 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
|
Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
|
|
|
San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 49
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
|
|
 |
|
Dollar is stronger
everywhere but here
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
with wire service reports The U.S. dollar is getting stronger everywhere but Costa Rica. Financial reports show that the dollar is up 3.3 percent just in March on international markets. Even gold was pegged at $1,159 per ounce, a significant dip. The Mexican peso was at a record low against the dollar and even the Japanese yen took a dip. Europe's euro currency fell close to a 12-year low against the dollar. The single currency used in the 19-nation eurozone dropped to $1.07, the lowest point since April 2003, and far off its high point at more than $1.60 in mid-2008, according to wire service reports. The currency traders expect that U.S. interest rates will rise making the dollar even stronger. In Costa Rica, however, the dollar was trading on the MONEX daily market in the 535-colon range. Some $18.8 million traded hands, according to the Banco Central de Costa Rica. The bank has vowed to defend the colon. The colon was pegged at 528.63 and 540.52. The undervalued dollar makes some expats here unhappy because they receive their income in the U.S. currency. Exporters who sell in dollars abroad are getting fewer colons than the international market would suggest. The value of the euro has been dropping for weeks in lockstep with the weak European economy and advancing U.S. fortunes. European investors and officials are also worried that negotiations over Greece's bailout may prove difficult to resolve in the coming months. The American labor market added 295,000 jobs last month, the 12th straight month in which job growth has totaled more than 200,000, pushing the U.S. unemployment rate down to 5.5 percent. Meanwhile, the eurozone jobless rate is at more than 11 percent. The European Central Bank embarked Monday on a $1.2 trillion stimulus plan aimed at boosting the continent's economy and job growth, but it had the immediate effect of weakening the euro against the dollar. For several years, the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, also bought billions of dollars of securities every month to generate economic growth, but now has ended the program. With the improving U.S. economy, the Fed is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate in the coming months, an effort aimed at keeping the economy from advancing too rapidly.  Ministerio de Seguridad Pública
photo
Does
this reptile look a bit repentant after it crawled onto a patioin Rosario de Naranjo, Alajuela, and tried to eat the family dog and some chickens? Police relocated the animal.  Université
de Genève/Michel
Milinkovitch
Male
panther chameleons (Furcifer pardalis).
Chameleons use
nanocrystals, study finds
By the Université de Genève
news staff
Many chameleons have the remarkable ability to exhibit complex and rapid color changes during social interactions. A collaboration of scientists within the Sections of Biology and Physics of the Faculty of Science from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, unveiled the mechanisms that regulate this phenomenon. In a study published in Nature Communications, the team led by professors Michel Milinkovitch and Dirk van der Marel demonstrates that the changes take place via the active tuning of a lattice of nanocrystals present in a superficial layer of dermal cells called iridophores. The researchers also reveal the existence of a deeper population of iridophores with larger and less ordered crystals that reflect the infrared light. The organization of iridophores into two superimposed layers constitutes an evolutionary novelty and it allows the chameleons to rapidly shift between efficient camouflage and spectacular display, while providing passive thermal protection. Male chameleons are popular for their ability to change colorful adornments depending on their behaviour. If the mechanisms responsible for a transformation towards a darker skin are known, those that regulate the transition from a lively color to another vivid hue remained mysterious. Some species, such as the panther chameleon, are able to carry out such a change within one or two minutes to court a female or face a competing male. Besides brown, red and yellow pigments, chameleons and other reptiles display so-called structural colors. "These colors are generated without pigments, via a physical phenomenon of optical interference. They result from interactions between certain wavelengths and nanoscopic structures, such as tiny crystals present in the skin of the reptile," said Michel Milinkovitch, a professor in the Department of Genetics and Evolution. These nanocrystals are arranged in layers that alternate with cytoplasm, within cells called iridophores. The structure thus formed allows a selective reflection of certain wavelengths, which contributes to the vivid colors of numerous reptiles. To determine how the transition from one flashy color to another one is carried out in the panther chameleon, the researchers of two university laboratories worked hand in hand, combining their expertise in both quantum physics and in evolutionary biology. "We discovered that the animal changes its colors via the active tuning of a lattice of nanocrystals. When the chameleon is calm, the latter are organized into a dense network and reflect the blue wavelengths. In contrast, when excited, it loosens its lattice of nanocrystals, which allows the reflection of other colors, such as yellows or reds," said physicist Jérémie Teyssier and the biologist Suzanne Saenko, co-first authors of the article. This constitutes a unique example of an auto-organised intracellular optical system controlled by the chameleon. Animal adoption event planned for Saturday By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Asociación Animales de Asís plans an animal adoption event Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Parque Universidad Hispanoamericana in Heredia. Both dogs and puppies, cats and kittens will be available for adoption, the organization said. The event is described as being for the family with attractions also for youngsters.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Ro Colorado S.A 2015
