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José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 4, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 67
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 Casa Presidencial
photo
President Laura Chinchilla uses
a digital signature to issue her decree. President
promotes use
of digital certifications By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Laura Chinchilla issued a decree Thursday to require all public agencies to accept and honor digital signatures. The digital signature has been available for four years, but the use was not very broad. Among the heavy users are lawyers and notaries who can file paperwork from afar as well as vendors doing business with state agencies. The president noted that the framework for digital signatures exists and has been tested. The digital signature isn't really a signature. It is an encoded card, similar to a credit card, that provides identification on documents that are in a computer. Under terms of the decree, state agencies should increase their use of the digital signatures and make sure they have devices to accept them. Those who wish to obtain a digital signature have to present themselves at an outlet of the Sistema Nacional de Certificación Digital. The government reported Thursday that there are 60,000 digital signatures in existence and that 40 state institutions have a total of 65 services for citizens that can use the system.  Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud
photo
Carlos
Blanco Fadol demonstrates one of his instruments.
Musical
instruments of slaves
come alive at Antigua Aduana By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Musical instruments do not have to be elaborate, and those who came to the Americas as slaves pretty much had to create their own, based on what they had seen and used in their native Africa. Carlos Blanco Fadol is a man who has traveled the world and assembled one of the largest collection of such instruments. Some 35 of them will be on display at the Antigua Aduana until April 13. The display is part of the Festival de las Artes. A special program is planned for today at 5 p.m. The Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud said that the public is invited to play the instruments as part of a large orchestra. A summary says that no musical experience is needed and that some of the instruments can be learned in a few minutes. Basically they come in four forms. There is the instrument that creates sound by its own vibrations. There are instruments with strings that are plucked. Others are wind instruments and others generate sound by the movement of some piece that is under tension, such as a drum. Blanco has one original that is about 400 years old, the ministry said. The Antigua Aduana is on Calle 23 in northeast San José.  Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud
photo
These are similiar to what
vendors sell today downtown.being presented today By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The economics ministry is presenting its AhorreMás application for smart phones that keeps shoppers in touch with prices. The application is a product of Gobierno Digital and the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio. Young computer experts in San Carlos created the application, the ministry said. The name means "Save More."
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 4, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 67 | |
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| Tourism and hotel chambers go to court to fight against dry
law |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national tourism chamber and the chamber of hotels have challenged the alcohol dry law and have asked a court to prevent municipal restrictions on sale and consumption for Sunday, election day, and three days during Semana Santa, Holy Week. The chambers have asked all 81 of the country's municipalities to not prohibit the sale of alcohol, but some have taken steps to do so. The complex legal argument was sent to the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo, which adjudicates conflicts in the law. In one argument, the Cámara Nacional de Turismo and the Cámara Costarricense de Hoteles say that national law that covers municipalities says nothing about giving them the right to prevent a legal activity. |
The two chambers
also argue that there are inconsistencies between a new law and an
existing one. In the past, the prohibitions against alcohol sales were
nationwide. The Fuerza Pública would enforce it by sealing the
doors of drinking establishments, sealing the cabinets and coolers
where alcohol was kept at restaurants and by covering the alcohol
displays in supermarkets with black plastic. The new law gave this power to the municipalities, and each makes an individual decision with its canton council. The chambers said that they hoped the tribunal takes action to delay the prohibitions quickly. Citing the impact on tourism, the Municipalidad de Nicoya said Thursday that it would not have a dry law for three days during Semana Santa there. San José already has said it would not have a dry law on election day. |
| Dates set for Expotur, the industry's principal tourism
marketplace |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The 30th annual edition of Expotur will be May 14 through 18 at the Hotel Wyndham San José Herradura convention center west of the downtown. This is the big tourism marketplace put on by the Asociación Costarricense de Profesionales en Turismo. The first three days are reserved for the trade and foreign buyers. But the public is being invited for May 17 and 18, a Saturday and Sunday. Tourism operators set up elaborate displays and then conduct |
