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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 99
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 Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía
photo
José Lino Chaves promises
a strong offensiveJosé Lino
Chaves is back
to head environment court By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
This news will not be good for polluters, those who build on public land or for destroyers of mangroves. José Lino Chaves has again assumed the position of president of the Tribunal Ambiental Administrativo, the independent environmental court in the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía. Chaves served since October 2012 in the Laura Chinchilla administration as vice minister for Agua y Mares. In the announcement of his selection to again head the tribunal, Chaves was quoted saying that he was particularly concerned with the deterioration of the mangroves, the contamination by sewage in the metro area where controls have been lax, the large expanses of agricultural land and real estate projects that are causing environmental damage. Under his leadership, the tribunal conducted sweeps on both the Pacific and Caribbean coast and haled many landowners and developers into environment court. He said in the announcement of his selection that he would conduct a strong offensive against environmental crimes. It's hurricane season again with new forecast awaited By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The country is just 11 days from the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season. The season already is six days old in the Pacific. June 1 is the traditional date for the Atlantic. The season runs until Nov. 30, although hurricanes and tropical storms can develop at any time. The official start in the Pacific is May 15, and already the U.S. National Hurricane Center has activated its reports, The center shows a broad area of low pressure located several hundred miles south southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, with the probability of developing into anything serious of about 10 percent. Most Pacific hurricanes veer to the west and are less troubling to Costa Rica and the Atlantic variety. Although hurricanes seldom make landfall in Costa Rica, the lengthy arms of the storm can cause serious damage. Much awaited is the latest prediction by Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray at Colorado State University. So far they have said that they anticipate that the 2014 Atlantic basin hurricane season will have below-average activity compared with the 1981-2010 average. They said they also anticipate a below-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the United States coastline and in the Caribbean. The new forecast is due June 2. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also is expected to produce a forecast in the next few days. Suspect held in robberies of Guadalupe school kids By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial investigators detained a man Monday in Cartago to face allegations he was the school kid bandit who stuck up youngsters in Guadalupe. The detention was in part due to the media publication of a photo of the robbery suspect. The man is 22 and accused of aggravated robbery. Agents said that there are at least nine victims who were confronted by a robber in February and March. The robber threatened the youngsters with a firearm in order to steal their possessions, said agents. The crimes took place between noon and 2 p.m. Enforcement cuts rustling, Fuerza Pública reports By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Fuerza Pública says that it had reduced the rustling of cattle by 18 percent with emphasis on the control of the highways and pleas to the public to turn in crooks. The agency also said that the arrests of some rustlers also has reduced the crimes. In one case they detained several men in a car on the way to Nicaragua with three calves also in the vehicle. The reduction in rustling only includes live cows. Animals that are killed in the field and dismembered for meat were not counted. These crimes, too, are causing great economic loss to cattle operators. Truckers carrying cattle now are obligated to stop at police checkpoints, the Fuerza Pública noted. The truckers must show extensive paperwork. Permanent markings or tags on animals also help, officers said. Respose to news stories
New York reader remembersbar owner Bobby Dempsey Dear A.M. Costa Rica: I was saddened to hear of the death of my friend Bobby. I was a resident of San José for many years and the owner of Nashville South Bar on Calle 5 for about 5 years. All of those years up until the last year of our operation, Bobby was a regular of mine, (always occupying the seat to the left of the window), and we developed a close friendship. The last year in the life of Nashville Bar, Bobby took over what was the old Dos Gringos, and changed the name to Papi's. He did a great job turning the place around and (at least for me) made it the best destination for all of the expats in the area. He will be missed by all who knew him, especially by me. Gringo Gulch will not be the same without Bobby Dempsey, Goodbye my friend! Chris
Wood
New York
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 99 | |
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| Bankers say they will give a hand to help striking teachers |
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By
Michael Krumholtz
