Extending the workday to 12 hours for four days and three days off would help to revive the economy and mitigating the high unemployment rate.
Companies would also benefit from saving resources and being more competitive in a global market that no longer serves time zones, reports La Republica.
The bill, promoted by the Carlos Alvarado administration, the political parties Liberación Nacional (PLN) and Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC) is being discussed in a legislative committee.
In almost two years (May 8) of is administration, President Carlos Alvarado allowed the creation of 37,000 jobs in the public sector, according to data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (INEC) – National Institute of Statistics and Censuses.
Of the 37,000 new jobs, 11,000 are in ministries, Legislative Assembly and Judicial Power, which generate pressure on the deficit, while the rest correspond to autonomous institutions, such ICE, AyA, Recope, etc, which increase the cost of services.
In its report, La Rupublica says the growth in the state payroll did not mean a greater expense for the central government since the application of the Ley de Fortalecimiento de las Finanzas Públicas – Law of Strengthening of Public Finances – also known as the Reforma Fiscal, cushioned the impact by cutting bonusess and calculating the annuities as a fixed amount and not as a percentage.
In fact, the growth of salaries of the central government slowed down, going from 5.22% in 2018 to 3.09% in 2019, because it issued a decree to limit the salary increase to ¢3,750 biannually per person, according to the Minister of Finance, Rodrigo Chaves.
The minister says the State lost the opportunity to achieve savings of billions of colones, since the money that was obtained with the new taxes associated with IVA (Value Added Tax – VAT) and various changes in income was used to pay new positions.
The bad news is that this is happening at a time when Chaves announced that the fiscal deficit closed at 6.9% of GDP for last year, which represents the highest figure in the last 40 years.
It also in the middle of a dispute between the president and the opposition over the application of the fiscal rule, which limits the spending growth by 4.6% for 2020.
When Alvarado began his administration in 2018, there were barely 275,000 civil servants, while now, according to INEC, there are 312,000, half of which are in the central government.
Marisela del Carmen Espinoza with her seven-year-old son Diego Ricardo, at the Methodist temple and shelter El Buen Pastor, where they live. Photograph: Julian Cardona/The Observer
Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.
Marisela del Carmen Espinoza with her seven-year-old son Diego Ricardo, at the Methodist temple and shelter El Buen Pastor, where they live. Photograph: Julian Cardona/The Observer
On the far reach – a few yards but another world away – is a vast tent (officially a “soft-sided facility”) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks’ time, on the date stipulated on their “notice to appear” document, the people staying here will have their “credible fear interview” by video link.
On the Mexican side, clinging to the bridge like barnacles, are hundreds of smaller tents, where roughly 1,000 people are gathered for safety, in fear of the mafia that has kidnapped, murdered or “disappeared” hundreds of migrants over the past decade. It is a tent city where, says Milson, “time passes very, very slowly”. Almost all are from Central America.
Upriver at Ciudad Acuña, about 250 people are encamped in the ecological park, staring across at the lights of Del Rio, Texas. Most are from Cameroon, Angola or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Further west, at Ciudad Juárez, a mix of Cubans, Central Americans, a Ugandan and an Indian kill the endless time in the yard of a Methodist-run shelter. On the border’s far western edge, in Tijuana, Haitians trade on the streets – a community of hundreds who came to cross, but remained in Mexico.
Ten years ago, most people trying to cross into the US from these various places were Mexicans, in flight from poverty or violence.More recently, though, there had been a lull, with Mexicans nowhere to be seen at some crossing points. But 2019 figures show a renewed rise in Mexican asylum seekers, as the narcotraffic cycle of violence returns to record levels. Roughly half the asylum-seekers on the border are now Mexican.
Ricardo García, right, a US activist from Casa Asunción shelter, accompanies migrants seeking political asylum in the US, in Ciudad Juàrez. Photograph: Hérika Martínez/AFP/Getty Images
As the migration crisis on the US-Mexican border becomes a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe and the centrepiece of Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, one thing is clear to those who have supported migrants over decades: the world has converged here. Such are the historical and geopolitical layers of migration to the busiest border in the world, gateway to the globally ubiquitous American dream – a dream now twisting into a nightmare.
Woody Guthrie wrote his song Deportee – about migrants working and dying in America’s deserts – in 1948. It remains resonant, but the cast has changed.
Mass migrations began with poor Mexicans crossing to work in America’s farms, and continued with the bracero programme – a Spanish term for a labourer – initiated in 1942, which gave limited access to American jobs. The scheme ended in 1964, yet vast numbers of Mexicans continued to cross, legally and illegally.
During the 80s, when civil wars erupted across Central America, tens of thousands tried to cross, many finding a place in the US thanks to the “sanctuary” movement, which gave a path to legality.
All the while millions of Mexicans came to the border not to cross but to live on it, in maquiladora assembly plants, producing goods exported duty-free to the US.
Migrants from Guatemala cross the Rio Bravo river to enter the US illegally in El Paso, Texas. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters
From 2006, as the cartel wars devoured Mexico, more fled, seeking safety in the north. The demographics changed again.
Methodist pastor Juan Fierro García, who runs the shelter in Juárez, says: “More people than ever are on the move from generalised violence all over the world, seeking safe places for themselves and their children. And if anyone thinks this is going to stop, think again – this is just the beginning.”
Policy of deterrence
The Trump administration has met this surge in arrivals with a policy of deterrence based on fear and brutality.
The separation of children from their parents for incarceration outraged the world. The policy was ruled illegal by US courts and abandoned, though hundreds of children remain separated after their parents were deported. Internal documentation leaked from US Customs and Border Protection shows full knowledge of the traumatic affects of child separation.
People have come from all over to work in San Ysidro, San Diego, on the US-Mexico border. Photograph: Duncan Moore/The Guardian
Unaccompanied minors crossing the border continue to be detained in appalling conditions. In December, ProPublica published CCTV footage that appears to show a Guatemalan teenager left to die in a concrete cell.
An internal report from last July, seen by the Guardian and written by Jennifer Costello, the inspector general of homeland security, to acting director Kevin McAleenan, warned that “at-risk populations are subject to overcrowding and prolonged detention”. But Trump intends to expand the number of those detained rather than deported under migrant protection protocols (MPP).
Under MPP, non-Mexicans from Spanish-speaking countries cannot remain in the US to await their “credible fear” interview, as is mandated under the 1939 Montevideo treaty on asylum. They must instead wait on the Mexican side, with the result that 57,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Central America, are now encamped south of the border in unsanitary conditions, prey to kidnap and extortion.
Under another policy, called “metering”, daily asylum applications are limited, so that unofficial waiting lists, thousands-long, are drawn up on the other side. The Trump administration announced in January that it plans to extend the MPP to Portuguese-speaking Brazilian asylum seekers.
The policies are “working”: US Customs and Border Protection report that the number of arrests for illegal crossings fell 75% from May to November last year, from 132,000 to 33,510. The reason is simple: word reaching the Mexican side of how appalling conditions are.
‘The police and gangs are friends’
The chapel at the Methodist Buen Pastor shelter in Juárez has become a dormitory for young mothers and children, among them Marisela del Carmen Espinosa, who lays her seven-year-old son, Diego, on a blanket; the child is running a fever. Marisela fled El Salvador when the MS-13 gang demanded she join them – the problem being that Diego’s father was among them.
“They came to my house, armed, saying they needed me to do ‘tasks’ for them, and if I didn’t they’d kill me and the boy,” she says. Marisela has spent the past year on “trucks and railway cars, crossing Mexico”, paying $8,000 (£6,211) to coyotes and other people smugglers. To her horror, Diego’s father has traced her to Juárez, “and I’m scared when I go out for food, because he said his contacts here would take our son and kill me. I know that the police and gangs are friends – if I go to them for help, I’ll be killed.”
Glady Cañas Aguilar supports people planning to seek asylum, in Matamors. Photograph: Photo by Ed Vulliamy
In the men’s dorm, Evian Mvouba, from DRC, prepares to cross and make his asylum claim. He stands a better chance than his Central American companions since MPP does not apply to Africans. But he does fall under the “metering” system, and more than 2,000 people are ahead of him on the list.
Evian’s village was attacked by government forces 18 months ago. He has since journeyed through Angola, Brazil, Colombia and Central America, with no word of many of his family members. “It is limbo,” he says, “not knowing where I live, and whether they are alive. Most of my fellow Africans have moved on, and a few have been successful because they are politically persecuted – more than the people here from Guatemala and Honduras.”
In all these shelters the Cubans look different – better clad and fed, escaping not violence or desperation, but a regime they fear or despise.
Pedro Ruíz Tamayo is an opposition leader, educated and erudite. “You’ll not find a Cuban in Juárez who supports the regime,” he says, “but you’ll not find many who contest it. They just want to try their luck in the US.”
Pedro commutes between the shelter and an emerging “Little Havana” in Juárez, consisting of people waiting to cross or refused asylum and returned.