negotiations with
wholesale buyers of the various products being offered. The evenings
are well known for their parties. Adjacent countries usually take
advantage of the expo to present their products. This year the association of tourism professionals said that the event will be carbon neutral. All the gas created by activities at the expo will be measured and compensated. The association listed air and ground transport, electricity and air conditioners as items that produce greenhouse gases. Many tourism operators here adjust their schedule so they can attend the event. |
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Development is
closing in and creating another Central park
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| Could the Earth be suffering
from COPD? It would not surprise me since so many of us humans
are suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, why not the
earth, too? There is another high-rise building going up in the vicinity of Sabana Park on Rohmoser Boulevard close to the new national stadium. Riding by it the other day, the car I was in filled with the dust rising from the construction work. I recalled (as I was coughing), a dream I had many years ago when I was still at the International House in San Jose, California. In the dream I was in my car just entering the freeway when I heard a great gasping sound. It sounded like a death rattle. I stopped the car and got out. I realized the sound was coming from under the concrete of the freeway. There was one small crack. I began yelling, “The earth can’t breathe! The Earth can’t breathe!” Suddenly there appeared a half dozen people armed with pick axes, and we began to crack away at the cement. After a bit I heard a great inhalation and then what seemed a sigh of relief. After some high fives, the other people disappeared, and I woke up. Some years ago the people in government here decided they were going to turn Sabana Park into a Central Park South, a little cousin to New York City’s Central Park. As a result, this lovely bit of green space and trees began being surrounded by high-rise condominiums on three sides. This latest building is right across the street from the relatively new big McDonald's, kitty corner from the also relatively new national stadium. I hear it is going to be a hotel with a shopping mall on the ground floor. That will complement the strip mall on the ground floor of the 12-floor condominium building just three blocks to the east, also on the north side and the other strip mall a few steps west of McDonald's, across the street from this new high rise. Just two blocks north of my puny five-story apartment building, there is another new high rise of condos waiting for occupants -- for a few months now. The earth’s breathing space has been shrinking around the park, so much so I am wondering if what is left of the park is enough green space and trees to do the job of getting oxygen to the earth. This is |
just in my little part of the city. I can’t imagine what it is like in cities in other more developed countries. Costa Rica, right now, is a cozy, but safe and relatively sanguine spot in this world. To the south, in Chile and Panamá, there are temblors and earthquakes. I just learned from Ana, my half-day empleada that the difference between a terremoto and a temblor is similar to an earthquake and tremor. The one on Wednesday off the coast of Panamá was a sideways temblor by the time it reached the Central Valley. It lasted over 20 seconds and made me a little seasick but nothing fell or broke. Far to the north are terrible storms of rain and snow, or else droughts. To the east of us the sands of the Sahara Desert are being coughed up and seem to be looking for a better place to be and some have already reached England causing more lung and breathing problems on its journey. It is getting more and more difficult to predict the weather. In some places the world has a fever, in others it is sneezing and freezing. I wonder how much longer we who live in Costa Rica can call it a paradise when we think in terms of weather and climate. From what I hear, the land on the Pacific Coast (part of the ring of fire) is being covered with gorgeous luxurious large hotels with pools and walkways or surrounded by more condos. I dare not ask about where they will get their water or how they will manage their waste. I no longer see many backpackers downtown. Everything is going upscale. I wonder how long it will be before we have to get out our pick axes. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 4, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 67 | |||||
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Modified tomato
compared with new, powerful bichemical technique
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By
the Crop Science Society of America news staff
Does genetic manipulation cause unintended changes in food quality and composition? Are genetically modified foods less nutritious than their non-modified counterparts, for example, or different in unknown ways? Despite extensive cultivation and testing of genetically modified foods, those questions still linger in the minds of many consumers. Now a new study in the March 2014 issue of The Plant Genome demonstrates a potentially more powerful approach to answering them. In the research led by Owen Hoekenga, a Cornell University adjunct assistant professor, scientists used a water-alcohol solvent to extract roughly 1,000 biochemicals, or metabolites, from the fruit of tomatoes they’d genetically engineered to delay fruit ripening. They then compared this metabolic profile from the modified fruit to the profile of its non-modified parent variety. Many metabolites, including pigments, amino acids, sugars, and various