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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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José, Costa Rica, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 41
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The following letters
relate to an
editorial that ran Wednesday. The editorial is HERE!
Blaise Pascal's wager for the planet Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Like many things scientific, our understanding of global warming is evolving. The evidence of human-induced deleterious effects on the global environment is compelling, but it may yet be disproved. If that evidence holds up, however, the implications are frightening. Rising sea levels, melting of the polar ice caps, increases in ambient temperatures worldwide, reduction or displacement of rainfall and other anticipated changes all have the potential for wreaking enormous damage on the entire environment on which we rely for our very existence. Among other things, the 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal gave the world that branch of mathematics known as probability theory. Using laws and formulas he created, Pascal computed that the likelihood that there is no God was about 99.97 percent. Unable to refine his calculations further, Pascal retired to a monastery and a life of prayer and contemplation. Asked why, if the likelihood is that there is no God, he committed himself to a life of prayer, Pascal replied that it had to do with the odds of being wrong. Like Pascal, global warming deniers have a right to their opinions, but if the odds of their being wrong come to pass, life on earth will suffer disastrous consequences. If we pursue our present courses, we may suffer economically, but we cannot eat money. David C. Murray
Grecia
Garbage, waste needs to be considered Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Even if we can’t agree on global warming, surely all people agree on cleaning up the planet. We need to tackle issues of garbage, toxic waste, and recycling. Water is becoming a big issue, even and especially here in Costa Rica. People have dirtied they own backyard and are living in our own filth. Gluttony is one of the worst of our sins to this planet. They even make TV shows about hoarders. Tackling the planet as a whole can seem overwhelming for the average person and how they can help seems out of reach. Everyone can help with cleaning up in a small way just in their own personal environment. Maybe we should focus on this for the average person. Patti Fraser
Tamarindo Earth has been changing since it existed Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I read your article on climate change. It seemed to me to be pretty mild and basically correct. I was amazed to read in today's A.M. Costa Rica some of the letters criticizing it. I know that so called climate change is like a religion to some people, and they will never even consider another point of view. This type of people generally come from the leftist part of the political spectrum. They are anti-capitalist and hate fossil fuel energy. So they always work these hatreds into the conversation. As you stated in your piece, the earth has been changing ever since there has been a earth. It has been a lot colder than it is now, and it has been a lot hotter. For some time we have had an atmosphere of greenhouse gases that warm the earth and enable life as we know it to exist here . These gases are of several types of which carbon dioxide is a minor one . Some say that the carbon dioxide we are adding now is causing warming now. Maybe so, but show me the proof. They can’t. All they have is a theory and some computer models that have not been right yet. In fact, the calculations are so complicated that the computers we have now will never be able to make accurate predictions . There are so many unknowns that even trying to predict future atmospheric changes is futile. That is not the point however. The argument is not scientific but political. They want to kill our economies and make us all dependent on their socialist governments' handouts. It is all about control. Remember: There are no experts in what is unknown. And we have a lot of unknowns here and, therefore, no experts . Bill Pitts
Fort Worth , Texas Climate related to cholesterol scare Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Right on Dr. Cocker! If the gentlemen are so sure that CO2 is destroying the planet, then tell us this. What is the effect of CO2 on plants? How much do they require for optimal growth? What is the average CO2 available for plants here in Costa Rica during the daylight hours? The rest of the world? Would the increase of plant growth be good thing for the planet? So, why would we want to reduce CO2 levels? There never was a scientific consensus on either global warming or the cause. The people who are claiming that a consensus exists are lying, and they are the same people that are telling you that global warming exists and man is the cause. The original editorial touched on a key point, and that is that within the scientific community there lies the incentive to get published/recognized and that affects the science. Unfortunately, that is the tip of the iceberg. Science at the university level in the U.S. is paid for and controlled by corporations. It's quite simple, if you conduct studies that will benefit the corporate sugar daddy, you will be published and rewarded with more research money. If you conduct studies that reveal things that will not benefit the corporation, they will not see the light of day because the corporate sponsor of that university's research department owns all the research and they will determine what is released and what isn't. This is the same system of science that has told us for over 60 years that cholesterol causes heart disease and, after slowly backtracking on that claim with by making a difference between good and bad cholesterol in recent years, is now in full retreat with a number of mainstream health/physician organizations just going public in the last few weeks, claiming that there is no evidence of a connection to heart disease and that cholesterol is a necessary nutrient. Until global warming, the biggest myth hoisted on the people. Like Peter Townsend said: "don't be fooled again" Albert Lusk
