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Striking down gender abuse: Judge Linda Casas, right, sentences a man to 15 years of prison on Tuesday for abusing a woman in the first application of Costa Rica's law against violence against women since it was ratified two years ago. |
Photo courtesy of Judicial Branch
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Return of the moth: The Tetrisia florigera makes an unexpected appearance after going unseen for 98 years, says Costa Rica's Institute of Biodiversity. |
Photo courtesy of INBio |
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Costa Rican president calls for tougher
measures against Honduras’ current government |
| President Oscar Arias is calling for more political and economic sanctions against the recently installed Honduran government and a stronger stance by the United States in order return ousted leader Manuel Zelaya back to power. |
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| Businesses begin to face the music, and pay for it |
| According to Costa Rican copyright law, if a person or business obtains commercial benefit from the communication, performance or playing of recorded or live music, then a corresponding fee must be paid. Thus, businesses that offer music, such as hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs, have begun to pay a fee for their use of music to FONOTICA, the Costa Rican recording industry trade association. |
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| Anti-mafia bill passes first vote in Costa Rica |
The long awaited and highly-touted bill against organized crime appears poised to become law as early as this Thursday. |
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| After 98 years, moth makes an appearance |
Showing up again after nearly a century of going unseen, a Costa Rican moth brought renewed hope to conservationists and entomologists recently when it was collected for the second time, affirming that it is likely still thriving – but keeping to itself. |
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Why Most Ticos Don't
Want to Migrate to the U.S. |
Unlike the inhabitants of all of the other countries located between Costa Rica and the U.S.-Mexican border, Ticos are not interested in migrating north to look for better lives. And they are not interested in moving south, west or east, either. |
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Costa Rican president calls for tougher
measures against Honduras’ current government |
President Oscar Arias is calling for more political and economic sanctions against the recently installed Honduran government and a stronger stance by the United States in order return ousted leader Manuel Zelaya back to power.
As the newly appointed president of the Central American Integration System (SICA), Arias' words carried a little more weight this week as he assumed leadership duties of the organization. It was good timing for the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, whose own country had outlawed its military 60 years prior (in part, to avoid similar events) and who has long preached a message of demilitarization.
“What happened in Honduras is a setback for democracy in Central America and Latin America,” Arias said in a statement released Monday night. “We thought we had turned the page on coups in the last century. But (it is evident) that we did not.”
In response to the evolving situation in Honduras, Arias urged the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) to suspend loan disbursements and to postpone all cultural, political, financial and sporting events in the country.
He didn't go as far as to cut off Costa Rica's trade to Honduras, an action that Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador pursued following the coup.
"For an economy as weak as the Honduran one and a country so poor, the people are going to be harmed,” Arias told a Costa Rican radio station, Radio Monumental, on Tuesday. “I hope that the measures take effect very quickly, so that people do not continue to suffer."
He was quick to add that such sanctions are necessary: “We should not let it pass without punishment….”
Arias expressed confidence in the leadership of the United States in responding to the situation in Honduras.
He called Barack Obama "a president who is different" and said this is a “great opportunity to (shift foreign policy) away from that of the Republicans who were previously in the White House.”
Zelaya has plans to return to Tegucigalpa on Thursday, accompanied by the José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States. |
–EFE and Tico Times |
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| Businesses begin to face the music, and pay for it |
By Adam Williams
Tico Times Staff | awilliams@ticotimes.net |
According to Costa Rican copyright law, if a person or business obtains commercial benefit from the communication, performance or playing of recorded or live music, then a corresponding fee must be paid. Thus, businesses that offer music, such as hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs, have begun to pay a fee for their use of music to FONOTICA, the Costa Rican recording industry trade association.
The National Tourism Chamber of Costa Rica (CANATUR) conducted a study that analyzed the fees that FONOTICA charged for use of copyrighted music. The fees are based on minimum wage, which is around $11 per day, and capacity of each location.
