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Seatbelts A Must!
The Constitutional Court, locally known as La Sala IV, yesterday resolved
the long standing issue on the mandatory use of seatbelts. The court ruled
that drivers must wear a seatbelt.
The issue was brought before the court last January when several legislative
deputies consulted with the court to render a decision on the validity of
the law being presented before them. The court was asked if the mandatory
use of seatbelts violated any personal rights. The law to make seatbelts
mandatory was first brought before the legislature in December of last year.
The magistrates voted four to three in favour of the seatbelt use, saying
that the mandatory use did not violate any personal rights. However, in it's
decision, the magistrates continued that it would be non constitutional to
obligate passengers of vehicles to use the seatbelt. The decision is
contrary to the proposed law that would have made it obligatory for all
passengers of vehicles to fasten up.
The decision does not make the use of seatbelt immediate, as the proposed
law still needs to go before a second reading and debate before the
legislature, though it is expected to pass very quickly, now that the green
light has been given by the courts.
Minister of Obras Públicas y Transporte (MOPT), Javier Chaves, and Ignacio
Sánchez, Director of Transit are not happy with the court decision, jointly
saying that the person who suffers the most in an accident is the passenger.
Chaves added that in a collision, the vehicle comes to a stop, however, the
human body will travel and collide with the windshield. The seatbelt is made
to stop that collision, reducing the risk of injury.
The new law, when passed, will provide for a fine of ¢8.350 colones for the
non-use of the seatbelt.
Terror Group Suspect Extradited to U.S.
A suspected leader of a Colombian terrorist group
accused of trying to trade drugs for weapons has been extradited to the
United States from Costa Rica, a U.S. federal prosecutor said Tuesday.
Edgar Fernando Blanco Puerta, one of two leaders of the United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia, has been charged with conspiracy to provide material
support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to
distribute cocaine.
Blanco Puerta, Elkin Arroyave and Carlos Romero were arrested in 2002 in San
Jose, Costa Rica, where prosecutors allege they traveled to finalize plans
to transfer the weapons.
Blanco Puerta fought extradition but was flown to the United States on
Friday, U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby said.
Arroyave, Romero and co-defendant Uwe Jensen have pleaded guilty to federal
charges and are awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors have said that Jensen, who lived in a suburb southwest of
Houston, introduced an undercover FBI operative to Romero, a Colombian
citizen who lived nearby.
Negotiations began in Houston for the FBI source to provide $25 million
worth of Russian-made weapons to the Colombian paramilitaries in exchange
for cocaine and cash, prosecutors allege. The Justice Department has said no
weapons actually reached the paramilitaries.
Prosecutors contend the terrorist group is responsible for more than 1,000
killings and dozens of kidnappings.
Colombia's four-decade-old civil war pits two left-wing rebel groups against
the Colombian government and the right-wing paramilitary fighters. About
3,500 people, mainly civilians, are dying in the fighting each year.
Coin Operated
Public Telephones to be Eliminated
Due to the recent changes in the monetary system introduced by the Central
Bank of Costa Rica, effectively removing from circulation all "silver"
coins, ICE, the telecommunications company has decided to remove all coin
operated telephones that use the silver coins. According to ICE, there are
now only 100 coin telephones that accept the "gold" coloured coins.
Currently, according to ICE figures, there are 23.000 public telephones in
the country, of which only 3.500 are coin operated. The remainder of the
public telephones use the "chip" card or "colobri" service.
The chip telephones can only be used by a special chip telephone card that
and usually blue colored telephones. While the colobri telephones employs a
card with a code that has to be entered in the dialing sequence to complete
the call.
Costa Rica the
Next Stop for the Challenge Tour
1The European Challenge Tour moves from Panama to Costa Rica this weekend
for the Costa Rica Open at the Valle del Sol Golf Club, Santa Ana, Costa
Rica – the second event of the ‘Central America Swing,’ co-sanctioned with
the Tour de Las Americas.
The Panama Masters 2004 was the perfect start to the new Challenge Tour
season, with Argentinian Miguel Fernandez capping a wonderful last day
performance by edging out Welshman Mark Pilkington in a play-off to secure
the €14,149 winner’s cheque.
