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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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José, Costa Rica, Friday, March 13, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 51
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Survey again shows
food prices vary a lot
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
On the eve of the World Day of the Consumer, the economics ministry once again shows that there is a price jungle out there. The ministry's consumer section conducted another one of its surveys, and this one involved pricing the contents of the basic food basket. The ministry reported that survey takers found differences up to106 percent in identical products and differences up to 620 percent in similar products. The survey was from Feb. 11 to 24, and workers gathered data from 40 supermarkets in San José, Alajuela, Heredia, Cartago, Limón, Guanacaste and Puntarenas. Products ranged from flour to salt to coffee to deodorant. Some meats were included, too. The identical product with price differences of 106 percent was a kilo of corn flour with the trademark Pan, said the ministry. A package of Oreo cookies ranged from 950 colons to 1,902 colons, said the survey report. In four of the supermarkets the survey team found that prices at the cash register were higher than those shown on the shelves. The ministry is having a small ceremony today at the Plaza de las Garantías Sociales south of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social headquarters to mark the day of the consumer. Bring a book or calendar to the Caja By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
For many expats, the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social medical services is a great idea. Others are burned up about the system. To the last list, the name of Dave King can be added. The Sabana Oeste resident wrote Thursday that he had to wait 22 days to get an appointment for a biopsy and then he was given an appointment for Oct. 9, 2018. "That's three years and seven months away," he said. "I imagine that if I have cancer, it will be easy to detect by then. So much for preventive medicine. I am so happy that they are forcing me to pay into their system in order to keep my residency." He is not the first person to have this problem. There have been continual media reports of distant appointments. One report noted that pregnant women were being given ultrasound appointments 10 months in the future. One taxi driver known to A.M. Costa Rica staffers suffered from what he thought was cancer. He also was given a distant appointment for a biopsy. But unlike King, the man raised such a fuss that Caja security had to escort him to the street. A few days later a private physician fixed the man's problem during an office visit. Another story known to reporters involves the La Carit women's Hospital where many new citizens are born. What is less well known is that women about to become mothers receive no pain medication unless a nurse slips them an aspirin. In one case the husband of a woman having a prolonged labor picked her up and carried the woman to a waiting taxi and delivered her to Clinica Biblca's emergency room. A physician there said he had saved his wife's life and that of the new daughter. Motorcyclists hold first place as victims By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Riding a motorcycle can get hazardous to your health. More precisely, riding a motorcycle when you are sleepy or drunk at night can be hazardous. Each weekend law and traffic officials report vehicle deaths where one or more of the victims were on a motorcycle. The Dirección General de la Policía de Tránsito confirmed the trend Thursday, and said that 20 of the 68 vehicle deaths in the first two months of the year were motorcyclists. Only 18 of the dead were in conventional vehicles, the report said. The 2014 statistics show a similar trend. Of 355 motor vehicle deaths in 2014, 114 victims were on a motorcycle, said the agency. Motorcycle deaths typically involve running off a road late at night or early in the morning or colliding head-on with an oncoming vehicle. Police say that motorcyclists are prone to pass a vehicle by encroaching on the oncoming lane. Teen pot users said to have poorer memory By the Northwestern University news staff
Teens who were heavy marijuana users had an abnormally shaped hippocampus and performed poorly on long-term memory tasks, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. The hippocampus is important to long-term memory, which is the ability to remember autobiographical or life events. The brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed during the individuals' early 20s, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana. Heavy users were defined as those who smoke marijuana daily for about three years. Young adults who abused cannabis as teens performed about 18 percent worse on long-term memory tests than young adults who never abused cannabis. "The memory processes that appear to be affected by cannabis are ones that we use every day to solve common problems and to sustain our relationships with friends and family," said senior author John Csernansky, chairman of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University. The study is among the first to say the hippocampus is shaped differently in heavy marijuana smokers and the different looking shape is directly related to poor long-term memory performance. Previous studies of cannabis users have shown either the oddly shaped hippocampus or poor long-term memory but none have linked them. Previous research by the same Northwestern team showed poor short-term and working memory performance and abnormal shapes of brain structures. "Both our recent studies link the chronic use of marijuana during adolescence to these differences in the shape of brain regions that are critical to memory and that appear to last for at least a few