health-promoting compounds, are known to contribute to fruit quality and nutrition. And extracting and analyzing hundreds of them at once gives researchers a snapshot of the fruit’s physiology, known as the metabolome, which can be compared against others. In this way, metabolomic analysis is very similar to genomics, where geneticists compare DNA sequence data to understand how genetically divergent different organisms are. When Hoekenga and his colleagues performed their analysis, they did in fact uncover metabolic differences in the modified fruit relative to its parent, although these changes were mostly seen in biochemicals related to fruit ripening, Hoekenga says. “So that’s part of an intended effect.” But when the scientists compared the metabolome of the genetically modified tomato with those of a wide assortment of garden, heirloom, and other non-modified tomatoes, they found no significant differences overall. In other words, although the modified tomato was distinct from its parent, its metabolic profile still fell within the normal range of biochemical diversity exhibited by the larger group of varieties. The finding suggests little or no accidental biochemical change due to genetic modification in this case, as well as a useful way to address consumer concerns about unintended effects in general, Hoekenga says. He explains that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration already requires developers of genetically modified crops to compare a handful of key nutritional compounds in modified varieties relative to their non- modified parents. Part of biotechnology risk assessment, the process is designed to catch instances where genetic manipulation may have affected nutritional quality, for example. The approach of Hoekenga’s team, in contrast, doesn’t decide ahead of time which metabolites are important to measure, suggesting it could be more likely to snare a truly unexpected impact. “We throw a net in the water and try to get as many fish as we can,” Hoekenga says. Moreover, comparing a modified variety to diverse cultivars can |
 A.M. Costa Rica file photo
What one is the genetically
modified tomato?help both scientists and consumers
put into context any biochemical changes that are observed. “We accept
that there isn’t just one kind of tomato at the farmer’s market. We
look for diverse food experiences,” Hoekenga says. “So we think that
establishing the range of acceptable metabolic variability can be
useful for examining GM varieties.”
At the same time, this brand of non-targeted metabolomics is expensive, and the chemistry methods it employs aren’t robust enough yet to be used in official safety assessments, Hoekenga acknowledges. Most importantly, making statistical comparisons of metabolic fingerprints is no easy task. In their study, Hoekenga’s group adapted a style of statistics, called network analysis, which was developed to compare overall patterns of gene expression, or transcription, in mice. The reason for this choice, he explains, is that just like gene transcripts, metabolites that participate in the same biochemical pathways or fall under the same regulatory control are expected to cluster together. And as the researchers hypothesized, network analysis allowed them to detect metabolic clusters in tomato and compare those patterns across different varieties. But the techniques don’t apply only to tomato. “The method can be applied to any plant or crop,” Hoekenga says. “We’ve made something fundamentally useful that anyone can use and improve on.” His group has already characterized the corn metabolome, and he hopes plant breeders will begin to see the utility of metabolomics, as well. When crossing parent plants, for example, breeders often like to track the genes underlying their trait of interest, such as resistance to a pathogen. That’s because pinpointing offspring that carry the right genes is often faster and easier than examining plants for the trait itself. But sometimes, so many genes contribute to a single trait that figuring out which genes are involved in the first place becomes onerous. This is where Hoekenga thinks metabolomics and network analysis might one day help. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 4, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 67 | |||||
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| Social network for Cubans was a secret U.S. project By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. government is coming under scrutiny for funding a secretive social network designed to gather information on Cuban democracy advocates and help organize social protests. According to documents obtained by the Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development – or USAID – allegedly funneled money through a series of private corporations to fund the social network called ZunZuneo. USAID and the White House say the program was a legal development project and not a covert operation. Washington has often cited the use of social media like Twitter in helping democracy activists living in repressive regimes to organize protests. For example, while secretary of State, Hillary Clinton praised the American inventions Twitter and Facebook for helping to connect people around democracy and human rights and freedom in places like Egypt and Tunisia. Now, add to that list of American inventions, the now-defunct social network ZunZuneo, slang for the tweeting sound of a Cuban hummingbird. As reported by the Associated Press, which says it obtained more than 1,000 pages of documents related to its operation, ZunZuneo was a Twitter-like service targeted specifically at Cubans with smart-phones. By sending short text messages from a network of overseas web servers with no connection to the U.S. government, ZunZuneo was