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Editor's
Note:
We are working with format of the daily
news. We welcome your suggestions -
constructive if possible - to make this the
'best' daily news source in Costa Rica!
Send your comments to:
editor@insidecostarica.com |
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First
bank robbery of the year!
The
Banco Elca branch in Barrio Amon was the
first bank to be robbed this year of what
promises to be the first of many.
Late Wednesday afternoon, two masked men
entered the branch, while a third, the
get-away driver remained at the wheel parked
in front the branch located 2 blocks south
of the Morzan Park.
The robbers entered the bank like any other
customers, quickly covered their faces and
pulled guns on the teller and several
customers doing their banking. Everything
happened very fast and within minutes they
were gone, along with 5 million colones.
According to witnesses the three suspects
are white, thin and tall. Police were on the
scene within minutes, however, the three men
got away in a red Hyunday.
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According to witnesses, there was an
exchange of gunfire between the bank robbers
and the police, which are fled from the
scene.
IRS News worries some Investors
Because of an article that appeared in another on-line news publication, the newsroom at Inside Costa Rica has been bombarded by e-mails and phone calls from concerned readers who have investments with a number of financial businesses in San Jose.
According to the article, our readers told us, The United States Internal Revenue Service was offering a amnesty program for investors who had failed to report income from investments. |
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However, a telephone call placed to the IRS in Washington, DC revealed that no such arrangements have been made. Apparently the statements made in this on-line newspaper,
referred to a "Blanket Policy" that applies to anyone who is interested in pursuing to clear back taxes and unreported income.
All back taxes owed must still be paid in full, many times the IRS will waive the penalties that are usually charged, thus rewarding the person's honesty and also encouraging the voluntary disclosure of these matters.
Though
the
IRS did not make this statement specifically
with the Villalobos or Cuban Investors in
mind, it seems that many readers interpreted
it that way.
Erick Greenwood dead
A former Central American Swimming champion was found dead yesterday morning at 1 AM, in San Rafael de Heredia.
Erick Greenwood, 36 years old, was found next to his parked vehicle with what appeared to be a self inflicted wound.
Greenwood's successful swimming career had earned him more than ten medals, seven of which gold.
The OIJ said that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the mouth.
Friends of the family suspect that the reason for the suicide might have been
financial, though refused to be interviewed
or give a statement.
Greenwood was an investor with Savings Unlimited and The Brothers.
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INTERNATIONAL
NEWS
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Pornography: Hot and Bothered
They don’t get a lot of sympathy, but pornographers are ripped off, too, when Internet users swap pirated files. Every day millions of photos and video clips are stolen off for-pay porn sites and traded through Napster successors. Yet as music-business officials sing dirges about lost profits, pornographers see an opportunity.
The buzz last week at Internext, the annual conference in Las Vegas for the $3 billion-a-year Internet porn industry, was about technology that could give rise to a new form of online marketing. The answer, says Playa Solutions founder Jason Tucker, is to encode every video or picture posted to a porn site. People who download and view the file would have to go to the original site or fork over a credit card to see what they want.
This would encourage pornographers to push content into online circulation.
“People are going to steal,” Tucker told a seminar. “Stop fighting it. Encourage it.” Gail Harris, chief executive of
Falcon Foto Inc., a company that supplies porn magazines with photos, likes the idea. “We’re willing to give away a few images, and then if you’re interested in more, we have a whole archive you can subscribe to,” she says.
Music honchos aren’t as thrilled: giving away music won’t generate the sales pirating proponents suggest. “The music business wants to shut this down,” Tucker says. “But we in the porn industry know that the more you try to keep people from something, the more you encourage them to want to do it.”
Chief UN inspector heads to Europe for talks on Iraq
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is leaving for a series of meetings with senior European officials before heading to Baghdad this weekend for further talks with Iraqi authorities, a UN spokesman said here Wednesday.
Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), said the chief inspector is expected to meet Thursday with the European Union's High Representative for a Common Foreign Security Policy, Javier Solana, as well as the European Commission's External Relations Commissioner, Chris Patten.
Afterwards, Blix is slated to travel to Paris and London for talks with senior officials before stopping over in Cyprus on his way to Baghdad along with Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Clearly these consultations in Europe are important," Buchanan said. "It's useful for (him) to have spoken to Europe before he goes to Baghdad to begin to pass on the sentiments that the international community wants this job to be carried out."
Buchanan said the chief inspector would use the visit to remind Iraq of its obligations and to ask again for more evidence about the gaps in the arms declaration. "Another issue is this list of Iraqi personnel, which we found inadequate, and we will hope to get more information from the Iraqis on all these issues," he said.
Venezuela's major oil field resumes pumping oil
Venezuela's Punta de Mata oil field in the northeastern state of Monagas has begun operating following the disruption of the general strike, and its daily output has reached 50 percent of the normal level, the Venezuelan press reported on Monday.
The press quoted Elias Macho, production engineer of the oil field, as saying the daily output now stood at 1.1 billion cubic feet a day and the production was expected to return to normal in the coming days. The oil field usually pumps 165,000 barrels of oil a day which are sent to Puerto La Cruz refining plant for shipment abroad.
However, Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter, pumping 2.7 million barrels of oil a day to international markets before the outbreak of the general strike on December 2, now still needs to import oil to meet its domestic demand.
Also on Monday, the local press quoted Horacio Mendina, the opposition leader and president of Unapetrol de Venezuela oil company, as saying present oil imports could not meet the demand at home. Medina said Venezuela needed 250,000 barrels a day to meet domestic demand and now there was a shortage of 185,000 barrels.
The opposition leaders and businessmen, who blame the government for an economic contraction, called on the strike to press for the resignation of President Hugo Chavez and early elections. As the strike enters its sixth week, there seems no letup from the two sides.
The strike has dealt a deadly blow to the nation's oil industry, with oil output and exports nose-diving and fuel and food in short supply.
Mediaforce lays down the law with Australia's ISPs
Local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have doused reported attempts by a US digital copyright solutions company to force them to terminate the Internet contracts of customers suspected of breaching copyright rules.
MediaForce, a US digital copyright solutions company claiming to act on behalf of Warner Bros, has reportedly sent a letter to at least one Australian ISP listing a series of IP addresses it claims have been used to illegally access copyrighted material. The letter goes on to request the user of the IP addresses be denied access, and that their account be terminated.
"Since you own this IP address, we request that you immediately do the following: 1) Disable access to the individual who has engaged in the conduct described above; and 2) Terminate any and all accounts that this individual has through you," read the letter, a copy of which has been posted on broadband forum site Whirlpool.
None of the five ISPs contacted by ZDNet Australia claimed to have received the letter, but most indicated they would be unlikely to comply with the requests in the letter if they did receive one.
"We wouldn't act on it because Warner Bros is not a government body that would act on those things," Ian McKimm, Pacific Internet's director of technology and strategy told ZDNet Australia . "We can't act as police, we have to act on what the guidelines are."
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