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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 24, 2015,
Vol.
15, No. 80
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Sea Shepherd to
patrol Moín beach
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society announced Thursday its sea turtle defense campaign Operation Jairo, to take place this summer in three regions critical to nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings: southeastern Florida, Honduras and Costa Rica. Last season Sea Shepherd was involved in sea turtle defense campaigns in Costa Rica, Honduras and Cape Verde, where nearly 10,000 sea turtles were released to the ocean, providing them with a safe head start, said the organization. Among the sites to be patrolled by Sea Shepherd volunteers this season is Moin Beach in Costa Rica’s Limón province, the site of the tragic murder of young turtle conservationist Jairo Mora Sandoval, the organization said. In honor of his work to protect the turtles he cherished so deeply, Sea Shepherd has named both a vessel and this upcoming campaign after him, it added. Sea Shepherd said its Operation Jairo campaign will span the peak nesting or hatching months for sea turtles in all three locations, in an effort to save as many hatchlings as possible, giving the next generations of these endangered species a fighting chance at survival. Returning to Costa Rica following 2014 anti-poaching campaign Operation Pacuare, which resulted in nearly 3,000 sea turtles saved, Sea Shepherd will once again protect hawksbill, green and leatherback sea turtles from poachers on Pacuare Beach in Costa Rica’s Limón province from May 31 until September, the organization said. This year, Operation Jairo will see Sea Shepherd volunteers standing watch along Moin Beach. Mora was murdered on May 31, 2013, while on his way to protect sea turtle nests, and is widely believed to have been killed by poachers. Suspects in the case were acquitted in a court trial. Sea turtles are protected by law in Costa Rica, but poaching remains commonplace. Locals take eggs, which are believed to be an aphrodisiac, and sell them on the black market, Sea Shepherd noted. The turtle egg trade has been linked to drug trafficking and organized crime, it added. In the wake of Jairo’s death, the organization he worked with canceled beach patrol efforts in Costa Rica. However, Sea Shepherd said it has vowed not to leave the turtles of Moin Beach unprotected. Sea Shepherd said it is now accepting applications for dedicated and passionate volunteers in all three campaign locations. The organization said it is seeking volunteers who are at least 18 years of age and who are able to commit to participating in the campaign for a period of two weeks or longer. Sea Shepherd said it is also seeking volunteers with training and/or a professional background in videography and photography to assist with campaign media production, and those who are fluent in Spanish. Anyone interested in joining Operation Jairo, should please visit: http://www.seashepherd.org/get-involved/ground-crew.html, the organization said. Lawmakers propose extensive bike routes By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Three lawmakers have submitted a proposal that would license bicycles, create a network of bike paths throughout the country and tax parking spaces and motor vehicles to pay the costs. The lawmakers said they want citizens to be more healthy by using bike transportation. The proposal even calls for the establishment of bike rental shops in every canton. The lawmakers are Laura Garro Sánchez, Edgardo Araya Sibaja and José Ramírez Aguilar. The legislation has not yet been assigned a number. The summary of the bill contains lengthy arguments why bike transport would be good for citizens and the country. Among the reasons are fewer traffic deaths, improvement in individual health, as well as the obvious reduction in vehicle pollution. The bill makes it clear that the goal is to change the vehicle culture. The proposal contains incentives of tax rebates for employers who make investments like parking lots for bikes. There also is a proposal to create an agency to offer bike safety training. The Registro Nacional would create bike license plates with unique numbers. And a money prize would be offered every year for the canton that has developed its bike program the best. The tax on parking lots would be from 18 to 24 percent a month of the judicial base salary that is used to compute fines and taxes here. The proposed law also says parking places would pay the tax, but it is unclear on the method. In addition to the tax on parking, the cycle program would be money from a tax on vehicle marchamos or road taxes each year, according to the proposal. Press advocate deplores Venezuelan action Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The speaker of Venezuela’s national assembly, Diosdado Cabello, has filed civil and criminal charges against several Venezuelan media outlets for reproducing information published by a Spanish publication. The national assembly Tuesday approved a report by its new media permanent committee that rejected what it said was a campaign by Venezuelan and international media against Cabello. The case refers to statements by Cabello’s former security chief, Leamsy Salazar, who was said to be collaborating with United States authorities investigating Cabello’s alleged involvement with a drug cartel. This information