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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 20
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 Ministerio de Sguridad Pública
photo
Police officer keeps and
eye on summit via remote cameras.Puerto Rican independence raises tempers By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The major excitement at the gathering of heads of state in Belén took place Wednesday morning when Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua tried to bootleg in a Puerto Rican independence advocate as a speaker. The Nicaraguan president offered part of his speaking time to the advocate, Rubén Berríos of the Partido Independentista de Puerto Rico. Independence of Puerto Rico has been a continuing theme by the organization, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. President Luis Guillermo Solís, who was moderating, got into a verbal tussle with Ortega over his ploy. Ortego said he demanded respect. The theme of Puerto Rican independence is perhaps more popular among Latin American leftists than in Puerto Rico. Relations are cool between Ortega and Costa Rican officials anyway. The anti-American rhetoric was not unexpected. The 3-year-old organization was set up as a counter to U.S. and Canadian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, finally showed up. He told a television audience in his home country that he fears an attack on his person in Costa Rica. A number of police agencies and even the fire fighters are on duty to provide protection from Juan Santamaría airport to Pedregal Centro de Events where the summit is being held. Police officials will be able to take a deep breath late this afternoon when the heads of state and foreign delegations leave. U.N. agency proposes to combat hunger Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
A new plan to combat hunger in the Caribbean and Latin America presented by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is being considered for adoption at a summit of the region’s leaders. José Graziano da Silva, Food and Agricultural Organization director general, presented Tuesday the new regional plan for Food Security at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. This proposal is a tool to help countries of the region design national plans to transform their commitment to eradicating hunger and extreme poverty in the region into a reality,” Graziano da Silva. The plan is based on four broad pillars: strategy coordination at the national and regional levels, with a special focus on gender issues; sustainably ensuring access to safe and nutritious foods; widening school feeding programs with a priority on addressing all forms of malnutrition, from under-nutrition to obesity, and tackling the challenges posed to food security by climate change, said the U.N. agency. Saturday will
be dedicated to poetry
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
No one can really understand Latin culture without understanding its poetry, which goes back more than a thousand years. Costa Ricans seem to accept poetry more naturally than North Americans perhaps because of early education or perhaps because the language flows so much better than English. A good time to delve into Costa Rican poetry would be Saturday, which happens to be the Día Nacional de la Poesía. There are events planned all over the country, including in San Ramón de Alajuela, Parque Central de Alajuela and the Casa de la Cultura in Guápiles. Saturday also happens to be the birthday of one of the country's most famous poets, Jorge Debravo. Then as now poetry does not pay very well, if at all. Debravo worked as an inspector for the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social and died on his birthday Jan. 31, 1967, in a motorcycle accident. The Centro Cultural José Figueres plans discussion by Magda Zavala, director of the Colegio de Costa Rica at 4 p.m. Saturday. At the park in Alajuela near the Museo Histórico Cultural Juan Santamaría the celebration will be at 11 a.m. Participants will be encouraged to create verses. The gathering in Guápiles will be at 5 p.m.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 20 | |
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| Small is better as electronic advances affect TV and Web
photography |
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 A.M. Costa Rica photo
Reporter captures comments of
William von Breymann, the tourism minister, on a tablet. |
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Just as advances in electronics have changed the face of newspapers, the photographer could become an endangered species. Sports Illustrated is laying off its six-person photo staff, and in Costa Rica electronic gadgets are taking the place of the heavyweight electronic video camera that can run from 10 to 20 pounds. Small tablet can record news at a quality suitable to television or online video. Gradually the expensive professional cameras are giving way to gadgets the same way small digital cameras have made inroads into still photography. There still are some advantages with the heavy professional models. The weight works against tiny movements seen in cell telephone photography and the smaller tablets. And the lenses are superior for long-range and sports photography. But in the same way that news reporters now are carrying small digital cameras, Television station economics probably will reduce the openings for camera crews with that bulky equipment |
| Fraud prosecutors issue warning about notary in San
José |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fraud prosecutors issued a warning Wednesday about a notary who is under investigation. The Ministerio Público said that prosecutors have asked a criminal court to order the notary to refrain from functioning as such. The prosecutors identified the man by the last name of Brenes Barrantes, and said that they have opened a file for falsification of documents, the use of false documents and fraud. They said his carné number with that Colegio de Abogados was 18065. The colegio Web site identified the lawyer with that number as Alvaro Gerardo Brenes Barrantes, who has an office on Avenida 8 not far from the court complex. A warning such as this is unusual. Prosecutors warned other notaries that they should look out for documents that have |
