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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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José, Costa Rica, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 37
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 Ministerio
de Seguridad Pública
photo
Fuerza
Pública officers detained this suspect in Barrio Cristo ReyFriday on suspicion that he was involved in breaking into cars in the parking lot of a commercial center in Cartago. Police also said they found a pistol. Leprechauns figure in new short stories By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Expat author Albert A. Correia has penned a book of short stories with a
• Paddy gets up early to put his sure-fire scheme to capture the Leprechaun’s pot of gold into action. According to Correia, a former California resident, all the stories are based on prompts from two writer groups, one in Costa Rica and the other, online, is international. The small book, the second in a series, is available as a digital ebook and in paperback. Four fishermen adrift in Pacific rescued By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas has rescued four fishermen from Panamá who had been adrift in the Pacific for more than a month. The rescue took place some 280 nautical miles west of Cabo Blanco. The boat is the Antares III. The coast guard said the fishing boat suffered some type of mechanical failure and the crew was adrift for 33 days. Woman, 20, detained on murder charge By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A 20-year-old woman has been detained on the allegation that she instigated the murder of a 60-year-old man last Feb. 15. The victim had the last name of Arguello and lived in Barrio San José in Alajuela. The Judicial Investigating Organization accused the woman of letting in a third party while she was in the man's home. Arguello was tied up and smothered with a plastic bag over his head, agents said. The motive was said to be robbery of the home. U.N. promotes multidimensional progress Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Economic growth alone will not reduce poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. This was a key message from the U. N. Development Programme during a meeting with over 20 officials including ministers, senators, academics and leaders of major multilateral organizations in the region. The Programme simulated what would happen if the region grew during 2017 to 2020 at the same rate as it did during the last decade. That was 3.9 percent annually. The estimates show that less people in Latin America and the Caribbean would be lifted from poverty than in the previous decade. While an average of 6.5 million women and men in the region left poverty every year during 2003 and 2012, only about 2.6 million a year would leave poverty behind (earning more than US$4 a day) between 2017 and 2020, the Programme said. "Clearly, more of the same in terms of growth and public policies will no longer yield more of the same in poverty and inequality reduction," said Jessica Faieta. U.N. assistant secretary general and Programme director for Latin America and the Caribbean. "Higher economic growth does not necessarily generate greater social progress: different policies must be in place, particularly at a time when fiscal resources, crucial to expand social safety nets, have shrunk," she said. The Programme stressed that people’s well being must reflect more than income alone, calling on the region’s leaders to focus on multidimensional progress. This includes investing in skills for better employment opportunities, in financial systems that prevent over-indebtedness and reducing gender gaps. "Many countries in the region have achieved quantitative and qualitative progress. However, we must not fall into complacency," added Diego Canepa, secretary to the presidency of the Republic of Uruguay. The challenge is to consolidate this progress and deepen the discussions, many of them promoted by the United Nations. Change is what ensures sustainability." Ecuador criticized for media lynching law Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter American Press Association has expressed its strong condemnation to the government of Ecuador over the punishment meted out to television channel Teleamazonas for having engaged in media lynching, an offense under the controversial Communication Organic Law. Feb. 13, the Information and Communication Superintendence, the agency charged with overseeing compliance with the law in effect since 2013, punished Teleamazonas for media lynching, based on what it called harmful comments against Luis Chiriboga, president of the Ecuadorean Football Federation in a humorous sports program. Gustavo Mohme, association president and editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, declared, “This punishment puts in flagrant evidence the fact that the Ecuadorean gag law has created new press crimes or new forms of penalizing opinion and information, with a new kind of lynching that, due its generalized nature, can be applied arbitrarily to any case.” According to the Andean Foundation for Social Observation and Study of Media, this is the first punishment for media lynching in Ecuador. The formal complaint filed on Dec. 29 by Chiriboga against the television channel and four journalists has its origin in the comic slot in the sports program “Dream Team,” where one of the personalities, represented by a puppet, referred to vote buying so as to obtain his re-election, in an apparent allusion to the president of the Ecuadorean Football Federation. The punishment imposed by the Superintendence calls for a public apology to Chiriboga. The Communication Law’s Article 26 on media lynching prohibits the dissemination of information that directly or through third parties is produced in a collusive manner and published repeatedly through one or more news media with the purpose of discrediting a natural or legal person or reducing his or her public credibility.”
