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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 244
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Unified drought
strategy proposed
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A drought driven by El Niño has been ravaging Guanacaste for more than a year. But now officials say they have developed a unified strategy. El Niño conditions are expected to become worse before there is an improvement later next year, according to various meteorological sources. The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias has been conducting meetings with individuals and representatives of organizations in the area for months. As a result of one Friday, the commission suggested: • the production of smaller animals instead of cattle. It suggested goats and sheep, which are more efficient in using the available pasture. • There also is a plan to extend some irrigation canals and to apply electricity produced by sugar processing plants for agricultural use and for the various water district pumps. • There also is the need to capture more rainfall, although this generates a possible danger increasing places where the dengue- and chikungunya-carrying mosquitoes can breed.
Insurance products are proliferating By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Despite a sluggish economy, insurance sales increased 5 percent during 2015, said the Superintendencia de Seguros. Now there are 13 firms authorized to sell insurance in Costa Rica, and they brought in $749 million this year, the supervisory agency said The insurance market has been open to private firms for seven years. Prior to that, transactions were restricted to the state-owned Instituto Nacional de Seguros. Consumers face a bewildering assortment of 628 insurance products, the Superintendencia said in an annual report. Contractors invited to bid meeting By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes plans a general meeting Dec. 15 for those firms that might be interested in doing work on the proposed office tower. This is the same project that has been steeped in controversy after the ministry's own auditors found out that plans for the $7.5 million building had been submitted 10 months before bids were received. Auditors also noted that there had been several meetings between the ministry staffers and the firms that submitted the plans. That is why the Contraloría General de la República canceled the contract. Now the ministry is opening participation to more companies. The cast concrete construction appears to be of a type that only several companies can complete. The proposed site is Plaza Viques adjacent to the current sprawling offices. The ministry has to leave the current offices because they belong to the Liceo de Costa Rica. The section of south San José is congested throughout the day because it also is on a major route to Desamparados and the Circunvalación. Solís trip said to stress commerce By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Casa Presidencial is stressing that the president's Cuba trip this weekend is not a junket. Instead it is an effort to develop commercial ties, according to information put out by the Presidencia Wednesday. Costa Rica exported $38 million to Cuba in 2014, according to Promotora del Comercio Exterior de Costa Rica. President Luis Guillermo Solís was criticized Tuesday as engaging in political tourism. The agenda released Wednesday shows a number of commerce-related meetings. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 244 | |
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| State radio and TV system outlines why it is deeply in debt |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The state television and radio system is in financial trouble and is urging the legislature to bail it out. This is the Sistema Nacional de Radio y Televisión, which issued an unusually candid appeal Wednesday. German Vargas, the executive president, said that the system has to move its transmitter from the peak of Volcán Irazú because of landslides at the active crater. In addition, the system does not have the funds to pay salaries or the mandatory Christmas bonus. Vargas said the financial problem was long-standing and that the system owes 12.5 billion colons, about $23.8 million. Each year the system gets about 1.07 billion colons, about $2.03 million from the national budget and raises the balance of its needs, about 70 percent, by selling advertising. Most state agencies are obligated to invest 10 percent of their advertising budget in the system, a statement said. Because the central government has restricted state advertising, the radio and television system is receiving less. The income from ads has been about a third less since 2009, it said. If the station does not get the money to move the transmitter, both Canal 13 and Radio Nacional will be off the air for a year until there is a new budget, it warned. The system is urging quick passage of what is known as the extraordinary budget, additional funding sought by Casa |
