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A.M.
Costa Rica
Your daily English-language news source Monday through Friday |
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Published
Wednesday,
April 27, 2016, in Vol. 17, No. 82
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San José,
Costa Rica, Wednesday, April 27,
2016, Vol. 17, No. 82
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General strike is called a success By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Some 700,000 children did not have classes Tuesday, and more than 600 operations were postponed at public hospitals because teachers and health workers staged a general strike. Thousands of marchers filled Avenida Segunda in the morning. “We felt the strike was a total success,” said Martín Rodríguez. “However we were very disappointed in the way our documents were received by the legislators. They had an attitude.” He is the spokesman for the health workers in the Unión Nacional de Empleados de la Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. “The objective of the march was to show our strength and that our voices can be heard. We do this because there is no real dialogue with the government. Whenever they call us to talk, they start by saying the bills we are against, will simply be approved.” The unions object to bills that would change salaries and also one that would create a cooperative education system whereby students would work in their chosen field outside the classroom. Rodríguez said there would be no march today in San José but that the strike will continue all around the country in hospitals, clinics and laboratories that belong to the Caja. Also participating were the teachers in the Asociación Nacional de Educadores and the Bloque Unitario Sindical y Social Costarricense. Government officials say that the strike was unnecessary. The health employees union said that participation in the strike ranged from 75 to 80 percent at public hospitals around the country. There also were some marches in provincial capitals. Tamarindo will be hunting mosquitoes By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Tamarindo business leaders and their employees will be off on a mosquito hunt starting at 7 a.m. Thursday in the Pacific coast town. The community and nearby Playa Langosta are heavily dependent on the tourism trade, and any hint of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry dengue and the zika virus can have devastating economic impacts. Students from the Universidad Nacional also will be participating, said a spokesman for the Cámara de Comercio y Turismo de Tamarindo, which is organizing the sweep. Some 60 who may participate were briefed this week. Also there were residents of Villarreal, Santa Rosa, Brasilito and La Garita. The goal, of course, is to locate and eliminate any receptacle in which mosquitoes can grow to adulthood. That includes old tires, plastic bottles, glass containers and anything else that can hold water. Those involved in the sweep are meeting Thursday morning at the soccer field in Tamarindo. Participating businesses include hotels Cala Luna, Esplendor, Barceló, Best Western Vista Villas and Capitán Suizo, Canopy Monkey Jungle and the restaurants Patagonia, Pangas and Witches Rock, said the spokesman. Terminal access bids received By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Costa Rican highway officials received three bids from firms that are offering to construct an access road to the APM Terminal container handling facility in Moín. The three bids are in the $60 to $71 million neighborhood. The firms propose to build the roadway in about 18 months, including design, said the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad and the Ministerio de Obras Públicas. Bids were opened Friday. Officials have to study the submissions before making a contract award. The container handling facility is being built on an artificial island in the harbor.
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Colorado S.A 2065 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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| A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday,
April 27, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 82
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| Ruta
32 widening contract wins OK from budget watchdog |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Contraloría General de la República, the nation’s budget watchdog, said Tuesday that it had approved a contract between Costa Rica and Chinese companies for the widening and other work on Ruta 32 from Moín to Río Frio. This is a $465.6 million job. The agreement is with China Harbour Engineering Co. Ltd. and China Harbour Engineering Co. de Costa Rica, S.A. Chinese sources will put up $395 million and Costa Rica will put up the rest and acquire right-of-way. The central government said that the approval by the Contraloría means that design work can begin. This has been a controversial project in that the Chinese |
government
wanted the ruling text of the contract to be in Chinese
and any disputes be litigated under Chinese law. There
also is the problem that the Chinese firms estimated the
cost even before design work was done. The job involves widening the major highway to four lanes along with building bridges and overpasses. The job is supposed to take 42 months with design work taking eight of them. Residents and those in business in the Limón area have pushed for the widening and some conducted demonstrations at the legislature seeking approval of the deal. Plans call for a 26-kilometer bike path, 36 bridges, 13 overpasses, 23 pedestrian bridges and 176 bus turnouts. The highway gets 14,000 vehicles a day and it is the main route for exporters seeking to ship from the Limón ports. |