and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 49 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Search of local schools provides a glimpse at new use for
fruit |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An apple is not just for the teacher at high schools these days. Police said they found one at a school in Los Lagos de Heredia that was used by a marijuana smoker to avoid burning the lips. The apple had a hole bored through it that did not appear to have been made by a worm. The discovery was during another police search of local schools. They also reported Tuesday on a search of a Santa Ana school. Marijuana turned up in both locations. The searches were enhanced by the presence of trained dogs. In Heredia, police found pouches of marijuana, a half-smoked cigarette and paraphernalia. In Santa Ana they found some marijuana that was discarded by students when they saw police arriving, they said. |
 Ministerio de Seguridad Pública photo
This is an unexpected use
for an apple. |
| Elaborate lottery tickets give art students a complex
subject to copy |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Most expats do not know about the great effort that goes into creating lottery tickets. Each one has a theme, and they may commemorate a special event like Mother's Day or historic buildings and events.. Students at the Escuela Casa del Artista duplicated some lottery tickets in large format using oils or acrylics. The works are on display at the Guadalupe center until the end of March. There are 14 works that include a landscape, the 100th anniversary of the Teatro Nacional, the Día de la Cultura and others. The exhibit is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. |
 Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud photo
This is not a lottery
ticket but a painting by Luzmilda Delgado. |
| Florida State University students to present musical show Thursday | |
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Florida State University students will present a program of selections from musicals Thursday at 8 p.m. The show is part of the Promising Artists of the 21st Century program at the Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano in Los Yoses. |
Selections
will include a selection from “The Wiz,” “The Most Happy Fella,”
“Aladdin” and “Les Miserables," said the Centro. The show is in the Teatro Eugene O´Neill. Tickets are available by calling 2528-8778. Tickets are 6,000 colons. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
 |
 |
||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 49 | |||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Venezuela's allies lend support in dispute with the United
States |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Tensions between the United States and Venezuela intensified Tuesday over new U.S. sanctions, with the move also drawing fire from Venezuela's Latin American allies. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who criticized the measures against seven Venezuelan officials as "unjust" and "harmful" after they were announced Monday, was seeking special legislative powers to confront what he labeled U.S. imperialism. Cuba also denounced the sanctions, calling the executive order by U.S. President Barack Obama arbitrary and aggressive in an official statement published by the state-run Granma newspaper. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, meanwhile, slammed the move on social media, saying it must be "a bad joke." The outcry over the order marks the first public clash between the U.S. and Cuba since the two nations announced in December they would begin talks on restoring diplomatic ties. The United States says the officials targeted in the order violated human rights and engaged in public acts of corruption. They include the head of Venezuela's intelligence service and the director of its national police. Cecilia Sosa, former chief justice of Venezuela's Supreme Court, said that the U.S. could be basing its categorization of Venezuela as a national security threat on Venezuelan officials' apparent illicit activities in relation to drug trafficking. A statement by the U.S. Treasury Department Monday appeared to support that assessment, saying the sanctions will serve "to protect the U.S. financial system from the illicit financial flows from public corruption in Venezuela." "Corrupt actions by Venezuelan government officials deprive Venezuela of needed economic resources that could be invested in the Venezuelan people and used to spur economic growth," said the statement. In its 2014 drugs report, the U.S. State Department said Venezuela was one of the most frequently-transited routes for illegal drugs leaving South America, due to its "permeable western border with Colombia, weak judicial system, sporadic international counternarcotics cooperation, and permissive and corrupt environment." Venezuela, meanwhile, has expressed its commitment to fighting drug trafficking, even as allegations surfaced earlier this year that Venezuela's National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, considered the nation's second-most-powerful figure, was the head of a drug-trafficking ring. Both Cabello and President Maduro denied the reports. Robert Valencia, an analyst who writes for the World Policy |
Institute,
said it is also important to remember that President
Obama's decree comes after Venezuela took its own actions against