 Presidencial in addition to the main budget. If the system does not get the funds to pay current expenses, the aguinaldo Christmas bonuses, salaries and the money due to the Caja Costarricense de Seguridad Social, it will have to take extreme measures, it added. Moving the transmitter was recommended by the Comisión Nacional de Emergencias after an Irazú landslide a year ago. A number of other firms already have moved their transmitters, including Radio Partes S.A., Canal 23, Radio Rumbo, Sinfonola, Prisa Radio, Extra TV, Radio Columbia, Faro del Caribe and Canal 50, said the system. Radio Nacional broadcast on 101.5 FM. The system Web site has just one advertisement now. It is from the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo. The system's problems are similar to those of private enterprise. Companies struggle each year to pay the mandatory Christmas bonus while employees take at least a week's vacation and there is minimal income. Latin business leaders and those in Spain call this the cuesta de enero, the "January hill" they have to climb next month to restore solvency. |
| Customs agency announcement shows that evasion is widespread |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Evasion of import tax is big business and epidemic. The Servicio Nacional de Aduanas of the Ministerio de Hacienda said it had recovered 109 million colons that two firms failed to pay. The amount is $207,500. These were not low-budget operations. The customs agency did not name them but said one was an importer of food products and the other was a wine and alcohol importer. They join the ranks of appliance importers and others who have been nabbed for using false figures on their imports. The announcement shows that import tax evasion ranges from some street vendor being caught with a car load of clothing |
that he
brought from
Panamá to some of the country's largest enterprises. The customs agency said that the contractor of the food importer misstated the contents of powered milk at least 14 times. The ministry analyzed the product to determine it was not as the contractor stated, it said. That cost the firm 56,146,000 colons. The wine and alcohol importer paid 53 million colons for claims that involved 37,200 bottles of wine and tequila from México and Argentina, said the ministry. The ministry said that the importer understated the amount of alcohol in each bottle of tequila and claimed that the wine bottles were empty. Benito Coghi, director general of the customs agency said that both cases have been referred to prosecutors due to the falsification of documents. Meanwhile the firms acknowledge the underpayment and made the payments the agency requested. |
| Nosara
area rattled and shaken by multiple quakes |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The western part of the Nicoya peninsula got multiple examples of a restless earth Wednesday night. At 6:03 p.m. a 4.9-magnitude quake took place about four kilometers southwest of Nosara, according to the Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica. A minute later a 3-magnitude quake took place just two kilometers south of Nosara, said the Observatorio. Then at 6:21 p.m. a 3.3-magnitude quake took place in the same locations, said the Observatorio The Red Sismológica Nacional reported an additional 3.2-magnitude quake at 8:02 p.m. 18 kilometers west of Nosara and a 3.4-magnitude quake at 8:41 p.m. 14 miles west of the community in the Pacific. |
The
Laboratorio de Ingenieria Sismica had slightly different estimates
of magnitude. It said that the 6:03 p.m. quake was felt strongly in Nosara to the extent that there might be minor damage. It also said the quake was felt strongly in Carmona, Nandayure, and less so at other points on the peninsula and as far away as Nuevo Arenal. The Observatorio attributed the quake to subduction of the Coco tectonic plate under the lighter Caribbean and said the quake was felt in the Central Valley. Later in the evening the Red Sismológica Nacional reported a 10:04 p.m. quake some 19 kilometers west of Sámara, which is south of Nicoya on the far Pacific coast. But that quake was just 2.3 magnitude, it said. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 244 |
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 Municipalidad
de Desamparados photo
These trucks will not be shiny
and clean for long. |
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| Desamparados adds $1 million worth of new garbage trucks |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Municipalidad de Desamparados said Wednesday it has purchased five new garbage trucks for 553 million colons. That is a bit more than $1 million. That will give the municipality seven trucks to cover eight districts, it said. |
Spending an
average of $200,000 per truck may seem out of line, but
a new Kenworth costs $126,900 in the United States, according to Web
sites, and a Mack 40-cubic yard vehicle with a front end loader costs
$259,000. The municipality also said that it has started another campaign to encourage residents to recycle. Recycling generates jobs, it said. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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A.M. Costa Rica's
Fifth news page |
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 244 | |||||||