Ariel Busquet kneads burritos in the Llenadora café. He was number 13,527 on the waiting list to cross. After hearing from a friend who returned following three months’ incarceration on the other side, he elected to remain in Juárez. “We Cubans left our country to work for a wage – something we cannot do there,” he says. “But that’s what I’m doing here in Juárez! My relatives call themselves Cuban-Americans; I call myself a Cuban-Mexican.”
Children and workers are seen at a tent encampment near the Tornillo port of entry in Texas. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
In El Paso, Ruben García has seen each migration wave arrive since 1978, when he first opened Annunciation House, which is now a network of shelters for migrants. The shelters have been vital to current efforts to abate the suffering.
Without radical Catholicism of the kind that inspires García, far less would happen on the migrants’ behalf. To overlook the faith of those who do this is to not accurately report what is happening.
“Forty years ago, a group of us started this work,” he says. “We made a decision to offer hospitality to undocumented migrants.
Mexicans wait to be moved to a shelter due a storm forecast in Ciudad Juárez. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters
“But we also talked to reporters, universities, hoping we could bring about change for the better. And 40 years later, we have Mr Trump as president and below him very capable officials whose sole task is to make life unbearable for refugees. It makes me think of Lazarus, restored to life by Jesus, who turned to the community and said: ‘Unbind him’. In this situation, it is the refugees who unbind us, sharing their stories, their struggles. There’ve been days when we’ve received hundreds of people.”
One night, up to 1,000 migrants were released on to the streets around El Paso bus station. TV coverage showed García, arms wide, saying to a group: “Bienvenidos!” – welcome – and it seemed the first kind gesture they had encountered in months.
García has seen generations of migrants “flee death squads in the 1980s, when war was war, and you knew who the sides were, to this new kind of undeclared war, where no one knows the rules, and you live in a state of permanent insecurity. Plus drought and crop failure.
“You either give up your children to those realities back there, or you pay the coyote, subjecting yourself to debt bondage and whatever risk, and leave.”
Flawed system
Migrants need “guidance through a system designed to fail”, says Molly Molloy, up the road in Las Cruces. Molloy worked as an archivist at New Mexico State University, but has retired to work with migrants, something she first did in the 80s. She is now a “paralegal, translator and researcher” for immigration lawyer Nancy Oretskin.
In the civil wars in the 1980s migrants were mainly people “who had never been to school or left their hamlet” and, with successive waves of migrants, blocks have been laid in response, says Molloy. “September 11 2001 was a dividing line, after large numbers, mainly Mexican men, fled poverty as the result of the North American Free Trade Agreement and clearance of subsistence farms. Then came two further ‘push factors’: Mexicans fleeing violence after 2006, and the great recession, after which there were just fewer jobs for these people.”
And now “climate change, and in Central America, violence of gangs that were initially deported from Los Angeles. A level of violence more extreme, on a daily, monthly basis – more people killed – even than during the civil wars”.
Oretskin’s family were migrants. “I was raised by crazy Jewish entrepreneurs … raised to think: ‘don’t you ever forget’.”
Handling 10-15 asylum cases a year, she works in the immigration courts “where 90% lose”, affording a “second bite at the cherry to the Board of Immigration Appeals, where 99.9% of the 90% lose.”
The evidence required by an applicant is often impossible to produce, says Oretskin. “If you don’t have a doctor’s report, it did not happen. If you are attacked in El Salvador, the gang will say: ‘Go to the doctor and we’ll kill you’. We have reports of doctors in cahoots with gangs.”
People camping near the Santa Fe border crossing bridge gather their belongings before moving to a shelter ahead of a storm. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters
Occasional successes are usually among Africans. Oretskin shows a wedding photo of one client, from Cameroon, permitted to stay after being kept in a gym in Ciudad Juárez for three weeks, “and staying at my house when she had nowhere else to go”.
What sets Trump apart, even in an environment systematically stacked against refugees, is the brutality of the manner in which rules applied. Former secretaries of homeland security, she says, “had some idea of what cannot be done because it is illegal. But the people there now are there just because someone has to be. We do not even have due process, let alone justice.”
Night is eerie in the ecological park at Ciudad Acuña, where the Rio Grande is shallow enough to wade to Texas. Many do it to surrender to the Border Patrol and apply for asylum, but as “metering” limits the numbers and the wait lengthens, so the temptation rises to slip across illegally.
Charly and Loreley, a father and daughter from Cameroon, have travelled on foot, by ship and bus, via Nigeria, Brazil, Ecuador and Central America, paying $6,000 to smugglers.
Charly, a schoolteacher, says his community was continually harassed by militias of the French-speaking government, until one raid last year incinerated dozens of houses, and he was arrested, detained and tortured.
“This cannot be the end of our long road: lavatories that leak into the ground, rubbish piling up that no one collects,” he reflects.
Not all migrants want to cross. Some are stung by experiences on the other side, others just tired of waiting.
On the border’s far western edge, Tijuana has become home to thousands of people who once intended to cross, but have remained.
Robenson Metellus is among the hundreds who arrived from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, having travelled through Belize, Guatemala and Mexico only to be refused asylum in the US. Rather than return, he proceeded from the Casa del Migrante shelter to selling souvenirs to tourists.
After a year, Robenson got a job in a coffee house and by night started a food delivery service – Mexican and “soul food”. He is now arranging for a sister and son to join him from Port-au-Prince.
Robenson is part of a singularly successful assimilation, says the city’s prosecutor, José Alberto Álvarez: “They’ve been largely welcome; people find them interesting, and admire their work ethic. Do you know how many Haitians I’ve indicted on a serious felony since they arrived? Zero.”
At the Zacazonapan bar in the red light district of Tijuana, thick with marijuana smoke and packed with Tijuaneros plus gringos in town for cheap drink, a Norteño band is playing. “Resistencia Migrante” was formed in the Espacio Migrante shelter. On keyboard is Olivér, who spent two years travelling from El Salvador and seven months in Tijuana. He has given up trying to cross the border; his flight from gang threats was insufficient for entry to the US, so he tried to cross illegally but was caught. “We’ve abandoned the American dream as a nightmare,” he says, “and it’s OK here. We are survivors.”
People wake up at a camp near a legal port of entry bridge in Matamoros, Mexico. Photograph: Fernando Llano/AP
In Tijuana, lawyers and volunteers are mostly concerned with what Nicole Ramos, at the Al Otro Lado migrant resource centre, calls “trying to get the US authorities to abide by their own laws, which they don’t”. Though, she adds, “terrifying numbers of our people just disappear in this city”.
State neglect
The Mexican state is nowhere to be seen in all this. Grupo Beta, an organisation formed by the Mexican government to help migrants, has been withdrawn from some areas after allegedly taking bribes to move people up the waiting list. Almost all in Matamoros are from Central America, awaiting their “credible fear” interview on the other side. Conditions here are so bad that migrants blocked the bridge to Brownsville in protest in October.
Milson and Loany sit by the river. Lack of fresh water makes them tempted to wash, with others, among the same eddies and whirlpools that drowned another father and daughter recently as they tried to swim to the far bank. Milson and Loany come from Tegucigalpa. This is Milson’s third attempt to cross, and we joke about a hit song by Los Tigres del Norte, “Tres Veces Mojado” – three times wet (from swimming the Rio Grande).
Milson made it in 2014, but was deported. Before his second attempt, he was kidnapped by a gang, Los Zetas, and held in the desert for eight days. He is coy about how he was released, suggesting payment by a cousin in St Louis. “They told me that if I ever came back, they’d kill me,” he adds. He crossed, was again deported, and returned to Honduras – for good, he thought. “But then the MS-13 informed me: ‘We’re having your daughter’. I said: ‘Come on my love, we’re leaving.’”
Father and daughter were separated for a week on the US side. “They kept us in the heat by day, and as cold as the air-conditioning would go by night, with filthy blankets and toilets,” says Loany. “When we asked them to turn the cold air off, they refused”.
Milson is clear. “I know some of the parents whose children have left [to go to the US alone]. They’re devastated, whether they knew or not. I’d never let Loany go without me – that’s why we are here, so she can be safe with me. It has to be legal, and together or not at all.”
Loany concurs: “I’m staying with my Papa.”
Migrants wash their clothes in the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Photograph: Fernando Llano/AP
The conviviality in such extreme hardship is remarkable; there is almost no friction. They line up for breakfast in respect of priority for women and children, served by a group called Team Brownsville from across the river, founded by Michael Benavides, a former bomb disposal soldier, now Mormon missionary.
“People disappear. It’s so scary,” he warns. “You’ll agree to meet someone next day, come back, ask around, and no one knows where they are. They cannot do everything to defend against the mafia, but they look after each other. Watch them”, he says, as volunteers hand out plates of beans, “not a push or shove”.
Benavides has the names of two teenagers who died in US government custody on two crosses, tattooed above his heart.
