Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Altough Axl Rose made the statement last week on facebook that GUNS N’ ROSES would not appear in Costa Rica, Todoticket has begun selling tickets for the April 9 appearance.Edwin León, general manager of Tod0ticket, told La Nación that the band would in fact visit Costa Rica and that ticket sales have been selling well.
The Play store in Zapote has to limit the number of people to 10 at a time entering the store to buy tickets.
28 Producciones has confirmed that the band will be performing at the Ricardo Saprissa stadium, even though the information is not listed on www.gunsnroses.com the band’s official website.
The website lists the last performance by the band on April 1 in Quito.
The ticket prices range from ¢15.750 in the nose bleeds to ¢63.000 for floor in front of the stage.
Tickets can be purchased online at www.todoticket.com or at the Play stores in Escazú, Zapote and Heredia and Importadora Monge stores in Escazú, Multiplaza del Este, Avenida Cental and Desamparados.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Four more men and two businesses have been indicted as part of a $3.6 million illegal sports betting operation.
Gerlarmo “Jerry” Cammisano, 56, of Kansas City was among those indicted by a federal grand jury as part of the scheme. He’s the brother of William “Willie” Cammisano Jr., who pleaded guilty to his involvement in the operation in February.
The others charged in a 23-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury on Tuesday included James J. Moretina, 60, and Michael J. Lombardo, 54, both of Kansas City, and James L. Dicapo, 57, of Parkville, Mo. They join two businesses: Phoenix International Teleport Satellite Services Inc. of Chandler, Ariz., and Elite Sports of San Jose, Costa Rica. The indictment was unsealed on Wednesday, after the four men were arrested.
Gerlarmo “Jerry” Cammisano allegedly was the master agent, under which the three others and other bookmaking agents allegedly operated from March 1, 2006, to April 1, 2009. Bettors, mostly from Kansas City, allegedly wagered about $3.58 million during that period, with bookmakers getting a cut of the winnings at the end of each sports season, the indictment said.
The betting ring operated through a toll-free number, two Web sites and Internet servers based in Costa Rica. Cash was paid out or collected in person, typically on a weekly basis, the indictment said.
Elite Sports processed and tracked bettors’ activities on a server in Costa Rica, charging a price-per-head fee for managing the accounts, the indictment said. Phoenix International provided the toll-free numbers, the indictment said.
The indictment charged each defendant with one count of aiding and abetting one another to operate an illegal gambling business. Cammisano is charged with six counts of using the Internet to transmit information to help place bets about sporting events.
Moretina is charged with six counts of using a telephone to help with such bets; the other two are charged with five counts each.
The indictment includes a forfeiture provision, which means the defendants would have to give the government any proceeds they gained from the alleged illegal acts, including the more than $3.58 million in gross wagers.
Cammisano would have to give the government $196,677, two laptops seized from his home on March 31, three pieces of real estate and two businesses — Sun Auto Sales Inc. and Cam & Vig LLC. Dicapo would have to forfeit his residential property, Moretina would give up his interest in Be Amused Vending & Amusement Co. and Lombardo would give the government his interest in Advanced Mudjacking LLC.
Phoenix International would give up all equipment used to transmit calls or Internet traffic to Costa Rica, including computers, servers, satellite dishes and other equipment.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Employers are expecting a 23 percent increase in jobs for the second third of the year.
That is the prediction from Manpower Costa Rica, which conducted a survey on the topic with employers. Some 28 percent of the employers contacted expect a strong increase in the labor force while 5 percent expect a decline, the company said.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Costa Rica now has its own mint following an investment of us$4 millin dollars of Swiss and Costa Rican business interests, which is to provide coins for the Banco Central de Costa Rica and other Central American and Caribbean countries.
The Mint Costa Rica plant was inaugurated on Tuesday by government authorities, Banco Central and Catholic church officials.
Located in Ipis de Goicoechea, the plant is expected to produce up to 100 million coins a year.
The company, Amera International AG, says it will be investing another us$6 million dollars in the near future.
Amera also provides services of storing and the destruction of coins, in effect completing a life cycle of each coin.
The plant in Costa Rica will allow the Banco Central to have an “immediate” availability of coins and at lower cost.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Researchers from Costa Rica have reported that women over the age of 40 are not likely to benefit from vaccination to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV). The details of this study were published in the March 3, 2010 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Human papillomaviruses consist of more than 100 different viruses. Some types of HPV cause warts on the hands or feet; others cause genital warts; and some have been linked with cancer, most notably cervical cancer. The types of HPV most commonly linked with cervical cancer are HPV16 and HPV18, but several other high-risk types contribute to cancer as well.