years after people stop using it," said lead study author Matthew Smith, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the university's Feinberg School of Medicine. The longer the individuals were chronically using marijuana, the more abnormal the shape of their hippocampus, the study reports. The findings suggest that these regions related to memory may be more susceptible to the effects of the drug the longer the abuse occurs. The abnormal shape likely reflects damage to the hippocampus and could include the structure's neurons, axons or their supportive environments. "Advanced brain mapping tools allowed us to examine detailed and sometimes subtle changes in small brain structures, including the hippocampus," said Lei Wang, also a senior study author and an assistant professor of psychiatry. The scientists used computerized programs they developed with collaborators that performed fine mappings between structural MRIs of different individuals' brains. Subjects took a narrative memory test in which they listened to a series of stories for about one minute, then were asked to recall as much content as possible 20 to 30 minutes later. The test assessed their ability to encode, store, and recall details from the stories. The groups in the study started using marijuana daily between 16 to 17 years of age for about three years. At the time of the study, they had been marijuana free for about two years. A total of 97 subjects participated, including matched groups of healthy controls, subjects with a marijuana use disorder, schizophrenia subjects with no history of substance use disorders, and schizophrenia subjects with a marijuana use disorder. The subjects who used marijuana did not abuse other drugs. In the U.S., marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, and young adults have the highest prevalence of use. Decriminalization of the drug may lead to greater use. Four states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, and 23 states plus Washington D.C. have legalized it for medical use.
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and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, March 13, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 51 | |
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| Top U.S. general warns of Islamic State recruits from the
Americas |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The top U.S. general in South America is warning lawmakers on Capitol Hill of areas of weakness where Islamic State fighters could attempt to infiltrate the Western Hemisphere. "There’s a lot of people coming and going," Gen. John Kelly told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, "and it only takes one to cause you problems.” Kelly said that about 100 Islamist militant recruits have left the Caribbean and South America to train and fight in Syria. “I would suspect they’ll get good at, while they’re in Syria, get good at killing and pick up some real job skills in terms of explosives and beheadings and things like that," he said. "And everyone’s concerned, of course, if they come home.” |
Home for this
handful of fighters falls in the U.S. geographic sphere
of influence. They hail from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and
Venezuela. “A hundred certainly doesn’t seem like a lot, and it’s not," Kelly said. "But the little countries that they come from with a total inability to really deal with it, that’s kind of what their concern is. So we’re watching.” Kelly said that if the recruits returned to their home nations, they could potentially come up through cross-border networks to get to the U.S., though military officials have seen no signs of any such scheme. So how can the U.S. handle the potential return of would-be terrorists? Kelly said the keys were good cooperation with countries in the region and a strong U.S. law enforcement and intelligence service to track terror network movements. |
| After 13 years, judicial agents return to suspected
prostitution operation |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The raid was déjà vu all over again for law enforcement. More than a dozen judicial agents raided the Siboney massage parlor on Calle 8 between avenidas 12 and 14 Thursday. The Judicial Investigating Organization said that the owner, a woman aged 73, and her 52-year-old son were held on pimping charges. Judicial police said the storefront was a pension, a kind of hotel. But the place is well known as a massage parlor catering to blue collar Costa Ricans. Agents from Delitos Contra la Integridad Físca Trata y Tráfico section said they found six young women there. All were adults. The allegation is that the women were providing sexual services under the supervision of the owner and her son. While prostitution is not penalized here, pimping is even though many prostitutes prefer the security and working hours of an established business. Agents said that the operation was run as a business with the women being required to provide evidence of illness if they were absent from a work shift that ran from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The business collected 19,000 colons for an hour with one of the women, said judicial police. Agents last raided the massage parlor in September 2002, according to news files. They arrested the woman operator and two of her daughters at that time. The telephone number remains the same. |
 Judicial
Investigating Organization photo
Judicial workers have
deliberately blurred the faces of agents and the male suspect in this
photo.Judicial police credited an investigation for uncovering the prostitution operation. But Siboney is listed as a provider of sexual services on several English-language Web sites and is probably one of 100 similar operations in the metro area. |
| Saxophones will be the featured instrument at the concert