designed to evade Havana’s Internet censorship while helping organize smart mobs and other social protests. According to one USAID document obtained by the AP, it was hoped ZunZuneo could renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society in Cuba. The AP says the documents detail how USAID intended to build the Cuban network by initially sending out non-controversial content, such as sports and weather news, only later to introduce political content designed to rally opposition to the Communist rule of Raúl and Fidel Castro. However, the network never proved successful enough to send any such texts. Several private corporations, some of them with no knowledge of USAID’s involvement, and a bank in the Cayman Islands were contracted to build ZunZuneo. One of those contractors, Creative Associates International of Washington, D.C., said it could not comment on ZunZuneo without the permission of USAID. In an emailed statement, USAID spokesman Matt Herrick said “USAID is proud of its work in Cuba to provide basic humanitarian assistance, promote human rights and universal freedoms, and to help information flow more freely to the Cuban people." "All of our work in Cuba, including this project, was reviewed in detail in 2013 by the Government Accountability Office and found to be consistent with U.S. law and appropriate under oversight controls,” the statement said. Speaking Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that ZunZuneo was a development program, and not a covert intelligence operation. Its connection to the U.S. government were kept discreet, he said, for the protection of its Cuban subscribers: “This was an effort, one of a variety of efforts that the United States engages in, as part of its development mission, to promote the flow of free information, to promote the engagement by citizens of countries, especially societies that are non-permissive, because we believe that is part of the essential right of every individual on Earth,” Carney said. The White House and USAID said the program was lawful and fully debated by Congress. However some members of USAID’s oversight committees disagree. U.S. Sen. Pat Leahy, chairman of USAID’s appropriations subcommittee, told the AP “On the face of it, there are several aspects about this that are troubling.” That includes, he says, the thousands of unsuspecting Cubans who subscribed and texted on ZunZuneo without ever knowing it was a project run by the U.S. government. One of those subscribers was Ernesto Guerra Valdes, a journalism student living in Havana. Valdes told the AP he liked using ZunZuneo and at one point had a thousand other followers on the service until it suddenly stopped operation. He said he and his friends had no idea about who was actually behind it, until now. “If tomorrow we discover that ZunZuneo was part of USAID or some other similar project, my first reaction would be ‘Damn!’" he said. "I was on the service for so long and never realized what it really was.” At its peak, ZunZuneo had about 40,000 subscribers, until it suddenly ceased operations in 2012. Traces of the service have largely been erased from the web. Ownership of the Web site zunzuneo.com has been taken over by domain proxy holding firm, leaving the site devoid of content. There is a Facebook fan page for ZunZuneo, but with only 300-some followers and no new posts since May of 2012, it’s largely inert. Only a few archived screen-grabs of the operating site exist, mostly with instructions in Spanish of how to subscribe and send messages to friends. Fort Hood gunman figures in study of mental health By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Military investigators are looking closely at the medical record of Ivan Lopez, the gunman who killed three people and wounded 16 others before taking his life at Fort Hood, Texas, Wednesday. Indications that Lopez had mental problems have raised questions about how much mental health help the U.S. military is providing for service members who need it. As the investigation into this week's shooting at Fort Hood continues, officials are saying little about the killer, an Army specialist, and have provided little information about what may have been his motive. Other soldiers and family members on the sprawling Army base in central Texas who were acquainted with Lopez described him as friendly and normal in appearance. Lt. Gen. Mark Milley told reporters Thursday that there is evidence of a history of mental problems that may have contributed to his sudden rampage. "We have very strong evidence that he had a medical history that indicates an unstable psychiatric or psychological condition," said Milley. Milley said there is evidence that the shooting spree may have been triggered by an argument he had with someone on the base earlier that day. Critics of the U.S. military's mental health programs say this may have been a case of a patient who was not given all the help he needed. Authorities say Lopez had been treated for mental problems, but had not been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition sometimes suffered by soldiers who have been in combat. Lopez served in Iraq for four months, but was not in combat. He had been taking a number of prescribed medications, including Ambien, a drug used to induce sleep. It has been associated with numerous side effects, including aggressive behavior. Mental health experts say such reactions are rare and that assessing risk of violence is a tricky task. John Oldham, chief of staff at the Menninger Clinic in Houston and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, said very few mental patients turn violent. "It is a very small minority of people with psychiatric or brain disorders where there is this risk of violence," said Oldham. Oldham