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Published
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April
28, 2017, Vol.
17, No. 84
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Published Friday,
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2017, Vol. 17,
No. 84
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Policeman
arrested on suspicion of rape
By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents arrested a 38-year old man Thursday morning on charges of participating in at least five instances of rape. In one of those counts, the victim happens to be a 15-year old girl. As for the suspect who was arrested, he is a member of the Fuerza Pública. The arrest was made during a raid by members of the Judicial Investigating Organization at the suspect’s room in Siquirres. Investigators said that the first case began on March 14 when a man raped a 26-year old woman walking alone at 10 p.m. near the Río Reventazón. The next case happened April 4 in the same area and around the same time with the two victims being sisters, investigators said. The last reported case occurred April 11 making all the incidents occurring on Tuesday nights with the same details as to how it was conducted by the rapist and same characteristics in terms of the scenes being isolated places. Apparently the rapist was riding in a car and threatened the victims with a gun to force them in, according to the report from investigators. In the case of the minor, she apparently was walking with two classmates and the rapist left them in the car while he committed his crimes, officials said. In the case of the sisters, they were walking with their boyfriends and the assailant committed the crime in the same way, the judiciary said. The Ministerio de Seguridad Pública issued a statement that said police officers in the ministry cooperated in the capture and arrest of their fellow officer. The ministry said that it has already filed an application to automatically dismiss the suspect from the police force. Officials said that the suspect entered the force in February 2010 for the Caribbean region of the country. Platina shutdown starting this Saturday By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Remember the Alfredo González Flores bridge, otherwise known as the platina, and how it was supposed to be open by early May? That does not appear to be happening anytime soon with the new statement from the public works ministry. According to the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes, the bridge is going to be completely shut down again beginning this Saturday at 3 p.m. and will not be reopen until just before the morning commute at 5 a.m. Monday at the latest. The ministry hopes that, with the upcoming long weekend due to the May Day holiday, the closing will have a minor effect on drivers. Construction crews need to fill in the approaches to the bridge. This is the part of the General Cañas highway that reaches the edge of the bridge at both ends. Public works also said that the closure would also be used for a way to solve the sinking occurring at the three lanes currently being used. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad said that the sinking was planned for as the work was not finished. Lastly, the closure is also being used to place the blocks that will absorb the force of traffic going over the bridge. During the closure, the ministry said that using Ruta 27 or Ruta 3 are possible alternate routes. The latter recently completed a bridge project also going over the Río Virilla that expanded its lanes to four. The bridgework will continue into May, apparently, as the construction for the curbs and also the sidewalk is still needed to be complete, officials said. The detour going to Alajuela will be closed at the Juan Pablo II bridge directing drivers towards La Valencia instead. The detour for traffic traveling towards the capital will be made close to the crossing at Belén by the Ferretería EPA. Group calls for border post improvements By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
An organization representing the private sector in Costa Rica is calling upon the legislative assembly to approve a project that it said would modernize the borders of Costa Rica. The group, Unión de Cámaras y Asociaciones del Sector Empresarial Privado, is referring to the nearly $100 million loan offered by the Inter-American Development Bank to improve the facilities and waiting times at the border stations. This Programa de Integración Fronteriza was due to be approved by lawmakers April 6 but the final text was not voted upon. One of the deputies stalled the project’s approval arguing that several Costa Rican native tribes need to be consulted first. The private sector group fired back in a Wednesday statement claiming that the Comisión Nacional de Asuntos Indígenas, which is the official government body handling Costa Rica’s relationship with the tribes within its borders, was already consulted on this bill. The organization noted the immediacy of a border that it claims is unnecessarily slow and costly. "In our view, this new consultation was unnecessary, as representatives of indigenous peoples had already been consulted,” said Franco Arturo Pacheco, the group’s president. “The modernization of border posts is urgent, a necessity for the industrial, commercial sector, exporters and importers, and even for the tourism sector. The inefficiency costs the country a lot and these issues must be solved immediately.” The finance ministry listed within the bill’s memorandum the significant delays and average time it takes a freighter, in an export operation, to cross the border of Peñas Blancas and Paso Canoas. With the former, it ranges from two to seven hours, the ministry said. In the case of Paso Canoas, the time is around four and a half hours. The bill was scheduled for the second debate to occur Thursday however, according to the legislature’s website, it has still not occurred. The loan, if passed, would include the modernization of the border posts at Las Tablillas, Peñas Blancas, Paso Canoas and Sixaloa. This past week, the Nicaraguan counterpart to this organization, the Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada de Nicaragua, signed a cooperation agreement urging further action for its neighbor to the south. For one, both groups wanted an early approval for the Inter-American Development Bank’s loan in the legislature. The Nicaraguans also would like an opening of another border crossing post between Naranjo and La Cruz. This comes after the Ministerio de Hacienda inaugurated its new customs post at Peñas Blancas last Friday. Officials said the post sits on a former property lot held by the Municipalidad de La Cruz in Guanacaste. With the new building, all the procedures necessary to cross the border into Nicaragua can all be conducted in one place in addition to improving security for civil servants and travelers using it, the ministry said.
