 |
| A.M.
Costa Rica Your daily English-language news source Monday through Friday |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
Jo
Stuart |
|
Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
 |
| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 64 | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
 |
|
Fusion of terrorists, drug gangs
is worrisome for U.S. officials By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A merger of terrorist with Latin American crime syndicates is raising concern in Washington because it would give those with designs to damage the United States access to a cash cow. The latest person to voice the concern is Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who heads the U.S. Southern Command. He told reporters at a Pentagon briefing last week that increase in Iranian influence in Latin America is worrisome and an example of the peril that the combination of criminal networks and states that sponsor terrorism, like Iran, could pose. This is according to a summary prepared by the Southern Command. Iran has been trying to increase its influence in Latin America for years and has increased the number of its diplomats, reached trade treaties and targeted those countries that are unfriendly to the United States. Among these have been Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Kelly stopped short of saying that Iran was engaged in terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. According to the Southern Command summary Kelly said “we do know that some terrorist organizations are able to skim off fairly substantial sums of money from the drug profits. And so there has to be kind of a network for that to happen.” The criminal networks in Latin America are very sophisticated and very well financed, he said. Kelly said his command is working to build military-to-military contacts throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the summary. Gasoline prices headed up under most recent decree By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some expats are wondering why the price of gasoline jumps around so much. For example, Monday the price regulating agency said that super gasoline is going up 28 colons a liter and plus is going up 24 colons. At the same time diesel is going down 8 colons per liter. As the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos explained, prices are determined by a formula that used international prices. This month the period for averaging the cost is from Feb. 21 to March 7. Also involved in the computation is the dollar exchange rate. Consequently, the slightest change in international prices involving petroleum or the exchange rate will result in a chance of fuel prices here. All of Costa Rica's petroleum is imported, and the central government declines to permit exploratory drilling here. The new prices will mean an increase of 21 U.S. cents per gallon for super, and an increase of 18 cents per gallon for plus. Diesel goes down 6 cents a gallon while liquid natural gas goes down a penny. The final price at the pump will be $5.88 a gallon for super, $5.53 for plus and $4.99 for diesel. Liquid natural gas will be $2.41 a gallon when the new prices are published in the La Gaceta official newspaper. Young leftists plan protest when Obama visits here By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The fledgling left wing Nuevo Partido Socialista did not take long in responding to the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama. The political organization that was founded last December promised a day of fighting against imperialists. Curiously, the group's agenda comes close to what Obama himself promised before he was elected. They are critical of Obama for not making major reforms to the U.S. immigration policies, for not closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for continuing to be the world police in protecting U.S. overseas interests and for supporting what they say is the occupation and genocide of the Zionists against the Palestine people. They also oppose the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Obama presented himself as democratic and reformist versions of the Yankee imperialist but his years as president confirm that he has not substantially changed U.S. imperialism, they said. A photo published of a December meeting on the organization's Web site shows a room full of mainly young people. The party seeks an organizational meeting April 17 at the Universidad de Costa Rica to plan strategy. Obama will be visiting Costa Rica May 3 and 4 to meet with heads of state from Central America. Travel show set for April 9 at Antigua Aduana in San José By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Several governmental and private organizations will sponsor the 5th Travel Show Expo 2013, an exposition designed to showcase travel and tourism agencies. The Cámara Nacional de Turismo, the Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud, the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo, Expotur and the San José municipality are some of the sponsors for the event that will be held April 9 in La Casa del Cuña, the glass enclosed structure east of the Antiguo Aduana on Calle 23. Anges Gómez Francheschi, president of the tourism committee of the Asamblea Legislativa, will open the event at 11 a.m. It will last until 6 p.m. More than 100 hotels, tour operators, travel agencies and airline companies are expected to have stands set up at the fair. Each company will offer their products and services to patrons. Entry to Travel Show Expo 2013 and parking are both free. Persons who want more information can email info@travelshowexpo.net or visit the Web site at www.travelshowexpo.net.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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 |
A.M.