San Isidro Ex-convict made a
poor choice
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
While two police officers were answering a call about a dispute in the Coca Cola bus terminal, a man tried to get away with one of the officer's bikes. Officers managed to chase down the man and detain him. They found that he was a 23-year-old ex-convict who had been released from prison just last month. The bike with the blue frame is clearly marked as belonging to the police.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 41 | |
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Sloth grabs a free ride By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Sloths in the wild may not be as cuddly as those found in rescue centers, so police exercised some caution in Upala. Two officers on patrol saw a sloth, called an osa perezosa, trying to cross a heavily traveled road between Upala and Cañas. Some motorists had stopped to help because the sloth is not known for its speed. The animal does have long, sharp nails. So officer Ricardo Hernández offered a thick branch to the animal, which climbed aboard. So that way the officer carried the critter to the other side of the road. Sloths are only infrequently are on the ground where they are vulnerable to predators. |
 Ministerio de Seguridad Pública
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| Former Banco Anglo office begins its second 100 years
downtown |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Mention Banco Anglo to many Costa Ricans and they will roll their eyes. This is the bank that officials shut down in 1994, and managers accused of pilfering the institution still have not been brought back to Costa Rica. In the shambles of the bank failure there still remains the building that housed it. The bank itself was founded in 1863, but the offices suffered a major fire in 1915. The result is the building, now 100 years old, on the downtown pedestrian mall. The government owns the structure, and it houses a gallery, the Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural and the Academia Costarricense de la Lengua. The building underwent a major renovation under the eye of the centro, which restores historic structures. The neoclassical exterior is well known to passers-by and the steps are usually decorated with street musicians, vendors or beggars. Officials marked the birthday this week with a ceremony, and a photo exhibition of the structure will be set up soon. |
 Centro de
Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio
Cultural
The
well-known facade of the former bank building.
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 41 | |||||
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| Scientists say they correlated rise in Carbon dioxide with
surface heat |
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By the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory
news staff Scientists have observed an increase in carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect at the Earth’s surface for the first time. The researchers, led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s increasing capacity to absorb thermal radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface over 11 years at two locations in North America. They attributed this upward trend to rising CO2 levels from fossil fuel emissions. The influence of atmospheric CO2 on the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from the Earth (also called the planet’s energy balance) is well established. But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now. The research is reported in the advance online publication of the journal Nature. The results agree with theoretical predictions of the greenhouse effect due to human activity. The research also provides further confirmation that the calculations used in today’s climate models are on track when it comes to representing the impact of CO2. The scientists measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s contribution to radiative forcing at two sites, one in Oklahoma and one on the North Slope of Alaska, from 2000 to the end of 2010. Radiative forcing is a measure of how much the planet’s energy balance is perturbed by atmospheric changes. Positive radiative forcing occurs when the Earth absorbs more energy from solar radiation than it emits as thermal radiation back to space. It can be measured at the Earth’s surface or high in the atmosphere. In this research, the scientists focused on the surface. They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations, about two-tenths of a watt per square meter per decade. They linked this trend to the 22 parts-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 between 2000 and 2010. Much of this CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels, according to a modeling system that tracks CO2 sources around the world. “We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,” says Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper. “Numerous studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect,” Feldman adds. |
 Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory graphic
Graph correlates rise in carbon dioxide
with heat.