been
produced by Brenes. They said they also asked the Registro Nacional to
freeze any transactions initiated by the man. They said this was to
protect the public. Prosecutors said that in a search of the man's home they confiscated his notary protocol book in which his activities are listed. Prosecutors said that 90 percent of the transactions did not bear the signatures of the individuals involved. The signatures should be there. The announcement from the Ministerio Público did not give specifics on any suspicious transactions, but notaries in general have the power to prepare documents and give faith to the Registro Nacional that can transfer the ownership of real estate, vehicles and other valuable items. Typically such crooked transactions involve third parties that profess innocence if law enforcement questions them. |
| Former environmental minister convicted in open-pit gold
mine case |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A criminal court Wednesday convicted the former environmental minister, Roberto Dobles, of malfeasance because he signed a decree saying that the Las Crucitas open-pit gold mine was in the public interest. The verdict most certainly will be appealed. The trial court in the Segundo Circuito Judicial de San José in Goicoechea declined to convict seven other persons who were involved in the decree in the Minsterio de Ambiente y Energía. The case stems from the decision of another court that canceled the concession for Industrias Infinito S.A. to operate the open pit mine in northern Costa Rica. That court also called for criminal charges against Óscar Arias Sánchez, who was president at the time and who also signed the decree. |
The purpose
of the decree was to advance the development of the gold
mine, which was seen as a development plus for the area around Curtis
de San Carlos. The Canadian mining company for which Industrias Infinito is subsidiary, Infinito Gold, Ltd., has brought a $100 million action against the country in international arbitration. A finding of illegality may help Costa Rica's case. Doubles was sentenced to three years in prison, but execution was withheld, and he will not be jailed unless he commits a crime within five years, according to the summary of the verdict. A summary of the conviction came from the Poder Judicial. A full decision by the three judges is not yet available. The key point is that the judges found that the decree was based on false information. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 20 | |||||
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| Archaeologists
excited by 55,000-year-old skull fragment in Israel |
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By the Hebrew University of Jerusalem news
staff
The discovery of a 55,000-year-old partial skull in northern Israel provides new insights into the migration of modern humans out of Africa, researchers said. The rare find is reported in the journal Nature this week by an international team of Israelis, North Americans and Europeans. A key event in human evolution was the expansion of modern humans of African origin across Eurasia, replacing all other forms of humans and their predecessors, around 40,000-60,000 years ago. However, due to the scarcity of human fossils from this period, these ancestors of all present-day non-African modern populations have largely remained a mystery. Now, researchers describe a partial skull that dates to around 55,000, which was found at Manot Cave in Israel’s Western Galilee. The Manot Cave was discovered in 2008 during construction activities that damaged its roof. Rock falls and active stalagmites had apparently blocked the initial entrance to the cave for at least 15,000 years. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Cave Research Center conducted an initial survey of the cave and reported the findings of archaeological remains. Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University led the anthropological study of the skull, and led the excavation together with archaeologists Ofer Marder of Ben-Gurion University, and Omry Barzilai of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The skull has a distinctive bun-shaped occipital region at the back. In this way its shape resembles modern African and European skulls, but differs from other anatomically modern humans from the Levant, researchers said. This suggests that the Manot people could be closely related to the first modern humans that later colonized Europe. The specimen also provides evidence that both modern humans and Neanderthals inhabited the southern Levant during the late Pleistocene, close in time to the likely interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals. |
 Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Amos Frumkin
Descending into the Manot
Cave in Israel’s GalileeThis finding represents the first fossil evidence from the critical period when genetic and archaeological models predict that African modern humans successfully migrated out of Africa and colonized Eurasia. It also represents the first fossil evidence that during the late Middle Paleolithic, the Levant was occupied not only by Neanderthals but also by modern humans. The researchers suggest that the population from which this skull is derived had recently migrated out of Africa and established itself in the Levantine corridor during a time span that was favorable for human migration, due to warmer and wetter climatic events over the Northern Sahara and the Mediterranean. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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2015 and may
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| Effectiveness of vaccine for ebola being questioned By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