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| U.S. High Court is handed affirmative action decision By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Supreme Court appeared divided Wednesday after oral arguments were presented in a case that could spell an end to affirmative action programs at schools and colleges nationwide. The case was brought by a white applicant, Abigail Fisher, who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. She and her lawyers argue that the university admissions policy violates the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. Wednesday's 90-minute hearing was the second time the nation's highest court heard the challenge to the holistic admissions system used by the school for a portion of its applicants. In 2013, the court sent the case back to a federal appeals court, which ruled in favor of the university. During the arguments Wednesday, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that African-American students, who along with other minorities benefit from affirmative action, might belong at less rigorous schools. "I'm just not impressed by the fact the University of Texas may have fewer. Maybe it ought to have fewer. I don't think it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible," Scalia said. Gregory Garre, who argued in support of the university, responded that minority applicants admitted through the holistic admission program fare better than other students over time. About 80 percent of first-year students at the University of Texas-Austin are automatically admitted under a program that reserves places for the top 10 percent of Texas high school students regardless of race. The remaining 20 percent are selected through what the school calls a holistic review process that factors in test scores, extracurricular activities, accomplishments, work experience, socioeconomic status, community service, family responsibilities and race. University of Texas-Austin President Gregory Fenves said after the hearing that "diversity fosters an understanding of one another, of students, and a respect for their differences." "Colleges and universities across the nation have long been addressing questions surrounding race and ethnicity," he said. "The heightened attention on these issues over the past few months highlights their ongoing importance." Ms. Fisher, who has since graduated from Louisiana State University, said she was denied admission to the University of Texas-Austin in 2008 because she was white. The University of Texas said students admitted through the holistic review program at the time of her application had an academic index of 3.4, while Ms. Fisher's was just 3.1. The school said the majority of those admissions were white, non-Hispanic students, but adds the operation of the holistic review program did increase the percentage of African Americans by 1 percent and that of Hispanic students by 2.5 percent. "Race is an odious classification," said Ms. Fisher's lawyer, Bert Rein, who described the university's admission process as inappropriate. "And it really doesn't matter if your results are small, that sort of indicates that you didn't have to do it in the first place." In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that schools can consider an applicant's race as part of their admissions decision, saying they have a duty to provide a diverse student body. The court's ruling on the Fisher case is expected in June 2016. Colorado gunman confesses to murders at court hearing By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The gunman accused of killing three and wounding nine in a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic last month declared himself guilty in a courtroom outburst Wednesday, calling himself a warrior for babies. Fifty-seven-year-old Robert Lewis Dear was formally charged with first-degree murder. His public defender Dan King, the same lawyer who defended Colorado movie theater killer James Holmes, told the judge it is obvious Dear is not mentally competent to stand trial. Dear said his lawyer drugged Holmes and is trying to do the same thing to him. Police have not publicly talked about Dear's motive, but reports say he muttered the phrase "no more baby parts" after his arrest. Dear is accused of opening fire inside a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic that provides abortions. He killed three people, including a university police officer, and wounded nine. Neighbors describe Dear as an unfriendly recluse who lived alone in a crumbling trailer that had no electricity or running water. He could face the death penalty if convicted.  Voice of America photo
Supporters listen to
presidential candidate Donald Trump speak against the Iran nuclear deal
at the U.S. Capital Sept. 9.Security is
main concern
of bulk of Trump supporters By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Supporters of leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are fearful for their safety, worried about the economy and generally fed-up with the way things are going in the U.S., according to political analysts. Trump "taps into the feelings of people who are angered, frustrated, disillusioned about the direction of the country," Georgetown University political scientist Stephen Wayne said. He said Trump supporters, often white men with lower incomes, are worried that they and their concerns have been eclipsed by rapid economic, social and political changes in the United States, where the population of racial minorities is growing and marriage of same-sex couples has been legalized. "There is the rise in inequality" in the United States as well, Wayne noted, with corporate executives earning hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and "a lot of people just living paycheck to paycheck to get by." YouGov market researchers and the Pew Research Center both say that Trump's supporters are less educated and earn less than many voters. About a third earn less than $50,000 a year, according to YouGov, and