Archive for March 18th, 2010
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
A federal appeals court has ordered a new sentencing for a man who pleaded guilty in North Carolina to participating in a telemarketing scheme that milked U.S. residents out of millions of dollars.
Juan Luis Llamas of Yuba City, Calif., was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $4.2 million. Llamas was the office manager of a call center in Costa Rica that operated a sweepstakes scam.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Llamas was improperly given a longer sentence for targeting vulnerable victims. The court said Llamas didn’t know many of the victims were elderly.
The court also said the restitution order was too high because the call center’s take was closer to $1 million during the time Llamas worked there.
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Errors and brushes with unconstitutionality have stalled in the Legislature the reforms to the new Ley de Tránsito.
The review by the Comisión de Servicios Técnicos de la Asamblea Legislativa found the reforms to contain a number of errors and contradictions wit the Constitución Política and now it will be up to legislators to correct, in a hurry, and vote on the changes before this assembly dissolves at the end of April or send it back to the commission, leaving the work for the new Legislative Assembly that takes over on May 8.
For his part, Jorge Méndez, head of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) party, is to get the job down now, make the corrections and approve the reforms that are the work of this assembly.
However, that will not be so easy.
For the reforms to carry in second vote (they have already been approved, although with errors, in first vote) it requires the approval vote of 38 legislators.
The head of the Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC) party, Alberto Salom, assures that his party will vote in favor of the corrections, but not the reform.
The major points of the reforms that were made to the law that went into effect on March 1, 2010, are the elimination of the point system, the reduction of fines and decreased sanctions against drunk and reckless drivers.
Legislators could not come to a consensus on the changes prior to the March 1 deadline, thus the law went into effect and the Policía de Tránsito began applying the new rules of the road.
However, the application of the law is now in limbo as legislators continue to work on the reforms and court challenges have begun by those drivers who have been issued tickets since March 1.
The office of the Impugnación del Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes reports that to date there 280 appeals beofre them.
According to Carlos Rivas, legal counsel for the Cosevi, the majority of the appeals are for tickets issued for infringing the vehicular restrictions of San José, tinted windows, not using the seatbelt and talking on a cellular phone while driving.
All the aforementioned items were prohibited prior to March 1, 2010. However, on March 1, the fines for the offenses passed from the maximum of ¢20.000 colones to more than ¢200.000 colones for tinted windows, for example.
The reforms under discussion and now with constitutional problems would only reduce the amount of the fines and not the prohibition.
According to Cosevi, to date Tránsito have issued 6.924 tickets from March 1, of which only 125 have been paid.
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Life expectancy in Costa Rica remains among the highest in Latin America, as the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC) reported this week that the average life span in the country is 79.3 years.
By averaging the ages of people who died within the country during the past year, INEC concluded that the national life expectancy for women is 81.8 years and the life expectancy for men is 76.8 years.
According to the United Nations World Population Prospects report, among Latin American countries, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile and Puerto Rico all have life expectancies of more than over 78 years of age.
INEC also announced that the country’s infant mortality rate fell during 2009. For the year, an average of 8.84 infants out of every 1,000 died during their first year of life. In 2008, the infant mortality rate was calculated at 8.95 infant deaths per every 1,000 births. Of the estimated 75,000 children born in Costa Rica in 2009, 663 died before reaching their first birthdays.
Costa Rica has one the lowest infant mortality rates in Latin America. Cuba, Puerto Rico and Chile also have infant mortality rates measured at fewer than 9 for every 1,000 births. Many African nations have infant mortality rates of more than 100 deaths per 1,000 births. There, more than 72 percent of infant deaths occurred in the first 28 days of life and were considered neonatal deaths or deaths at the time of birth.
In Costa Rica, three provinces reported infant mortality rates above the national average. The infant mortality rate per 1,000 births for Puntarenas was calculated at 11.7, for Cartago at 10.71, and for Limón at 9.26.
According to a report conducted by the United Nations in 2009, increased numbers in infant deaths are usually found in areas of higher poverty. In October, INEC’s housing survey revealed that the southern Brunca region had the highest incidence of poverty, with almost 31 percent of households in the region falling below the poverty line.
INEC also reported that deaths of mothers during childbirth dropped in 2009. For every 10,000 births, an average of 2.67 mothers died while in labor. In 2008, that figure was 3.33 maternal deaths for every 10,000 births.
Story by TT
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
The president of the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) – Central Bank – Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez, will be resigning his post on May 8 after two consecutive administrations. The announcement was made by president-elect Laura Chinchilla during a press conference announcing the naming of six ministers to her cabinet.
During the press conference, Chinchilla did not name a new Central Bank president, inferring that the new Central Bank president would be coming from the outside and that the naming would be “in a couple of days”.
Chinchilla praised the work of de Paula Gutiérrez, saying that “he has had to cross some complex paths, but thanks to his work we have an economy that maintained stability during the crisis”.
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
The ministra de Salud, Maria Luisa Avila, assures that the danger of the AH1N1 flu virus is over in Costa Rica. The virus took the lives of 56 people and 2.943 cases confirmed since it first appeared in Costa Rica on April 24, 2009.
Avila explained that the virus is still with us, but with the vaccine and the practice of personal hygiene has almost completely eliminated the threat, to the point where the government has suspended the purchase of the remaining 200.000 doses of the vaccine.
Ministra Avila said that some 80.000 doses are still on hand in clinics and hospitals around the country and that the policy of vaccinating women who are pregnant, the obese, diabetics and those suffering from heart problems and asthma are still the priority for the vaccine.
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