Image for illustrative purposes. From Vivatropical.com
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – The favourable conditions in the global economy allowed Costa Rica’s economy to an expected growth of 4.25% in 2016, but more needs to be done to stabilize public debt levels and key is for the government and legislature to reach a consensus on VAT (Valude Added Tax) and income tax reforms proposals to help address fiscal imbalances, says the International Monetary Fund (IMF) following its visit last week.
From a press release by the IMF:
An IMF team, led by Mr. Lorenzo Figliuoli, visited Costa Rica from December 12-15 to discuss recent economic development and the outlook for the country. At the end of the mission, Mr. Figliuoli issued the following statement.
Image for illustrative purposes. From Vivatropical.com
“The economy is growing robustly. Real GDP is anticipated to expand in 2016 by 4.25 percent, up from 3.75 percent last year. Annual inflation has turned moderately positive again, reaching 0.6 percent in November, and is anticipated to return to the 2-4 percent central bank’s target range in the first half of 2017, as the impact of the decline in oil prices continues to dissipate and reflecting also the gradual pass-through of lower monetary policy rates. The external current account deficit is forecasted to narrow further to about 3.5 percent of GDP.
“The team welcomes the government’s strong efforts to raise revenue and contain expenditure growth through administrative measures, including a significant contribution from lower wage spending and from higher income tax collections, which will likely reduce the primary deficit by 0.5-1 percent of GDP in 2016. The team also welcomes the approval of laws to combat tax evasion, reform pensions paid out of the budget, and curtail unspent budgetary allocations of decentralized government entities, all of which combined should lower the deficit by an additional 0.5 percent of GDP in 2017 and beyond. Approval of the law re-introducing a corporate levy, currently under fast-track consideration in Congress, would also provide a small contribution to fiscal consolidation.
“However, these efforts are insufficient to place the fiscal position on a sustainable path. Indeed, the additional fiscal adjustment that will still be needed to stabilize the public-debt-to-GDP ratio over the medium-term at levels considered safe, while allowing for higher public investment critical for the economy’s growth potential, remains sizeable, at around 2.5-3 percent of GDP.
“The good performance of the Costa Rican economy in 2016 has been aided by very favorable global conditions, notably continuing low commodity prices and ample liquidity in financial markets. These, together with monetary stimulus by the central bank, have allowed domestic financing of the deficit without putting upward pressure on interest rates. Nonetheless, the persistence of large fiscal deficits and continued increases in the public-debt-to-GDP ratio make Costa Rica very vulnerable to sudden changes in international financial conditions, the risks of which have risen more recently. These could be triggered by shifts in the policy mix in advanced economies toward a greater reliance on fiscal expansion and a less accommodative monetary stance, or by other external shocks, including a reversal of the terms-of-trade gains of the recent past or possible revisions in trade policies of key trading partners.
“Overall, the global environment is turning less favorable and more uncertain for Costa Rica’s economy. It is thus crucial that its vulnerabilities are addressed expeditiously. And, without a doubt, Costa Rica’s main vulnerability is its unsustainable fiscal imbalance. For this reason, the team stresses the importance that the government and political forces represented in Congress reach consensus on the rapid approval of VAT and income tax reforms proposals currently under consideration. These could be usefully complemented by a public employment law and a fiscal rule, to limit current expenditure growth and enhance budget discipline over the long-term. The political window of opportunity to approve these reforms is closing fast, given the approaching electoral season. To avoid exposing Costa Rica to severe risks, a rapid resolution of the fiscal question cannot be postponed.”
Applying for a visa at the Costa Rica consulate in Managua, Nicaragua. File photo La Nacion
Applying for a visa at the Costa Rica consulate in Managua, Nicaragua. File photo La Nacion
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – The Costa Rica consulate in Managua reports a drop of 11% of visa requests by Nicaraguans wanting to visit Costa Rica.
Costa Rica’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Eduardo Trejos, said that so far this year the consulate has processed 15,000 visa applications less than last year. As of mid-December the consulate had processed 115,000 applications in contrast to the 130,000 at the same time last year.
Trejos stressed the drop is only in Managua, the Chinandega office is reporting for this year a similar number of applications to 2015.
The ambassador claims the drop is due to the fact that the visas for Nicaraguans are now for 90 days, 60 days longer than before. Up to the end of 2014 the visas for Nicaraguans were only for 30 days at a time.
However, Trejos would not predict the demand for the end of the year, given that in the last couple of days there has been a rise in the number of Nicaraguans visiting the consulate, mainly, to obtain a visa to visit their relatives in Costa Rica.
“For the moment, I cannot say how this December will be in comparison with previous years,” Trejos explained.
According to the Managua consulate figures, between the early days of December and third week in February (the high season), the number of visa applications almost doubles.
During the year the Managua consulate handles some 550 visas a day, in the high season, the number can reach up to 900 a day.
At Chinandega office averages is 350 visas a day in the high season; the rest of the year the number is between 150 and 200 a day.
The ambassador explained that the pilot plan to allow visa applications via the Internet will commence on January 9, 2017. Currently, applications are in person and on a first-come-first-served basis.
Trejos added that the start of the (Internet) plan was delayed due to Hurricane Otto. “We were about to implement, the hurricane complicated the situation because the technical resources were to devoted to tasks with more priority, but we hope to start tests on January 9,” said Trejos.
The implementation of the electronic visa applications has been tasked to the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), Banco Lafise, which will handle the online payment platform.
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – An actuarial analysis prepared by the School of Mathematics of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), confirms that the Costa Rica Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS) – commonly referred to as the “Caja” – fund reserve will be depleted in 2030, 10 years ahead of projections, leading to a proposal to push change the retirement age to 70 from the current 65.
The proposal arises from a study to evaluate the financial health of the Disability, Old Age and Death (Invalidez, Vejez y Muerte – IVM) regime.
Among the other proposals is to raise the labour-management and state contributions from 9.16% to 26.4% of the worker’s salary. The breakdown of the contributions would be 13.99% from the employer, that of the employee 8.72% and the state, 3.69%, starting in 2019.
The study also proposes that the pension be 40% of the average salary of the worker. At present a retiree get up to 60% of their salary.
The proposed changes would apply only to persons who, as of December 31, 2015, were under the age of 51.
But before these proposals can be applied they must be approved by the Board of Directors of the CCSS.
Maria del Rocio Sáenz, executive president of the Caja, said the Board has received the study and it won’t be until next month (January 2017) before discussions will begin. “They (UCR) made some recommendations and presented several scenarios. We have to analyze them to propose some medium and long-term measures,” said Sáenz.
The IVM has 238,644 beneficiaries and some 1.4 million workers contributing, with a reserve fund of ¢2 billion colones.
The UCR report (available online for download at the CCSS website) stresses that, “If no urgent measures are taken, it is estimated that the inflows of contributions and investments will cease to be sufficient to honour the expenses in 2022-2028, so that the reserve would have to be used, which would be exhausted in 2027-2034”.
Thousands of Haitian and African migrants continue in Costa Rica, waiting for the opportunity to continue their travel to reach the U.S. border
Thousands of Haitian and African migrants continue in Costa Rica, housed in shelters and given temporary visas to be in the country legally, waiting for the opportunity to continue their travel to reach the U.S. border
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – Tens of thousands of mainly Cubans, Haitians and Africans seeking to reach the United States contributed to Costa Rica’s “unprecedented” migratory flow into the country this year.
In 2016, Costa Rica saw more than 26,000 “irregular migrants” arriving at the southern border with Panama, according to the statement by Casa Presidencial.
The number includes the some 8,000 Cubans who became stranded in Costa Rica in December last year after Nicaragua closed their borders to them, stopping their trek through Central America to reach the U.S. land border.
Eventually the Cubans, through diplomatic efforts with other Central American countries and Mexico, were airlifted Mexico, where they were able to cross in the United States.
Nicaragua’s immigration policy of closed borders to migrants continues today, leaving thousands of Haitians and Africans camped out in Costa Rica, unable to move forward, not affording the cost of an airlift and not having the privilege the U.S. ‘the wet foot, dry foot policy‘ for the Cubans.
The hard-line stand taken by Costa Rica earlier this year slowed the inflow of migrants, many of who are staying in shelters and camps near the Nicaraguan border, many adapting to their temporary life, others turning to ‘coyotes’ (smugglers) to help them cross the border.
They stay in Costa Rica is legal, the country offering temporary visas, but not with the right to work. Halfway from Liberia to the Peñas Blancas border their presence is noticeable, in the communities of El Jobo and La Cruz de Guanacaste, the majority of the migrants housed in Centros de Atención Temporal para Migrantes (CATEM) – Temporary Care Centers for Migrants
Other CATEMs are located in Buenos Aires de Puntarenas and in Golfito, some 20 kilometres from the Paso Canoas border with Panama.
To ensure the migrants are left stranded President Luis Guillermo Solís signed October 31, guideline 057 that ratifies the work that must be done by public institutions in the attention and ensuring the migrants do not become victims of illicit trafficking of people.
Communication Minister Mauricio Herrera says that the government has confronted in a direct and realistic way the situation.
“This could have been the biggest migratory crisis in the country, but it was an opportunity for Costa Rica to show the world its vocation in defending human rights,” Communication Minister Mauricio Herrera said.
The minister explained that among the actions taken by the government is the obligation of the National Women’s Institute (INAMU) and the National Children’s Patronage (PANI) to supervise the care of women and children, prevention of violence and sexual harassment.
QBLOGS – For many years we were the kids on the block bullied by the thugs to the North, the big guys from the East not to mention our neighbors. This “get out of the way” political process seems to have saved Pura Vida from one hell of a heartache.
Look around and all we see is fire, hate and insecurity. But not in Pura Vida, we just roll along avoiding the “bullets” while not standing on one foot, but standing non-the-less.
Can you imagine Costa Rica involved in the Middle Eastern conflicts that have developed over centuries while we can hardly recall the national events of last week?
“Caliphate” is not some ingredient to make the typically bland local food taste spicy or with a little Lizano sauce. It is a dedicated, dangerous movement to create countries, regions, dedicated only to Islam. Oh, not the Islam we know but rather radicals, who have no mercy beyond their Jihad government and philosophy.
Our crack international team has by decent, “A labourof love” not to even comment on the Philippines mass killings sponsored by its leader Duterte, and then there is the favorite common adversary, not Nicaragua who is impotent, but rather fear of Venezuela which is on fire with daily killings, threats for a “golpe de estado” (Coup d’état) and chaos bringing this ever rich country to its knees.
We must include and reading of the human tragedies in Syria, Assad, Afghanistan and the mass poverty in India.
All of these countries or regions are about living, breathing poor people. People like you and me, with the grace of God, have dodged homegrown planned or international acts of terrorism and political strife.
If it comes to push and shove, I will live with a massive bureaucracy and all those damn huecos (potholes).
he presence of Uber in Guatemala led taxi drivers to develop their own app. (Twitter)
he presence of Uber in Guatemala led taxi drivers to develop their own app. (Twitter)
Q24N – The controversial transportation company made the announcement on its website this week, listing Guatemala City, Antigua Guatemala, Mixco and Villa Nueva as the cities in which the application for requesting rides will be available.
“The technology behind our application, the different payment method options and our rigorous quality standards help ensure that drivers are available and that every trip is safe and comfortable,” Uber said in its official statement.
“With the arrival to Guatemala, Uber reaffirms its commitment to being a safe, efficient and accessible transportation option that improves the mobility of cities.”
In Guatemala, a user can pay Uber electronically by means of a credit card. Of the total charge, the driver receives 85 percent. At the end of the week, the company deposits the driver’s total payments into a bank account.
According to information on the company website, the minimum charge will be US $ 1.60, while the base rate will be US $0.70. The per-minute charge will be US $ 0.06.
“Uber is seen as unfair competition, because they enter (the market) and don’t pay any rights, licenses or authorizations for drivers,” General Manager of Amarillo Express Corporation Roberto Cantón said.
Last October, Guatemala had its first public protest by traditional taxi drivers against Uber.
On November 16, the taxi drivers created an alliance to strengthen their services before the arrival of Uber, with an application called Ciklo.
The application will be available in January 2017.
Q COSTA RICA, by Mitzi Stark. There’s good news from the tomato world. Costa Rica now has its very own variety named Prodigio. What does this mean for producers, the national economy and us, the consumers?
Tomatoes are the most popular food product in Costa Rica as well as in many other countries. We eat them mostly in salads but also in sandwiches and vegetable plates. But, like all agricultural products, they are subject to supply and demand which controls the prices, and to the whims of nature, meaning weather and bacteria in the soil or air. Tomatoes are rather delicate.
Photo by Mitsi Stark
Prodigio is a hybrid variety developed at the University of Costa Rica’s UCR) Fabio Baudrit Moreno Experimental Station in La Garita de Alajuela. And no, it is not artificially genetically modified. It was a laborious and often frustrating task of selecting parent plants and seeds and did not come about over night. It took more than twelve years to develop into the super size fruit on plants that range up to ten feet tall and call to mind Jack and the beanstalk.
But there’s more to Prodigio than super size. The regular tomatoes that we find in the market are grown from imported seeds and each year new seeds must be ordered. The plants and fruit are subject to a bacterial disease Ralstonia Solanacearum, found in the soil and water which affects the plants and fruit. And that’s just one of the diseases that attack the plants. This means a very short growing period and a huge loss in rotting and damaged fruit.
Prodigio stays healthy and produces up to a year, meaning more even distribution for consumers and better incomes for producers. Crops more than double the regular harvest.
The process began in 1994 when plant engineers Carlos Echandi and Marco Moreira made a search for seeds from tropical areas that resisted diseases and had commercial potential. They found several strains through the Vegetable Research Development Center in Taiwan, and others at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Then the testing began working with combinations to find one that resists diseases and produces a uniform product over a longer period of time. The new variety had to be productive in rain, wind and sun. Both men received advanced degrees from the University of Iowa in the United States.
After finding five varieties that met their criteria the researchers crossed them to produce hybrids and from the twenty results they chose four. These were then tested to see if the plants and fruit are consistent through ten generations. From these varieties the Prodigio was chosen. Then came field tests. Tomato farmers in different parts of Costa Rica planted one section of their plots with the common variety and one section in Prodigio.
Photo by Mitsi Stark
Prodigio, with hearty stalks and loaded with baseball size tomatoes, made the regular tomato plants look stunted.
At the Fabio Baudrit greenhouse the plants are grown for tomatoes and seeds and further study. The plants are vigorous with stalks thumb thick and wired to the ceiling. Tomatoes are “big enough for hamburgers,” explained Echandi. Walking into the tomato field is like entering a forest.
The new plant gained attention and support from the European Union, the National Institute for Innovation and Exchange of Agricultural Technology, the Interamerican Institute for Agricultural Cooperation and other leading organizations.
Photo by Mitsi Stark
Research continues, says Echandi. All plants are subject to bacteria and viruses and weather conditions. “We need to be sure that Prodigio meets all criteria in the future.”
Prodigio is already in production and the tomatoes are sold in farm markets and at the wholesale market in Barreal de Heredia. For producers there is also the added benefit that the experimental farm now sells seeds at a cost much lower than the imported ones. Production is still limited but is catching on. For its size, firmness and year round production this tomato will soon be on everyone’s plate.
For now seeds are sold in quantities of 1,000 and 3,000 a package and are not yet available for home gardens.
A massive group of CUbans arrived to the Floridai Keys this week. (PanAmpost)
TODAY CUBA NEWS – On Tuesday a group of 41 Cuban rafters arrived to Cayo Marquesas about 20 miles from Key West, Florida.