One of the ebola vaccines about to enter testing in Liberia may not be as potent as researchers had hoped, according to a new study, raising questions about how well it will prevent infection. The vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline, is one of two in a large-scale clinical trial expected to begin in the next two weeks. Merck produced the other vaccine. Earlier studies had found that one dose of the GSK vaccine would protect monkeys from Ebola. However, in the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “What we see are immune responses that are several-fold lower than were seen in those monkey studies,” said study co-author Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. “That raises the question, will it work as well in people as in monkeys? The short answer is we don’t know,” he added, “but that’s exactly the question the trials in Liberia and elsewhere are designed to address.” The trial in Liberia will use a higher dose of the vaccine. A study of a related vaccine published in November found patients given a higher dose developed a stronger immune response. Monkeys with a comparable response were protected from infection. The Merck vaccine has been undergoing early tests as well, but data from those studies have not been published. Researchers are moving at record speed to develop a vaccine in response to the unprecedented ebola outbreak centered in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. More than 22,000 people have been infected and nearly 9,000 have died. The declining number of new infections is good news for health workers, but may make it more difficult to determine the effectiveness of a vaccine. Sarah Palin among those who may seek GOP nod By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
No one has officially announced their candidacy but the 2016 battle for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination is off to a fast and furious start. More than 20 prominent Republicans have indicated some level of interest in running for the White House next year including some who are well known and others who have yet to build a national reputation. Among the better known is former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who said she is seriously interested in running for president next year. Ms. Palin made a splash in 2008 as Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate but wound up getting more attention than she wanted from NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” which portrayed her as a dim-witted buffoon. Ms. Palin has veered away from elective politics in recent years and has had success as a speaker and commentator with conservative audiences. But even conservative commentators have doubts about whether she is serious. In the lesser-known camp is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal is also interested in running but told a religious rally that “we can’t just elect a candidate to fix our country…We need a spiritual revival to fix our country.” Jindal was raised Hindu but converted to Catholicism and drew attention for his repeated warnings that “radical Islam is a threat to our way of life.” Like other Republicans seeking a national profile, Jindal will be looking for a way to stand out in what is expected to be a large field of candidates. It’s just too early to say whether Republican voters will be taken with some of the new faces or will fall in line behind some of the more familiar faces in the party like 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Both men have made moves toward running, but Romney has run into flak from some conservatives who say he had his chance and it’s time for someone else. Republicans did extraordinarily well in last November’s midterm elections, retaking control of the Senate and adding to their solid majority in the House of Representatives. That electoral success has encouraged Republicans about winning the White House back in 2016. But if recent history is any guide, the splits and strains within the party will be on full display in the run-up to the start of the primary and caucus season early next year. Some of those strains are already showing in the new Republican-led Congress, particularly between so called mainstream or Chamber of Commerce type Republicans who focus on economic issues and Tea Party factions that are consumed with cutting the size of the federal government. Add to that mix evangelical Christian voters who are most concerned with social issues such as abortion and gay marriage and foreign policy hawks who want to reassert U.S. power around the world. There is often overlap among these factions within the Republican Party but the prospect of a large presidential field in 2016 means several of the White House contenders will be looking for a base of support within the various factions. Bush, Romney and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would compete for the votes of mainstream Republican voters, especially those who want to win at all costs in 2016 and who assume Democrats will nominate former secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Tea Party activists will have several heroes to choose from in the upcoming primaries and caucuses. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio all won their Senate seats with strong support from Tea Party activists and will likely look to them again for help in the primaries. Former Texas governor Rick Perry also hopes to compete in this category. Rubio made a good showing at a recent forum sponsored by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers in California. Charles and David Koch have created a formidable fundraising network that spent about $290 million helping Republicans in last year’s congressional midterm elections. They hope to raise $889 million from wealthy contributors to help the party in the 2016 election. Politico reports that Rubio won an informal straw poll of donors who attended the conference, coming out ahead of Cruz and Paul. Evangelical voters may find their champion in either former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who also ran in 2008, or former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who came in second in the overall delegate count to Romney in 2012. Jindal also looks as though he is angling to appeal to Christian activists as