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 37 | |
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| Talamanca dumps Facebook page with negative comments of
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Municipalidad de Talamanca took down its Facebook page Friday morning shortly after a news story appeared saying that the mayor wanted two expats to leave the canton. A letter critical of the two expats had been the centerpiece of the Facebook page. There was no explanation from the municipality. Carol Meeds, a U.S. expat singled out by the mayor, Melvin Cordero Cordero, said he was irked because she had posted a summary of an A.M. Costa Rica news story noting that a |
number of cantons
had not prepared zoning plans for the maritime zone. The other expat, Philippe Vangoidsenhoven, who is from Belgium, faced criticism in the latter for filing multiple environmental complaints. Ms. Meeds said he did so because the complaints never got responses. The situation made news because having a public official post negative statements about residents is highly unusual. In addition, Ms. Meeds said she thought the mayor had fingered her to crooks because he claimed she has a large pension. |
| Three-day art festival begins March 13 in San José
parks |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
San Jose's big festival will be March 13 through 15 with the participation of nearly 400 artists. The event is the Festival de Verano Transitarte 2015. The three days of simultaneous performances and exhibits will take place in the municipal parks of Morazán, Jardín de Paz, España and Nacional and at the Ferrocarril al Atlántico rail station. The flamenco performers of the Academia Al Ándalus will be the inaugural act March 13 at 6 p.m. in Parque Morazán. Some 22 dancers will present “Con el alma aferrada,” the same program that was presented in December at the Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano. The show takes its name from a verse in Carlos Gardel's tango ballad "Volver," The flamenco performance will be followed by the famous national group Son de Tikizia at 7 p.m. Transitarte is food, artist booths, music, dance, poetry, sculptures, street parades, clowns, street theater and acrobatics. |
 Al Ándalus photo
A scene from a December
performance.The event closes with an evening performance by Malpais in Parque Nacional March 15. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 37 | |||||
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| Genetically modified crop foes seek action by full
legislature or Solís |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Supporters of a nationwide ban on genetically modified crops are exploring two options after a legislative committee failed to back the idea. The supporters say they plan to pressure legislators to bring up the proposed moratorium, No. 18.941, in the full Asamblea Legislativa. They also say they expect President Luis Guillermo Solís to issue a decree that would do the same thing. The proposal for a nationwide moratorium was considered by the Comisión de Asuntos Agropecuarios, which held formal hearing. Eventually the committee issued a finding by the majority that shelved the plan for the moratorium. During the course of the discussion, the moratorium was offered for 10 years or for four years. Proponents of the moratorium oppose the U.S. corporation Monsanto, which has produced food crops modified to resist the firm's herbicides. The chemical company has been aggressive in trying to protect its patents and has brought some U.S. farmers into court for using herbicide resistant seeds without permission. The moratorium has been supported by Frente Amplio and Partido Acción Ciudadana. Supporters of the ban note that 79 of 92 municipalities already have prohibited the planting of genetically modified crops, although the legality of these actions is still up in the air. The scientific consensus is that modified crops are no different than conventional varieties, but a minority of scientists continue to seek evidence that the crops can damage humans. A University of Costa Rica expert, for |
example,
presented as fact to the committee a discredited
French study that claimed modified food produces tumors in rats. Most of the processed grain-based foods in the United States contain genetically modified products, as do the many products imported and for sale here. There was a new international development over the weekend. Opponents of genetically modified crops have expressed concern about potential contamination of conventional crops and other plants. Now a plant gene discovered by University of Guelph scientists might help farmers reduce the risk of contamination and quell arguments against the use of transgenic food crops, said Sherif Sherif, lead author of a new research paper describing the findings, according to the university. This is believed to be the first-ever study to identify a gene involved in altering fruit trees that normally cross-pollinate – needing one plant to fertilize another – into self-pollinators, the university quoted Sherif as saying. The paper was published in the journal BMC Biology. Sherif said researchers might one day insert this gene into GM crops to prevent their pollen from reaching other plants, said the university. The researchers found a gene making a protein that naturally allows a small handful of plants to self-pollinate and make fruit before the flower opens. Peaches, for example, have closed flowers, unlike their showy-flowered plum and cherry cousins that need pollen from another tree to fertilize and set fruit, according to a university explanation. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 37 | |||||||