said psychiatrists look for a number of risk factors when evaluating patients, but absent some very clear signs, they cannot always determine who might turn violent. "We know things that are risk factors: when it runs in the family, when there has been in fact a severe depression, when there has been a previous suicide attempt; there are lots of things on that list, but it does not mean that it is easy to tell if the person you are individually talking to is going to be at risk for either violence or self-harm," said Oldham. Oldham said the bigger problem for the military is that half of the soldiers who need help for conditions like depression, anxiety or mood shifts do not seek help. Many soldiers say they believe having any kind of mental treatment could hurt their careers. Oldham said both in the military and in civilian life, people with such problems are stigmatized and that each time there is a violent incident like the Fort Hood shooting, it becomes worse. "What does not get noticed is the thousands and thousands and many more of people who are perfectly safe and benefiting from treatment. We need people with problems to walk through the door and get help. We do not need them to be afraid to," he said. As the investigation at Fort Hood proceeds and more information comes out concerning Ivan Lopez and his mental problems, there is bound to be more debate over what military officials should be doing to make sure that those in their ranks who need help will have it available and not be afraid to take it. Senate panel votes to release report on secret interrogations By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Senate Intelligence Committee has voted to release parts of a secret report criticizing the CIA's methods of interrogating terror suspects after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington. The committee's 6,200-page report says waterboarding and other interrogation techniques used during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush were unnecessarily cruel and yielded little valuable intelligence. Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein says she hopes a 480-page summary of the report should be declassified within 30 days. "And the results, I think, were shocking. The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do," said Sen. Feinstein. The committee's vote was 11-to-3, with some minority Republicans voting with Democrats in favor of releasing the summary. The panel's top Republican, Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, said it's time for the country to move on. "I was never in favor of this report being done. I think it was a waste of time. We had already had a report done by the Armed Services Committee on this issue, and this is a chapter in our past that should have already been closed," said Chambliss. Sen. Feinstein says the report also points to major problems with the CIA's management of its interrogation program and its interaction with the White House and Congress. "This is also deeply troubling, and shows why oversight of intelligence agencies in a democratic nation is so important," she said. The Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA have been locked in a war of words about the report. Senators say the agency spied on their investigators and withheld files. The CIA says Senate staffers had illegal access to files, and that the report lacks interviews from top agency officials. The release of the summary could lead to less transparency in the U.S. intelligence community, not more, according to a human rights professor, Jeffrey Bachman, at Washington's American University. He says officials will seek to avoid embarrassment. "I think it will raise questions of clear violations of the international human rights law, and potentially the laws of war, and so I think this will actually cause greater restraint and constraint, not with, necessarily, practices, but with information in the future," said Bachman. President Obama has said he supports declassifying the summary. Officials say he will instruct the intelligence community to cooperate fully. U.S. minorities considered losing economic ground By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new report has concluded that blacks and Latinos in the U.S. are losing economic ground compared to whites. The National Urban League said Thursday in its annual report called "One Nation Underemployed" that American blacks and Latinos are both recording higher unemployment and accumulating less wealth than whites. It said that under-employment for the two racial minorities is pronounced. The report said that more than 20 percent of blacks and 18 percent of Latinos are jobless or working part-time when they want a full-time job compared to just under 12 percent of white workers. While the U.S. economy has steadily but unevenly advanced since the depths of the country's recession in 2009, the jobless rate was still 6.7 percent in February. But black unemployment was 12 percent compared to 5.8 percent for whites. The National Urban League's president, former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, said there is a great divide in the U.S. between those who have homes, secure jobs and savings accounts and those who have little or no economic security. He said major U.S. corporations have recovered from the recession to break earnings and stock market records. Meanwhile, he said many Americans have been left with a host of economic woes, including job losses, home foreclosures, credit denials and cuts in government aid for education. U.S. President Barack Obama says there is a dangerous and growing inequality in the country. He has called for increasing the U.S. minimum wage to $10.10 an hour for low-income workers, but conservative lawmakers have so