The scientists used incredibly precise spectroscopic instruments operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility, a Department of energy Office of Science User Facility. These instruments, located at research sites in Oklahoma and Alaska, measure thermal infrared energy that travels down through the atmosphere to the surface. They can detect the unique spectral signature of infrared energy from CO2. Other instruments at the two locations detect the unique signatures of phenomena that can also emit infrared energy, such as clouds and water vapor. The combination of these measurements enabled the scientists to isolate the signals attributed solely to CO2. “We measured radiation in the form of infrared energy. Then we controlled for other factors that would impact our measurements, such as a weather system moving through the area,” says Feldman. The result is two time-series from two very different locations. Each series spans from 2000 to the end of 2010, and includes 3,300 measurements from Alaska and 8,300 measurements from Oklahoma obtained on a near-daily basis. Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 watts per square meter per decade. This increase is about 10 percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor. Based on an analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s CarbonTracker system, the scientists linked this upswing in CO2-attributed radiative forcing to fossil fuel emissions and fires. The measurements also enabled the scientists to detect, for the first time, the influence of photosynthesis on the balance of energy at the surface. They found that CO2-attributed radiative forcing dipped in the spring as flourishing photosynthetic activity pulled more of the greenhouse gas from the air. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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2015 and may
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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Satellite image research shows greater deforestation By the American Geophysical Union news staff
The rate at which tropical forests were cut, burned or otherwise lost from the 1990s through the 2000s accelerated by 62 percent, according to a new study which dramatically reverses a previous estimate of a 25 percent slowdown over the same period. That previous estimate from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization was based on a collection of reports from dozens of countries. The new estimate, in contrast, is based on vast amounts of Landsat image data which directly record the changes to forests over 20 years. "Our study is the first pan-tropical scale analysis,” said University of Maryland geographer Do-Hyung Kim, lead author of the new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Kim and his University of Maryland colleagues Joseph Sexton and John Townshend looked at 34 forested countries which comprise 80 percent of forested tropical lands. They analyzed 5,444 Landsat scenes from 1990, 2000, 2005 and 2010 with a hectare-scale (100 by 100 meter) resolution to determine how much forest was lost and gained. Their procedure was fully automated and computerized both to make the huge data sets manageable and to minimize human error. They found that during the 1990 to 2000 period the annual net forest loss across all the countries was 4 million hectares (15,000 square miles) per year. During the 2000-2010 period, the net forest loss rose to 6.5 million hectares (25,000 square miles) per year, a 62 percent increase is the rate of deforestation. That last rate is the equivalent to clear cutting an area the size of West Virginia or Sri Lanka each year, or deforesting an area the size of Norway every five years. In terms of where the deforestation was happening, they found that tropical Latin America showed the largest increase of annual net loss of 1.4 million hectares (5,400 square miles) per year from the 1990s to the 2000s, with Brazil topping the list at 0.6 million hectares (2,300 square miles) per year. Tropical Asia showed the second largest increase at 0.8 million hectares (3,100 square miles) per year, with similar trends across the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. Tropical Africa showed the least amount of annual net forest area loss. Still, there was a steady increase of net forest loss in tropical Africa due to cutting primarily in Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar. The new, satellite-based study “really provides a benchmark of tropical forest clearing not provided by other means,” said geographer Douglas Morton, who studies forest cover by satellite sensing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. However, the U.N. agency’s report is not as flawed as it may seem, argues Rodney Keenan, a University of Melbourne, Australia, forest science researcher who participated in the agency’s last forest assessment. Unlike the satellite evaluation, he explained, other deforestation estimates are based on ground based surveys of trees, often supplemented by imagery. “Both approaches are useful and people need to understand the distinctions and implications of different approaches,” he said. Terrorist on murder videos may have been identified By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Media reports said the masked Islamic State militant who appeared in several videos of hostage beheadings has been tentatively identified. But security sources caution that the reports may not be accurate. Reports Thursday quoted friends of Mohammed Emwazi