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Published Friday,
April 28,
2017, Vol. 17,
No. 84
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| Former
United Fruit buildings receive heritage protection award |
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By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Former houses of the United Fruit Company based in Quepos should receive some renovation as the new winners of the cultural ministry’s “Salvemos nuestro patrimonio histórico-arquitectónico.” The property of which these buildings sit on is part of the old Zona Americana of Quepos and consists of over 52 buildings that formed an integral part of the former banana empire that dominated Puntarenas province for decades. El inmueble 94, or property 94 as it is called in English, first truly developed in 1938 with the Lara Chittenden contract, which gave United Fruit Costa Rican land for a stipulated period of 50 years. The ministry said that shares in the houses were also purchased by Agathon Lutz of Pirris Farm Trading Company. The construction process that subsequently began apparently relied on the use of donkeys for transport before a railroad could be brought in, according to records from the Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural. The organization handles the preservation and conservation of sites deemed important to the country’s national heritage. Once the railroad was brought in to the burgeoning Zona Americana, the buildings that just won the right to preservation sponsorship were used by the rail company to handle administrative tasks including the buying and selling of tickets to use the line. The banana business was booming during this period and the main source in the economy of the region and for Quepos. That all went bust beginning around 1954 and 1955, according to the Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud. Union conflicts, floods and the loss of profits all contributed to the downfall of United Fruit’s interests within the area and the company transferred the property over to Palma Tica, a palm oil production company. |
 Ministerio de
Cultura y Juventud photo
One of the
buildings deemed worthy of preservation.
The ministry said that shortly thereafter, the rail line disappeared beneath the asphalt of a new road and the only memory left were just the vacated buildings. Palma Tica also began to face legal trouble and the site, now known as the Antigua Zona Americana, was abandoned and evicted to be administered by the government. To that end, the buildings are subject to intense vulnerability in the form of decay and vandalism of the property, the trio of architects advocating for the sponsorship warned. The group of three included Ulises Pérez Araya, a professor at Universidad Latina and recent graduates Melisa Muñoz Martínez and Geannina Zúñiga Villalobos. The young women received their diplomas in architecture Wednesday as a result of having completed their graduation project, which was the call for preserving this area and winning the contest. "This project is strategically located and will allow the people of Quepos to come and see that we have other buildings that we can rescue, use and enforce,” Pérez said. “I think it will be a bastion for other professionals to see that we can do much with this type of architecture that is highly identified with the tropics and with Costa Rica.” |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page |
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Published Friday,
April 28,
2017, Vol. 17,
No. 84
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| Ocean warming cancels benefit of high carbon
dioxide, study says |
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By the University of
Adelaide press staff
University of Adelaide researchers have constructed a marine food web to show how climate change could affect our future fish supplies and marine biodiversity. Published Thursday in “Global Change Biology,” the researchers found that high carbon dioxide expected by the end of the century, which causes ocean acidification, will boost production at different levels of the food web. Despite this, ocean warming cancelled the benefit by causing stress to marine animals, preventing them using the increased resources efficiently for their own growth and development. The result was a collapsing food web. “Humans rely heavily on a diversity of services that are provided by ocean ecosystems, including the food we eat and industries that arise from that,” said project leader Ivan Nagelkerken, from the university’s Environment Institute. “Our understanding of what’s likely to happen has been hampered by an over-reliance on simplified laboratory systems centered on single levels of the food web." In this study, the team created a series of three-level food webs and monitored and measured the results over a number of months to provide an understanding of future food webs under climate change. The researchers constructed marine food webs based on plants which use sunlight and nutrients to grow such as algae, small invertebrates that graze on the plants such as shrimp, and fish that in turn prey on small invertebrates. They had 12 large aquaria with different species to mimic seagrass, open sand and rocky reef habitats, simulating tidal movements with circular currents. The food webs were exposed to the levels of ocean acidification and warming predicted for the end of this century. Over several months, the researchers assessed the basic processes that operate in food webs like predation and growth of organisms. “Elevated carbon dioxide concentrations boosted plant growth; more plant food meant more small invertebrates, and more small invertebrates, in turn, allowed the fish to grow faster,” said Silvan Goldenberg, who is supervised by Nagelkerken and Sean Connell, another professor. |