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff In an effort to get striking teachers off the streets and back into classrooms, Costa Rica's government and the association of banks have mapped out an initial payment plan. Tuesday afternoon President Luis Guillermo Solís announced a program to reimburse the unpaid salaries for the portion of teachers who have received no wages in the last few weeks. “Our authorities and the Asociación Bancaria Costarricense have devised a special payment mechanism for teachers that have not received their salaries,” announced the president through his Twitter account. Rallying behind the Asociación Nacional de Educadores, teachers throughout Costa Rica are striking and refusing to work until they receive the salaries they are due. There is currently a problem with the pay system, known as Integra2, which was installed under Laura Chinchilla's administration. More than 13,000 teachers throughout the country have been affected by the failure, said Ana Magaly Mora Rodríguez of the teachers association, and only those who have not been paid at all will be helped by the banks. She added that association leaders would meet with government officials in response to Solis' announcement. Demonstrations are scheduled for the rest of the week, including a grand march along Paseo Colón and Avenida Segunda Friday morning. Sonia Marta Mora, the minister of Educación Pública, has warned |
teachers to
not expect an overnight fix. She said the database has suffered from
technical hiccups on multiple occasions but that no one under the
previous administration had created a backup method to pay
salaries. During an address to citizens Sunday, Solís also faulted the previous administration for not taking more precautionary steps when creating Integra2. “The lack of technical planning and erroneous political decisions have led teachers to the streets today demanding, rightfully, that they receive their pay on time,” he said. The Asociación Bancaria Costarricense, which propelled the plan to compensate some of the teachers, is made up of most of the major private banks and financing firms in Costa Rica. Those teachers who have received no pay were told Tuesday to make their way to the banks with proper documentation and teaching certification to receive their salaries. Still, thousands more are left waiting for their paychecks. Government officials said they are working around the clock to fix the program errors. Tuesday a representative from the Ministerio de Educación Pública said the group is working with the necessary people to conduct studies on Integra2 to minimize future failures. And through Twitter, Solís also offered reassurance that his administration is doing all it can to help the teachers. “I reiterate the government's proactive will,” he said. “We are making every effort possible to build the solutions that the country needs.” |
 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguirdad Pública photos
Many
tabs laced with LSD and the unexpected discovery of a marijuana-growing
operation in Jacó.
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| Anti-drug police detain 12 as they take down an LSD
marketing ring |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Drug control police came away with the largest confiscation of LSD in Costa Rican history Tuesday. According to a security ministry report, the record bust resulted from a series of raids on a major international trafficking group. The illegal operation was broken up by a chain of police raids that happened throughout the country. Officers from the Policía de Control de Drogas found the large supply of LSD at a home in Jacó. They reported the discovery of more than 15,600 tabs in a makeshift laboratory there. The drug trade syndicate was made up of 12 persons, officers said. The suspects include seven Costa Ricans, two Colombians, two Dominicans, and one Israeli. A 47-year-old Colombian with the last |
name Higuita was
the organization's leader, according to the report. Police simultaneously raided a bar, a farm, a building, and seven homes. In one of the other homes they found a hydroponic marijuana grow-operation. Police said they have previously arrested other members of this same group and confiscated nearly 800 kilograms of cocaine and $600,000 in cash. Jorge Chavarría Guzmán, the fiscal general, said after the raids Tuesday that this group had been transporting cocaine through a fake business that was supposed to be delivering food products like yucca and pineapple. In the two decades before this seizure, Costa Rican drug police had only confiscated around 1,000 tabs of LSD total, agents said. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 99 | |||||
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| DNA studies show that humpbacks are really three separate
subspecies |
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By
the British Antarctic Survey Press Office
A new genetic study has revealed that populations of humpback whales in the oceans of the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere are much more distinct from each other than previously thought, and should be recognized as separate subspecies. Understanding how connected these populations are has important implications for the recovery of these charismatic animals that were once devastated by hunting. The team, led by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and Oregon State University, analyzed the largest and most comprehensive genetic data set so far compiled for this iconic species. The findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B this week, show that humpback whales of the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere are on independent evolutionary trajectories. Known for their amazing acrobatics, humpback whales annually undertake the longest migration of any mammal between their winter breeding grounds and summer feeding grounds. Although they travel vast distances, it appears their populations do not cross paths. Lead author, Dr Jennifer Jackson of the British Antarctic Survey explains: “Despite seasonal migrations of more than 16,000 km return, humpback whale populations are actually more isolated from one another than we thought. Their populations appear separated by warm equatorial waters that they rarely cross. “The color of the bodies and undersides of the tail, the flukes, of humpback whales in the northern oceans tend to be much darker than those in the Southern Hemisphere. Until this study we didn’t realize that these kinds of subtle differences are actually a sign of long-term isolation between humpback populations in the three global ocean basins. “Using genetic samples, collected from free-swimming whales with a small biopsy dart, we’ve been able to look at two types of humpback DNA: the ‘mitochondrial’ DNA which is inherited from the mother, and the nuclear DNA which is inherited from both parents. The mitochondrial DNA allows us to build up a picture of how female humpbacks have moved across the globe over the last million years. The nuclear DNA, which evolves more slowly, provides us with a general pattern of species movements as a whole. |
