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José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 19
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says it is dismayed by the acquittal of seven men in the murder of environmental activist Jairo Mora Sandoval. The organization does not mince words. In a news release it says: Court could not condemn the murderers, but we all know who they are. "The verdict of the Court of Limón has dismayed our organization, Sea Shepherd said in a news release. "The murder of a young man who dedicated his life to protecting marine life should not go unpunished." The organization noted that one of its boats has been named after Mora and that Sea Shepherd and Latin American Sea Turtles Association launched Operation Pacuare, a campaign against poaching to protect sea turtles at Playa Pacuare in the province of Limón. "The goal for this year is to expand this operation and the vigilant patrols of turtles in Moin Beach as a way to continue to honor the memory of Jairo and the important work he accomplished in Costa Rica," the organization said. "Beyond the technical flaws, which prevented the court from issuing a guilty verdict, Costa Ricans know who are the culprits," Sea Shepherd concluded. The acquittals are expected to be appealed on the grounds that the trail court excluded evidence that should have been admitted. Still, the court in its verdict outlines what appears to be sloppy investigative work. The organization's opinion reflects a lot of what average Costa Ricans think. A vigil is planned for today at the court complex. Sandoval was killed at Playa Moín where he was going with four volunteers to protect the nests of sea turtles May 31, 2013. Our reader's opinion
Reader wonders about police trainingDear A.M. Costa Rica: Thank you so much for the service you provide English-speaking people with interests in Costa Rica. The report you provided about the recent case dismissal of murder charges might otherwise be lost in the tourist agencies' rose colored glasses vision of reality. It is a sad day in Costa Rica as a result of the case against seven men accused of murdering turtle conservationist Jairo Mora Sandoval being dismissed for evidence reasons. The primary function of police investigating murder cases is evidence collection and protection. For the judge to dismiss the charges as a result of improper handling of evidence by police, suggests that taxes assessed for additional police training and equipment are not being effectively used. Suggestions that corruption could be the underlying issue of evidence problems cannot be ignored. It is hard to accept the governments rational of new taxes to improve public safety, if morality is reduced to a wad of bills passed under a table. Want to be a premier country with a thriving tourist economy? This is not the way. If police are not able (or refuse) to do the job they were trained and trusted with, they need to find other work and be prosecuted for crimes. Jeff Marlow
Guacimo, Limón and U.S.A.  Ministerio de Obras Públicas y
Transportes photo
The work to date has been to reinforce the
bridge foundations.
Río
Virilla bridge widening to start
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Highway officials said that work would begin anew on widening the bridge over the Río Virilla, in April or May. This is the so-called platina bridge because it has resisted all efforts to fix expansion joints. Platina translates as a metal plate, which became loose on the bridge and endangered tires. The bridge is on the General Cañas highway that leads from San José to Alajuela and Juan Santamaría airport. The highway leading to the bridge and away from it is six lane. But the bridge is just four lanes. The ministry has spent 4.3 billion colons, some $8.3 million to reinforce the underpinnings of the bridge. An analysis of the structure showed that the reason the bridge deck could not be fixed correctly was because the bridge was too flexible. Officials said they hope that the widening of the bridge will be done in May 2016. They expect that six lanes will eliminate the current bottleneck.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 19 | |
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| Museo Nacional will provide a
slice of culture Friday afternoon |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There is a double treat in store for expats who attend the rezo del Niño ceremony at the Museo Nacional Friday afternoon. The ceremony itself dates back at least to Medieval Spain and the life-size figures that make up the museum's nativity scene have a long history and recently have been refurbished. The rezo del Niño is a traditional prayer service before the nativity scene is put away for another year. There is no need to be Catholic to attend the museum's 1:30 p.m. ceremony. Similar ceremonies are being held all over the country in offices, private homes and in the headquarters of organizations and clubs. María Elena Masis, museum historian, was quoted saying that the ceremony came to Costa Rica at the end of the 18th century and has become part of the Costa Rican identity. It merges religion with popular culture and even popular foods because the ceremony is followed by eating and singing. A typical rezo is an hours long production with live music and much prayer. The ceremony is centered around the rosary, the assembly of 54 beads Catholics use for prayer and meditation. A musician frequently is part of a team. Also present could be a mistress of ceremonies who leads the prayers and perhaps other assistants. Among the songs can be the ancient "El Alabado," a hymn of praise to Jesus. The word rezo comes from rezar, which means to pray. |
 Museo Nacional photo
This is the museum's
