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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 9, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 47
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Ministry
alleges cheating on trade treaty
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The finance ministry said Friday that a major importer of flat screen televisions is cheating by pretending the electronic devices come from México when they do not. México has a trade treaty with Costa Rica that would allow a firm to import electronic devices made there without paying customs duties. The Servicio Nacional de Aduanas of the Ministerio de Hacienda said the unpaid import duties and fines amount to 273 million colons or about $517,000. The agency said the unnamed importer was contesting this assessment. The complaint by the customs agency covers September 2012 to May 2013, the agency said. The ministry said that as a result of the misuse of the trade treaty, the firm was able to undercut competitors in the marketplace. Imports from elsewhere carry a 15 percent customer duty, the agency said. The situation is likely to lead to one of those long court battles typical of import disputes. Environment minister says he seeks action By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Expats on the Caribbean coast are thrilled that the environmental minister has responded to their complaints. A reply from the minister, Edgar Gutiérrez-Espeleta, was posted on a local discussion list. It was addressed to Carol Meeds, one of two expats who faced criticism from the local mayor. The minister said that he was asking subordinates to follow up on the complaints of expats and report back to him. Ms. Meeds had written him seeking help. The expats have been vocal about environmental degradation, and the mayor, Melvin Cordero Cordero, invited them in a letter posted to the municipality's Facebook page to leave the canton and perhaps the country. The expats say they continually file environmental complaints because no action is taken. "Please, keep on taking care of our resources in the Caribe Sur and letting us know your views," said the minister. "Costa Rica becomes greater and nicer with people like you and Philippe!" he added referring to the other expat, Philippe Vangoidsenhoven.  Judicial Investigting Organization
photo
Judicial agent leads the
woman suspect to a vehicle Stepmother held
in death of child, 4
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents have detained a 49-year-old woman in the death nearly a year ago of a girl, 4. The arrest was at the woman's home in Jericó de Desamparados. The Judicial Investigating Organization said that the child died in the same location last April 19. Judicial agents reported last April that the child died about 1:30 a.m. and that Cruz Roja responders were unable to revive her. They said the woman in the home was a stepmother who had only been caring for the child for five months. They said that a visual inspection showed injuries to the child but that the woman said they were old marks. Agents said that an autopsy report said that the death was homicide. Canadian couple forced to return home Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Charles and Karen Miller turned 67 and retired from their life-long minimum wage jobs in Ontario, Canada. Both were not in the best of health. After realizing that the government pensions provided to them in Canada were not sufficient enough to survive, they made the decision to rent a home in Costa Rica's southern zone. The home they rented was a very dilapidated Tico home, but they fixed it up to make it livable. During the first six months of living in this home they'd spent their entire saving on applying for pensionado status, buying private health care coverage and purchasing furnishings for that rented home. During this time period the Millers made a lot of Tico friends and contributed much of their time to the church and a nearby school. Karen spent hours every day studying Spanish. The government pension's they received from Canada did not allow for dining out or having a car, etc., but it did allow them to live a peaceful life and to live in an environment which seemed to be better for their health issues. Helping out at the church seemed to give them a reason to live. After just seven months in Costa Rica the Millers received some devastating news from the Canadian government. They were told that a large portion of their old age pensions would be terminated, as they were outside Canada for more than six months. The Miller's had no idea that this regulation existed. Canadians who have worked for low wages all their lives, and for companies without pension plans, are provided with an additional allowance in their old age pension. It's called the supplement. But this portion of an old age pension check is terminated if you are outside the country for more than six months. The Millers were in absolute despair, knowing that having such a large percentage of their government pension stripped from them would make it impossible to stay in Costa Rica. They simply could not fathom that they were being recalled to Canada, that they were actually under house arrest. The last month in Costa Rica was spent selling their appliances and furnishings and giving away many other items to the local Ticos they had befriended. The Millers spent their last week in Costa Rica sleeping on an air mattress, which was loaned to them by an