was published Jan. 27 by the newspaper ABC in Spain and reproduced by several Venezuelan media outlets. The Inter American Press Association today condemned the speaker's action. Association President Gustavo Mohme said “We condemn the fact that in Venezuela the government always describes as media campaigns and conspiracies any information that can be critical of that points out wrongdoing.” Mohme, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, added, “In these cases the government should investigate and clarify the alleged denunciations, instead of berating the media and suing them for what they reproduce.” Cabello filed civil and criminal charges against “shareholders, editors, editorial boards and owners” of the newspaper El Nacional and digital platforms La Platilla and Tal Cual, as well as against Spain’s ABC. Claudio Paolillo, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda, said, “This action is one more demonstration of the ease that the regime has to use an acquiescent judicial body with the intent of accusing the media and journalists and violating press freedom and the people’s right to know the facts.” He is chairman of the association's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information. The Inter American Press Association also condemned threats made to journalists in the Brazilian state of Parana and called on the authorities there to investigate and determine the source of the harassment, ensure the journalists’ safety and respect the right to keep news sources confidential. One of the most recent cases concerns James Alberti, producer with the RPCTV television channel affiliated with Globo TV and director of the Brazilian Investigative Journalism Association, who left the state after receiving death threats April 9, following the broadcast of a report on alleged corruption and pedophilia in the state tax office in the city of Londrina, Parana. The Parana Journalists Union also reported several weeks ago that journalists covering the issue of public security in the state have been pressured and browbeaten by officials and members of the military to reveal their news sources used in a series of reports in 2012 in which they denounced wrongdoing in the local police force. The reporters since 2013 have been called in as witnesses in official investigations more than 20 times. Another case was reported concerning journalist Lina Hamdar of the newspaper Metro Curitiba, who was called in to reveal the source for an article about a female doctor accused of murdering patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Curitiba, the Parana state capital. Cell phone led to burglary suspect By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Investigators got a break last month when a house burglar accidentally dropped his cell telephone when he was scaling a wall in Turrialba. Agents linked the phone to a man living in La Margoth de Turrialba and made an arrest there. The Poder Judicial said that a check of the man's fingerprints showed matches with prints collected in five other home burglaries. The judicial agency also said that a remote camera made a video of the burglar's clothing as he climbed the wall. Similar clothing was confiscated in a search, said the Poder Judicial. Meanwhile a separate investigation of 10 swindles in the same town suggested that the burglary suspect was a suspect in these cases too. This was another case of a man calling persons with items for sale and somehow getting the goods without paying for them. Animals ready for adoption Saturday By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Asociación Animales de Asís will be at Walmart Heredia Saturday offering dogs and cats and puppies and kittens for adoption. The time is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The organization seeks a donation for the castrated and vaccinated animals.
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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, April 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 80 | |
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| Fuerza Pública officers expand
their list of helping wild creatures |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Add anteater to the list of creatures that have received a helping hand from the Fuerza Pública. Thursday morning the scene was in El Carmen de Paso Canoas, Corredores. A resident called the local office of the Policía de Fronteras and said that an anteater, sometimes called oso hormiguero in Spanish, was in a tree in a local park. Because of the urban nature of the area, the resident said there was fear that dogs or misguided individuals might do the animal harm. Anteaters are considerably less challenging than a 4.5 meter crocodile or even a sharp-clawed sloth, which police have encountered earlier. So two officers were successful in getting the creature down from the tree. Despite the name, these creatures eat a variety of insects, so the animal probably was up the tree looking for a meal. Local workers for the Sistema Nacional de Áreas de Conservación were given the job of finding the animal a new and safer home, said police. Just this year, police agencies have had 23 animal calls, ranging from birds to members of other unique species of tropical Costa Rica. Last year police handled 75 such calls, said the Minsterio de Segruidad Pública. |
 Ministerio
de Seguridad Pública photo
The
anteaters is about to take a trip for a new home.