just 11 percent make more than $100,000. Trump supporters are not particularly ideological, say YouGov market researchers David Brady and Douglas Rivers. In recent YouGov polls, 65 percent of Trump's supporters said they were conservative while 20 percent identified themselves as liberal or moderate. Only 13 percent identified themselves as very conservative. Perhaps this lack of cohesive belief is why they are responsive to Trump, the personality. The one-time reality television star has been "incredibly successful in directing media attention to himself as a person, rather than the other candidates and their credentials and skills," Wayne said. "So far, the campaign is all about Trump." One survey of the presidential candidates' official Facebook pages even concluded that Trump supporters make more grammar mistakes when posting comments than those favoring other candidates. YouGov found that half of Trump supporters have a high school education or less, compared with 19 percent who have a college or post-graduate degree, with Pew Research reporting similar results in its polling. "Definitely not country club Republicans, but not terribly unusual either," YouGov researchers David Brady and Douglas Rivers concluded. Some voters, especially Republicans, appear unnerved and fearful that the country is not safe from terrorist attacks, worries that Trump and other Republican candidates have made central to their campaigns. Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the 322 million Americans, but some people worry that if more Muslims seek refuge in the U.S., they could pose a security risk or would bring unwanted change to the country. Poll after poll in recent months has shown that Republicans, substantially more than Democrats and independents in the U.S., would not vote for a Muslim as president, believe that "the values of Islam are at odds with American values," think that Islam is "inherently violent," and say that the U.S. government should monitor Muslims as potential terrorists. One survey a few months ago showed that 66 percent of Trump's supporters believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim, despite the American leader's public profession over the years of his Christian faith, and 61 percent said they believed Obama was born outside the U.S., which would have made him ineligible to be president. In a White House speech Sunday, Obama said Americans must not give into fear of terrorism and Muslims. But within hours, Trump called for blocking the entry of Muslims into the country, a suggestion condemned by the White House, his Republican and Democratic presidential opponents, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others. Europe's privacy concerns criticized by U.S. top cop By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Following the Paris terror attacks and last week's shootings in San Bernardino, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is criticizing European governments for limiting how intelligence agencies share counterterrorism information around the world. Speaking in London, Lynch called it particularly disappointing that the European Court of Justice recently struck down the so-called safe harbor agreement, signed in 2000, that allowed U.S. companies to easily send customer data from the European Union to servers based across the Atlantic. Ms. Lynch said Wednesday it is highly concerning "that data privacy legislation advancing in the European Parliament might further restrict transatlantic information sharing." She characterized that cooperation as critical to fighting terrorism and transnational crime. In October, the European Court of Justice ruled Safe Harbor invalid after a Facebook user aired concerns about the safety and integrity of his personal information following revelations by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Ms. Lynch said media reports about the systems Snowden made public, which she claimed influenced the European court's decision, were now out of date. She also said the decision overlooks significant steps the Obama administration and Congress have taken to protect privacy. "It is important that all of us, on both sides of the Atlantic, work to set the record straight regarding our commitment to protect not only the safety of our citizens, but also their civil liberties and privacy," Ms. Lynch said. The United States has passed laws to protect the privacy not only of its own nationals, but also European citizens, she noted, pointing to a U.S.-led 24/7 cyber network that now links 70 countries and was critical in France's quick response to the Paris attacks last month. Ms. Lynch also claimed U.S. intelligence has helped Interpol identify 4,000 foreign terrorist fighters. U.S. blocks assets of German who is international terrorist By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States has designated a Turkish-born German citizen as a global terrorist. The action against Emrah Erdogan blocks all his assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction and generally prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with him, a State Department statement said Wednesday. It also said that Erdogan, 27, had recruited foreign terrorist fighters, participated in fighting, and raised funds for al-Qaida and its Somalia-based affiliate, al-Shabab. The statement said he trained with al-Shabab and carried out attacks in Kenya and Uganda before being apprehended