 British Antarctic Survey/D W H Walton
Individual humpbacks are
identified by the unique pattern on the underside of their tails.“We found that although female whales have crossed from one hemisphere to another at certain times in the last few thousand years, they generally stay in their ocean of birth. This isolation means they have been evolving semi-independently for a long time, so the humpbacks in the three global ocean basins should be classified as separate subspecies. This has implications for how we think about their conservation and recovery on a regional scale. “Further genetic sequencing and analysis should also help us to understand more about the pattern of humpback migrations in the past. Big changes in the ocean can leave signatures in the genetic code of marine species. For example, the last glacial maximum caused many to shift southwards until the ice retreated or to find ice-free areas in the north. Humpbacks are excellent oceanographers. They go where the food is and can travel long distances to get it, so their patterns of past migration can tell us a lot about the ocean thousands of years ago.” This research brought together researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, Oregon State University, Florida State University, James Cook University, University of Auckland, Fundacion CEQUA, Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History and the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium, with funding from the New Zealand Royal Society Marsden Fund and the Lenfest Ocean Program. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 99 | |||||
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| U.S. House is considering five trafficking measures By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Many Americans think of human trafficking as a problem that exists far away from U.S. shores, such as the case of the almost 300 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram and are still missing. But the U.S. government says as many as 17,500 people, mostly girls, are trafficked into the United States annually, and that does not include those who are kidnapped and forced into sex slavery within U.S. borders. The U.S. House of Representatives has taken action to help the victims and to crack down on perpetrators. A survivor of human trafficking, Shandra Woworuntu, was on Capitol Hill Tuesday to advocate for restitution and other government services to help victims. Ms. Woworuntu is originally from Indonesia. She is college-educated and worked as a financial analyst in her country until she lost her job due to political instability. Ms. Woworuntu came to the United States in 2001 under the false impression that she had been offered a job in the hospitality industry, but she was kidnapped at the airport in New York and forced into sex slavery, she said. “During my arrival someone picked me up, and took me into the van. They took my passport, they took my hidden ticket, and the same day I was trafficked into underground sex business,” she said. Ms. Woworuntu escaped and her trafficker is now in prison. She received help from a non-profit organization and now advocates to raise awareness about human trafficking. Democratic and Republican lawmakers joined forces on five bills to help state and local governments develop victim-centered programs and to train law enforcement officers to rescue victims and not to treat them as prostitutes. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called for bipartisan efforts to address the problem. “And we must confront this issue head on, not just as Republicans, not just as Democrats, but as dads, as moms, as sisters and brothers. We must protect our children,” said Cantor. Rep. Carolyn Maloney has worked to combat human trafficking internationally for more than a decade. “There is no crime on earth more appalling, no offense as terrible, no act of depravity as harmful to the community of a nation and certainly to the individuals affected,” said Ms. Maloney. The five bills, which must be approved by the Senate, also seek to reduce the demand for human trafficking by encouraging police and judges to treat those who solicit sexual activities from minors as human traffickers, rather than petty criminals. The average age for girls forced into sex slavery is 13, and the average age for boys is 12. FBI suspicious of Russians with interest in tech funding By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
During the heady days of the U.S. reset policy with Russia, the high-tech sector emerged as a potential centerpiece for bilateral commercial and scientific cooperation, underscored by Internet-savvy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2010 visit to Silicon Valley. But a surge of Russian cash into the U.S. tech sector in recent years has prompted federal authorities to alert start-ups in a key American innovation cradle about potential espionage via Russian venture capital firms financing their operations. The Boston division of the FBI is taking this warning to U.S. tech firms with Russian funding, and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a partner of Russia’s Skolkovo initiative, which was launched in 2010 to create a Russian version of Silicon Valley. Lucia Ziobro, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, specifically cited Skolkovo’s relationship with Russian truck maker KamAZ, which supplies armored vehicles to the Russian military, as possibly worrying. "As far as the Skolkovo institute is concerned, you have foreign