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| Latest world happiness study relegates Costa Rica to 12th
place |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
So what happens when your country is no longer listed as the happiest in the world? At the very least, that misleading claim can no longer be used to lure tourists. Costa Rica was once listed as the happiest nation. This year the country is listed in 12th place just three spots above the United States. Unlike the 2012 report, this year the report seems to say that wealthy First World countries have the happiest citizens. The World Happiness report put Switzerland first, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Norway. The ranking seems counter intuitive. The Swiss are well known as industrious but hardly jolly. Icelanders are known for heavy drinking. And the Danes face a 45 percent income tax levy. But again the happiness index is heavy on ideology. Some can question the methodology and reliability, too. When Costa Rica was ranked first in 2012, Vietnam followed closely. This year Vietnam is 75th. The report also says the country that became happier than any others from 2005 and 2007 to 2013 and 2014 was Nicaragua. Costa Rica's neighbor is just a decimal point above second place Zimbabwe. A news release explains the methodology this way: The report, produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, contains analysis from leading experts in the fields of economics, neuroscience, national statistics, and says measurements of subjective well-being can be used effectively to assess national progress. The first World Happiness Report, released in 2012 ahead of the U.N. high-level meeting on Happiness and Well-being, drew international attention as a landmark first survey of the state of global happiness. This latest report digs even |
 deeper into the data looking at country trends since the first report, regional indicators, factors in gender and age, and the importance of investing in social capital. As previous reports have done, The World Happiness Report 2015 reveals trends in the data judging just how happy countries really are. On a scale running from 0 to 10, people in over 150 countries, surveyed by Gallup over 2012 to 15, reveal an average score of 5.1 (out of 10). Six key variables explain three-quarters of the variation in annual national average scores over time and among countries: real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption, and generosity. This year for the first time ever, the report breaks down the data by gender, age and region. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 80 | |||||
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| Facebook reports more monthly users than the population of
China |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The social network Facebook reported this week in its 2015 first quarter financial report that it now has 1.44 billion monthly active users worldwide. That’s 50 million more users than the entire estimated population of China, and over 188 million more users than India’s population. Facebook also reported that monthly users accessing the site via mobile devices jumped by as much as 24 percent over last year, to an estimated 1.25 billion users as of March 2015. Interestingly, despite Facebook’s growing user base and accessibility via mobile phones and tablets, the company’s income from operations dipped by 13 percent over year-ago levels to $933 million. That’s likely a result of several factors, analysts say. Over the last year Facebook has been adding a host of new products, or apps, for its users. These include Facebook’s acquisition of the photo-sharing Instagram app, the launch of its stand-alone Messenger that allows users to communicate directly with each other, and an aggressive push to host video content, aimed at chipping away at rival Google’s video dominance via YouTube. Additionally, more than half of Facebook’s revenue comes from nations other than the United States, for example Indonesia, where it’s very popular. The recent rise in the value of the U.S. dollar may have cut into Facebook’s overall revenue and profitability. In a statement to the media, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the report a good quarter and a good start to the year. “We’re building this family of apps because we want people to be able to share whatever they want,” Zuckerberg said. “We expect people to share richer content with increasing frequency, so we want to continue developing new tools and facilitating this expression.” Facebook launched to the public in December 2004, and experienced relatively slow user growth for its first four years. Social media strategist Ben Foster calculates that by April of 2009, it had approximately 200 million users. But a little more than two years later, in June of 2011, it reported 750 million |
users.