Team Brownsville started out cooking in a tiny kitchen a block from the border, then expanded – raising money and buying tents, driven by a belief, explains Benavides: “that this is what America should be. My grandparents came from Mexico, and raised me to think of America as a country of compassion and open arms to those in need. This is my idea of patriotism.” The operation feeds more than 600 people, “we just need to keep raising the funds to keep it going,” he says.
Lining up for breakfast are Jocelyne Flores and her daughter, Imena, four, sent back under migrant protection protocols. Pregnant Jocelyne left San Salvador after Imena’s father – who beat her – threatened to kill them both. It has been explained to her that domestic violence is no longer grounds for asylum, but Jocelyne is confident they’ll make an exception. Glady Cañas Aguilar takes her under her wing and makes an arrangement with the local hospital.
Glady runs the list of those waiting to cross. “La lista, la lista! – how I hate it”, she says, as they call out names of those due to cross at 4am.
Fork lightning and rain break over the camp. Night falls, and a group sits among the puddles, as torrential water lashes the concrete, singing – they all know the lyrics – a hit by Tropa Vallenata, called “The Roads of Life”:
“Los caminos de la vida / No son como yo pensaba, como los imaginaba / No son como yo creía” (‘The roads of the life / They’re not as I thought / Not as I imagined them / Not as I believed’)
Villa Fugata, Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica on Vrbo: History is littered with those who have spent their lives seeking paradise. They’ve sailed across oceans, pursued transcendence through visions and adventures, and put their utopian dreams into treatises both fictional and philosophical. After all that blood, sweat, and tears, it’s a shame that all they had to do to find the paradise they craved was visit a cliff overlooking Playa Flamingo in Costa Rica.
Villa Fugata is the ultimate escape from reality. To begin with, it conforms to the cardinal rule of epic tropical vacations: everything from your drinks to your bikinis must take on the neon hues of the coast. Here, the decor is organized around the color of flamingo pink (think exterior walls, kitchen accents, and beach towels) with plenty of tropical hues of blue thrown in to remind you—as if you could forget!—that you’re never far from the sea.
Some people prefer luxurious palaces for their global jaunts. A mansion this is not, but the intimacy of Villa Fugata offers something much more: the option to invite a select few friends or family to join your getaway, or a very good excuse to leave them at home. The two bedrooms are spacious and oriented towards the outdoors, but more important is the gorgeous setting for the circuit you will be making each day: breakfast on the terrace, a dip in the pool followed by a nap in the lounge chair, then happy hour back on the terrace. Rinse, and repeat.
Perched 100 feet in the air on the top of a cliff with 180-degree views of the surrounding coast, this house is the perfect spot for Instagram content-making (you have to make those you left at home jealous, after all), life contemplating (to permanently Caribbean or not, that is the question), and to check out your Costa Rican coastal neighbors. From here, you might chance into an encounter—rest assured, they’ll mostly be visual—with monkeys and birds, iguanas and butterflies, and, for those lucky enough to stay during the right season, even a pod or two of whales.
For those days when you want to follow in the footsteps of the original seekers and actually leave the paradise of your cottage grounds, the white sand beaches of Flamingo Bay are just over half a mile away. The waves on this cove of the bay are quite tame, so trade in your surf board for a stand up paddle board and set off to find those elusive whales, or spend your day swimming and snorkeling below the calm seas.
The setting is perfect and the cottage is a paradise. But the best thing about a stay in this land of sunset cruises and marine life is the thought that the most effort you might be required to make during the day is lifting that coconut from the table to your lips (the turtles will thank you for foregoing a straw). According to the reviews, this isn’t a property you only spend a long weekend at.
So do yourself a favor and think in weeks when it comes to finding your own paradise. Book your stay at VRBO.
“Costa Rican officials say they have seized more than five tons of cocaine the largest such hall in the central American countries history the public …
Diavolino, the Jaguar Rescue Center's "feisty little margay."
Jaguar Rescue Center
(Mentalfloss) In 2005, Catalonian primatologist Encar Garcia and her husband, Italian herpetologist Sandro Alviani, were living in southwestern Costa Rica when locals began to bring them injured animals in hopes that the two experts could save them.
A curious sloth says hello after members of the Jaguar Rescue Center reunited her with her baby. Jaguar Rescue Center
As word spread and more animals arrived, their property slowly transformed into a full-fledged rescue center. So they purchased the surrounding land and named their new organization the Jaguar Rescue Center (JRC), after one of their early rescues: a young, orphaned jaguar whose mother had been killed by farmers.
Today, the center covers nearly 5.5 acres of land near Puerto Viejo de Talamanca in Costa Rica’s Limón province. It can accommodate around 160 animals at a time, and is home to everything from spider monkeys to sea turtles (though, by law, staff members aren’t allowed to accept domesticated animals like cats and dogs).
While locals still bring injured and orphaned animals to the JRC, others are brought by tourists, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the National Animal Health Service, and even the police, who confiscate animals that have been poached or illegally kept as pets.
Skye, a young howler monkey who recovered from electrocution. Jaguar Rescue Center
The rescues are often victims of road accidents, animal attacks, environmental destruction, human interaction, or electrocution from exposed power lines. After the animals are rehabilitated, they’re released into La Ceiba Natural Reserve, a human-free (except for JRC workers) part of the forest where they can safely reacclimate to living in the wild. The JRC has cameras installed in the area to monitor the animals after their release and make sure they’re finding enough food.
Unfortunately, not all the creatures brought to the JRC recover from their injuries—in 2019, for example, 311 of the 749 rescues died [PDF]—so JRC staff members and volunteers understand just how remarkable it is to watch an animal regain its health and be successfully returned to its natural environment.
“There are so many amazing things about working for the JRC, but I think we all can agree that seeing a rescued animal make it through rehabilitation and be released is the best and most rewarding part of the job,” Torey, a JRC tour guide, tells Mental Floss.
Some thought-to-be-orphaned sloths are even released right back into the arms of their mothers. After recording the cries of a baby sloth, JRC staff will take the sloth back to wherever it was first found, play the recording, and wait for the mother to recognize the cries and (slowly) climb down from her leafy abode to reunite with her child.
Despite its partnerships with government agencies, the JRC doesn’t receive government funding. Instead, it relies on public donations and revenue from its visitor services. Find out more about how you can help below.
1. Donate money.
You can make a one-time or monthly donation that will go toward food, medical care, and supplies for the animals, or you can donate specifically to the JRC’s “Shock Free Zone” program, which insulates power lines and transformers that run through forests to prevent them from electrocuting wildlife.
2. Donate items.
Check out the JRC’s Amazon wish list to see which items are most needed—and what they’ll be used for, too. Examples include Pampers diapers for baby monkeys, snake hooks for safely rescuing snakes, and cans of worms to feed birds, opossums, and bats.
One of the most important products on the list is powdered goat’s milk, which staff members use to feed orphans of many mammalian species at the JRC.
“It has the most universally digestible enzyme compared to other milk,” Torey says. “Unfortunately, we do not have sloth milk, monkey milk, etc. readily available for the baby animals.”
3. “Adopt” an animal.
Diavolino, the Jaguar Rescue Center’s “feisty little margay.” Jaguar Rescue Center
For $105, you can virtually “adopt” an animal at the JRC. Choices range from Diavolino, a “feisty little margay” rescued from the illegal pet trade, to Floqui, a whitish two-fingered sloth who was born with only one digit on each hand and foot.
4. Visit the Jaguar Rescue Center.
You can stay overnight at the JRC in one of its three visitor residences—La Ceiba House, Ilán Ilán House, or one of the Jaguar Inn bungalows—which offer a variety of amenities, restaurant service, and access to nearby beaches.
Whether or not you’re staying there, you can book a tour of the JRC, where you’ll get to explore the premises and even meet some of the animals. There are private, public, nighttime, and VIP tours, and you can find out more here.
5. Volunteer at the Jaguar Rescue Center.
If you’re looking for a more hands-on, potentially life-changing way to help Costa Rica’s wildlife, you can apply for the JRC’s four-week volunteer program or a position at La Ceiba Natural Reserve that lasts three to six months.
According to the website, JRC volunteers are housed in the Jaguar Inn and help with “a broad range of tasks, from doing the dishes and cleaning up after the animals … to building and remodeling enclosures, or babysitting a new arrival to ease the stress of their new environment.”
La Ceiba volunteers, on the other hand, stay right on the reserve and do everything from monitoring captive and recently released animals to keeping the trails clear.
Yahoo! Entertainment – It is “Girlfriend Getaways” week on Wheel of Fortune. And during Thursday evening’s game fans were treated to a rare sight, one of the contestants guessed “Q.”
Best friends Marleta Robinson and Nancy Krol were looking forward to going on a trip together, compliments of the game show. And things looked pretty promising, right up until Robinson guessed one of the rarest letters ever picked on the show the letter Q.