A total of 30 men, 10 women and a minor formed this “team,” which said that they left Cojímar, east of Havana, on Monday, December 12. According to the US Border Patrol, the Cubans embarked on a single-engine fishing boat.
All the immigrants were reportedly in good health and were transferred to the CBP Station in Marathon, where they were processed and sent to the World Service of Churches.
In a statement, CBP officials said the US Coast Guard was informed last Tuesday of “a maritime smuggling event involving 41 Cubans who landed in the Marquesas Keys in Florida.”
It was reportedly a Cuban fisherman who first saw the immigrants and contacted the authorities.
One official said that the boat the Cubans traveled on was stranded near the shore and launched into the water to reach the mainland.
On the same day, another group arrived to the Florida Keys, which came from Cárdenas. Eight adults and a minor were traveling on the boat.
According to several sources, the group of migrants was mainly of 25 people but it was divided after reaching a key.
Screen capture of Facebook page of 41 Cuban ‘balseros” reacing the the Florida keys.
The nine members told Telemundo that during the crossing of the Florida Straits, the inclemencies of the weather whipped what made them think that they would not arrive.
It is no secret that the number of Cubans who have arrived in the United States has increased dramatically since relations between the two nations were restored. In 2016, more than 50,000 more came to the US — a 25-percent increase from 2015.
The Dry Feet/Moist Feet policy says that Cubans who touch American soil can stay, while those who are intercepted at sea are returned to Cuba.
A view shows the U.S. embassy building in Caracas. The US government warned that the situation in Venezuela is only going to get worse. (El Venezolano News)
TODAY VENEZUELA NEWS – United States government officials warned its citizens looking to travel in Venezuela to leave the country as soon as possible, as conditions could get worse.
This Thursday, December 15, the US Secretary of State’s Foreign Security Advisory Council published a travel warning, saying that if the climate of security worsens, US citizens should be aware that they are responsible for arranging their own departure from Venezuela.
In the warning, which was first published on Twitter, Barack Obama’s administration included photographs of protests and street fires in Venezuela.
The US government asked citizens not to travel to the country due to the increase in violent crimes and social unrest.
It warned that the situation is unpredictable, and noted that Venezuelan security forces have arrested or detained US citizens with little or no evidence of having committed a crime.
“Political rallies and demonstrations occur with little notice, and are expected to occur more frequently in the following months in Caracas and throughout the country,” the statement said.
The political, economic and social situation in the country under President Nicolás Maduro has been negative. Inflation is the highest in the world, as are crime rates and insecurity, many surveys have said. The country also faces a shortage of food, medicine and other products that are creating a humanitarian crisis.
“Due to the scarcity of certain foods and medicines, American citizens must be prepared to meet their needs while they are in the country,” the State Department concluded.
Last night, Saturday, was the Festival de la Luz in San Jose, a magical time.
TICO BULL by Rico –You know it’s Christmas and you know school’s out by two simple events. The first one is the Festival de la Luz, the other is a total slowdown of the internet.
Let me comment on the second first. As soon as school is out there is a noticeable difference in the use of the internet, mostly in the speed and connection.
The end of the school year in Costa Rica is in the beginning of December. The new school year starts in February.
From the first days of the end of the school year to the new, you can experience at least a 25% drop in connection speed. In my case, connected to the www via Cabletica, my 12 Mbps down can get between 8 and 9 at the best of times.
Only in the small hours of the night, between 2am and 4am can I now see my 12, in between the speeds are from slow to a crawl to a standstill. This is most notable for us who work online, who are not just downloading (browsing or surfing the net), but actually sending data up to the server (or cloud). The connection speed advertises is mostly always the downspeed, internet service providers (ISPs) don’t make it a habit of telling you the upspeed. Back to my Cabletica, the 12Mbps sound great (for Costa Rica), but the 2 Mbps upspeed sucks, that is why they don’t highlight it.
These are the times you know school is out because sending a small image, for example, less than 100 Kb and getting confirmation to continue publishing, can take forever. Even more at times, if that is even possible.
As I sit, waiting for things to happen, I am quickly reminded, “school’s out”.
As to the first, the most magical time in Costa Rica is the one night of the Festival de la Luz (Festival of Lights), a time when the entire country comes together to watch, in person or on live television, the fireworks, the floats, the marching bands and of course Santa.
The night is a magical one.
In person, some arrive early Saturday morning (the even is always on a Saturday) to get a spot on the sidewalk. By early afternoon the few become the many. By dusk, there is little sidewalk space to call one’s own.
Up to only a few years ago, more than a million people – that is more than 20% of the country’s population – would gather in person in the area from La Sabana on the west side of San Jose, along Paseo Colon and the Avenida Segunda, to the Plaza de la Democracia on the east side.
Today, many prefer to watch it on television, avoiding the closed streets of the inner city, the ¢10,000 colones plus for a parking spot and head home madhouse at the end. The Municipality of San Jose doesn’t seem to place a lost of importance on what happens at the end of the festival. Shame.
Typically the Festival de la Luz is between the 9th and 12th of December. This year it was on the 17th, almost a week later. That was a good decision on the part of the organizers, since the rainy season this year didn’t leave San Jose until a few days ago. In the past a light drizzle was all part of the event, this year it would have been an all out rain.
Now that the Festival de la Luz is done with, what comes next in San Jose for Christmas?
Three important events: Zapote, Tope and back this year, the Carnaval.
The Zapote Fair,a alwasys, kicks off at noon on December 25. The annual event on the east side of San Jose this year may or may not include the bulls. As every year it won’t be up to the day before the event, even up to a few houre before, when the Health department gives the OK with the chinamos (street food), the megabars and the bulls.
It’s all part of the holiday traditions, what would we talk about if all was organized ahead of time?
On December 26 is the Tope, when the horses and their riders take over the area of Avenida Segunda and Paseo Colon, much in the same way of the Festival de la Luz, but in reverse order. The event starts on the east side and moves west to La Sabana.
The Tope is a daytime event. That means lots of sun and heat. And beer. Although drinking in public is illegal, for the most part the police close an eye.
Back this year, after a 10 year absence, is the Carnaval. The event on December 27 takes on the same route as the Tope. Filled with marching bands, cheerleaders, clowns and old cars, at least that’s the way it was, the Carnaval is an entire family event.
What I never understood in the past and this year is no different, why have the Carnaval after the Tope.
We know what the horses and the other four-legged and eventwo-legged animals do in public.
A team of street cleaners follow the end of the Tope to scoop up, but… well, enjoy.
The Colombian Ministry of Agriculture has introduced price controls on basic food items in Colombia during the Holiday Season (YouTube).
TODAY COLOMBIA NEWS – The Colombian government has signed an agreement with five major food warehouses in the country to impose price controls that freeze the price of red meat, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, and processed foods, with the exception of fruits and vegetables, until January 15, 2017, measures similar to those implemented in Argentina by Cristina Kirchner’s government.
The measure was reported by Agriculture Minister Aurelio Iragorri, who said that despite the fact that some of the major food producers did not agree with the measure, the nation’s largest were persuaded to participate, including: Corabastos (Bogotá), Cavasa (Calí) in the western state of Valle del Cauca, the Bucaramanga Supply Center in the northeast of Colombia, Granabastos (Barranquilla) on the Caribbean coast, and Surabastos (Neiva) in the south.
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Price controls freeze the price of red meat, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, and processed foods, with the exception of fruits and vegetables, until January 15, 2017
The measure was taken, according to the minister, to achieve food security for Colombians this year and into early 2017 following price swings that has occurred in recent months with some vegetables due to the entry of new crops and agriculture projects like “Colombia Siembra” (Colombia Sowing).
The agreement stipulates that the merchants can fix a price for the products in question, and then must subsequently publish them in the various points of sale so that the buyers are well informed of prices. However, this could present problems for merchants and traders.
In the eventuality that production costs go up and prices are set, merchants and grocers will see their profits reduced and the measure will harm their bottom line. Similarly, in the case of production costs going down, consumers will still be stuck paying higher prices stipulated by the agreement.
Minister Irragori said, in an interview with Blu Radio, that price controls are not mandatory and therefore we are not talking about the introduction of “food cartels” which fix prices. However, the government and the nation’s largest food producers and distributors have already established such an arrangement, albeit for now temporarily.
Photos from La Nacion report “30.000 familias todavía se ganan el sustento en cogidas de café”
Q COSTA RICA (Nacion.com) It’s 11am, Thursday, December 15. Veronica Quiros’ one-year-old baby is crying of hunger in the middle of a sunny coffee plantation in San Pedro de Barva, Heredia.
Her 10 year-old daughter reaches out for the infant lying in a basket full off fresh picked coffee beans, to give to her mother to breast feed, at the same time continuing picking coffee.
This is the only work this 38 year-old Nicaraguan woman has, with the help of her family who accompany her from their native Nicaragua, during Costa Rica’s coffee harvest season.
The Quirós family has been coming to Costa Rica to earn a living off coffee picking for the last 12 years.
“I come with my four children (22, 14, 10 and 1 year-old) because the more hands to help, the more we earn In the picking season, we eaen like US$500. We take that money to Nicaragua and we use it to pay for food, to fix the house and to buy school supplies,” said the woman.
This is the one of the several stories in the report by La Nacion of the some 30,000 families, not all Costa Rica, who live off coffee picking.
The coffee harvest season in Costa Rica begins in September and runs to March, December and January being the biggest production months.
However, the future for these families is in jeopardy given that Costa Rica’s coffee production is on the decline, with a per hectare fall in production of 30% in the last 15 years.
The main cause is the oldness of the country’s coffee plantations. More than 36,000 hectares (40% of the 92,000 coffee plantations) are more than 30 years old. The ideal production life of a coffee plant is 20 years.
This is compounded by urbanization, the impact of “roya” (the rust coffee plant virus) and climatic changes, contributing to a fall in production.
According to the Instituto del Café (Icafé) – Costa Rican Coffee Institute, some 76,000 pairs of hands are needed to collect the national production, which reaches some 2 million bushels (fanegas in Spanish). Each bushel is 20 baskets (cajuelas). The fanegas and cajuelas in coffee picking are industry standard.
Graphic from La Nacion report “30.000 familias todavía se ganan el sustento en cogidas de café”
The Icafé says that coffee farmers pay ¢1,070 colones (US$1.95) per each cajuela, which can take an hour or more to fill. Throughout the harvest season, picking coffee represents an income of ¢44 million colones (US$80,000 dollars) for the coffee pickers.
“In Costa Rica we do not have enough collectors; We depend on foreign collectors,” said Ronald Peters, director of Icafé.
The Icafé estimates 40% of the coffee pickers in Costa Rica farms are Nicaraguans; 41%, Costa Ricans (Ticos), and 19%, Panamanians. The majority of the collectors of Panama are indigenous of the Ngöbe Buglé ethnicity; They work, mainly, in the farms of Coto Brus and of the zone of Los Santos, in the southern zone.
It is common to hear in the coffee plantation the laughter and tears of the small children playing, while the older children work alongside their mothers and fathers, grandparents and cousins.
Although in Costa Rica it is illegal to put work a child under 15, in the coffee plantations children as 10 can be seen hard at work.
An example is the story of Darylene Hidalgo, a 10 year-old girl who begged her mother to take to the coffee plantation. They are residents of San Pedro de Barva, an area with a large coffee production.
The La Nacion report explains the schoolgirl accompanied her mother, grandmother and aunt, who collect coffee every year. The earnings are used to buy Christmas gifts, make tamales, pay for personal expenses and acquire some useful items.
“It’s the first time she (Darylene) comes to work with us. She is not obliged to work. She begged and begged me to bring her. On Monday she earned ¢5,000 colones, with that money she bought candies and potato chips. It’s good to bring her, so she gets accustomed to earning some money (platica in Spanish,” said Laura Herrera, Darylene’s mother.
To mitigate the problem of children working the coffee farms, the Casa de la Alegria (Home of Happiness) was created in the southern zone, a project born out of an alliance with several institutions, among them the Icafé, to provide daycare for the children of the coffee picking families, mainly from the Ngöbe buglé communities.
“The natives brought their children and put them to work, exposing them to diseases. This type of care, located in coffee plantations, is designed to give these children protection, according to their culture, while their parents work,” said Emilio Arias, president of the Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social (IMAS) – Costa Rica’s social assistance institute. In the country operate 17 Casas de la Alegría, where 454 children from Panamanian families are cared for. (BTW, the IMAS operates the duty-free shops at the airport, where the proceeds go towards social programs.)
Coffee pickers are quick to point out that the work is tiring and sometimes has to be done in the rain or under a scorching sun.
“For me, to come here is a change in the routine. I was without work and the money I earn helps me with expenses. Coffee is the main source of income for my home, from which I live on,” says Laura Herrera, while devouring bread with cream cheese and coffee from a bottle.
Laura is joined by her family that includes her grandfather, grandmother, five children and four grandchildren who get up at 5:00am, after breakfast heading to the coffee plantation.
The daily goal of this family, led by Maximo Inser, who live in Rivas, Nicaragua (30 minutes from the Costa Rica border), and come to Costa Rica to live and work for between October and February, is to collect the largest amount of coffee they can.
This family of 11 has been coming to the country, to work the Costa Rica coffee harvest, for the last eight years. In Nicaragua, the family lives in Nicaragua off the money they earn here.
“Among us we earn about ¢120,000 colones (US$220 dollars) a week. We all fill the bushels, in the end, we divide the money into three parts. Coffee is the only source of income for our entire family,” says Maximo Inser.
“In Nicaragua, everyone knows what they are going to use for what they earned. Generally, they spend it on paying debts and buying food. On Sundays, some take advantage to go to church or meet with friends,” says Inser, while laughing at the jokes his children make during the interview with the newspaper.
Coming to the country, picking coffee and leaving with the proceeds to invest in Nicaragua is the way of life of many of the families of that country that take part in the earnings of Costa Rica’s coffee harvest.
The Geoffroy's spider monkey mother and infant pictured above was photographed at Bosque del Cabo, an eco-lodge in the Osa peninsula of Costa Rica. Once a cattle ranch, the lodge has been buying land and working to restore it to a natural state over the last 30 years, recreating the habitat once lost to agriculture and providing native species with food and shelter.
Q COSTA RICA – Spider Monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) tend to stay high off the ground in the canopy of tropical forests of Costa Rica and can mainly be found in the Santa Rosa National Park, La Selva, Corcovado National Park, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve; may also be found in San Vito.
The Geoffroy’s spider monkey mother and infant pictured above was photographed at Bosque del Cabo, an eco-lodge in the Osa peninsula of Costa Rica. Once a cattle ranch, the lodge has been buying land and working to restore it to a natural state over the last 30 years, recreating the habitat once lost to agriculture and providing native species with food and shelter. Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch.
This species (Spanish name: Mono Araña) formerly was abundant all over Costa Rica and was more abundant in many parts of Central America. Now, due to hunting and deforestation, it is restricted to areas with patches of forest large enough to sustain its troop size. How intensively it was and is hunted depends on the area of Central America; but because it is one of the largest New World primate species, it is more vulnerable to hunting.
Spider monkeys are almost exclusively frugivores, but sometimes they will supplement their fruit diet with young leaves for additional plant-protein. Adults of both sexes can be more than 8 kg and 1.28 m long from head to tail-but the tail is longer than the body and head. Males may be slightly heavier and have a longer head and body length, but female tail length can exceed that of the male. Infants are 500 g at birth.