in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 2012 and deported to Germany. Erdogan was sentenced to and is currently serving seven years in prison in Germany for joining militant groups in Pakistan and Somalia and for phoning in a false terror threat of attacks in Pakistan and Germany in November 2010, the statement said. Torture rampant in China, U.S. committee concludes By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.N. Committee Against Torture says torture and ill treatment are widespread in China and this internationally prohibited practice remains deeply entrenched in the country’s criminal justice system. The group of 10 independent experts said a Chinese delegation, which presented its case to the U.N. committee, acknowledges torture is a big problem in China, but, it said the delegation did not provide data on the extent and prevalence of this outlawed practice. The panel said China's delegation also did not provide information on how many people have died in custody, how many people are being held incommunicado in secret places of detention, known as black jails and how many cases of torture have been raised and investigated. Under U.N. rules, states under review must respond to questions and concerns raised by the committee within a year after their records have been examined. The U.N. committee said China has not responded to issues raised in 2008 and that they remain unresolved. Committee member Jens Modvig said that among the practices that could easily amount to torture is a sanctioned method of interrogation. “A sign of this problem of widespread torture is the use of so-called interrogation chairs, which are chairs that are fixed to the ground and where the persons interrogated are restrained with arms and there are no time limits to how long such an interrogation could take place,” he said. Modvig said many of the problems relate to the alleged crackdown on lawyers and human rights defenders. The committee itself expressed deep concern about the unprecedented detention and interrogation of more than 200 lawyers and activists since July. It fears such abuses and restrictions may deter lawyers from raising reports of torture in their clients’ defense for fear of reprisals. The committee welcomed the 2012 amendment to China’s Criminal Procedure Law prohibiting the use of confessions obtained by torture as evidence, but, it notes this legislation has not yet been implemented. In 2013, China’s supreme court banned torture and called for criminal justice reforms, but human rights groups say torture remains widely used. Russian tycoon predicts revolution against Putin By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Dissident Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Wednesday that a revolution in his country is inevitable, just days after Russian authorities summoned him for questioning as the accused in a 17-year-old murder case. Addressing a conference in London, Khodorkovsky, the former head of Russia's Yukos oil company, accused President Vladimir Putin of having presided over a full-fledged unconstitutional coup. "Given the absence of fair elections and other mechanisms of a legal changeover of power, the only means of bringing it about is revolution," he said, adding that the country's remaining hard currency reserves and the threat of repression were only delaying an inevitable revolution. "The question is how to make the revolution at least relatively peaceful and effective from the point of view of restoring democratic governance in the country," Khodorkovsky said. Khodorkovsky was released from prison at the end of 2013 after Putin pardoned him, having spent a decade in prison for tax evasion and embezzlement, charges he and his supporters say were politically motivated. He confirmed Wednesday that Russia's investigative committee had ordered him to appear Friday for questioning in the June 1998 murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk, the Siberian city where Yukos had its largest production unit. Yukos' former security chief, Alexei Pichugin, is serving a life sentence for the murder of Petukhov and others. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2012 that Pichugin's right to a fair trial was violated. After Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003, Yukos was broken up for alleged failure to pay taxes, and its main assets were handed over to Russia's Rosneft state oil company. Yukos was declared bankrupt in 2006. Monday, Khodorkovsky connected Moscow's latest action against him to its unhappiness over a 2014 ruling by an international court in The Hague, which said Russia had wrongly seized Yukos and ordered it to pay former Yukos shareholders more than $50 billion in damages. The summons in the murder case, he said, was a way to put pressure on Yukos shareholders. He said the Kremlin is also unhappy about the activities of Open Russia, the foundation Khodorkovsky set up to promote civil society in Russia. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 244 | |||||||||
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Internet seems to
affect personal certainty
By the University of Waterloo news
staff