Not only is it rare for a contestant to guess Q, in this case there wasn’t really anywhere for it to go. The clue was “Living Thing,” and the existing puzzle was “E _ _TIC – AND – C _ L _ R _ _ L – BIRDS.” Since almost all English common words with Q’s in them also require U’s, the only available spaces were “EQUTIC” and “C _ L _ RQUL.” Neither of which are words.
The correct answer was “EXOTIC AND COLORFUL BIRDS.” The prize ended up being an US$11,772 trip to Costa Rica. To make matters worse, because they missed out on winning that round, they missed out on advancing to the bonus round.
The pair did go home with US$7,300, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Hopefully, neither of them visit Twitter either because the fans on there were blown away by “Q”uestionable letter choice.
Bukele, 38, sparked a constitutional crisis on Feb. 9 when he sent soldiers into the legislature and threatened to oust the legislators over the delay.
El SalvadorNayib Bukele, 38, sparked a constitutional crisis on February 9 when he sent soldiers into the legislature and threatened to oust the legislators over the delay.
Nine days after El Salvador President Nayib Bukele sent troops into congress, his finance minister says they are seeking a deal with opposition lawmakers to end the political crisis in the Central American nation.
Finance Minister Nelson Fuentes said the government expects lawmakers to approve the US$109 million dollar loan at the center of the dispute, within two weeks, according to Bloomberg.
Opposition parties, which hold the majority of seats in congress, have been demanding more details about the funds before approving the deal.
Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly approved in first debate a bill that seeks to tax the sale of all – imported or locally produced – cement.
The bill seeks to eliminate a distortion in the market.
The initiative establishes that the tax will be on cement in bags or in bulk whose destination is the consumption and marketing of the product at the national level, reported the Legislative Assembly.
From the Legislative Assembly’s statement on February 17th, 2020: In the case of national production, the manufacturer of such product shall be liable to this tax; in the case of imports, the natural or legal person who introduces the product or in whose name it is imported shall be liable to this tax.
The tax on cement produced in national territory or imported shall be five percent (5%) over the net sales price. The Value Added Tax (VAT) is excluded from the taxable base, as well as any other tax.
A total of 744 people were unable to complete the driving test during 2019 because they did not have all the required documents and because they were late.
The Consejo de Seguridad Vial (Cosevi) – Road Safety Council – a division of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT), explained that it will not tolerate tardiness or “tico time” as it is known in Costa Rica.
The MOPT says 5 minutes late is all it will bear.
On the day of the (driving) test, before, the person confirms their registration by presenting themselves at the ‘registration window’ where the appointment has been made, in that office they must present three documents: the vehicle’s circulation permit (Marchamo), the technical review (Riteve) and the title deed, all original, valid, in good condition and of course that coincides with the registered vehicle in which the test is to be carried out.
In addition, the person must present proof of the medical exam (all now done digitally, the code number is all that is required), not more than 180 days of being issued
Identification, ie cedula or permanent residency must be presented. In the absence of any of the above, the person will not be able to take the driving test.
Finally, you cannot be late.
The Cosevi recommends being at the driving education center at least 30 minutes before the scheduled test time.
Being late more than 5 minutes will result in no test for you today! More than 180 people lost their exam for being late during 2019
“When I saw their bodies, I touched them, I saw where the bullets went through them, I kissed them, I told them how much I loved them, that I was angry with them. The first one I scolded was the dad. I said, “you spoiled my life! and I didn’t want to see it anymore”.
The strong words are from Ana Lorena Fuentes Delgado, mother of the three who died in the attempted assault on the BAC branch in Coronado – Ana Lorena’s two boys and their father, the woman tells La Teja.
If you are thinking about building or buying a house or apartment, it is likely that ExpoConstrucción 2020 is the place to explore options according to your ability to pay and interest.
Affordable prices thanks to special loans, as well as a wide variety of options in the real estate market are part of the conditions that would help you fulfill your dreams, reports La Republica.
The sign on this building in San Pedro could soon say for sale or for rent
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) – the state power and telecommunications agency – building located near the San Pedro Mall, in Montes de Oca, could soon say “for sale” and move on to other hands.
The sign on this building in San Pedro could soon be changed from ICE to for sale or for rent
The same could happen to dozens of the more than the 3,000 properties that ICE has already listed in an inventory with the idea of putting them up for sale or for rent in search of earning more liquidity and improve the management of the public company, reports La Nacion.
A night view of the Estadio Nacional in La Sabana. Photo archives
It’s been more than nine years since the Estadio Nacional (National Stadium), built by China and donated to Costa Rica, was inaugurated. But China’s interference (money) is still needed.
A night view of the Estadio Nacional in La Sabana. Photo archives
The more than US$110 million dollar stadium is located in the northwest corner of the Parque Metropolitana La Sabana. It replaced the old stadium in a deal negotiated by then-president Oscar Arias (during his second term 2006-2010), the Chinese building at their cost the stadium in return for Costa Rica dropping diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Since then, little to no investment by the Instituto Costarricense del Deporte y la Recreación (Icoder) – the Costa Rica government agency that manages the park and the stadium – has been made in maintenance and improvements on the part of Costa Rica.
Declared of public interest by the administration of Carlos Alvarado, the new Chinese project will focus on maintenance and improvement of different areas, which will cost the Chinese another US$10 million dollars.
Among the intervention are items such as the fire system, a necessary work that will include a pump room and a sprinkler system; updates to the electrical system and lighting; and handrails in the stairways, among others.
Within approximately two weeks the landing of materials coming from China will take place and the “modernization plan” will begin. The work is expected to take about 10 months to complete.
The retrofit is in the hands of engineer Lu Xiao Xu, director of administration of the Chinese company General South Architecture Design In Science. She was appointed in her country to undertake this project, and who has since last October, with 13 other Chinese nationals, been in Costa Rica to oversee the project.
Initially, more people from her country were to have come to Costa Rica to work, but the coronavirus epidemic complicated plans.
The engineer says that it was defined, in advance, that a lot of Costa Rican labor would be hired, unlike the last time, when the majority of workers were Chinese.
“The Tico workforce can bring many benefits. First, offer employment; second, we will train them. So when this project is finished there is a maintenance period in which, perhaps, they can continue working,” Xiao Xu said.
The Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica
The stadium was completed in 2011 and officially opened its doors to the public on March 26 that year, with a capacity of 35,175 seats. Although the cost was programmed at the beginning to around US$88 million, this was later adjusted to US$100 million, with the final tab almost US$115 million.
The construction of the stadium formed part of the agreements signed between the presidents of Costa Rica and China, Óscar Arias and Hu Jintao, respectively, during Arias’ first visit to the Asian country in October 2007. The construction began on March 12, 2009.
The Chinese company Anhui Foreign Economic Construction was charged with the construction of the stadium and brought 800 Chinese laborers to complete the work.
Carlos Caicedo gave a press conference this Wednesday in Dent neighborhood, San Pedro de Montes de Oca, with his lawyer, Joseph Rivera. Photo: Yeryis Salas.
The judicial system in Costa Rica is negligent, partial, complacent and lazy,” said Carla Stefaniak’s father, Carlos Caicedo, in a criticism of the 16-year sentence against the killer of his daughter.
Carlos Caicedo (left) gave a press conference on Wednesday, with his lawyer, Joseph Rivera, speaking out on the criminal trial of his daughter’s murder in Costa Rica. Photo: Yeryis Salas / La Nacion
Caicedo gave the statements on Wednesday, two days after the Pavas Criminal Court sentenced Bismark Espinoza Martínez, a guard who stabbed the Venezuelan-American tourist while staying at the hotel he worked at.
The evidence presented to the three-judge panel occurred between the night of November and the morning of November 28, 2018, at the Hotel Le Mas Provence, in San Antonio de Escazú.
Stefaniak’s body was found on December 3, 2018, in a wooded area, a short distance from where the room she was killed in.
Carla’s father claimed that the murder should be classified as “homicidio calificado” (first degree murder), where the maximum sentence is 35 years in prison.
Espinoza Martínez was convicted of the lesser charge “homicidio simple” (manslaughter) that is punishable with a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison.
“For the judges who are satisfied with the homicidio simple and sentence him (the killer) to 16 years, therefore life is worth nothing, but not only that, they do not value that there is a 36-year-old woman with many years still ahead of her, for the judges, my daughter’s life is worthless,” said Caicedo.
Caicedo also criticized the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) and the Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s Office) for their action in the investigation.
According to him, the OIJ was satisfied “focusing on room 8 where Carla was, and room 7, where Bismark lived, as we all know there are ten villas including the owners’ home, more negligent impossible.”
Caicedo has been vocal that, in his opinion, the guard did not act alone in the murder of his daughter.
He also claimed that the OIJ did not confirm that the Le Mas Provence security cameras were not working, as the owners claimed.
He also criticized the hotel owners for allowing a security guard to also have maintenance and cleaning roles.
Joseph Rivera, the lawyer representing Caicedo, said that they will appeal (when the written sentences is issued on March 2) the ruling of judges Eduardo Rojas, Simón Guillén and José Alberto Vargas.