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U.S. is principal suspect for spy software in drives By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The revelation of secret technology that buries spyware into computer hard drives could be a blow to espionage efforts by the U.S. National Security Agency, intelligence analysts say. Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based security software manufacturer, recently reported it found computers in 30 nations infected with spying programs. The nations include Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. The targets included government and military institutions, as well as telecommunications companies, banks, energy companies and nuclear researchers, Kaspersky said in its report. Kaspersky Lab has revealed Western cyber-espionage operations in the past. The company did not publicly identify the country behind the spying campaign, saying the malware had been placed by what it called the “Equation Group.” However, Western news organizations reported this was a thinly veiled reference to the U.S. National Security Agency. The NSA is the leading U.S. agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence. Paul Rosenzweig, an expert on information technology and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the report would compromise NSA’s mission. “This will significantly disrupt ongoing activity and will harm foreign intelligence gathering,” said Rosenzweig. “This is part and parcel of a foreign campaign to delegitimize NSA." A spokeswoman for the NSA said the agency was aware of the Kaspersky report, but would not comment on it publicly. Kaspersky said the spying campaign is closely linked to Stuxnet, a cyber-weapon that attacked Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Kaspersky and many other cyber-espionage experts say Stuxnet was run by the U.S. and Israel. A former NSA employee said that Kaspersky’s analysis was correct and that people still in the spy agency valued these espionage programs as highly as Stuxnet. Kaspersky’s report said the ability to hide spying software deep within hard drives gives the agency the ability to eavesdrop on the majority of the world’s computers. The report said thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of computers have been infected since 2001. The malware is beyond the reach of most security controls and antivirus products, Kaspersky said, making it nearly impossible to identify. “It means that we are practically blind and cannot detect hard drives that have been infected by this malware,” said Costin Raiu, a lead researcher for Kaspersky. “Is anybody safe anymore?” That was the reaction to the report by Bill Supernor, the chief technology officer for KoolSpan, a U.S. company providing secure voice and text systems for mobile phones. KoolSpan sells more products overseas than in the U.S. “Customers already suspicious of U.S. products will now be even more concerned that firms have been compromised,” Supernor said. “If this is the U.S. doing this to our adversaries, we are seriously shooting ourselves in the foot,” he said. The Kaspersky report said the Equation Group used a variety of means to spread spy programs. They included compromising jihadi Web sites, infecting USB sticks and CDs, and developing computer worms. George Smith, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, said the report represented “a black eye for the U.S. government because it undermines trust on the global networks." “It makes it hard to argue for proper rules of conduct in cyber space because there are now no boundaries,” Smith said. U.S. President Barack Obama discussed cyberattacks in general terms in a recent interview with Re/code, an online computer industry publication. “This is more like basketball than football, in the sense that there’s no clear line between offense and defense,” said Obama. “Things are going back and forth all the time.” Farmers seen on front line in meeting food goals By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Bigger droughts, more frequent flooding, more devastating storms — these are some of the effects that some scientists say climate change is already having on our planet. And farmers, many of them small, family growers in developing countries, are on the front lines. They'll have to feed a world population that is expected to climb from just over 7 billion today to about 9.6 billion in 2050. Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, said agriculture must become more sustainable, more resilient and more inclusive to respond to climate change — and to ensure that the poorest people have access to food. "Always, the poorest and the smallest are the most vulnerable," he said, "starting from the fact they are already in marginal awareness, so they are the first to be affected by a drought or a flooding that are the current, ongoing impacts of climate change." The Food and Agricultural Organization chief spoke Friday at an international meeting in Paris looking at the impact of climate change on agriculture. The city, which opened its yearly international agricultural show Saturday, will host a major U.N. climate conference in December intended to reach an international deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. At the agricultural meeting, French President Francois Hollande said the U.N. summit would not solve all the climate change problems, but it must at least give the world a reason for hope. It is important to define a global strategy to fight climate change, he said, and agriculture must be part of the solution. Evelyn Nguleka of Zambia, president of the World Farmers Organization, said that farmers are looking