By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Motorists can get the form HERE!

By the A.M.  Costa Rica staff

One suspect is in custody in Barrio México in San José

Special to A.M. Costa Rica

U.S. planning to swap
food for overseas vouchers


The Obama administration plans to ship fewer U.S. food commodities to countries in need and instead buy more from developing world farmers closer to the area. The proposal marks a major shift in the 60-year program known as Food for Peace.

From floods and earthquakes to wars and chronic food shortages, the United States is the world’s largest donor of food aid.  But budgets are extremely tight in Washington these days. So U.S. Agency for International Development chief Rajiv Shah says he is proposing reform.

“This reform is designed to reach 4 million additional children with basic core nutrition during times of extreme need without asking for additional funds,” Shah said.

Shah said buying food in the affected region, or providing cash or vouchers to people in need, is up to 50 percent cheaper than buying and shipping food from the U.S. Plus, it gets to where it’s needed up to 14 weeks sooner.

The amount of food bought and shipped from the U.S. would decrease from about 85 percent today to 55 percent under the administration’s proposal.

But Kansas Republican Kevin Yoder said any decrease in food coming from the U.S. would cost American jobs. He said that would be hard for farm communities to accept.

“Certainly that would need to be explained to constituents why that choice was made to pay farmers in other countries as opposed to pay farmers here,” Yoder said.

And Yoder questioned whether buying locally is always cheaper. 

“At least some information shows that local and regional purchase, cash transfer programs are not necessarily less expensive than U.S. food aid,” Yoder said.

Shah said that study after study has found sourcing locally is more efficient. 

“And this is why, I believe, every past director of the World Food Program and the current one, almost all the major NGOs, most experts that have looked at this, all of my predecessors and major CEOs in the agricultural space all believe this is the right thing to do,” Shah said.

And Shah added that while food aid may have been a bigger market for farmers in the past…

“Today, Food for Peace in its entirety is about a half of one percentage point of total value of agricultural exports. And going from 85 percent to 55 percent is probably something less than that,” Shah said.

The proposal also faces opposition from U.S. shippers, who say delivering food aid helps keep a shrinking U.S. merchant marine fleet afloat.

This hearing and another in the Senate Wednesday were the first since the president’s budget was released earlier this month.

Analysts say it faces an uphill battle on Capitol Hill.


India struggles with idea
to make pornography illegal


India is debating banning pornography, as the country copes with a rising number of incidents of sexual violence. The ban on pornography has been sought by a petition in the country’s supreme court, but is winning support from women activists.

Lawyer Kamlesh Vaswani, based in the central Indian city of Indore, wants watching pornography to be made a non-bailable offense because he feels there is a direct connection between sexual assault and looking at pornographic videos.

“They corrupt the people. They corrupt the mind. Indian kids are accessing more graphic and brutal videos,” said Vaswani.

To buttress his argument, Vaswani points to reports that the suspect arrested for the recent rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi told police that he watched porn clips on a mobile phone before the brutal crime.

The lawyer has outlined his concerns that existing laws are not adequately protecting society from pornography, in a petition to the Supreme Court. Distributing pornographic material is illegal in India.  Watching it is not. The top court last week asked three government ministries to respond to the proposal by Monday.    

The petition comes as reports of violent sex crimes targeting women and children are hitting headlines and igniting street protests. Laws have been tightened since the horrific gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi five months ago.  But police figures show that the number of rapes has increased in the city.

What is worrying many activists is the growing number of children being targeted. Some are blaming the trend on an increase in access to online pornography. 

Although less than 10 percent of Indians have home computers connected to the Internet, mobile smart-phone ownership has increased phenomenally, providing easy access to Internet videos. In the last decade, the proportion of searches on Google for pornographic material has increased fivefold.

Leading women activists in the country now back blocking pornography sites. They say that in the culturally conservative country, where the subject of sex is still largely taboo, pornography is negatively shaping the way young people think about sex.

Ranjana Kumari heads the Center for Social Research in New Delhi. “There is lot of segregation that young men and women are raised with.  There are many, many issues in India. It really creates all kind of abnormalities in terms of understanding of sex," Ms. Kumari said. "It is always showing that men can take control of women’s bodies and do whatever they want. It is very important for India to review this and also to see how it can be put under maximum control.”

Junior Information and Technology Minister Milind Deora says authorities plan to consult experts on whether pornography is provoking sexual violence.

Even if porn sites are blocked, Internet users could still find a way to access pornography.

Sunil Abraham of the Center for Internet and Society cites the examples of countries which have imposed similar bans.  “Even in China, pornography continues to be available and likewise in Pakistan. This is because, where there is a strong human motivation to access online content, like alcohol, prohibition becomes a losing strategy," Abraham stated. "This is very similar to underage drinking and is best regulated at home. ”

As authorities debate whether to restrict online pornography in the coming weeks, the outcome could have an enormous impact setting online standards for one of the world’s fastest growing populations of Internet users.