Costa Rica advertising reaches from 12,000 to 14,000 unique visitors every weekday in up to 90 countries. |
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 64 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| This week is expected to be a wet one,
weather experts agree |
|
|
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Weather Underground experts estimated that there is an 80 percent chance of rain in the Central Valley today, and local forecasters agree. In fact, the estimate of rain is between 60 and 80 percent for the rest of the week, according to A.M. Costa Rica's weather service. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that winds were bringing in humidity from the oceans, and that is why there |
was rain in much
of the metro area Monday afternoon. Although there were some brief, heavy downpours, the bulk of the time the rain was light bordering on a mist. Guanacaste will not enjoy the rain today, said the weather institute. Instead, the area will be windy and dry. The weather institute issued a mid-day bulletin about impending storms, and said that lightning was a possible danger. There were some brief outages, but they appeared to be caused by the wind jerking around the power lines. |
| El Salvador gold mine case resembles one
in Costa Rica |
|
|
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Canadian mining company has moved its claim against the government of El Salvador into the final stages of arbitration. The firm, Pacific Rim Mining Corp., seeks $350 million on the allegation that El Salvador did not follow its own mining law when it declined to issue the necessary licenses for the El Dorado Mine, the company said in a release. The case bears many similarities to the Las Crucitas mine case in Costa Rica, which also was operated here by a subsidiary of a Canadian company. The El Dorado case is before a three-person panel in the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The company said that the panel will determine whether El Salvador has breached the Salvadoran Investment Law by refusing to issue the necessary mining licenses for the El Dorado gold project. The panel also will determine El Salvador's monetary liability for breaching the investment protections owed to a foreign investor under these laws, it added. The case is supported by detailed statements of multiple expert witnesses in the fields of economic geology, mine financing, environmental science and international mining law, the firm said. "We are very confident in the merits of our case and our ability to receive fair-value for our expropriated assets," said the company's president and CEO Tom Shrake. "Unfortunately, we are not alone. Because of a pattern of mistreatment of foreign investors by the government of El Salvador, the country is now the single worst jurisdiction in all of Latin America in attracting foreign investment and the slowest growing economy in Central America for the eighth consecutive year. Poverty has skyrocketed to 47.5 percent of the population, an increase of approximately 10 percent over the same eight-year period. We continue to reach out to the government of El Salvador to end this dispute to allow our Salvadoran employees to get back to work." The mine was operated by the subsidiary PacRim Cayman, LLC. The El Dorado Mine, as designed and submitted to the Salvadoran authorities eight years ago, set new precedents for |
 A.M. Costa Rica file photo
The root of the arbitrationenvironmental protection in all of the Americas and exceeds current Canadian and U.S. environmental standards, said the firm. Preservation of water quality and quantity is a key component of the industry-leading El Dorado mine design, it added. The Las Crucitas project here generated a lot of opposition on environmental grounds because operators proposed an open pit process. The site is in Curtis de San Carlos, not far from the Nicaraguan border. Opponents worried about the leaching of chemicals into the soil and then into the Río San Juan. Although former president Óscar Arias Sánchez supported the project, President Laura Chinchilla does not. She encouraged the legislature to pass a law forbidding gold mining. There are an estimated 800,000 ounces of gold at the mine site. At current prices the gold is worth $1.3 billion. The case has seen a series of conflicting and confusing court decisions. The Sala IV constitutional court gave the project a go-ahead, but the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo then faulted the process by which the government issued permits and annulled the deal. An appeal to the Sala I high court resulted in a scandal when a replacement magistrate was accused of leaking the decision to the mining company. Neither the local subsidiary, Industrias Infinito S.A., nor the parent firm, Infinito Gold Ltd., have said that arbitration will be sought, but such a case is expected. |
 |
| 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 page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 64 | |||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Costa Rica targets the young in effort to reduce national
intake of salt |
|
|