expat neighbor. The Ticos said Karen cried for that entire week. The money they raised selling the furniture was just enough to pay for the flight back to Canada. Upon arriving in Canada, they discovered that they'd also had their health care coverage stripped from them, as they were outside the country for more than six months. They had to use a Visa credit card to purchase three months of private health care coverage until their Ontario health insurance coverage was reinstated. Today they are living in a relative's basement in Ontario and making payments on the 16 percent Visa card debt created by having to purchase private health care coverage for three months, which at their age was very expensive. Charles and Karen Miller started work at a very early age, and between the two of them they'd worked a total of almost one hundred years in Canada, and this is how the Canadian government repays them for their efforts, and for the taxes they'd paid for so many decades. Let this situation be a warning to all retired Canadian's. There are hundreds of thousands of seniors in Canada who are under house arrest, and most are simply unaware of it. John Edwards
Esterillos Oeste
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 9, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 47 | |
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| New four-lane bridge promised for Sixaola in two and a half
years |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rican officials hope to begin design work on a new Sixaola bridge later this year after the project works its way through the mandatory approval process. The government announced Friday that México has agreed to provide $10 million to build the proposed four-lane bridge that will take motor traffic off the former railroad bridge that is in use today. Costa Rica will put up $5 million for the job. The bridge will link the southernmost part of Costa Rica on the Caribbean coast with Panamá. The new span will replace a one-lane bailey bridge that was inaugurated in 2012. Most of the foot and motor traffic still moves on the former railway bridge that was built in 1908. The initial studies, design and supervision of the project will be handled by a U.N. agency, the Office for Project Services. Officials said that the estimated time for all the studies and construction is about 28 months. The current bailey bridge is 244 meters (800 feet) long. |
 Ministerio de Obras Públicas
y Transportes photo
The old rail bridge and the temporary
bailey span.
That was a $5 million job shared by both Costa Rica and Panamá. But the new bridge has been closed repeatedly. Once done, the new bridge will speed up contact between Costa Rica and Panamá. The bridge also will give northern Panamá easy access to the new container handling facilities that is being built in Moín. |
| Caribbean bird weathers El Niño and La Niña
best in mature forests |
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By the U.S. Forest Service news staff
Researchers from the U.S. Forest Service and Costa Rica Bird Observatories spent 12 years studying the white-collared manakin, a fruit-eating tropical bird, in mature and young forests along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. During the study, several El Niño and La Niña events — cycles of warm and cold ocean temperatures that influence air temperature and precipitation — resulted in very marked dry and wet annual conditions that allowed researchers to measure differences in manakin survival relative to climatic shifts. Results were recently published in the journal Oecologia. In young tropical forests, researchers found dramatic decreases in manakins' survival during dry weather associated with El Niño. Researchers believe that, due to a sparser canopy and their fragmented nature, the young forests were more susceptible to understory drying that reduced fruit production. Conversely, manakins' survival rates were higher during wet years associated with La Niña events in these young forests where increased moisture and sun exposure likely led to an abundance of fruit resources. In mature forests, researchers observed very stable manakin survival rates regardless of climatic shifts, suggesting a relatively constant abundance of fruit resources. "The complex structure of mature forest is thought to serve as a climatic refuge, buffering fruiting plants from climatic changes resulting in stable manakin survival," says Jared Wolfe, a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Forest Service and Klamath Bird Observatory and the study's lead author. "Climatic refuges, such as mature tropical forests, may be important for many resident tropical bird species faced with the decreasing availability of mature forests coupled with increases in the severity of El Niño-associated dryness." These study results represent the first published documentation of El Niño's influence on the survival of a resident tropical land bird. Researchers said they believe that variation in manakin survival between forest types |
 U.S. Forest Service
photo
An example of the manikins
of the Carribean.provides insight into the sensitivity of certain species to habitat alteration. "From a management perspective, understanding how climatic events affect biodiversity is critical for the development of science-based conservation strategies," said Pablo Elizondo, executive director of the Costa Rica Bird Observatories monitoring service and co-author of the study. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 9, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 47 | |||||