The types of HPV that cause cervical cancer or genital warts are transmitted sexually. HPV infection is extremely common and generally occurs soon after an individual becomes sexually active. Although most infections resolve on their own, some persist and can lead to precancerous or cancerous changes to the cervix, vulva, vagina, penis, and anus. HPV infection has also been linked to certain cancers of the head and neck.
Recognition of the link between HPV and cervical cancer led to the development of vaccines designed to prevent infection with certain high-risk types of HPV.
Currently, there are two vaccines approved for the prevention of HPV 16 and 18: Gardasil® and Cervarix®. Gardasil also protects against HPV 6 and 11, which are associated with most types of genital warts. The vaccines are recommended for girls as young as age 9 and up to age 26. It is generally agreed that vaccination of older women would be of little benefit. A previous study conducted by the Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that HPV vaccination for prevention of cervical cancer is not cost-effective in women between the ages of 35 and 45 years.
A study of more than 9,000 Costa Rican women ages 19 to 97 evaluated the patterns of HPV infection as women age. These researchers found that the rate of newly detected infections declined with age—from 35% in women ages 18-25 to 13.5% in women over the age of 42. In both younger and older women, new infections typically cleared up without treatment within two years. They found that new infections typically did not progress to worse disease in older women.
Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that HPV vaccination was not likely to be beneficial for older women. The vaccinations are used to prevent new infections, and older women are not getting many new infections.
Reference:
1 Rodriguez AC, Schiffman M, Herrero R, et al. Longitudinal study of human papillomavirus persistence and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2/3: Critical role of duration of infection. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 2010; 102: 1-10.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
The average baseball is only used for a few pitches in the U.S. Major Leagues, but for the Costa Ricans who make them each ball is the result of hours of painstaking stitching by hand.
For 10 hours a day, workers at the world’s only factory authorized to supply Major League Baseball, in the town of Turrialba in central Costa Rica, sit at desks yanking strands of waxy red fiber to form each baseball’s 108 stitches.
In professional games the balls quickly become too dirty and scuffed by bats to use, or get lost in the crowd on a foul ball or home run. To feed the demand, the factory turns out as many as 2.4 million baseballs a year, all assembled by hand.
The cork and rubber cores, Tennessee Holstein cowhide and gray New Zealand sheep’s wool yarn are shipped tax-free to the plant where more than 300 workers sit in neat rows to sew, their arms rhythmically rising and falling like a rowing team.
The finished balls are boxed up and shipped to Miami.
Famed for its stability in a turbulent region, Costa Rica is an economic success story in Central America, earning money from eco-tourism, coffee and fruit exports, and factories making everything from making microchips to pharmaceuticals.
Manufacturer Rawlings Sporting Goods, which has an exclusive contract to supply Major League Baseball until 2013, moved its factory here from Haiti in the late 1980s, fleeing the violent aftermath of a dictatorship in the Caribbean nation.
The workers are glad for the pay in a depressed farming town with few other jobs, but few show much interest in baseball in a country that is much more passionate about soccer.
“I really don’t understand baseball,” admitted Minor Quesada, who has worked at the factory for 17 years.
The work is tough and some employees have shoulder injuries from trying to churn out too many balls to win bonuses.
They earn a base salary of $1.60 an hour, slightly above Costa Rica’s minimum wage but a world away from the $3 million average salary of a U.S. professional baseball player.
Still, for many in Turrialba it’s a good deal.
“It’s pretty hard to find work,” said Rocio Gamboa, 33, who has been stitching baseballs at the factory for 11 years.
She produces 200 balls a week, and receives a 52 cent bonus for each ball she completes above the 156-ball minimum. The major league balls are sold at retail for $14.99.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
The area around the McDonalds in Sabana Sur is a mess, traffic wise, as completion of the expansion and resurfacing of the MAG-Universal road is nearing completion.
The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad (Conavi) assures that all the work will be completed by the end of March and the complications at the McDonald’s intersection was unavoidable.
Traffic through the area is completely closed off between 6am and 6pm every day. Driver are asked to take alternate routes to avoid congestion.
The work on the 1.3 kilometres road that runs on the south side of the train tracks began last August and at a cost of ¢2 billion colones.
