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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 50
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 Programa Restauranción Tiburones y
Tortugas Marinas photo
Different
type of shark finning.
Unique
compliance with law
highlighted in shark fin case By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A businesswoman is on trial in Puntarenas for what shark defenders say is a new form of trying to sidestep the law about finning. Shark fins are valuable, but Costa Rica had a law that prohibited the importation of shark fins unless they were attached to the shark. This was an environmental rule designed to keep fishing boats from catching thousands of sharks, cutting off their fins and dumping the carcasses back in the water. In the case of Kathy Tseng Chang, the environmental organization Programa Restauración Tiburones y Tortugas Marinas said that a boat crew responsible for her stripped the meat from the sharks and left the fins attached, perhaps in an artificial way, to the backbone. This allowed the crew to save space on the boat. That was in 2011 when the boat was unloading 652 fins. French supporters assembling for roundtable discussion By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
March 20 is the International Day of Francophone. The Universidad de Costa Rica plans to take an applicable and celebratory look into French culture with an expert-laden roundtable discussion. Titled “The Challenges of Francophone in the 21st Century,” the event aims to pinpoint the importances and positive impacts of teaching French to the nation’s youth. Partaking will be language-focused academic heads and Costa Rican ambassadors of French-affiliated nations like Switzerland, Canada, and France. The talk is being put on by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, which explains its international mission as not only promoting the language and culture of France, but also endorsing peace and human rights. The group has numerous member countries worldwide and qualifying nations are those who are deemed to have a large presence of French culture in their borders, explaining why many of the former French colonies are members. The March 20 presentation lasts from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and will be held in the university’s Joaquín Gutiérrez auditorium. Lawmakers note opposition to trawling net proposal By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Opposition is developing to a legislative proposal to allow Costa Rican fishing crews to trawl for shrimp. The fishing method was declared unconstitutional by the Sala IV, but lawmakers from Puntarenas are trying to pass a law that would sidestep the constitutional court ruling. Lawmakers from the Partido Acción Ciudadana made their opposition known Tuesday. They said that environmental organizations also opposed the measure. The lawmakers are María Eugenia Venegas and Jorge Gamboa. The measure already has been reported out of the Comisión de Asuntos Puntarenenses, and sent to the full legislature for debate. That has not yet come up. The main reasons against this type of fishing is that trawling nets inflict damage on the coral and the rest of the sea floor and that turtles frequently are captured and killed by mistake. Under-17 world soccer event prompts festival in Liberia By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Women’s Under-17 World Cup begins Saturday in Liberia. Ghana faces off against North Korea and Germany will play Canada to get the action started for Group B. The soccer tournament coincides with the Festival Guanacaste 2014. From Friday to March 31, the festival will put on concerts, art shows, fairs, movies, workshops, and more for Costa Ricans and soccer lovers from all over the world. As a sort of cultural reunion, the event will bring together 2,500 different artists from 50 different artistic groups. Most of the activities will be centered around the Parque Mario Cañas Ruiz in Liberia as they begin Friday. Guanacaste authorities said this hectic period gives the province and the town of Liberia a great opportunity for international recognition. “As a host city we must integrate ourselves in the objective of converting Liberia and Guanacaste into sporting venues enriched with culture and welcoming to the domestic and foreign visitors in celebration of the Women’s Under-17 World Cup,” said Vera Vargas from the Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud in Guanacaste. The ministry is planning a giant concert with 220 Costa Rican musicians Saturday, March 22, at Parque Héctor Zúñiga. Colombian woman, 25, dies in Ruta 27 crash near Caldera By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A head-on collision with a semi-truck took the life of a 25-year-old Colombian woman on Ruta 27 near Caldera. Authorities from the Judicial Investigating Organization identified the female as Andrea Incapie Gaviria. According to reports, her car swerved from its initial lane into the oncoming truck just before the violent crash that happened around 2 p.m. Monday. She was taken to Hospital San Juan de Dios where she died at 10 p.m. due to injuries sustained from the accident.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 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 |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 50 | |
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| Advertising characters are the focus of a new museum
exhibition |
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By
Michael Krumhotlz