Following that victory, Fernandez can now join his fellow countrymen Cesar
Monasterio, Gustavo Rojas and Daniel Vanscik as a full Challenge Tour Member
in the field for the Costa Rica Open – a tournament which their compatriot,
Sebastian Fernandez, won last year.
Pilkington, meanwhile, will concentrate on securing an early victory on the
Challenge Tour Schedule as he looks to take advantage of the new Category 3c
in the regulations for 2004, whereby any player who wins three tournaments
during the season will gain automatic and immediate promotion to The
European Tour International Schedule.
The 25 year old, who finished 94th and then 81st on the Volvo Order of Merit
in 2001 and 2002, lost his card last year but would love to capitalize on
the new regulation that would propel him swiftly back to The European Tour
for the remainder of 2004 as a Category 3c Member.
“It’s good to be playing well at the start of the season,” said Pilkington
in Panama. “Last year didn’t start well for me, and I ended up unable to
play my way out of trouble and I ended up losing my card – so it feels good
to be playing well early on.
“Plus, with the new rule applying to any player who wins three tournaments
in a row being able to go straight onto the European Tour, it’s certainly
good to feel you are in contention early in the season.
“If you can win one tournament, you take a lot of confidence from it and it
wouldn’t be a great surprise if someone won three events – there are players
on the Challenge Tour who are more than capable of doing it.”
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Miami's FTAA bid
adds a backer
The city with the most endorsements will not necessarily get the FTAA
secretariat, but Miami, having just picked up Nicaragua's support, sees such
backing as key in case of a deadlock.
Miami picked up an endorsement Tuesday from Nicaraguan President Enrique
Bolaños as his country's preferred site for a secretariat for the proposed
Free Trade Area of the Americas.
During a joint news conference with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who visited the
Central American nation as part of a weeklong trade mission to the region,
Bolaños said Nicaragua would be ''delighted'' if Miami were to be picked as
the headquarters site.
The trade mission, a joint effort of Enterprise Florida, the state's
economic development agency, and Florida FTAA, a public-private partnership
headed by Bush, is intended to boost trade relations with Central America as
well as bolster Miami's bid for the secretariat.
Costa Rica, meanwhile, has pledged its support to Port-of-Spain, but
President Abel Pacheco said this week that the country would back Miami if
the Trinidadian capital were to drop out.
Jorge Arrizurieta, executive director of the FTAA, said that the
endorsements were intended to build momentum for Miami's bid and that Bush
hoped to pick up another booster before ending his trip.
''It's almost a beginning of the second phase after the ministerial
meeting,'' Arrizurieta said in a phone interview from Managua, Nicaragua's
capital.
The reference was to last November's Miami meeting of trade ministers from
around the hemisphere. Miami, Arrizurieta said, has been working to gain the
backing of more countries.
''The winner of the process is going to be the site that can gather the most
representatives of countries that will allow you to be the consensus
candidate,'' he said.
Scaled-back ambition for the trade accord, he added, would boost the need
for a secretariat, and ``it's probably a greater reason to have a
secretariat because you are going to have a work in progress.''
Eleven cities are vying for the proposed secretariat, with Panama City and
Port-of-Spain considered Miami's strongest competition. At last count,
Uruguay's president and now Bolaños are supporting Miami. Uruguay is
negotiating the FTAA along with its Mercosur neighbors, Argentina, Brazil
and Paraguay.
Trinidad and Tobago, having garnered the support of the Caribbean nations,
count 16 countries, including Costa Rica, as backers of its bid.
But, while endorsements are important, the city with the most supporters
will not necessarily be selected. The 34 countries negotiating the
free-trade area do not plan to take a vote for the secretariat.
Instead, the decision is to be reached by consensus, meaning a lack of
adamant opposition to the city selected. And that could allow a compromise,
second-place, choice to win.
The decision is supposed be made at the next ministerial meeting. Brazilian
FTAA negotiators had originally said the meeting, to take place in Brazil,
would occur in July or August. The final declaration in Miami, however, said
only that it would be held this year.
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