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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 37 | |||||||||
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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Legion to hear
accountant
talk on tax code changes Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Randall Lindner, an accountant who is an enrolled agent with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, will be the speaker at American Legion Post 10 March 3. Lindner operates the Escazú office of U.S. Tax International. The noon meeting will be held at the Bello Horizonte Country Club in Escazú. Lindner was a co-founder of Executive Accounting and Bookkeeping in Florida and has been in Costa Rica for the past 15 years, specializing in International taxes. He receives daily updated informational notices from the IRS. In the past year he has had three clients audited by the IRS and they all came out with flying colors, he said. He maintains his professional credentials by completing 24 hours of continuing education every year, he noted. Lindner, who has a bachelor's degree in accounting, will address members of the post and guests concerning recent changes in the tax laws and provide useful information concerning individual tax reporting requirements. All U.S. military veterans and members of the general public are invited to attend this meeting, the club said. Teen pianist has two dates at Teatro Nacional today By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
The 16-year-old Canadian-Costa Rican pianist Jonathan Duarte has not one but two dates at the Teatro National today. The teen will be playing for the lunchtime crowd and return at 8 p.m. for a recital heavy with Frederick Chopin. The evening works include "Polonaise Op. 26 No. 2" and "Scherzo Op. 54 No. 4." In all, there are eight works by the Polish composer. The lunchtime event is part of the theater's Teatro al Mediodia that has a heavy following among downtown workers and tourists. The pianist is a student of the Instituto Superior de Artes and the Universidad Nacional, under the direction of Alexander Sklioutovski. Students of this institute have won over 100 national and international piano competitions around the world, making it one of the most successful music schools in Latin America. Duarte has been a strong competitor on the international scene. He has given concerts in New York and recently has been invited to study in Moscow, said the theater. Admission for the evening performance is 2,500 colons, less than $5 Contraband cell telephones confiscated by police By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers on the Interamerican highway managed to catch a truck they said was loaded with 662 cell telephones that had been brought in illegally from Panamá. Police stopped the vehicle at 11 p.m. Sunday and impounded the merchandise when the driver could not produce invoices showing that taxes had been paid. Sun is baking the country as winds become weaker By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The country is in the midst of a heat wave with the temperature expected to hit the 36 degree mark today in Liberia. That's 97 F. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that diminished winds and a lot of humidity in the air contributed to the warmer temperature. A high pressure system is approaching the country and reducing the winds, the institute said. The temperature was somewhat less at the beaches and on the Caribbean coast. In the Central Valley partly cloudy skies permitted the sun to provided unseasonable temperatures. Barrio Escalante plan proposed By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
The Municipalidad de San José will outline its plan for Barrio Escalante at a meeting at 7 p.m. today in Cine Magaly. The municipality has been working with a citizen's group and a local architect to create improvements and more open sapce in the barrio, which is in northeast San José. Bus crash in Perú takes at least 28 lives By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A head-on bus collision in northern Perú killed at least 28 people and injured 40 others Monday. Police officials say the two buses from the Crisolito and America Express lines collided on the Panamerican highway near the town of Viru in northern Perú. Authorities say the injured were taken to a regional hospital. Officials say rescuers are still trying to reach people that are trapped in the mangled wreckage. Fatal bus crashes are common in Perú, where government transportation regulations are lax and many mountain roads are in poor condition.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| Some Villalobos victims are starting to get payments |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some victims of the Villalobos Brothers investment debacle will be getting some money. These are the creditors who persisted and filed civil cases parallel to the criminal fraud case against Oswaldo Villalobos, one of the brothers. The office of Ewald Acuña Blanco is in the process of distributing the first payment to creditors. The first payment is 27.59 percent of the amount that was awarded by the same judicial panel that convicted Oswaldo May 16, 2007, of aggravated fraud, according to documents from the lawyer's office. A spokesman for the Poder Judicial said that no judge had to approve the settlement because it was reached between lawyers for Villalobos and the creditors. It is a private matter, the spokesman said. Still unknown is if creditors who were represented by other lawyers participated in the settlement. Judges ordered money awards to more than 100 persons. The e-mail letter from an Acuña aide listed 36 creditors or creditor couples. Acuña's office is circulating letters to clients that they must sign. One allows him to take a 10 percent fee from the first payment. Another specifies into what creditor's bank account the first payment will be deposited. A second payment of 10.88 percent is supposed to be paid in six months. So creditors will be getting about 35.7 percent of the amount the court awarded them, based on the contents of the letters. An investor contacted Monday said he was delighted to get any money back. He and others getting the money persisted in their court case even though they faced harassment and threats from other Villalobos creditors. Many creditors were convinced by an informal group of Villalobos friends and Web sites that if they just were patient the other brother, fugitive Luis EnriqueVillalobos, would return to pay them off. They have been promoting the fiction that the funds |