Here is five interesting facts about Spider Monkeys:
1. Spider monkeys get their name from their spider-like appearance when they hang by their tails from the bow of a tree. The prehensile tail is so strong and well-developed for arboreal life that it can be used as an extra arm. The tail even lacks hair on the underside so that the monkey can get a better grip on a branch while using both hands to gather fruit.
2. Spider monkeys don’t have thumbs on their hands. According to the Los Angeles Zoo, “The spider monkey’s genus refers to its absent thumb; in Greek ateles means ‘not complete’.” In reality, though, the spider monkey is simply more specialized and the thumb has evolved away because it isn’t needed. Their hands have only vestigial thumbs, the tiny nub left over from their ancestors, who did have thumbs. The absence of this extra digit gives the spider monkey a more hook-like hand with long slender fingers, providing a better grip to swing from branch to branch in its arboreal abode. Spider monkeys do have opposable thumbs on their feet, like most other primate species.
3. Spider monkey troops are matriarchal, meaning the females play a leadership role. Females actively choose their mates when breeding, and tend to make the decisions for the group. Wildlife Waystation notes that even the group size is ultimately determined by the alpha female of the troop.
4. Rather than leap from tree to tree, spider monkeys are specialists at swinging from limb to limb, and can clear great distances in a single swing. Spider monkeys can cover as much as 40 feet of distance with a single powerful swoosh of their arms. The hook-like hands discussed above, as well as extra mobile shoulder joints assist spider monkeys with their impressive moves.
5. There are seven species of spider monkey, all of which are under threat of extinction. Two species — the black-headed spider monkey and brown spider monkey — are critically endangered. The Geoffroy’s spider monkey, pictured here, is found in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and is currently listed as Endangered with habitat loss as the main threat to its survival.
TODAY PANAMA (Panamagringoguide.com) Some time has passed since I have published a Panama expat interview, and I’m excited to get this one up for my audience. I started conducting these one-on-one conversations with a variety of Panama expats about four years ago soon after the launch of my first book,
Samantha Whay Jenkins
The Gringo Guide to Panama: What to Know Before You Go . The first set of expat interviews was so popular that I kept doing them. Four ended up in my second book, The Gringo Guide to Panama II: More to Know Before You Go.
My third book – a memoir about my eight years in Panama as a female executive – is scheduled to launch in mid-2017. In that vein, though I now reside full-time in neighboring Costa Rica, I am still writing about Panama, and it’s in that spirit that I bring you this Panama expat interview with a lovely woman named Samantha Whay-Jenkins.
Meet Panama Expat: Samantha Whay-Jenkins
Samantha, or “Sam” as her friends call her, relocated to in the city of Panama from Madrid, Spain four and a half years ago in May 2012. While she hails originally from the Southeast part of England – Kent and Sussex, to be exact – which means she has that cool British accent, she lived in Spain for 21 years.
What a Feat: Opening a School and Starting a Business in Panama
Soon after she moved to Panama, Sam and I had the pleasure of meeting one another in the Panama British Chamber of Commerce, where we were both corporate members. Sam had come to Panama as part of the advance team for setting up a new international school – Kings College Panama (www.KingsCollege.com.pa,
Sam came as part of the Kings College Panama advance team in 2012.
a division of Kings College Madrid) – prior to its pening in September of 2012. For the first 18 months of her new life in Panama, she worked alongside her sister, the school’s director, in getting the school up and running through its first full year of operation before launching Kings Training Panama, a consultancy offering custom training and organization development for companies. Since 2014, Sam has been dedicated her work as the full-time director of the training division.
Sam and I both served on the board of directors for the British Chamber during the time period when I was working with London & Regional Panama on the redevelopment of the former U.S. Air base into a new city (now called Panama Pacifico). It was through our collective service on the Chamber’s communications arms that we became colleagues and friends. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to speak to her about her experience living in Panama the past several years.
So, thank you again, Sam for your willingness to be interviewed and to share your story with the Panama Gringo Guide.
Panama Expat Sam Whay-Jenkins in her own words
From this point forward, I’ll do my best to let Sam speak for herself. Please note that post our Skype in November 2016, Sam had the opportunity to review and approve the content of this interview prior to its publication to ensure that my notes reflected her actual responses to my questions.
JuliAnne: Sam, before we leave the topic of your work, what kind of clients do you work with at Kings Training Panama?
Sam: Probably our best client is MIT (which stands for Manzanillo International Terminal – the port on the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal in Colon) though we work from large to small – with multinational companies all the way down to small business. We also do consultancy work in Panama, Mexico, and Chile.
JuliAnne: For those readers new to Panama who don’t know much about Kings Training, can you expound a bit on what services you actually provide in simpler language.
Sam: We do a lot of soft skills training ranging from leadership, communications, and performance management to customer service training, sales training, Train the Trainer and general HR consultancy.
JuliAnne: Since you’re located in Panama, are all the services offered only available in Spanish?
Sam: All of our services are offered in both English and Spanish.
This Panama Expat’s Take on Lessons Learned from Living in Panama
JuliAnne: What kind of research did you do before you moved to Panama?
Sam: None really. I had never visited Panama before I moved, nor did I do any research. Because I came out with my sister who came out to be the head director of the school, it was the project that drew me, versus the place. I was excited about the idea of setting up a new business – the training division previously mentioned. So, my sister had visited Panama twice but I never had prior to moving.
JuliAnne: I have to comment that that’s pretty brave on your part, Sam.
Sam: Well, I think it’s safe to say that I felt overconfident about my move because I was already a competent Spanish speaker. I assumed because this is a Spanish speaking country that that would make the move an easier transition for me.
JuliAnne: And how true did that assumption turn out to be, in your experience?
Sam: Mixed really. I spent the first three months saying “Pardon” to everyone who spoke to me, I couldn’t really understand the accent, the colloquialisms or the new vocabulary. It was quite depressing. As time has passed, I am more comfortable with the differences but I still use my Castilian vocabulary. Having said that I think that speaking Spanish has been my salvation in connecting with people, making connections and feeling more at home. Panamanians say that my Spanish is “Ye ye”, which basically means posh!
JuliAnne: What are the top three things you love about living in Panama?
Sam: I would say number one, living in a tropical climate so near to all of nature and so many animals. To this day – almost five years later – I continue to have a sense of wonder about the abundant nature in this country and all the kinds of animals.
Number two, I would say I love the sense of opportunity in Panama. It’s a fact that Panama is a small country, which means that literally every conversation you have can open up business opportunities for you.
Three, I have encountered some genuinely amazing people here. When I have connected with locals (as I do almost every day through the training programs I teach), I have created some pretty amazing relationships with people whose lives are very different than mine. While I’ve traveled before I moved to Panama, in the past when I traveled, I connected for the most part with people that were similar to me. Here in Panama, I’ve had a very different experience and that’s been really enriching.
What’s it Like to Be an Expat in Panama? Sam’s take…
JuliAnne: What are the top three things that drive you crazy about expat life in Panama?
Sam: Before I answer that, I’d like to say something about the whole ‘expat’ concept. Before I moved here, if I’d had any reservation about coming to Panama, it would have been that I normally don’t like expats.
When I think of ‘expats’, I think of the privileged ghettos where foreigners often set up in foreign countries – unto themselves like little gated compounds, apart from the locals and only mixing amongst themselves. When I lived in Spain, I tried to avoid those places (and the people that chose to live like that). ‘Expat’ for me tends to conjure the word ‘exclusion’ as opposed to the word ‘inclusion’. Even though it is very difficult to make friends with local people when you are not yourself a ‘local’, I really object to people who are not from a country who live in another country and knock it the whole time they are there. There’s a lot of expats in Panama who don’t have anything good to say about Panama, and I personally find that very draining and try to avoid them.
Having said that, one living abroad is an expat but I think you can live as an expat in very different ways than being a part of the typical ‘expat community’ that I experienced in places like Spain.
JuliAnne: Well said, Sam. I agree with your sentiments. It was my own experience of those kinds of expats in Panama – the ones that never stop griping – that led me to write my books, and to start the Panama Gringo Guide blog. So, thank you.
~ ~ ~ ~
My interview with Sam ran longer than originally anticipated…which is great news because it means there’s a lot more of what she had to say that can be useful to you, if you’re considering Panama for retirement, or if you’re moving to Panama.
That said, it’s way too long for just one post. So stay tuned and Part Two of my Panama Expat Interview with Samantha Whay-Jenkins will be posted here very soon!
For more about me, my bestselling books about Panama, and my writing in general, visit my Official Author website at: JuliAnne Murphy.com or check out my writing about my life in Costa Rica at La Pura Vida Costa Rica.com.
Samantha Whay-Jenkins, an executive who lives in the country of Panama and works with Kings Training Panama (a division of Kings College Panama), and I had a lovely conversation last month about her close to five years living there as an expat, what that has meant to her, and some recommendations she has for future expats in Panama – both on the personal level and related to business.
Part II of a Three-Part Panama Expat Interview
This is Part 2 of Sam’s Panama expat interview, in a series of three. So, without further ado, we’ll resume our conversation here. (Note that Sam has reviewed and approved this interview, prior to its going public.)
The Top Three Things about Expat Life in Panama that Drive Her Crazy!
JuliAnne: What are the top three things that drive you crazy about expat life in Panama?
Sam: Sure. But back to your question about the top three things that drive me crazy in Panama (as at the end of Part I of her interview, she got side tracked with a description of the definition of expats).
Here’s my list:
Panama traffic, Panama expat, expat in Panama, 2016 Panama expat interview, Panama gringo guide
The Juega Vivo mentality, which is the local habit of trying to take advantage of someone else; I find that quite hard to get along with, and,
The informality of things – like when you are making appointments and such. Often in Panama, this informality in business is a case of not the company or the individuals who run it not being very organized. On the other hand, it can be the byproduct of someone not respecting other people’s time. When you are trying to get things done in Panama and conduct business here, this informality or lack of respect for your time can be quite difficult.
Panama traffic can test even the most patient expat in Panama.
JuliAnne: Let me insert something about Juega Vivo here for a moment. This is not something I’ve seen in other countries – like Costa Rica, where I live right now. However, it is something that is rampant in Panama. As such, I talk quite a bit about it in my first book – for those that want to read up on it a bit more.
A Rude Awakening for New Expats in Panama
Sam: After I’d lived in Panama for 18 months, I lunched with two colleagues who asked me how I would describe the country based on my experience. I gave them a specific descriptor: ‘schizophrenic hybrid’.
JuliAnne: Expound on what that means please.
Sam: By that, I mean in living in Panama, there are two worlds – the ‘haves’ who have and tend to have a lot, and the ‘have nots’ who don’t tend to have much at all. There’s a growing middle class which in my opinion is growing very slowly, but there’s not a lot of services for middle class families at this point in time.
Because the rents in the city of Panama are very high (especially in the urban center where you are land locked by the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean), you either pay really crazy expensive prices for your goods – like for example in Panama’s upscale supermarket, Riba Smith, or you are worried about the quality and standards of products you can find in the lower-end grocery stores.
It’s the same with restaurants in Panama. Restaurants are pretty expensive here or you can go to the locally run places where they’re cheap. When you live in the ‘haves’ world, and you need something, you often can’t find it, or if you can find it, you get slapped in the face from the sticker shock of what it costs to get it. Either way – the lack of, or the sticker shock route – lead to a rather rude awakening that when you live in Panama, you live in the developing world, not the developed world.
As an expat living here, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’re living in the developed world, but then when you do normal things just trying to live your normal, non-work life, you find you’re actually living in the developing world. That fact can be quite challenging and tiring at times.
High rise apartments and condos in downtown Panama
JuliAnne: I like the way you described that phenomenon, Sam. Again, I’ve written a lot about this very topic as it relates to living in Panama, and, what you say is absolutely true. Often, people read a lot of marketing-driven ‘facts’ about the country which leads them to believe that when they move here, that the country is solely ‘developed’. Then, after they arrive, they‘re shocked when reality hits and they try to do something like open a bank account or get their cable hooked up or start a corporation, and everything moves at a snail’s pace.
Five Recommendations for Moving to Panama
JuliAnne: Based on almost five years here, Sam, what would be your top recommendations to someone considering moving to Panama?
Sam: Well, number one, language. I don’t know if I would still be here if I had not been able to speak Spanish when I moved here.
JuliAnne: Can you expound on that a bit?
Sam: I say that because the positive things that I have encountered in terms of relationships and in terms of business and how people view me has been easier and more positive because of my ability to communicate in the local language. When people hear me speak in Spanish, it seems to create an immediate kind of kudos between them and me. I believe that’s because Panamanians are used to having expats live here who have been here a long, long time and don’t speak a word of Spanish.
Panama expat, Spanish language courses, Panama, Panama Gringo Guide, 2016 Panama expat interview
Panama expat & executive Sam advises that learning Spanish will make living in the country much easier.
I believe one is simply more respected by the locals when that person moves to Panama and they learn to speak the language.
JuliAnne: That’s a very fair statement.
Sam: Number two, many expats move here and don’t comply with the things that Panama as a country requires for living here as a foreign resident. For example, Panama requires that within three months of living here, you need to get a Panamanian driver’s license. Many expats are either uneducated about these requirements or they choose to ignore them altogether. As such, when a local – even a police officer – meets someone that does comply with those types of standards – which I have in the past and continue to do – it’s kind of a surprise to them. And, again, when you play by their rules in these ways as a foreigner living here, it’s very much respected by the local population. So, my recommendation for those considering Panama as a place to live is that you research what the country requires of you and comply with those things. If you choose to reside here, do so within the legal parameters.
JuliAnne: Great. Anything else?
Sam: Coming back to the topic of language, the ability to communicate in English in Panama’s business circles is actually quite good. But in terms of relationship building, being able to communicate in Spanish will help a new resident here get off to a better start.
Heavy Traffic & Long Commutes in Panama
Unfortunately, when you live in the city of Panama, you will need a car. The culture is very American in that sense. Public transport, whilst cheap, can be difficult to handle as there are a lot of illegal carriers and many vehicles including taxis are in a dangerous state of repair. Walking is often not an option for the climate and also a total lack of pavements. Cycling, in my opinion is dangerous when you consider the way that they drive here. So, unfortunately a car is almost a must.
If you are coming with a family, make sure that you live near where your kids go to school (or that that distance between is small). If the mother figure is at home during the day, the family will want to live close to where she and the kids can create a network of support. (Long commutes in the crazy traffic here can cause major disconnection between members of the family and within the child’s social network of friends, in Sam’s experience.)
JuliAnne: Yes, yes, yes, I so agree. Being in the traffic here in the city every day for hours at a time is so stressful.
Sam: As an example, my office is located 1.8 kilometers from my home. But, on some days, that short commute can take me 40 minutes. In other countries, it’s normal to try to go to three to four appointments in a day. But here in Panama, that’s very difficult because of the traffic. Normally, here you can schedule a maximum of two, and sometimes three, if you’re lucky.
~ ~ ~ ~ An Insightful Expat Conversation
Wow. Good information, right? Very, very helpful stuff if you’re someone considering Panama – especially la Ciudad de Panama – as a place to live or work or if you’re considering starting a business in Panama or even buying real estate in Panama. Especially the traffic and time considerations. A special thanks again to Sam for lending us her time and having this conversation with the Panama Gringo Guide.
Because this interview is quite lengthy, you’ll see Part 3 coming soon right here, and Sam’s recommendations and insights about doing business in Panama. This is very valuable advice, as Sam currently serves as the President of the Panama-British Chamber of Commerce, one of the city’s well-known and trusted sources of reliable information and connections for expats in Panama.
You can see more on me, my writing, my blog about expat living in Costa Rica, and questions, right here.