CANATUR, which has 213 members that offer lodging, found that if all the businesses in the hospitality sector incurred this fee, they would pay approximately ¢14.145 million ($24,590) per month between them. Though this fee is divided among individual hotels and businesses, the additional cost could cause particular worry for smaller businesses, which are already pinched financially with lowered tourism revenues reported this year.
“Calculating these numbers helps us to understand that smaller businesses will be the most affected,” said Gonzalo Vargas, president of CANATUR. “The added cost will make it increasingly difficult for them to operate, particularly because in the first quarter of this year there was a 12 percent decrease in tourists as compared to last year.”
When CANATUR included other tourism businesses, such as bars, restaurants, clubs, air lines, tour operators, transportation and other recreational organizations, CANATUR estimated that its affiliates all together would pay ¢17.993 million ($31,281) per month for commercial use of music.
The fee is calculated through a formula based on capacity and minimum wage. For example, if a club has a capacity of less than 200 people, it pays a fee of five minimum wages per month. The rate of the fee increases in accordance to the size of capacity.
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| Anti-mafia bill passes first vote in Costa Rica |
By Mike McDonald
Tico Times Staff | mmcdonald@ticotimes.net |
The long awaited and highly-touted bill against organized crime appears poised to become law as early as this Thursday.
After more than a year of being thrown back and forth between the floor of the Legislative Assembly and legal committees, the bill has shot through the debate process after being officially loaded onto the discussion docket last week.
The bill passed the first debate on Tuesday morning with ease and will enter the second and final necessary debate this Thursday.
Legislators are confident it will pass.
“We very pleased,” said Libertarian Movement legislator Luis Barrantes, who has been pushing for the bill since it entered the Assembly. “They agreed on a very important piece of legislation today and I think Thursday will bring similar results.”
Rodrigo Arias, minister of the presidency, shared Barrantes' optimism.
“The step that we have taken today is enormous for the protection of citizens' safety,” Arias said in statement. “Criminals and mafias know there's no place for them in Costa Rica.”
Among the bill's main initiatives are to develop an information sharing platform for police, assign new functions to the office of attention to crime victims in the Public Security Ministry, build a judicial communications center and form a permanent commission to attend to crisis situations.
Much remains to be done on the funding front for the programs the bill proposes, but for now, Barrantes seems satisfied with the progress.
“We are still missing a lot of things,” he said. “We are lacking money, we are lacking police, but at least it's an advance and now we can start looking ahead.”
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| After 98 years, moth makes an appearance |
By Daniel Shea
Tico Times Staff | editorial@ticotimes.net |
Showing up again after nearly a century of going unseen, a Costa Rican moth brought renewed hope to conservationists and entomologists recently when it was collected for the second time, affirming that it is likely still thriving – but keeping to itself.
Some researchers were working in the Veragua Rainforest Research and Adventure Park in the Caribbean province of Limón, studying and collecting fruit-eating moths, when they came across what is known as Tetrisia florigera – a moth that hadn't been seen in 98 years.
While they didn't know it at the time, later comparisons revealed it didn't match any of the moths in Costa Rica's collections. Further investigations led them to the Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C., where the only specimen was located.
“It was the only one,” said José Montero, an entomologist with the Institute of Biodiversity.
While originally discovered in the late 1800s, the Natural History Museum's specimen was collected near San José by William Schaus in 1911, who took the specimen back with him to the U.S. capital.
What this means for the butterfly is obviously important: it's still alive. Well, actually, they have a short lifespan, so the one they found is now dead. But others are certainly alive, Montero said.
“Most likely, this butterfly is still doing very well, it's just that it doesn't live in very densely populated areas,” he said. “It tends to stay in areas much harder (for people) to access.”
In addition, it's an example of how tourism businesses that protect the rainforests – like that of Veragua – play an integral role in the protection of Costa Rica's awe-inspiring biodiversity, Montero said.
