated the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted Earth’s axis by 2.32 milliarcseconds (about 7 centimeters, or 2.76 inches).
Gross said that even though the Chilean earthquake is much smaller than the Sumatran quake, it is predicted to have changed the position of the figure axis by a bit more for two reasons. First, unlike the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, which was located near the equator, the 2010 Chilean earthquake was located in Earth’s mid-latitudes, which makes it more effective in shifting Earth’s figure axis. Second, the fault responsible for the 2010 Chiliean earthquake dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake. This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth’s mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth’s figure axis.
Gross said the Chile predictions will likely change as data on the quake are further refined.
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