defense contractors in the same sort of area of business that could potentially result in U.S. technology being acquired by that Russian defense firm, and then being given to the government," Agent Ziobro said. Russian government-backed investors in the United States have dismissed the FBI’s warnings as baseless, and the agency has not presented evidence of Russia using venture capital fund to steal technology. Agent Ziobro said her office’s discussions with start-ups and research hubs with Russian partners was part of a broader outreach program to inform the tech sector of the possible dangers of working with foreign investors. "Our outreach talks about the general foreign intelligence threat, be it from China, be it from Russia, be it from, you know, any other country," she said. The FBI's Boston office began calling attention to Russian tech investment in the United States following a white paper it produced on the subject late last year, Agent Ziobro said. The office then issued a notice to Boston-area technology companies, colleges and universities identifying partnerships with Russian entities and venture capital companies as potential vehicles for Russian espionage. Then, in an op-ed published in the Boston Business Journal last month, Agent Ziobro urged U.S. companies to remain vigilant when deciding whether to partner with Russian investors, specifically citing the Skolkovo Foundation, which oversees the development of the high-tech center currently under construction outside Moscow. "The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications," she wrote in the op-ed. Aside from Skolkovo, Agent Ziobro did not identify any other Russian entities specializing in the high-tech sector in her op-ed. But two investment vehicles funded by the Russian government have a presence in Massachusetts, home to thriving technology and biotech industries. In 2011, state-funded Rusnano, a $10 billion fund focusing on nanotechnology, invested a total of $50 million in Boston-area nanomedicine firms, BIND Biosciences and Selecta Biosciences. The same year it invested $35 million in the Boston renewable fuels firm Joule Unlimited. BIND declined to comment on the FBI warnings, while Selecta and Joule did not respond to inquiries. Rusnano currently has $1.2 billion invested in U.S. companies, including biotech, energy, coating and hardware firms, Evgeny Druzyaka, vice president of Rusnano USA said. Druzyaka declined to comment on the FBI’s statements. But Dmitry Akhanov, chief executive of Rusnano USA, told The Boston Globe that he thought Ziobro’s op-ed was an April Fool’s joke. Boston is also home to the U.S. headquarters of the state-funded Russian Venture Co., which has around $65 million invested in U.S. companies and venture funds, according to RVC-USA chief executive Axel Tillmann. RVC has also sponsored the Massachusetts start-up initiative MassChallenge. Tillmann said he was perplexed by the FBI’s comments about Russian venture capital. "We are helping bilateral collaboration on business-to-business levels, and that is our main mission," he said. "I don’t know a single evidence that ever came across my desk, or information I ever heard, that is an iota of suspicion that would give any credence to the FBI assertions." The Skolkovo Foundation declined to comment on the Boston FBI office’s suggestion that the tech initiative presents a potential espionage threat to U.S. partners. The foundation teamed up with MIT last year to create a graduate university called the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, or Skoltech, that will be located at the Skolkovo research hub outside Moscow. Four years after Medvedev announced the innovation project and made it the centerpiece of his drive to modernize and diversify Russia’s oil-and-gas-dominated economy, the sprawling 400-hectare territory is still years from completion. The seven-story Hypercube building is the nerve center of the hub, largely by virtue of the fact that it is the only functioning building to have been built. It is home to a study space and gadget workshops for the joint initiative with MIT. In the building’s airy ground-floor lobby, a man in a suit this week looked on as a technician tested a remote-controlled four-wheel robot, which used pincers to lift a miniature bottle of whiskey and pour the amber spirit -- unsuccessfully -- into a plastic cup. Next month, the Hypercube is slated to host an annual start-up fair featuring dozens of nearby pavilions. So far the Skolkovo Foundation has used substantial tax breaks to lure 37 major industry players into what it calls its innovation center. MIT spokesman Nathaniel Nickerson said that the university’s collaboration with Skolkovo is intended to help create a new institutional paradigm, bringing together education, research and innovation. "Programs such as Skoltech are intended to build intellectual relationships in a transparent environment, centering on open, fundamental, publishable research," Nickerson said in emailed comments. Nickerson added that in all of MIT’s international collaborations, the university "is very careful to comply with all U.S. export-control regulations." "We also have and continue to participate in various outreach programs conducted by various federal agencies, including the FBI and Department of Commerce," he said. U.S. bans 12 Russians involved in lawyer's death By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States has slapped sanctions on 12 Russians, including those suspected of involvement in the 2009 prison death of a Russian lawyer who had leveled accusations of a massive Russian tax fraud. The U.S. State Department, in a statement Tuesday, linked the sanctions to the detention, prison abuse and death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in 2009 in a notorious Moscow prison. The State Department says the designees are banned from entering the United States and that their U.S. assets had been frozen. Magnitsky worked as an auditor for the London-based firm Hermitage Capital Investment, when he uncovered an alleged scam by Russian