Pura Vida! (That’s how we close a conversation or a meeting in Costa Rica). And Saludos (this one is more Panama).
TODAY VENEZUEAL NEWS – Insightcrime.org – Venezuela’s dire economic situation is fueling piracy off the coastal state of Sucre, providing one example of the various illicit activities growing along the country’s Caribbean coast that have come to affect local communities.
The ongoing economic crisis in Venezuela has hit the once-thriving fishing industry in Sucre particularly hard, pushing local fisherman to turn to illicit activities for sustenance, according to Associated Press.
“People can’t make a living fishing anymore, so they’re using their boats for the options that remain: smuggling gas, running drugs and piracy,” union leader José Antonio García told the news service.
The media outlet said pirates target local fishermen to rob them of their netted fish or the boat’s motor — the latter item being particularly valuable for drug traffickers looking to increase the horsepower of their vessels.
The Associated Press reports that some of these thefts have turned deadly. Dozens have reportedly been killed during robberies this year, fueling bloody vendettas between some of the victims’ families and the aggressors.
Acts of piracy along coastal Venezuela also affect other states and other types of victims. According to the International Chamber of Commerce, four anchored cargo ships were boarded this year close to Puerto de la Cruz in the Anzoátegui state, to the west of Sucre.
Acts of piracy against cargo vessels or private yachts off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast have been reported for a number of years now, and Sucre’s waters were already considered highly risky as far back as 2010, according to a report by a Venezuelan non-governmental organization working on maritime security. But the country’s dire economic situation appears to be contributing to an increase in piracy targeting large and small commercial interests alike.
Moreover, the economic hardship seems to be encouraging many to become involved in other illicit activities like drug trafficking and human smuggling as opportunities for legal work dry up. These trends are illustrated by recent press reports from El Estimulo, which quoted a local fisherman admitting that “at least 80 percent of the inhabitants of [San Juan de las Galdonas, a coastal town in Sucre] are involved in” drug trafficking, and the New York Times, which reported on an increase in human smuggling on the Caribbean coast as thousands of Venezuelans attempt to escape their country’s devolving economic situtation.
A man burns a 100-bolivar bill during a protest in El Pinal Carlos Eduardo Ramirez/Reuters
TODAY VENEZUELA NEWS – Venezuela has become a country mostly without cash, sparking protests and looting around the country as people fumed at having their already limited purchasing power cut off almost entirely.
As the nation’s most widely used banknote went out of circulation, the higher-denomination bills that were supposed to replace the 100-bolivar note had not yet arrived at banks or cash machines. That forced people to rely on credit cards and bank transfers or to try to make purchases with bundles of hard-to-find smaller bills often worth less than a penny each.
Indignation at having to deal with an economy even more paralysed than usual sparked social unrest on Friday. Police put down looting near a bank building in the large western city of Maracaibo with several arrests. Young men marched down the street after growing tired of waiting outside the bank to turn in their money. They shouted and waved their useless 100-bolivar bills in the air, then turned and ran as police in full riot gear began firing tear gas canisters.
Mobs looted several businesses in the remote eastern state of Bolivar. In total, authorities said there were protests and looting in six cities, leading to 32 people being detained and one injured.
In Caracas, some people passed the day banging on pots and cursing the government’s apparent lack of planning. There was no cash to be seen changing hands on the street or inside shops, and no sign that the new bills were on there way.
President Nicolas Maduro made a surprise announcement Sunday that the 100-bolivar note would go out of circulation by the week’s end amid the world’s highest inflation. He also temporarily closed the border with Colombia and Brazil, and then on Thursday night extended the border closure for another 72 hours.
Mr Maduro said the closure was needed to thwart “mafias” who hoard bolivars. Critics mocked the notion that gangsters would choose to keep their wealth in the world’s fastest-devaluing currency. The 100-bolivar bill — until now the country’s largest denomination — is worth little more than 2 cents (0.015p), down from 10 cents at the start of the year.
The embattled president held up a new 500 bolivar bill on his television show on Thursday, promising the new banknotes would soon be in wide circulation and offering to temporarily cut sales tax for credit card transactions. But on Friday, ATMs were still issuing only the now-worthless 100-bolivar notes.
Mr Maduro also said the government has begun to circulate new 100- 50- and 10-bolivar coins, but few seem to have reached the public.
Venezuelans waited in lines hundreds of people long all week to deposit their cash. On Thursday, shopkeepers put up signs saying 100-bolivar bills would no longer be accepted. That meant many people looking to buy food or take taxis were out of luck, as banks had run out of lower-denomination bills like 50 and 20-bolivar notes during the week, and had not yet received the higher-denomination replacements.
Amid the currency chaos, the US cautioned citizens against visiting the economically spiralling South American country.
“Political rallies and demonstrations occur with little notice, and are expected to occur with greater frequency in the coming months,” the State Department said in a travel warning. “If security climate worsens, US citizens should note they’re responsible for arranging their own travel out of Venezuela.”
But there was little sign of political activity of any kind Friday, as people scrambled to figure out how to exchange bolivars for goods and services in an economy essentially operating without paper money.
TODAY VENEZUEAL NEWS – On Thursday, December 15, 2016, the U.S. State Department issued a “Venezuela Travel Warning” for its citizens against travelling to Venezuela, “due to violent crime, social unrest, and pervasive food and medicine shortages” in the country.
The warning stated that security measures adopted in that regard may restrict the services the United States Embassy can provide in Venezuela.
The US Embassy in Venezuela may not be notified of the detention of a US citizen and consular access to detainees may be denied or severely delayed, Efe reported.
The US government also reminded its citizens that “Venezuela has one of the world’s highest crime rates, including one of the highest homicide rates.”
The U.S. Department of State warns U.S. citizens against travel to Venezuela due to violent crime, social unrest, and pervasive food and medicine shortages. All U.S. direct-hire personnel and their families assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas are subject to an embassy movement policy that limits their travel within Caracas and other parts of the country. These security measures may restrict the services the Embassy can provide. Country-wide shortages of food, water, medicine, electricity, and other basic goods have led to social unrest, including violence and looting. Security forces have arrested individuals, including U.S. citizens, and detained them for long periods with little or no evidence of a crime. The U.S. Embassy may not be notified of the detention of a U.S. citizen and consular access to detainees may be denied or severely delayed. The detained citizen may be denied access to proper medical care, clean water, and food. This replaces the Travel Warning issued July 15, 2016.
Venezuela has one of the world’s highest crime rates, including one of the highest homicide rates. Violent crime – including murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking – is endemic throughout the country. Armed robberies and street crime take place throughout Caracas and other cities, including in areas frequented by tourists. Heavily armed criminals are known to use grenades and assault rifles to commit crimes at banks, shopping malls, public transportation stations, and universities. Criminals may take advantage of power outages to target victims when lights and security alarms are nonfunctional. Drug traffickers and illegal armed groups are active in the Colombian border states of Zulia, Tachira, and Apure.
The political and security situation in Venezuela is unpredictable and can change quickly. Political rallies and demonstrations occur with little notice, and are expected to occur with greater frequency in the coming months in Caracas and throughout the country. Long lines to purchase basic goods are a common occurrence throughout the country and there have been reports of unrest and violence while customers wait, sometimes resulting in looted stores and blocked streets. These incidents elicit a strong police and security force response that can include the use of violence against participants; several deaths have been reported during such protests. Due to shortages of some food and medical supplies, U.S. citizens should be prepared to cover their own needs while in country. In the event that the security climate worsens, U.S. citizens should be responsible for arranging their own travel out of Venezuela.
U.S. citizens may be detained and/or deported by Venezuelan immigration officials for not complying with visa or immigration regulations. U.S. citizens traveling to Venezuela must have a valid visa that is appropriate for their specific type of travel (tourism, journalism, employment, study, etc.)
Journalists must possess the appropriate accreditation and work visa from the Venezuelan authorities before arriving. International journalists are closely scrutinized and have been expelled and/or detained for lacking appropriate permissions to work in Venezuela or for participation in what could be seen as any anti-government activity, including observing and reporting on public health facilities.
Contact the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, located at Calle F con Calle Suapure, Lomas de Valle Arriba, Caracas at +[58] 212-975-6411, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. After-hours emergency number for U.S. citizens is +[58] 0212-907-8400.
Call 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States and Canada or 1-202-501-4444 from other countries from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).
Apple’s iPhone 8 won’t be the first smartphone out there to feature a curved display, but it may convince more smartphone manufacturers to build similar devices in the future. Now, a new report indicates that Apple, Google and Microsoft are all looking to partner up with LG Display for OLED panels that aren’t just curved, but can be folded.
South Korean multinational conglomerate Samsung is expected to be the leading supplier of OLED screens for the curved iPhone next year. But LG Display will compete with Samsung for Apple orders in 2018 when it’s expected to start mass-producing foldable OLED screens that could equip smartphones and tablets with curved displays, or devices that can be folded.
According to Korean site ETNews, it’s confirmed that LG will mass-produce foldable displays for Apple, but also for other major industry players including Google and Microsoft. That’s certainly an interesting detail considering we haven’t seen any rumor to suggest Google’s future Pixel phones or Microsoft’s Surface-branded devices could feature foldable screens.
It’s no secret that Google is going after iPhone customers with its Pixel design. Given that the iPhone 8 and Galaxy S8 are both expected to feature curved OLED displays, it’s likely that Google will also be interested in following suit, and improving the image quality at the same time.
Microsoft, on the other hand, may use foldable displays for that mythical Surface phone we keep hearing about. Or the company could create foldable Surface tablets that could be utilized either as tablets or smartphones. It’s unclear at this time when Google and Microsoft might release devices with curved or foldable screens. If they’re waiting for LG’s new OLED display factories to come online, then it’s not going to be until sometime after next year.
Samsung is the only company that can currently meet some of the curved OLED demand out there, but not all of it. That’s probably the reason why not all iPhone 8 models will get OLED screens next year. Apple is expected to eat plenty of Samsung’s OLED capacity in 2017, leaving little for its competitors. But rumors say that two out of its three handsets coming in 2017 will still use LCD screens, like every other iPhone released to date.
(Q24N) Insigthcrime.org – Authorities in Panama say they have seized more drugs in 2016 than in any other year since 2000, and soaring cocaine production in neighboring Colombia may be the most likely explanation behind this rise.
Image for illustrative purposes
As of December 13, authorities had intercepted 62.3 metric tons of cocaine and marijuana — 7 percent more than last year’s total and nearly 60 percent more than in 2014. It also represents the highest annual drug seizure figure since the turn of the century, the Public Security Ministry announced. (See graph below)
Cocaine made up the vast majority — nearly 90 percent — of the seized drugs in 2016, at 55.5 metric tons.
“This was made possible through…more efficient operations, better teams and due to the strategies that we have established in the fight against drug trafficking,” Public Security Minister Alexis Bethancourt said.
The minister praised the results of Operation Shield that ran from May to June 2016, when authorities seized 3 metric tons of cocaine and arrested 300 people suspected of ties to drug trafficking.
He also applauded Operation Homeland, a one-month operation carried out at the end of 2015 which saw the seizure of $1.8 million in cash, and numerous arrests and drug interdictions.
As is often the case with drug seizures, Panama’s record figures could be the result of a variety of dynamics. While stepped-up efforts by the security forces may be part of the answer, it’s likely that higher seizures are also the product of an increase in cocaine passing through the country.
Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer, and Panama has historically been its gateway for drugs heading up to the United States. According to the US State Department’s most recent estimates, up to 90 percent of all cocaine entering the country passes through the Central American corridor.
Given its geographic location, Panama is bound to be affected by Colombia’s ongoing explosion in coca crops. Cultivation have soared to double the 2013 levels, and this has been accompanied by record cocaine seizures in the Andean country.
What’s more, officials from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently told InSight Crime that there are indications that Colombian criminal groups known as “BACRIM” — which are largely responsible for the country’s transnational drug trafficking — have been increasing their presence on the Panamanian border over the past year.
The home base of Colombia’s most powerful BACRIM, the Urabeños, is right along this border region, and the group has long used the Caribbean coast as a departure point for illegal drugs. Despite a large-scale police operation against the Urabeños, a number of huge seizures linked to the group prove that they still have an impressive operational capacity on the drug trafficking front.
Panama’s changing security strategy could also be partly responsible for the record seizures. President Juan Carlos Varela has responded to rising production in Colombia by announcing that interdiction efforts would be bolstered, and the government has allocated funds to set up a new Special Anti-Narcotics Unit.
This article originally appeared on Insightcrime.org and is republished here with permission.
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – In a circular dated November 7, 2016, Costa Ricaabruptly changed its migration policy to stop visitors using visas for the EU’s Schengen zone or for Japan from entering the country.
Signed by the Director of Immigration, Gisela Yockchen Mora, the circular “Eliminates possibility of entry with Schengen visa” and “Eliminates possibility of entry with Japanese visa“, among other changes, causing many “problems,” according to officials
The decision was not explained. The circular by the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería (Costa Rica immigration service) says, “After two years of studies, we proceed with the issuance of a new guideline containing the necessary changes based on international agreements and of convenience for the Costa Rican State’.
The new guidelines went into effect this past Tuesday (December 13, 2016) as the country gears up for the end of the year tourism and also the start of the “high” (tourist) season.
“There has been a change in the past few days for Schengen visas and we have had problems with many people for this reason,” reported the AFP, adding that a number of European embassies did not seem to be aware of the change.
The European Union’s Schengen zone encompasses 26 countries, including some non-EU countries.
The decision does not affect citizens from most European countries or the United States or Japan, who do not need a visa at all to enter Costa Rica. Also, holders of multiple-entry visas for the United States are not affected. They could still use a valid, multiple-entry US visa to enter Costa Rica.
For visa info about travelling to Costa Rica, please consider the following information (from costarica-embassy.org):
1. Americans do not need a visa to enter Costa Rica. However, they must have a current valid passport and a return ticket to exit Costa Rica. (Either to return to your country or to go to another country). US passport must be valid for a minimum of one day from the day you enter Costa Rica.
2. Citizens of other nationalities do not need a tourist visa to enter Costa Rica if they have atourist visa, a visa for crew or a business visa (multiple entry) from United States of America, Canada, Japon, Schengen Visa and/ or any country of the European Union . Note: Such visa must be stamped in the passport and be valid for at least 1 day (The length of stay may not be greater than the validity of the visa and may not exceed 30 days) or 6 months (Japon) from the day you enter Costa Rica.
3. If the foreigner has permanent residence, a student visa, a work visa in the United States and/or any country of the European Union and Canada, he/she does not need a visa to enter Costa Rica. In addition, he/she must have a passport valid for at least six months from the date of entry into the country and a round trip ticket. Note 1: This type of visa must be stamped in the passport, and must be valid for at least six months. Note 2: Permanent residents must submit their residency card (i.e. green card), which must be valid for at least six months. Note 3: The residence proof stamped on a passport, refugee status, parole or work cards are not accepted. If this is what you have, you need to find out if you need a tourist visa at the Consulate of your jurisdiction.
Why not share your new Mercedes that is not being used at the moment? Peer2Peer Carsharing in Munich.
Why buy a Mercedes when you can share one? A pilot program in Munich, Germany, Croove, the new carsharing platform from Mercedes-Benz, brings together vehicle owners and rental customers.
The idea behind this new service is private car rentals for private users, also known as peer-to-peer.
The concept is simple. The Croove app guides the vehicle owner through every step with model details, trim level, photos, availability, price and location of handover.