as saying they believe he is the tall, London-accented speaker, dubbed Jihadi John. In the Islamic State videos, the man appears clad completely in black, with a mask over his face and a holster under his arm. A European security source declined to confirm Emwazi was Jihadi John, saying “the story is much more complicated.” The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Emwazi was heavily involved with the British jihadist group within the Islamic State, nicknamed by Western captives as the Beatles, who are involved in the beheadings of Western hostages. Neither the U.S. nor British governments would confirm the 27-year-old, Kuwaiti-born Emwazi, who grew up in West London and graduated with a computer programming degree from the University of Westminster, is the notorious knife-wielding executioner. The U.S. National Security Council issued a statement, saying investigations are continuing into the execution of Western hostages by the militant Islamic State group. “We will not comment on ongoing investigations and therefore are not in a position to confirm or deny the identity of this individual,” the agency said in its statement following The Washington Post’s report Thursday that identified Jihadi John. British officials also declined to comment, and the head of Britain’s counter-terrorism agency urged the media to be cautious in its reporting, saying the lives of those still being held captive by the militants could be placed in even greater danger. Emwazi's family declined a request for an interview, citing legal advice, according to the Post. There was no answer at two addresses in west London where Emwazi was listed to have lived. Neighbors described the family as normal people and friendly. Jihadi John, nicknamed by Western hostages, first appeared in a video last August overseeing the killing of American journalist James Foley. He later appeared in beheading videos involving four other Western hostages: Britons David Haines and Alan Henning, and Americans Peter Kassig and Steven Sotloff. Last month, he also appeared in a video with Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto shortly before they were killed. In all of the videos Jihadi John, speaking in oddly accented British, taunted Western powers before holding his knife to the hostages' necks. The victims' decapitated bodies were then shown after the beheadings. Because of the brutal nature of the Islamic State videos, British and U.S. intelligence services were ordered to uncover the identity of the masked man. Authorities used voice and facial recognition techniques, as well as interviews with former hostages. CAGE, a civil rights group that works with Muslims in conflict with British intelligence services, has worked with Emwazi since 2009. CAGE activists sought to blame Emwazi’s radicalization on harassment by British and European intelligence agencies. CAGE was founded by former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg. Asim Qureshi, the research director at CAGE, said that although he could not be certain Emwazi was Jihadi John, there were some striking similarities. However, Qureshi told reporters, “There's one character that I remember, one kind person that I remember, and then I see that image and there doesn't seem to be a correlation between the two." The International Center for the Study of Radicalization at London's King's College, a leading resource for studying foreign jihadists, said it believed the identity to be accurate and correct. "The fact that Jihadi John has been unveiled in this manner demonstrates that whatever efforts are made, the ability to mask one's identity is limited or in fact impossible, and their true identities will eventually be revealed," the King's College research center said on its Web site. Friends and acquaintances said they believe he began to radicalize in the past few years after trips to Africa and the Middle East. According to media reports, he and two friends were going on a planned trip to Tanzania when authorities detained them upon landing in Dar es Salaam. They were eventually deported to Amsterdam. While there, reports say Emwazi was interrogated by British and Dutch intelligence officers, who accused him of trying to join the Islamist militant group Al-Shabab in Somalia. CAGE activists also claim British and Dutch intelligence sought to recruit him to spy on terrorists. Media reports also said that Emwazi was angered after being barred three times from flying from London to Kuwait, according to emails he sent to the rights group CAGE. In a 2010 email, Emwazi claimed he "had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started" in Kuwait. It was impossible to verify the version of events given by CAGE, which drew criticism for shifting the responsibility for Emwazi's crimes. According to court documents obtained by the BBC, however, Emwazi’s radicalization would appear to have predated 2009. The documents outlined his participation in a group of young West Londoners stretching back to 2007 who “associated regularly with members of a network of United Kingdom and East African-based extremists.” The documents allege the group provided “funding and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes.” The Post reported Emwazi was believed to have traveled to Syria around 2012 and, later, to have joined the Islamic State group. Congress goes down to wire on Homeland Security budget By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Lawmakers from both major parties held news conferences Thursday to publicly trade blame