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Well-known characters from the ad pages of old are taking over the Museo de Arte y Diseños Contemporáneo. Graphics and caricature drawings of Costa Rican corporate branding characters will make up the Fundredimas-based exhibit in conjunction with the fourth annual Festival Internacional de Diseño Fundredimas is a local foundation that keeps nostalgic icons alive and preserves newer brand characters through graphic design. The design collection spans the years from 1945 to 2013, ranging in characters from the Fiesta Tours bear to Tito Gallito. Fundredimas designer Carlos Redondo said the group wants to bring these corporate characters into an artistic space because they often get overlooked. “As graphic designers and character designers, we saw that many characters live in the unconscious, in the emotions of people and brands themselves,” he said. “These characters’ revival is so people can understand that we have a history of graphic design and advertising that is worth knowing.” The exhibit includes 80 images, more than 10 structures, an audiovisual area, and an homage to the Costa Rican graphic designers who first created these now-reborn characters. According to the other half of the Fundredimas project, Ariel Arburola, the project began nearly a year ago. Arburola and Redondo spent much of the time researching through Internet archives and at the Biblioteca Nacional. Arburola said that all the drawings are original versions and have not been changed. |
 Museo de Arte y Diseños
Contemporáneo graphic
These are some of the commercial
characters that will be displayed“The characters are often forgotten by the brands and people,” he said. “So this exhibition is trying to revive them to a place that they deserve to be in.” The exhibit begins today and lasts until May 3 at the museum located in the Centro Nacional de la Cultura. Florella Resenterra, director of the museum, said that these logos are part of Costa Rica’s modern history and should continue to be studied and analyzed. “There is an emotion that can be had, a bit of melancholy, because we all remember these characters that are being brought to life again,” Resenterra said. “The principal objective is the revival, this is material that should not be forgotten and that should continue to be used.” The Festival Internacional de Diseño is set to take place at the Antigua Aduana from Thursday to Saturday. |
| Annual project to restore an historic building will be
outlined today |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An agency within the culture ministry is ready to open the 2014 edition of an architectural contest that has given a push to many restoration projects in the country. This is the Salvemos Nuestro Patrimonio Histórico Arquitectónico or "Save out Historical Architectural Heritage." Each year the Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural picks a project that has been designed by a local architect. There are many submissions, and the winning project receives government money. The winners have ranged from wooden structures in Limón and on the Pacific coast to public buildings, such as the Teatro Nacional, and also a downtown department store. The centro will be outlining the rules for this year's contest today. The submissions generally are projects that already have been designed by an architect. Some of the projects never would have been started without the promise of government money. Last year the winner was a project to restore the historic Antigua Capitanía de Limón. The The L-shaped, two story wooden building in Afrocaribbean style was initiated by the United Fruit Co. in 1930. Eventually it held the office of the local political leader who also served as port captain. |
 Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud photo
The Escuela Juan Ramírez,
now restored, in Tobosi de Cartago was the winner in 2011The centro donated 100 million colons to the restoration. That was about $200,000 at the time. The Black Star Line in Limón was a winner in an earlier year. A lot of the Limón wooden buildings survive because they were constructed with material that contained a lot of resin that kept away bugs. There most likely will be projects from there in the contest this year. |
| Sensors detected 113 earthquakes during the first seven days
of March |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Earthquake experts have registered 113 quakes in the first seven days of the month. The total does not count the quake estimated at 5.0 magnitude that took place in the middle of the gulf of Nicoya at noon Tuesday. The Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico at Universidad Nacional attributes the flurry of March quakes to the 6.2 event that took place off the northern coast of Nicaragua March 2. Some 11 of the quakes took place off Playa Garza near Nosara on the far Pacific coast of the Nicoya peninsula. And there were five around Parrita, the Observatorio said. These were believed to be a reaction to the Feb. 16 quake of 4.6 magnitude that took place there. Only six of these 113 quakes were reported to have been felt by humans. The 5.0 magnitude quake Tuesday happened at a minute after noon. There is a fault that runs north and south in the gulf of Nicoya and inland to Nicaragua. This is a highly active area. |
 Observatorio Vulcanológico y
Sismológico graphic
Orange flag shows the estimated
epicenter of the noon quake. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 50 | |||||
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| Internet, now 25, seen as a major advance for democracy and
rights |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the invention of the World Wide Web. What started as a way for scientists to share research has changed life worldwide forever. In March 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Switzerland. Scientists would come to CERN from all over the world, but others could not view their research because their computers were not compatible. Berners-Lee thought it would be easier if all the computers could talk to one another and swap information directly. So he proposed linking the machines. The response from his bosses to his proposal, titled "Information Management: A Proposal?" “Vague, but exciting.” Little did they know. Berners-Lee’s proposal would later become known as the World Wide Web. It took two years before he and a colleague could successfully link a computer server and a web browser through the Internet. It would be officially launched in August 1991. By 1993 there were more than 500 web servers. Today, there are more than 1.7 billion people on the web worldwide. James Hendler is the director of the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications in Troy, New York. Speaking by Skype, he said one of the main challenges to web growth, the English coding and keyboard, has been solved, and Asia can look for an explosion of Web access. “In China right now, I saw a recent graphic that says six out of the 10 largest social networking sites - sites like Facebook - are in China. Most people don’t realize that the second largest search company is Baidu, which is the Chinese search company. In the U.S. we are at somewhere in the area of 80-90 percent of people already having access and not much growth. In China you see about 25 percent, and of course a country much bigger than ours. India, I don’t know the |