they deposited with the Villalobos
brothers somehow were tied up in international banking technicalities. The trial court instead determined the Villalobos were running a ponzi scheme in which earlier creditors were paid high interests from the money deposited by new arrivals. Luis Enrique Villalobos may have had $1 billion on his books when he left in October 2002. But most of that money appeared to be just bookkeeping entries from creditors who rolled over their 3 percent a month interest. Oswaldo, the lesser-known brother, got 18 years for his part in the scheme. He also was convicted of illegal banking. Luis Enrique was the front man and it was only at Oswaldo's trial when paperwork was produced to show that he had an equal role in the operation. He generally was known to the public as the man running the Ofinter S.A. money exchange operations. The statute of limitation will allow Luis Enrique to return to public life in a little more than two years. He will be immune from prosecution. If he is caught before that deadline, he will be brought to trial, and creditors will get another chance to press claims for money damages and losses. Meanwhile, two other legal cases still are unresolved. A group of mostly Canadian investors brought an action against the government of Costa Rica at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a World Bank agency. The claimants say Costa Rica did not exercise adequate oversight to prevent the failure of the Villalobos operations. A more recent case is being organized by the United and Concerned Citizens of Costa Rica. This is the group that supports the Villalobos brothers. They seek some kind of court action or suit against Costa Rica and have hired lawyer David Eugenio Romero Mora to press the case. Romero has said he plans a case against Costa Rica for acts that resulted in the collapse of the Villalobos operation. No papers have yet been filed in court. |
| Don't mess with press, Sala IV tells soccer federation |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sala IV constitutional court has expanded the concept of freedom of the press to include the administration of the national soccer team. The case involved reporters for the popular newspaper La Teja, which is published by Grupo Nación. The Federación Costarricense de Fútbol denied credentials to two reporters for La Teja because of a depiction of players that had been published in the newspaper. The reporters wanted to cover the Costa Rica-Uruguay game in Estadio Ricardo Saprissa in Tibás. The newspaper had depicted the national soccer team Oct. 17 with the face of a dog. |
The soccer federation refused to
give credentials unless the newspaper
issued a public apology and printed something positive about the team,
according to the Sala IV summary. The magistrates unanimously declared that the soccer federation had violated the newspaper's liberty of opinion and engaged in prior censorship. The federation was ordered to abstain from doing the same thing again. The federation also had to pay costs. La Teja is the lowest common denominator of the newspapers circulating in Costa Rica. At the same time, the national soccer team was having its troubles. The team was playing Uruguay because it failed to win a World Cup berth within its own division. The team dropped two games to Uruguay and failed to get a ticket to South Africa and the World Cup matches. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 37 | |||||||||
| With four days to go, lawmakers still
divided on traffic law |
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By
the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
As the March 1 deadline moves closer for lawmakers trying to restructure the country's new traffic law, more differences are showing up in the legislature. Principal topics disputed are the proposed point system under which a repeat offender can lose the right to drive, alcohol levels and the amount of the fines that may be assessed. In addition, the Cámara Costarricense de Restaurantes has weighed in and said the tough law that went into effect more than a year ago hurt business. The drunk driving law allows for stiff fines, impounding of the vehicle and possibly jail. Monday lawmakers were arguing whether the drunk driving limit should be .5 grams of alcohol for each liter of blood or .75 grams. That is the difference between three beers and four beers within an hour for the average man. The current law specifies .5 grams as being under the |
influence and .75
grams as drunk. The Instituto de Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia
would like to see .5 grams as the level for drunk driving. The restaurant chamber said that the stiff alcohol law contributed to the closing of some 325 businesses and the loss of 6.000 jobs. The alcohol parts of the new traffic law went into effect at Christmas 2008, but lawmakers postponed the effective date of most of the law so they could study the issues anew. The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes urged lawmakers Monday to maintain the system of points to avoid jeopardizing the entire law. Marco Vargas, the minister, said that without the points system there would be no way to keep track of bad drivers or to require reeducation of repeat offenders. The Automóvil Club de Costa Rica will be putting on a demonstration at 9 a.m. today of simulated traffic accidents. The organization is pushing for adoption of certain aspects of the law. |