Surveillance camera use
still a controversial issue


The suspects in the bombings at the Boston Marathon were first identified from surveillance camera images. Debate about the use of the cameras has been ongoing for many years in Britain, a country with one of the highest densities of CCTV cameras in the world.

The FBI released color surveillance camera footage of the Boston bombing suspects three days after the attacks took place.  The video shows two men walking with rucksacks moments before the explosions.  They were quickly identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar.

​Former FBI special agent Peter J. Ahearn says surveillance cameras are one of the primary tools of investigation.

"The first thing you do in any kind of a crisis in an area is you go for the tapes, you go for the video.  The ATM machines, anything on the street and there will be a team of investigators and analysts working that," he said.

At the last count in 2007, there were 147 surveillance cameras operated by Boston city authorities and more than 400 on buses and subways.

Some are calling for more cameras.  Among them is former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, who cited London as an example, describing it as a virtual Hollywood studio of surveillance.

Surveillance or CCTV cameras from railway stations were crucial in identifying, within hours, the terrorists who attacked the London transport network in July 2005.

Conservative lawmaker Philip Davies is a strong advocate.

"CCTV is an absolutely crucial tool for the security services and the police," he said, "not just in identifying who was responsible for a crime after the event, but sometimes for actually identifying where people are to try to prevent those people who you have identified at source, knowing where they are so you can cut them off if they are trying something out.”

Estimates vary from around 1.8 million to four million surveillance cameras across Britain.

"The debate should be about how do we prevent crime," said Nick Pickles, from the organization Big Brother Watch, which campaigns for more privacy. "And if there is one thing that London as a city has proved, it is that CCTV does very little to deter criminals, it does very little to reduce crime levels, and when you have a major security incident like we tragically saw in Boston, CCTV is of very little use preventing these attacks happening.”

Londoners were broadly supportive of CCTV.

"A lot of crime nowadays is solved because of CCTV, so I am all for it," said one man.

"CCTV is a good thing.  But sometimes it depends on the situation.  Sometimes the police go too far," said another man.

Boston investigators noted the critical role of the public in identifying the suspects. 

"For more than 100 years the FBI has relied upon the public to be its eyes and ears," explains Special Agent Richard DesLauriers from the FBI’s Boston division. "With the media's help, in an instant these images will be delivered directly into the hands of millions around the world.”


Kuwait media insult law
ripped by journalism group


Kuwait should scrap plans for a repressive new media law, the Committee to Protect Journalists  said Wednesday, claiming the draft legislation would severely undermine press freedom.

As the government of the Gulf Arab monarchy faces ongoing opposition protests, the law would steeply increase fines on journalists deemed to have insulted the state.

The government passed the Unified Media Law earlier this month and it now needs approval from parliament and the emir, but the New York-based campaign group said it would mean inflated fines as well as "unjustified restrictions on election coverage, and ambiguous regulations for online media."

Kuwait's media are among the most free in the Gulf region, and the government generally tolerates more political dissent.

However, in recent months dozens of activists have been charged with insulting the emir and several have been handed jail sentences.

The draft law proposes fines of up to 300,000 dinars ($1 million), up sharply from the previous maximum financial of 20,000 dinars, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

Insulting the emir or crown prince would carry the largest fines. There would also be fines of up to 100,000 dinars for insulting the constitution, the flag, harming public morals, inciting crimes, harming relations with other governments and slandering public servants.

The Ministry of Information has said that the law is positive for journalists because it replaces prison penalties for secular offenses with fines, but the Committee to Protect Journalists  said: "the fines are so steep that journalists could be sent to jail anyway . . . ."

Kuwait's main private newspapers have also said the law would violate free speech.


China again tapped as leader
for Internet espionage


China leads the world in computer espionage, according to an annual report that monitors the state of global cyber threats.

Ninety-six percent of cyber espionage cases targeting intellectual property and business trade secrets were attributed to threat actors in China, while the remaining 4 percent were unknown, according to the 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report, which is issued by Verizon, a large U.S. telecom firm.

“This may mean that other threat groups perform their activities with greater stealth and subterfuge,” read the report. “But it could also mean that China is, in fact, the most active source of national and industrial espionage in the world today.”

While the numbers certainly seem clear, some security experts caution not to draw too many conclusions from the report.

“Verizon doesn't explain how they determine that an event is state-sponsored, nor how they distinguish between legitimate attacks originating from China and those which use compromised servers in Chinese IP space,” said Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Group, a cyber-security firm. “Hence, any conclusion that they try to draw about the government of China has to be taken with a great degree of skepticism.”

Carr said he believes a lot of the espionage originating in China could “actually be the work of non-state actors working in the Chinese IP space.”