current number,
but again a small number growing very quickly. So most of the growth we
expect in the web will actually be in those parts of the world that
don’t yet have it,” said Hendler. Hendler has worked on the Web since its early days and has co-authored several papers with Berners-Lee. Paul Levinson, a professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University, said via Skype that events such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement showed the power that the web has put in the hands of everyday people. With billions of people able to access information, some countries have tried to limit or control Web access. However, Levinson said, governments need to realize that the Web is a tool that is unrivaled in its reach and influence. “What we have now is a battle. On the one hand, the governments are more aware of these devices, and they are more aware of what used to be called and still could be called citizen journalism. But on the other hand, there are more smart phones out there than ever before, and I think so far - and this is good for democracy and for the expression of human ideas - so far the people are winning,” said Levinson. Hendler pointed out that even 25 years after its invention, only a fraction of the Web’s potential has been realized. “Here is this force that has really changed society in so many different ways. We understand sort of the mathematics of the computer network underneath and the engineering of that but we really don’t understand the social impact. There’s more and more research that’s starting to study what are those different effects? How do they affect society? How do we build the web and keep the web open and free? How do we really understand the impacts of this thing we call the World Wide Web,” said Hendler. Berners-Lee went on to found the World Wide Web Foundation, which has as part of its mission statement that it wants to establish the open Web as a global public good and a basic right. Paul Levinson said that any attempts to abridge that right, either by governments or through commercial pressure from web providers, will ultimately fail. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 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 |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 50 | |||||
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| Malaysian aircraft flew with ground contact broken By
A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Malaysia's military officials said the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner with 229 people on-board flew another 500 kilometers with its transponder and other tracking systems turned off after losing contact with air traffic control. Flight MH370 was about midway between Malaysia's east coast town of Kota Bharu and the southern tip of Vietnam when civilian authorities lost contact with it. "It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait,'' a senior military officer, who has been briefed on investigations, said. The search for the missing plane has expanded to include the Malacca Strait, which is located between Malaysia's western coast and Indonesia's Sumatra island, on the opposite side of Malaysia from the plane's last known position recorded by civilian authorities. To reach the busy shipping lane, the plane would have had to cross over the country. The Boeing 777 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished early Saturday, less than an hour after takeoff, without sending a distress signal. Turning off the transponder would make the aircraft undetectable to civilian controllers, but it would remain visible to the type of radar used by militaries. The head of Interpol says the jet's disappearance does not appear to be related to terrorism. However, the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency said Tuesday that terrorism could not be ruled out. "You cannot discount any theory,"' CIA Director John Brennan said in Washington. Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble says new information about two Iranian men who used stolen passports to board the plane makes terrorism a less likely explanation for the jet's disappearance. The international police agency released photos showing the two boarding the plane at the same time. They are identified as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 19, and Delavar Seyedmohammaderza, 29. Malaysian Police Inspector General Khalid Tan Sri says Nourmohammadi was likely trying to migrate to Germany. "We have been checking his background. We have also checked him with other police organizations on his profile, and we believe that he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group," the inspector told reporters. "And we believe that he is trying to migrate to Germany." The other man's identity is still under investigation. But the development reduces the likelihood they were working together as part of a terror plot. Meanwhile, an extensive review of all of those on board continues. Khalid says authorities are looking into four possible scenarios in connection with the plane's disappearance: hijacking, sabotage, personal disputes and the psychological condition of