for the impasse over immigration that got them into another down-to-the-wire budget battle, this time over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. House Speaker John Boehner refused to say what he would do next if the Senate sent over a bill without the provisions to block the president’s executive action on immigration. “I just think it is outrageous that Senate Democrats are using Homeland Security funding for blackmail to protect the actions of the president,” the Ohio Republican said. Most Democrats strongly favor the executive action, announced late last year by the president, which would shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and let them apply for work permits and legal status. Most Republicans oppose the action, saying the president is overstepping his authority. House and Senate Democrats want House Republicans to separate the immigration issue from Homeland Security funding. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the Republicans’ intransigence is harmful to U.S. national security. “It is about time for them to grow up and pass this bill,” the California Democrat said. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said it is crazy to even consider shutting off security funding at a time of heightened terror alerts. “American people are frightened and rightfully so," he said. "ISIS appears to have money, terrorists appear to have money — why shouldn’t our homeland have the ability to protect itself?” Behind the scenes, some Republican lawmakers said they are working on short-term funding bills as a way to avert a shutdown. If Congress fails to pass a spending bill, some 30,000 Homeland Security employees, mostly administrative staff, will be furloughed. Some 240,000 other DHS employees, however, would have to report to work without getting paid because they are deemed essential to U.S. national security. The Department of Homeland Security encompasses airport screeners, the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Border Patrol agents and Secret Service agents who protect the president and his family, among other employees. Another session is today about reopening embassies By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A Cuban delegation will be at the State Department today to talk about restoring diplomatic ties with the United States for the first time since 1961 — part of President Barack Obama's initiative to end the trade embargo against Cuba. A senior State Department official said Friday's session would focus solely on doing what needs to be done to open embassies in Washington and Havana as quickly as possible. "This is where we roll up our sleeves as diplomats and sit down at the table and make sure that we hammer all of the details out to get embassies up and running the way we have embassies all over the world," the official told reporters. The official said the number of things that will be accomplished and the time frame for getting them done will depend in part on what the Cubans bring to the table. Cuba has said it will be linking the embassy issue to whether the U.S. drops it from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. The official said that the U.S. delegation is not linking the two issues and that the review of the terrorism list is a separate, ongoing process. The State Department official said the Cubans should feel comfortable that the matter is under review. "It would be very easy to restore diplomatic relations if they would not link those two things," the official said. The official also said a human rights dialogue would be the first open conversation between the U.S. and Cuba after diplomatic ties were resumed. Last month in Havana, the U.S. and Cuba began a series of meetings to re-establish ties. The U.S. imposed a trade embargo on Cuba in 1960 and closed its embassy one year later after Communist leader Fidel Castro overthrew the U.S.-backed government.  Voice of America graphic
The location of the Pacific trash patch
Most of
plastic in Pacific
becomes invisible sludge By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A University of Georgia study released in February estimated 8 million tons of plastic garbage was dumped into the oceans in 2010. In the Pacific Ocean, currents collect that plastic into a huge slowly spinning garbage patch where it poses a major environmental threat to sea life. The culprit, researchers say, is plastic. Coming from virtually everywhere — a veritable river of garbage winding its way into the world's oceans — the trash concentrates in five of the Earth’s ocean gyres, which are naturally occurring circular currents, according to University of Hawaii marine scientist Dave Karl. “As you get closer and closer to the central axis of that feature, the waters become more quiescent," says Karl, who is part of a team of Honolulu-based researchers tracking the huge Pacific trash patch and monitoring its impact on marine life. "So they tend to trap floating debris.” The Pacific patch is famously as big as the U.S. state of Texas, but Karl says what is seen from passing ships or the air is mostly empty ocean. “The impression that people got about this patch was that it was a solid mass of plastic," he says. "You could almost jump off your boat and walk across the state of Texas on this plastic footing. That is not the way it is at all.” Oceanic churning quickly reduces much of the plastic to a chemical sludge, says Allen Clark of Hawaii's East-West Center. In that particular form, he says, it becomes even more dangerous to marine life, since