police, gangsters and bankers to take over three Hermitage companies and then illegally collect $230 million in tax refunds. After making his allegations public, Magnitsky was himself arrested on tax evasion charges. In poor health from his ordeal, he died in prison at age 37, after 11 months in detention without trial. The widely publicized case came to embody long-standing Western allegations of widespread prison abuse in Russia, and led to a fresh dispute between Washington and Moscow. In 2012, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation known as the Magnitsky Act, which aims to penalize those connected to the lawyer's death. In response to the U.S. legislation, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. U.S. Supreme Court is key to funding of campaigns By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The numbers are astounding. According to the Federal Election Commission, nearly $7 billion was spent on the 2012 U.S. presidential election, and that includes spending by candidates, parties and outside groups. During this year’s congressional campaign cycle, monitoring groups estimate about $2.6 billion will be spent on television advertising alone. Recent Supreme Court decisions have also helped to open the money spigots even more. The 2010 case known as Citizens United loosened restrictions on donations from corporations, labor unions and outside groups. This year’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC struck down many of the overall limits on campaign donations from individuals, opening up fresh avenues of contributions to even more members of Congress, challengers and political committees. Both Supreme Court rulings came on five-to-four decisions, so the court remains sharply divided on issues of money and politics. But for now, the more conservative view of Chief Justice John Roberts is carrying the day on the high court, suggesting that more stringent campaign finance laws are not likely to pass muster with the five-member conservative majority on the high court. Of course, before that could happen, Congress would have to act to retighten campaign finance laws and there is no sign of that happening anytime soon. Political watchdog groups are watching the expansion of campaign donations with growing concern. Sheila Krumholz is the executive director of The Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, a nonpartisan research group that tracks campaign spending and the influence of money in politics. “The central tension is between freedom of speech and fear of corruption, or the appearance of corruption”, she says. “We don’t want to censor anyone from being able to speak their mind and use their money in some ways. On the other hand, if you use a lot of money and depending on its source, it could have a corrupting influence.” Ms. Krumholz says it is clear that the current Supreme Court values speech in the form of campaign contributions more than concerns about corruption. She says the court decisions in recent years have strengthened the hand of wealthy political contributors and outside groups that wish to donate money, feeding the notion that those with the most money speak loudest. Supporters of the recent Supreme Court rulings expanding the rights of political contributors have a far different take. Conservatives have long equated the right to freely give campaign contributions with free speech. They chafed for years as a steady stream of campaign finance laws went on the books, which in their view restricted the right of individuals to make themselves heard in the political marketplace. “Basically money helps people speak. So yes, money isn’t speech, but money helps buy speech,” says David Keating, president of The Center for Competitive Politics, a group that seeks to expand First Amendment rights to free expression. “People ought to be able to spend whatever they want saying what they want to other people in the United States and then let the voters decide.” Keating believes the government should get out of the business of trying to regulate campaign contributions altogether. “The bigger danger is letting the people who are in the government decide what people are allowed to say about the government.” The debate has played out at times in the halls of Congress. Not long ago in an exchange on the Senate floor, Senator Democratic leader Harry Reid went toe-to-toe with his Republican counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell. Reid has spent a lot of time thundering against conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, major players in funding of conservative candidates and causes. “The founders believed in a democracy where every American had a voice and a vote,” Reid argued recently, trying to get voters to focus on campaign finance as an issue in this year’s elections. But McConnell fired back that all Americans regardless of their economic status should have the right to express themselves in election spending, no matter which side of the political aisle they happen to sit on. “There are many wealthy Americans who feel deeply about the country, who are committed to one side or the other, who are trying to have an impact on the country, as many on the left as on the right.” Republicans often counter attacks aimed at the Koch brothers by citing wealthy liberal activists like George Soros and Tom Steyer. Reform advocates acknowledge that the exploding money chase is bipartisan in nature. “Money ultimately speaks and in many cases money speaks loudest and it doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you are on both parties are complicit in this process,” says Sheila Krumholz. But she argues that doesn’t make it any less of a threat in terms of the potential for abuse and corruption. She fears a return to the kinds of campaign abuses that came to light during the Watergate scandal of the 1970’s when bags of money were secretly handed over to political campaigns with an understanding that the contributors would be taken care of down the line. Ms. Krumholz also worries that with Congress deadlocked on the issue and the Supreme Court not open to further reform, voters will be left with the impression that government is simply unwilling or unable to address the problem. “I think until we have that kind of open, honest dialogue it is going to take a scandal to make us confront this problem.” She also says the voters are ultimately responsible for pushing the issue. “We own them. They work for us. So we need to be better managers of our government. It’s our government and if it’s broken, who’s responsible? We are.” U.S. Navy Pacific emphasis said to be showing results By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States' top naval officer said the Navy’s growing presence in the Asia-Pacific region is beginning to show results and shape events, but acknowledges it will be a long-term effort. Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, said he hopes the U.S. Navy will be able to expand cooperation with India once its new government takes its place. Speaking Monday at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Greenert said the growing military-to-military dialogue with China is beginning to show results, especially in the South China Sea, where maritime tensions between China and its neighbors are on the rise. He said China was among the Asia-Pacific powers that joined the United States last month in adopting a Code of Unplanned Encounters at Sea during a meeting in Qingdao. The Philippines and Vietnam are among the nations that have territorial disputes with China. During President Barack Obama’s Asia trip last month, the United States signed a 10-year security agreement with Manila. NASA facility vulnerable to rise waters from ocean By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. scientists say a rising ocean is forcing NASA to build seawalls near major flight and research centers along the U.S. coasts. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists says rising sea levels are the greatest threat to the historic Kennedy Space Center, along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida. It says other NASA facilities already have faced costly damage from erosion and hurricanes. NASA says it is essential that launching pads be located near water if a test flight has to be aborted in mid-air or a technical problem forces astronauts to make an emergency return to Earth. Other key NASA facilities are located along the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. The report says rising seas threaten other historic sites, including colonial Boston, Hawaiian state parks, and Liberty Island in New York Harbor. Federal judge throws out gay marriage ban in East By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A U.S. federal judge has overturned the state of Pennsylvania's ban on gay marriage. Tuesday's decision makes same-sex marriage legal throughout the U.S. northeast, a region that tends to lean liberal. Pennsylvania is now the 19th U.S. state to allow gay marriage, along with the District of Columbia. The northwestern state of Oregon became number 18 Monday when a federal judge struck down its voter-approved gay marriage ban. Judges have been toppling these state bans across the United States since a landmark ruling last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act — a law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. It had barred same-sex couples from receiving federal tax, health and pension benefits. And it is not just the laws that are changing. Recent public opinion polling shows Americans' support for gay marriage has more than doubled over the past 20 years. Super soybeans put forth as food shortage answer By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
According to the United Nations, the world’s population will increase by 34 percent by the middle of the century. Global food production needs to meet this increase. A recent study of soybeans, one of the major food crops and sources of protein, may be one step in helping solve the global food crisis though the power of computers. The U.N. predicts food production must increase by 70 percent to meet the needs of a wealthier and more urban world population. The World Food Prize Foundation president and former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Kenneth Quinn, calls it the greatest challenge in history. “There’s going to be another 2 billion people on our planet between now and 2050 and how are we going to produce enough food for them to eat?” asked Quinn. One solution is science. The study led by Darren Drewry of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is looking for a super soybean. A computer model can create a plant that can be more productive and reflects more light back into space to reduce global warming's effects, while using less water. One plant with all these traits may be hard to find, but, with data from real soybean plants, a computer can redesign a plant with the traits through the arrangement of the leaves, their density and angle to the sun. “That’s the real critical thing that we found here that some of these goals that we might have intuitively thought were mutually exclusive that we can’t increase productivity without increasing water use," said Drewry. "We find that there are changes to the architecture of modern soybean cultivars that can be made to help us improve on many of these goals.” The next step is to take the computer’s model plant and test it in the field by artificial manipulation, says University of Illinois Professor Stephen Long. “One of the things the modeling predicted is that there’s too much leaf area so we’re actually removing leaves as the plant's growing to get a lower leaf area," said Long. "We’re also artificially modifying the angle of the leaves as well to reflect what the model predicted.” If the plants in the field behave as predicted, scientists will look for soybean lines with specific traits and crossbreed them into the computer’s super soybean. Long said it is important to find solutions to the predicted global food shortage before it happens, because even if the super