American officials. Last week Caracas ordered Washington to reduce the number of officials at the U.S. embassy from 100 to 17 and imposed a visa requirement for American tourists. A White House statement on the sanctions Monday pointed to concerns over Venezuela's treatment of dissidents. "We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents,'' said the statement. "Venezuela's problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent." The White House called on Venezuela to release all political prisoners, including opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, mayors Daniel Ceballos of San Cristobal and Antonio Ledezma of Caracas and dozens of students. Valencia said Venezuela as a whole is not likely to be affected by the U.S. action. "They are sanctions against seven officials, in Nicolás Maduro's security leadership," he said. "This in no way represents a sanction against the general population, even though Maduro claims to see it as such." Valencia said despite the sanctions, the economic relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela, particularly in the area of energy, will continue. In 2013, the State Department named Venezuela one of the top five suppliers of foreign oil to the United States. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Tuesday the sanctions are directed at individuals, "not the Venezuelan people or the economy." "The United States remains an important trading partner, is actually Venezuela's largest trading partner, and despite the statements to the contrary from Venezuelan officials, we are not promoting instability in Venezuela," she told reporters. "Rather," she added, "we believe respect for democratic norms and human rights is the best guarantee of Venezuela's stability. Hence, our executive order. So, allegations that these actions are an attempt to undermine the Venezuelan government are false. The goal of these sanctions is to persuade the government of Venezuela to change their behavior." In its statement Tuesday, the Cuban government, which has long been Venezuela's closest ally, said it reiterates its unconditional support for Venezuela, adding that "no one has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state." President Maduro often criticizes the United States for what he says is meddling in his country's affairs. The U.S. and Venezuela have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010. |
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
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
|
A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
|
||
 |
 |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 49 | |||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
 |
|
U.S. man faces sentencing in Philippines child sex case Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Concluding a two-part trial, a Los Angeles man was convicted Tuesday of producing child pornography in The Philippines while being required to register as a sex offender due to his prior conviction for raping a 14-year-old girl. The man, Stanley Dan Reczko III, 50, who lived in the Koreatown District of Los Angeles, was found guilty of the charge by U. S. District Judge George H. King, who issued his ruling this afternoon from the bench. In the first part of the trial, a jury Feb. 20 found Reczko guilty of sexual exploitation of a minor by producing child pornography in The Philippines. As a result of his conviction on the sexual exploitation charge, and because he has a prior conviction, Reczko faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in federal prison. The second charge of producing child pornography while being required to register as a sex offender carries a mandatory consecutive 10-year prison term. Therefore, Reczko faces a minimum sentence of 35 years in prison, and he could get as much as life without parole in prison when he is sentence by Judge King on May 18. Authorities began investigating Reczko in May 2007 after the minor victim handed over a CD containing child pornography to the International Justice Mission, a non-governmental organization working in The Philippines. The organization provided the CD, along with other evidence, to law enforcement officers working out of the U.S. Embassy in Manila. The evidence showed that Reczko had used the minor to produce eight series of child pornography, which included images of him and the victim engaging in sexual intercourse. Reczko has been in custody since he was arrested after returning to the United States from the Philippines in 2007. City manager in Ferguson resigns after U.S. criticism By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The city manager of Ferguson, Missouri, has resigned after a highly critical U.S. Justice Department report called the midwestern city's police racially biased against African Americans. The manager, John Shaw, was responsible for the city's operations and was one of its most powerful officials. Monday, the Missouri Supreme Court announced it was taking over all cases in Ferguson's city court. Municipal Judge Ronald Brockmeyer resigned. Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, is still reeling from last August's shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown during a confrontation with white officer Darren Wilson. Brown had been suspected of shoplifting. The shooting set off days of violence in the city. Wilson was not charged with violating any federal civil rights laws. But the Justice Department investigated charges that Ferguson's nearly all-white police force was biased against the city's black majority, including arbitrary traffic stops, arrests and tickets. The report said city officials operated its courts as a money-making venture. President Barack Obama said last week that he fully stands behind the report, saying Ferguson's black residents were harassed, mistreated, abused, called names and fined.  Voice of America/Jeff Custer
The Capitol dome is
surrounded by scaffolding.Capitol
dome in Washington