Carla’s family is looking for a prison sentence of 50 years for Espinoza and ¢30 million colones for moral damage against the guard and the hotel owners.
In their decision, the court explained that it could not, based on the evidence, sustain a higher charge (with a higher sentence) and rejected Caicedo’s statement that he depended economically on Stefaniak.
Justice in Costa Rica
The Costa Rican criminal law system follows the European-Continental tradition. There is no jury system in Costa Rica. A trial is presided over by a single judge or by a three-judge panel, depending on the potential punishment arising from the charges.
The judge or panel of judges makes the sentencing determination based on guidelines set by the Código Penal de Costa Rica.
Costa Rica’s criminal proceedings (Código Procesal Penal) includes a ‘civil’ phase that allows the victim, their heirs or beneficiary a claim against the authors of the punishable act and participants in it and, where appropriate, against the civilly responsible party.
The KISS concert in Costa Rica on April 28 at the National Stadium in La Sabana will not include a simple concert but will be an encounter with history, due to the impact and prestige of the band in the field of music after some 47 years of being together.
For the first time, KISS will play in Costa Rica, with their world farewell tour, “End of the Road”.
Gene Simmons, co-founder and bassist of the group, spoke via telephone about the details of the concert, described as the most impressive of his entire career.
“It’s the first time we will be in Costa Rica, I’m eager to arrive, learn about its history, culture, food, I’m very excited, I can’t wait,” he said.
For the show, some twenty containers will be brought in and some sixty people are part of the team that travels with the band.
Gene Klein (born Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949), known professionally as Gene Simmons, is an Israeli-American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, actor, author and television personality.
“When they watch the show they will realize that we don’t start on stage, we will descend from the sky, there will be fire and flames, that will be the beginning of the first song,” Simmons said.
During the concert, which will be about two and a half hours, 25 songs will be presented
“We will take have show seen in North America. We will take everything, pyrotechnics, technology, things that will fly through the air. I am sure it will be the best show they will see in Costa Rica.
“We try to select the greatest songs of almost five decades, we have songs from almost all those ages,” said Simmons.
He also revealed that in each country they make small adjustments, so they do not always interpret the same themes; However, few changes.
Before KISS, Simmons used to teach sixth grade in Spanish Harlem, in New York. He taught Puerto Rican children and we talked about Latin America. “That is why I love history and have learned a lot about Costa Rica, how proud they are of their heritage, of their wonderful food, of their wonderful women, of the geography that is beautiful. I can’t wait to get to know it,” said Simmons.
When asked about the feeling of this last tour, he acknowledged that it was time to stop.
“After 47 years it’s a good time to stop, I don’t want to play for much longer, nor do I want to be on stage when very old, so we’re stopping at the right time,” he said.
The best of being part of Kiss? “The fans, thanks to them we have the most wonderful life and without them we would not be anything, our story has lasted a long time and very few things last so long, but the story is not over, the tours will end, but you can still go to Las Vegas to play in the Kiss golf mini-field or travel in the Kiss Kruise, there are many things we will be doing,” he added.
In addition to playing bass, Simmons is known for his long tongue, which he frequently sticks out while performing, and on stage is known for his demonic figure by spitting fire and vomiting stage blood.
Costa Rica has been a vacation hotspot for celebrities over the years, but not for Simmons. Will he be vacationing in Costa Rica any time soon? “I have never had vacations in my life,” said the 70-year-old rock star.
According to Simmons,rock is dead. “Rap is alive, pop is alive, many other forms of music are alive.Rock is dead because fans don’t pay for it, because they download or share songs for free and so new bands can’t sell or subsist…There are no new bands that have the opportunity to grow and play on big stages and the reason is that fans don’t pay for new music. Of course, the Rolling Stones, U2, AC/DC and us can play on big stages, that’s fine, but there’s no chance for new bands and that’s really sad”.
Tickers to the KISS concert can be purchased at www.eticket.cr and at authorized Servimás outlets. Prices at ¢29,300 to ¢99,400.
In the laster from Naked Security, Peter who discusses RobbinHood – the ransomware that brings its own bug. Greg explains how a student’s Twitter account was handed over to their college and Duck talks SMS 2FA.
(Naked Security) It seems strange to report, yet a small but determined group of Twitter users think it is a good idea to direct message (DM) pictures of male genitals to complete strangers.
Does this sound a bit like street flashing harassment in digital form?
It did to developer Kelsey Bressler after she received such an unsolicited image as a DM via Twitter last August. She later told the BBC:
You’re not giving them a chance to consent, you are forcing the image on them, and that is never okay.
Instead of shrugging it off, she and a friend had the idea of using AI pattern recognition to screen the pictures out before they were seen. But that AI still needed a set of – ahem – images to train itself on, which Bressler requested via Twitter.
Media site Buzzfeed tested Safe DM against a selection of images taken from Wikimedia Commons and found that it works well, albeit with a lag of a few minutes.
In tests, the filter blocked penises in a range of states, including full body shots and condoms and drawings. It even blocked examples that looked like a penis without being one.
Conclusion: recipients might see an image if they open it immediately but otherwise should be safe. Bressler told Naked Security that it will also block pictures of female genitals although no tests of its effectiveness at doing this have yet been made public.
For now, Safe DM is only on Twitter but other platforms might be included in future releases, she told Buzzfeed.
The filter asks for a lot of permissions but does not read the text content of DMs, she said. That was because:
Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t allow us to pick and choose. It’s all or nothing.
Cyberflashing appears to be a growing hazard on many platforms. The Huffington Post UK published an article last May that quoted dozens of women who’d experienced it via email, SnapChat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and – the most often mentioned channel – AirDrop (which has been in trouble for this sort of abuse before).
Despite more laws on general harassment, the chances of prosecution for cyberflashing remain somewhere between very low and non-existent. But at least with Safe DM, Twitter users now have something to turn to.
The National Meteorological Institute – Instituto Meteorológico Nacional (IMN) – points out that a system of high pressure on the Atlantic Ocean has been affecting the weather in the Central American region which causes pressure on the Caribbean Sea generating accelerated winds in addition to rainy activity on the Caribbean slope.
Wind gusts on Monday in the Central Valley of reached 40-60 km/h, between 40 and 70 km/h in the lower parts of Guanacaste and between 70-100 km/h in the mountains and north of Guanacaste.
The high winds are expected to continue into Thursday and expected there will be an increase in the average swells, of short duration and of moderate intensity.
RECOPE plans to replace 'super' gasoline with "ECO 95' starting the end of May
The Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo (Recope) – Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery, on Friday presented a request for a reduction in fuel prices to the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep).
If approved, regular and super gasoline prices will drop ₡40 colones a litre, and diesel ₡63.
The new prices at the pumps, that will take effect in March, will see gasoline prices go from the current ₡645 to ₡605 for super; regular will drop from the current ₡623 to ₡583; and diesel will drop to ₡498 from the current ₡561.
Other fuels, such as liquid gas, aviation fuel, etc will also drop in prices.
In making the request, Recope said that during the study period (in January) there was stability on the status of the international price of the finished products that Costa Rica imports; on the other hand the Colon appreciated on the Euro.
(Bloomberg) Latin America’s war on corruption is something to celebrate. In the last few years, 11 presidents have either been driven from office or forced to answer in courts of law for crooked dealings. In a virtuous feedback loop, citizen outrage over official transgressors has emboldened the call for integrity in government.
Central Americans say corruption is rampant
For a region that has winked at scoundrels, this is remarkable. So, too, is the shift in the public conversation, which suddenly is all about transparency, due diligence, open government and corporate accountability, reports Bloomberg.
Jobs are in short supply in Costa Rica as a result of low levels of investment while sales of goods and services are dwindling; Risk of investing in Costa Rica increases due to weak public finances, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
Even a small increase in interest rates would mean that worse could still be to come for Costa Rica’s economy, says la La República (in Spanish).
Meanwhile, current holders of the country’s bonds, as well as anyone who becomes a pensioner in the coming years, would see a decrease in the value of the payments they receive.
An increase in interest rates is the likely result of an increase in the risk of investing in Costa Rica, says Moody’s.
On February 10, Moody’s said it downgraded Costa Rica’s long-term issuer and senior unsecured bond ratings to B2 from B1 and changed its rating outlook to stable from negative.
In the statement, the investor service said the key drivers for the downgrade include the country’s “High fiscal deficits” leading to an upward trend in debt metrics which will remain above rating peers; and, “Recurring funding challenges” resulting from relatively large borrowing requirements introduce risks to Costa Rica’s credit profile
In a related decision, Moody’s lowered Costa Rica’s long-term country ceilings: the foreign currency bond ceiling to Ba3 from Ba2; the foreign currency deposit ceiling to B3 from B2; and the local currency bond and deposit ceilings to Ba1 from Baa3. The short-term foreign currency bond ceiling and the short-term foreign currency deposit ceiling remain unchanged at Not Prime (NP).