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| Despite earlier study, researchers find vast differences in
Peruvian faces |
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By the North Carolina University news staff
A team of anthropology researchers has found significant differences in facial features between seven different pre-Columbian peoples they evaluated from what is now Peru – disproving a longstanding perception that these groups were physically homogenous. The finding may lead scholars to revisit any hypotheses about human migration patterns that rested on the idea that there was little skeletal variation in pre-Columbian South America. Skeletal variation is a prominent area of research in New World bioarchaeology, because it can help us understand the origins and migration patterns of various pre-Columbian groups through the Americas. “However, for a long time, the conventional wisdom was that there was very little variation prior to European contact,” says Ann Ross, a forensic anthropologist at North Carolina State University and co-author of a paper describing the new work. “Our work shows that there was actually significant variation.” The research team also included anthropologists from the University of Oregon and Tulane University. The recently published findings may affect a lot of hypotheses regarding New World anthropology. For decades, research on pre-Columbian peoples used one sample of 110 individuals to represent the skull variation – including the facial features – of all South American peoples. But that representative sample consisted solely of individuals from the Yauyos people – a civilization that existed in the central Peruvian highlands. “Our work shows that the Yauyos had facial features that were very different even from other peoples in the same region,” Ms. Ross says. “This raises questions about any hypothesis that rests in part on the use of the Yauyos sample as being representative of all South America.” |
The
researchers evaluated facial measurements of 507 skulls from
seven different groups that have been clearly defined by
archaeological evidence: the Yauyos, Ancon, Cajamarca, Jahuay,
Makatampu, Malabrigo and Pacatnamu peoples. These societies existed at
various points between 1 and 1470 A.D.. Researcher Ross collected facial measurements of the Ancon, Cajamarca and Makatampu remains. John Verano, an anthropologist at Tulane, collected measurements of the Jahuay, Malabrigo and Pacatnamu remains. For the Yauyos, the researchers used measurements made by W.W. Howells in 1973. The researchers found that each of these groups displayed distinct facial characteristics. The researchers also plotted the sites where each group’s remains were found. Using this information, they determined that geographical distance was a factor in facial differences between groups. In other words, the farther apart two groups were, the less they looked alike. “We’ve now collected samples from across Latin America – and those we’ve already published on can be viewed in a publicly available database,” Ms. Ross said. “Our publications so far have focused on variation in specific regions. Next we want to compare variation across Latin America, to see if we can identify patterns that suggest biological relationships, which could be indicative of migration patterns.” A pre-publication version of the paper on the seven Peruvian groups, “Craniofacial plasticity in ancient Peru,” was made available online by the Journal of Biological and Clinical Anthropology. |
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2015 and may
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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Changes in rules, devices follow loss of passenger jet By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
March 8, 2014 a Malaysia Airlines flight took off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. All transmission from the plane ended 40 minutes after take-off. The plane has not been found and is presumed to have crashed into the ocean. Exactly what happened and whether this type of incident could occur again remain unresolved issues. “Good night -- Malaysian 370.” Those were the last words heard from a Malaysia Airlines plane before it vanished from radar. A year later, the plane and the 239 people on board have not been found. U.S. commercial airline pilot Capt. Ian Gebow said the traditional 30-minute to 60-minute communication between plane and ground needs to be constant when planes are over wide bodies of water when radar is sparse. "What we really need is real-time data tracking for when an act occurs," he said. "We are creating a generation of pilots who are monitors, as opposed to professional aviators ... a generation of pilots who use automation as a crutch rather than an aide," said Gebow. The International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets global standards for the airline industry, is recommending that planes report their positions every 15 minutes and every minute during distress. Less than an hour after MH 370 departed Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, all communication from the plane ceased, and it dropped off radar. The first search area was along the original flight path. But the search areas kept shifting, especially after Malaysian military radar found a final transmission further north -- and