‘ Millions of cars are only used for a few hours a week – and we take care of the rest of the time. ‘
Daniel Rohrhirsch, founder of Croove
Now the Mercedes is available to rent by registered Croove users (www.letscroove.com). Clear and simple communication between the owner and renter ensures a seamless transaction and the vehicle owner can now optimize usage of the vehicle and earn money at the same time.
Launched in Munich earlier this month (December 2016), Mercedes, on completion of the pilot phase, will decided whether Croove is to be extend to other German cities.
For example, Ms. X needs to attend a meeting to where it is very difficult to reach by public transport. Ms. X selects the coming Monday as the date on the Croove app and can immediately see a list of available vehicles. She chooses an E-Class which is parked nearby and its cost. The app offers alternatives such as a A or CLA class.
The cost of gas is added to the rental price, so there’s no confusion over who is paying for the fuel.
In the Munich test, potential rental customers must be at least 21 years old and hold a valid driving licence. Vehicle owner and rental customer check the vehicle’s condition at collection and return and document it in a digital checklist in the Croove app. Cashless payment is made via the app. Done!
Mine, yours, ours
Sharing is already well established in many other industries and countries. And it’s not just about maximizing the commercial value of your possessions. For many users the social aspect is also important
Somebody offers something, somebody else needs it – and the two are brought together by a common platform. Sharing has become something of an ethical stance for some people, with many viewing responsible sharing as good sharing. And in the process private ownership becomes more communal.
Sort of an Airbnb, but for cars.
Europe is currently the largest market for carsharing with around 2.2 million members across several communities and almost 60,000 vehicles, according to a recent study by Berkeley, University of California.
Germany is the largest single market, with North America in second place with over 1.6 million users and nearly 25,000 vehicles. Significant growth has been forecast for the carsharing sector around the world, but most of all in China.
It’s fun to place your trust in others (with your car)
The only issue with the service is one: letting someone else drive your Mercedes. However, Mercedes promises that “it’s fun to place your trust in others”. Seriously, that’s their line!
Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler AG is no stranger to car sharing; the company owns and operates Car2Go, a shared vehicle platform where it offers a fleet of Smart and Mercedes vehicles to members in cities in the United States, Canada, China, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, who use them on an as-needed basis and pay only for the time they drive.
As TechCrunch notes, car sharing also becomes something that Mercedes-Benz and other carmakers can use as a purchase incentive, however – almost like an alternative form of financing, which can be used to help defray the cost of ownership.
This article originally appeared on Costaricaextra.com and is republished here with permission.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced that the measure would be effective during the weekend
TODAY VENEZUELA NEWS – Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Thursday instructed authorities to extend for more 72 hours the shutdown of the common borders with both Colombia and Brazil in a final move to end the so-called “fight against mafias” smuggling the Venezuelan currency out of the country.
In that connection, Maduro stressed that the border closure would involve strict military and police cooperation on Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week, Efe reported.
The Head of State added that a “plan has begun” in the border areas. “I want good, harmonious relations in all the border areas,” he continued.
Maduro claimed he would continue with trade relations with Colombia. “We are prepared to keep on importing from Colombia, yet through legal trade,” he concluded.
TODAY VENEZUELA NEWS – Insightcrime.org – the National Bolivarian Police used its informal WhatsApp networks to share the results of an operation that led to the rescue of a 65-year-old businessman, who, according to the police, had been kidnapped the same day.
The operation was carried out in the Tuy Valley’s La Bonanza landfill in southeast Caracas. According to the police, the area is home to the kidnapping gang led by a man known as Buitre, or “Vulture.” Three men, including a 16-year-old adolescent known as “El Fresa,” were killed during the first stages of the police operation.
Shortly thereafter the police returned to the site and found the kidnapped man inside a truck. The criminals supposedly returned to the area and exchanged fire with the police. All of them were killed.
The dismantling of the gang was celebrated on social networks. According to newspaper reports, a bunker had been built in the landfill and was used to detain the people the gang kidnapped. However, there is no photographic evidence yet of this structure.
Only a decade ago these deaths would have caused a public outcry. According to Inti Rodríguez, Research Coordinator for the Provea Human Rights organization, this is no longer the case. On the contrary, “there is a consensus between the government and the opposition with respect to the necessity of using tough measures against the public security crisis.”
Classified data from the Interior Ministry (Ministerio de Relaciones Interiores – MRI) shows a significant increase in the number of deaths associated with clashes between criminals and military or police officials, which are registered under the technical classification of, “resistance against authorities.” During the first nine months of 2016, a total of 4,156 deaths were registered under this classification.
In other words, this year Venezuelan security forces have killed an average of 15 people per day, or one person every one and a half hours.
Not all cases of “resistance against authorities” result in death. According to Roberto Briceño León, the Director of the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, death occurs in seven out of every ten of these cases. In 2015, the ratio was four of every ten cases.
At All Times of Day
The eight killings in La Bonanza took place between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., which according to the MRI is the time of day that the most deaths occur.
However, a significant portion of these killings also takes place between midnight and 3 a.m., when police activities normally decrease.
This would appear to suggest that police officers use the early hours of the morning to carry out violent activity. Well-known among these activities are the “People’s Liberation” operations, which began in July 2005 in Caracas’ Cementerio and Cota 905 sectors. According to one of Provea’s spokespersons, between then and October 31, they caused the deaths of 805 people. Approximately 560 of those deaths took place this year.
At the time of this writing, one of these operations was taking place in Caracas’ Pinto Salinas sector. Following the precedent of previous operations carried out across the capital, the operation began in the early hours of the day.
Statistics based on police reports indicate that most of the deaths caused by clashes with police occur on public routes, highways and in parks (48.7 percent), and another significant portion in neighborhoods located on the outskirts of cities and rural villages (36.4 percent).
However, police reports show little information as to the places where these deaths really occur. According to Rodríguez, field research shows that the agents enter people’s homes and execute the alleged criminals when they have surrendered and are in police custody.
Although the prosecutor’s office tends to avoid talking about these cases, in August 2015 it had to go public after a police officer in Carabobo State killed a young man and then later returned to the house where his uncle lived and killed him as well in order to erase any evidence.
In the same month, five Aragua policemen were detained after a video went public, showing the officers killing a man, after which three others were allegedly killed.
Police vs. Thugs
One of the reasons that could explain the increase of police violence is the growing number of criminal gangs in Venezuela, as well as the arsenals they maintain.
“This uptick in the number of gangs was not something we were aware of and, unfortunately, it looks as though the police are a part of these criminal groups as well,” said Donnagee Sandoval, Director of the Fundepro foundation, which offers public officers legal assistance.
The reported number of policemen, military and security guards killed in Venezuela as of October (342) suggests that this year could break a new record. It also shows that there is no clear balance between the number of public officers and criminals killed.
The ratio of agents to criminals killed during clashes in 2016 is 1 for every 13.
Furthermore, according to Sandoval, only 61 officers were on duty when they were attacked — that is, only 17.4 percent. According to one of Provea’s spokespersons, during the 2016 “People’s Liberation” operations only one police officer was killed by criminals, and only three injured.
Even so, police deaths concern the government due to their ever increasing numbers in the last few years. During a meeting with heads of the country’s police forces, the Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Major General Néstor Reverol, suggested that criminal gangs could be considered “paramilitaries,” which he claims is sufficient to warrant a greater use of lethal force against them.
Since the appointment of this military officer from the National Guard last August, the average number of people killed by police has reached 525 people per month. According to Rodríguez, the discourse on the fight against an “internal enemy” has become so prevalent that government practices are unlikely to change any time soon.
“There is a consensus that may hinder the implementation of other policies. The biggest concern is that our justice system is partial and corrupt, which allows for 98 percent impunity in crimes,” he warned.
This article originally appeared on Insightcrime.org and is republished here with permission.
A colonial house with a courtyard in the centre of Granada: a cool US$1.3 million!
TODAY NICARAGUA This six-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath house, known as Casa Blanca, is in the heart of Granada, Nicaragua, a small western city founded in the 1520s along the shore of Lake Nicaragua. The rich colonial heritage of the city, one of the oldest in Central America, is reflected in the stately architecture of this and other buildings.
Casa Blanca, a colonial house with a white concrete facade and a red-clay tile roof, was built in the 1750s for a wealthy family from Spain, according to Carlos E. Gutierrez, a broker for Nicaragua Sotheby’s International Realty, which is listing the property. The two-story house, with a two-car garage, is on the corner of the pedestrian-only Calle La Calzada, near the Granada Cathedral and Central Park, the bustling city center.
“It’s a pretty optimal location,” said Trevor Barran, the managing partner of the Sotheby’s affiliate, which opened for business last spring.
The current owners acquired the property about five years ago, Mr. Barran said, and they spent two years renovating and upgrading it, restoring myriad architectural details throughout the 6,000 square feet of living space. Those flourishes include coffered and vaulted ceilings with tongue-and-groove, or machimbre, paneling; wood molding; and encaustic floor tiles handmade locally. The furnishings, most from the Managua manufacturer Simplemente Madera, are included in the sale. Ornate wrought-iron gates enclose the doors to the two main entrances, which open to a large central foyer with a seating area, one of three designated living rooms. The ground floor also contains four guest bedrooms, three of which have en-suite baths, and a small en-suite bedroom suitable for staff off the modern kitchen. All the bedrooms except the staff quarters have air-conditioning, Mr. Barran said.<
The master suite, with a TV alcove and a spalike bath, encompasses the second floor. It includes a balcony that offers views of the cathedral and overlooks the home’s lush central courtyard. Nearly every room on the first level leads to the courtyard, which is landscaped with tropical foliage like aloe and ginger plants and features an open-air dining area and a 40-foot pool.
Granada, with a population of around 120,000, is about 28 miles from Managua, the capital. It is a 55-minute drive to the Managua airport and around three hours to the airport in Liberia, Costa Rica.
MARKET OVERVIEW
As Nicaragua’s past political turmoil has faded in memory, the country has become a popular tourist spot and a second-home destination, according to real estate agents.
The real estate market “really opened up” from 2002 to 2004, when there was “tremendous growth for the country,” said Mr. Gutierrez of Sotheby’s. By 2006, “the market was booming,” he said.
After the 2008 global financial crisis, “everything just went into hibernation,” he added.
But sales and prices have rebounded in the last four years, agents said. “People feel confident about the country,” said Carlos Gutierrez, a residential developer and an owner of Casa Granada Properties, a real estate agency based in Granada. (He is not related to Mr. Gutierrez of Sotheby’s.)
Home sales across Nicaragua are up, on average, 15 percent to 20 percent from a year ago, said Mr. Gutierrez, the developer. In Granada, “the rental market is also really growing,” he added, “because people want to try it out first before buying.” He estimated that rental volume in the city is up about 40 percent over the last five years.
Although prices in Nicaragua have been rising — doubling in some beach communities since 2007, according to agents — home values remain far lower than in neighboring countries like Costa Rica. (The price for a three-bedroom, fully renovated home in Granada, for instance, typically starts at around $170,000, according to Mr. Gutierrez, the developer.)
“Property values are around 50 percent less than Costa Rica,” Mr. Gutierrez of Sotheby’s said. “Nicaragua reminds me of Costa Rica 30 years ago.”
WHO BUYS IN NICARAGUA
Buyers from the United States, Canada and Europe have been active in Nicaragua’s housing market, particularly at the higher end, agents said, with most of them looking for second homes or development properties to hold and use.
“About 10 years ago people would just buy as an investment, but there are really no speculators anymore,” said Eduardo Cabrales, a lawyer based in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.
Granada has had an influx of expatriate retirees, agents said, because of the city’s affordable cost of living, along with its colonial charm, walkability and shops, restaurants and other amenities.
BUYING BASICS
There are no restrictions on foreign ownership, except for properties near the borders “for homeland security reasons,” Mr. Cabrales said. In fact, policies and laws encourage foreign purchases, such as a residency program that offers tax incentives to retirees, he added.
Foreigners, though, have fewer mortgage options available, so purchases typically are in cash, he said.
It is essential for buyers to hire a good lawyer, preferably one who can provide a reliable translation of the purchase agreement and be present at the closing on behalf of the buyer, Mr. Cabrales said. The lawyer will also need to conduct the necessary due diligence, which includes the key step of reviewing the title deed, or escritura, to ensure there are no liens against the property or ownership issues.
Each transaction typically involves just one real estate agent, who is paid a commission, usually by the seller, of 5 percent to 8 percent of the sales price.
There are various other fees involved in a transaction — these are typically paid by the buyer — such as a federal transfer tax of 1 percent to 4 percent of the assessed value of the property after it is registered to the buyer.
Other expenses include the annual municipal tax of 1 percent of the assessed value of the property, as well as fees for a lawyer and a notary (although many lawyers are notaries). The lawyer’s fee is typically 1 percent of the purchase price, Mr. Cabrales said.
TODAY NICARAGUA NEWS – Nicaragua has hired a K Street firm to represent its interests in Washington, the country coming under scrutiny and international criticism over allegations that it rigged elections to keep President Daniel Ortega in power.
The Gephardt Group signed its contract with Francisco Obadiah Campbell Hooker, Nicaragua’s Amabassor to the United States, on Dec. 1.
The details submitted by K Street to the U.S. Justice Department say that the company will be holding meetings with congressional and executive branch officials to influence policies “that contribute to the economic and political relations between the Republic of Nicaragua and the United States of America, as they arise.”
The one year contract is worth US$35,000 per month.
The Obama administration has had “a cordial relationship” with Nicaragua, but decades of criticism from the U.S. government haven’t been forgotten by President Ortega, who fought against U.S.-backed rebels in the 1980s.
“Now it’s us, the Nicaraguans, who decide because we no longer have a single Yankee general here,” Ortega commented. “It’s we Nicaraguans who count the votes. This is a sovereign democracy.”
The U.S. State Department also expressed concerns following Ortega’s recent re-election to a third consecutive term, charging that he kept opposition candidates from participating and refused to allow local poll monitoring.
“The United States is deeply concerned by the flawed presidential and legislative electoral process in Nicaragua, which precluded the possibility of a free and fair election on (Sunday),” said U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner in a statement
Nicaragua has been forging a closer relationship with Russia. The two signed a security agreement this year, in which Russia has been supplying Nicaragua with military aid and training. Russia also plans to build a new embassy complex, anti-drug training center and satellite station in Nicaragua.
Last week, Ortega met with Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitri Rogozin, according to both Latin American and Russian news sources. The two leaders discussed strengthening business and diplomatic ties between their countries.
Relations between the United States and Russia have been strained, with the tensions reaching new heights during the U.S. presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community says that the country likely interfered in the elections with the aim of bringing President-elect Donald Trump to the White House.
Q24N – Former media baron Conrad Black, who once through Toronto-based Hollinger Inc. held control of Costa Rica’s newspaper La Republica, had this to say about Donald Trump in the article “Conrad Black: Donald Trump understands America in ways smug Canadians can’t” published in Canada’s National Post.
La República was the only Hollinger owned Latin American paper. The Hollinger media empire that once reached across North America, Europe and the Middle East.
Black was convicted in U.S. District Court in Chicago in July 2007, initially found guilty of diverting funds for personal benefit from money due to Hollinger International, and of other irregularities. The alleged embezzlement occurred when the company sold certain publishing assets.
From the National Post: A pandemic of denial over the incoming president of the United States grips his Democratic opponents, and, like most American fads and traits, is as strong in Canada as anywhere. It is now five weeks since the election, and we have watched an unprecedentedly asinine sequence of delusional activities to cushion the conventional wisdom from the impact of the result.