 A.M. Costa Rica
photo/Conor Golden
Ocean warming
causes stress on the food chain.
“However, ocean warming cancelled this benefit of elevated carbon dioxide by causing stress to the animals, making them less efficient feeders and preventing the extra energy produced by the plants from traveling through the food web to the fish. At the same time, fish were getting hungrier at higher temperatures and started to decimate their prey, the small invertebrates.” The researchers found that ocean warming would be an overwhelming stressor that made food webs less efficient, neutralized the fertilizing effect of elevated carbon dioxide and threw the fragile relationship between predators and prey off balance. “The consequences for marine ecosystems are likely to be severe,” said Nagelkerken. “Oceans in the future may provide less fish and shellfish for us to eat, and larger animals that are at the top of the food web, in particular, will suffer. We hope this study will provide predictive understanding which is critical for fisheries management.” |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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Published Friday,
April 28,
2017, Vol. 17,
No. 84
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Hundreds
of diplomatic jobs
remain unfilled under Trump By the A.M. Costa
Rica wire services
With U.S. President Donald Trump facing challenges overseas in Syria and North Korea, as well as growing tensions with Russia, the public face of his administration remains largely unknown, with hundreds of top U.S. diplomatic positions still unfilled. So far, only two new U.S. ambassadors have been confirmed: to Israel and the United Nations. More than three months into his presidency, Trump has nominated others for China, New Zealand, Japan, Congo and Senegal. He has not yet nominated anyone for 181 out of a total of 188 U.S. ambassadorships. In the first four months of his presidency, Barack Obama had nominated eight ambassadors. George W. Bush had nominated three, Bill Clinton 15 and George H.W. Bush 14, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Presidential Transition. Tuesday, the nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, will appear in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his first nomination hearing. But as tensions on the Korean Peninsula rise, Trump has not yet nominated a U.S. ambassador to South Korea or an assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Ambassadors are normally political appointees and are traditionally replaced under each new administration. The Brookings Institution's Thomas Wright calls this level of unfilled senior positions unprecedented and worrisome. "If you take, for instance, the recent summit with President Xi Jinping of China, there were very few Asia experts appointed to senior positions," Wright said. "Those people normally would be crucial in guiding that summit along. And so this, I think, is having a damaging effect on an ongoing basis." Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner sought to quell concerns at a recent briefing. "I can assure everyone in this room and everyone in the United States and around the world that these are not vacancies, that there are senior State Department officials serving in acting capacities, but these folks are seasoned veterans of the Foreign Service and seasoned diplomats," Toner said. The acting spokesman and career diplomat said appointing new ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state always takes time under every new administration. But why is this administration having more problems filling top positions than previous ones? Retired U.S. Ambassador Ron Neumann said it may have something to do with Trump's vetting team. "There is a very small group in the White House that is controlling a lot of things, and there are some tensions within that group," Neumann said. "But in addition to that, it is just small. So it's perfectly possible that a large part of the delay is simply that those making the decisions are totally overloaded." Neumann, now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, noted that when it comes to top foreign policy positions within the State Department, there may be other considerations. Tillerson's spokesman, R.C. Hammond, confirmed there was no sense nominating candidates for jobs that may eventually be cut. The Trump administration has proposed cutting the State Department's budget by close to 30 percent. Congressional leaders from both major political parties have said they will not approve such cuts. Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass said the most natural pool of talent on the Republican side has been precluded from consideration because many signed open letters criticizing then-candidate Trump during the campaign. Trump holds on original call to pull from NAFTA deal By the A.M. Costa