is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, the only African-American considering a run for the Republican nomination. Analyst John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center said it will take a while for the Republican presidential field to sort itself out. “On the Republican side it really is wide open and you will have a number of figures who are establishment-oriented as well as some who are clearly much more Tea Party-oriented,” he said. “And really it is matter of having a strong central base and being able to coalesce more of that as one goes along. It’s really very unpredictable on the Republican side at this point.” Many Republicans are looking for a new face, someone who can convey the conservative essence of the party but who may also appeal to voters beyond the traditional bounds of the Republican Party. Some look to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has won three elections in four years (one of them a recall election) in what is nominally a Democratic state. Walker was among several possible Republican presidential candidates who took part in a recent conservative forum in Iowa. Like many of the other speakers, Walker went after President Barack Obama’s response to the recent terror attacks in Paris. “We need a president who doesn’t sit in Washington, D.C., when world leaders are standing together against terrorism in Paris,” Walker said. For pure entertainment value at the Iowa event there was also the interest expressed by real estate mogul and TV reality star Donald Trump. Trump dismissed the possibility of Romney winning the nomination a second time. “It can’t be Mitt because Mitt ran and failed,” he said. Trump also ruled out Bush and told conservative activists that the son and brother of presidents was “the last thing we need.” Trump said he is considering a run, adding “I know what needs to be done to make America great again.” Whether it winds up being a new face or an old one, Republican strategist Scott Faulkner said the party also needs to consider its image and message as it heads into the 2016 campaign cycle. “It isn’t just about demographics and the Electoral College,” he said. “It is really about coming up with a universal message that inspires, not just saying I’m not the other guy. And Republicans have not coalesced around that very well really since the 1980s.” Drone use called immoral by religious gathering By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In 2006, stirred by photos of U.S. soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners, a group of American faith leaders and academics launched the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. It played an important role in getting Congress to investigate, and the president to ban, torture. Last weekend, many of the same individuals met again on the idyllic campus of the Princeton Theological Seminary, and called for an immediate halt to targeted killings by drones. Drones, unmanned aircraft, are a highly secretive, yet crucial, part of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. They are typically flown in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and steered from the ground by pilots at U.S. air bases. But theologians at the Interfaith Conference on Drone Warfare said they are morally troubling. “It is a video game!” said Rev. George Hunsinger, a Princeton theologian and the driving force behind the anti-torture campaign. “You see these soldiers, these pilots, joking in the cockpit, and you see what is on the screen, the crosshairs and so on - they are blowing people up as they cross the street, in a sidewalk. On what grounds?” Proponents say drone warfare keeps U.S. troops out of harm's way, while minimizing civilian casualties. Human rights groups say civilian casualties are hard to count because of the secrecy of a program partly run by the CIA. Around 500 strikes have been counted since the program began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S., but activists note that most were carried out under President Barack Obama’s administration since 2009. Earlier this week, Obama indicated they will continue in Yemen, despite the leadership crisis there. “Because the alternative,” the president said, “would be massive U.S. deployments in perpetuity, which would create its own blowback and cause probably more problems than it would potentially solve.” Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite, former president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, called Obama’s reasoning bogus. “Drones allow you to use violence in situations where you would never send in boots on the ground,” she said. “So that it actually expands the theater of war. And you could make a case now that drones make the whole world a battlefield.” A Catholic University international relations professor, Maryann Cusimano-Love, warned that American technological superiority on drones would only go so far. She said drug traffickers have delivered packages with drones, while several have been discovered flying over a French nuclear plant. “How is the world going to look as others come on to use these technologies, in the same way that we have?” she said. “I think that has been a real blind spot.” Only two days after her warning, the threat came into focus when a toy drone flown onto the White House lawn triggered a major security alert. A poll last year found that 56 percent of Americans support drone strikes, while another 18 percent are not sure. But Sudanese-born Imam Mohamed Magid said drone strikes are a recruitment tool for extremists. “Every time we take one person, and then we take the life of innocent people, we create more terrorists,” he said. Some participants argued that drone strikes could be justifiable in extreme cases. But Rev. Bob Moore of the Coalition for Peace Action said such cases don’t exist. “If drones existed at the time of Adolf Hitler, I personally would probably have been in favor of using one to try to stop the Nazis,” he said. “But in the real world today, we don’t have that kind of situation.” Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa said the Catholic Church is worried that the U.S. is responding militarily too often to crises. “What’s the old saying? If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem seems to be a nail," he said. Italian police crack down on lesser-known mafia By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Italian police arrested more than 160 alleged members of a mafia group and seized millions of dollars in what was considered a major crackdown on organized crime. Speaking to reporters in Bologna, Italy’s anti-mafia chief prosecutor Franco Roberti hailed the operation as an historic and unprecedented blow for the group suspected for much of Europe’s cocaine trade. “This is a deeply implanted and very dangerous criminal organization," he said about Ndrangheta, an organized crime clan from Calabria in southern Italy. Authorities say the group has become deeply rooted in the business community in the rich northern region of the country. With wealth in the billions of dollars from cocaine trading, Ndrangheta has become the most powerful crime syndicate in Italy, surpassing Sicily's Cosa Nostra and Naples’ Camorra. Last week, Italian police arrested about 30 people in Rome in connection with the group. Dozens of others were detained in and around Milan in November. New smartphone devices can address other senses By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Long-distance communication contains mostly sounds and pictures. For now. But scientists in Britain say they are close to creating additions for our smartphones that will make it possible to send taste, smell and even a basic touch. Many people around the world enjoy one of the greatest marvels of modern technology every day, instant audio-visual communication. But Professor Adrian David Cheok from City University in London said he wants to transcend what he calls the glass barrier. “In the real world, we can open up the glass, open the window. We can touch, we can taste, we can smell in the real world,” said Cheok. Cheok said different tastes are triggered by molecules that cause chemical ionization on the surface of the tongue, sending the brain electrical signals of a specific amplitude and frequency that are possible to reproduce with two electrodes. “You put these two silver electrodes in your mouth, you put your tongue in between and then it stimulates electrically your tongue and you get a virtual taste perception in your brain,” he said. So far, scientists have reproduced sour, salty, sweet and bitter tastes. Another device, called Scentee, plugs into a smartphone, and can spray tiny clouds of selected fragrances, such as lavender or jasmine, smells of fruits or even coffee, when prompted by the other side of the conversation. “Basically what happens, we have an app, it connects to the Internet and then this will release scent from your mobile phone,” said Cheok. Scentee holds a cartridge with about 100 different smells, but has to be replaced once it's been used up. The sense of touch comes through a ring-like device. Connected wirelessly to the smartphone, it transmits a gentle squeeze when the other person does the same during a conversation. “I can be in London and my friend can be in Tokyo, and I can squeeze my finger and then they'll get a squeeze on their finger through the Internet. It's a way of touch communication with small mobile devices,” said Cheok. Cheok said he hopes devices such as these will someday be added to smartphones and even smart houses, transcending the current limitations of long-distance communication. Anti-inflammatory drugs seen as aid against depression By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new study by researchers in Canada has uncovered a link between clinical depression and inflammation. Inflammation is the body's protective response to microbial invasion or injury, but there's growing evidence that inflammation may play an important role in mental health. The findings by researchers at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health and others suggest clinical depression might someday be treated with ordinary over-the-counter drugs, like aspirin and ibuprofen, that are currently used to fight inflammation. In a small study involving 20 people with clinical depression and 20 healthy subjects for comparison, three-dimensional images of the functional processes in the body showed that patients with the mental disorder had a higher rate of inflammation in their brain. Jeffrey Meyer, who heads the neurochemical imaging program at the center, says they used a dye that stuck to certain brain cells, called microglia, that play a key role in the brain's inflammatory response. "We found that the elevation of this marker in people with clinical depression was quite elevated," he said. "Thirty percent in the area of depression research is a large magnitude level of difference." Depression is a leading cause of loss of life and lower quality of life. Experts say more than half of patients with the disorder do not respond to antidepressants. Meyer says people suffering from depression and a second condition associated with inflammation, such as heart disease and diabetes, have an especially difficult time. "People who have other illnesses tend to be less responsive to conventional treatment," he said. Last year, as they analyzed 14 international studies of over-the-counter pain medication use by patients with depression, Danish researchers made an intriguing discovery. Ole Kohler, a medical student at Aarhaus University and lead author of the study, says anti-inflammatory drugs, taken on a regular basis to fight pain, seemed to boost the action of antidepressant medications. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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2015 and may
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 20 | |||||||||
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Tourism
worldwide continues to grow