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and The New England Journal of Medicine news staff Costa Rican health officials have a plan to reduce the nation's intake of salt. The plan includes reducing the salt intake of school children. Two studies by the PanAmerican Health Organization have been conducted here. One study showed that most residents are unaware of the illnesses that can be caused by excessive salt. The average recommended intake of salt each day is 5 grams, about a spoonful. Average Costa Rican intake is from 9 to 12 grams, said the Ministerio de Salud. Salt has been linked to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease heart attacks and strokes. A balanced review of the relevant literature has been published in the March 27 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. Theodore A. Kotchen, professor of medicine and associate dean for clinical research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, is the lead author of the article. Kotchen cites correlations between blood pressure and salt intake in a number of different studies. Typically, the causation between lowering salt intake and |
decreased
levels of blood pressure occur in individuals
who have been diagnosed with hypertension. Although not as pronounced,
there is also a link between salt intake and blood pressure in
non-hypertensive individuals. Additionally, recent studies have
demonstrated that a reduced salt intake is associated with decreased
cardiovascular disease and decreased mortality. In national studies in Finland and Great Britain, instituting a national salt-reduction program led to decreased sodium intake. In Finland, the resulting decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressures corresponded to a 75 – 80 percent decrease in death due to stroke and coronary heart disease. Nevertheless, not all investigators concur with population-based recommendations to lower salt intake. “Salt is essential for life, but it has been difficult to distinguish salt need from salt preference,” said Kotchen. “Given the medical evidence, it seems that recommendations for reducing levels of salt consumption in the general population would be justifiable at this time.” However, in terms of safety, the lower limit of salt consumption has not been clearly identified. In certain patient groups, less rigorous targets for salt reduction may be appropriate, he said. |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 64 | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
 |
|
| India's high court supports generic drug makers there By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In a landmark judgment, India’s supreme court Monday rejected a patent for a cancer drug produced by a Swiss pharmaceutical company. The ruling is seen as a huge boost for availability of affordable drugs to treat deadly diseases, but a big blow to Western pharmaceutical companies fighting for more stringent patent protection in India, a hub for generic drugs. The seven-year legal battle between Novartis and Indian authorities drew to a close Monday when the court said that the cancer-fighting drug Glivec did not satisfy the test of novelty or inventiveness required by Indian law to justify a patent. Novartis sought a patent calling the updated version of Glivec a huge advance on the earlier drug. India, however, says Glivec is not a new drug but an amended version of a known medicine. Glivec is used to treat leukemia and is patented by many countries. A lawyer for the Cancer Aid Patients Association in New Delhi, Anand Grover, said India’s patent law is stricter than in many countries and only grants patents for genuine inventions. “It does not allow new forms of known substances to be patented unless they are significantly more efficacious,” Grover stated. The case is widely seen as a high-stakes battle between Western pharmaceutical companies that want a stricter patent regime in India and global health care activists fighting to safeguard the availability of affordable drugs produced by India’s thriving generic industry. Health care activists are jubilant with the supreme court ruling. Doctors Without Borders says it protects public health and will ensure that millions of people across the globe are not cut off from a supply of affordable drugs used to treat deadly diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and cancer. “India produces 80 percent of the generic medicines that are used in lower and middle income countries," said Jennifer Kohn, medical director at Doctors Without Borders in Geneva. "In order for us to be truly to be able to access important life saving medicines to treat our patients, we need access to these lower cost generic versions.” The price difference between generic and branded drugs is huge. A month’s dosage of branded Glivec, for example, costs about $2,500 compared to about $175 for generics in India. Drug companies are discouraged by the ruling. Novartis has expressed concerns about India’s “growing non-recognition of intellectual property." Ranjit Shahani heads the India operations of the Swiss company. “It is not very encouraging and shows that the ecosystem to encourage innovation does not exist in India, We have seen that investments in R and D centers since 2005, since we have had a patent law in place, all, every single one without exception has gone to China," Shahani