those on board. "There may be somebody on the flight who has bought huge sums of insurance. Who wants the family to gain from it. Or somebody who owes so much money and you know," he said, adding that they are looking at all possibilities. Malaysia Airlines is also looking into an Australian television report that the co-pilot of the missing plane once invited two women into the cockpit during a flight. Jonti Roos said she and her friend stayed in the cockpit during the one-hour flight on Dec. 14, 2011, from Phuket, Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur. She also said the crew smoked during the flight. "Malaysia Airlines has become aware of the allegations being made against First Officer Fariq Ab Hamid which we take very seriously. We are shocked by these allegations. We have not been able to confirm the validity of the pictures and videos of the alleged incident,'' the airline said. Swedish radio journalist gunned down in Kabul By
A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Swedish Radio workers are mourning the loss of its South Asia correspondent, Nils Horner, who was gunned down in the streets of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. Swedish Radio’s Director-General Cilla Benkö called Tuesday one of the worst days in the corporation’s history. According to a statement released by Afghan police, Horner was shot several times in the head while talking with his translator. The shooting occurred in the fashionable Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, near the Lebanese restaurant where gunmen shot dead 21 people in January. The Taliban say they had nothing to do with his murder. “We checked with our mujahideen and they are not involved,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said. “We don’t take responsibility for this incident.” In just over three weeks, Afghanis will go to the polls to elect a new president. Reporters Without Borders notes that journalists are often attacked or harassed while covering elections. Since Feb. 15, when campaigning for the upcoming election began, around 20 journalists have been attacked. Réza Moïni, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Iran-Afghanistan desk, called Horner’s death a tragic reminder of the dangers faced by journalists in Afghanistan. “Although the Afghan media have developed in the past few years, mounting violence and above all the complete impunity enjoyed by those responsible for attacks on journalists could jeopardize election coverage and, with it, the entire democratic process,” Moïni said. Another death takes place in Venezuelan disturbances By
A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A student leader has been fatally shot in Venezuela in the latest wave of violent protests seeking to oust the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Officials in the university city of San Cristobal said Daniel Tinoco was killed Monday night after a day of street clashes between anti-government demonstrators, pro-government armed militia and security personnel. Tinoco was an outspoken student leader who often manned the barricades that have been erected as part of the anti-Maduro protests. At least 22 people have been killed in five weeks of demonstrations against soaring inflation, shortages of basic consumer goods and one of the world's highest murder rates. Chile has asked Venezuelan officials to investigate the fatal shooting Saturday of one of its citizens, Giselle Rubilar, the first foreigner killed in the unrest. Maduro blamed extremist right groups for her death. "At the time she was standing there conversing and motorcycles arrived — they have been identified — from these extremist right groups," said the president. "They fired their weapons and they shot her in the temple and the bullet came out of her left side, and they injured two neighbors as well as Giselle." Maduro last week opened a peace conference, but the opposition has refused to participate until he releases jailed protesters. Matching of faces fallible, university study shows By
the Louisiana State University news service
New research finds face matching, as when customs agents check passports, to be incredibly fallible, with error rates between 10 and 20 percent under ideal, laboratory-induced conditions, and much worse in more realistic settings. “Because society relies on face perception and ID verification for many tasks, people are often under the impression that we are experts in this domain,” said Megan Papesh. “Our research shows the precise opposite.” She is an assistant professor at Louisiana State University. In a recent article published in Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, Ms. Papesh explores the difficulty of matching faces to photo IDs, and demonstrates how observers who rarely encounter fakes or stolen IDs are actually far more likely to miss them when they do occur. Issues such as lighting and angles used in photography as well as cosmetic changes, such as haircuts, growing a beard or weight gain/loss, complicate matters considerably. “In most high-risk situations, people can assume a very low rate of fake or stolen IDs,” said Ms. Papesh. “Unfortunately, these conditions are also those most likely to give rise to poor detection rates. In our research, when observers infrequently encountered fake IDs, they failed to catch approximately 45 percent of them, even when given multiple opportunities to correct their errors.” Along with her co-author, Stephen Goldinger of Arizona State University, Ms. Papesh found that error rates in face-to-face identifications might be alarmingly high due to the complexities involved in mental processes used to identify an unfamiliar face. In their study, volunteers viewed recent photographs of consenting adults paired with a matching or non-matching student ID photo taken up to 7 years earlier. Each subject made match/non-match decisions to more than 200 pairs, with non-matching targets appearing frequently (50 percent of the time) or infrequently (10 percent of the time). When the targets appeared frequently, observers missed approximately 20 percent of them. When those targets appeared infrequently, however, error rates jumped to more than 40 percent. These high miss rates persisted despite several attempts to get observers to slow down and catch their errors, suggesting that face matching is poor under the best of conditions and even worse when conditions become more challenging. Consider that miss rates of up to 30 percent are harmless in laboratory settings but vital in real-life settings, such as airport security screenings. Health midlife diet said to prevent dementia onset By