According to Foster’s calculations, that level of explosive growth has
continued nearly unabated ever since. “The strong growth in Mobile MAUs tells me that Facebook is becoming the first thing people go to on their mobile device,” Foster said via email using the industry slang for monthly users. “If this trend continues, Facebook could easily become the primary source of traffic for publishers and companies. This could change the digital landscape for content as the content we prefer to consume on mobile is quite different than content we prefer on a browser.” Much of Facebook’s revenue comes from sales of ads that are tailored specifically for each user, based on that user’s previous Facebook activities, friend lists, likes, and content they’ve posted, among other factors. Ads pushed to mobile devices now account for 73 percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue. According to the Facebook terms of service agreement, the social network claims license to use posted data such as images and the like for their purposes worldwide. That’s led some privacy activists to worry that Facebook is claiming a copyright for material created and posted by its users. However, as Facebook spokesman Matt Steinfeld pointed out earlier, the legal claim of license granted by the user is not Facebook’s assertion of copyright. “When you post content on Facebook, or any information, you own that content,” Steinfeld said. “We have to have your legal permission to share that content. You retain ownership of that. So if you delete that content, we delete it from our servers and we have no rights to it beyond that point.” Facebook still faces several legal challenges regarding its user’s privacy and data retention. Earlier this year in March, the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest-such court, heard a case brought by an Irish complaint that Facebook allegedly collected and passed along data from European users to the U.S. National Security Agency’s “PRISM” program, violating EU privacy protections. But analyst Foster says that despite privacy concerns, and some users’ claims to hate Facebook, the numbers suggest people actually like the product, and the number of users will grow. “For Facebook's reach, if they are the best at delivering content, then they will continue to get more users which will continue the cycle,” he said. |
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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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 80 | |||||||
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| Obama gives an apology for drone attack on hostages By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A U.S. counterterrorism operation in January accidentally killed two male hostages, an American aid worker and an Italian, held by al-Qaida on the Afghan-Pakistan border, the White House said. A U.S. official said the hostages were killed during air strikes by unmanned drone aircraft Jan. 14. President Barack Obama Thursday personally apologized for the incident. An official statement said there was tremendous sorrow over the death of the two hostages: American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto. Both had been working on aid projects in Pakistan. "As president and commander-in-chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations, including the ones that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni," Obama said at the White House. "I profoundly regret what happened." The president told reporters, "Based on the intelligence that we obtained at the time, including hundreds of hours of surveillance, we believed this was an al-Qaida compound, that no civilians were present and that capturing these terrorists was not possible." A U.S. official said that they had near clarity on what was targeted on Jan. 14 and 19, after intelligence showed a pattern of life at the compound and "assessed with a very high level of confidence the compounds hosted only al-Qaida members." “These hostages had been hidden and well-concealed," the official said. The White House says the president did not personally sign off on the two specific strikes in which the hostages were killed. "As a husband and as a father, I cannot begin to imagine the anguish that the Weinstein and Lo Porto families are enduring today," Obama said, with a deep sigh, saying he has ordered a full review. "I realize there are no words that can ever equal their loss,'' he said. Obama said he declassified some details of the operation so that the families could know what happened. Warren Weinstein's wife, Elaine, said in a statement on behalf of the family, "On behalf of myself, our two daughters, our son-in-law and two grandchildren, we are devastated by this news and the knowledge that my husband will never safely return home. We were so hopeful that those in the U.S. and Pakistani governments with the power to take action and secure his release would have done everything possible to do so, and there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through. "We do not yet fully understand all of the facts surrounding Warren's death but we do understand that the U.S. government will be conducting an independent investigation of the circumstances. We look forward to the results of that investigation. "But those who took Warren captive over three years ago bear ultimate responsibility. I can assure you that he would