nativity scene or portal.The 15-piece nativity scene now at the museum has a long history. The figures were made in Paris and came to Costa Rica by ship to Limón and probably railway to San José about 100 years ago, said the museum, giving this outline: The figures were displayed for years at Hospital San Juan de Dios when it was run by the sisters of charity of St. Vincent de Paul. The sisters added clothing and some refinements to the statues. When the hospital became part of the public health system in 1942, the figures eventually came to the museum. Alfredo Duncan, the museum restorer, completed work on the figures for this Christmas. He cleaned and retouched the pieces and fixed cracks as well as adding supports where needed. Then the figures were polished. Each piece is about 1.6 meters, some 63 inches. |
| Latin-Carribean summit starts today but still lacks some key
players |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some 17 heads of state have confirmed attendance at the third summit of the Community of Latin America and the Caribbean that begins this morning.  Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto
photo
Raúl Castro makes an
early arrival. |
As of Tuesday
night, some key figures were still uncertain attendees. They included
Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, said
Costa Rica's foreign ministry. There are 32 foreign delegations, but some are headed by an ambassador or a foreign minister, according to the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto. Raúl Castro, the president of Cuba, made a surprise morning arrival at Juan Santamaría airport. He was the first head of state but was not expected until the afternoon. The summit attendees are anxious to hear Castro's take on the thawing of relations with the United States. Manuel González, Costa Rica's foreign minister, told visiting diplomats Tuesday that the summit is a place where rhetoric can be converted into practice. The diplomats are expected to discuss topics ranging from poverty, financing development, corruption and goals for the years after this one. When they are seated for the first time this morning, the heads of state and heads of delegations are to be presented with an agenda that has been formulated by technical staff members who have been working since Saturday. The formal meeting is in Pedregal in Belén. The contents of the working document have not been made public. However, relations with China is high on the list. The organization of states is the creation of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Castro. It is seen as a counterweight to the established Organization of American States and the United States and Canada. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 19 | |||||
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| Prolonged drought appears to be
reason for decline in Mexican city |
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By the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
news staff Scientists have reconstructed the past climate for the region around Cantona, a large fortified city in highland México, and found the population drastically declined in the past at least in part because of climate change. The research appears in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Lawrence Livermore researcher Susan Zimmerman and colleagues analyzed pollen, stable isotopes and elemental concentrations, which serve as proxies of past climatic and environmental conditions, from lake sediments in the region and found evidence of a regional drought between 500 and 1150 AD, about the time Cantona was abandoned. Using Lawrence Livermore’s Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, the team, consisting of the University of California, Berkeley, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Mexico and the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, dated terrestrial organic material from 12-meter-long sediment cores from the lake to establish the age control for this study. Radiocarbon dating and an age model showed that the centennial-scale arid interval between 500 and 1150 was overlaid on a long-term drying trend. The cores cover the last 6,200 years. However, the team focused on the last 3,800 years. Cantona is now an archaeological site in Mexico on the border with Veracruz about an hour's drive from the city of Puebla. Limited archaeological work has been done at the site, and only about 10 percent of the site can be seen. It was a prominent, if isolated, Mesoamerican city between 600 and 1000 AD. It was abandoned after 1050 AD. |
 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory photo
The
ancient city of Cantona
“We found that Cantona’s population grew in the initial phases of the drought, but by 1050 AD long-term environmental stress contributed to the city’s abandonment,” Ms. Zimmerman and colleagues said. “Our research highlights the interplay of environmental and political factors in past human responses to climate change.” Cantona was one of the largest cities in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, with a population of 90,000 inhabitants. It is in a semiarid basin east of Mexico City. The team conducted a subcentennial reconstruction of regional climate by taking sediment samples from a nearby crater lake, Aljojuca. The modern climate of the region suggests that proxy data from the sediments record changes in May through October precipitation. “Our results suggest that climate change played a contributing role in the site’s history,” Ms. Zimmerman said. |
Here's reasonable medical care
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2015 and may
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 19 | |||||||
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 Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum photo
These are the two remaining
crematoriums that remain at the concentration camp. |
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| Concentration camp survivors return to mark liberation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