| Borrowing
for electric trains gets first approval by lawmakers |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national railway institute will be able to incur debt amounting to 40 percent of its worth under a bill passed on first reading Tuesday. The bill, No. 18.252, is a step toward the construction of an electrified rail line in the Central Valley. The train locomotives now use diesel. The central government said that the Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles had a value of $1.02 billion. That number is based on an evaluation by the Universidad de Costa Rica that reported a figure about 15 times greater than book value, which is $69.4 million. When the bill receives a second favorable vote and is signed by President Luis Guillermo Solís, the rail institute will be able to take on $408 million in debt. Casa Presidencial distributed a |
worksheet
showing the assets of the rail institute to justify the
more than $1 billion figure. The institute owns 1.2 million square meters of land and has rights to 12.9 million square meters of right-of-way, the worksheet said. The worksheet even listed a tunnel as an asset, as well as 125 bridges, buildings and vehicles. The university appears to have used a replacement-cost-new-less-depreciation method to assess value rather than market data. Bridges, after all, have little resale value except as scrap. The bill also says that the central government cannot demand funds from the rail institute even if there is a surplus. The rail institute also is encouraged to expand its service even to Guanacaste and Moín, according to a summary of the bill. Government officials see an efficient electrical rail line as a way to reduce motor traffic and congestion. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | ||
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday,
April 27, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 82
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| An A.M. Costa Rica editorial Any measure to insure citizen access to government data needs teeth |
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By Jay Brodell
editor of A.M. Costa Rica The U.S. Embassy is among the sponsors next week for a seminar with a title asking does Costa Rica need a law on access to information. The session will feature Lynn Carrillo, a lawyer and former reporter in Florida who now works for NBCUniversal, and Fernando Cruz, a Corte Suprema magistrate. The court also is a sponsor as is the Instituto de Prensa y Libertad de Expresión. The session comes at a time when even the court itself is keeping more and more information off-limits over alleged privacy concerns. The U.S. Embassy is well known for its broad interpretation of the U.S. Privacy Act that allows employees to work in secret. Even the names of U.S. citizens who died in Costa Rica are censored on the U.S. State Department Web site even though death extinguishes privacy concerns. Article 30 of the Costa Rican Constitution says that a citizen has free access to government agencies to obtain information of public interest, except for state secrets. Of course, like all governments, Costa Rica defines what is in the public interest. Spanish-language newspapers have been in court many times to obtain certain information for news stories, and so have lawmakers. Government agencies fought hard to keep secret those fat salaries being paid to favored employees. The U.S. Freedom of Information Act might be thought to be a solution. That was passed in 1966 as a way to formalize citizen access to government information. Agencies still can run information seekers around and frequently do. The State Department, despite once being headed by a secretary |
who had a
secret, personal email server in her home, generally does not have critical information. The names of foreigners awarded a U.S. visa would be nice to see as would reasons for visa denials. But the diplomatic corps is small potatoes compared to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Defense. The Nacional Security Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency also rank right up there as secrecy fiends. Access to the doings of these agencies is critical, particularly now that the United States has adopted authoritarian trappings. Much of what is known about these agencies and their shredding of the U.S. Constitution comes from whistleblowers like Edward Snowden. Although the seminar here is designed to mark World Press Freedom Day, access to information is the right of all humans and not a special benefit for the press. In fact newspeople in the United States try to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests because responses are so variable and so long in coming. Historians and those with special interests, such as environmentalists, make better use of the act. Perhaps the purpose of the seminar Tuesday is to promote a U.S.-style freedom of information act. That would be fairly hypocritical of U.S. Embassy workers. If they do, the most successful access to government laws are those that contain criminal penalties for reluctant bureaucrats. In the United States some laws like this are found at the state level, and they work well. Bureaucrats are highly protective of their pensions, so that might be helpful here despite the dysfunctional court system. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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contents
of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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A.M. Costa Rica's
Fifth news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday,
April 27, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 82
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 Voice of
America photo
The two eagle offspring are eyed
by parents.