There was the recount, where the Green candidate, who garnered one per cent of the vote in the presidential election, rounded up over five million dollars from the Democrats to challenge the returns, where in Wisconsin approximately one vote was reduced from Trump’s margin of victory for every million dollars squandered in the recount. Even Jeb Bush, who spent over $200 million to garner seven per cent of the vote in Florida, where he had been a popular and successful governor, achieved more with his backers’ money (while Donald Trump paid for his own nomination campaign and made almost as much from the sale of trinkets and t-shirts and silly hats to pay for his big sweep).
There were, we were darkly assured, going to be deep fissures and mortal wounds in the Republican Party. Party chairman Reince Priebus, at daggers’ drawn with the candidate, we were assured, will be his chief of staff. The previous presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, an irreconcilable opponent, recanted everything during his lengthy but unsuccessful audition for secretary of state.
The president-elect named the wife of the Senate majority Leader, Mr. McConnell of Kentucky, who nine months ago had written Congressional colleagues that they would “drop (Trump) like a hot rock,” to his cabinet, to administer the renovation of decayed American infrastructure. Speaker Paul Ryan, who had scampered into the tall grass like a garter snake when the 11-year old Billy Bush tape was thrown into the hopper by the Clinton campaign, is beavering away with the Trump entourage to design and strategize the cyclonic legislative program that Trump has promised.
As there had never been any possible argument for the re-election of the Obama-Clinton Democrats, unlike the Eisenhower-Nixon Republicans in 1960, the Kennedy-Johnson Democrats in 1968, the Nixon-Ford Republicans in 1976, and the Clinton-Gore Democrats in 2000, all of whom lost their bid for a third term by a hair’s breadth (and it will never be known who really won the 1960 and 2000 elections), the entire Clinton campaign was a stentorian smear job on Trump, as, pre-eminently, a racist and a sexist. This has evaporated with his selection of high office-holders and his own general conduct. The whole Clinton campaign, in a phrase of Thornton Wilder, was “written on running water, written on air,” and it is a mnemonic and disagreeable feat to remember any of it.
Contrary to the wails of apprehension from the universal alarmist consensus, the transition process has been handled very smoothly and has produced widely admired candidates to fill the great offices of the United States government. The utter chaos that was predicted and expected to produce Don “Only in America” King as secretary of state and a particularly submissive and bosomy Miss Universe as White House chief of staff, has in fact put forward a universally respected four-star combat Marine general for the Pentagon, the first general to lead the Defense Department since the chairman of the Combined Allied Military Chiefs of World War II and author of the Marshall Plan, George C. Marshall, an uplifting precedent. Health-care reform, meaning without monopolistic insurance fiefdoms in each state, skyrocketing premiums, and seeking universal coverage with assured retention of existing doctor relationships, will be in the hands of the Congress’s principal authority in the field (Tom Price).
Education will be in the hands of Betsy DeVos, a champion of chartered schools, who will lead the final charge against the Luddite, know-nothing corruption of the teachers’ unions, who have destroyed the state education systems and to whom the Democratic Party is tied hand-and-foot. The Labor secretary (Andy Puzder), is perfectly qualified to complete the liberation of the American working class from the despotism of organized labour, now reduced to less than seven per cent of the work force. And the designated head of the Environmental Protection Agency (Scott Pruitt), will fight pollution and support conservation tooth and nail, but will not imagine that a possible one centigrade degree rise in the world’s temperature in 80 years for unknown reasons justifies fuelling automobiles with pablum, making every roof a crystal palace of solar panels, foresting windmills in every under-built area, except where it might discommode the scenic panorama of the altruistic rich such as the detritus of the Kennedys at Cape Cod.
There are the usual fussings about confirmation processes — it is all atonal whistling past the graveyard which is about to receive for interment the much discussed legacy of the Obushtons — Obamas, Bushes, Clintons. Donald Trump is right to call his narrow and numerically minority victory a “landslide.” He ran against all the Republicans and all the Democrats, the hackneyed Bush-McCain-Romney also-rans, the Cruz loopy-right, the Clinton-Obama incumbency, and the Sanders left, almost all the Washington media and almost all the polls, and the entire pay-to-play casino of lobbyists in the great Washington sleaze factory. He stormed Babylon and put them all to fire and sword. There were stylistic lapses in the campaign to be sure, but they were almost all designed to pull out the Archie Bunker votes and win Trump the Republican nomination with the votes of millions of people who had not been in the habit of voting. Since the nomination, there were relatively few gaucheries, and since the election almost none.
Taxes, spending, education, environment, campaign finance reform, health care, trade, and immigration are all about to receive as swingeing a stroke as Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the economy in 1933, and Trump has the mandate and the congressional majorities to do it. And the Democrats are still grumbling about Russian influence in the election and the electoral college system, mindless of their fate as Trump drives a mighty bulldozer toward them at 60 miles per hour.
And in Canada, in the same spirit as the CBC radio panel that two weeks ago felt Canada was necessary to advise him that not all of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims were at war with America, this week we had Lawrence Martin advise Brian Mulroney to “rein in” Trump, “protectionist, jingoistic, boorish, heapingly erratic” as he is. There is no dispute about Brian Mulroney’s diplomatic skills in dealing with the American presidents he’s known, and other world leaders, but he performed those feats as prime minister of a country that pulled its weight in the Western Alliance and contributed importantly to the satisfactory end of the Cold War.
Donald Trump does not need to be reined in. He has calculated every step of his campaign from the ridiculed dark horse of 18 months ago to the man who will be sworn as General George Washington’s 43rd direct successor in five weeks. To the extent any of Martin’s adjectives are applicable, it is just because Trump’s evaluation of tactical requirements makes them so. But Lawrence Martin actually warned the readers of The Globe and Mail on Tuesday that Michael Moore, the helter-skelter far left film-maker, torqued up by “Trumpian xenophobi(a),” had sounded the alarm that Trump has loaded his cabinet with “corporate-military statism … a fascist brew.” (Martin said pretty much the same thing about Ronald Reagan when he was Washington correspondent for the Globe 36 years ago.)
What mad national egotism, propelled by “arm-flapping moralism” (in the words of half-Canadian U.S. secretary of State Dean Acheson 60 years ago) propels Lawrence Martin to imagine that Canada has any standing to do anything but answer the phone if the White House calls. The Harper government, as it talked tough, allowed our armed forces to wither almost to the proportions of Slovenia or Costa Rica. Fortunately, Trump is not at all xenophobic, fascistic, racist or sexist. He is also not an advocate of “corporate-military-statism” any more than Harry Truman sought a government of haberdashers or Jimmy Carter one of peanut farmers. Trump saw that the U.S. system had become an anthill of corruption and hypocrisy and called it that. He promised to drain the swamp, and will do it; it will be a changed America in six months, and doubtless Lawrence Martin will ascribe it to Donald and Melania listening to the CBC each night in the White House. In this analysis, it is not the president-elect who has been sleepwalking through Fantasyland; he saw the American crisis plainly and launched one of history’s great democratic political movements to deal with it. The pure snowmen of the North plod cheerily on in Santa Lawrence Martin’s workshop, like happy elves incanting “High ho, high ho, there’s nothing about the U.S. we don’t know.” But there is.
PRESS RELEASE – A Concluding Statement describes the preliminary findings of IMF staff at the end of an official staff visit (or ‘mission’), in most cases to a member country. Missions are undertaken as part of regular (usually annual) consultations under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, in the context of a request to use IMF resources (borrow from the IMF), as part of discussions of staff monitored programs, or as part of other staff monitoring of economic developments.
Image for illustrative purposes only
The authorities have consented to the publication of this statement. The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the preliminary findings of this mission, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF Executive Board for discussion and decision.
Costa Rica’s economy growing robustly, GDP expected to growth by 4.25% in 2016
More needs to be done to stabilize public debt levels
Key for government and Congress to reach consensus on VAT and income tax reforms proposals to help address fiscal imbalances
An IMF team, led by Mr. Lorenzo Figliuoli, visited Costa Rica from December 12-15 to discuss recent economic development and the outlook for the country. At the end of the mission, Mr. Figliuoli issued the following statement.
“The economy is growing robustly. Real GDP is anticipated to expand in 2016 by 4.25 percent, up from 3.75 percent last year. Annual inflation has turned moderately positive again, reaching 0.6 percent in November, and is anticipated to return to the 2-4 percent central bank’s target range in the first half of 2017, as the impact of the decline in oil prices continues to dissipate and reflecting also the gradual pass-through of lower monetary policy rates. The external current account deficit is forecasted to narrow further to about 3.5 percent of GDP.
“The team welcomes the government’s strong efforts to raise revenue and contain expenditure growth through administrative measures, including a significant contribution from lower wage spending and from higher income tax collections, which will likely reduce the primary deficit by 0.5-1 percent of GDP in 2016. The team also welcomes the approval of laws to combat tax evasion, reform pensions paid out of the budget, and curtail unspent budgetary allocations of decentralized government entities, all of which combined should lower the deficit by an additional 0.5 percent of GDP in 2017 and beyond. Approval of the law re-introducing a corporate levy, currently under fast-track consideration in Congress, would also provide a small contribution to fiscal consolidation.
“However, these efforts are insufficient to place the fiscal position on a sustainable path. Indeed, the additional fiscal adjustment that will still be needed to stabilize the public-debt-to-GDP ratio over the medium-term at levels considered safe, while allowing for higher public investment critical for the economy’s growth potential, remains sizeable, at around 2.5-3 percent of GDP.
“The good performance of the Costa Rican economy in 2016 has been aided by very favorable global conditions, notably continuing low commodity prices and ample liquidity in financial markets. These, together with monetary stimulus by the central bank, have allowed domestic financing of the deficit without putting upward pressure on interest rates. Nonetheless, the persistence of large fiscal deficits and continued increases in the public-debt-to-GDP ratio make Costa Rica very vulnerable to sudden changes in international financial conditions, the risks of which have risen more recently. These could be triggered by shifts in the policy mix in advanced economies toward a greater reliance on fiscal expansion and a less accommodative monetary stance, or by other external shocks, including a reversal of the terms-of-trade gains of the recent past or possible revisions in trade policies of key trading partners.
“Overall, the global environment is turning less favorable and more uncertain for Costa Rica’s economy. It is thus crucial that its vulnerabilities are addressed expeditiously. And, without a doubt, Costa Rica’s main vulnerability is its unsustainable fiscal imbalance. For this reason, the team stresses the importance that the government and political forces represented in Congress reach consensus on the rapid approval of VAT and income tax reforms proposals currently under consideration. These could be usefully complemented by a public employment law and a fiscal rule, to limit current expenditure growth and enhance budget discipline over the long-term. The political window of opportunity to approve these reforms is closing fast, given the approaching electoral season. To avoid exposing Costa Rica to severe risks, a rapid resolution of the fiscal question cannot be postponed.”
FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2014 file photo, Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla arrives to Pajoques, Guatemala after clashes related to the building of a factory. Bonilla, a former army lieutenant colonel who has been head of the Interior Ministry since the current government began in 2012, is stepping down on Thursday, May 21, 2015 amid a growing political crisis and calls for President Otto Perez Molina and officials close to him to resign. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)
2014 file photo, Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla arrives to Pajoques, Guatemala after clashes related to the building of a factory. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)
Q24N – Insightcrime.org – Former Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio López Bonilla — a decorated war hero and a longtime US ally — finds himself treading water amidst a flurry of accusations about corruption and his connections to drug traffickers.
López Bonilla is not the most well-known suspect in the cases against former Guatemalan officials, but the multiple schemes connected to him represent the apex of the Guatemalan state’s spiral towards a mafia state, and the complicated and perhaps ongoing relationship between him and the international community.
In late 2012, Mauricio López Bonilla, then Guatemala’s Interior Minister, received a message from Marllory Chacón Rossell. At the time, López Bonilla was the United States government’s most important partner on security matters in Guatemala. The ministry controls the police and the prison system, and manages a budget larger than that of the vaunted Guatemalan military.
But the ministry was also connected to some dubious deals, such as the one that López Bonilla would soon forge with Chacón. Chacón was a known money launderer and suspected drug trafficker. The US government had been investigating her for years, and, in January 2012, the US Treasury had named her as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker.
In its press release, the Treasury Department said she had operations in Panama, Honduras, and Guatemala, and called her one of the “most prolific traffickers in Central America.” It added that she had laundered “tens of millions of US dollars in narcotics proceeds each month.”
More popularly known as the “Kingpin Act,” the Treasury’s designation made Chacón (pictured below) a target, not just of the US government but also of her underworld enemies and possibly high-level politicians who, after the designation, thought that she might turn on them.
When they met in person, Chacón confirmed this, telling López Bonilla that she was working with the “gringos” to clear her name from the Kingpin list, and that this had put her in danger. López Bonilla was not contacted by the US government about her case, and the Guatemalan government was not using Chacón as a cooperating witness against other traffickers.
Yet López Bonilla decided to dedicate government personnel and resources to protect her — specifically, he provided an armored vehicle and two trail cars staffed with six armed guards per shift who would accompany her wherever she went for the next several months.
The quid pro quo for this protection was never clear. Chacón would later say that no money was exchanged, but she claimed that she did invest in a private security company López Bonilla told her he was going to create. Guatemalan investigators said that López Bonilla collected money from Chacón, but they have yet to present any evidence of this and have not charged him with anything related to Chacón’s security detail. For his part, Lopez Bonilla did not respond to repeated requests to answer questions on the record for this story.
Still, López Bonilla’s “protection services” led to questions. Why had he offered state resources to protect a known money launderer? What was exchanged in return for this service? And if he knew about her criminal activities, why didn’t he jumpstart a formal investigation into her?
On these questions and many more, the answers get decidedly more fuzzy, but they are the core of a central issue floating around Guatemala these days: for some US and Guatemalan investigators, López Bonilla was the beating heart of what became a mafia state in Guatemala, combining both corruption and outright criminal activities to enrich himself, his family, and his business partners.
However, in public statements and declarations to the justice system, López Bonilla has denied most of these claims. He also has been a friend of the international community and played a key role in renewing the mandate of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala – CICIG), a UN-backed appendage of the Attorney General’s Office that has spearheaded the prosecution of numerous high level government officials including the president, the vice president and even López Bonilla himself. What’s more, the US has yet to indict him, an indication that he may still be a useful ally, even from his Guatemalan jail cell.
A Modern Military Man
López Bonilla sees himself as a modern military man, a US ally, and a friend of the international community. And, for a long time, the US saw him in the same way. His service to his government, and by proxy to US interests, dates back to his storied time in the military when Guatemala was enmeshed in a nearly four-decades long civil war.
The war was brutal, and at times without quarter, and López Bonilla lived it up close. In 1981, he led a group of more than a dozen Special Forces troops that dressed as rebels and infiltrated a guerrilla camp. After waiting weeks for the right moment, López Bonilla and his fellow undercover soldiers surprised and killed 28 insurgents from one of the most formidable rebel factions at the time. The daring act earned López Bonilla, who took on the nom de guerre “Don Damián,” a reputation for cunning and malevolence in an institution known for merciless acts.
The war also boosted the role of the military, which ran the government off-and-on for decades. At times, army generals took turns amongst themselves in the presidency. In 1982, as a young officer on the rise, López Bonilla participated in one such coup against a military government that replaced it with another military government.
López Bonilla quickly became one of the ad hoc youth spokespeople for the administration, which later became the most storied dictatorship in Central America. The new government, under the leadership of General Efrain Ríos Montt, implemented a scorched earth policy, killing thousands of suspected insurgents and civilians. López Bonilla was part of the Ríos Montt cabinet, or what was known as the “Special Advisory Board to the President.”