still be alive and well if they had allowed him to return home after his time abroad working to help the people of Pakistan," she said. U.S. lawmakers also expressed condolences Thursday to the victims' families. U.S. officials say Ahmed Farouq, an American whom the White House says was an al-Qaida leader, was killed in the same operation. U.S. officials have also concluded that Adam Gadahn, an American who had served as a spokesman for the terror network, was killed in a separate American operation on Jan. 19. "While both Farouq and Gadahn were al-Qaida members, neither was specifically targeted," the White House statement said. An official said the U.S. was not aware the American al-Qaida members were at the strike locations and that it wasn't until April, following an intelligence unit post-strike assessment that began on Jan. 21, that the government had high confidence that the Americans indeed had been killed. Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent acknowledged in a message sent to reporters that Farouq had been killed in a U.S. strike. The spokesman said Farouq was a resident of Islamabad and had received Sharia education at the city’s International Islamic University. Weinstein, who was from a suburb of Washington, was a business-development expert working in Pakistan on a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He had been in Pakistan for close to seven years when the gunmen stormed his residence and took him away in 2011. Lo Porto was kidnapped in January 2012 while working in Pakistan for the German aid group Welthungerhilfe. Battle against Islamic State said to have made progress By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A senior official in President Barack Obama’s administration says that while the U.S.-led coalition has made some progress in the fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, a very, very long road lies ahead. The official commented in a Thursday background briefing, which followed talks this month with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. As the Iraqi prime minister met with Obama and other officials in Washington, the jihadist group stepped up attacks near Ramadi in Iraq's western Anbar province. The city is near an air base used by U.S. and coalition forces to train Iraqi troops. The senior administration official described the effort to defeat Islamic State as a multiyear campaign. “ISIL remains a very adaptive enemy. They are going to do things that surprise everybody,” the official said. The official said that in recent days, Iraqi and coalition forces have made some progress in pushing back militant positions in the Ramadi area, partly as a result of better-trained Iraqi forces. “We are seeing Iraqis able to organize with professionalism and capacity that was unimaginable six months ago,” the official said. While there is progress on some fronts, there is growing concern about attacks carried out by Islamic State-affiliated militants in other countries. In a graphic video posted online Sunday, the group claimed it had massacred 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya. In a similar video released in February, the Islamic State said it had murdered Egyptian Christians. The U.S. official said there is a lot of discussion within the coalition about what the Islamic State calls its distant affiliates. “Just because someone raises a flag and puts a video out does not mean they are necessarily ISIL,” the official said. However, the U.S. and its allies may eventually need an expanded campaign to deal with Islamic State affiliates outside Iraq and Syria, said analyst David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In particular, he said Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have expressed a willingness to launch a military campaign against the Islamic State and other jihadi groups in Libya but the U.S. discouraged this effort and, instead, urged the countries to support political dialogue. “I think we are past the point where that is a realistic strategy,” said Pollock. “It is going to take military force to help stabilize Libya.” There is also concern about an Islamic State presence in Afghanistan. Last week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said the group had claimed responsibility for a bombing in Jalalabad that killed at least 35 people. Pollock said violence by Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan is a different scenario from the group’s attacks in Libya. “What is happening in Afghanistan is that this is a sideshow, as tragic as it may be, to the larger conflict between the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups,” he said. Defense secretary throws down cyberspace gauntlet By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States is laying out a new strategy for defending cyberspace, making clear the country will not hesitate to counter attacks online and even with conventional military might, if necessary. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter unveiled the new cyber strategy in a speech Thursday at Stanford University, saying it is overdue when the same technologies that U.S. ships use to target cruise missiles are now available to the highest bidder. “Adversaries should know that our preference for deterrence and our defensive posture don’t diminish our willingness to use cyber options if necessary,” Carter said, adding, “The response might not occur in cyberspace but might occur in a different way." Part of the goal of the new U.S. cyber strategy is to allay concerns that rose following last November’s cyber attack on Sony, which U.S. officials blamed on North Korea, and which had many wondering whether it rose to the level of cyber war. “Just like Americans expect the Department of Defense to protect the country from a missile attack or other types of attacks, they do so in cyberspace,” a senior Defense Department official said prior to the strategy’s official unveiling. The hope is that under the new guidelines, exactly what constitutes an act of cyber war will be clearer. “It’s only when those attacks rise to the level of an armed attack, so this is an attack of very significant consequence, not just a denial-of-service attack or a mere hack,” the official said. But during his talk Thursday at Stanford, the defense secretary said that while the first priority is to defend the Pentagon’s vital networks, “on occasion, we may be called upon to defend other parts of society, and that’s our mission also and we’ll do so." Carter added, “That’s a determination that’s going to be made case by case, depending upon danger or potential danger to life and property.” As part of the new U.S. strategy, the Pentagon has begun building a Cyber Mission Force. Defense officials say they are only about halfway to their goal, but that ultimately, it will encompass 133 teams and more than 6,000 troops working to defend the department’s own infrastructure, as well as provide support for combat operations and even defend vital U.S. interests. But the defense secretary warned that because businesses oversee about 90 percent of the nation’s computer networks, defending American cyberspace is not something the government can do alone. "If companies themselves don’t invest, our country’s collective cyber security posture is weakened," he said. Carter added that part of the challenge will be to balance that message with the need to partner with firms and startups in technology hubs like Silicon Valley, which are driving much of the innovation. But the Pentagon faces a significant challenge in trying to gain the trust of some American security firms, which at least publicly remain skeptical of U.S. spying activities following the intelligence leaks by ex-security contractor Edward Snowden. “Our companies and our people need to be convinced that everything we do in the cyber domain is lawful and appropriate and necessary,” Carter said. Restoring ties with tech companies will be a big challenge for Carter, according to Rob Pritchard, a cyber security specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, who spoke Thursday. "He has to find a way to get them to cooperate whilst allowing them to communicate to their customers that their data is still secure and safe. And I think that's going to be quite difficult," said Pritchard. He said U.S. technology companies will have a particularly hard time reassuring their customers who live overseas, and therefore have less privacy protections than American citizens, under U.S. law. Tobias Feakin, a cyber security expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said he also thought market forces have helped push companies to publicly side with their customers who are demanding more privacy. "There's certainly a shift in many U.S. companies trying to distance themselves somewhat from U.S. government security architectures, because they've taken a hit on share price and they're trying to respond to a customer base who are increasingly wary," Feakin said. The Defense Department hopes to reach distrustful companies through a permanent outreach center aimed at scouting emerging and breakthrough technologies, according to a defense official. The experimental Defense Innovation Unit will be staffed by what officials say is an elite group of active-duty and civilian personnel who will try to recruit some of the industry's top technological minds. Petraeus gets fine, probation for use of secret documents By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
David Petraeus, the former chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, was fined $100,000 Thursday and placed on two years' probation for giving his mistress classified information while she was working on a biography of him. The 62-year-old Petraeus was once the highest profile U.S. Army general during the United States' wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was later appointed by President Barack Obama as the CIA director. He ran the country's intelligence agency for a year, until resigning in late 2012. His career unraveled two-and-a-half years ago with the disclosure of the affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who wrote an admiring book about him, "All In: The Education of David Petraeus." It was published three years ago, before the affair was exposed. Two months ago, Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. Prosecutors said when Ms. Broadwell was working on her book, Petraeus gave her eight binders of classified material that he had improperly kept from his days as the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan. The binders included names of covert operatives, allied war strategy and notes of Petraeus' conversations with President Barack Obama and the National Security Council. The prosecutors said Petraeus, who had a nearly four-decade career in the U.S. Army, at first lied to investigators, claiming he did not give the classified material to Ms. Broadwell. With his guilty plea, Petraeus faced as much as a year in prison. The prosecutors had recommended a $40,000 fine and the two years' probation. But U.S. Judge David Kessler in Charlotte, North Carolina, was not bound by that agreement and said he was increasing the fine to reflect seriousness of the offense. Petraeus apologized “for the pain my actions have caused.” Webb Space Telescope due to replace vintage Hubble By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