for practical solutions. "It's one thing just to send out an alarm that there are going to be weather pattern changes," she said. "But what is important for the farmer is how is a farmer going to be able to survive. So resilience is going to be a key word — and that, of course, goes with innovations." Nadjirou Sall of northern Senegal heads the Network of Farmers' and Agricultural Producers' Organizations of West Africa. He said the Sahel region, where he lives, has been dealing with longer droughts for several decades. Sall said the Paris climate conference will be useful if it takes the problems of family farmers like himself into account. If not, as far as he is concerned, it will be a failure. U.S. Christian raises unit to support Islamic State foes By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Since Islamic State militants declared a caliphate last year in parts of Iraq and Syria, thousands of Westerners have traveled there to join the battle. But one American man said he has joined the fight, not for the Islamic State jihadist group but against it. "I am in Iraq helping to raise a Christian army to fight ISIS," declared Matthew VanDyke in a statement on Twitter last week. VanDyke is a bearded, blue-eyed Baltimore native with a slender build and a master's degree in security studies from Georgetown University. He has formed what he calls the Sons of Liberty International, or SOLI, a nonprofit group that is helping to train a militia made up of Assyrian Christians, whose homeland in northern Iraq has come under attack by Islamic State militants. The militia, the Ninevah Plains Protection Units, is one of several small groups of Christian fighters trying to defend vulnerable locals against the Islamic State group, which has carried out mass executions and expulsions of religious minorities. The jihadi onslaught against the ancient Iraqi Christian community is part of what prompted VanDyke to go to Iraq in early December and join the fight against the Islamic State group. "They've suffered greatly under ISIS," VanDyke said via Skype from the northern Iraqi town of Irbil. "There's tens of thousands of Christian refugees and the population of Christians in Iraq is severely threatened." "A lot of them have left and have become refugees and will not return to their homes. And if the Christians cannot demonstrate that they're able to secure their own lands, Christianity will be wiped out," he said. According to VanDyke, the best way to stop the onslaught is to equip locals to protect themselves. To do that, he is recruiting U.S. combat veterans to come to offer specialized training to the Assyrian fighters. So far, Vandyke said five military vets have volunteered to help train the Ninevah Plains Protection Units. "And it's going quite well," VanDyke said. "We ran a covert training camp north of Mosul for about a month." "The results were very positive. I have observed the Iraqi army and the Afghan army in the past, and these fighters far surpassed them in their motivation and morale and talents and how quickly they learned and how seriously they take things," he said. Kaldo Ramzi, an official with the Ninevah Plains Protection Units, confirmed that VanDyke and the Sons of Liberty International have helped provide basic training to about 500 fighters that make up the Assyrian militia. Ramzi said for now, the Ninevah Plains Protection Units was focused on protecting lands not yet taken by the Islamic State militants. But once the group receives more training, funding, weapons and fighters, he said it planned to go on the offensive to retake Assyrian towns captured by the extremists. VanDyke and Ramzi even claimed to have met with U.S. State Department officials at a consulate in Iraq, who, they said, have given the Ninevah Plains Protection Units and its coordination with the Sons of Liberty International their full verbal support. A State Department official refused to confirm such a meeting. "American civilians who may have traveled to Iraq to take part in military activities are not part of the United States government effort in Iraq," the official said. "As our travel warning indicates, we have been clear that travel to Iraq remains very dangerous and that we do not endorse nonessential travel to Iraq by private U.S. citizens," the official added. The Ninevah Plains Protection Units is trying to coordinate its efforts with at least some other local groups, including the Kurdish Peshmerga fighting force that is also battling Islamic State militants. Some of the Ninevah Plains Protection Units training camps have been held at Peshmerga bases, for instance, according to VanDyke and Ramzi. But while the Peshmerga, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, has had some success in retaking Kurdish areas from the Islamic State group, the paramilitary group has been hesitant to expand its efforts to other non-Kurdish territory captured by the Islamists, leaving many Assyrians desperate for help. "For over six months, neither the Kurds nor the U.S. have lifted a finger to liberate towns, like Qaraqosh, which are a 10-minute drive from Kurdish front lines," said Michael Knights, an Iraq security specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Other small groups of sectarian fighters are also interested only in defending their own territory, leaving no single unified anti-Islamic State fighting force and making the conflict a necessarily sectarian battle. But there are concerns about whether forming explicitly Christian armies and involving foreign volunteers in that effort will bolster the appeal of the Islamic State group, which already claims to be fighting a holy war and battling what it sees as Western