the University of Eastern Finland news service
Healthy dietary choices in midlife may prevent dementia in later years, according to a doctoral thesis published at the University of Eastern Finland. The results showed that those who ate the healthiest diet at the average age of 50 had an almost 90 per cent lower risk of dementia in a 14-year follow-up study than those whose diet was the least healthy. The study was the first in the world to investigate the relationship between a healthy diet as early as in midlife and the risk of developing dementia later on. The researchers assessed the link between diet and dementia using a healthy diet index based on the consumption of a variety of foods. Vegetables, berries and fruits, fish and unsaturated fats from milk products and spreads were some of the healthy components, whereas sausages, eggs, sweets, sugary drinks, salty fish and saturated fats from milk products and spreads were indicated as unhealthy. Previous studies on diet and dementia have mainly focused on the impact of single dietary components. "But nobody's diet is based on one single food, and there may be interactions between nutrients, so it makes more sense to look at the entire dietary pattern," says Marjo Eskelinen, who presented the results in her doctoral thesis in the field of neurology. Higher intake of saturated fats linked to poorer cognitive functions and increased risk of dementia The impact of dietary fats on cognitive performance and the risk of dementia was studied separately as well. A high intake of saturated fats was linked to poorer cognitive and memory functions and to an increased risk of mild cognitive impairment in a 21-year follow-up. It was also shown that a higher saturated fat intake was associated with an increased risk of dementia among those carrying a genetic risk factor of Alzheimer's disease, the epsilon 4 variant of the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene. "Even those who are genetically susceptible can at least delay the onset of the disease by favoring vegetable oils, oil-based spreads and fatty fish in their diet," Ms. Eskelinen says. In addition, those consuming three to five cups of coffee daily had a smaller risk of dementia than those consuming less or more. The doctoral thesis was based on the population-based Finnish Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Incidence of Dementia study. Out of 2,000 participants, 1,449 took part in the follow-up. The participants were 39 to 64 years old at baseline and 65 to 75 years old at follow-up.  University of Mainz Alla V. Nikolova
Grave with an about
5,000-years-old skeleton from the Ukraine. Europeans became
fairer,
and selection is suspected By
the Mainz University news staff
There has been much research into the factors that have influenced the human genome since the end of the last Ice Age. Anthropologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and geneticists at University College London, working in collaboration with archaeologists from Berlin and Kiev, have analyzed ancient DNA from skeletons and found that selection has had a significant effect on the human genome even in the past 5,000 years, resulting in sustained changes to the appearance of people. The results of this current research project have been published this week in an article entitled "Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 years" in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For a number of years population geneticists have been able to detect echoes of natural selection in the genomes of living humans, but those techniques are typically not very accurate about when that natural selection took place. The researchers in Mainz and London now decided to take a new approach. This involved analyzing DNA from skeletons and then comparing the prehistoric data with that of contemporary Europeans using computer simulations. Where the genetic changes could not be explained by the randomness of inheritance, the researchers were able to infer that positive selection played a role, i.e., that frequency of a certain mutation increased significantly in a given population. While investigating numerous genetic markers in archaeological and living individuals, Sandra Wilde of the Palaeogenetics Group at the German Institute of Anthropology noticed striking differences in genes associated with hair, skin, and eye pigmentation. "Prehistoric Europeans in the region we studied would have been consistently darker than their descendants today," says Ms. Wilde, first author of the article. "This is particularly interesting as the darker phenotype seems to have been preferred by evolution over hundreds of thousands of years. All our early ancestors were more darkly pigmented." However, things must have changed in the last 50,000 years as humans began to migrate to northern latitudes. "In Europe we find a particularly wide range of genetic variation in terms of pigmentation," adds co-author Karola Kirsanow, who is also a member of the Palaeogenetics Group at Mainz University. "However, we did not expect to find that natural selection had been favoring lighter pigmentation over the past few thousand years." The signals of selection that the Mainz palaeogeneticists and their colleagues at University College London have identified are comparable to those for malaria resistance and lactase persistence, meaning that they are among the most pronounced that have been discovered to date in the human genome. The authors