tonight |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Renowned contemporary saxophonist Eric Marienthal is an invited soloist tonight when the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional gives the second concert of the season. Also performing at the Teatro Nacional will be María Noel Luzardo, of Argentina, another saxophone star. Marienthal will perfom "Concert for Saxophone and Wind Orchestra" by the late U.S. composer Michael Kamen. Ms. Luzardo will perform“Concierto op.75 para saxofón, cuerdas y percusión,” composed by her countryman Guillermo Zalcman. The orchestra will be under the direction on invited Cuban conductor Iván del Prado. The concert also features two world premiers, according to an announcement. The Costa Rican group Sonsax, consisting of Javier Valerio, Harold Guillén, Juan Pablo Sandí, Arturo Castro and Manrique Méndez, will perform “Suite para cuarteto de saxofones y orquestra" by Nelson Ramírez. He also is a Costa |
 Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud photos
María Noel
Luzardo
Michael KamenRican, and the performance is world premier. The Zalcman piece also is a world premier, said the Centro Nacional de la Música. The 8 p.m. concert is part of the sixth edition of Sax Fest Costa Rica. Tickets are 10,000 colons for general admission with discounts for seniors and students, said the Centro. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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2015 and may
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, March 13, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 51 | |||||
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| Data link African storms to hurricanes that cross the
Atlantic |
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By the American Friends of Tel Aviv
University
Researchers have found that many hurricanes hitting the Western Hemisphere originate as disturbances in western Africa's atmosphere. Hurricanes require moisture, the rotation of the earth, and warm ocean temperatures to grow from a mere atmospheric disturbance into a tropical storm. But where do these storm cells originate, and exactly what makes an atmospheric disturbance amp up full throttle? A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters by Tel Aviv University's Colin Price and his graduate student Naama Reicher of the Department of Geosciences finds most hurricanes over the Atlantic that eventually make landfall in North America actually start as intense thunderstorms in Western Africa. "85 percent of the most intense hurricanes affecting the U.S. and Canada start off as disturbances in the atmosphere over Western Africa," said Price. "We found that the larger the area covered by the disturbances, the higher the chance they would develop into hurricanes only one to two weeks later." Using data covering 2005 to 2010, Price analyzed images of cloud cover taken by geostationary satellites which orbit the Earth at the precise speed of the earth's rotation and take pictures of cloud cover every 15 minutes. This enabled Price to track the variability in cloud cover blocking the earth's surface in West Africa between the months of June and November, hurricane season. The coverage of clouds acts as an indication of atmospheric disturbances. The more clouds in an area, the larger the disturbance. Using infrared cloud-top temperature data gathered from satellites, Price assessed the temperatures of the cloud tops, which grow colder the higher they rise. He then compared his cloud data with hurricane statistics looking at intensity, date of generation, location, and maximum winds. The statistics came from the same period using the National Hurricane Center data base. "We first showed that the areal coverage of the cold cloud tops in tropical Africa was a good indicator of the monthly number of atmospheric disturbances — or waves — leaving the west coast of tropical Africa," said Price. "The disturbances that developed into tropical storms had a significantly larger area |
 National Hurricane Center photo
Three hurricanes march
across the Caribbeancovered by cold cloud tops compared with non-developing waves." According to Price, only 10 percent of the 60 disturbances originating in Africa every year turn into hurricanes. And while there are around 90 hurricanes globally every year, only 10 develop in the Atlantic Ocean. "We wanted to know what was so special about these 10 percent of disturbances that develop into hurricanes. Was there something different about these storms at their genesis?" said Price. "By looking at each of these storms individually, we found again that the larger the cloud coverage originally in West Africa, the higher the value of the accumulated cyclone energy in a future hurricane. The conclusion, then, is that the spatial coverage of thunderstorms in West Africa can foretell the intensity of a hurricane a week later. "If we can predict a hurricane one or two weeks in advance — the entire lifespan of a hurricane — imagine how much better prepared cities and towns can be to meet these phenomena head on," Price said. He is currently examining the thunderstorm clusters around the eyes of hurricanes to study the intensification process of those destructive phenomena. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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contents of
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2015 and may