About 300 survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp gathered Tuesday at the site in Poland to pay their respects to victims who perished in gas chambers or from inhumane treatment and disease. When the death camp was liberated Jan. 27, 1945, by the Soviet Army, soldiers found 7,000 prisoners, among them 130 children. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday it was a disgrace that Jews in Germany faced insults, threats and violence. Merkel joined survivors in a commemorative ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the most notorious Nazi death camps of World War II. Before departing for Poland, German President Joachim Gauck told the parliament in Berlin the lessons of the crimes of Auschwitz were "woven into the texture of our national identity.'' From the "guilt and shame and remorse'' of the Nazi genocide, modern Germany has become a champion of human rights and equality, he said. Other world leaders and dignitaries, the presidents of Poland, Israel, and France, Pope Francis and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, have marked the occasion. But this may be the last time witnesses of the Holocaust participate in a major ceremony, since the youngest of them are in their 70s. They returned to Auschwitz to pay tribute to victims and tell their stories. “None of us believed that people worked in the mud, that when someone could not work they were shot, that there were piles of bodies. After I arrived, I did not need to imagine, I saw it. That is why after the war I could not come here for 50 years. Because I did not see people, I only saw prisoners or bodies or the smoking chimneys of crematoriums,” said Alina Dabrowska, who was just a child when she arrived at Auschwitz. For another survivor, the 88-year-old David Wisnia, "It is a lifetime ago really" that brings back shocking memories. "Last night sleeping ... I had a horrible dream and woke up and looked out the window and sort of thought that I was back in Birkenau in cell block 14 where I started in 1942," Wisnia said. The 79-year-old Róża Krzywobłocka-Laurow from Poland was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 when she was only 8 years old. "If I survived it was to warn against this ever happening again," she said at the bullet-riddled Wall of Death where the Nazis shot thousands. As part of Adolf Hitler's genocide plan against European Jews, called the Final Solution, more than 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the occupied southern Polish town of Oswiecim between June 1940 and January 1945. About 1.1 million of them, mainly European Jews, perished in the gas chambers or from starvation and disease. The Nazis killed 6 million of pre-war Europe's 11 million Jews. Vice President Joe Biden said, "We mark this milestone at a moment when too many hearts in too many places are still full of the hatred that seeks to eliminate innocent life on the basis of religion, ethnicity, or identity. Recent violent attacks against Jews in France and elsewhere in Europe make unmistakably clear that the scourge of anti-Semitism persists and must be confronted. "Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who served with honor in the United States Congress, used to say, 'The veneer of civilization is paper thin. We are its guardians. We can never rest.' We have to reclaim the words never again. It must be more than a lament. It must remain our commitment,'" said Biden. Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director for the Holocaust drama "Schindler's List," condemned "the growing effort to banish Jews from Europe," in a statement before departing for Poland. He has videotaped and has taken testimonies of 58,000 survivors. With their compelling stories of nightmares and flashbacks from perhaps the most horrendous life experience in the history of mankind, the survivors of the Holocaust convey above all a very strong and powerful message, "let us not forget, for that not to be ever repeated." Clerical date error saved young Czech Jewish girl By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Dagmar Lieblova was 14 when she arrived at Auschwitz in December 1943, along with her entire Czech Jewish family. All of them but her were to die there, but she was able to leave after several months due to a bureaucratic mix-up which saved her life. Now 85, with three children and six grandchildren, she says she has a feeling of victory. Auschwitz is still a chilling place. It was purpose-built for mass murder. And more than a million people died there. But the survivors can bear witness to what happened. Among them Ms. Lieblova, whose mother and sister both perished in the camp. "Well I was almost 15, and I couldn't imagine that everything would be over," she said. "That I would never see anything else but just the blocks and the wire, I would never in my life see a tree or a piece of grass." Ms. Lieblova had every reason to think that she too would end in the Auschwitz crematorium. Shortly after she arrived, her uncle, aunt and cousin were all killed in the gas chambers. She spent her days helping her mother empty the latrines. It was grim work, on an empty stomach. "The food was very simple. It was in the morning there was what they called coffee - a sort of warm liquid," she said. "In the day there was a portion soup. And then a piece of bread in the evening." But Ms. Lieblova was about to be saved by an incredible stroke of luck. The Nazis made a list of workers aged 16 to 40 to undertake war work in Germany. Her name was on it. Her date of birth should have been written 1929. But instead, it said 1925. "Because of this mistake, that someone wrote a 5 instead of a 9 it saved my life," she said. "There was a train standing, and we stepped in, and it moved, and we didn't believe we were leaving. We couldn't believe that we were really leaving Auschwitz." Like so many others Ms. Lieblova's family all died there. She spent the rest of the war working in Hamburg. Only once, 20 years ago, did she return. She won't come back again. "Auschwitz is a cemetery for my parents, my sister, almost all my relatives," she said. "Everything comes back again. No, I wouldn't go there any more. It's too hard." But Ms. Lieblova, at home surrounded by books and photos, is not bitter. Life, she feels, has triumphed. "Now when I see my children and grandchildren I have a feeling it's a victory. Because I was not supposed to be here," she said. Auschwitz is now a museum, a reminder of the inhuman cruelty