While the space community is looking back this week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, workers in an airtight clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are looking ahead three years, to the launch of its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope. The $8 billion Webb and the Hubble have a lot in common. Both operate in the vacuum of space, have mirrors that collect light from distant stars, use radio signals to transmit images and get power from the sun. But the similarities end there, said Matt Greenhouse, a veteran project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. “One of the biggest differences between the Webb and the Hubble is that the Webb is designed to be an infrared telescope and will see very primordial objects that are among the oldest objects in the universe,” he noted. Greenhouse said the infrared capability will allow astronomers using the Webb to peer through the clouds and dust in space that obscure the view. “With spectroscopy, which is spreading light out into component colors and observing one at a time, we can see features of individual atoms in molecules in space that will allow us to understand the chemistry that occurs in space. Many of those features only exist in the infrared,” he said. Hubble can see a small segment of the infrared spectrum, but primarily captures visible and ultraviolet light. The Webb, named for the man who ran NASA from 1961 to 1968, will be sent 1.5 million kilometers above Earth's atmosphere, far beyond Hubble, which flies in low Earth orbit. Its mirror is 6.25 times bigger than Hubble's, which will enable it to observe objects that are fainter and farther away. Made from lightweight beryllium and coated in gold for its reflective qualities, the segmented mirror was too large for the rocket that would carry it into orbit. So it had to be designed to unfold in space. Its design also had to ensure that the instrument payload would be kept extremely cold, at approximately minus 200 degrees C. Greenhouse explained,“The reason for that is because anything above absolute zero emits infrared light. If we didn’t cool it, it would be blinded by its own infrared emission.” The Webb is shielded by a multi-layer sunscreen to keep light from the Sun and reflected light from the Earth and Moon from heating up the telescope and blocking any astronomical signal. For that to work, Greenhouse said, the Webb must be in an orbit with those three bodies lined up in about the same direction. “When it’s in that shadow under the sunscreen, it will cool naturally to this cryogenic temperature." All those cutting-edge technologies combine to make the Webb 100 times more powerful than Hubble. “We have some special capability in this instrument payload to observe as many as 100 galaxies at a time and obtain their spectrum simultaneously,” Greenhouse said proudly. As launch day approaches, Greenhouse said the assembly and testing now underway leave no room for error, like the mistake that sent Hubble into space with a flawed mirror. “One of the big things we learned from the Hubble is the Hubble didn’t do something called an end-to-end optical test, where we take the entire observatory and shine light through it the way it will be done in space and make sure that everything works,” he said. Unlike the Hubble, the Webb cannot be repaired in space, so the team has one chance to get it right. Greenhouse, who has been with the Webb for almost the entire life of the project, expects the new telescope to rewrite textbooks much in the same way that Hubble has. “Like Hubble, it’s likely that after this mission is over, we will look back and find that the most important discoveries and the most important questions that were answered are not the questions that we had in mind when we designed and built it,” he said. The Hubble has operated much longer than expected, and Greenhouse said he hopes for the same lifespan for the Webb, which could last 10 years or longer. The James Webb Space Telescope is a project of the U.S., European and Canadian space agencies. Sound waves can simulate touch, British scientist says By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Technology is already capable of tricking most human senses. Laser holography can create three-dimensional images where nothing exists. Stereo sound can surround listeners, and smells can be infused into the air. Now, scientists are starting to break the next barrier, the sense of touch. Scientists at a British university have developed a device that makes hands feel objects that are not there. Motion recognition technology already allows users to command computer-controlled devices by waving a hand above a sensitive surface. But feeling the actual object, such as the car radio’s tuning button, would give more feedback, making the motion more precise. Researchers