People are less willing to rely on their knowledge and say they know something when they have access to the Internet, suggesting that connections to the web is affecting how they think. Evan F. Risko of the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo in Canada led a study where the team asked about 100 participants a series of general-knowledge questions, such as naming the capital of France. Participants indicated if they knew the answer or not. For half of the study, participants had access to the Internet. They had to look up the answer when they responded that they did not know the answer. In the other half of the study, participants did not have access to the Internet. The team found that the people who had access to the Web were about 5 per cent more likely to say that they did not know the answer to the question. Furthermore, in some contexts, the people with access to the Internet reported feeling as though they knew less compared to the people without access. “With the ubiquity of the Internet, we are almost constantly connected to large amounts of information. And when that data is within reach, people seem less likely to rely on their own knowledge,” said Risko. In interpreting the results, the researchers speculated that access to the Internet might make it less acceptable for someone to say he or she knows something but are incorrect. It is also possible that participants were more likely to say they didn’t know an answer when they had access to the Web because online searching offers an opportunity to confirm their answer or resolve their curiosity, and the process of finding out is rewarding. “Our results suggest that access to the Internet affects the decisions we make about what we know and don’t know,” said Risko. "We hope this research contributes to our growing understanding of how easy access to massive amounts of information can influence our thinking and behavior." David McLean and Amanda Ferguson, research assistants, are co-authors of the study, which appears in the journal, Consciousness and Cognition. Risko plans to further the research in this area by investigating the factors that lead to individuals' reduced willingness to respond when they have access to the Web. Some drugs from India called fake By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Developing countries in Africa are battling a host of deadly infectious diseases, from diarrheal conditions to malaria to HIV, and some think India may have a way to help. But complications arise. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, met recently with the heads of state of more than 50 African countries to discuss ways India, which has become the world's leader in the manufacture and export of generic drugs, can improve the continent's health infrastructure. Such drugs cost a small fraction of the originals, and exports have reaped $15 billion for the Indian economy, according to some estimates. But inspectors have identified factories that produce substandard drugs that are dangerous, either because they contain toxic ingredients or because they simply do not work. Fake malaria drugs already have made their way to Africa, and some worry that more copycat drugs could be on the way. "India seems to segment its markets,” said health economist Roger Bate with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based research organization. “. . . on average it sends the better quality medications to countries like the United States. And the medicines that do not pass quality control, it sends to poorer nations, particularly those in Africa." Gaurvika Nayyar, a global health consultant, backs the contention that poorly made and counterfeit drugs are being exported to poorer countries. She says she has visited some of the sham factories, but she stresses that knowing about the problem and taking action are two different things. |
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| From
Page 7: VW says CO2 problem is less than anticipated By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
German automaker Volkswagen announced Wednesday that a problem with carbon dioxide emissions is far smaller than initially suspected. In a case separate from the emissions cheating scandal, the company said that further checks found slight discrepancies in only a few models and no evidence of illegal changes to fuel consumption and emissions figures. “This means that these vehicles can be marketed and sold without any limitations,” the company said in a statement. Volkswagen said that minor deviations were found in nine variants of brand models, including Polo, Scirocco, Jetta, Golf and Passat with an annual production of some 36,000 cars, or less than 1 percent of the brand's total production. Those deviations amount to a few grams of CO2 on average, Volkswagen said. Volkswagen’s update came as its supervisory board was meeting to discuss progress with the investigations it launched in September after its admission of irregularities about carbon emissions a day after U.S. authorities accused the company of fitting defeat devices on its larger diesel vehicles. Shares in Volkswagen traded 6 percent higher on the news. Volkswagen was plunged into the biggest crisis in its history after the revelation that 11 million of its vehicles had been fitted with devices that switched anti-pollution controls on during tests, but shut off the devices during normal driving. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in September that there were 500,000 problemed diesel Volkswagens in the U.S., which warranted fines up to $18 billion. Some law firms in North America filed class action suits. Countries in Europe, including Germany, also filed law suits, in addition to ordering investigations into emission levels of Volkswagen cars. |