crusaders. Knights, though, wasn't convinced this would increase the ferocity or change the nature of the conflict. "ISIL is sure as hell fighting a holy war against them. They won't be put off by any U.S. volunteers who are using the same language in return," he said. "We are already at a medieval barbarity stage and ISIL did that on their own." Others are more skeptical of the efforts of volunteers such as VanDyke. "I don't think his help or others is needed or useful," said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq analyst with the Baghdad-based Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform. "The NPU has Iraqi federal government support, so American advisers are already playing a role in training. "It definitely adds to the propaganda daesh can use, and there are enough foreigners already in Iraq," continued Jiyad, using an Arabic word for the Islamic State group. But VanDyke insisted he didn't have time to argue over semantics. "Do we really care what ISIS' talking points are anymore? That's a luxury enjoyed by people in the Western world who aren't being beheaded or burned alive, to be worrying about whether it reinforces ISIS' talking points," he said. But despite sometimes using stark, sectarian language to define the conflict, VanDyke stressed he didn't see himself as a modern day crusader. "It's not a religious war and certainly not a crusade or anything like it," he said. "The Assyrian Christians have lived in peace with their neighbors and they will continue to. They are interested in defending their own lands against ISIS and any other terrorist threats and that's it." VanDyke said the Assyrian Christians were "eager to get out and defend their homeland." But he wouldn't say whether the group has actually begun taking the fight to the Islamic State group. He also wouldn't make any promises that he would stay off the front lines himself. VanDyke does have experience with Arab militias. His 2011 involvement with Libyan revolutionaries in the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi was the subject of an award winning documentary called "Point and Shoot." But for now, VanDyke said he's "way too busy" managing his Sons of Liberty organization to take on any combat role. "This is really a full-time-plus job. It involves a lot of moving pieces and is quite a challenge, but a rewarding challenge and something I love doing. But there's certainly been no time for me being on any front lines fighting," he said. When asked whether he feared being killed or kidnapped by the Islamic State group, as other foreigners have been, VanDyke said that's a chance he's willing to take. "It's always a risk in this work. It's something I take precautions against, but it's not going to stop me from doing this work. It's something I believe in," he said. U.S. is taking seriously terror threats for malls By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. homeland security chief said authorities are taking seriously a threat made by Somali-based Islamist militants against Western shopping malls. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was reacting to a video released by al-Shabab terrorists, appearing to call for attacks on shopping areas. Speaking Sunday, Johnson said the global terrorist threat has evolved to militant groups "publicly calling for independent actors in their homelands to carry out attacks." He said, "We're beyond the phase now where these groups would send foreign operatives into countries after being trained some place." Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a September 2013 attack that killed 67 people at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The terrorist threat specifically mentioned shopping areas in the United States, Canada and Britain. Among them was the Mall of America, in the northern U.S. state of Minnesota. The area is home to a sizable Somali immigrant population. U.S. law enforcement officials have been concerned about the potential for radicalization among members of immigrant communities. A Minnesota man was indicted last week on charges of conspiring to support the Islamic State extremist group and lying to federal agents investigating recruitment by militant groups. Prosecutors said dozens of people from Minnesota, many of them Somali-Americans, have traveled or attempted to travel overseas to support groups such as Islamic State or al-Shabab since 2007. Accord reached in strike of U.S. Pacific cargo ports By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Activity at U.S. Pacific Coast ports began the process of reducing the backlog of billions of dollars' worth of cargo late Saturday following a tentative deal on a new labor contract between U.S. dockworkers and port operators, settling a dispute that disrupted the flow of cargo through 29 ports and snarled trade with Asia. The deal was reached late Friday. However, the tentative contract must still be approved by the port operators and the members of the dockworkers union. It was not immediately clear when a vote on the contract will take place. In a joint statement, the president of the Pacific Maritime Association, James McKenna, and the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Bob McEllrath, said they are pleased to have reached the tentative deal that is good for dockworkers and the shipping industry. U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez oversaw four days of negotiations last week between the two sides in San Francisco in the western U.S. state of California. The White House responded to the settlement by calling it a huge relief for the U.S. economy, particularly the many American workers, farmers and businesses that have been affected by the