Eagle babies become famous from video on the internet By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Freedom and liberty will soon be taking off in Washington. No, not the political kind, the eagle kind. Freedom and Liberty are the names of two baby bald eagles who became internet stars when they hatched live via webcam in March. The names were announced Tuesday at a ceremony at the U.S. National Arboretum near Capitol Hill. The baby eagles and their parents, Mr. President and The First Lady, hit the big time after remote-controlled cameras set up near their nest captured and transmitted rare, live images of their arrival via the internet. More than 30,000 webcam fans from around the world submitted names for the eaglets in a Name the Nestlings contest that was run through social media. The entries were narrowed down to the five most popular pairings, Stars and Stripes, Freedom and Liberty, Honor and Glory, Anacostia and Potomac, and Cherry and Blossom, and those pairings were presented to the public for a vote. Arboretum Director Richard Olsen worked with the American Eagle Foundation and other partners in the U.S. to bring the live webcam images of America’s national bird to millions of viewers around the world. “This is a really good example of live-action nature," he said. "So much of what we watch today on TV or our devices is not really live, other than sports, so to be literally eating, breathing, living and sleeping with these eagles through these webcams is giving people firsthand knowledge of what's going on and what it takes to raise an American bald eagle family." “We’ve really gotten attached to this eagle family, and the way to cement it is with names," he added. Al Cecere, president of the American Eagle Foundation, said they held the naming contest "because we thought it would really be a way to bring the public even closer to these birds and feel part of what they're doing and learn more about them, especially the schoolchildren.” Cecere said the project was notable because it came along at a time where people are so divided, yet they wanted to experience something that they could share together, that they could agree upon. More than 35 million people from 100 countries have been visiting the webcam to watch the nestlings grow and develop under the watchful eyes of their parents. The cameras serve a dual purpose: helping biologists learn more about eagle behavior and educating the public. Freedom and Liberty, whose genders still are unknown, are expected to leave their nest in June, when they're about 12 weeks old. “We hope that these eaglets will grow up ... and maybe find a mate someday and come back to this area and set up their own nest and raise their own babies here in the Washington, D.C., area,” said Cecere. FBI ponders telling Apple how hacker entered iPhone By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The FBI could reveal how it was able to gain access to the iPhone used by one of the shooters in last December’s terror attack in San Bernardino, California. “We are in the midst of trying to sort that out,” FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday at a conference on cyber engagement at Georgetown University. “I think we’re close to a resolution." The Obama administration sometimes will share such information under the so-called vulnerabilities equities process, if companies can use the information to work on a patch to protect information or systems. At other times, the government will seek to keep the vulnerabilities secret if a case can be made that by releasing them, access to vital intelligence will be compromised. Comey’s admission the FBI is close to deciding what to do about the vulnerability comes barely a week after the FBI admitted it had paid a private firm more than $1.3 million to gain access to the iPhone 5c that belonged to San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook. FBI officials said previously the technique used to access the data would not work on other so-called smart phones. iPhone maker Apple had been fighting a court order that required it to write new software to disable passcode protection. Comey said Tuesday he was very glad the litigation with Apple regarding the iPhone encryption was over, though he cautioned, ”it would be bad if the conversation this started ended.” He added, “Because we live our lives on these devices, as I do, the notion that they will be immune to judicial process takes us to a place we’ve never lived before. There has never been a time in the 240 years of our country that privacy was absolute.” The FBI director also sought to reassure private companies that the government and law enforcement are looking for what he described as a constructive relationship, similar to what many companies have with local fire departments, which understand the layout of their buildings in case of an emergency. “We have to get to a place where it becomes routine for there to be an exchange, an appropriate lawful exchange of information,” said Comey. “Even in the midst of an attack we don’t want to read your memos, we don’t want to read your emails,” he said. “We need to understand how we can quickly get the indicators of attack so we can change the actor’s behaviors.” Sports agent, trainer facing Cuban ball player charges By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