Rica wire services
President Donald Trump said phone conversations Wednesday with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau persuaded him not to imminently withdraw the United States from their countries' three-way trade pact. He reiterated his long-standing assertion that the 1994 trade agreement has been very good for Canada. It has been very good for Mexico. But it has been horrible for the United States. The U.S. president's softening tone on what is perceived as America's most crucial trade pact is being well-received. Trump has already withdrawn the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, although that deal had not been ratified by Congress. A Mexican government statement on Wednesday's phone call between Trump and Peña Nieto stated the leaders agreed on the convenience of maintaining the North American FreeTrade Agreement and working with Canada to bring about successful negotiations. A Canadian foreign ministry spokesman said Ottawa is ready to come to the table at any time. Trump targeted Canada this week for what he said was unfair trade practices and he ordered a new 20 percent tariff on Canadian lumber imports, which could add to the cost of buying new houses in the United States. Many Mexican officials have called NAFTA a disappointment, saying it has brought slow economic growth despite increased investment in factories and industry. Low-cost drug is available to prevent postpartum woes By the A.M. Costa
Rica wire services
A low-cost and widely available drug could save the lives of 1 in 3 mothers who would otherwise bleed to death after childbirth, according to a new study. Severe bleeding, known as postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide, killing more than 100,000 women every year. Even for mothers who survive, it is a painful and traumatic experience. The world's poorest countries, especially in Africa and India, are the worst hit. But there is new hope. In the 1960s, Japanese researchers developed a drug called tranexamic acid, which works by stopping blood clots from breaking down. But they could not persuade doctors to try the drug for treating the phenomenon. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has done just that, in a trial involving 20,000 women in 21 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The results show tranexamic acid reduces the risk of bleeding to death by almost a third, with no side effects for either mothers or babies. Dr. Nike Bello, a consultant obstetrician and gynecologist in Nigeria, said that if a drug can prevent hysterectomies, a drug can prevent death, a drug can minimize the amount of blood we need, then that is a good thing, all over the world. But there are challenges to getting the drug where it is needed. First, the doctors must know about its effectiveness, said professor Ian Roberts of the London tropical medicine school, who led the latest research. In the trial, tranexamic acid was given via a drip. Researchers say the next step is to find an easier way to administer the drug so it can be used in clinics and rural settings across the world. Iraqi militiamen discover destruction of Hatra heritage By the A.M. Costa
Rica wire services
Iraqi militiamen, who drove Islamic State fighters from the ancient city of Hatra this week, found that the group had destroyed relics dating back more than 2,000 years. "The sculptures and engraved images are destroyed, but the walls and towers of the kingdom of Hatra remain standing," said Marwa Rashid, a spokeswoman for Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, a Shi'ite militia that is clearing Islamic State from villages north of Mosul in northern Iraq. The units took full control over the historic city, about 110 kilometers southwest of Mosul, after a three-week offensive. Its recapture was a part of a regional military operation known as Muhammad Prophet of God. Known historically as the ancient city where East meets West, Hatra is a UNESCO-listed World Heritage site and considered one of the archeological jewels of Iraq and capital of the first Arab kingdom. The large fortified site was founded in the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. and once was a thriving city under the influence of the Parthian Empire. Its high and thick walls, reinforced by towers, helped it withstand invasions by the Romans in the years 116 and 198. Its temples offer a unique blend of Hellenistic and Roman architecture with Eastern decorative features. The site stood undisturbed for decades until April 2015, when Islamic State invaded it. Citing Hatra's un-Islamic nature, the group