far rebuffed his efforts, saying employers would cut jobs if forced to pay the higher wages. Some corporations reach out for unemployed U.S. vets By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Despite an improving economy, U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still having difficulty finding jobs, and their unemployment rate of just under 10 percent is considerably higher than the national average. But a number of companies are committed to making things better. The band played, attendees honored their country, and then they went about the business of finding jobs. The event, at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, brought together some 1,000 veterans looking for their break back into civilian life. Companies from all sectors, private and public, were there. Some, like Toyota, have made real commitments, says company representative, Don Evan. "In three years, and 621 or 622 job fairs, we’ve hired 22,000 young men and women from our armed forces," he said. "I think if you look at today’s veterans they’ve got outstanding skills. They’re trainable, they’re smart. They’ve had leadership, they’ve had more responsibility at an earlier age than civilian counterparts. What they lack is the ability to market themselves." Part of the marketing process is learning how to sell one’s skills. A team of professionals worked with the vets to put those skills down on paper so they would be understandable to a prospective employer. The veterans look at these opportunities with clear focus. "I've seen a lot of great companies here today. They are hiring for a lot of great positions that I'm qualified for and hopefully I'll be able to get into one of these good positions with one of these good companies," said one veteran job-seeker. "They want to help us veterans. A lot of us are coming out with PTSD, with scars, and injured…their hand is out to us more than it was a few years ago, I think," said another veteran using initials for post traumatic stress disorder. Dakota Meyer, a Medal of Honor recipient, is the unofficial spokesman for vets searching for civilian work. He talked about the burden placed on his fellow servicemen and women, especially those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. “It was the longest war ever fought. It was fought by such a small percentage of our population, less than 0.45 percent of our nation carried the burden of this war over the past 12-13 years," he said. "Are they ready? Of course. They are ready for anything. They’re ready to go to war tomorrow, so they’re ready to go to any civilian workplace." More veterans are finding work these days, mainly because the American economy is growing after years of recession. Veteran leaders, such as Meyer, see this development as proof that a tougher focus on veteran unemployment by the White House, Congress, communities, labor unions and business is paying off. Some Republican kingmakers have their eye on Jeb Bush By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Could it happen again? A third Bush headed for the White House come 2016? Some Republican establishment figures would like to think so. They have taken a quick look at the early crop of likely Republican presidential contenders two years from now and are underwhelmed. The Bush in question is the former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, brother of former President George W. Bush and son of the 41st president, George H.W. Bush. Jeb Bush was a popular two-term governor who had success in winning the votes of centrist Democrats and Hispanic-Americans, something mainstream Republican leaders would love to replicate with their White House nominee in 2016. There are plenty of questions about this scenario. Does Jeb Bush really want to run for president in 2016? Not long ago Bush said he would be interested in running if he could do it joyfully, which for most people would seem a non-starter right out of the box. Bush says he will make a decision by late this year or early next. Another question is whether Americans are ready to elect another Bush as president. The negative hangover from the George W. Bush presidency lasted quite a while. His public approval ratings have only recently started to climb and even some Republicans worry that the country just isn’t interested in electing another Bush so soon after his brother left office. Bush has been out of elective politics for the past several years. Since his last campaign, the Tea Party movement has emerged as a major factor in Republican Party politics and has developed a habit of targeting establishment Republicans seen as too compromising and not sufficiently conservative. For some of the rabid Tea Party loyalists, Jeb Bush might fit in that category and could become a juicy target if he runs in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Any number of new Republican faces could challenge Bush in the primaries about his conservative values including Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas. But Bush could have a big advantage if he runs in 2016 by appealing to Republicans looking for a presidential winner, especially if Democrats nominate former secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Among those interested in a Bush candidacy is casino magnate and big-time campaign donor Sheldon Adelson. Adelson recently invited Bush and several other possible Republican White House contenders to Las Vegas to address a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Adelson met privately with Bush and is said to be interested in backing a winner in 2016 after he backed Newt Gingrich in his losing battle against Mitt Romney in 2012. The Associated Press reports Adelson has a net worth estimated at $40 billion and he donated more than $90 million