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03 Jan 2006 |
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Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, January 03, 2006
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2005 Most Violent Year
Of the Last Five Years
Rising street crime and several tragic events elevated 2005 to the most violent year of the last five years, with a total of 924 violent deaths throughout the year for an average of 2.5 violent deaths per day, the Red Cross told The Tico Times yesterday.
(Click for more)
Insurance Company to Contract
London Lawyers
To Investigate
Questionable Insurance Payments
The Costa Rican insurance monopoly, National Insurance Institute (INS), recently announced it will hire lawyers in London to investigate supposed irregularities with the intermediary insurance company PWS International, based in that city.
(Click for more)
Candidates Resume
Campaigning
for February Elections
Costa Rican presidential candidates resumed the electoral campaign yesterday after a Christmas truce, and now face upcoming Feb. 5 elections, according to an official source.
(Click for more)
January 03
Educational Trips
Trip to Peru, Jan. 8-20, organized by Organization for Tropical Studies. Info: 524-0625.
Newcomers Club for English-Speaking Women Meeting and Luncheon
Program on cake decorating today at 9:30 a.m., at Big Mike's, Escazú. Info: 289-8638, crnow@amnet.co.cr.
Summer Activities
Librería Internacional is offering acting classes at its store in Barrio Dent and a craft workshop for kids in the Rohrmoser store for kids at 3 p.m. Info: 800-542-7374.
Edited By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff
kstanley@ticotimes.net
2005 Most Violent Year
Of the Last Five Years
By Leland Baxter-Neal
Tico Times Staff
lbaxter@ticotimes.net
Rising street crime and several tragic events elevated 2005 to the most violent year of the last five years, with a total of 924 violent deaths throughout the year for an average of 2.5 violent deaths per day, the Red Cross told The Tico Times yesterday.
According to Red Cross spokeswoman Noemy Coto, three plane crashes, the tragic fire at the Calderón Guardia hospital in downtown San José (TT, July 15, 2005) and the bank-robbery-turned-hostage-crisis in the idyllic village of Santa Elena de Monteverde in north-central Costa Rica that left nine people dead (TT, March 11, 2005) all contributed to making 2005 a particularly violent year. In 2004, the Red Cross registered 839 violent deaths.
The principal cause of violent death throughout the year was traffic accidents, which accounted for 41.6% of lives lost in Costa Rica, Coto said. According to Red Cross statistics, 129 people died in collisions, and another 155 were killed by being run over.
Overall, traffic accidents are decreasing, Coto said, thanks to efforts by transit police. Murders with either guns or knives, however, are rising and represented 22.2% of violent deaths in 2005, the second most common cause. Coto blames this rise on multiple factors.
“It goes from social (reasons) to the increase in population. It could also be the influence of the immigrant population, not just Nicaraguans. In the last years, Costa Rica has been the destination of a lot of immigration,” Coto said.
The Red Cross spokeswoman also attributed the rise in violent crimes to more guns amongst the Costa Rican population.
“Because of the insecurity people arm themselves, and this makes the situation worse,” she said.
According to the Red Cross, 201 violent deaths are attributed to “aggression.”
Across the country, San José is the province with the highest number of violent deaths, representing 30% nationwide, followed by Puntarenas with 15.25% and then Limón with 15.5%.
December, normally a month with elevated crime, death and violence, was relatively similar to 2004, despite the overall increase in 2005. The final month of last year produced a total of 72 violent deaths – 16 caused by knives or firearms, 13 by traffic collisions and 12 people died after being struck by vehicles, according to the Red Cross.
The most violent month of the year was July, during which 98 people died violently. It was during this month that the fire at Calderón Guardia hospital took 21 lives.
Insurance Company to Contract London Lawyers
To Investigate Questionable Insurance Payments
The Costa Rican insurance monopoly, National Insurance Institute (INS), recently announced it will hire lawyers in London to investigate supposed irregularities with the intermediary insurance company PWS International, based in that city.
INS president Luis Javier Guier told the daily La Nación the company will hire lawyers because “we want to define with absolute and full clarity what happened” with the supposed existence of a fund to which irregular payments were made.
Last September, legislators and Costa Rican press denounced the existence of a $1.6 million fund created by INS that was allegedly used to finance travels and training of public officials.
The channeling of million-dollar funds without institutional control was denounced by National Liberation Party (PLN) legislator Laura Chinchilla, who is involved in a legislative commission that studied the case.
The issue is also being investigated by the Costa Rican Prosecutor's Office for Fiscal Crimes, confirmed the Prosecutor's Office.
According to the report, the fund was created in 1997, when Cristóbal Zawadzki presided over INS. The fund was allegedly used to finance travels and trainings for employees of INS.
The money also could have been used to finance spending by employees of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the country's energy and telecommunications monopoly.
The fund was created through an “overload” of an insurance policy for ICE hydroelectric plants underwritten by London insurance intermediary PWS International.
According to the suit, the director of PWS in the Americas, Adam Bragg, sent a letter last Aug. 4 to INS insurance director José Luis Soto.
In the letter, Bragg detailed how former insurance director Alvaro Acuña asked him to create a fund for “travel and training expenditures.”
However, Guier told La Nación that an official designated to PWS International, John Hagues, denied Adam Bragg's statements and said the fund never existed.
Through lawyers INS will hire in London, they will seek to clear up “if the truth is what Adam Bragg says or what the company says,” Guier said.
--ACAN-EFE
Candidates Resume Campaigning for February Elections
Costa Rican presidential candidates resumed the electoral campaign yesterday after a Christmas truce, and now face upcoming Feb. 5 elections, according to an official source.
A spokesperson for the Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) told ACAN-EFE that the Christmas truce, the time during which candidates for the presidency were prohibited from seeking publicity in the press, which was declared last Dec. 16, ended yesterday.
The ban's objective was to allow Costa Ricans to celebrate Christmas and the New Year without the influence of politics but, as of today, it is predicted that publicity by presidential candidates will increase in the press.
Next Feb. 5, almost 2.5 million Costa Ricans will be able to choose between 14 presidential candidates, of which 11 have not won 8% support in surveys.
According to a survey published last Dec. 14 by the University of Costa Rica (UCR) School of Statistics, ex-President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias (1986-1990), appears to be favored to win the elections, with the support of 36.1% of voters.
However, polls show National Liberation Party (PLN) candidate Arias as having insufficient support to win the presidency in a first round with the required 40% of votes.
According to the survey, 18.4% of those polled are undecided, and these votes will define whether there is a second round.
In second place, with 19% of potential votes, is opposing Citizen Action Party (PAC) candidate Ottón Solís.
The third candidate favored for the elections is Otto Guevara, from the Libertarian Movement Party (ML), with 9.5% of preference.
Ricardo Toledo, from the governing Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), is in fifth place with only 4.3% support.
The poll, conducted by telephone with 608 people from Nov. 11-22, 2005, claims a 4% margin of error.
For these elections, the majority of the candidates will invest more in ads and hold less rallies than in past campaigns.
PLN coordinator of public affairs Roberto Solórzano informed La Nación that for the upcoming elections, the party is planning to hold only 10 rallies, the first of which will take place next Saturday in the Caribbean province of Limón.
PAC will not hold rallies, but instead “citizen meetings” in communities while the Liberation party will invest the money from rallies to do communal works, according to the party's leaders.
--ACAN-EFE