The work includes the widening of the road and a new concrete surface.
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
A new marina near Quepos is set to open in April, adding oft-requested boating facilities to Costa Rica’s Pacific coastline.
The 55-acre Marina Pez Vela project will eventually include more than 300 slips, ranging from 35 to 200 feet; dry storage facilities and a full-service boatyard, as well as 200 residential units. The first phase opening next month features 100 slips, with a wet slip priced at $175,000.
For a tropical country with a spectacular coastline known for its fishing, Costa Rica offers relatively few options for the boating world (and the population of boating second home owners). Last year, the ultra-lux Penninsula Papagayo in Guanacaste in north Costa Rica opened its own marina, the country’s first catering to super-yachts.
Strict environmental regulations make it difficult to build anything along the Costa Rica coastline, nevertheless a marina. The Quepos project, which is only a few miles from Manual Antonio National Park, was the first project launched under guidelines of a law approved by the government to speed up marina development. That law was passed in 1998.
In the case of Marina Pez Vela, which has been in development for more than 10 years, demand for slips is driving the project more than the residential component.
“It’s a marina development that will ultimately have residential, versus a residential development that threw in some docks,” Phil Bronstien, a partner in the project, said in an interview a few months ago.
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
He has already decamped from New York to Florida, but radio’s most right-thinking host - Rush Limbaugh - is threatening to move to Costa Rica if health care reform is passed by Congress and goes into effect.
Limbaugh told listeners almost a year ago that he wants President Obama to fail. But now, as the health care debate heads for a climax in Congress, he seems more than ever to fear Obama’s biggest potential success.
Asked by a caller on Tuesday what he would do if health care passes, Limbaugh gave this response:
“I don’t know. I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented, I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”
The pasture on the other side of the fence always appears greener, but there’s a question of whether Limbaugh would be happy in Costa Rica.
Limbaugh has claimed that global warming is a hoax and plays the theme from “Born Free” before he lampoons endangered species protection.
Costa Rica has pace-setting conservation policies, set aside large national parks and become a global magnet for eco-tourism. “Sustainability” surveys regularly rank it among the world’s top 10 countries in preserving its environment.
Costa Rica has no army, and has avoided the military coups that have seized power in other Central American and South American countries. It has elected social democrats as president.
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
U.S. district judge reverses a magistrate’s ruling that allowed the fugitive to post bail.
A Bixby man who fled to Costa Rica after learning that he was being investigated by the IRS is a flight risk and will not be allowed to post bail in a criminal tax case, a federal judge decided Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge James Payne found a serious risk that David Michael Nigh would flee again if released from custody.
Payne’s decision reversed that of U.S. Magistrate Frank McCarthy, who had set bond conditions for Nigh at the conclusion of a hearing Thursday. The conditions included electronic monitoring, frequent visits with probation officers and strict monitoring of Nigh’s finances.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Leitch appealed McCarthy’s ruling before Nigh could be released from jail.
Leitch told Payne at a hearing Monday that prosecutors were concerned that if Nigh were released, he would return to Costa Rica, where he again would be out of reach of U.S. authorities.
Nigh was charged in Tulsa on April 8, 2008, with five counts of filing false federal returns for the 2001 through 2005 tax years.
Payne’s order says the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tulsa received a tip in April 2005 that Nigh was running a “bookie” operation. That led to an Internal Revenue Service investigation into his purported bookmaking activities, according to the order.
The judge wrote that a search warrant was served at Nigh’s home in Bixby in May 2006. In December 2006, “Nigh fled the United States for Costa Rica in an attempt to avoid the criminal investigation of which he was the
target,” Payne wrote.
Nigh was arrested last month in Cancun, Mexico, where he was on vacation.
According to testimony Thursday, Nigh divorced his wife and married a Costa Rican citizen while living in that country, had his two juvenile daughters visit him there more than once and had his elderly father live with him there.
Claims have circulated 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.” However, nothing was said during either Tulsa hearing about that, and neither the prosecution nor the defense would comment on that topic.
His attorney, Martin Hart, noted that the April 2008 indictment charging Nigh was filed under seal — meaning it wasn’t made public — which Hart said effectively deprived Nigh of the option of voluntarily surrendering to face the charges.
Hart also said his client did not assume a false identity while in Costa Rica and was using his own passport — which has since been surrendered — when he was arrested in Mexico.