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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Justice department asks end to injunction on illegals By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Justice Department is asking an appeals court to lift an injunction issued by a Texas-based federal judge, halting President Barack Obama's executive action against deporting some illegal immigrants. In their emergency motion filed with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans Thursday, U.S. attorneys said the judge's ruling last month was unprecedented and wrong. They said the U.S. Constitution does not allow states to "intrude into the uniquely federal domain of immigration enforcement." They also argued that the injunction undermines the Department of Homeland Security's authority to enforce the law. The injunction was aimed at putting a temporary hold on the president's order to stop the deportation of as many as 5 million people in the country illegally while the courts hear a lawsuit filed against the president's action. Twenty-six U.S. states are suing the federal government, saying Obama overstepped his authority. Obama raised political pressure on the opposition over immigration recently, telling members of Miami's Latino community that Republicans were to blame for stalling the reform. "For the next set of presidential candidates," he told a town hall meeting hosted by the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo, "when they start asking for votes, the first question should be, 'Are you really going to deport 11 million people? If not, what's your plan?'" Obama defended his plan and said he disagreed with the federal judge who blocked his order from taking effect. The president said it could take months for an appeals court to overturn that ruling. He said he remained confident that he was within his legal rights to protect such a broad group of undocumented immigrants, and he urged those who would qualify for the program to continue preparing their applications. "Until we pass a law through Congress, the executive actions we've taken are not going to be permanent; they are temporary," he said. Ferguson prayer gathering follows shootings of cops By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Dozens of people gathered in Ferguson, Missouri, late Thursday for a prayer vigil, after two police officers were shot during a protest outside the city's police station. People gathered at a spot just a few meters from where the shootings took place early Thursday. One officer was shot in the shoulder, the other in the face. Both are expected to recover. Authorities believe the shots came from a handgun fired about 120 meters away. Police searched a house and three people were detained in connection with the shooting investigation, but authorities say so far no arrests have been made. President Barack Obama said on U.S. television late Thursday that "there was no excuse for criminal acts" and the shooter or shooters need to be arrested. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the attack an ambush and said the perpetrator was trying to sow discord, calling the shooter a damn punk. The shooting came just hours after the city's police chief resigned in the wake of a Justice Department report accusing the department of racially-biased policing. Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson submitted his resignation Wednesday, seven months after white police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who attacked him during a street confrontation last August. Jackson became the focus of bitter complaints of racial discrimination within his department in the aftermath of Brown's shooting. The report by the Justice Department criticized the Ferguson police department for bias 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. Jackson is the sixth Ferguson official to step down in the wake of the Justice Department report. Ferguson's city manager and a municipal court judge resigned this week, while a city court clerk and two police officers were either dismissed or resigned after they were identified in the report of sending racist emails. Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, is still reeling from the shooting, which set off days of violence in the city. Wilson was not charged by the Justice Department with violating Brown's civil rights, and a state grand jury failed to bring criminal charges against him. German bank admits role in fraud, sanction breach By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday ordered Germany's Commerzbank bank and its U.S. affiliates to pay $1.45 billion in penalties for violations of U.S. sanctions law and for a multibillion-dollar securities fraud. A department statement said Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest bank, admitted and accepted responsibility for its criminal conduct in violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Bank Secrecy Act. It said Commerzbank admitted that it knowingly and willfully moved $263 million through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Iranian and Sudanese businesses, which are sanctioned from doing business in the U.S. The bank also admitted that it had concealed and removed the involvement of sanctioned businesses from payment messages and transactions with its New York branch and other U.S. financial institutions. "Commerzbank undermined the integrity of our financial system and threatened our national security by hiding the business they were doing with entities in Iran and Sudan," said U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen. "Today’s resolution demonstrates that there will be consequences when global banks try to profit from the benefits of the U.S. financial system without respecting our laws." Separately, in the case of accounting fraud, Commerzbank loaned money to off-balance-sheet entities created by Japanese-based manufacturer Olympus to disguise losses. The Justice Department said Commerzbank transacted more than $1.6 billion through its New York branch to further the fraud, violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to detect and report suspicious activity. As part of the agreement, Commerzbank will pay a $79 million fine and forfeit $563 million to the Justice Department, $200 million to the Federal Reserve and $610 million to New York State. Commerzbank said in a statement that it would set aside an additional $358 million to make settlements related to the case. The bank said it would continue to make changes to its systems, training and personnel to address the deficiencies identified by U.S. and New York authorities. Kerry says consequences