that the plane could have flown another seven hours. The discrepancy exists because traditional radar does not track over oceans, and the plane was only equipped to report its location every 60 minutes. "Once we implement this system and we're able to track flights every one minute, that will increase our ability to locate flights," said Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, president of the aviation organization's council. "Again, I can say this organization is one of 191 member states. We set global standards for harmonized implementation. It is necessary for us to get all our members to agree to a particular standard that we have to put in place," said Aliu. Underwater devices searched the ocean floor for MH370, hoping to hear a signal from the flight data recorders. But the recorder batteries only last 30 days. The US Federal Aviation Administration and other global organizations are extending the battery requirements to 90 days, effective in five years. This also is a problem. Search vehicles heard pinging sounds they thought were coming from the plane, but were actually from marine life. David Soucie has written a book on MH370. He is a former accident investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration. He suggests the frequency be changed. “...So that it’s a distinguishable pattern. It’s a pattern that may be able to have a Morse Code situation that tells us what aircraft it actually came from or at least that was from an aircraft,” he said. Experts also suggest unsinkable flight recorders. “If you get it floating on the surface,with some sort of locator, both visually and by electronic means, I think that will both expedite the recovery process and also save millions upon millions of dollars in the search,” said Gebow. Already the MH370 search is the most expensive in aviation history, estimated at more than $90 million. "It's a matter of how much money you want to spend to find an aircraft that has crashed in the middle of the ocean," said Soucie. Experts agree missing aircraft are rare, but could happen again. They say the probability drops once all this new technology is installed on new planes. That will happen seven years from now. Indian police arrest 22 after rape suspect lynched By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Police in India have arrested at least 22 people after a mob stormed a prison and lynched a rape suspect in northeastern Nagaland state. Tension remained high Sunday after thousands of people attacked the prison in Dimapur to drag out a rape suspect, to beat him to death and to tie his body to a clock tower Thursday. Police said those arrested were charged with rioting. It was unclear if they were connected to the death of Syed Farid Khan, 35, who had been accused of raping a 19-year-old Naga tribal woman multiple times. Khan was a Bengali-speaking Muslim, and his family has accused police of falsely implicating him in the rape to try to root out Muslims from Nagaland. Nagaland's indigenous tribal groups have for years accused the growing population of Bengali-speaking Muslims from nearby Assam state and Bangladesh of illegally settling on their land and usurping resources. The lynching comes days after the Indian government banned a BBC documentary about the fatal gang-rape in December 2012 of a young student in New Delhi that caused shock within India and around the world. Another police shooting generates two-day protest By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Protesters took to the streets in a Midwest college town over the weekend with chants of "Black Lives Matter" following the fatal shooting of an unarmed, African American teenager by a white police officer late Friday. The shooting sparked demonstrations in Madison Friday and Saturday where the slogan "Black Lives Matter" has become the mantra of demonstrators around the country protesting similar deadly police encounters between white police officers and unarmed black men. Madison, Wisconsin, Police Chief Mike Koval said 19-year-old Tony Robinson was shot in his apartment Friday night after Officer Matt Kenny, who was responding to emergency telephone calls about battery and someone jumping in and out of traffic, heard a disturbance in Robinson's apartment. Koval said Kenny forced his way into Robinson's apartment where the teenager assaulted the police officer, forcing him to draw his revolver and shoot Robinson. "I can't even compute what has happened," Robinson's mother, Andrea Irwin, said in a statement. Police Chief Koval called for restraint and calm as the Department of Criminal Investigations conducts its probe of the deadly incident in the state capital. Koval struck a conciliatory tone Saturday while addressing the potential for more protests in Madison, saying he understood the community's distrust. "For those who do want to take to the street and protest," Koval said, his department would be there to "defend, facilitate, foster those First Amendment rights of assembly and freedom of speech." The promise echoed as a stark contrast to Ferguson, Missouri, where an aggressive police response to protesters after the death of another unarmed black teen drew worldwide attention. Kenny, a 12-year veteran of the Madison police force, has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation. Kenny was cleared of charges stemming from a 2007 fatal shooting that Chief Koval described as a suicide-by-cop situation. Robinson's killing comes just days after