Payne pointed out that Nigh told one of his ex-wives that “he could not come back to the United States because of tax reasons and that he might go to jail if he did return.”
Nigh faces up to three years in prison if convicted of the charges, which reportedly involve about $88,000 in unreported income.
Hart said Nigh anticipates pleading guilty to the charges.
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Changes in the new traffic law are back in limbo today after the leadership of the Asamblea Legislativa said that the executive branch was withdrawing the package for further consultations with interested parties.
This is the legislation that would reduce fines of those caught under the strict new law. Lawmakers generally are trying to reduce the fines that they, themselves, set to about a third.
During this period of the year, the executive branch has jurisdiction over the legislative calendar, which is why the bill could be withdrawn.
Earlier in the day, lawmakers eliminated mandatory jail for first-time drunk drivers. There were other changes in the penalties of the law.
Still unknown is how the withdrawal of the bill will affect those measures already determined.
Lawmakers and the executive branch have been under intense pressure over the penalties in the bill. Much of the pressure comes from the business community, which anticipates problems with the driving records of their employees. Already lawmakers have thrown out a points system, mostly at the request of the business community.
During the afternoon, lawmakers approved changes in what is considered reckless driving. That is now defined as driving a vehicle at 150 kilometers an hour or more, some 93 mph, participating in drag races or driving under the effects of drugs.
In the case of drag races or driving at high speed, the motorist faces prison from one to three years and from one to five years of a suspended license.
Those found driving under the influence of drugs can be sentenced of up to six years in prison and lose the license for 10 years. A repeat offender faces three years in prison if caught within five years.
Under Costa Rican law, those sentenced for up to three years can be given alternative methods, like public service, besides actually going to jail to work off their penalty.
Lawmakers also fixed a period of no more than 20 years for a vehicle to be used as a taxi.
The period now is 16 years. Lawmakers also reduced the fine for not having a child in a seatbelt.
Story by AM CR
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Vehicles involved in a traffic accident and confiscated vehicles have the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT) yards filled to the brim, some vehicles have been parked for decades.
And although the Dirección General de Tránsito doesn’t have a definitive number, the majority shouldn’t be there, say MOPT officials.
The situation is so bad that in some cases the vehicles are parked on the along the driveways leading into the yards, like the case in Pavas.
The question is, what has happened to their owners?
In the majority of the cases it is a simple case of the common practice of Costa Ricans and foreigners in Costa Rica not to complete the transfer of ownership to avoid paying the tax.
When a vehicle is purchased/sold, a lawyer or notary is used to prepare the appropriate documentation for the transfer of ownership, have the transfer tax and legal fees paid and proceed to submitting the paperwork for registration.
The purchaser has the responsibility to transfer the title of the vehicle and pay the taxes. For the seller, the notarized purchase/sale agreement is all that is required
However, a customary practice is do nothing. The buyer uses the vehicle as his or her own, pays the circulation permit and submits the vehicle to the annual inspection.
However, nothing has changed from a legal point of view. And thus where the problem begins when there is an accident and the vehicle towed to the MOPT yards or the vehicle is confiscated by the traffic police for whatever reason.
Only the registered owner - the owner of record in the Registro Nacional - can retrieve a confiscated vehicle and the required paperwork for the process. In many of the cases, the registered owner is not available or cannot be found and as such the vehicle sits waiting.
In other cases the fines owed on the vehicle are greater than the value of the vehicle.
The concern of transportation officials is that with the new Ley de Tránsito, the number of confiscated vehicles will increase, while MOPT officials work on a regulation to be able to dispose of the vehicle.
Currently, there is no clear law that allows the MOPT to dispose of the vehicles - sell them off, donate or junk them. The current regulations only allow MOPT officials to store the vehicles up to and until the time the legal owner shows up with a court order to retrieve it.
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
When it comes to political participation, women have climbed up the ladder in Latin America. As the UN Commission on the Status of Women meets in New York this week to mark the fifteenth anniversary of an action plan to boost female political participation, a number of Latin American countries rank among the highest in the world when it comes to women’s representation in legislatures. In fact, a recent Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) report found that Latin America and Europe are the only two regions to surpass the world average. The IPU lists Cuba in fourth place with 43.2 percent, Argentina in eleventh with 38.5 percent percent, and Costa Rica at 13 with 36.8 percent. The election of Laura Chinchilla as Costa Rica’s first female president as well as the fact that women now lead both houses of Uruguay’s General Assembly for the first time in history reflect women’s progress in Latin American politics. But some countries have yet to reach substantial numbers in female congressional representation, and mayoral and regional government representation remains low in the region.