A baseball trainer and a sports agent in Florida have pleaded not guilty in U.S. federal court to charges linked to the smuggling of top Cuban baseball talent out of the Communist country and into the United States. Julio Estrada, owner of an athletic training business in Miami, who was arrested Friday, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Miami. Bart Hernandez, head of a sports management company, who was arrested in February, also pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. Prosecutors said a third suspect, identified as Haitian national Amin Latouff, remained at large. No trial dates have been announced. Authorities said the charges stemmed from an earlier prosecution of four people linked to the smuggling of Cuban superstar Leonys Martin, who defected in 2010 and currently plays with the Seattle Mariners. Prosecutors said smuggling schemes involved 17 Cuban players who were secretly brought through Mexico to the United States. None of the players faces charges. Authorities alleged that Estrada and Hernandez conspired to obtain false and fraudulent residency documents on behalf of the players through a Mexican company. In exchange, authorities said, the smugglers took a percentage of any major league baseball contract signed by their clients. In a pending civil lawsuit, the people who brought Martin out of Cuba in 2010 allege that Martin owes them millions of dollars in unpaid fees. Martin has countered that he and his family were held captive until he paid $1.35 million of his $20 million contract to the Mexican company named in the latest indictments. One TV station holding out against Kremlin pressure By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Television, where most Russians get their news, has increasingly been under pressure in Russia. It is now almost completely state controlled. But in Moscow, TV Rain stands out as an island in a sea of Kremlin media attacks. Privately owned TV Rain is one of Russia’s few remaining broadcasters willing to regularly air views critical of Kremlin policy and give air time to opposition politicians. “We’re not a politically motivated network. We don’t really see it as our goal to challenge the political establishment or anything like that,” said anchor Natalia Shanetskaya. “You know, we just try to be as objective as we can, and that’s really what we’re about.” President Vladimir Putin’s government has increased state ownership of news media and imposed restrictions on critical reporting. Since 2005, U.S. democracy watchdog Freedom House has labeled Russia’s press freedom status as not free while its civil liberties and freedom rating fell in 2015 to a ranking of 6 out of a possible 7 with 7 being the worst. Reporters Without Borders’ 2016 World Press Freedom Index ranks Russia at 148 out of 180 countries, just behind Pakistan. TV Rain's independence is what brought many of its staff to the station, including some like Ms. Shanetskaya who left state media as the Kremlin tightened its grip. The change in editorial line hit political reporting the hardest. “For a while, since I covered business and economics, we were left alone,” says Ms. Shanetskaya. “But, at some point I started to feel like we too were no longer unaffected by that.” Refusing to join state media in pandering to authorities has come at a price for TV Rain. Political pressure over a program that questioned Soviet strategy during World War II led cable companies to drop the channel in 2014. Most at the news organization think it was an excuse. “I sincerely believe that if it wasn’t that story, about the siege of Leningrad, they would find something else,” TV Rain’s Digital Media Chief Ilya Klishin said. “It was just a matter of days or weeks.” Even after a quick apology for those offended, the pressure continued to mount with some calling for the station to be shut down. The Kremlin routinely denies being behind any political pressure on the media. But, at the time, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, voiced support for the nationalist campaign mounted against TV Rain and backed by pro-Kremlin politicians. “I do not know of any laws that these actions violated,” he said about TV Rain. “But, I think that there is something more serious from the point of view of morality and ethics,” he concluded ominously. To survive financially after the loss of advertising revenue, TV Rain was forced to change to an online subscription-based business model. Subscribers have grown to more than 70,000, and Klishin says its web site gets some six million unique views a month. Voter ID appeal possible of North Carolina decision By the A.M. Costa Rica
wire services
Civil rights groups are considering an appeal to a court ruling that upheld a North Carolina law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, a ruling they say discriminates against minorities. Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder in Winston Salem is a victory for Republicans who contend the law is needed to prevent voter fraud. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican who is seeking re-election this year, applauded the decision. "This ruling further affirms that requiring a photo ID in order to vote is not only common sense, it's constitutional," he said in a statement. But the ruling is being condemned by some civil rights organizations considering an appeal. The American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Coalition for Social Justice say the ruling keeps a law in place that unfairly targets African-Americans and other minority voters. "The sweeping barriers imposed by this law undermine voter participation and have an overwhelmingly discriminatory impact on African-Americans," said ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho. "We are already examining an appeal," she added. The case tested a key component of numerous voting restrictions that were approved after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2013 effectively eliminated a key part of the Voting Rights Act. The high court ruling eliminated the need for North Carolina and other states with a history of voter discrimination to get federal approval prior to changing voting laws that impact minorities. Tuesday's decision is an indication of how federal courts may handle future cases involving voting laws. The