“Private businesses protecting the parks and the forests, caring for the biodiversity of the country, while biologists can come to do research, it's a great relationship,” he said.
For its small size, Costa Rica accounts for close to 4.5 percent of the world's biodiversity.
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| Why Most Ticos Don’t Want to Migrate to the U.S. |
By Carlos Denton
Special to The Tico Times | editorial@ticotimes.net |
Unlike the inhabitants of all of the other countries located between Costa Rica and the U.S.-Mexican border, Ticos are not interested in migrating north to look for better lives. And they are not interested in moving south, west or east, either. Surveys reveal that fewer than one in five Ticos want to go anyplace at all. In contrast, depending on the country, 40, 50 and up to 60 percent of citizens of some of the other Central American nations report that they would pick up and leave immediately if they had the wherewithal.
Although most experts agree that some movement of people from one country to another is positive – the newcomers come with fresh ideas more energy, and contribute in a positive way to the gene pool – a massive out-migration like the ones that have taken place in the so-called C4 countries (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala) have a debilitating impact on national growth. There is a simple reason for this: migrants are usually stronger, mentally better equipped and probably better educated than those who stay at home. That a small portion of the local talent moves to the U.S. – it is estimated that 220,000 Costa Ricans live there, one third legally – does not cause damage. However, when a massive exodus occurs (think Irish potato famine or El Salvador's civil war as causes), it is difficult for the country of origin to recover.
There are two principal reasons why Costa Ricans do not migrate to the U.S. in larger numbers. First, the local unemployment rate has been in single digits for at least the past 25 years. In fact, there have been so many employment opportunities that the economy has been able to absorb 600,000 Nicaraguan immigrants to date, most of them since the turn of the century. Secondly, most Central American migrants who go to the U.S. move to areas where they have relatives to take them in and can help them to find jobs. In a recent survey done by CID/Gallup in El Salvador, 73 percent of those interviewed stated they had family in the U.S. The corresponding number for Costa Rica is 12 percent.
Since its independence, Costa Rica has received more immigrants than any of the other nations in the region, and this probably is why it is more diverse, and why more interesting ideas and projects seem to sprout naturally in its different locations and venues. The C4 countries have created economies based on the wholesale outbound migration of many of their most talented people, and the related social costs, including crime and violence, become more acute each year. Many unemployed people living in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala live out their days waiting for the next remittance check to come in from their relative who is working in the U.S.
An interesting, related question is: How many U.S. citizens live in Costa Rica? The estimate is about 18,000, and about half of these are in the country legally. This is fewer than a half percent of the total population. The 200,000 Ticos in the United States are less than a tenth of a percent of its population. As a percentage of the total population of each of the two countries, there are actually more Gringos living illegally in Costa Rica than vice versa. But as former Ambassador Mark Langdale once said, “Migration is not a priority on the bilateral agenda of either of our two nations.”
The crunch created by the global financial crisis has impacted primarily on Nicaraguan immigrants. With the severe drop in new construction projects and the decline in tourism, tens of thousands of Nicaraguan laborers, maids and maintenance people have found themselves on the street. Many have had to return home, where things are much worse than they were when they left the first time. The remaining jobs often have been taken by Ticos who shunned this type of work in the boom years, but now are willing to take anything to keep food on the table.
There is one important factor that needs to be added to understand the dynamics of the local labor market. There are no unemployment benefits for workers who lose their jobs, but they do continue to have health coverage provided by the Social Security System (Caja) for at least six months after being terminated. In contrast, U.S. workers do get unemployment benefits, but if they happen to get sick, they encounter problems in getting medical attention.
Because most local talent has remained in the country despite the financial crunch, it can be expected that Costa Rica will get back on its feet very quickly once things improve.
Carlos Denton is President of CID/Gallup, S.A., which provides strategy and marketing data in 14 countries of the region from its San José headquarters. cdenton@cidgallup.com
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