In the mid-1980s, however, López Bonilla turned his attention more to matters of peace and democracy. After Guatemala returned to civilian rule in 1985, he became the liaison with civil society groups and the private sector as the government sought to start negotiations with the rebels. One of his colleagues was then chief of the Presidential Security Service (Estado Mayor Presidencial – EMP), Colonel Otto Pérez Molina. The two would continue to work together in the early 1990s once formal peace talks began. Pérez Molina was the public face of the military for the dialogue; López Bonilla was the military’s private emissary — even traveling to Cuba to meet with rebel leaders — assuming a role that would later lead some of his former military cohorts to turn on him.
Peace was signed in 1996, and López Bonilla retired from the military in 1997, as the Guatemalan government was reducing its size by two-thirds as part of the accords. The end of the war changed the face of organized crime in Guatemala. Tight knit official cadres — often linked to graduating classes of the military academy — began forming sophisticated criminal groups.
These groups used their legal businesses, connections in the government, and experience in intelligence gathering to provide services for criminal groups ranging from human smuggling and illegal arms deals to contraband and drug trafficking. They also actively undermined any investigations into human rights violations committed by the military and other security forces during the war. Sometimes they paid off judges using money from corruption schemes. Other times, they organized hit squads to eliminate those investigating or accusing them of crimes.
Perhaps their most infamous act came on April 26, 1998, when current and former military personnel arranged for the murder of Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera and the cover up that followed. Gerardi, a prominent member of the Catholic Church, had led an effort to chronicle the human rights violations during the war. The results — titled Guatemala: Nunca Más — were damning for the government, particularly the military. Gerardi, it appeared, had paid with his life.
Eventually, these military-criminal networks took on a name: Illegal Clandestine Security Apparatuses (Cuerpos Ilegales y Aparatos Clandestinos de Seguridad – CIACS). And they would form the core of the reason why the government would later approve of the formation of the United Nations-backed CICIG to assist the government in its investigations of criminal organizations operating inside the state, which it has since 2007.
By the mid-2000s, some of these CIACS had morphed into something with a wider variety of partners and greater reach, which often included political parties and businessmen. Pérez Molina’s Patriot Party (Partido Patriota – PP) was the not the first, but it was the most successful, and it would meld these interests into the mafia state that emerged under his presidency.
Still, for a long time before he became president, Pérez Molina projected the image of a modern military man — a democrat with an ability and willingness to wield a stick. In addition to helping to forge the peace, he had a cordial relationship with the human rights groups, businessmen and the United States government. Just three years after forming the PP, he lost a presidential runoff in 2007, but secured the backing of traditional economic elites.
As Pérez Molina geared up for another run at the presidency in 2010, he chose as his running mate Roxana Baldetti, a former beauty queen turned congresswoman who was the head of the PP. He also reached out to another modern-day former Guatemalan military man, López Bonilla, to head up his campaign.
After the war, López Bonilla had become a private consultant working for businesses, governments and foundations around the region in security matters, risk analyses and communications strategy. One of his partners came under some scrutiny for supposedly running a smear campaign to undermine Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo. But for the most part, López Bonilla had stayed in the shadows.
Montejo, who is now in the United States serving time for drug trafficking, said that when he refused to pay he was stripped, beaten and water boarded; part of the torture was to put human feces in a bag and put it over his head.
He had also returned to school, earning an advanced degree in political science and obtaining credentials to certify airport, seaport and other operations. His companies helped operate x-ray machines at Guatemala’s airport and oversee parts of the country’s busiest port, among other services provided to the Guatemalan government and private industry in the country. It was, he would say later, “a resume of education and dedication, not that of a criminal.”
When Pérez Molina came to him with the offer to help his bid for the presidency, López Bonilla told him he would do it on one condition. True to his word, on November 10, 2011, just days after he won the presidential elections, Pérez Molina complied with his former comrade’s request and announced his first cabinet member: Mauricio López Bonilla.
The Model Prisoner
Shortly after he was named interior minister, López Bonilla received an email from Byron Lima Oliva, a decorated former army captain and prisoner at a jail on the outskirts of Guatemala City. López Bonilla is a few years older than Lima, but the two had crossed paths in the army. Both were Kaibiles, Guatemala’s special forces unit. López Bonilla knew Lima’s father, who had been a commanding officer when López Bonilla was rank and file.capitan-lima-oliva
López Bonilla’s and Lima’s wives had also met on more than one occasion, often at the nail salon of Lima’s wife in Guatemala City. Lima said the women had a close relationship and showed photos of his wife with Lopez Bonilla’s to prove it (see below). But López Bonilla would later say that the connection between their wives was a coincidence related to the proximity of his home to the salon. And the former minister vehemently disputed the oft-repeated characterization that he and Lima were tight.
Keeping his distance from Lima is imperative for López Bonilla. Lima and his father served jail time for the infamous murder of Bishop Gerardi. The elder Lima was released in 2012. The younger Lima, however, remained behind bars where he had been employing his training, his experience in intelligence and counterintelligence, his guile and his military contacts to take control of much of the penal system. There he developed his contraband networks and established businesses inside and outside of the prison, becoming rich in the process and establishing a reputation that he burnished via his Facebook page, “Byron Lima Presidente.”
Part of Lima’s contacts were at the top of the Patriotic Party. Lima had been a loyal soldier to Otto Pérez Molina for years, working with him in army intelligence and the EMP. He had also helped train the president’s son. He used these contacts to obtain a grant to promote rehabilitation inside jail prior to the elections. There Lima started a sweatshop that produced, among other items, bright orange shirts, hats and frisbees (see pictures below) for the PP’s 2011 presidential election. (To show his non-partisan capitalist spirit, the sweatshop also produced paraphernalia for Daniel Ortega’s 2011 presidential campaign.)
After the PP won, Lima expected payback, and it was in this context that he sent the email to López Bonilla. It was addressed to “,” the address López Bonilla had used during the campaign.
“Don Damián,” the email began, an intimate reference to the two men’s shared past in the military. “Here is the list of ideal people for the most important posts in the Penitentiary System’s Board of Directors, who will be the base for an optimal administration of your future activity as interior minister.” (See copy of email below)
It was the beginning of a series of strange coincidences in the relationship between the two men while López Bonilla was minister. According to Contrapoder, who obtained the email, of the 65 names on Lima’s email list, 36 became high level officials in the penal system. These selections included two people who became sub-directors as well as a host of important administrative personnel. Among the people Lima recommended were some of his military academy classmates, as well as at least one of Lima’s relatives, his father-in-law, who became a high level administrative staffer.
With his picks in place, Lima — who had already worked hard to secure control of the jail where he was held — had what he needed to exert even more control over the entire penal system: an email that showed he was working with the interior minister and several classmates in top positions pulling the strings. Contrapoder magazine declared that beginning in January 2012, when López Bonilla became minister, “the jails worked under the orders of a staff selected by a prisoner: Byron Lima Oliva.”
While López Bonilla was interior minister, Lima regularly left the prison to visit his wife and children (37 times in 2012, according to Contrapoder), and was reportedly spotted on more than one occasion in Guatemala City nightclubs, prison guards in tow. He also expanded his purview over the prisoners and their lives on the inside, providing everything from permits for businesses to computer classes to jobs. Prisoners also allegedly paid nominal sums upwards of $7,000 to be transferred between jails. “Need a job? A chat with Lima Oliva resolved that problem,” Contrapoder wrote. “You need someone transferred? The captain has the contacts to do that for you.”
According to Lima, López Bonilla would also communicate with him via various chat services and intermediaries, and Lima intimated that the quid pro quo was to be the eyes and ears in the penal system and the underworld.
López Bonilla saw Lima as a potentially positive influence inside the prison, especially as it related to work projects and control of the volatile inmate population, which suffer in overcrowded and decrepit conditions. Lopez Bonilla would later call this faith in Lima “naïve.”
Extorting Prisoners, Neutralizing Rivals
On June 10, 2012, Guatemalan authorities captured Walter Montejo, alias “Zope,” in the northwestern province of Huehuetenango. The capture was considered a victory for López Bonilla, and he was one of numerous leaders of several powerful Guatemalan drug clans who had been arrested in recent months. Once in official custody, though, these traffickers confronted a new regime: López Bonilla’s prison system, where Byron Lima held sway.
At some point, the drug traffickers and their families were threatened if they did not pay for what was politely termed a “protection” fee. Montejo, who is now in the United States serving time for drug trafficking, said that when he refused to pay he was stripped, beaten and water boarded; part of the torture was to put human feces in a bag and put it over his head. Montejo eventually paid an estimated $850,000. (Montejo also allegedly put an $800,000 price on Lima’s head.) Others paid as well.
Montejo contacted Marllory Chacón (the two had the same lawyer) to complain about how Lima was extorting him in López Bonilla’s name. By that point, Chacón’s relationship with López Bonilla had gone from utilitarian — and possibly financial — to personal. Chacón later said the two had discussed forming a private security company together that would work directly with the Guatemalan government. She also claimed that she gave him $500,000 for the venture, the only money the two exchanged, according to her.
With regards to this jail extortion case, Chacón relayed to him what Lima was doing to Montejo and the other prisoners, which led him to visit the prison where numerous traffickers were being held to assure them that he was not behind the extortion scheme.
For his part, Lima told InSight Crime that López Bonilla was behind the extortion of drug traffickers and claimed that it was his refusal to participate in the scheme that led to the rift between the two. He added that López Bonilla was jealous because of his relationship with President Pérez Molina.
“Instead of gaining an ally and using what I knew about the jails, he tried to demonize me for having a close relationship with the president,” Lima told me when we met in jail. “He tried to create a wall so I couldn’t have contact with [the president] and tell him how things were.”
To be sure, there was a certain tension within the Pérez Molina administration. López Bonilla was a trusted advisor and there were rumors that the minister was positioning himself to run for high office, possibly even president, but he was not part of the president’s inner circle yet. And in spite of his issues, Lima seemed to have a connection to the president that López Bonilla never did.
Lima was not López Bonilla’s only problem in this regard. Vice President Roxana Baldetti was also shutting him out of the presidential palace and strengthening her own power base by controlling the public works projects at the state level, as well as allegedly collecting quotas for various corruption schemes, including one that ran through the customs office.
At first, the minister confronted these problems on his own, but this backfired. When López Bonilla’s security forces intercepted Lima on his way back from one of his many visits to Guatemala City in February 2013, and paraded him in front of the cameras for violating his privileges, the fight between the two spilled into public view. In the months that followed, the former army captain boiled openly with rage, referring to López Bonilla as “Don Damián,” calling him a “communist,” and threatening to expose his nefarious schemes, which he said extended to government contracts to remodel the prisons, video surveillance systems and telephone services.
Before or during court appearances, Lima would also hint about López Bonilla’s criminal activities and their relationship. In one instance (see below), he showed the press the famous email he had sent to López Bonilla, along with photos of their chats and of his wife with López Bonilla’s wife as they exchanged gifts after one of them had traveled abroad.
With Lima throwing his dirty laundry into the street, López Bonilla turned to the CICIG, the UN-backed appendage of the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office. The commission had been in the country for seven years, but had produced mixed results. Many in the government, including President Pérez Molina and Vice President Baldetti, seemed ready to jettison the special judicial body despite its strong international backing, not least because there were indications that the CICIG was investigating their administration.
To survive, the CICIG needed both big cases and more allies in the government, and working with Minister López Bonilla, they got both. According to a former CICIG investigator, the minister provided the commission with vital information following the capture of Lima outside of jail, so that it could begin a formal investigation into Lima’s illegal schemes from prison. The information resulted in the first big, new case the commission had in years when it formally charged Lima in September 2014, for taking upwards of $7,000 to orchestrate the transfers of prisoners between jails.
However, by the next year, President Pérez Molina was still hinting that he would not renew the commission’s mandate. To distance himself from the political fallout of getting rid of the CICIG, the president created a special panel to study the matter and provide him with a recommendation.
The panel was made up of the Supreme Court President, the Attorney General, and Minister López Bonilla, and most believed that it would rubber stamp the president’s wishes to get rid of the CICIG. López Bonilla, however, surprised the others with his strong backing of the commission.
The CICIG also dropped its own bombshell on the process, when, just days before the panel was to present its recommendation to the president, the commission unveiled a massive customs fraud case. Dubbed “La Línea,” the case reached to Vice President Baldetti’s office and sent her top aide on the run from law enforcement. The special panel followed with its own recommendation that the president renew the CICIG’s mandate another two years, and the president accepted. Within two weeks, Baldetti resigned. Soon after, she was jailed.
El Pelón
In early 2013, Marllory Chacón and Interior Minister Mauricio López Bonilla had a meeting at her house. These types of meetings were not uncommon while the minister maintained Chacón’s state-sponsored security detail. Chacón did a lot of business in her home. She was sophisticated in her own way and a highly educated woman. When people came to do business with her at her house, she would make them feel comfortable and welcome, and they would talk freely.
What these visitors did not know was that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had installed listening devices and cameras in her house, and, as part of her cooperation with the US government, had asked her to continue her business as usual.
By various accounts, López Bonilla felt at ease in Chacón’s home as well, and even laughed when she presented him with a bribe from Jairo Orellana, a well-known Guatemalan drug trafficker. At 6’0, and some 220 pounds, Orellana, alias “El Pelón” or “Baldy,” cut a formidable figure (pictured below). He had risen through the ranks of the underworld — originally as a go-between for weapons for drugs deals with Colombian rebels — in one of the foremost drug trafficking clans in Guatemala because of his guile and his intimate and familial contacts with hitmen networks. When the Mexican group the Zetas took control of several eastern Guatemalan drug routes in 2009, El Pelón began supplying them with cocaine, furthering his stature as both tough and savvy. Eventually, he formed his own organization, which was known for theft and resale of cocaine moving through the country as well as its penchant for violence (although to this day, the drug trafficker disputes these characterizations).jairo-orellana
But while Orellana was known as a thug, he also understood the subtle game of bribery. And when he started to feel too much heat from authorities and rivals alike — which included a dramatic attack on a clinic where he was getting plastic surgery that had nearly killed him and left seven of his bodyguards dead — he had turned to Chacón because he knew she had access to the minister and could pass him a bribe. Chacón says that after López Bonilla accepted the money, he said he would put it into their joint venture — the security company.
The bribe, however, did not save El Pelón from authorities. In a dramatic raid on May 15, 2014, more than a dozen local special forces and international counterdrug agents riding in helicopters surprised and surrounded the drug trafficker in one of his mountainside hideouts. The firefight and chase that followed left a helicopter with numerous bullet holes, as well as one Guatemalan policeman and one of El Pelón’s bodyguards dead; a second bodyguard was injured.
“I never had any relationship — not through intermediaries of anyone — with drug traffickers,” López Bonilla later told the Guatemalan press. “On the contrary, after Jairo Orellana was captured, I received congratulations from the State Department of the United States for his capture.”
US Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield did send a letter to López Bonilla after Orellana’s capture (see below). (One investigator said that López Bonilla thinks it’s his “get-out-of-jail-free card.”) But according to Contrapoder, the operation happened behind López Bonilla’s back. The drug trafficker bought his security, the magazine said, by giving the Patriotic Party campaign contributions and by paying López Bonilla directly.
Commendation-Brownfield-LoboWhat’s more, the payments allegedly continued after Orellana was jailed. Prison authorities placed him in a special cell. Orellana had his room remodeled and painted, as well as added a bar, a flat screen TV, and a refrigerator. He also called in a few favors. Shortly after he was jailed, he got married to his longtime partner, Marta Julia Lorenzana — the daughter of his one-time boss and mentor, Waldemar Lorenzana — with whom he had a daughter. And he paid for the transfer of a rival drug trafficker who had stolen cattle from him. The rival was brought to his cell where Orellana beat him to a pulp for the transgression.