perpetrated by the Nazis. New England got the brunt of Great Blizzard of 2015 By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A powerful winter storm dropped as much as 60 centimeters (almost 2 feet) of snow in some parts of the northeastern U.S. Monday and Tuesday, leaving millions of residents stranded in their homes waiting for the weather to break. Boston and surrounding New England got the brunt of the storm, as near-record snowfall and high winds caused blizzard conditions. Storm-driven flooding added to the woes of those who live in coastal areas. In one Massachusetts seaside town, Marshfield, 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Boston, high tides breached a seawall, damaging several homes and prompting officials to urge that residents evacuate. The island of Nantucket, with about 10,000 full-time residents, lost all electrical power for several hours during the storm. By Tuesday night, the local police chief said, power had been restored to much of the island. At one point, reported winds on Nantucket reached 126 kilometers (78 miles) per hour. The northeastern states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut got some of the heaviest snow. But the storm fell short of forecasters' worst predictions farther south in New York and New Jersey. The governors of those two states began lifting travel bans after dawn Tuesday, while the National Weather Service canceled its blizzard warning for New York City. "This is nothing like we feared it would be," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN. De Blasio had earlier warned the storm could be one of the worst the city had ever faced. In Manhattan's largely deserted Times Square, residents were underwhelmed. "I was expecting 2 feet [60 cm], and it's only like a couple of inches [5 cm]," said New York resident Allison Tiberie. "So they're making a big deal out of nothing. I didn't think it was that bad." New York state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, defended the decision to implement the travel bans, saying it was better to be safe than sorry. "I would rather, if there's a lean one way or another, if you will, lean toward safety," he said. "Because I've seen the consequences the other way, and it gets very frightening, very quickly. And I've seen people put in extraordinarily dangerous situations, and we've had people die in storms." The New York Stock Exchange was operating normally Tuesday, but United Nations headquarters and many schools and businesses across the Northeast were closed. Thousands of flights across the region were canceled, according to FlightAware.com. The blizzard had a ripple effect on travelers and airports all across the U.S. As far south as Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport, more than 50 flights were canceled. The only reported death in the storm occurred on New York's Long Island, which was hit much harder than Manhattan. The victim was a teenager who crashed into a light post while snow tubing. The brunt of the storm missed the nation's capital, which saw only light snow mixed with rain, but federal offices and public schools in the city opened two hours late Tuesday to give people extra travel time. On social media, Americans waiting out the snowstorm posted photos and videos of their cities blanketed in white. Hashtags such as #blizzardof2015 and #Snowmageddon2015 quickly gained traction. Snow was expected to fall over parts of the Northeast through this morning. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker urged residents to stay off the roads. "If you don't need to go out, I think those folks who are still in the process of cleaning up would appreciate it if you gave them the room and the opportunity to do that," he said. Chicago drug traffickers get light sentence for helping By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A U.S. federal judge sentenced twin Chicago drug traffickers to 14-year prison terms Tuesday in exchange for their cooperation in a case against Mexican drug cartel leaders. Judge Ruben Castillo said he could have given Pedro and Margarito Flores life in prison. The judge, however, said the threat of being killed would always hang over the brothers' heads and that they effectively "are going to leave here with a life sentence." The Flores brothers were Chicago's most significant drug traffickers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Working as distributors for Mexico's Sinaloa and Beltran Leyva drug cartels, they flooded the streets of Chicago and several other large U.S. cities with cocaine and heroin and helped smuggle nearly $2 billion back to Mexico. The brothers started cooperating with U.S. agents in 2008, leading to the arrests and indictments of several Mexican drug kingpins. Russia calls spy arrest provocation hurting ties By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Russia on Tuesday condemned the United States for the arrest of an alleged Russian spy, condemning the move as a provocation that would further damage already strained ties. U.S. counterintelligence agents arrested a Russian national Monday in New York City and charged him with espionage. Evgeny Buryakov, 39, and two other Russians, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy, who are not believed to be in the U.S., were indicted on charges of spying and attempting to recruit people already living in the United States, including employees of major corporations and women connected to a major university. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tuesday denied the charges, saying the U.S. was resorting to anti-Russian campaigning. He said "no evidence which would support such information has been presented. It seems that the American authorities have once again decided to resort to a favorite practice of unwinding espionage.'' Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met Tuesday with John Tefft, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, to discuss bilateral issues, the ministry said. According to a U.S. Justice Department complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the defendants were tasked by Russian authorities "to gather intelligence on, among other subjects, potential United States sanctions against Russian banks and the United States' efforts to develop alternative energy resources.'' Posing as an employee of the Russian bank Vnesheconombank, Buryakov broke U.S. law by not informing officials that he was in the country as a covert Russian intelligence operative, the complaint said. Federal prosecutors said Sporyshev, 40, worked as a Russian trade representative from November 2010 to November 2014, while Podobnyy, 27, was an attache to Russia's mission to the United Nations from December 2012 to September 2013. Prosecutors said U.S. authorities gathered physical evidence and electronic data from many meetings, including several in which Buryakov met with an FBI agent posing as a wealthy investor intending to develop casinos in Russia. Between March 2012 and mid-September 2014, the FBI observed Buryakov and Sporyshev meeting 48 times in outdoor settings, the complaint said. Several of the meetings "involved Buryakov passing a bag, magazine or slip of paper to Sporyshev." The investigation followed leads from a 2010 case resulting in the arrest of 10 covert agents working in the United States. All 10 pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to conspiracy charges and were extradited as part of a spy swap for four people convicted of betraying Moscow to the West. The three Russian suspects each face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Attorney General Eric Holder said the U.S. is committed "to combating attempts by covert agents to illegally gather intelligence and recruit spies within the United States." More than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, Russian spies continue to work in the U.S. and are a direct threat to U.S. national security, Justice Department officials said. Small drone available to all shows vulnerability in D.C. By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
White House security was breached again Monday when a small remote-controlled quad copter crashed on its lawn. The U.S. Secret Service is investigating, but drone experts say there is no reliable way to protect against these now widely available devices. This was not the first incident of a flying machine on the grounds of the White House. In September, 1994, a pilot crashed a small Cessna airplane onto the South Lawn, prompting re-evaluation of security procedures. But the latest incident again highlighted the increased vulnerability of the traditional home of the U.S. presidents. Thanks to advances in cheap electronics, lightweight materials and mechanical parts, drones are now available to anyone. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates U.S. airspace, limits the flights of drones operated by hobbyists to a height of about 120 meters and within sight of the operator. But modern drones can be pre-programmed to fly automatically. According to a professor at Illinois Institute of Technology Robotics Lab, Matthew Spenko, some manufacturers program their drones so they can not be operated in certain areas, though the system is not immune to hacking. “If you are smart enough and you know what you are doing, you can always override that,” he explained. Spenko said quad copters can carry up to six kilograms of payload. The best among them can stay airborne for 25 minutes and fly as fast as 10 meters per second. A University of Nebraska journalism professor, Matthew Waite, studies how drones can be used to report news. He said Monday’s incident may have some bad consequences. “I have been saying for years that it is going to take one idiot doing something stupid to trigger a lot of bad policy," he said, "and I am afraid that we may have found our idiot.” Waite said the White House is well protected, but a motivated person can still create a lot of chaos. “If somebody wants to cause harm and havoc with a device and some explosives, there is very little to stop them," he notes. "That is just kind of the way of the world.” The Secret Service does not have a reliable system to identify and disable drones. After the latest incident, Waite said the agency no doubt will reconsider its options, but he said he thinks the danger from drones is small. “Could you do damage with it? Absolutely. Are you going to level a building with it? No, probably not," said Waite. "Sure, there is a threat here and the grand scheme of other threats I think that it is pretty low.” Certain drugs can increase dementia risk, study says By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new study by U.S. researchers has found that common, over-the-counter drugs, including those to promote sleep and treat allergies, may increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease among people 65 and older. The drugs are called anticholinergics, a class of medications that block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. They are found in a host of medicines ranging from antidepressants to muscle relaxants. They cause a host of side effects, including dry eyes and mouth, sleepiness and constipation. A study of the drugs found a higher risk of dementia among older adults who took anticholenergics for three years or more. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy followed almost 3,500 older men and women, none of whom appeared to suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s at the outset of the study. Eight hundred of the participants who took standard daily doses of drugs, including antihistamines and drugs for bladder control, developed dementia, including Alzheimer's, after an average follow-up of seven years. The increased risk of dementia was also seen among those who took medications, including tricyclic antidepressants, to treat depression. Investigators say people should not panic and stop taking their medications. Rather, they advise those who take suspect drugs should talk to their health care providers, who may be able to prescribe safer alternatives. |
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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.