of climate change are bad By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has spelled out the economic consequences of ignoring climate change. He spoke at a Washington forum on Thursday as the United States and other world powers prepare for a United Nations climate change conference in Paris later this year. Addressing skeptics of climate change, Secretary Kerry said gambling with the future of Earth when the outcome is known is beyond reckless and just plain immoral. “It is a risk that no one should take. We need to face the reality. There is no planet B," said Kerry. In a speech at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, Kerry said the increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as widespread droughts, flooding and hurricanes would lead to disruptions that will affect jobs. “We can expect disruptions to the global agricultural sector that will threaten job security for millions of farmers and undermine food security for millions of families," he said. He said research indicates that climate change could cause crop yields for staples such as rice, wheat and corn to fall by 2 percent per decade. “Consider what that means for millions of farmers around the world and the inflationary impact that will have on food prices," said Kerry. Saying the solution is good energy policy, he encouraged global investment in renewable energy, such as solar power and wind. It is an issue that world powers will discuss at the U.N. conference in December in a bid to adopt an international agreement that sets the framework for lower carbon emissions. In a February briefing, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said 2015 is a pivotal year for finalizing a universal climate change agreement. Another U.S. ebola worker returned home for treatment By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An American health worker infected with ebola is heading back to the United States for treatment at the National Institutes of Health. The agency said the patient, who had volunteered to treat ebola patients in Sierra Leone, is expected to arrive at the institute's facility in Bethesda, Maryland, today. The worker will stay in a secure treatment center, one of a handful of units in the U.S. designed to treat the most dangerous pathogens. National Institutes of Health officials have not released any information about the identity of the patient. Earlier, a female British military health worker in Sierra Leone who tested positive for ebola was flown home for treatment, the Ministry of Defense said Thursday. A Royal Air Force plane was sent to the west African country Wednesday. The woman will be treated at London's Royal Free Hospital, a military spokeswoman said. The condition of the patient is unknown. “An investigation into how the military worker was exposed to the virus is currently underway and tracing of individuals in recent contact with the diagnosed worker is being undertaken,” Public Health England said in a statement Wednesday. The military health care worker is the third Briton to contract the virus in Sierra Leone, two nurses, William Pooley and Pauline Cafferkey, recovered after being treated in Britain. Britain, a former colonizer of Sierra Leone, has sent nearly 800 soldiers to help organize a campaign to control the epidemic in Sierra Leone and to build treatment centers. In addition, hundreds of national health workers have volunteered to assist in the country. The military spokeswoman said, "Despite there being stringent procedures and controls in place to safeguard U.K. service personnel, there is always a level of risk in deployments on operations of this type." Public Health England, a government agency, has said that the risk to the British public was very low. The ebola outbreak, which began in December 2013, swept Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing more than 9,900 people, according to the World Health Organization. Rates of new infections have come down swiftly in recent months, however, and Liberia last week released its last known ebola patient from the hospital. However, Sierra Leone remains the country with the highest rate of transmission and as of March 10 still had 127 patients in ebola treatment centers across the country, according to a government health ministry report. Alfred Palo Conteh, CEO of the National Ebola Response Center in Sierra Leone, said complacent behavior has led to a worrying spike in confirmed ebola cases over the past week in four districts. Conteh said new measures must now be put into place to contain the surges. Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health and Sanitation reported 15 cases Wednesday, along with 16 on Monday and Tuesday. Iran's supreme leader rips Senate Republicans' letter By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, criticized an open letter sent by 47 U.S. Republican senators to Tehran about the ongoing negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, saying the move showed disintegration in U.S. politics. The letter warns that the next U.S. president could revoke any deal Iran may reach with a group of six world powers (P5+1). Those talks are due to resume Sunday as the two sides seek an interim agreement by the end of the month. Iranian state media quoted the supreme leader as saying he is concerned about what he called backstabbing in the negotiation process. He said that the international group, particularly the U.S., takes a harsher tone when the two sides get close to the end of the talks. "Of course I am worried. Every time we reach a stage where the end of the negotiations is in sight, the tone of the other side, specifically the Americans, becomes harsher, coarser and tougher. This is the nature of their tricks and deceptions," the Mehr news agency quoted the Iranian leader as saying. The clerical supreme leader said the letter was ''a sign of the decay of political ethics in the American system," and he described as laughable long-standing U.S. accusations