ruling also upheld the elimination of a week of early voting, the end of same-day registration, and the prohibition of counting of out-of-precinct ballots. In the 485-page ruling, Judge Schroeder wrote that North Carolina has "provided legitimate state interests for its voter-ID requirement" and that the plaintiffs have "failed to show that any North Carolinian who wishes to vote faces anything other than the 'usual burdens of voting.'" Kerry says religion crucial in creating foreign policy By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Saying governments cannot lead a world they do not understand, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry highlighted the impact of religion on foreign policy during a Tuesday speech in Houston, Texas. “We cannot understand the world if we fail to comprehend and honor the central role that religion plays in the lives of billions of people,” Kerry said at Rice University. It was his first speech focusing exclusively on the topic of religion and foreign policy. However, a senior State Department official said Kerry has long recognized the importance of understanding religious dynamics as part of the broader U.S. foreign policy making. In 2013, Kerry established the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs as part of the Obama administration’s initiative to encourage interfaith cooperation. “With 84 percent of people around the world identifying with a religious group, religion is a powerful force in global politics and civil society, one that must be taken seriously,” the State Department said in a 2015 fact sheet. In his speech, Kerry touted religious initiatives that have taken place under his watch, including a 2015 workshop for religious leaders in Nigeria on the topic of corruption. He also noted how religion can have either a positive or a destabilizing influence on world affairs. “It is part of what drives some to initiate war, others to pursue peace,” said Kerry, who added that extremist groups such as Islamic State have carried out atrocities under the veil of religion. In addition, Kerry said Christians have been facing persecution or repression in regions including the Middle East and South Asia, Tibetan Buddhists face harassment in China, and the Rohingya population has been singled out for discrimination in Myanmar. Kerry is on the first leg of a two-day trip to Texas that also will include a stop in Austin, where he will take part in a clean energy event and a summit focusing on the Vietnam War. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are big primary winners By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. networks are projecting that Donald Trump won all five Republican presidential primaries held Tuesday. They were in Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Maryland. They also project that Hillary Clinton won four of the five Democratic presidential primaries, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connecticut. Her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, won Rhode Island. Trump came into Tuesday with 845 delegates, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas with 559 and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 148. Cruz and Kasich have decided to strategically campaign in the remaining states to try to deny Trump the nomination and force a convention battle in July. At a campaign rally in Indiana, whose presidential primary is next week, Cruz acknowledged he was not expected to win any of the five states voting in primaries on Tuesday. But he told supporters not to write him off because he expects to do well in Indiana and Nebraska, which holds its primary May 10. Trump calls the Stop Trump effort pathetic and accuses the Republican Party of treating him unfairly, saying the election system is rigged. An NBC News/Survey Monkey poll gives Trump more than 50 percent support among Republican or Republican-leaning voters nationwide for the first time. His national support had been less than 50 percent. For the Democrats, the networks project that former secretary of State Hillary Clinton would win Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. But Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was projected to win Rhode Island, and is leading Clinton in neighboring Connecticut. Winning Connecticut would be an upset for Sanders. Mrs. Clinton entered Tuesday with 1,944 delegates. In order to win the Democratic nomination she will need 2,383 delegates. She told a crowd of jubilant supporters in Philadelphia that she will unify the Democratic Party to win the presidential election in November and carry on a strong progressive tradition. European Space Agency considers plan for moon base By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
With a permanently occupied space station orbiting the earth, the next step is a permanently occupied lunar station on the moon. The European Space Agency is moving ahead with plans to set up a moon base. The moon village is expected to be a collaborative effort between the European agency and other countries with space programs. According to Johann-Dietrich Woerner, director general of the European Space Agency, the village would be for scientific experiments, mining of potential resources and tourism. "I think we should go first to the moon and then further on," Woerner said during a session at the 32nd Space Symposium called "New Generation Space Leaders Panel: The Future of Human Spaceflight. "I would not call Mars the ultimate goal. I am quite sure humans will go further." Calling the moon base a village is not by accident. "A village is something where different people are gathering with different capabilities, different opportunities, and then they build a community," Woerner said. "It's not one village with some houses, a church." He went on to call the moon