to political groups during the 2012 election cycle. Others who attended the Las Vegas event included New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. All of them are considered more in the mainstream category of potential Republican candidates and could benefit if Jeb Bush decides not to run two years from now. What’s becoming clear, both from the early rumblings in the 2016 presidential race and recent events in Congress, is that mainstream Republicans are trying to reclaim a lead role in shaping the party’s future by pushing for more electable candidates, whether in key Senate races for this year’s midterm elections or in the 2016 presidential sweepstakes. How effective mainstream Republicans are in reasserting themselves over the Tea Party factions could determine how successful Republicans will be in both the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.  University
of Chicago photo
The
3,500-year-old stela
Translated Egyptian carving may alter the chronology By
the University of Chicago news service
An inscription on a 3,500-year-old stone block from Egypt may be one of the world’s oldest weather reports and could provide new evidence about the chronology of events in the ancient Middle East. A new translation of a 40-line inscription on the 6-foot-tall calcite block called the Tempest Stela describes rain, darkness and “the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses.” Two scholars at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute believe the unusual weather patterns described on the slab were the result of a massive volcano explosion at Thera, the present-day island of Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea. Because volcano eruptions can have a widespread impact on weather, the Thera explosion likely would have caused significant disruptions in Egypt. The new translation suggests the Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose ruled at a time closer to the Thera eruption than previously thought, a finding that could change scholars’ understanding of a critical juncture in human history as Bronze Age empires realigned. The research from the Oriental Institute’s Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner appears in the spring issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. Ahmose was the first pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. His rule marked the beginning of the New Kingdom, a time when Egypt’s power reached its height. The block was found in pieces in Thebes, modern Luxor, where Ahmose ruled. If the stela does describe the aftermath of the Thera catastrophe, the correct dating of the stela itself and Ahmose’s reign, currently thought to be about 1550 B.C., could actually be 30 to 50 years earlier. “This is important to scholars of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean, generally because the chronology that archaeologists use is based on the lists of Egyptian pharaohs, and this new information could adjust those dates,” said Ms. Moeller, assistant professor of Egyptian archaeology at the Oriental Institute, who specializes in research on ancient urbanism and chronology. In 2006, radiocarbon testing of an olive tree buried under volcanic residue placed the date of the Thera eruption at 1621 to 1605 B.C. Until now, the archeological evidence for the date of the Thera eruption seemed at odds with the radiocarbon dating, explained Oriental Institute postdoctoral scholar Felix Hoeflmayer, who has studied the chronological implications related to the eruption. However, if the date of Ahmose’s reign is earlier than previously believed, the resulting shift in chronology might solve the whole problem, Hoeflmayer said. The revised dating of Ahmose’s reign could mean the dates of other events in the ancient Near East fit together more logically, scholars said. For example, it realigns the dates of important events such as the fall of the power of the Canaanites and the collapse of the Babylonian Empire, said David Schloen, associate professor in the Oriental Institute and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations on ancient cultures in the Middle East. “This new information would provide a better understanding of the role of the environment in the development and destruction of empires in the ancient Middle East,” he said. For example, the new chronology helps to explain how Ahmose rose to power and supplanted the Canaanite rulers of Egypt, the Hyksos, according to Schloen. The Thera eruption and resulting tsunami would have destroyed the Hyksos’ ports and significantly weakened their sea power. In addition, the disruption to trade and agriculture caused by the eruption would have undermined the power of the Babylonian Empire and could explain why the Babylonians were unable to fend off an invasion of the Hittites, another ancient culture that flourished in what is now Turkey. Some researchers consider the text on the Tempest Stela to be a metaphorical document that described the impact of the Hyksos invasion. However, Ritner’s translation shows that the text was more likely a description of weather events consistent with the disruption caused by the massive Thera explosion. Ritner said the text reports that Ahmose witnessed the disaster. The description of events in the stela text is frightening. The stela’s text describes the “sky being in storm” with “a tempest of rain” for a period of days. The passages also describe bodies floating down the Nile like “skiffs of papyrus.” Importantly, the text refers to events affecting both the delta region and the area of Egypt further south along the Nile. “This was clearly a major storm, and different from the kinds of heavy rains that Egypt periodically receives,” Ritner said. In addition to the Tempest Stela, a text known