of Iranian involvement in terrorism. Khamenei has long been a conservative hardliner wary of any detente with the West but has backed the diplomacy pursued by Hassan Rouhani, who was elected by a landslide in 2013 promising steps to end Iran's economically crippling international isolation. At the same time, Khamenei has not stopped speeches loaded with denunciations of the United States to reassure powerful hardliners in the clergy and security services, for whom anti-U.S. sentiment has been central to Iran's Islamic Revolution. Iran has insisted it is not trying to build nuclear weapons. The United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany are seeking assurances that the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday the letter left him in utter disbelief and that Congress does not have the right to modify an agreement reached between the leaders of countries. He called the Republican letter irresponsible. "No one is questioning anybody's right to dissent. But to write to the leaders in the middle of a negotiation.....and suggest they're going to give a constitutional lesson, which by the way is incorrect, is quite stunning," Kerry said. Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the letter written by the Arkansas freshman senator, Tom Cotton, undermines U.S. foreign policy and ignores more than 200 years of history. Archaeologists plan to help restore stolen Iraqi artifacts By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The looting and destruction of historic sites and artifacts by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria has sparked outrage around the world. Archaeologists are concerned that important and sensitive sites may have been permanently damaged by extremists. Archaeologists and law enforcement officials are scrambling to prevent further loss of a priceless cultural heritage. They are images that have made headlines and provoked outrage around the world: Ancient and important archaeological sites hammered and bulldozed to the ground. What has survived the test of time has not survived the rise of militant Islam in parts of Syria and Iraq, countries home to ancient Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization. “It is a major installation which is telling you something about the glorious past of Iraq which is also a part of the world. It’s not just Iraqi culture," said McGuire Gibson, who specializes in Mesopotamian archaeology at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Gibson says the recent destruction at the Mosul Museum and the site of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud is intended to provoke outrage. “It needles us, it makes us angry about it, it makes us depressed about it. And they are trying to provoke a reaction," he said. But Gibson says past experience demonstrates that militants could be using those images of destruction as a smokescreen for trafficking smaller, more valuable items out of the country. "There are people in the world who know what this stuff is worth, and it is very clear that at least part of the destruction of the Iraqi museum in 2003, that part of that, was induced by people on the outside getting dealers on the inside to go in and try to get specific things," he said. Archaeologists like Gibson have tried to locate and return those historic artifacts to Iraq's National Museum. It is an effort that continues today despite the dangers in the region. “There’s archaeological work going on right now in Iraq, in places where it’s relatively secure, work is going on. Whether or not it will be secure next week, we don’t know, but we try to work when and where we can," he said. Edouard Planch, a program specialist with the U. N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, says to help those archaeologists working on the ground, his agency is trying to bolster education efforts and artifact recovery at border checkpoints near Iraq and Syria. “The objective is to have these surrounding countries with us, aware of the traffics, of the kinds of objects going out, able to seize the pieces and keep them in a safe place," said Planch. Many of the items in the Mosul Museum were digitally catalogued, which has helped these efforts. But recovering of such treasures is sometimes difficult. The Iraqi National Museum, which opened in early March after being closed for 12 years, is still searching for some 15,000 items that went missing in 2003 during the Iraq War. NASA projects to measure Earth-sun magnetic ties By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. space agency NASA has launched four spacecrafts designed to study the magnetic relationship between the Earth and the sun. NASA launched the spacecraft late Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in an unmanned rocket. The spacecrafts are expected to fly in pyramid formation in an oblong orbit, providing 3-D views of magnetic fields as they break and reconnect, releasing large amounts of energy. The energy releases are what cause the aurora borealis, or so-called northern lights and solar storms that can disrupt radio airwaves. In other space news, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that the Jupiter-orbiting moon Ganymede has an ocean beneath its icy surface, raising the prospects for life, NASA said Thursday. The finding resolves a mystery about the largest moon in the solar system after NASA's now-defunct Galileo spacecraft provided hints that Ganymede has a subsurface ocean during exploration of Jupiter and its moons from 1995 to 2003. Scientists told reporters on a conference call that it took some detective work to confirm the discovery. Like Earth, Ganymede has a liquid iron core that generates a magnetic field, though Ganymede's field is embedded within Jupiter's magnetic field. That sets up an interesting dynamic with telltale visuals — twin bands of glowing aurora around Ganymede's northern and southern polar regions. As Jupiter rotates, its magnetic field shifts, causing Ganymede's