tiny plankton organisms consume the particles. “The particles are eaten by things like jellyfish, who turn out to be one of the favorite food of larger fish, and then you go through the food chain to tuna and things of this nature," he says. "All of this material, and particularly the carcinogens, which get broken down by the animals into the constituent parts that are really bad, that gets concentrated in the fatty tissues of the fish.” And the cycle is completed, as this micro-plastic ends up on beaches, in the wildlife and even in the food that winds up on the dinner table. According to Karl, plastic ocean trash is mostly invisible. Some is in fluid form and some sinks to the bottom and cannot be seen, so, until recently, it was hard to measure. “So when we are talking about this contemporary Great Pacific Plastic Patch, as it has been called, we are only skimming the surface, literally,” Karl says. That same University of Georgia study says if the trends continue, humans will be dumping 10 times as much plastic into the oceans during the next decade. Scientists will continue to track the massive gyres, while on land there is ongoing research to determine if all this plastic might be harmful to humans. D.C. marijuana law faces congressional challenges By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The debate over the legalization of marijuana in the United States is now centering on the nation’s capital — both in the halls of Congress and on the streets surrounding it. District of Columbia residents voted last November to legalize the drug, but Congress put language in its budget to block funding for its regulation, setting up a host of challenges. Despite the congressional move, the new D.C. law, which took effect Thursday, allows anyone over 21 to possess up to 2 ounces (56 grams) of marijuana and to grow up to six plants in their home, three of them mature. Sales are barred but transfers of up to 1 ounce (28 grams) are legal, and it remains illegal to smoke and consume in public. The drug is barred in about 20 percent of the city that is federal land. “Prohibition has failed,” said Malik Burnett, policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance, which promotes liberalizing the country’s drug regulations. But some in Congress vow to use their power to block implementation. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, warned D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser that she and other city officials could go to jail. Bowser said the measure would take effect as planned. Still, laws on the books complicate the matter and will likely leave some users in a legal quandary. Federal law classifies marijuana as an illegal substance and anyone possessing it subject to arrest. In Washington, it is a criminal offense to possess marijuana on federal property — from parks and monuments to government buildings. David Grasso, a member of the district’s legislative branch, is concerned people carrying marijuana may not even realize they are on federal land. “You could have people walking down the street not knowing what the law is from one block to the next,” he said. Opponents in Congress, led by Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, attached a provision to the congressional budget bill prohibiting the D.C. government from spending any local money on the regulation of marijuana, Grasso said. “So we were prohibited by Congress from spending our own money on the implementation of marijuana regulations.” Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia and can override local laws. In a statement, Rep. Harris said “any movement to legalize marijuana in D.C. is a willful violation of the law.” But not having tightly regulated controls has left a loophole of uncertainty, according to Grasso. “How are you going to get marijuana if you don’t grow it?” he asked. “You’re going to have to buy it from somebody. You really don’t eliminate the underground market.” Grasso believes recreational marijuana should be regulated by the same federal bureau that controls alcohol sales. In January, he introduced a bill to tax and regulate marijuana in D.C., which he admits goes against the congressional order. Under the current law, the city can neither tax nor regulate the drug — steps congress explicitly forbade. “We should do that right away in spite of Congress,” he said. Grasso foresees a day when there would be independent marijuana retail stores and perhaps restaurants “where they would cook with it.” “People should be able to go to the store and purchase it, just like they purchase groceries,” Burnett said, adding that he favors private cannabis clubs where pot can be exchanged. But Mayor Bowser is seeking to restrict those clubs since the D.C. law prohibits using marijuana in restaurants and bars. Debates over the implementation of marijuana regulation is going on in several parts of the country. Rules similar to those outlined in the D.C. law took effect Tuesday in Alaska, and Colorado and Washington state already have legal marijuana. Oregon is poised for July 2015 legalization. Polls indicate the majority of Americans support marijuana legalization. Internationally, only North Korea, Uruguay and the Netherlands have legalized marijuana, while others have decriminalized the drug, or at least tolerate its use, especially in places where it has commonly been smoked. |
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contents of
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2015 and may
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 41 | |||||||||
