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A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 34 |
Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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Afternoon blaze
levels
five Calle Blancos homes By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An afternoon fire tore through homes in Calle Blancos north of downtown San José and left 14 adults and seven children without homes, said the fire department. The blaze destroyed five homes and damaged parts of six, said the Cuerpo de Bomberos. Involved were structures totaling 1,000 square meters or nearly 11,000 square feet. An equal amount of living space was saved, firemen said. Calle Blancos is just over the San José line in Goicoechea. A fire department report said that the cause had not yet been determined. The call came in at 3:53 p.m. and it took firemen more than 20 minutes to control the blaze. No injuries were reported. Three early shoppers may have had other plans By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
They call it shopping at Midnight Supply, but in this case the shoppers were reported to be active at 3 a.m. That is when agents of the Judicial Investigating Organization detained four persons inside a supermarket in Palmares. Agents said that the store's alarm had been disconnected and that an entry was forced in the rear of the market. Another hole was made in the wall of an office where a safe is located. Confiscated were tools, two-way radios and a torch for cutting metal. The four are residents of Moravia, Guadalupe, Guápiles and San José, said agents. One of the detained individuals works for a San José security company, agents said. The actions of judicial agents suggests that the four were under surveillance or that the anticipated actions were reported by someone. Travel club complaints lead to arrest of pilot By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man identified as a SANSA pilot has been reported to be a suspect in an investigation of fraud involving a travel club. The Poder Judicial identified the man by the last names of Montero Méndez. The organization is Club AIR Costa Rica, the Poder Judicial said. There are 16 complainants in the case who say they paid money to the club in 2007 or 2008 but never got the trips they were offered. The club was designed so that participants deposit small amounts of money, perhaps 1,000 to 3,000 colons a week or every 15 days. Eventually they build up enough credit for the trip they sought. The club had its headquarters in Paseo Colón and closed its doors without refunding money. The Poder Judicial said there may be many more victims because the club did business all over the country. There was no suggestion that SANSA was involved in any way with the travel club. Sarkozy tells Haitians France will stand by them By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Aid promised by French President Nicolas Sarkozy comes in addition to France's decision to cancel the $77 million debt Haiti owes to France. The $400 million in French aid will include reconstruction and emergency assistance along with money to help the Haitian government's budget. France will also dispatch experts to help the Haitian government in its recovery efforts over the coming months. In a speech in the Haitian capital Porte-au-Prince, Sarkozy said France would support the impoverished country, still reeling from January's earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left a million homeless. Sarkozy said he had come to tell Haiti's people and their leaders that France will remain at their side to help them back on their feet and open a happier page in history. He recalled France's colonial history with Haiti and the scars it left. The French president also held talks with his counterpart Rene Preval, who hosted Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier this week.
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A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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Glacially slow
court draws some visitors Foes of private docks that facilitate shark finning staged a protest at the Corte Supreme de la Justicia Wednesday because the court has not acted on a 2007 demand by protesters that it enforce its own 2006 ruling. The court said in 2006 that foreign ships must use public docks where their catch can be supervised. Shark finners use just a small part of the creature that is then left to die. The practice has strong support from Asian investors who have managed to prevent decisive action by two presidents. The use of private docks also facilitates drug smuggling. |
A.M. Costa Rica/Manuel
Avendaño Arce
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Traffic law changes bogged down by multiple motions |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The executive branch is not yet showing its frustration over the complexities of trying to get a law passed in the legislature, but officials came close Wednesday. Rodrigo Arias, the minister of the Presidencia, pointed out to reporters that more than 100 separate motions have now been filed by legislative deputies involving changes in the traffic law that goes into effect March 1. Each motion will be discussed on the floor of the legislature by opponents and advocates, and then a vote will be taken. The motions seek to amend a bill that has been introduced by the executive branch. The number of motions might make it difficult for lawmakers to meet the deadline of reforming the law before it goes into effect. |
Still. Rodrigo Arias said that the
reform of the law has been a
priority of the government. Officials want to reduce the amount of the
fines in the law and make other adjustments in a measure that has been
described as draconian. However, there seems to be consensus among
lawmakers that the current penalties for drunk driving remain as they
are. Driving drunk can bring large fines, confiscation of the vehicle
and even jail time. Roberto Thompson, vice minister of the Presidencia, said that lawmakers set aside two days for motions to be presented. In just the first day the 100 proposed changes were filed, he said. The motions are a technique that opposition lawmakers have been using for years to force the majority to hear their proposals. The current legislature has a bit more than two months to go, and the next group of lawmakers who will take office May 1 are even more fractured. |
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San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 34 |
And dust to dust All over the Roman Catholic world and in San Jose's Catedral Metropolitana the faithful lined up Wednesday to be anointed with ashes. Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Lenten season that culminates with Easter, the traditional day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Doing the honors at the 5:30 Mass was the Rev. Carlos Ezquivel, |
A.M. Costa Rica/Manuel
Avendaño Arce
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U.N. seeks more effort in Latin
American sustainability |
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