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 Todd LaJeunesse, Pennsylvania State
University
Acropora retusa is a common species of coral found
throughout the world. Researchers collected a tiny fragment from this
specimen.Some corals seem to endure
harsh sun and warm water By
the Pennsylvania State University news
service
In the Andaman Sea off the coast of Thailand, not only is the water warm and murky, but the tidal flux is so great that many of the corals can spend hours out of water, exposed to the harsh sun and dry air. Penn State researchers said that the coral thriving in a place that is so warm gives hope that coral reefs and the ecosystems they support may persist -- at least in some places -- in the face of global warming Corals are colonies of tiny animals that derive nutrients and energy from golden-brown, photosynthetic algae that live inside the corals' cells. "This symbiotic relationship is sensitive to changes in the environment," said Todd LaJeunesse, research team leader. "For example, because the algae are photosynthetic, they are very sensitive to changes in light. They also are sensitive to temperature," he said. "An increase in sea-surface temperature of just a few degrees Fahrenheit for a period of several months can cause many of the coral-algal symbioses to break down and the algae to be expelled. This process is known as bleaching because it leaves behind the clear animal tissue and the white skeleton underneath. When bleaching is severe, due to either high temperatures or low light availability, corals soon die without their symbiotic partners." According to team member Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, coral-dominated reefs may become scarce within the next 30 to 50 years, given the increase in the number of bleaching events that recently have taken place. "The fact that the Andaman Sea and other regions around Southeast Asia are home to such a high diversity of corals is surprising because the water there is so warm and sometimes murky," said LaJeunesse. "The inshore locations we surveyed are not the sort of places where you would expect to see thriving coral communities. Not only is the water warm and murky, but the tidal flux is so great that many of the corals can spend hours out of water, exposed to the harsh sun and dry air." In the Andaman Sea, the scientists found a variety of seemingly thermally tolerant algae species, with one species being particularly abundant. Called Symbiodinium trenchi, the species is a generalist organism -- one that is able to associate with a variety of hosts. Corals harboring this symbiont appear to be tolerant of high heat. LaJeunesse found the same species in the Caribbean Ocean during a bleaching event that took place in 2005. "Symbiodinium trenchi, which normally occurs in very low numbers in the Caribbean, was able to take advantage of the warming event and become more prolific because of its apparent tolerance of high temperatures," he said. "The species appears to have saved certain colonies of coral from the damaging effects of unusually warm water." In contrast, the scientists found very few thermally tolerant algae species in the cooler western Indian Ocean and Great Barrier Reef area. According to LaJeunesse, the Andaman Sea is on average three or four degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the western Indian Ocean and the Great Barrier Reef area. |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
Orchid
show draws fans to display in Washington By the A.M.
Costa Rica wire services
For centuries, orchids have cast a quiet spell. They have been hunted and collected on nearly every continent. Books, movies, paintings, and photographs document one of the most sophisticated flower markets. Every year the U.S. Botanic Garden and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., assembles an orchid exhibit that attracts collectors and fans from all over. This year it runs for three months until April. Clive Atyeo has been breeding orchids for 48 years. Over the last 17, he's been taking care of the orchid collection at the U.S. Botanic Garden. "And I am still in love with my wife and the orchids, the orchids are part of my family," he said. The orchids in the Botanic Garden's greenhouse belong to about 5,000 species and there are more than 8,000 plants. It's the Botanic Garden's largest collection. "I think when most people come in contact with orchids, I think the orchids take hold of them, it's like you get hooked on them. How can you not like that?" Atyeo moves through the greenhouse like it's his own house. "This one has been blooming for awhile, beautiful," he says. He knows every plant, its health, awards and history. He also has tricks up his sleeve: how to care for each, especially when when it comes to re-potting them. "Orchids are prone to virus and what I am going to do is sterilize the cutters, so I use a flame, to sterilize the tool," he says. And so, with tender, loving care, hundreds of orchids are groomed for the Garden's annual exhibit. "We have a lot of orchids set aside for the show," he says. From the greenhouse, these orchids are carefully transported to the Botanic Garden, at the base of the U.S. Capitol. About two thousand plants in bloom are being shown there. Eric Leavitt supervises the operation. He explains how the orchids are made to bloom in time for the show. "We run temperatures according to what helps them initiate flower buds. Last fall we turned down temperatures, down into the 50s in this greenhouse, which initiates flower buds," he says. After months of preparation, the show is open to the public. Cam Rankin came from New Hampshire and has spent the morning admiring the flowers. "They almost seem like they are reaching out wanting to kiss you. I love them all. They are fantastic," he said. Monica Jiménez and her daughters came from Colombia, a country that has a large number of orchid species. "This is a beautiful exhibit. Everybody should come see it," she said. |
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