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By the Pan American Health
Organization news staff
Despite fierce opposition from the tobacco industry, a number of countries in the Americas have made major progress in implementing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This week marks a decade since the agreement took effect as the world's first international health treaty. "Ten years ago, establishing smoke-free environments, requiring graphic warnings on tobacco packages, banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and increasing tobacco taxes all seemed like a pipe dream," said Carissa F. Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization. "Now it's a reality. Tobacco — one of the world's deadliest consumer products — has been exposed, and the 10th anniversary of that feat marks a true public health milestone." Tobacco is the only legal consumer product that kills up to half of those who use it as intended by the manufacturer. Worldwide, it kills one person every six seconds. Tobacco use is a risk factor for six of the eight leading causes of death worldwide and a shared risk factor for all four of the most common noncommunicable diseases: cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes. To counter the devastating impact of the global tobacco epidemic, World Health Organization member countries adopted the convention in 2003, and it went into force on Feb. 27, 2005. A legally binding agreement, it sets forth a series of measures to reduce tobacco demand and supply, ranging from increased taxes on cigarettes and smoke-free public spaces to mandatory graphic health warnings and bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Full implementation of the agreement would lead to an estimated 30 percent reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use in people aged 15 and over and would contribute substantially to the global target of reducing premature deaths from noncommunicable diseases by 25 percent by 2025, said the Pan American Health Organization. In the Americas, 30 of 35 countries have to date ratified the convention. Regional progress in implementing the treaty's provisions includes: * 17 countries in the Americas have passed laws banning smoking in indoor workplaces and public places — a measure that protects nonsmokers from secondhand smoke and also helps smokers to quit. * 17 countries require tobacco packaging to display large graphic health warnings that show the harmful health effects of tobacco use. * Six countries in the region have banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. * Countries including Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Grenada, Mexico, Panamá, St. Lucia, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela have increased taxes on tobacco, reducing the affordability of tobacco products. Costa Rica and Panamá are using the extra revenues to pay for health programs. * Five countries, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Panama and Uruguay, are on track toward full implementation of the convention, having implemented the majority of a package of six most-effective measures to reduce tobacco use, identified by World Health to help countries fulfill their commitments under the convention. Much of this progress in the Americas has been achieved despite active opposition from the tobacco industry, which has sought to halt, delay or dilute convention implementation by lobbying lawmakers and especially through litigation. Tobacco maker Philip Morris is fighting Uruguayan regulations that require health warnings to cover 80 percent of the main surface of tobacco packages and that limit manufacturers to one unique presentation per cigarette brand. Alleging that these measures violate the company's trade rights, Philip Morris took its claim to the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The Pan American Health Organization has supported Uruguay's defense of the measures, noting that they are aimed at saving lives and serve as model actions for other countries in the Americas and worldwide. As part of the convention process, a new protocol to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products was adopted by World Health member countries in 2012 to address the problem of the illicit tobacco trade, which accounts for one in every 10 cigarettes as well as many other tobacco products, said the Pan American Health Organization. |
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| From Page 7: Lawmakers concerned by firm's partial exit By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers Thursday afternoon expressed their concern that another firm has decided to move part of its operations out of Costa Rica. The firm is Jack’s, which said it would transfer 50 percent of its operations to the United States, Nicaragua, El Salvador and other Latin countries. The 51-year-old firm blamed the high cost of electricity and taxes. The announcement is another body blow to the Luis Guillermo Solís administration's plan to increase employment. Jack's is located in western Pavas not far from the U.S. Embassy. The basic products are snack foods. There was no announcement as to how many of the current 700 employees would lose their jobs. For a firm like Jack's the corporate income tax is 30 percent. At the legislature lawmakers noted that the current unemployment rate is 9.7 percent representing about 220,000 persons. Opposition lawmakers in the legislature blamed the government for giving contradictory signals. |