The Ideal Partner
On the surface, López Bonilla did much of what you would hope from an interior minister. He increased the size of the police. He obtained weaponry that the government could better trace to prevent leakage of weapons to criminal groups. He started a community police program, which includes 3,000 patrolmen. He improved the police officer school.
López Bonilla’s relationship with the DEA was also seemingly solid. His Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU) reportedly increased threefold from 18 to 60 members. His ministry also “nationalized” several US helicopters, training 3 police pilots and 15 mechanics. As mentioned, his ministry helped capture numerous suspected drug traffickers, many of whom were later extradited to the US.
The official has worked for 11 ministers, but had never seen anything like the type of corruption under López Bonilla.
He was a professional communicator, so he knew how to transmit concise and positive messages to the public, to the press, and to his counterparts. His sophisticated demeanor drew international partners as well, some of whom were the foremost specialists in the region on things such as drug policy and violence prevention.
However, beneath that surface, something was amiss. According to Guatemalan interior ministry officials and the government’s Office of Budgetary Affairs (Contralería General de Cuentas – CGC), López Bonilla contracted out nearly every aspect of the ministry’s business. The contractors were both friends and relatives, these investigators say. They included everyone from service providers to car rental services to huge telecommunications companies.
The contracts, according to the budgetary office, were wildly overvalued. What’s more, many of the contractors stood to get even more money because the ministry rented instead of purchased items. Ministry officials said López Bonilla’s ministry, for instance, rented armored vehicles and motorcycles for at least three years.
Four of the most scrutinized contracts his ministry signed were with the telecommunications giant Tigo. In 2014, Tigo secured the contracts to provide the ministry with video surveillance in six municipalities. The company, which is owned by one of the wealthiest people in Central America, was the sole bidder and rents as many as 5,000 video cameras to the government for as much as $2,000 per camera per month, representing a huge portion of the ministry’s budget.
“That contract has nearly bankrupted us,” one current ministry official, who wished to remain anonymous because the investigation into the deal is ongoing, told InSight Crime.
In all, the budgetary office asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate 23 “irregularities,” which range from rental of vehicles, video surveillance, food services, expansion of jails, to renting office space, purchasing uniforms, and contracting of personnel. (See Prensa Libre’s complete list of investigations here.)
On this last point, one current ministry official told InSight Crime that there are now six people working for the unit the official manages. When the official arrived, the unit had 70 people working for it; the boss of the unit traveled as much as three months per year, the official said, often sucking up per diems from both the ministry and the entity that invited the boss.
“People’s wives. Their kids. Their cousins. They all had jobs,” the official said.
The official has worked for 11 ministers, but had never seen anything like the type of corruption under López Bonilla. To describe it, the official had but one word: colossal.
The proceeds of these schemes were kicked up to the top, according to a joint CICIG – Attorney General’s Office investigation. The so-called “Cooperacha” case describes how money from corruption was handed over in cash or luxury items to President Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti.
López Bonilla was captured and jailed for the Cooperacha case in June of this year. Investigators say that López Bonilla gave 2,513,000 quetzales and $98,000 US dollars, money that was handed to the Vice President’s private secretary in cash and went towards purchasing vacation homes, a boat and a helicopter. López Bonilla was charged with illicit association, money laundering, bribery and fraud.
The schemes were designed to perpetuate a deeply entrenched pay-for-play system in Guatemala, which the CICIG – Attorney General’s Office designated as the “Cooptación del estado.” Roughly translated as the Capture of the State, the Cooptación case was an elaborate plan that investigators say began well before the PP took the presidency, and eventually involved dozens of operators, government entities and private companies.
The companies provided campaign contributions through third parties and later were the beneficiaries of favorable legislation, tax breaks, or government contracts. The example the CICIG – Attorney General’s Office provided was that of Radiotelevision Guatemala S.A. and Televisiete S.A., which they said provided contributions to Baldetti’s campaign via at least five companies in monthly payments that totaled Q17,679,200. Once the PP took power, investigators say the media companies received “multimillion” quetzal contracts.
At the heart of the Cooptación is what the participants euphemistically called the Incentivo Comercial Monetario (ICM), aka bribes. These bribes were to be at least “10 percent” of the value of the contracts. Investigators say there were at least 450 of these deals in place once the PP took power. The ICM, investigators estimate, were worth as much as Q500 million.
“The strength of the parties is not based on their political program or their proposals but rather their ability to bring in donors, candidates, [and] to attract contractors,” CICIG Commissioner Ivan Velasquez said when they presented the extraordinary case to the public. “At the same time, these donors do not establish connections with the parties for ideological reasons but for purely utilitarian reasons — the party is just a temporary vehicle to win a government post. And in this process there is no loyalty to any one party but rather a near constant effort to get reelected so that these political-economic-illicit networks can continue, maintain their power.”
Government investigators eventually implicated López Bonilla in the Cooptacion case. And when asked whether he would collaborate with the justice system, he remained defiant.
“Even if you connect me to the most despicable cases, I will take my secrets to the grave with me,” he told the court. “I don’t think it’s ethical to save your own skin by undermining a lot of people who once confided in you.”
Protecting Marllory
In early 2014, Marllory Chacón lured Hayron Borrayo Lasmibat to Paris for what Borrayo believed was an amorous encounter. Alias “El Oso,” Borrayo sold drugs and laundered money for the Zetas. His wife, Mirza Silvana Hernández Reyes, helped her husband conceal their earnings and had long been close to Roxana Baldetti, allegedly providing campaign funding to the Patriot Party during the 2011 bid for the presidency.
Part of what put Chacón in the cross-hairs was her knowledge of the relationship between Borrayo’s wife, Hernández, and Baldetti; it was part of what led then Minister López Bonilla to assign a security detail to her. The irony of this story is, of course, thick: López Bonilla was protecting a would-be informant of his then boss, Baldetti. Baldetti would have her own perverse revenge: her former top aide is cooperating against Lopez Bonilla in the corruption cases against him.
“Even if you connect me to the most despicable cases, I will take my secrets to the grave with me,” he told the court. “I don’t think it’s ethical to save your own skin by undermining a lot of people who once confided in you.”
Borrayo gathered his things and traveled through Mexico to France. When he arrived, he was captured by French authorities who deported him to the US to face drug trafficking charges. Chacón’s cooperation in cases like this led to the indictment of numerous other high level traffickers in the region as well, including several from Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia. One DEA agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, called her “perhaps the greatest asset we have ever had.”
But Lopez Bonilla was not privy to this information, nor was he part of the DEA efforts. During his dealings with Chacon, López Bonilla did not coordinate with US authorities. He never investigated or attempted to prosecute Chacón. What’s more, the protection detail lasted a long time — close to a year, according to Chacón.
In Lopez Bonilla’s defense, it is clear that Chacón was in danger and may have survived because of the protection. In addition to protecting her from the likes of Borrayo and Vice President Baldetti, Jairo Orellana also initially wanted her dead because he blamed her for the 2012 assault on the clinic that nearly killed him.
Sensing the increasing danger herself, Chacón left the country in early 2013, and in September 2014, officially surrendered to US authorities where she began her judicial proceedings. These culminated in May 2015, but the case is sealed, as is the final sentence. That sentence could be lowered as she continues to cooperate with US authorities, including the evidence she collected while in Guatemala.
The recordings from her house are perhaps the most damning evidence against López Bonilla. They reportedly show the then minister accepting the bribe from Jairo Orellana. Orellana was extradited to the US in September 2015, where he is also reportedly cooperating with US authorities on multiple investigations including the potential case against Lopez Bonilla. Lopez Bonilla says Orellana is simply trying to get a better deal with the US government.
“Criminals are always going to try to negotiate a better situation when they have to confront justice, and that’s the same in the United States,” he told journalists when asked about the accusations of his relationship with Orellana. “They are always going to say that they had some kind of relationship with some official or [talk about] something specific that happened.”
It was in May 2015 that the Patriot Party-run mafia state also began to crumble. The CICIG brought its now famous corruption case La Linea against the Vice President and the President, leading to their resignations and indictments in Guatemala. López Bonilla also resigned, and spent more than a year jockeying to stay out of jail before he was arrested for the Cooperacha case.
“Time will finally determine the truth,” he would later tell a judge. “The absolute truth will rise above.”
(The “absolute truth” quickly started trending on Twitter (#verdadverdadera) and inspired more than a few memes.)
From jail, his old nemesis Byron Lima beckoned, adding new charges to his list of López Bonilla’s transgressions such as calling him a “tumbador,” lingo in the underworld for someone who steals money and drugs from other drug traffickers.
“Whoever does bad, gets worse,” Lima told the press during one court appearance. “And we are awaiting his arrival in jail. I hope he stays here in Guatemala. Let’s see what jail that thief, ‘tumabador’ Don Damián gets put into.”
The rivalry also spilled onto Lima’s Facebook page where he regularly posted pictures of López Bonilla, along with disparaging remarks. When López Bonilla was arrested on the corruption charges, memes appeared on the page depicting López Bonilla’s terror at serving jail time in Lima’s kingdom. (See below) “There’s not enough room in this world for the two of us,” Lima reportedly told his former army comrade.
In the weeks after López Bonilla was incarcerated, there were attempts to clear the air between them, but it was too late. On July 18, Lima and his entourage were ambushed in the prison where he was being held. The attack left the former army captain and 13 others dead, and it opened a series of questions about who might be powerful and savvy enough to kill him. In this discussion, López Bonilla’s name came up as a suspect.
For López Bonilla, more trouble followed. Just days after Lima’s assassination, a 2014 recording taken in jail between one of Orellana’s bodyguards, a jailed prosecutor and a drug trafficker named Eduardo Villatoro appeared on social media. In the recording the prosecutor talks about a raid on an alleged drug trafficker’s farm in which money, drugs and purebred horse were reportedly stolen from the farm. The men speaking on the recording blame López Bonilla, calling him on several occasions a “tumbador,” the same way Lima had described him. The prosecutor later confirmed that it was him speaking in the audio.
The US has not yet formally indicted Lopez Bonilla, and it is not clear if it will. But following López Bonilla’s arrest, the Guatemalan press said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally requested information from the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office about the case. This would presumably include the alleged payment from Orellana, accusations of him being a “tumbador,” and, of course, the former minister’s interactions with Marllory Chacón.
*This investigation was done with the assistance of Sweden. Additional reporting was provided by Julie López and Héctor Silva Ávalos.
This article originally appeared on Insightcrime.org and is republished here with permission.
President Santos and former President Uribe with Pope Francis in the Vatican
TODAY COLOMBIA NEWS – President Juan Manuel Santos and former president and current senator, Alvaro Uribe, met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, in a bid to build consensus on the peace deal with the FARC.
Uribe has been the deal’s harshest critic, arguing penalties for human rights violations by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels are not stiff enough.
“The Vatican proposed this meeting to President Santos and he accepted,” Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo told journalists. “We hope it will bring positive results.”
Santos signed a modified peace deal in November, after the first version was rejected in a plebiscite. Though Santos and Uribe met after the vote, the new accord does not include opposition demands that FARC leaders serve traditional jail sentences and be banned from forming a political party.
Some 7,000 rebel fighters are now making their way to special demobilization areas to hand over their weapons.
Santos and hardliner Uribe were once allies – Santos served in his predecessor’s cabinet and Uribe backed Santos’ first presidential bid. But the two turned against each other over the peace deal, the centrepiece policy of the Santos administration.
Pope Francis repeatedly expressed his support for the deal over four years of negotiations.
Congress recently approved the deal and the constitutional court has ruled that laws relating to implementation can be sped through approval processes, key to safeguarding a ceasefire and reassuring nervous rebel commanders.
The conflict in Colombia, which includes a smaller guerrilla movement as well as paramilitary groups and narcotrafficking gangs, has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions.
QBLOGS – They are potholes or in Costa Rica, we call them “huecos” and they are a national shame resulting in undeserved accidents, deaths, and car damage.
It is a shame that communities even my neighbors and I need to patch these things before a bike, motorcycle or even a car hits one and either loses control or the driver grits his/her teeth to the “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” of even the best of cars.
Why do we have to repair or make passable these holes in the road, some the size of a six person Jacuzzi? If the roadway is asphalt it automatically poses a danger and most certainly damage to the vehicle. It is the way our experts at MOPT, lay and tamp the material, not to mention the type of asphalt employed which is the least expensive and applied by hand.That is if a government work crew can find the time to fill in the hueco between coffee breaks, lunch and just an “I don’t care” attitude because “I don’t have a car.”
The general rule of thumb is for a crew of only God knows who sets up shop to manually, not to be confused with rollers, drop “cold” asphalt which most as any engineer will tell you has no long-lasting effect.
Translated that means “Good until the 1st tropical rain.”
Much like vigilantes, neighborhoods have filled these death traps with rocks, cement, wood and anything else to make the passage drivable.
Imagine the tourist coming to Paradise and trying to navigate the holes on the road. We all know that when you see, on an asphalt service, a puddle of water and it is not raining…watch out for the giant hueco.
A number of kilometers (Miles) on an engine are not so important as the condition of the suspension, brakes, and tires. Drivers in Paradise go through sets of each almost twice per year or they do not drive very much.
Every Sunday I shun the bike riders on the highways…but there are only a few huecos to hit on their expensive, thin wheels. I am too harsh on them because on Route 27 it is announced such mischief as bike riding is flat-out prohibited. Although few are given citations except in the infamous case of one of our national hero, cyclist Andrey Amador.
Costa Rica secured three top 20 rankings; vehicle crime rates, 20th; motor death rates, 15th; and road quality, 3rd
Costa Rica secured three top 20 rankings; vehicle crime rates, 20th; motor death rates, 15th; and road quality, 3rd
Q COSTA RICA NEWS – New research by Global Positioning Specialists (GPS) in Australia has identified the most dangerous countries to be a driver.
Experts at GPS in identifying the most dangerous countries to be a driver, investigated road quality, the number of road deaths, and motor vehicle crime statistics in 60 of the most car-dependent countries around the world. Each country was assigned a score for each factor based on their national statistics; the countries that had high road death and crime rates and low scores for the quality of their roads made it to the top of the list.
Findings of the report include:
Costa Rica ranked as the 4th most dangerous country to be a driver
Costa Rica secured three top 20 rankings; vehicle crime rates, 20th; motor death rates, 15th; and road quality, 3rd
Five of the top 10 most dangerous countries to be a driver were in Latin America: Uruguay, 2nd; Colombia, 3rd; Costa Rica; Guatemala, 6th; and, Chile 7th
Italy ranked 9th as the most dangerous country to be a driver, 2nd in most vehicle theft, with 295 thefts per 100,000 population
The United States, ranked as the 12th most dangerous country to be driver and the 6th highest motor vehicle theft rate equating to 216 thefts per 100,000 population
Canada ranked 18th in the most dangerous country, with a vehicle crime rank of 8 and 39th in road traffic deaths
Moldova is 1st place position for the worst quality of roads
There is no question that drivers, especially in underdeveloped areas, are faced with the dangerous task of navigating hazardous roads. But while these roads test the skill of the drivers there are some dangers that can be more detrimental than others.
Top 10 Most Dangerous Countries to be a Driver:
Top 20 Most Dangerous Countries to be a Driver – Table:
Credit: Global Positioning Specialists (GPS) www.gps.com.au.