village a stepping-stone and test bed for a potential trip to Mars. The U.S. space agency, NASA, has set a goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s. Democracy advocate reports a decline in press freedom By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Freedom of the press declined across the globe last year to its lowest point in more than a decade, a Washington watchdog group has concluded. Freedom House, which advocates for the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world, said in a new report today that only one in seven people across the globe lives in countries where coverage of political news is robust, journalists' safety is guaranteed, there is minimal state intrusion in the media's affairs and the media are not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures. Jennifer Dunham, the report's research director, said that authoritarian rulers and terrorist groups throughout the world are cracking down on journalists' independent reporting, while jailing, abusing and killing reporters who dare to write and televise reports at odds with official government edicts, or expose corruption. Other countries, like China, she said, limit access to certain internet sites that might reflect badly on the government in power. She blamed deteriorating global press freedom on the "heightened level of violence against journalists" and the increased partisanship and polarization of media outlets around the world, with many journalists forced by governments and insurgent groups to take sides in armed clashes or by powerful media groups looking out for their business interests. She said that in Syria, where at least 14 journalists were killed last year, and Iraq, "We see reporters having to risk their lives to get any kind of news whatsoever.” In Mexico and Central America, Ms. Dunham said journalists face retribution for writing about drug cartels controlled by organized crime syndicates and protected by local police. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents
of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday,
April 27, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 82
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Panamá Papers data to be released May
9 By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said Tuesday that it would release the largest-ever release of information about secret offshore companies and the people behind them, based on data from the Panamá Papers investigation. The release will be May 9, the organization said. The searchable database will include information about more than 200,000 companies, trusts, foundations and funds incorporated in 21 tax havens, from Hong Kong to Nevada in the United States, said the organization. The consortium is part of the The Center for Public Integrity, which calls itself nonpartisan although others characterize it as a liberal, progressive organization. The information to be released was stolen by computer hackers from a Panamá legal firm. The impact of the Panamá Papers has been epic, said the consortium. The investigation has led to high profile resignations, including the prime minister of Iceland; triggered official inquiries in multiple countries; and put pressure on world leaders and other politicians, such as Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, to explain their connections to offshore companies, it said. The revelations sparked a new sense of urgency among lawmakers and regulators to close loopholes and make information about the owners of shell companies public, it added. The Mossack Fonseca law firm said that the major suspect in the leak of private papers was a foreign government. Even though the documents have been obtained illegally, many governments, including Costa Rica, are launching investigations of the individuals and firms named as being involved with the law firm. Mossack Fonseca specializes in setting up offshore corporations. Bill regulating private tuition advances By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A legislative committee approved a bill Tuesday that would regulate the fees and tuition charged by private universities. The measure now goes to the full legislature. The committee, the Comisión Permanente Especial de Ciencia, Tecnología y Educación, approved the concept of having the private institutions under the jurisdiction of the Consejo Nacional de Enseñanza Superior Universitaria Privada. In addition to tuition, the agency would regulate exam fees, laboratory fees and other expenses. Each major at a university would have to seek accreditation. The Sistema Nacional de Acreditación de la Educación Superior does this now, but accreditation is voluntary. Supporters of the bill said that they seek to strengthen the power of the Consejo Nacional and also insure that students receive a quality education. The higher education institution also would be required to establish clear standards for admitting students and for hiring faculty, according to a summary of the bill, No. 19.549. |
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| From Page 7: Grupo Roble invests $5 million in Escazú plaza By the A.M. Costa Rica
staff
Grupo Roble has invested nearly $5 million in its Plaza Roble corporate center, located south of Multiplaza in Escazú. The firm said that a well-known architect was contracted to present proposals for modernizing and renovating the space. Some 3,000 persons work in the plaza Roble, which includes areas that are free trade zones. The remodeling included lobbies, plazas, patios and other space around the six office buildings and a central large plaza. Alberto Poma Kriete, corporate director of Grupo Roble, said that an energy efficient system of air conditioning also was installed. Lighting also was improved and more closed-circuit television systems were installed. |