When I started my relocation tours during the early 1990s they were more ‘tourist-oriented’ in that they included a visit to the Irazú Volcano and a trip by catamaran to Isla Tortuga among other things. At the request of my clients, I began included a sampling of different kinds of homes to give them an idea of how expats lived here and what was available to rent or buy.
I did my due diligence and found a couple of reliable and trustworthy realtors who would not pressure my guests and who had their interest at heart. Most of the people who took my tours and ended up moving here, chose rent first. A handful of them purchased property or a home only after deciding if the country was right for them.
The companies I currently work with cover the Central Valley and Central and South Pacific areas of the country. My clients who did end up working with the realtors were satisfied with the service and care they received and had no regrets.
I must point out that my tours are primarily for those who want to live or retire here with an emphasis on the culture, infrastructure, lifestyle, healthcare, the most suitable areas for living, shopping and other services for expats. A whole slew of valuable contacts are provided on the tour. In addition, a two-day seminar is included that covers: residency, healthcare options, all types of insurance, Costa Rican culture, communications, legal matters, a fast track to learning Spanish, expats experiences and more.
Presently, there is a handful of real estate salesman offering their own version of a relocation/retirement tours with the goal of selling property to their clients. Some of these tours even include a visit to neighboring countries with the same goal in mind. Most of the principals have no experience working as relocation guides, but are good salespeople. They have a select number of projects they work with and will not let their tour participants view any other living situations while on the tour.
So, make sure your tour guide has lived in the country for at least 10 years, really speaks the language, understands the Costa Rican culture and is primarily not a real estate salesperson. Check his or her credentials, and look over the proposed itinerary to be sure that the tour covers a lot more than just real estate.
Most expats who move here have to work. They either get involved in tourism or real estate, so there is a lot of competition between them with many being eager to make money, especially those who do not have pensions yet. Also, look to see if properties are advertised on their webpages. Don’t get me wrong! The vast majority of expats working here are honest people. Just be careful.
The bottom line is to do your diligence before signing up for any retirement/relocation tour to save time, your hard earned money and headaches down the road.
Christopher Howard has been conducting monthly relocation/retirement tours and writing retirement guidebooks for more than 30 years. See www.liveincostarica.com.
Bismark Espinoza Martínez, the security guard at the hotel where American-Venezuelan tourist spent her last night alive in Costa Rica, has been found guilty.
Bismark Espinoza Martínez (in blue polo) sits next to his lawyer in the Pavas Criminal COurts under the watchful eyes of OIJ agents
Espinoza, the only accused of killing Carla Stefaniak, was sentenced on Monday to 16 years in prison.
“What don Bismark (Espinoza Martínez, the sentenced) said is a lie, not only because of the dynamics, but also because he lied to the police that a vehicle had arrived to pick up doña Carla (Stefaniak, the victim) but she never left of the villas. From that moment, the alibi given by Bismark begins to fall apart.
“He was the only one of the workers at the villas who had knowledge of the topography of the site and who knew where a corpse could be hidden (…).
“The Court, from the construction of an indicator event such as the death of doña Carla and the appearance of her body, leads to the logical conclusion that Bismark killed Carla.
“Don Bismark had access to the possibility of cleaning the villas, what they (investigators) find there (in the villa where Stefaniak was staying) is a can of juice and the bed a little out of order. He was responsible for leaving certain traces, but for any observer the villa was clean. He had all the time to commit the act, to remove the traces and throw the lifeless body into one of the most remote parts of the place.”
That is how Judge Eduardo Rojas explained the arguments that led him to conclude, together with judges Simón Guillén and José Alberto Vargas, that Bismark Espinoza Martínez, who worked as a guard at the hotel Le Mas de Provence, in San Antonio de Escazú, San José was responsible for killing Carla Stefaniak between the night of 27 and the morning of November 28, 2018.
Her body was found nearby on December 3.
“She came to enjoy, to live,” said Judge Rojas.
Carla’s father, Carlos Caicedo, on learning of the sentence, confessed to being frustrated, since he considers that the penalty falls short. “I aspired to a true justice that set a precedent (…). I have a bad taste, frustration and pain that nobody can take away from me,” said Caicedo.
Guido Núñez, Espinosa’s lawyer, said the sentence would be appealed.
“The defense cannot share the Court’s arguments, there are several aspects we disagree with, we will have to wait for the written sentence to make the determination,” said Núñez.
In Costa Rica’s criminal proceedings, a three-judge panel reviews the evidence, listens to the testimony of witnesses and arguments of both the prosecutor and defence attorneys.
It is customary for the leading judge to verbally comment on the findings while delivering the sentence.
The sicariato (hired killer) is sadly "trendy" in Costa Rica and in most cases the killers use motorcycles; which is the fastest and easiest way to execute and therefore escape. They are also these, more used than cars in general line.
How much does it cost to hire someone to have someone killed in Costa Rica? The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) has determined that a “hit” runs between ¢50,000 to ¢500,000 colones.
The sicariato (hired killer) is sadly “trendy” in Costa Rica and in many cases, they are minors, who kill for only ¢50,000 colones and who face short prison sentences, a maximum of 15 years
“We have established sicarios (hitmen) who have charged ¢50,000, others ¢100,000 and some ¢ 500,000.
“Actually they are not as high amounts as one might think or imagine when it comes to ending the life of a person, so they are not unattainable amounts, for our bad luck,” said the director of the OIJ, Wálter Espinoza.
The statement by the OIJ chief follows the arrest of a 21-year-old man, identified by his last names Cubillo Hidalgo, who is believed to have paid ¢100,000 colones to two hitmen to kill Karolay Serrano, 26, with whom he had a secret relationship with, given he was already in a committed relationship with children.
Cubillo was responsible for financing the operation and taking the woman to a viewpoint on the slopes of the Barva Volcano. There the hitmen – minors, one 16, the other 17 – executed the crime and buried the victim.
In this case, Espinoza declined to specify how much money the minors were paid but confirmed the there was hiring and payment to execute the crime. “There was hiring, payment, and participation of who we can call hitmen or direct executors of the murder, as well as an intellectual author, an interested party and someone who required the service,” said Espinoza.
Karolay disappeared on August 12, 2019, after getting in a white-colored Honda, which was confiscated in Cubillo’s home on Thursday. Her whereabouts were unknown until this week when the family alerted the OIJ on the finding of human remains in a farm. The forensic results confirmed the identity, which led to the arrest of five people, including Cubillo.
According to the OIJ, the majority of sicarios are under the age of 30, many of them minors.
Apparently, the lack of a high prison sentence does not frighten the “guns for hire”.
The Juvenile Criminal Justice Law (Ley de Justicia Penal Juvenil) establishes sentences of up to 15 years for a murder committed by a minor (under the age of 18), while an adult is exposed to a maximum prison sentence of 35 years.
Unfortunately, the OIJ chief reiterates, high prison sentences are not “unattainable” and it depends a lot on the person (judge) who sets the sentence.
Prices vary and, unlike other products (drugs), lately, they have been on a falling trend according to authorities, though the OIJ does not have statistics of homicides involving hitmen.
What they do know is that hitmen do not always have links with narco groups, since there are people who specifically dedicate themselves to executing crimes in exchange for money, “extremely young people or that they are just coming of age, who take risks based on their youth and inexperience” according to OIJ director Soto.
Soto added that for many, “taking someone’s life is the maximum of their lives or that it will give them recognition within their communities.”
He continued that, “regularly, the boys who decide to execute crimes in exchange for money live in marginal urban areas and did not finish high school…sometimes they tend to be in communal or family environments of violence.”
“I still believe that the issue here is not about professionalism, but rather about people who consider themselves intrepid. In some cases, they are part of organizations and as they are salaried they follow the requests to threaten or kill and in the case of people dedicated to this, the prices are negotiable, depending on the profile of the victim,” said Soto.
In this regard, the magistrate of the Third Chamber and former judge of Appeal of the Juvenile Criminal Court, Álvaro Burgos Mata, considers that the situation of young people dedicated to assassination for hire is not exponential, nor a wave, nor can it be considered novel.
He said that for a long time there have been minors linked to this type of crime, led by adults, although he acknowledges that in recent years there have been very high profile cases.
Burgos stressed that Costa Rica is among the countries with the highest penalties in Juvenile Criminal material, up to 10 years of detention for boys between 12 and 15 years of age and up to 15 for those between 15 and 18.
“The accent should not be put on the participation of minors, but on prevention avenues. From the school, society, the place where they live (…), the soccer fields and recreation sites that have disappeared, ” said the magistrate.
Burgos reiterated the need to offer young people alternatives to incorporate into society so that they are not seduced by money and the sense of acceptance of peer groups that, in these cases, are negative.
“If they are not recognized in other areas, who applauds them is someone who expects criminal action,” he warned.
The confiscated drugs on display at the San Juantamaria airport Base 2 on Saturday night
Almost six tons of cocaine headed for the European market were found in a container in the APM Terminal facilities in Moín, Limón.