A new United Nations report calls for greater efforts to advance environmentally sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which has witnessed the constant reduction of forest areas and the sustained increase of carbon dioxide emissions. According to “Millennium Development Goals: Advances in Environmentally Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean,” the rate of deforestation in the region is double the global average. Between 1990 and 2005, the region’s forest cover decreased by 7 per cent, losing nearly 69 million hectares of forest, states the report, which was published by the Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and made public Wednesday in Mexico. Nearly 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions — more than all the world’s cars, trucks, ships and planes combined — result from deforestation and degradation of forests. In 2008 the U.N. launched the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiative aimed at combating climate change through creating incentives to reverse the trend of deforestation. In addition to the loss of forest cover, the region has also experienced an increase of nearly 41 per cent from 1990 to |
2005 of carbon
dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement
production. Ensuring environmental sustainability is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals world leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015. Among the targets is to integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources. The targets also include reducing biodiversity loss, increasing the population’s access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation and significantly improving the lives of slum dwellers. The report notes that from 1990 to 2005 the total surface of protected areas grew 120 per cent, consumption of ozone-depleting substances declined by 85 per cent and coverage of drinking water and basic sanitation rose by 10 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively. At the same time, these numbers vary greatly by geographical areas and income levels in each country. With only five years left until the 2015 deadline, the report calls for adopting a “proactive” approach to stepping up efforts to advance environmental sustainability in the region, especially in light of the new challenges posed by climate change. |
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Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution
Colored paths show how subtropical water is reaching
Greenland. Melting ice also means more fresh water in the ocean, which
could flood into the North Atlantic and disrupt a global system of
currents, known as the Ocean Conveyor, scientists fear.Subtropical currents blamed
for melting Greenland ice By The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Subtropical waters are reaching Greenland's glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss, reports a team of researchers led by Fiamma Straneo, a physical oceanographer from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "This is the first time we’ve seen waters this warm in any of the fjords in Greenland," said Ms. Straneo. "The subtropical waters are flowing through the fjord very quickly, so they can transport heat and drive melting at the end of the glacier." Greenland's ice sheet, which is two miles thick and covers an area about the size of Mexico, has lost mass at an accelerated rate over the last decade. The ice sheet's contribution to sea level rise during that time frame doubled due to increased melting and, to a greater extent, the widespread acceleration of outlet glaciers around Greenland. While melting due to warming air temperatures is a known event, scientists are just beginning to learn more about the ocean's impact — in particular, the influence of currents — on the ice sheet. "Among the mechanisms that we suspected might be triggering this acceleration are recent changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which are delivering larger amounts of subtropical waters to the high latitudes," said Ms. Straneo. But a lack of observations and measurements from Greenland's glaciers prior to the acceleration made it difficult to confirm. The research team, which included colleagues from University of Maine, conducted two extensive surveys during July and September of 2008, collecting both ship-based and moored oceanographic data from Sermilik Fjord — a large glacial fjord in East Greenland. Sermilik Fjord, which is 100 kilometers (approximately 62 miles) long, connects Helheim Glacier with the Irminger Sea. In 2003 alone, Helheim Glacier retreated several kilometers and almost doubled its flow speed. Deep inside the Sermilik Fjord, researchers found subtropical water as warm as 39 degrees F. (4 degrees C.). The team also reconstructed seasonal temperatures on the shelf using data collected by 19 hooded seals tagged with satellite-linked temperature depth-recorders. The data revealed that the shelf waters warm from July to December, and that subtropical waters are present on the shelf year round. "This is the first extensive survey of one of these fjords that shows us how these warm waters circulate and how vigorous the circulation is," said Ms. Straneo. "Changes in the large-scale ocean circulation of the North Atlantic are propagating to the glaciers very quickly — not in a matter of years, but a matter of months. It's a very rapid communication." Ms. Straneo added that the study highlights how little is known about ocean-glacier interactions, which is a connection not currently included in climate models. The paper was chosen for advanced online publication by Nature Geosciences. It will also appear in the March 2010 printed edition of the journal. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
Foreign
language listeners prefer own accent, study says By the University of Haifa news service
Perception of second language speech is easier when it is spoken in the accent of the listener and not in the original accent of that language, shows a new study from the University of Haifa. The study was published in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Many adult schools teaching second languages insist on exposing their students to the languages in their original accents. However, this new study found that this system is not necessarily the best and certainly not the most expeditious. The study was done and carried out by Raphiq Ibrahim and Mark Leikin of the University of Haifa’s Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, Zohar Eviatar of the Department of Psychology and Shimon Sapir of the Department of Learning Disabilities, The present study set out to reveal the level of information that the adult learner requires in order to identify words in a second language that had been learned at a later age, and whether the level of phonological information that they require varies when the words are pronounced in different accents. The researchers recorded four Hebrew sentences in which the last word was a noun pronounced in a different accent: Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. These sentences were electronically encoded on a computer system. The sentences were played to 60 participants aged 18 to 26. 20 of the participants were native Hebrew speakers, 20 were new adult immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union who had learned Hebrew only after moving to Israel. 20 were Israeli Arabic speakers who began learning Hebrew at age 7 to 8. The findings show that there is no difference in the amount of phonological information that the native Hebrew speakers need in order to decipher the words, regardless of accent. With the Russian and Arabic speakers, on the other hand, less phonological information was needed in order to recognize the Hebrew word when it was pronounced in the accent of their native language than when they heard it in the accent of another language. |
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