see several possible explanations. "Perhaps the most obvious is that this is the result of adaptation to the reduced level of sunlight in northern latitudes," says Mark Thomas of the University College of London, corresponding author of the study. "Most people of the world make most of their vitamin D in their skin as a result of UV exposure. But at northern latitudes and with dark skin, this would have been less efficient. If people weren’t getting much vitamin D in their diet, then having lighter skin may have been the best option." "But this vitamin D explanation seems less convincing when it comes to hair and eye color," Wilde continues. "Instead, it may be that lighter hair and eye color functioned as a signal indicating group affiliation, which in turn played a role in the selection of a partner." Sexual selection of this kind is common in animals and may also have been one of the driving forces behind human evolution over the past few millennia. "We were expecting to find that changes in the human genome were the result of population dynamics, such as migration. In general we expect genetic changes due to natural selection to be the exception rather than the rule. At the same time, it cannot be denied that lactase persistence, i.e., the ability to digest the main sugar in milk as an adult, and pigmentation genes have been favored by natural selection to a surprising degree over the last 10,000 years or so," adds Joachim Burger, senior author of the study. "But it should be kept in mind that our findings do not necessarily mean that everything selected for in the past is still beneficial today. The characteristics handed down as a result of sexual selection can be more often explained as the result of preference on the part of individuals or groups rather than adaptation to the environment." NSA director nominee sees job as restoring public trust By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday reiterated their concerns about the nation’s intelligence gathering activities exposed by a fugitive former contractor at the National Intelligence Agency, Edward Snowden. At a confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, senators sought answers from President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the NSA, who promised to rebuild trust through dialogue with the American people. Recent months have brought unprecedented scrutiny and public shaming of the NSA, whose reach into the lives of Americans and foreigners alike has been revealed in successive waves of explosive revelations from Snowden. And the man tapped to lead the agency out of the current morass, Navy Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, sat through more than two hours of questioning during Tuesday's Senate confirmation hearing. Republican Ted Cruz blasted the NSA's focus on bulk data collection. “The government collecting metadata or, even more so, the content between law-abiding citizens is an issue that I believe the Constitution speaks very directly to," Cruz said. "It would be a far better allocation of resources in the NSA if much more resources were directed to targeting those who we have reason to know are dangerous, we have reason to know are or may be radical Islamic terrorists.” That sentiment was echoed by Sen. Mark Udall, a Democrat. “The Constitution is not an impediment to our security." he said. "It is the source of our security. We can end bulk collection and focus on terrorists and spies without infringing on the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans.” Admiral Rogers said data collection is a necessary tool to keep America safe, but acknowledged that trust must be rebuilt between the nation’s intelligence apparatus and its people. “One of my challenges as the director, if confirmed, is how do we engage the American people, and by extension their representatives, in a dialogue in which they have a level of comfort as to what we are doing and why," he said, adding, "It is no insignificant challenge.” One senator, Democrat Tim Kaine, said Congress is not without blame, noting that lawmakers authorized an open-ended war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He said Congress is only now beginning to assert its authority and set limitations in the conduct of that war that should have been established from the start. Earlier this week, Snowden expressed no regrets about his actions. Speaking from Russia via videocast to a technology conference in Texas, Snowden said that the government and the public have benefited from the information he revealed. If confirmed by the Senate, Admiral Rogers would succeed outgoing NSA Director Keith Alexander, who assumed the post during former president George W. Bush’s second term. GM's slow response to flaw under several investigations By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. automaker General Motors is facing increasing pressure over its handling of a deadly defect in certain compact cars as news leaked that federal prosecutors and two congressional committees have opened an investigation into the matter. The probe centers on whether GM broke any laws with its slow response to a problem with ignition switches in compact cars from model years 2003 to 2007. Also investigating the recall are the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. At issue is why GM waited until February to recall 1.6 million older model compact cars worldwide, even though it admitted knowing about the problem for a decade. The faulty ignition switches have been linked to 31 crashes and 13 deaths. On February 13, GM announced the recall of more than 780,000 Cobalts and Pontiac G5s (model years 2005-2007). Two weeks later it added 842,000 Saturn Ion compacts (2003-2007), and Chevrolet HHR SUVs and Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky sports cars (2006-2007). GM has said it will replace ignition switches that can shut off motors unexpectedly. When that happens, drivers lose power-assisted steering and brakes and can lose control of the vehicles. The ignition can slip from the run position to accessory or off, due partly to heavy key chains dangling from the steering column. CIA director denies agency hacked lawmakers' computers By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