began destroying relics on the site. In a video released by Islamic State after its occupation, fighters are seen smashing sculptures with sledgehammers and destroying images and artifacts on ancient walls with assault rifles. UNESCO, the cultural heritage arm of the United Nations, called the destruction a war crime and has urged political and religious leaders in the region to take note. Militia units said Islamic State had planted land mines around the eastern gates of the site to deter their advances. Engineering teams will clear the site of any explosives before allowing Iraqi archeologists to assess the damage. Since mid-2014, Islamic State has destroyed dozens of historic sites in Iraq and Syria, including mosques, churches and Shi'ite religious halls known as hussainiyas. The group says shrines and statues are false idols that must be destroyed. Sermed Alwan, president of the Iraqi Mesopotamian Heritage Association, said the extent of the damage nationwide to ancient sites had yet to be determined. But the initial accounting of the damage in Hatra is heartbreaking, he said. NASA spacecraft sails between rings and Saturn By the A.M. Costa
Rica wire services
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cassini spacecraft sailed into uncharted territory Wednesday between the planet Saturn and the rings that encircle it, and emerged Thursday unscathed. The Cassini craft is the first and only spacecraft to ever venture into the gap between Saturn and its rings. It sent back its first signal early Thursday morning, about 20 hours after the crossing took place. Scientists lost contact with the ship during the passing because its antenna had to be shifted to protect the scientific equipment from potentially damaging material floating in Saturn's rings. The rings of Saturn are made up of moving particles of ice and space debris. NASA scientists plan on performing 21 more crossings between now and September. The next scheduled crossing is set for May 2. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, but it is running low on fuel, so scientists decided to conduct the ring crossings before the spacecraft becomes inoperable in the near future. Congress investigation finds Flynn did accept money By the A.M. Costa
Rica wire services
U.S. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, took more than $500,000 from Turkey and tens of thousands of dollars from Russian interests after being warned in 2014, when he retired as an Army lieutenant general, not to accept payments from foreign governments, new documents show. "We have no evidence, zilch, that he obtained permission from the secretary of the Army and the secretary of state to accept any foreign government payments as required by law," Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday.. One document showed the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general's office had opened its own investigation into whether Flynn sought permission to accept the payments from the foreign governments. That investigation is separate from the congressional probe. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the Defense Department probe of Flynn was appropriate if they think there is wrongdoing. But Spicer said the Trump administration did not review Flynn's security clearance before he was named national security adviser, relying instead on a 2016 renewal of the clearance during the administration of Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, which occurred after Flynn's 2015 trip to Russia. Among other payments, Flynn was paid $45,000 in 2015 to attend the 10th anniversary of the Kremlin-controlled Russia Today television network, sitting next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gala dinner. Spicer said Trump made the right decision at the right time and he continues to stand by it, regarding his firing of Flynn in February after just 24 days on the job. Trump ousted Flynn after it was learned he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and others about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to Washington in the weeks before Trump assumed power. Flynn's Russian connections are a key component of investigations by the House and Senate intelligence committees and the top U.S. law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, into details of the U.S. intelligence community conclusion that Russia meddled in the U.S. election to boost Trump's chances of winning. Cummings said the White House had refused congressional requests to turn over its records related to Flynn's hiring at the White House, which could shed light on whether Trump and other officials knew of the Russian and Turkish payments to Flynn when he was named to the key security position. Earlier this week, Spicer said it had turned over Flynn-related documents to congressional investigators. On Tuesday, however, Cummings and Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House panel, held a joint news conference in which they said Flynn might have broken the law by not disclosing the payments when he filed paperwork last year to renew his security clearance.