The confiscated drugs on display at the San Juantamaria airport Base 2 press conference on Saturday night
The cocaine was in a shipment headed for Holland said Michael Soto, the Ministro de Seguridad Publica during a press conference in San Jose, late Saturday afternoon,
The minister explained the illegal drugs were discovered hidden in a container of ornamental plants bound for Rotterdam, Holland, on Friday night thanks to the scanner APM Terminals operates at the megaport.
“It is the largest cargo seized in the country,” said Soto.
It is estimated that the confiscated drugs have a value of US126 million euros in the European market.
“After doing the investigation, it is determined that the shipment left San Carlos with its lawful cargo, which are ornamental plants. We presume that the cargo could have been contaminated in an undetermined place between San Carlos and Moín,” said the minister.
For this reason, the driver of that container, a man of last name Rodríguez, 46, with no criminal record was arrested.
The detection in Moín, he explained, was done by profiling, if any aspects of a shipment appear suspicious the container is subject to scanning.
“This is the movement of a transnational structure that uses Costa Rica as a warehouse to subsequently contaminate national products to get them to Europe or North America, as has happened on other occasions,” said Soto.
Soto added that illegal drugs were produced in South America and warehouses in Costa Rica
“Subsequently, they use techniques like this to get them to other countries. Transnational criminal structures use various methods to deliver drugs to different continents of the planet, ”he added.
In October 2006, the U.S. Coast Guard seized from Costa Rican fishermen 3.5-tons cocaine, the largest seizure in the Isthmus at the time.
In April 2007, authorities uncovered a drug-trafficking gang, based in Costa Rica, planning to ship 15 tons from our country to Germany, Spain, and the United States, among other countries.
The Policía de Control de Drogas (PCD) – the Costa Rican police body akin to the DEA in the United States – arrested five Colombians, two of them heads of the criminal organization that had been operating in Costa Rica for months.
Minister Soto described the operation as “a very big blow to criminal organizations” and said that what is next is to continue working on the disarticulation of these structures throughout the region.
“What do we expect for the future? There are investigations that must be developed, groups that must be broken down, and it is very important to work regionally, with the countries of the area, because criminal structures cannot be addressed by a single country, but it is a joint work.”
Soto said it was a “positive and historical” work from the police point of view. “It demonstrates the effort we are all making. Sometimes we are doing well, sometimes not so much, but there is an important effort by the police forces,” he added.
“It is a regional phenomenon; There is an overproduction of cocaine in the south of the continent. In 2019, according to Colombian authorities, 2,000 metric tons of cocaine hydrochloride were produced, based on plantations and places they managed to determine; This is a huge amount of cocaine that is affecting the entire region.
It is not known exactly when, but some time ago Costa Rica and the entire Central America region went from being a transfer point – a bridge if you will – to a warehouse to distribute cocaine to different parts of the world.
This situation is reflected in the large seizures that have been carried out both in Costa Rica and in other countries in the region in recent months.
president of the Chamber of Commerce of Costa Rica, Yolanda Fernández
In Costa Rica, the commercial sector faces major challenges such as informality and unemployment; and the country’s fiscal situation does not improve the picture. Expectations are worrisome.
Yolanda Fernández, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Costa Rica
Businessmen in the sector do not clearly see what the economic direction of the country will be.
The president of the Chamber of Commerce of Costa Rica, Yolanda Fernández, was emphatic in ensuring that she does not see clarity in the direction of the measures proposed by the government to deal with the situation.
When asked about her vision of the coming years for the country’s economy, Fernández said that urgent measures must be taken even if they are not “popular.”
The proportion of unemployed in the country closed upwards in 2019, the unemployment rate rising from 11.4% to 12.4% between the third and fourth quarters, an increase that can be explained partly by the rise in unemployment in women.
Another aspect that concerns the directors of the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce is that many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operate in the informal sector.
Regarding the actions of the government, Fernández told Elobservador.cr that “… I do not see clarity; I would like to be able to say that there is clarity in what is going to happen. Taking action is not popular, one cannot access any decision-making position in Costa Rica to be popular.”
Fernandez added that “… The streets are full of informality. That is the critique, we try to tell the government to listen to what we are saying. I do not see what accompaniment they are doing to the PYMEs (small and medium enterprises), and I insist on the small and medium enterprises because it is 90% of the business park in this country.”
The decrease in the minimum contribution base of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) as well as an amnesty for PYMEs that are in an informal mode, are the requests made to the government.
Fernandez also pointed out the difficulty for new companies to access loans to invest in their businesses.
In the risky world of gifts in Asia’s financial axes, Montblanc pens and leather wallets are outdated: toilet paper and surgical masks are, without a doubt, are most definitely in.
As the fear of the new coronavirus (Covid-19) spreads throughout the region, pharmacies and supermarkets in Hong Kong and Singapore are running out of basic supplies such as toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer and, especially, facial masks.
This has presented an opportunity for financial service providers who want to impress customers and strengthen relationships. The Singapore arm of online trading provider IG Group handed out care packages with N95 face masks from 3M, digital thermometers and Dettol antiseptic bottles.
IG began distributing the gifts after Singapore raised the viral alert to orange, a critical level. What started out as a fun idea from the company’s local management team quickly gained momentum and now its staff and customers have been receiving care packages in the office and by mail. The gift has arrived at the right time, as some banks throughout the central business district evacuate their offices and requiring employees to work from home.
“It all started as a precaution for friends and family and then others started asking how to get the masks and other things,“ Terence Tan, head of business development at IG Asia Pte told Bloomberg. “So we thought: Why not get these things for our staff and clients?”
Tan said the first packages for clients have been shipped and will send more packages as they receive additional supplies.
American Joel Werner runs a hedge fund, Solitude Capital Management in Hong Kong. On February 10, he bought the equivalent of 216 rolls of toilet paper on Amazon.com after his family tried in vain for days to find any in Hong Kong. The shipping alone cost $200 but he thinks it was worth it. He kept half of the bounty and plans to give the other half to friends and colleagues.
“It’s a better gift than wine now,” he said.
Household items are also gaining prominence in the social life of those in financial centers. Friends who met at a restaurant in Hong Kong this week were asked to bring face masks or toilet paper for a raffle.
And in a sign of love at the time of the coronavirus, photos of bouquets made of instant noodles and vegetables, instead of roses, circulated through the WhatsApp financial groups in Singapore on Valentine’s Day after the shopping fever forced to supermarkets to set limits.
Everything shows that in a moment of crisis, what counts it’s the thought – and thickness of the toilet tissue.
(AP) — With Colombian military snipers in position, Howard Buffett descends from a helicopter and trudges through the wet grass in steel-toe boots chewed through by his dog’s teeth.
In this Jan. 29, 2020 photo, Howard Buffett receives presents during a visit, with Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, right, to a cocoa farm in La Gabarra, Colombia. As a philanthropist, Buffet’s priority now is helping Colombia and El Salvador, whose fight against drug trafficking has a direct impact on the U.S. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia) The Associated Press
Waiting under a tin-roofed shack is a small group of coca farmers. They’ve never heard of multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett, but after decades of neglect by their own government they’re grateful for the outstretched hand of his eldest son, who they refer to simply as “the gringo.”
“There’s a saying here: The less you know, the better,” said Rubén Morantes, his leathery skin and calloused hands a testament to a lifetime of tillage in one of Colombia’s most-dangerous territories, where outsiders are traditionally mistrusted.
For nearly two decades Buffett has crisscrossed the world giving away part of his father’s fortune to promote food security, conflict mitigation and public safety. But his latest gamble is one of the most daunting yet: helping Colombia kick its cocaine curse.
He is focusing on Tibu, heart of the remote, notoriously lawless Catatumbo region bordering Venezuela where Buffett accompanied President Iván Duque.
Tibu has the second largest coca crop in all of Colombia — 28,200 acres (11,400 hectares), according to the United Nations. Drug production as well as violence has skyrocketed in the area since armed groups filled the void left by retreating rebels who signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.
The Howard G. Buffett Foundation has committed to spending $200 million over the next few years to transform the impoverished municipality into a model of comprehensive state building. Plans include strengthening security forces and helping farmers secure land titles and substitute coca — the raw material for cocaine — with licit crops like cacao.
The first component is building 300 kilometers (185 miles) of roads to connect the municipality’s 37,000 residents for the first time with national and international markets. It’s a challenge made more difficult by lurking guerrillas who last year detonated a homemade bomb as army engineers were working on the road, killing five people and injuring several.
“The only way we have confidence that farmers can grow legal crops is if they can get those crops to market,” Buffett told farmers during a visit last month with Duque to La Gabarra, a rural outpost in Tibu. It was the first time any Colombian president had visited the blood-soaked hamlet.
The plan envisions subsidies and training for farmers as they switch crops, as well as helping them find buyers. It also aims to strengthen infrastructure for local law enforcement.