aurora to rock. Scientists measured the motion and found it fell short. Using computer models, they realized that a salty, electrically conductive ocean beneath the moon's surface was counteracting Jupiter's magnetic pull. "Jupiter is like a lighthouse whose magnetic field changes with the rotation of the lighthouse. It influences the aurora," said geophysicist Joachim Saur, with the University of Cologne in Germany. "With the ocean, the rocking is significantly reduced." Scientists ran more than 100 computer models to see if anything else could be having an impact on Ganymede's aurora. They also repeated the seven-hour, ultraviolet Hubble observations and analyzed data for both belts of aurora. "This gives us confidence in the measurement," Saur said. Jim Green, NASA Planetary Science Division director, called the finding an astounding demonstration. "They developed a new approach to look inside a planetary body with a telescope," Green said. Ganymede joins a growing list of moons in the outer solar system with subsurface water. Wednesday, scientists reported that Saturn's moon Enceladus has hot springs beneath its icy crust. Other water-rich worlds include Jupiter moons Europa and Callisto. Scientists estimate the ocean is 60 miles (100 km) thick, 10 times deeper than Earth's oceans, and is buried under a 95-mile (150-km) crust of mostly ice. "It is one step further toward finding that habitable, water-rich environment in our solar system," said astronomer Heidi Hammel with the Washington-based Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, March 13, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 51 | |||||||||
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Leading public health researchers are calling for the sale of tobacco to be phased out by 2040. Writing in the British journal The Lancet, advocates say a tobacco-free world — where less than 5 percent of adults smoke — could be possible in less than three decades. In a statement ahead of next week's World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Abu Dhabi, lead author Robert Beaglehole from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, said, “A world where tobacco is out of sight, out of mind, and out of fashion — yet not prohibited — is achievable in less than three decades from now, but only with full commitment from governments, international agencies such as the U.N. and WHO, and civil society.” A spokesman for the Altria Group, which includes Philip Morris, the leading cigarette manufacturer in the U.S., declined to comment. One billion deaths from smoking and other forms of tobacco are expected by the end of this century, largely in low- to middle-income countries. According to new research released with the Lancet articles, Kenji Shibuya from the University of Tokyo and colleagues show that although overall rates of smoking are slowly declining, the prevalence of tobacco use is actually expected to increase in some countries over the next decade, notably in Africa and the Middle East. And because the world’s population is rising, there will still be more than 1 billion smokers in 2025, unless global action against tobacco accelerates markedly, the research said. Retail drug sales can be costly By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The retail cocaine business can be costly. The Policía de Control de Drogas said they grabbed two men Wednesday night and said the pair were selling cocaine and marijuana at a night club in Cartago. Police said the pair face possible imprisonment for 15 years. Police confiscated individual lots of both drugs. U.S. joblessness down but so are sales By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Reports published Thursday painted a mixed picture of the U.S. economy with both unemployment claims and retail sales declining. The Labor Department said the number of Americans signing up for unemployment assistance last week dropped 36,000, to a nationwide total of 289,000. The drop reversed an increase of 40,000 in the previous week. That jump was probably weather-related, given that low temperatures and storms shut construction sites and schools and caused some temporary layoffs. A separate report from the Commerce Department said retail sales fell six-tenths of a percent in February, the third monthly drop in a row. Senior economist Gus Faucher of PNC Bank said unusually bad winter weather might have hampered auto sales and restaurant traffic, contributing to the decline. He said he thought consumer spending probably would grow later this year, in part because of savings from lower gasoline prices. |
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| From Page 7: U.S. firm to display its coffee rust antidote By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Tennessee firm that says it has a solution to coffee rust, known as roya de cafe (Hemileia vastatrix), plans a meeting to introduce its products. The meeting will be Thursday at the Hotel Barcelo Guatemala City. The firm is GroGenesis, Inc., that said the event is invitation-only to qualified Central American agricultural industry leaders, government representatives and others with interests in the agricultural sector. The firm said that the event aims to introduce the GroGenesis flagship products, AgraBlast and AgraBurst and to inform industry professionals from across Guatemala as well as from Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua on the impact and benefits these products can offer to regional high value agricultural operations. The current outbreak of coffee rust is the worst seen in Central America and Mexico since the fungal disease arrived in the region more than 40 years ago. Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica have declared national emergencies over the disease. The rust mainly infects coffee leaves, but also young fruit and buds. Coffee rust spores are spread by the wind and the rain from lesions on the underside of leaves. Production is cut drastically. |