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The number of international tourists reached 1.13 billion in 2014, 51 million more than in 2013, on trend for the fifth consecutive year of above average growth since the 2009 economic crisis, the U. Nations W. Tourism Organization has announced. “Over the past years, tourism has proven to be a surprisingly strong and resilient economic activity and a fundamental contributor to the economic recovery by generating billions of dollars in exports and creating millions of jobs, said Taleb Rifai, the organization's secretary general. “This has been true for destinations all around the world, but particularly for Europe, as the region struggles to consolidate its way out of one of the worst economic periods in its history,” he added. According to the latest U.N. figures, the Americas (+7 per cent) and Asia and the Pacific (+5 per cent) regions registered the strongest growth, while Europe (+4 per cent), the Middle East (+4 per cent) and Africa (+2 per cent) grew at a slightly more modest pace. By subregion, North America (+8 per cent) saw the best results, followed by northeast Asia, South Asia, southern and Mediterranean Europe, northern Europe and the Caribbean, all increasing by 7 per cent. The outlook remains positive for 2015, as confirmed by the U.N. Confidence Index. According to the 300 experts consulted worldwide, tourism performance is expected to improve this year, though expectations are less upbeat than a year ago. The U.N. organization forecasts international tourist arrivals to grow up to 4 per cent this year. And by region, growth is expected to be stronger in Asia and the Pacific and the Americas, followed by Europe. Arrivals are also expected to increase in Africa and the Middle East. “We expect demand to continue growing in 2015 as the global economic situation improves, even though there are still plenty of challenges ahead. On the positive side, oil prices have declined to a level not seen since 2009. This will lower transport costs and boost economic growth by lifting purchasing power and private demand in oil importing economies. Yet, it could also negatively impact some of the oil exporting countries which have emerged as strong tourism source markets,” added Rifai. Pardons sought for El Salvador's 17 Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The decision by El Salvador to pardon a woman convicted of aggravated homicide after suffering a miscarriage must mark a turning point for the authorities to review the sentences against all women jailed for pregnancy-related complications, a group of United Nations human rights experts said. Last week, the Central American nation announced that it had pardoned Carmen Guadalupe Vásquez Aldana, who suffered a miscarriage at 18 after reportedly being raped. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison in February 2008. “The decision to pardon Carmen Guadalupe Vásquez Aldana, following a judicial review which concluded that due process had been violated, reverses an appallingly unfair sentence and we wholeheartedly welcome it,” the experts said in a statement. “But there are many more women imprisoned on similar charges, some of them awaiting decisions on a pardon. We further urge the authorities to repeal legislation which criminalizes abortion in all circumstances,” they added. There are currently 17 women imprisoned in El Salvador on similar abortion charges. Nine are currently seeking pardons. One woman was released after completing her sentence. The other six cases have already come before the supreme court which decided not to pardon them. The Parliamentary Assembly is due to consider the case of nine of the women in the coming month and the experts urged the competent authorities to pardon them. Since 1997, El Salvador has had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, with abortion criminalized even when the woman's life or health is at risk or in cases of rape or incest. |
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| From Page 7: U.S. Fed decides to be patient on interest rate By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. central bank said Wednesday the nation's economy is expanding at a solid pace but that it plans to remain patient before deciding when to raise its benchmark interest rate for the first time in nearly a decade. After a two-day meeting in Washington, policy makers at the Federal Reserve voiced growing concern about excessively low inflation in the United States that is now well below its 2 percent annual target rate. The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate near zero percent and said it can be patient before moving it higher, which would be the first increase since 2006. The key rate influences interest rates on business and consumer loans in the world's largest economy. In a statement, the central bank said the country's labor market has shown strong job gains and a lower unemployment rate. The policy makers said consumer spending is rising moderately, boosted by declining energy costs that have been spawned by plunging world oil prices. The U.S. economy has been advancing, in sharp contrast to slowing growth in China, a recession in Japan and a near-stagnant economy in Europe's 19-nation euro currency bloc. "Overall, we're the envy of the world," Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo, one of the biggest U.S. banks, said. "We're growing at a time when the rest of the world is still searching for a way to grow." The U.S. labor market added nearly 3 million jobs last year, pushing the unemployment rate down to 5.6 percent, near the country's long-term average. The economy advanced by 5 percent from July to September, with the first estimate for the last months of 2014 expected Friday. Vitner said he expects the U.S. economy to advance 3.1 percent in 2015, but dip to 2.9 percent next year. Despite the advancing economy, some economists remain worried about weak pay growth for U.S. workers, and that many part-time workers have been unable to find full-time employment, even with the U.S. recovery from the 2008 recession. Most analysts say any increase in the Federal Reserve interest rate is unlikely before mid-2015 at the earliest, and possibly months later, for fear that a rate boost would weaken the recovery. Plunging world oil prices have resulted in sharply lower gas prices for U.S. motorists, leaving consumers more money to spend elsewhere. |