soybean can become reality, it will be another 20 years before the crop can appear in a farmer's field. World Health director says gains are threatened By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The director-general of the World Health Organization warns conflict, social inequality and economic exclusion are threatening important gains made in health. Director-General Margaret Chan lost no time in saying achievements in the global campaign to wipe out polio are in danger of unraveling. She says armed conflict, weak border controls, poor routine immunization coverage and the targeted killing of polio workers are standing in the way of eradicating this crippling disease. “Two years ago, the international spread of polio virus had nearly ceased. Not anymore. Two years ago, polio was on its knees, thanks to committed political leadership, better strategies and tools, and the dedication of millions of polio workers. The factors responsible for this setback are largely beyond the control of the health sector," said Ms. Chan. She cites what she calls ominous trends threatening the health sector. She says rising inequality and economic exclusion are affecting social cohesion and stability. She warns damage to the environment is putting at risk the planet’s ability to sustain human life in good health. The World Health chief says the rise of antimicrobial resistance, which is rendering many antibiotics ineffective, now affects every region of the world. Also on the rise are non-communicable diseases, including new cancer cases and increases in heart disease, diabetes, and chronic lung diseases. She says the prevalence of obesity and diet-related diseases are growing “Parts of the world are quite literally eating themselves to death. I am deeply concerned by the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity in every region of the world, with the increase fastest in low-and middle-income countries," she said. But while some children are getting fatter, Ms. Chan says others are going hungry and suffering from malnutrition. Despite this gloomy assessment, she points to a number of health successes. She notes the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals has saved many millions of lives. These include cuts in maternal and child mortality, and advances made in reducing deaths from TB and malaria. She says more than 12 million people with AIDS are living longer because they receive antiretroviral therapy, and India’s eradication of polio shows anything is possible. World economic report shows a repeat slowdown By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new report shows that economic growth slowed in some of the world's biggest economies in early 2014 for the second straight three-month period. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday that the collective economies of its 34 member nations increased just four-tenths of a percent in the January-to-March period. That was down from a half percentage point gain in the last quarter of 2013, and from an advance of seven-tenths of a point in the July-to-September quarter last year. The Paris-based group said early 2014 growth varied widely by country. The organization said Japan advanced 1.5 percent in the first quarter and Germany by eight-tenths of one percent. But it said the economies in the United States and France were almost flat, while Italy's economy dropped a tenth of a point. Europe's 18-nation eurozone gained two-tenths of a point, but the European Central Bank could soon cut a key benchmark interest rate in an effort to boost growth and cut unemployment. In the U.S., however, the central bank, the Federal Reserve, has been steadily trimming its direct economic stimulus as the country recovers from sluggish first quarter growth that was impacted by an unusually cold and snowy winter. GM issues another recall on pickups and some SUVs By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The biggest U.S. automaker, General Motors, has recalled another 2.4 million vehicles, this time for seat belt and transmission repairs on cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Tuesday's recall brings GM's worldwide recall total for the year to more than 15 million vehicles. The latest recall covers 1.3 million late-model sport utility vehicles because of possible seat belt failures and more than a million cars with automatic transmission defects. In all, GM has committed to making $1.7 billion in repairs. U.S. safety regulators fined General Motors $35 million last week for its slow efforts to report problems with automobile ignition switches that are linked to 13 deaths. It was the largest fine possible under current law. GM is the world's second biggest auto manufacturer, behind Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation. Public attention to media shown to lack staying power By
the Princeton University news staff
The good news for any passionate supporter of climate-change science is that negative media reports seem to have only a passing effect on public opinion, according to Princeton University and University of Oxford researchers. The bad news is that positive stories don't appear to possess much staying power, either. This dynamic suggests that climate scientists should reexamine how to effectively and more regularly engage the public, the researchers write. Measured by how often people worldwide scour the Internet for information related to climate change, overall public interest in the topic has steadily waned since 2007, according to a report in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Yet, the downturn in public interest does not seem tied to any particular negative publicity regarding climate-change science, which is what the researchers primarily wanted to gauge. First author William Anderegg, a postdoctoral research associate in the Princeton Environmental Institute who studies communication and climate change, and Gregory Goldsmith, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford's Environmental Change Institute, specifically looked into the effect on public