Female participation in Latin American cabinets nearly tripled to 24 percent between the 1990s and 2007, with Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Uruguay reaching rates of over 30 percent. Furthermore, women’s representation in the lower houses of Latin American congresses grew from an average of 10.8 percent in 1997 to 22 percent in 2009, with Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru seeing the biggest growth. Approval of electoral quotas by 11 countries contributed to this jump in political participation. Argentina adopted a 1991 quota law that required for women to account for at least 30 percent of candidates for public office. Since the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing produced its action plan, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras adopted similar electoral quotas.
In addition to increases in women’s legislative participation, five women have governed as presidents of Latin American countries: Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of Nicaragua (1990 to 1997); Mireya Elisa Moscoso of Panama (1999 to 2004); Michelle Bachelet of Chile, who won 2005 elections and will leave office on March 11; and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, who won 2007 elections and governs until October 2011. Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla won February 2010 elections and takes office May 8.
Depending on the outcome of upcoming elections, Latin America may be able to count more females heads of state. On February 20, the ruling Worker’s Party in Brazil nominated Dilma Rousseff, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s chief minister, as the party’s presidential candidate for the October elections. São Paulo Governor José Serra leads over Rousseff, but polls show her gaining ground. In Peru, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, trails only slightly behind Lima mayor Luis Castañeda, according to February polls. In Colombia, two women, Noemí Sanín and Marta Lucía Ramírez, are slated to run for the presidency in the May elections.
Despite significant progress made by women in Latin American politics, not all countries have made equal strides. Ahead of the legislative elections in Colombia on March 14, Votebien.com found that of the 2,335 candidates running for Congress, only 551(23.5 percent) are women. Brazil has fallen short on implementing quotas and has one of the lowest percentages of female lawmakers in the region, with women accounting for 12.3 percent of senators and just 8.8 percent of deputies in the lower house. Moreover, only a few countries in Latin America reached double digits in the election of women as governors at the regional level or mayors at the local level, according to a 2008 Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance report. Open Democracy gives a side-by-side comparison based on November 2008 figures that lists percentages of women in Latin American legislative, mayoral, and council positions.
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Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian soaked their ridiculously hot bodies in the Costa Rican sun last weekend.
Cuddling up with shirtless Reggie Bush in Costa Rica on Saturday and Sunday. That Super Bowl-winning six-pack is certainly a welcome sight, and reminds us of their very sexy GQ spread last year. The two have been spending lots of time together since his season ended, including a couples pampering session with a head massage for Reggie. Scott isn’t the only Kardashian boyfriend getting heat these days, but it looks like everything is going great with Kim and Reggie on their exotic romantic getaway.
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The gorgeous socialite and her running back beau enjoyed a little rest and relaxation at the posh Four Seasons hotel, after a whirlwind series of weeks in which Reggie’s New Orleans Saintswon the Super Bowl, while Kim was busily promoting her new perfume.
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The tabloids have recently reported the couple’s relationship to be on the rocks, but these pics of the young lovers on the beach should silence those whispers — for now.
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Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
The bishops of Costa Rica released a statement expressing concern over a recent ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court which stripped the Church its right to choose which religion teachers will be hired in Costa Rican schools.
Last month, Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court took away the Church’s right to choose which religion teachers it will hire, after reversing a 1972 law stating that all religious teachers must be approved by the Bishops’ Conference of Costa Rica.
“We respect the decision of the Constitutional Court, but at the same time we are concerned about the insecurity and confusion that the ruling has caused among teachers and students of religious education, as well as parents,” the bishops said.
The foundation of religious education, they explained, “lies in the inalienable right of Catholic parents to educate their children according to their faith and convictions. It is a human right that must be respected, and it is the duty of the Costa Rican State to make the greatest effort possible to ensure parents are offered this education in public schools.”
After noting that religious education is also good for the state, the bishops expressed their concern over “the tendency to want to replace Catholic religious education with … education in ethics, aesthetics or values, denying the rights of parents and to choose Catholic religious education for their sons and daughters.”
For these reasons, the bishops called on parents to provide the necessary religious education to their children; on authorities to respect this right; on teachers to assume this task with responsibility and to respect “current law that protects Catholic religious education.”
They also encouraged a strengthening of the collaboration between the State and the Catholic Church in the area of education.
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