at the University of Bristol’s Computer Science Department have developed a device that adds tactile sensation to a holographic image. Co-developer of the technology, Sriram Subramanian, said it works on the same principle as the pressure of sound waves audience members feel in the chest at a rock concert. “Instead of using the bass sounds, what we use is low-frequency ultrasound, about 40 kHz, and that way we can target it at a precise point on your fingertip or on your palm, and then you feel the palm vibrate and it feels precise as well,” said Subramanian. The sound waves are emitted by an array of 64 small ultrasonic speakers, whose vibrations can be adjusted to create sensation of various shapes, and even their virtual movement. Subramanian said the speakers can create hundreds of ultrasound focal points. “And when I do hundreds at a time and put a hundred focal points around your fingertip or around your palm, those hundred feel like a circle," he said. "And if I track your palm and move them up and down, and if I change the diameter of these focal points, you start feeling like you are going through a sphere. And this is how we generate shapes.” Subramanian said when it is fully developed, the so-called haptic technology may find application in various fields, from consumer electronics and home appliances to hospital operating rooms. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, April 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 80 | |||||||||
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Assailants
set victim afire with gasoline
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Would-be assassins dumped gasoline on a man sitting in his vehicle Wednesday night in Tibás. Then the assailants ignited the fluid. The 59-year-old motorist, identified by the last name of Velásquez suffered burns over about 30 percent of his body, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. A neighbor is credited with helping to put out the flames. The man was in Hospital San Juan de Dios. Two-day rock festival planned in Aserrí By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
More than 20 bands and soloists are scheduled for what organizers are calling two days of peace and love. The event is in the La Isla de
Orchestra to present choruses and chants By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Puerto Rican mezzo-soprano Patricia Cay and Costa Rican baritone Guido LeBrón, are the invited performers tonight at 8 o'clock when the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional presents another of its concert series. A duplicate concert is set for Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Both are in the Teatro Nacional. The program includes Gregorian chants with the assisstance of the Coro de los Heraldos del Evangelio and the Coro Sinfónico Nacional. Indonesia readies path for executions By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Indonesia has asked foreign embassies to send representatives to a maximum-security prison on the island of Nusakambangan this weekend to visit prisoners awaiting execution for drug-trafficking convictions. It is not known when the nine foreign prisoners and one Indonesian will stand before firing squads, but Jakarta has not yet given a 72-hour notice for the executions, as required by law. “It's true, we have been told to be there on Saturday,” a foreign embassy official said. “We still don't know when the actual date of execution will happen, but we expect that it will be in days.” Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino maid facing the death penalty after being convicted in 2010 of drug trafficking, was transferred from an Indonesian prison early Friday ahead of her expected execution. Ms. Veloso is among 10 drug smugglers whose planned executions last month were postponed due to last-minute appeals. The others are three Nigerian men, two Australian men, and four men from France, Ghana, Brazil and Indonesia. The cases have strained relations between the governments of those nations and Indonesia. |
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| From Page 7: Agreement seeks to promote investment Special to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter-American Development Bank and the Inter-American Investment Corp. have established a private-sector partnership with The Abraaj Group, a leading private equity investing firm operating in growth markets. As agreed in a memorandum of understanding, signed last week in Washington, D.C. the partners aim specifically to promote private sector development and investment in Latin America and the Caribbean. “In today’s dynamic business environment, small and medium-sized enterprises need to think and act globally” said the bank's president, Luis Alberto Moreno. The three entities will develop both financing and knowledge products as partnership opportunities, aiming to expand the regional private equity industry. In terms of financing, they said they will seek to mobilize resources for equity investments in high-growth, medium-sized companies, co-finance initiatives in areas of shared priority, and bring advisory and training services to Abraaj’s companies across Latin America and the Caribbean. The collaboration will feature knowledge-sharing by promoting investment know-how and entrepreneurship through training, conferences, workshops and joint publications, among other activities. |