getting needed renovation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C., is recognized worldwide as one of the most enduring symbols of the U.S. government and American democracy. Since last November, the dome has been wrapped in metal scaffolding and fabric as part of a long-overdue renovation project. The last time the U.S. Capitol dome underwent a renovation was in 1960. Since then, the dome has become weathered and worn and, as the architect of the Capitol reports, has more than 1,000 cracks and other defects. The dome was first completed around 1863. Its cast iron frame, said U.S. Senate Historian Don Ritchie, contributes to the weathering. “The capitol dome, being cast iron, has been hit by lightning countless times. And it has been weathering in that position for 150 years, since 1863. And it has been leaking lately and there is a lot of art work inside, including the big canopy in the center. And so the current construction is to repair the leaks, to fill the cracks, to take off excess layers of paint and to paint it again,” said Ritchie. As the work to remove old paint and apply primer continues, a large section of the building is covered by plastic and a special pink fabric designed to reduce wind and protect workers from the elements. Much of the construction is done after dark to prevent the noise from disturbing lawmakers who continue to meet inside. Some visitors to the Capitol, hoping for a souvenir picture of the usually gleaming dome, were let down by the current view. “It was dramatic, and very fantastic, and all white, but when I come here today, it is under construction so my family cannot see it clearly, . . ., ” said a woman visiting from China. Others took the construction in stride: “You have to take the long view. I mean it is a little inconvenient for us not to see the dome, but you have to think about the future and the people will be coming to this place for centuries, and you know, there just needs to be preventive maintenance occasionally and I am not upset with that at all," said tourist Rick Jones. The project is expected to take more than two years total to complete. It is scheduled to be ready for the inauguration of a new president in February of 2017. Silicon Valley trial touches issue of gender discrimination By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A trial centering on California’s Silicon Valley’s work culture is unfolding this week in a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit being heard in a San Francisco court. Fired worker Ellen Pao is suing her former bosses at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm where she was hired as a junior partner in 2005. She was fired in 2012 and contends in her suit that the workplace environment at the company was toxic to women and that she was unfairly passed over for promotion. She is asking for $16 million in damages. The Mandarin-speaking Ms. Pao, who was educated at Princeton University and Harvard University, described how she was allegedly excluded from a dinner with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore because it was for men only and how uncomfortable she felt when listening to male guests of the firm talking about pornography on a private plane. "I wanted an even playing field for women at the firm,” Ms. Pao said Tuesday, her second day of testimony. “ I wanted to have an environment where people who complained about problems related to discrimination or to other issues would be heard and that the firm would do something about it." Kleiner Perkins has denied Ms. Pao’s claims and has said she was dismissed because of her hostile behavior to co-workers. The case has riveted the high-tech community in northern California, where the work force is largely male and white, analysts say. Washington attorney Lynne Bernabei, who has been following Ms. Pao’s case, said the type of company events Ms. Pao described in court “exclude women from the opportunities that would include clients." The practice "by its nature is discriminatory or detrimental to women creating business,” Ms. Bernabei said. “It also creates a sexually hostile work environment” where women are excluded from male-dominated events. During the trial, attorneys for Kleiner Perkins downplayed Ms. Pao’s claims and characterized the firm as a place where progress is based on ability and talent. Investigator Stephen Hirschfeld, who has worked on similar cases for Kleiner Perkins, testified in the trial that it is not clear what it takes for an employee to become a senior partner at the venture capital firm. “It was clear to me that there were no real criteria,” he told the court. But some observers said that was not unusual. Lee Miller, managing director of Advanced Human Resources LLC, said that when employees get to an executive level, the criteria for advancement become more ambiguous. “There are certain things that a firm looks for in a partner, because it may be different things for different people” Miller said. “Some people may be particularly good at analysis and picking companies, and that may be enough to become a senior partner. Another person may be good at bringing in new business and clients, and that may be enough to become a senior partner. … We’re talking intangible qualities.” Ms. Pao’s testimony was expected to continue for several days. Utah lawmakers reinstate execution by firing squad By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Lawmakers in the U.S. state of Utah have approved legislation that would allow a death row inmate to be killed by firing squad if the proper drugs for lethal injection are not available. The state senate passed the measure Tuesday, but it must still be signed by the state governor to become law. Proponents of the proposed law say death by firing squad is a more humane way to execute someone than lethal injection. Complicating the matter is a recent shortage of the drugs needed for lethal injections. Recently, several inmates in other states have experienced painful execution attempts due to botched injections and new drug combinations. But critics of the firing squad method say it is a cruel throwback to the violent days before Utah and its neighbors were states, when the land was still pioneer territory known as the Wild West. Mrs. Clinton defends use of private email address By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Former U.S. secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed her use of a non-government email account while working at the State Department after speaking before a women's empowerment conference at United Nations headquarters Tuesday. "There are four things I want the public to know," she said. "First, when I got to work as secretary of State, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two. Looking back, it would’ve been better if I’d simply used a second email account and carried a second