However, he said he welcomed recent discussions between the U.S. and Chinese official to collaborate on dealing with cyber attacks.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, discussed cybersecurity with his Chinese counterpart, Fang Fenghui, during his visit to China this week. Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry also discussed the topic with Chinese leaders during a visit to Beijing.

Banks and other financial institutions remain the most targeted among hackers, according to Verizon, but manufacturing companies, transportation organizations and utility companies were also targeted.

Verizon’s data was compiled from numerous sources, including U.S. and foreign incident response teams and companies that have engaged Verizon to perform cyber work.


Fake bombing report hurt
Twitter and raised questions


Does Twitter have a credibility problem?
      
For many, a single fake tweet from The Associated Press account that briefly roiled financial markets on Tuesday, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down about 145 points, vividly reaffirmed the fearsome, near-instantaneous power of the 140-character message.
      
But the security lapse also revived doubts about Twitter's place in the media landscape and its ultimate value at a moment when its status as one of today's essential information networks had seemed all but cemented.
      
Just a week after social media networks took criticism for helping circulate misinformation about the alleged perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing, Twitter's security shortcomings fell under a harsh spotlight Tuesday after a hacker group commandeered the AP Twitter account and falsely reported that explosions in the White House had injured President Barack Obama.
      
The AP was only the latest hacking victim in recent days after Twitter accounts belonging to National Public Radio, CBS "60 Minutes" and others were breached. Last year, Reuters News was the victim of hackers who briefly took over one of its Twitter accounts and posted false tweets.
      
The latest hack was by far the most significant: The single AP tweet stunned investors and effectively wiped out $136.5 billion of the S&P 500 index's value in a matter of minutes.
      
Although the news agency later disclosed that one of its employees may have inadvertently given away company passwords as the result of a phishing attack by the hackers, security experts quickly faulted Twitter for its longstanding failure to implement two-factor authentication, a double-layered password feature used by the likes of Google and Microsoft that might have prevented the spate of high-profile Twitter hijackings.
      
"It's one of those cases that we are seeing too often. It's getting unnerving,'' said Robert Quigley, a journalism lecturer specializing in social media at the University of Texas. "What media organizations need to do is pressure Twitter to have a more secure website.''
      
Although Twitter has repeatedly declined to address its product roadmap, the company has signaled that it will soon unveil two-factor authentication, including a public job posting in February that suggested the company was hiring to tackle the problem.
      
Mark Risher, the founder of a security consultancy that counts social media companies Pinterest and Tumblr among its clients, said introducing more measures like two-factor authentication would make Twitter more cumbersome to use and potentially slow its user growth, a critical concern for a company that relies on advertising revenues. But he warned that a prolonged rash of high-profile hacks, and an eroding sense of user trust, would hurt Twitter more.
      
"There's always a tradeoff between convenience and safety,'' Risher said. "But a security issue damages Twitter's brand.''

For Twitter, the hacking has raised questions about its credibility just as it is beginning to assume a central role in a fast-changing media landscape, with the volume of tweets rising to more than 400 million a day. Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that U.S. companies may report material information such as quarterly results on Twitter, as long as investors are alerted in advance. Days later, Bloomberg L.P. said it would funnel Twitter directly into its terminals used by thousands of traders on Wall Street.
      
At the same time, the world's leading news organizations and Twitter, which has 200 million users around the world, have become increasingly intertwined in a symbiotic, if sometimes troublesome, relationship.
      
Dan Gillmor, a journalism professor at Arizona State University, said the hacks have especially hurt news outlets because their Twitter accounts are often the primary way that their news reaches consumers who may not subscribe to a newspaper or have access to a newswire.
      
Twitter has touted itself as a critical newswire of sorts, such as during the 2011 tsunami in Japan, when it helped emergency responders locate survivors, or when it became a vital lifeline for some New Yorkers as television sets fell dark during Hurricane Sandy last year.
      
But last week, in the wake of the Boston bombings, some of those who previously viewed Twitter as an indispensable news source began turning against the service upon discovering that the wisdom of crowds is, in fact, an adage not often applicable on the Internet.
      
Steve Brunetto, a senior executive at Edgewave, a network security company, said Tuesday's hacking undermined Twitter at a sensitive time.
      
"On the heels of the Boston Marathon bombing, everyone's trying to figure out, 'Okay, where does Twitter fit into that news cycle? Where does Twitter fit into disseminating information?''' Brunetto said. "They've got an opportunity to legitimize themselves as a real player in that information life cycle but they get knocked down a peg every time somebody says, 'Oh, you can't believe what you read on Twitter.'''
      
Jeff Jarvis, a prominent Internet pundit and a journalism professor at City University of New York, said that the confusion caused by social media in recent weeks was not an indictment of social media but rather a reminder that the onus falls on professional reporters to verify information.
      
"No, the Internet's not broken,'' Jarvis said.
      

American football title
to be decided Saturday

By Cody L. Gear
special to A.M. Costa Rica

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services