explained. "So this gravitation of investment needs to come to India.” The court’s ruling is also a setback to other multinationals involved in patent disputes in India. India has not hesitated in allowing local production of expensive medicines. Last year, it gave the go-ahead to a local manufacturer to make a generic version of a cancer drug made by Bayer, citing the need to make medicines available to people at affordable costs. Multinational drug companies see the Indian law as a way of circumventing patent rights and argue inadequate patent protection will discourage innovators. April Fools goes commercial with corporations being funny By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The April Fools’ Day is dead. Or at least the gentle jester of the common folk has been converted into a corporate colossus controlled by global marketing executives. Companies around the world, from Google to BMW and Sony, have adopted the tradition of goading the gullible on April 1 to show their lighter sides and steal some free publicity. This frame grab image released by Google shows the Google Nose site, a parody site in celebration of April Fools' Day. Having already debuted its wearable Google Glass, the company on Monday showcased Google Nose, adding scents to its search results. Google, Inc., extended a practice dating back a decade or so in poking fun at its own ubiquity: it introduced a database of smells, pretended that it was shutting down its YouTube service, offered a treasure-hunting mode and old parchment style navigation on Google Maps, and unveiled Gmail Blue, a new version of its email service that is blue. In Japan, telecoms company KDDI offered a mobile phone that was actually a bed to save ever having to get up. And Sony Corp. went to the dogs, rather literally, introducing a TV that only displays pictures in dog-friendly colors and has a remote with paw-enabled buttons. A blog at Twitter, or rather twttr, said users who wanted to use vowels would have to pay $5 a month. “Trd th nw Twttr yt? Mr tm fr mr twts!” was one of the blog's more easily deciphered examples. Procter and Gamble Co's mouthwash brand Scope offered a new bacon flavor with taglines like “For breath that sizzles” and the appetizing “Indulge your meat tooth.” German carmaker BMW offered British readers excited at the impending arrival of a royal baby the P.R.A.M. (Postnatal Royal Auto Mobile) complete with picture of a sportily styled buggy and corgis at Windsor Castle. In the more traditional realm of news-based fun, Yahoo's French Web site led its front page with the announcement that, to save money, President Francois Hollande would move his offices from the Elysee Palace to one of Paris's grittier suburbs. Iceland Review Online reported that the country's central bank had solved the problem of how to value the local currency, the krona, which was badly damaged during the financial crisis: Replace it with Africa's CFA franc. In Britain, the Guardian offered its leftish, liberal readers augmented reality spectacles to let them see the world through the Guardian's eyes at all times. By staring at a restaurant, cinema or retail product the paper's critics' reviews would come into vision without all the hassle of reaching for the phone, wrote the Guardian's anagrammatic correspondent Lois P. Farlo. Nesta Vowles had a story in Britain's Daily Mail about owls being trained, Hogwarts-style, to deliver internal mail in an office. It carried photographs of what it called the Roy-owl Mail. The Sun mocked up a shot of Mick Jagger in a tent and said the millionaire Rolling Stones were practicing for the Glastonbury rock festival by spending Easter outdoors. But few papers may top the Times Daily of Florence, Alabama, which fronted Monday's edition with a picture of a local bridge coming under simultaneous attack by the Loch Ness Monster, a UFO and Godzilla. “Panic unnecessary: No deadly tomatoes reported near scene,” the paper reported. It took French post office, La Poste, to highlight the struggle for survival faced by traditional media in a new technological age. It issued a press release announcing that airborne drones were delivering newspapers to people's homes. Blurring the lines between mirth and marketing, Britain's Daily Mirror carried a story on the launch of glass-bottomed airliners offering special sightseeing trips over Loch Ness. It would, it said, be operated by Richard Branson's Virgin airline, which duly carried its own online advert for the new planes, along with publicity for its real new domestic service. With April Fools Day ever more an ad man's dream, Coca-Cola put an ironic, postmodern twist on the whole bluff-or-double-bluff atmosphere by advertising a relaunched vanilla version of the fizzy drink in Britain: The slogan? “It's back!" If the stress of sifting fact from fiction seemed too much, particularly for fellow journalists writing reports from the frontline of foolery once could have left it to Britain's Metro newspaper to do the legwork and make things easier. Its 2013 round-up of the best jokes from other media included a BBC story on NASA's Mars rover tweeting that bullying by Internet trolls was forcing it off Twitter, the Telegraph on rabbits bred with human ears and a supermarket press release