phone, but at the time, this didn’t seem like an issue. "Second, the vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department," she said, adding that, after leaving office, she provided copies of all work-related emails from personal accounts, totaling about 55,000 pages. "Fourth, I took the unprecedented step of asking that the State Department make all my work-related emails public for everyone to see," she said. "I am very proud of the work that I and my colleagues and our public servants at the department did during my four years as secretary of State, and I look forward to people being able to see that for themselves." Responding to questions from reporters, Mrs. Clinton said she deleted tens of thousands of other pages related to such private matters as plans for her daughter's wedding and funeral arrangements for her mother — mail she said was not worth keeping. Mrs. Clinton also said the personal email server based at her home in Chappaqua, New York, had originally been constructed for her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and that it was physically based on property guarded by the Secret Service. She said the server has had no security breaches, and that she did not delete any work-related emails before handing them over to State Department officials. Mrs. Clinton delivered a statement at the beginning of a news conference in which she marked International Women's Day and criticized Republican legislators for sending Iranian leaders a letter regarding their nuclear weapons program. Her comments followed a week of intense scrutiny as she approaches a decision on whether to run for president. Mrs. Clinton ignored the issue at a forum Monday while fellow Democrats urged her to speak out — and predicted she would — about her decision to conduct business while she was secretary of state in a private, non-government email account. Republicans are ramping up their attention on the issue. Critics accuse her of trying to hide controversial communications, including those surrounding the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Mrs. Clinton's email practices have raised questions about whether she fully complied with federal laws requiring government officials to preserve written communications involving official business. Clinton said she complied with every rule that applied to her job. Mrs. Clinton was considering holding a news conference in New York within days to address the email controversy directly, according to a person familiar with her thinking. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly. Clinton spoke Monday at a carefully choreographed two-hour event involving her No Ceilings project at the Clinton Foundation, highlighting economic and educational opportunities for women and girls. She took no questions. When she sat down to lead more informal conversations with invited speakers, participants appeared to be reading from teleprompters. The Republican National Committee used the vacuum to keep the pressure on Mrs. Clinton, noting a State Department policy requiring all outgoing employees to declare that they had turned over all unclassified job-related documents to responsible officials before leaving. Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement the "fact that Hillary Clinton did not abide by the same rules her State Department employees had to comply with is just the latest example of how the Clintons think the rules don't apply to them." At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama indeed knew she was using a non-government account during her tenure. Obama had indicated earlier that he only learned of that from recent news reports. Earnest said the president actually learned from those news reports of Mrs. Clinton's privately run email server, but was familiar with her private account earlier because the two had exchanged emails when she was in office. Obama did not know at the time that she was using private email exclusively, Earnest said. Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in early 2013. It was not immediately clear if she signed the required separation statement declaring that she had turned over all job-related material, but State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the secretary of State is supposed to follow such department policies. A Clinton spokesman did not immediately comment. Democrats have defended Mrs. Clinton, but several senators from the party called on her to offer an explanation. "She should come forward and explain the situation," Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Tuesday on MSNBC. "I think it's only fair to say to Hillary Clinton: Tell us your side of the story. ... What did you put on this personal email?" Last week, Mrs. Clinton said in a Twitter message that she wanted her emails released by the State Department as soon as possible, but did not address why she did not put them out herself immediately. Mrs. Clinton's spokesmen and the State Department have said she never received or transmitted classified information on her private email account, in which case there would be no concerns that disclosure of her messages could compromise national security. The State Department is reviewing the 55,000 pages of emails that she has turned over, a process expected to take several months. Republicans in Congress have said they plan to review her email practices. Meanwhile, a new Pew Research survey shows few Democrats care about the email controversy and that fewer than half of Republican voters are closely following the story. Polls taken before the email issue show Mrs. Clinton far out in front of other possible Democratic candidates for the White House in several states. The polls say she would beat several likely Republican candidates by a landslide in the general election. Analysts say it is too early to know whether the former secretary of State will be politically damaged by the email controversy if she decides to run for president. Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said that Hillary and Bill Clinton have been in the public eye for so long that people already have solid opinions about them, and that this issue is unlikely to affect those views, even if Hillary runs for president. “If you read the daily press. you think that everything matters," he said. "And the truth is that in elections, as in life, hardly anything matters. Most of these things are long forgotten by the time the voting takes place, which after all is nearly two years away.” Australia's Abbott faces fire for Aboriginal comment By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is coming under criticism after he lamented what he called the lifestyle choices of the country's remote native community. Abbott made the comments Tuesday in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in which he defended his plan to shut down up to 150 Aboriginal communities. The conservative prime minister said that if people wanted to live in remote locations, as many Aborigines do, "there's a limit to what you can expect the state to do for you." "What we can't do is endlessly subsidize lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have," he said. The comments drew a sharp rebuke from many Australian politicians and analysts, including Warren Mundine, the prime minister's own chief adviser on Aboriginal affairs. "It is not about a lifestyle, it is not like retiring and moving for a sea change, it is about thousands of years connection, their religious beliefs and the essence of who they are," Mundine told local media. Australia's Aboriginal population, which has lived on the continent for at least 40,000 years, is severely disadvantaged in comparison to the rest of the country's citizens. Many Aboriginal residents live in remote settlements, where persistent problems include a lack of proper education, as well as high unemployment and prison rates. Today Abbott defended his remarks, telling a Sydney radio station that he was only being realistic. "If you and I choose to live in a very remote place to what extent is the taxpayer obliged to subsidize our services? Now I think this is a very real question," Abbott said. He also said it is "incredibly difficult for the kids to go to school, if there's only half a dozen of them, and getting teachers there is all but impossible." Australia has about 670,000 Aboriginal people, just under 3 percent of the population. Most of Australia's residents are descendants of those who came from Britain, which first started a settlement in Australia in 1788. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
|
||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 49 | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
||
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Growing enough crops to feed a burgeoning population in a warmer world could depend on a single gene, one that controls the plant's biological clock, according to a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "World food supply must increase by 50 to 60 percent by 2050 to feed the population," said Rob McClung, a biologist at Dartmouth College and the study's lead author. "We are worried that the things that we have done to increase agricultural productivity may be becoming exhausted.” Scientists hope that understanding how one gene affects a plant’s circadian clock will help breeders develop crops with enhanced stress tolerance and improved yield. To find new ways to increase productivity, McClung and colleagues looked at plants' circadian rhythm, the process all living things use to synchronize their internal biological clocks with the external world. They identified a gene called GIGANTEA in a common species of field mustard, a plant related to turnips, cabbage and other vegetables. The gene speeds up or slows down a plant's circadian rhythm, depending on which version of GIGANTEA is expressed. That affects when the plant flowers and how quickly the seedlings develop. It also influences important traits like resistance to extreme cold and high salt. “We want to be able to predict: If you do this to the clock, you will do this to crop yield," McClung said. It is hoped that the identification of the GIGANTEA gene will give breeders "a molecular tool to try, for example, to introduce increased salt tolerance or increased cold tolerance into a crop plant that we are actually cultivating.” McClung said that rather than wait for plants to mature to measure the yield, breeders could look at very young seedlings and predict the outcome. “And so, given that the plant clock is one of the ways, one of the major ways, that the plant tries to synchronize itself with its environment, we think that by manipulating the plant clock, we will be able to make plants that are better in tune with their environment and able to perform more effectively,” he said. McClung said developing new ways to boost crop yields is critical. Experts have said the expected growth in the production of the world’s major food crops — corn, rice, wheat and soybeans — would not be enough to sustain a global population expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. |
| Costa Rican News |
AMCostaRicaArchives.com |
Retire NOW
in Costa Rica |
CostaRicaReport.com |
| Fine Dining
in Costa Rica |
The CAFTA Report |
Fish
fabulous Costa Rica |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
| From Page 7: Bill would subsidize second home on site By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The central government is trying to expedite a bill that would provide a subsidy for property owners who want to build a second home on the same property for family members. There are property owners in Costa Rica who have done so without making a formal division of their property. The bill would continue this practice and provide financing for those who want to construct a dwelling for persons up to the third degree of kindred. Up until now, those doing this had limited financing options. In addition, everyone on the property was liable for the actions of all their relatives. The bill, No. 18.877, is supposed to minimize this risk. The subsidy would come from the Sistema Financiero Nacional para la Vivienda. The bill also covers repair of existing dwellings. Property owners may decline to make a legal separation of lots for financial reasons or because of the topography of the land. |