But some experts worry Buffett’s enthusiasm for speeding Colombia’s development is no match for entrenched corruption in rural areas run like political fiefdoms. There’s also the challenge posed by thousands of Venezuelan migrants who lack roots in the community and are being targeted for recruitment by criminal gangs.
A lot is riding on Buffett’s investment.
Not since the start of the U.S.-led Plan Colombia two decades ago have so many resources converged on a single geographical area, said Álvaro Balcázar, who helped the government negotiate with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia the section of the peace deal focusing on illicit crops.
“There’s no precedent for something on such large a scale,” Balcázar said. “But the region is strategic for consolidating peace in Colombia.”
Like his father, Buffett, 65, has a reputation for folksy, Midwestern plain speech and self-effacing humor. Although he’s a three-time college dropout, his father wants him to succeed him as the non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the $550 billion conglomerate that owns companies such as Duracell, Dairy Queen and GEICO insurance as well as major stakes in leading U.S. airlines and banks.
But he’s spent much of his adult life roving the world taking wildlife photos and writing books. He’s also a corn farmer and made headlines in 2017 by briefly serving as the sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, where he lives and his foundation is based.
He began exploring the world as a teenager on a trip to Soviet-controlled Prague in 1969 to visit one of the many exchange students his mother hosted at their home in Omaha, Nebraska. But his love of travel hasn’t been matched by culinary curiosity: In Catatumbo, he carried around a blue, insulated lunch pack containing his requisite PB&J sandwich and a Dr. Pepper.
As a philanthropist, his priority now is helping Colombia and El Salvador, whose fight against drug trafficking has a direct impact on the U.S. Between the two countries he has already spent or committed $310 million, including the funding in El Salvador of a new police forensics center and a modern system to help the country’s prosecutors track criminal investigations.
As a volunteer police officer who logged 678 hours on patrol last year, Buffett has seen firsthand the human toll caused by drug addiction. A few weeks before traveling to Colombia, he and a partner were staking out a motel in Decatur, Illinois, at 1 a.m. when they arrested a man possessing crack. With him was a woman who said she had a drug problem, so Buffett paid for her to stay at the hotel two nights. Later, he referred her to a county rehab facility paid for with a gift from the Buffett Foundation in the hopes she would get help.
“These are people who need our help,” he said. “They’re not criminals.”
He has turned to Latin America after years of focusing much of his attention on Africa and especially Rwanda, where he works with the government on sustainable agriculture. He spent so much time at his farm in South Africa in the 1990s that he obtained permanent residency.
Buffett began working in Colombia in 2008 helping pop star Shakira set up schools in her hometown of Barranquilla. He’s also funded an army unit removing thousands of landmines strewn across former conflict zones. Leveraging his business contacts, he established a program to help around 100 families in southern Colombia switch from growing coca to producing high-quality coffee for Nespresso.
While an enthusiastic supporter of the 2016 peace deal, he has nonetheless struck a close relationship with Duque, a law-and-order conservative who rode into office attacking the agreement.
Duque has vowed to slash cocaine production in half by the end of 2023. Production of the drug skyrocketed after his predecessor — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos — halted aerial eradication in 2015 due to health concerns over the herbicides used. But reaching that goal requires huge resources the government doesn’t have, as well as overcoming the indifference of urban voters who are removed from the conflict and have their own growing list of demands.
That’s where Buffett steps in.
The $200 million Buffett has pledged for Tibu is more than triple what the government has spent the past two years altogether on public works in 170 high-risk municipalities that are part of a rural development rescue plan mandated by the peace deal. The U.S. Agency for International Development spends $230 million annually in Colombia, although its projects are spread across the country.
Beyond the big check, long-time partners praise the Buffett Foundation for being independent and nimble. It’s funded from an annual gift in Berkshire Hathaway stock by Warren Buffett, so it can take risks few are willing to attempt, development experts say.
“We’re accountable mainly to the IRS,” jokes Buffett, who sees setbacks like a venture capitalist who must eat crow before finding wild success.
“If you’re a charity, and you’re going to have your annual banquet to raise a lot of money, you can’t stand up there and tell people how you had these five failures and this one success. People aren’t going to write checks,” he said. “We’ll make a decision in five minutes if we know what we want to do.”
He is skeptical of the U.S. government and United Nations, preferring not to work with either.
“The reason is because we can’t depend on them,” said Buffett, who said he was burned badly by USAID in 2011 when it abandoned a joint $10 million seed program for starving farmers in South Sudan just as fighting broke out in the world’s newest independent state.
“The bullets started flying and they pulled out. But it’s like, you’re in South Sudan, so of course bullets are going to fly,” he said.
Instead, the foundation relies on partners known for delivering results quickly with slim overhead — a combination he says is hard to find among the “beltway bandits” profiting from U.S. foreign aid outlays. One accompanying him to Catatumbo is Portland, Oregon-based Mercy Corps, which is helping farmers sort through Colombia’s bureaucratic maze to obtain land titles.
In a nod to his father’s reputation for common sense, Buffett seeks frequent counsel from the so-called “Oracle of Omaha.”
“He’s my sounding board, kind of like my conscience in a way,” Buffett said. “But he never asks, ‘Why are you doing that?’ or ‘Why you’re taking that risk?’”
In Tibu, after cracking a few jokes and planting a cacao tree, he seemed beside himself with joy even as the presidential committee hustled to quickly depart as heavy fog threatened to maroon them in the middle of nowhere.
“I know Emilio is very worried about leaving,” Buffett told the farmers through a translator, referring to Duque’s post-conflict adviser, Emilio Archila. “But I’m not, because there’s lots of chocolate here.”
Panama’s beef exports which were helping to re-energize the agricultural industry and reached US$10 million in six months last year have been halted by the coronavirus.
Chinese authorities issued an alert and paralyzed the meat shipments, thus disrupting the sale and slaughter of cattle in the country. Panama has enabled, since last year, two plants to export beef to the Asian giant, Newsroom Panama reports.
If you can’t beat them, join them. That is the decision of some 380 taxi drivers “taxistas” in Heredia, signing an agreement with Beego and the use of their app.
Cesar Blanco, Beego general manager, called it a “success”, given that the taxi drivers agreed to pass the safety filters, quality parameters, and inspection of their cars, including providing a police record.
“So when a Beego customer asks for a car, the nearest vehicle would arrive regardless of whether it is a taxi or a private car,” he said.
He stressed that, unlike conventional cooperatives, drivers do not get paid weekly, rather the application will charge them a commission on the service they provide Beego riders.
The taxi drivers join the fleet of some 700 drivers working under the Beego Costa Rica platform that began operating in the country in 2018.
The Ministerio Public (Prosecutor’s Office) is asking for 68 years in prison Bismarck Espinoza Martínez, the only suspected in the murder of 35-year-old American-Venezuelan tourist, Carla Stefaniak.
The sentencing was made by the Prosecutor’s office at the close of the trial against Espinoza, which will continue today, Friday, in the Pavas Criminal Courts.
The testimony by the coroner, Adriana Murillo, revealed that Carla’s death was caused by a puncture wound in the neck, so severe that it crossed the muscles of the neck and spine.
The Ministerio Publico is requesting a prison term of 18 years for Espinoza. In addition, Stefaniak’s family is asking the court for an additional 50 years in prison and US$1.4 million dollars as compensation for the murder, confirmed Joseph Rivera, a lawyer for the family.
Prosecutor Ricky González said that the lies by the defendant aggravated his actions and therefore the maximum penalty was requested for the crime of homicide.
The prosecutor added that, despite the fact that the murder weapon and other elements of material evidence were not found, there are clear indications of the subsequent conduct of the accused, which were evidenced in the trial.
González said there is not the slightest doubt that it was Espinoza who killed the Carla Stefaniak. “The lie is was what led to the investigation,” said González referring to the first statements the suspect gave to police investigating the woman’s disappearance.
“There is great doubt about something he said and that is that Doña Carla, being so nice, leaves her room, walks down a hill, carries all her bags to the car herself, and he doesn’t help her, he only opened the gate for her,” González said, referring to the statement by the suspect telling investigators that Stefaniak had left the property early in the morning in an unknown vehicle.
This was all before the murder was known to have taken place.
In the conclusions, the prosecutor said there was no doubt that Espinoza had committed the murder and tried to cover it up, disposing of the body a short distance from the property, where it was found on December 4, several days after the murder that had taken place between November 27 and 28, 2018 when the woman rejected the suspect’s sexual advances.
In the closing argument, the prosecutor said the suspect tried to have sexual relations with the victim but she rejected him and it was because of that the murder occurred.
The wound that caused Stefaniak’s death was on one side of the neck, was deep according to the forensic account.
The body of the foreigner was located about 100 meters from the room that the woman had rented, was half-naked, and buried in half, between leaves and branches.
The 18-year sentence is for simple homicide, the Prosecutor’s Office indicated that it could not ask for more because there was not enough evidence for a charge of “homicidio calificado” (premeditated murder).