2015 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's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 19 | |||||||||
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World freedom
report shows decline
By the Freedom House news staff
More aggressive tactics by authoritarian regimes and an upsurge in terrorist attacks contributed to a disturbing decline in global freedom in 2014, according to Freedom in the World 2015, Freedom House’s annual report on the condition of political rights and civil liberties. The report finds an overall decline in freedom for the ninth consecutive year. “Acceptance of democracy as the world’s dominant form of government — and of an international system built on democratic ideals — is under greater threat than at any other point in the last 25 years,” said Arch Puddington, vice president for research. “Until recently, most authoritarian regimes claimed to respect international agreements and paid lip service to the norms of competitive elections and human rights,” Puddington said. “Today they argue for the superiority of what amounts to one-party rule, and seek to throw off the constraints of fundamental diplomatic principles.” Nearly twice as many countries suffered declines as registered gains, 61 to 33, and the number of countries with improvements hit its lowest point since the nine-year erosion began, the report said. The report cites Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a rollback of democratic gains by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s intensified campaign against press freedom and civil society, and further centralization of authority in China as evidence of a growing disdain for democratic standards that was found in nearly all regions of the world. The report also singled out terrorism for its impact on freedom in 2014. From West Africa through the Middle East to South Asia, radical jihadist forces plagued local governments and populations. Their impact on countries such as Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria was devastating, as they massacred security forces and civilians alike, took foreigners hostage, and killed or enslaved religious minorities, including Muslims they deemed apostates. Key global findings: * Of the 195 countries assessed, 89 (46 percent) were rated Free, 55 (28 percent) Partly Free, and 51 (26 percent) Not Free. * All but one region had more countries with declines than with gains. Asia-Pacific had an even split. * A troubling number of large, economically powerful, or regionally influential countries moved backward: Azerbaijan, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. * Continuing a recent trend, the worst reversals affected freedom of expression, civil society, and the rule of law. * In a new and disquieting development, a number of countries lost ground due to state surveillance, restrictions on internet communications, and curbs on personal autonomy. * Ratings for the Middle East and North Africa region were the worst in the world, followed by Eurasia. Syria, a dictatorship mired in civil war and ethnic division and facing uncontrolled terrorism, received the lowest Freedom in the World score of any country in over a decade. * A notable exception to the negative trend was Tunisia, which became the first Arab country to hold the status of Free since Lebanon was gripped by civil war 40 years ago. Worst of the worst: * Of the 51 countries and territories designated as Not Free, 12 have been given the worst-possible rating of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties. * The Worst of the Worst countries are the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Worst of the Worst territories are Tibet and Western Sahara. Key findings for the Americas are: * The announcement that the United States and Cuba agreed to the normalization of relations after a rupture of more than 50 years marked a major development in the Americas region. Although it ranks as the worst-rated country in the Americas, Cuba registered a slight improvement in 2014 for growth in independent media. * In Mexico, public outrage at the authorities’ failure to stem criminal violence and corruption grew into mass demonstrations that challenged the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. * The United States experienced a wave of protests over police killings of unarmed African Americans in Missouri, New York, and elsewhere, and the repeated failure of prosecutors to secure indictments of the officers responsible. Separately, in December the U.S. Senate released a lengthy report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s torture and mistreatment of terrorism suspects in the years immediately after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the country. The full report is HERE! |
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| From Page 7: Woman engineer to head petroleum distributor By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A mechanical engineer has been named general manager of the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo. She is María Gabriela Montes de Oca, who has worked for the petroleum monopoly for 27 years. She began at the firm in 1989 with the job of designing storage tanks, said the company. She is a graduate of the Universidad de Costa Rica. She will take over March 1, said the firm, which added that she is the first woman to hold the top job. |