interest and opinion of two widely reported, almost simultaneous events. The first involved the November 2009 hacking of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, which has been a preeminent source of data confirming human-driven climate change. Known as climategate, this event was initially trumpeted as proving that dissenting scientific views related to climate change have been maliciously quashed. Thorough investigations later declared that no misconduct took place. The second event was the revelation in late 2009 that an error in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — an organization under the auspices of the United Nations that periodically evaluates the science and impacts of climate change — overestimated how quickly glaciers in the Himalayas would melt. To first get a general sense of public interest in climate change, Anderegg and Goldsmith combed the freely available database Google Trends for global warming, climate change and all related terms that people around the world searched for between 2004 and 2013. The researchers documented search trends in English, Chinese and Spanish, which are the top three languages on the Internet. Google Trends receives more than 80 percent of the world's Internet search-engine activity, and it is increasingly called upon for research in economics, political science and public health. Internet searches related to climate change began to climb following the 2006 release of the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" starring former vice president Al Gore, and continued its ascent with the release of the climate panel's fourth report, the researchers found. Anderegg and Goldsmith specifically viewed searches for "climategate" between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2009. They found that the search trend had a six-day half-life, meaning that search frequency dropped by 50 percent every six days. After 22 days, the number of searches for climategate was a mere 10 percent of its peak. Information about climategate was most sought in the United States, Canada and Australia, while the cities with the most searchers were Toronto, London and Washington, D.C. The researchers tracked the popularity of the term global warming hoax to gauge the overall negative effect of climategate and the IPCC error on how the public perceives climate change. They found that searches for the term were actually higher the year before the events than during the year afterward. "The search volume quickly returns to the same level as before the incident," Goldsmith said. "This suggests no long-term change in the level of climate-change skepticism. We found that intense media coverage of an event such as climategate was followed by bursts of public interest, but these bursts were short-lived." |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 99 | |||||||||
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Press advocate
files brief backing Radio Caracas TV Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The Inter American Press Association has asked the Inter-American Human Rights Court to rule against the Venezuelan government for the unlawful shutdown of Radio Caracas Televisión broadcasting company in 2007. The request came after the submission of the amicus curiae brief, on which the court is due to hold a hearing at the end of the month. In the name of the organization, Elizabeth Ballantine, president, in coordination with the Press Freedom and Legal Affairs Committees, invited the Inter-American Human Rights Court to rule against the Venezuelan government’s decision to halt RCTV’s license and retaliate against it for its editorial stance — a flagrant violation of the principles of freedom of expression established in the American Convention.” The case before the court concerns Marcel Granier and other shareholders, members of the board of directors and/or journalists of Radio Caracas Televisión, an outlet that began broadcasting in 1953, “whose license, according to report No. 112/12 of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was not renewed by the government in 2007 in reprisal for their critical editorial stance and reports against the government,” the Inter American Press Association declared in its opinion. The Inter American Press Association also said that “through precautionary measures presented by social organizations … the Constitutional Tribunal of the Supreme Court ordered the impoundment, without indemnity, of all RCTV platforms, with the aim of securing the immediate operation of a television signal.” The government, under direct orders from former president, Hugo Chávez Frías, shut down Radio Caracas Television’s open signal and confiscated its 48 repeater stations and broadcast equipment. A new public TV channel began operating after the station’s equipments were disconnected. Televisora Venezolana Social, sponsored principally by the Venezuelan government, is using the frequencies that Radio Caracas Televisión previously had and is operating throughout the country using the broadcast equipment belonging to it. The Inter American Press Association has a long history of submitting opinions and creating initiatives at the Inter-American Court and Commission. The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org. The parent company of A.M. Costa Rica is a member of the association. |
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| From Page 7 Citi will inaugurate new location today By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Citi, the financial services firm, plans to inaugurate its $35 million Campus Citi in Ribera de Belén today. Public officials are expected to participate. The site is the Oficentro El Cafetal, which also is shared by the firm Deloitte. The Citi operation is called a shared services center and basically a call center, and the firm is expected to have about 800 workers there. At the same time the Citi presence in retail banking is decreasing as the local entity closes branches in the Pacific coast. The project had been announced last year. |
