Proposed credit card rules
gives users more rights


The economics ministry had put forth a proposed decree that would protect and provide more rights to holders of credit cards.

Eduardo Sibaja, minister of Economía, Industría y Comercio said that the use of credit cards has experienced an exponential increase and that the current rules need to be reviewed.

The proposed decree is open for public comment for 10 days following its publication in the La Gaceta Friday.

The decree that would also have to be signed by President Óscar Arias Sánchez is some 24 pages. It includes rules on the protection of the cardholder's personal data.

It also includes a rule to prevent cloning of credit cards by crooked store clerks. The rule says the card must always be in view even when it is being run through a machine.

There is a section on the responsibilities of cardholders, too.  The proposal also includes a proposed credit card statement that gives a clear statement of interest and the total amount owed. The proposal in Spanish is HERE.
 
Shannon sent by U.S.
to strongarm Micheletti


The Obama administration is sending a team of senior officials to Honduras today to try to expedite a settlement of the political crisis spawned by the ouster in June of elected President José Manuel Zelaya. The deposed leader remains at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

The Obama administration had preferred to let the Organization of American States and its designated mediator, Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez, take the lead role in Honduran diplomacy. But it is now stepping up U.S. involvement with settlement talks stalled and a planned presidential election in Honduras looming in little more than a month.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said a team headed by Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Dan Restrepo, White House staff director for Latin America, will urge both sides to show flexibility and redouble efforts to bring the crisis to an end.

Interim President Roberto Micheletti, who has headed the government since Zelaya was detained by soldiers and deported in late June, has refused to accept the return to office of the deposed leader as demanded by all other Organization of American States member states.

Micheletti contends Zelaya's ouster was not a coup, and that the troops who put him on a plane to Costa Rica acted legally after he had unconstitutionally sought to extend his term in office through a plebiscite.

State Department spokesman Kelly, who said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to both principals in the crisis Friday, said the crisis needs to be resolved quickly in line with Organization of American States settlement guidelines if the Honduran election planned for November is to have any legitimacy.

"I think it's getting quite urgent. What we want is to see an election, which is coming in about exactly a month, to enjoy the kind of international legitimacy that the people of Honduras deserve," he said. "We have said all along that we've made this a priority and wanted to be as helpful as we could to try to bring this to a successful resolution. Talks on Friday seemed to break down and it was at that point that the secretary decided to get involved directly."

The U.S. team, expected to be in Tegicigalpa through the end of this week, will meet with both Micheletti and Zelaya, who has been sheltered at the Brazilian embassy in the capital since slipping back into the country five weeks ago.

A senior State Department official said the sides are in agreement on all terms proposed by Organization of American States mediator Arias except for critical language providing for Zelaya to return to office and complete his term, which ends in January.

The deposed leader has said he would renounce any ambition to hold on to power beyond January despite his previous backing for a referendum that would have allowed him to run again in next month's election.

State Department spokesman Kelly also expressed sadness Tuesday over the death of Enzo Micheletti, a nephew of the interim president, who had gone missing several days ago and whose body was discovered Sunday in a northern Honduran town.

Kelly, who extended condolences to the family, said he had no information on the motive in the killing of the Micheletti nephew, who was found shot to death along with another man.

Honduran officials have said they are treating the death as a local criminal case and that it does not appear to be related to the political crisis. 

Avoiding five health risks
can hike life expectancy


Addressing five critical risk factors — underweight childhood, unsafe sex, alcohol use, lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene, and high blood pressure — could add almost five years to global life expectancy, according to a new United Nations report.

These five factors are responsible for one quarter of the 60 million deaths estimated to occur annually, said the U.N. World Health Organization, which published “Global Health Risks.”

A health risk is defined in the report as “a factor that raises the probability of adverse health outcomes.” It looked at 24 of them which are a mixture of environmental, behavioral and physiological factors – such as air pollution, tobacco use and poor nutrition – and estimated their effects on deaths, diseases and injuries by region, age, sex and country income for the year 2004.

The report also pointed to the combined effect of multiple risk factors, noting that many deaths and diseases are caused by more than one risk factor and may be prevented by reducing any of the risk factors responsible for them.

For example, eight risk factors alone account for over 75 per cent of cases of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of deaths worldwide.

These are alcohol consumption, high blood glucose, tobacco use, high blood pressure, high body mass index, high cholesterol, low fruit and vegetable intake and physical inactivity. The World Health Organization added that most of these deaths occur in developing countries.

“Understanding the relative importance of health risk factors helps governments to figure out which health policies they want to pursue,” said Colin Mathers, coordinator for mortality and burden of disease at the World Health Organization.

“In many countries there is a complex mix of risk factors,” he added. “Countries can combine this type of evidence along with information about policies and their costs to decide how to set their health agenda.”

The report also found, among others, that more than a third of the global child deaths can be attributed to a few nutritional risk factors such as underweight childhood, inadequate breastfeeding and zinc deficiency. Also, unhealthy and unsafe environments cause one in four child deaths worldwide.

In addition, 71 per cent of lung cancer deaths are caused by tobacco smoking, while obesity and being overweight causes more deaths worldwide than being underweight.

Agents say there was no abduction


A daily newspaper said Saturday that a 14 year old had been abducted near Sarapiquí by narcotraffickers who wanted to use the boy as a drug courier.

Not so, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. The boy left the home after an argument and stayed with a neighbor for awhile, the agency said. The boy has a history of being a runaway, the agency added.