offering to deliver food via a 3D printer. Most parents would tell kids to stay in schools to finish By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Americans wish they had studied more in college, view admissions tests as a necessary evil and would tell their children to finish their degrees rather than follow in the path of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who dropped out, a poll released on Monday showed. Nearly half of the adults questioned in the survey said they wished they had made more of an effort in college, while another 40 percent said they should have done more networking, which is more typically associated with the professional world. But only 4 percent wished they had had more sex and a mere 1 percent said they should have taken more drugs, according to the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll. When it came to the standardized aptitude tests taken by teenagers applying to colleges, 39 percent described it as a necessary evil. Smaller numbers said they were either a waste of time or a failed ideal. When offered a choice of a college movie they wished their school years had resembled, one quarter of the people questioned chose the Matt Damon-Ben Affleck Oscar winning film "Good Will Hunting," while "The Social Network" about Zuckerberg had 21 percent. 11 percent chose the fraternity house comedy "Animal House" or the comedy "Legally Blonde." Many parents said they did not want their children to emulate college dropouts like Zuckerberg. Forty-five percent said that, if their child was offered a dream job while in college their advice would be to stay in school, while 27 percent would withhold an opinion and 23 percent would tell them to take the job. And while the Greek social and housing system of fraternities and sororities is popular on some campuses, 86 percent said they would not care if they found out a friend had been a member. 3 percent said they would think less of the person, while 2 percent would think more highly. The telephone poll of 861 adults was conducted March 1 to 3 and had a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. New apps to help parents monitor kids Internet use By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
With smartphone and tablet users getting younger, new apps can help parents of 2- to 13-year-olds monitor and control their children's use of the Internet. A Pew Research Center study shows that more than one-third of American teenagers own a smartphone, up from more than a fifth in 2011. For nearly half of these users, the phone is their main way of getting online, making it difficult for parents to supervise their behavior. "When you have a smartphone, you basically have the Internet in your pocket wherever you are — away from your parents' eyes," said Anooj Shah, a partner in Toronto-based company Kytephone, which develops apps. Kytephone's namesake app allows parents to control the apps and sites their children use and the people they receive texts and calls from. The company Monday released Kytetime for 13- to 17-year-olds. The new app has many of the same features as Kytephone but does not include the ability to block calls. Earlier this month, Net Nanny, a monitoring software company, released a browser app for Apple Inc.'s iOS devices to filter Web content and block profanity. "Smartphones and tablets have added new technology, with new challenges — full Web browsing capability, unlimited texting, access to hundreds of thousands of good, bad and malicious apps," said Russ Warner, chief executive officer of the Salt Lake City-based company. The Android version of Net Nanny, which sells for $12.99, can control which apps a child uses. The app is also available for iOS devices, with fewer applications, for $4.99. The company is also introducing Net Nanny Social, a subscription, Web-based tool to help parents monitor problems such as cyberbullying, sexual predators and identity theft on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The service costs $19.99 per year. For parents of 2- to 8-year-olds, Boston-based Playrific has a free app with a locked browser that allows only content suitable for children, including educational videos, interactive games and books. The app, available for Android, iPad and on the Web, curates content based on a child's interests, which it learns over time. "Kids feel the limitless sense of what's on the Internet," said Playrific CEO Beth Marcus, "but the parents know that it's not really limitless."  Voice of America
photo
Ian Caldwell balances a
colleague.to add more depth to acts By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