as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus from the reign of Ahmose also makes a special point of mentioning thunder and rain, “which is further proof that the scholars under Ahmose paid close and particular attention to matters of weather,” Ritner said. Marina Baldi, a scientist in climatology and meteorology at the Institute of Biometeorology of the National Research Council in Italy, has analyzed the information on the stela along with her colleagues and compared it to known weather patterns in Egypt. A dominant weather pattern in the area is a system called the Red Sea Trough, which brings hot, dry air to the area from East Africa. When disrupted, that system can bring severe weather, heavy precipitation and flash flooding, similar to what is reported on the Tempest Stela. “A modification in the atmospheric circulation after the eruption could have driven a change in the precipitation regime of the region. Therefore the episode in the Tempest Stela could be a consequence of these climatological changes,” Ms. Baldi explained. Other work is underway to get a clearer idea of accurate dating around the time of Ahmose, who ruled after the Second Intermediate period when the Hyksos people seized power in Egypt. That work also has pushed back the dates of his reign closer to the explosion on Thera, Moeller explained. |
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Dengue danger
emphasized by U.N. and the Red Cross By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United Nations and international agencies are warning more than half the world’s population is at risk from the growing threat of vector borne diseases. In advance of World Health Day, the agencies are urging nations to act to contain these often fatal, debilitating diseases. One bite of a mosquito, a sandfly, a blackfly or a tick can be more than annoying. It can be fatal. Every year, the World Health Organization reports, more than one billion people are infected and more than one million die from vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, lyme disease, and yellow fever. World Health is focusing on the threat posed by dengue, which it says is the most rapidly spreading vector-borne disease in the world. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is also campaigning to get governments to address what it calls a silent disaster. Red Cross Senior Emergency Health Officer Amanda McClelland said dengue is a neglected disease, which mainly affects the poorest, most vulnerable members of society. “We have seen the expansion of dengue from 15,000 cases in 1960 to over 380-, 390-million possible cases right now... Families that are already close to the poverty line, families that are already affected by heavy disease burdens cannot afford to get this disease. And, they cannot afford for multiple people in their families to get this disease. And this is why the Red Cross is focusing specifically on dengue for the next 12 months and beyond,” said McClelland. The World Health Organization says during the past 50 years, the disease has spread to more than 100 countries, putting more than 2.5 billion people at risk. About 75 percent of those at risk are found in the Asia-Pacific region. More ships joining search for that Malaysian aircraft By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An expanded team of surveillance planes and ships is scanning a vast and remote section of the southern Indian Ocean for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center, which is leading the search, said up to 10 military planes, four civil jets and nine ships are involved in the multinational effort today. No trace of the plane has been found, nearly four weeks after it vanished. Officials continue to try to narrow the search area, which currently stands at a staggeringly large 217,000 square kilometers. Authorities are desperately trying to locate the crash site before batteries run out on the plane's flight data recorder, preventing it from transmitting a radio signal. The batteries usually last about 30 days. Thursday, an Australian ship detected what was initially thought to be a possible signal from the so-called black box. But it was later discounted as a false alert, possibly from a sea animal or interference from shipping noise. The international search team said it remains committed to finding the wreckage, but officials have in recent days conceded that the mystery may never be completely solved. The jetliner vanished without any distress calls on March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Officials have refused to rule out any possibilities, including hijacking, sabotage, or a mechanical malfunction. Malaysian officials have ruled out foul play from any of the plane's 239 passengers, but continue to investigate the pilots and crew for possible wrongdoing. |
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| From Page 7: Students get chance to learn hotel trade By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Training of youth from vulnerable backgrounds is not only the role of the government. The Asociación Instituto Sor María Romero said that it has a program in conjunction with the Cámara Costarricense de Hoteles that helps young women get jobs. The two-year-old program provides selected youngsters with 120 hours of work experience in some of the metro area's larger hotels. At the end of the program the participants receive a certificate from the hotel chamber and may be hired by the hotel where they did their training, said the association. Some 25 youngsters who are in their fifth year of high school have been involved in the program this year. The 25 were selected from among 135 young women who are involved in an academic program provided by the sisters of María Auxiliadora. |