the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report that found patterns of racial profiling, bigotry and profit-driven law enforcement and court practices in the the St. Louis, Missouri, suburb of Ferguson where a white police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown last year. Madison, about 80 miles west of Milwaukee, is the state capital and home to the University of Wisconsin's flagship campus. About 7 percent of the city's 243,000 residents are black. Other deaths of unarmed black men by white police officers resulted in a wave of protests across the country last year. They are: * Eric Garner, who died in July after New York City officers put him in a chokehold and a video showed him repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe." * A Cleveland police officer in November fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who had been pointing a pellet gun at a playground. * A Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot Dontre Hamilton last April was found to have acted in self-defense, but was fired for ignoring department policy regarding mental illness. Republican hopefuls hold first policy confrontation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. presidential hopefuls in the Republican Party faced off Saturday in a summit on agriculture in Des Moines, Iowa, revealing sharp policy differences on fuel subsidy and immigration issues. Iowa is the first state to be contested in the long presidential nomination process next year. Nine White House hopefuls participated in the daylong forum at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Federal fuel subsidies — which require biofuels to be mixed with gasoline — are a particular point of interest to farmers in Iowa whose corn is used for ethanol. Yet several of the candidates said they were against the renewable fuel standard. A pro-ethanol coalition, America's Renewable Future, helped sponsor the summit. Former Florida gov. Jeb Bush said he was opposed to government interference in the biofuel market. "The markets are ultimately going to have to decide this," he said. But Bush did not say when he might phase the subsidies out, and he said the subsidy had worked to help reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. The subsidy was established under the administration of his brother, former president George W. Bush. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was more adamant about dropping the government mandate. "The answer you’d like me to give is, ‘I’m for the RFS, darn it,’ ” Cruz said. “But I’ll tell you, people are pretty fed up, I think, with politicians who run around telling one group one thing, another group another thing, and then go to Washington and they don’t do anything they said they’d do.” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is currently at the top of the polls in Iowa, said he would continue the subsidies for now, but phase them out once a market for the fuels had been established. On immigration, Bush defended his support for comprehensive reform, saying that a broken system has to be fixed to bring undocumented workers "out of the shadows" by making sure they "pay fines, that they learn English, that they work, that they don't receive government assistance, that they earn legalized status over the long haul." Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also called for immigration reform, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said it would be enough to enforce current laws and make them work. One subject all nine candidates agreed on was President Barack Obama's initiative to open up diplomatic relations with Cuba. They were unanimous in their criticism. Other presidential aspirants at the forum were former Texas gov. Rick Perry, former Arkansas gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York gov. George Pataki and former Pennsylvania sen. Rick Santorum. Saturday's event was one of a series to be held in Iowa on a variety of issues designed to draw out the positions of presidential hopefuls. The Iowa caucuses are set for January 18. Thousands gather in Selma to mark 50th anniversary By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Thousands massed at a bridge in the southern U.S. town of Selma, Alabama, Sunday to remember and reflect on the sacrifices of another crowd that gathered at the same bridge half a century ago on a day that came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Many came from around the country this weekend for several events commemorating the event. Police beat and tear-gassed marchers at the foot of the bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965, when they tried to march from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights for all races. Two weeks after that day, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., led a successful Selma-to-Montgomery march. The demonstrations helped spark the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibiting discrimination based on race. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder praised the 1965 activists for their bravery in the fight for voting rights. "With the relentless drumbeat of their footsteps," Holder said, "they awoke the conscience of the nation, and they bent the arc of the moral universe a little further towards justice." Saturday President Barack Obama marked the anniversary with a call to Americans to work together to make the country better. While acknowledging that the race for equal opportunity is not yet won, Obama told thousands gathered in Selma that he rejects the notion that nothing has changed. The anniversary comes as the U.S. struggles with renewed racial tensions over police treatment of African Americans. Much of the focus has been on the town of Ferguson, Missouri, where a white police officer shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown last year during a street confrontation. But Obama said a Justice Department report this week concluding police in Ferguson have routinely violated black citizens' rights does not erase the nation's progress. "What happened in Ferguson may not be unique, but it is no longer endemic, it is no longer sanctioned by law or by custom, and before the Civil Rights Movement, it most surely was," Obama said. He called on Americans of all races to make the effort to ensure the U.S. criminal justice system serves all and not just some. "Together, we can raise the level of mutual trust that policing is built on - the idea that police officers are members of the community they risk their lives to protect, and citizens in Ferguson and New York and Cleveland, they just want the same thing young people here marched for 50 years ago - the protection of the law," he said. Air pollution reduction reported improving health By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Researchers who have monitored the impact of contaminated air around Los Angeles say improvements in air quality have led to better health among children. The 20-year study by researchers from the University of Southern California, published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine, included more than 2,000 children between the ages of 11 and 15. They lived in four inland cities where wind patterns and topography tend to trap air pollution, and the coastal city of Long Beach, home to a busy port. Levels of fine particulates were down by 50 percent in these communities, and nitrogen dioxide levels were down by one-third. Lead author James Gauderman said that in these areas, cleaner air has led to stronger lungs in children. “This is an incredible success story, because despite increased traffic and economic activities, the air quality in the Los Angeles region has actually gotten better," he said. "And this study shows that as a result, the lung development and the lung capacity of our children has also gotten much better.” That will result in fewer breathing problems and heart problems later in life, and better lungs may extend the children’s average life span. The changes were brought about through the action of local, state and federal regulators who clamped down on emissions from cars and other sources, said researcher Frank Gilliland. “It’s many, many different things, but it’s a concerted effort to control sources, and it’s over a long period," he said. "You have to have a long horizon. It’s improved vehicles, improved fuel sources, lower-sulfur diesel, better diesel engines in heavy-duty trucks, port regulations. All these things come together to reduce the emissions, and all come together to result in better air.” Efforts to bring down pollution levels at the ports have paid off, said Long Beach activist Mark Lopez, but he worries about the future. “The increased air quality equals increased health, and so if we start to digress, if we start to move backward when it comes to air quality, we know it’s going to mean worse health for our children," he said. Cities in China and India face worse air pollution than Los Angeles, and researcher Edward Avol said the study has a message for those places. “The particles and the gases that we tracked as important in terms of health the Southern California air are very similar to the kinds of combustion processes and the kind of combustion contaminants that you’d have anywhere in the world," he said. "And so cleaning up the air in other parts of the world, one ought to reasonably expect you’d get the same kind of health benefits on children living there.” The health researchers said pollution controls have proven benefits for children at a time when their lung development will help determine their future health as adults. But as the region continues to grow, the researchers said, the challenge is to keep pollution levels low. Hacking case guilty plea highlights email thefts By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that one man had pleaded guilty and two others had been indicted for what prosecutors called the largest data breach in U.S. history. Giang Hoang Vu, a Vietnamese citizen, entered a guilty plea Thursday. Another Vietnamese suspect, Vie Quoc Nguyen, still is at large. A Canadian, David-Manuel Santos Da Silva, has been charged with helping the other two launder stolen money. The breach is the subject of a congressional investigation. Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly made millions of dollars by stealing more than 1 billion email addresses and using them to send spam, or unwanted computer messages generally used to try to sell goods. The three worked out of Canada, the Netherlands, and Vietnam from 2009 until 2012, when Dutch police arrested Vu. Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn said the case "reflects the cutting-edge problems posed by today's cybercrime cases, where the hackers didn't target just a single company; they infiltrated most of the country's e-mail distribution firms." Horn called the scope of the intrusion unnerving. But U.S. officials said the case demonstrated that those carrying out data theft and fraudulent schemes could not remain anonymous. The Justice Department's announcement came on the same day British police said they had arrested a 23-year-old man for allegedly taking part in a cyberattack on the Pentagon's computer system last June. He was one of 56 people arrested in a nationwide crackdown in Britain on cybercrime. The Pentagon said the hackers stole information on about 800 people, including email addresses and telephone numbers, but U.S. national security was never at risk as a result of the theft. Peace Corps pulls out volunteers from Jordan By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Peace Corps program is pulling dozens of volunteers out of Jordan and temporarily shuttering its services in the country, citing the current regional environment. The agency said Saturday it was withdrawing 37 youth development workers from the country. The announcement came after the U.S. Embassy in Jordan warned in February of potential threats against "high-end malls" in the capital, Amman. Jordan has long been perceived as an island of relative stability in a turbulent region, a country that offers shelter to war refugees from neighboring countries. Harm to that image could pose a growing threat to important branches of Jordan's economy, including tourism and related businesses. Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani declined to comment Sunday on the decision by the Peace Corps, which was posted on the agency's Web site over the weekend. Mustafa Hamarneh, a member of Jordan's parliament, said there is a sense among Jordanians that U.S. officials are exaggerating the possible risk of attacks on foreigners in Jordan. "Malls are full, markets are full," he said. "There is no general sense in this country that we are in danger." Maintaining Jordan's image as a stable country is critical for the economy, he said. Jordan, which shares borders with Syria and Iraq where the Islamic State group has gained territory in the past year, is a member of the U.S.-led international coalition conducting air raids against the militants. This is the second major suspension for the program since it began in Jordan in 1997. Services were stopped in 2002, as the United States ramped up to the invasion of Iraq the following year. Volunteers returned in 2004. |
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contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
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Remember gardening “up North”? Most of us had to stop in the fall and then we waited. We waited for the catalogues: Burpee Seed, Baker’s Creek Heirloom, Gurney. We wanted them all. We looked at them
That was then, this is now. Now, we can check online catalogues but we can’t get seeds by mail, not without an import license. Okay, we understand that we need to protect native species in Costa Rica, but some of us are lonely for things we grew up with. What’s a gardener to do? Well, this gardener has fallen in love with a lot of the local flowers. There is a cattle field just up the hill a bit from our home with the most amazing lilies. They bloom in a crown on a tall stalk and are white with pink veins. They smell wonderful. The owner of the fields has no interest in them (thank heaven), so we are free to dig them up. And you know lilies. Those big bulbs just keep multiplying until there is a huge clump of bulbs and not enough food and they stop blooming, so we doing them a favor by transplanting them, right? These aren’t the only lilies I have found, though. Last year, I found a different variety on the lower end of our property. These are pure white and also scented, and I had no trouble digging them out and transplanting them. Then my friend gave me some spider lilies. So, no seed catalogues, but there are compensations. In Costa Rica, for example, we grow orchids without a greenhouse; I always wanted a greenhouse, and now I don’t need one. Or, what about this? If you belong to a garden club – we have one in Nuevo Arenal – you can have a periodic plant exchange and get new things started. Our group is going to love these new lilies. As for those of us who like to vegetable garden, there are seed packets available at agro-colonos and even at some ferreterias, so we don’t have to go without our fresh carrots and beets. But, if anyone sees any sugar snap peas, give me a yell please?  A.M. Costa Rica/Victoria
Torley
Plant of the Day
Here is what I thought was a pretty little flower, so I
picked it and put it in a vase in the kitchen. Turns out it
belonged in the kitchen – which I found out when I noticed a strong
garlicy smell….. Oh well, it looks pretty in the garden.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: Costa Rican tourism display honored in Berlin By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Costa Rican stand took two honors at the Internationale Tourismus-Börse in Berlin, Germany, last week. The stand was honored as the best from the Americas, according to the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo. And it took second place overall in design, the institute reported. The five-day trade show, known informally as ITB Berlin, attracted 175,000 visitors, the trade show reported Friday. The event is considered the largest tourism trade show in the world. Wilhelm von Breymann, the tourism minister, was there to accept the awards along with other employees. Some 31 Costa Rican firms also participated, said the institute. |