By day, Joe Ramas is an aerospace engineer. "I do mostly magnetic design and integration of test characterization of satellites." At night, though, he’s a strong man at the circus gym. "I hold people on top of me, either in a handstand, or sometimes they stand on my shoulders," Ramas said. "Sometimes there are multiple people standing on me." When several people are standing on him, Ramas feels his knowledge of physics helps him balance. Acrobat and physicist, Ian Caldwell, said that’s just one example of how science adds wonder to circus acts. "Circus is gorgeous, circus is beautiful, in its own right," Caldwell said. "But then to look at it through the eyes of a scientist, it adds more depth." Right after he graduated from high school, Caldwell traveled the world as a circus juggler and acrobat. Over time, though, he found that wasn’t enough for him. "I missed all the mental activity," he said. "Mental gymnastics, if you will." He returned to Boulder, where studying physics provided those mental gymnastics, and practicing acrobatics at the local gym kept him in shape. He joined a community of circus fans who spent their days in scientific pursuits, and performed circus acts for local community groups. Cassie Drew, a reading teacher and circus acrobat, gave the group a special purpose when she suggested they put on a show to raise money for her school. Caldwell suggested that science could be the theme. "I love the circus arts," Caldwell said. "I love education, I love science, and I’m like 'Yeah, I’m in. Of course. 100 percent.'" They named their project, the Visindi Circus. Visindi is the Icelandic word for “science.” They believed its exotic sound hints at the magic of both science, and the circus. Ramas, the aerospace engineer and strong man, designed an act that demonstrates the concept of angular momentum. In other words, why it’s hard to balance on a bicycle that’s standing still, while it’s easy to ride a moving one. For the Visindi Circus, Ramas uses just a bicycle wheel. "We spin it very quickly, and we hang it on a big metal circle ring called a lyra, which is a circus apparatus," Ramas said. "And the way in which it hangs is pretty magical. Because it doesn’t swing or move the way that anyone would expect." The performers also developed acts that showed the power of a puff of air by shooting smoke rings out of a garbage can and how you can swing a bucket of water over your head, without spilling a drop, because of centrifugal force. At Visindi Circus day for Ms. Drew’s school, the curtains on the auditorium stage swept open and out danced clowns, and acrobats in colorful costumes. They juggled. They pranced on circus stilts. The sparkling, spinning bicycle wheel made the kids gasp. And, when the acrobats explained how gravity helps them stand on the strong man’s shoulders or do backflips, some children leaned way forward in their chairs, as if to remind themselves of gravity’s mysterious pull. Afterwards, many of the children vowed to join a circus someday. Others had a different dream. "I am a scientist. I know about gravitational forces, and gases and liquids," said third grader Caleb, who enjoyed watching a circus that celebrates science. "It’s adding fun to science." Members of the Visindi Circus are creating lesson plans so that other schools can do as they’ve done, blending circus and science into a joyful, and educational, mix. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 64 | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
 |
|
Death
penalty to be sought in Colorado movie case By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Prosecutors in the U.S. state of Colorado say they will seek the death penalty against the man accused of killing 12 people and wounding dozens more in a shooting rampage at a movie theater in 2012. The prosecution's announcement at a Monday court hearing in Centennial, Colorado prompted the judge to say the case against accused gunman James Holmes likely will drag on for years. Prosecutor George Brauchler said he decided to pursue the death penalty against Holmes after taking into account the wishes of 800 victims and family members who spoke to his team. There was no visible reaction from the suspect as he sat in the court. Judge William Sylvester responded by postponing the start of the trial until February of next year to give the defense more time to prepare. Prosecutors rejected a defense offer last week, under which Holmes would have pleaded guilty in return for avoiding execution and spending life in prison without parole. They accused the defense of trying to generate popular support for a plea deal by negotiating in public rather in private. Prosecutors accuse Holmes of methodically planning the July 20 shooting and using several weapons to fire on cinema goers at the late-night screening of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises." Defense attorneys are expected to argue he is not guilty due to insanity. Shooting survivor Marcus Weaver, who was at the court on Monday, expressed concern about the prospect of a lengthy trial. "It is anguishing, it is frustrating as a victim," said Weaver. "You are talking about a whole calendar year before you get to a trial that we already know the outcome [of]." Bryan Beard, whose close friend Alex Sullivan was killed in the shooting, told reporters he supports pursuing the maximum punishment against Holmes. "Thumbs up for the death penalty, thumbs up," said Beard. "I do not know how much pain my friend went through. Painful or not, I just want him dead. I want to be in the room when he is dead." The rampage has re-ignited a long running public debate in the United States about how to deal with gun violence and people with mental health problems |
| Costa Rican News |
AMCostaRicaArchives.com |
Retire NOW in Costa Rica |
CostaRicaReport.com |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