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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 Casa Presidencial
photo
Cleanup of the river
continues as backhoes struggle in marsh.
Crews remove sewage from Río Zapote By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The first project
enacted by the government for the cleanup of the Río
Zapote is slowly progressing following its
incorporation into the relief plan for Hurricane Otto.
The Río Zapote is located in Upala, the canton that was hit hardest by last year’s hurricane. These ongoing works mainly involve the cleaning of the river using backhoes to take out the sewage and refuse leftover from the hurricane’s effects, Casa Presidencial said. Despite the marshy conditions of the area, engineers at the site said that the works are moving forward satisfactorily and the equipment is standing up to the bad conditions better than expected. The executive branch said that the crews managed to channel over 915 meters of the river bed on its right bank. It is an agonizingly slow process considering that only represents 15 percent of the desired channeling, according to Casa Presidencial. To speed up this process, the government wants to add two or three more teams to the three crews currently working on the project. There is also talk of of doing surveying and studies as to the feasability of adding seven bridges across the river. The public works ministry is overseeing the completion of this project.  Ministerio de
Educación Pública photo
U.S. Ambassador Haney gets a lively
welcome from students.Haney visits students learning English By the A.M. Costa Rica staff This week marked the
end of Costa Rica’s Semana Nacional del Idioma
Inglés.
The public education minister, Sonia Marta Mora, and the U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, S. Fitzgerald Haney, visited several classrooms Thursday morning at the Escuela Buenaventura Corrales. Some expats may know this school by its nickname: the Escuela Metálica. The children practiced with the ambassador and the minister showing off their growing skills in English, according to the Ministerio de Educación Pública. The students, all in the first grade, also presented some of their projects they had been working on to their distinguished guests as part of the English for elementary programs conducted with the support of the embassy. These programs are based on developing conversational skills in English for the young students like greeting someone and understanding simple questions. They are implemented nationwide at the first and seventh grade levels, the education ministry said. Often these are developed by English advisors with the collaboration of the embassy and the Peace Corps as well, officials said. “Almost three years ago we began an arduous work with the ministry and other strategic allies to offer a long-term plan, which will review the curricula, introduce new and attractive teaching materials and incorporate the professional development of teachers,” Ambassador Haney said. “We will continue to support this initiative through the visit of US experts in English language teaching” |
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| From page 7: Central bank proposes new way to calculate Costa Rica's dollar-colon exchange rate By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The Banco Central de Costa Rica is proposing a new methodology to calculate the exchange rate that could cut in half the price gap when selling or buying U.S. dollars. The proposal seeks to take into consideration all the exchange transactions that take place in the banking system from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This would imply that the cost of dollar would be closer to its real value, according to a press release. Right now, the reference exchange rate is calculated by making an average of all the exchange rates that authorized financial institutions have applied in the last five days from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. To proceed with the change, Banco Central seeks a reform on the Reglamento de Operaciones Cambiarias de Contado. The first step now is to create a public consultation with all the financial institutions affiliated to the Superintendencia General de Entidades Financieras, which regulates all the financial institutions both public and private in the country. The change will benefit transactions such as contracts established in dollars, credit card operations, bank loans and the price of utilities among, according to the document. Right now, the micro-devaluation system and the exchange rate benefit exporters and savings accounts, while is not as good for importers and those indebted in dollars, according to Hairo Rodríguez, member of the Asociación Bancaria Costarricense. “By using the micro-devaluation system, there is a depreciation of 27 colons a year. That is not much and the Central Bank has even followed a conservative police to keep steady exchange rates,” said Rodríguez. He said that in the past few years, Banco Central has taken several millions of dollars from its own reserves and put it into the exchange market as a way to keep the rate changes at a reasonable pace. |