dispute. A spokesperson said President Barack Obama is urging all parties, as they finalize their agreement, to clear out the congestion with ships at the West Coast ports. The labor dispute, which began in July when a previous contract expired, tied up the West Coast ports for months and created a bottleneck for much of U.S. trade with Asia. Those ports handle more than a quarter of all U.S. maritime trade and more than 70 percent of the nation's imports from Asia. Cargo has been backed up, with large container ships remaining idle outside ports from southern California all the way north to the Canadian border. Technique tricks HIV virus and protects test monkeys By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Researchers are engineering healthy muscle cells to induce them to crank out genetic instructions that could potentially neutralize HIV, the virus that causes AIDS in humans. Scientists at Scripps Research Institute used the technique to completely protect rhesus macaque monkeys whose immune systems were repeatedly exposed to simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, a primate version of HIV. After treatment, Scripps researcher Michael Farzan says the macaques never became infected despite the challenge. “We continued to administer the virus, doubling the dose each time. We’ve now gone with six doses that were capable of infecting control animals. We’ve gone to 16 times that," said Farzan. The findings were reported in the journal Nature. Traditional vaccines train the immune system to recognize and destroy microbial invaders. But experimental AIDS vaccines fail because the virus is continually changing its appearance to evade destruction. Farzan, the study’s lead investigator, says the new approach tricks HIV into revealing a key viral surface protein. The compound targets the portion of the virus that is always mutating to avoid the immune system. Once bound, a second protein makes the virus self-destruct so it never has a chance to infect cells. “Because HIV is fooled into thinking it’s binding the cell, it undergoes the changes that it would normally do when it’s ready to enter a cell. And those changes, if it’s not near a cell, inactivate the virus," said Farzan. The muscle cells continually pump out decoys that fool the virus into destruction. Farzan says the compound has the potential both to protect against infection with HIV and to fight the virus in infected people. The team wants to begin clinical trials in patients who cannot tolerate antiretroviral drugs. |
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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, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 37 | |||||||||
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Here comes the sun, and we are happy to see it in any form. Be it dappled, filtered, shaded, or bright, after months of rain and more rain,
But no more! We have seen the sun now for three days in a row and are fairly convinced that there is more sun to come – and none too soon for gardeners like me who miss picking cherry tomatoes from the plant (and having only half of them reach the kitchen). Seriously, I may succumb to the temptation of starting a small greenhouse just to grow them. My friend Carla has a lovely glass enclosed space and can grow anything. I am green with jealousy. Let’s face it, that was a long and tedious rainy season for those of us in the Arenal region. Okay, we know that we may have to water our vegetable gardens in the months ahead and we don’t care! We just want to wander through our flower beds without sinking in the mud and enjoy – yes, actually enjoy – weeding without having to wear a raincoat. But I am rambling. This is indeed the time to get those tomatoes in the ground and watch them go to work producing that red ripe fruit we love so much. Time to get pepper seeds started and put radishes into the ground. It’s also time to watch for tiny buds on some of our fruit trees – my mandarina (that’s a tangerine for all you newbies) has tiny white flowers started. Two years ago it produced a ton of fruit, but last year it produced no fruit at all, so seeing a few buds give me hope. We had a “sierrista” here the other day (and don’t ask if that’s spelled correctly but it means “an expert chain saw user”) and he pruned branches from the tree that were loaded with strangler fig vines. Maybe the tree will be healthier now and fruit well for us. Whether the manderina fruits or not, it will enjoy the sun. I certainly intend to.
If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arenal-Gardeners/413220712106845 |
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| From Page 7: Obama promotes free-trade deals By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama has promoted the value of free-trade deals to the U.S. public, saying they will make American businesses more successful and competitive in a 21st century economy. In his weekly address Saturday, Obama said past trade deals have not always lived up to the promise of leveling the playing field for American workers and holding all countries to the high labor and environmental standards the U.S. abides by. But he said that does not mean the U.S. should close itself off from new opportunities and remain idle while other countries determine its economic fate. The president said the U.S. should seize those opportunities, saying they will create good new jobs for decades to come. Obama urged the U.S. Congress to act on trade promotion authority. He said that is bipartisan legislation that will protect American workers and promote American businesses with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that are free and fair. |