CIA Director John Brennan has denied that his agency has hacked into lawmakers' computers, as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has charged. The dispute, made public on Tuesday, has been going on for years. In 2002, shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the CIA began to detain and interrogate terror suspects. Several years later, the Senate Intelligence Committee began investigating charges that the spy agency used torture in those interrogations. In 2009, the CIA let congressional investigators use its computers to review top-secret documents. But Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday the agency illegally monitored the staffers' work, and in 2010 withdrew their access to the documents. "In short, this was the exact sort of CIA interference in our investigation that we sought to avoid at the outset," said Sen. Feinstein. Sen. Feinstein raised concerns that the CIA's alleged actions jeopardized the Senate's independence and its ability to conduct oversight of government agencies. "I have grave concerns that the CIA's search may well have violated the separation of powers, principles embodied in the United States Constitution," said Sen. Feinstein. The CIA says Senate aides investigating the agency's secret interrogation and detention program illegally took classified documents. CIA Director John Brennan said the agency was not trying to stop the committee's report and did not improperly search the lawmakers' computers. "As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. We wouldn't do that. I mean, that's just beyond the scope of reason, in terms of what we do," said Brennan. At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney did not take sides, saying the matter is being reviewed. "You saw the CIA director say today that if there was any inappropriate activity by the CIA or staff, he would, of course, want to get to the bottom of it, and certainly, the president would agree with that," said Carney. The committee's 6,300-page report has not been released to the public. Lawmakers say it details the CIA's use of waterboarding and other extreme techniques during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The four-year, $40 million study also reportedly said the CIA misled the president, Congress and the public about the value of the intelligence yielded by the program. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 50 | |||||||||
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 Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto
photo
Statue is at Costa Rica Embassy
at the VaticanVirgen de los Ángeles replica getting Vatican spot By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Foreign ministry officials report that a replica of the Virgen de los Ángeles is being placed in the Iglesia de Santa Ana, which is in the Vatican. The Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto said that the placing of the statue has the blessing of Pope Francis. The ministry said that President Laura Chinchilla discussed the statute with the pope in 2013. The placing of the statute will coincide with the canonization to sainthood of John Paul II in April, the ministry said. A Costa Rican woman, Floribeth Mora, is the recipient of one of the miracles that are required to elevate a Catholic to sainthood. She is expected to attend. John XXIII also will be canonized during the ceremonies in late April. The Virgen de los Ángeles is the patroness of Costa Rica. The statue is a small black stone, but the casing is elaborate. The duplicate is the work of Taller Orfebrería Soto del Valle in Cartago. The Virgen is the local manifestation of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, who is the object of a massive pilgrimage in late July and the first two days of August each year. More than a million of the faithful trek to Cartago to seek her intercessions and to worship at the basilica there. Tubs of grease yield kilos of cocaine from Colombia By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Sometimes you have to get messy if you are a drug smuggler. Anti-drug agents found 76 kilos of cocaine Tuesday in tubs of grease in the machinery area of a cargo boat, they said. The boat was on its way from Colombia to Europe, said agents. There were nine tubs, each about five-gallon size. Agent did not say how they knew the drugs, wrapped in plastic, would be in the grease tubs. |
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| From Page 7: Fake documents can hurt private firms, too By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Businesses are highly vulnerable to the kind of problem that the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones faced. Modern technology makes faking documents a snap. The tribunal was in the spotlight because ballots for the April 6 election began showing up. El Diaro Extra found some and wrote about it. The ballots are supposed to be under heavy security until the election. It turns out that the Tribunal says it has all the ballots and that none have been stolen. This suggests that for whatever reason someone has created fake ballots. The effort may have been to cast doubt on the outcome of the April 5 elections. With computer and Photoshop technology, no advanced training is needed to fake any sort of document as long as they do not undergo serious scrutiny. The ballots have watermarks that are not easy to duplicate. But business people see a lot of documents that are much easier to fake. How about a note from the clinic that excuses an employee from work. How about receipts for travel and meals for employees who can obtain reimbursement for the expenditures. Crooks have known for a long time that they can forge purchase orders and make off with materials and goods. That is one of the reasons some companies still use embossing seals for their important documents. |
