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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 5, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 110
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Rains close
two national routes so far
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Slides prompted by heavy rains Wednesday have closed at least two roads. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad said that Ruta 702 at Bajo Rodríguez was closed due to a series of slides along the route. The location is between San Ramón and Arenal. Ruta 126 at Vara Blanca north of the Central Valley also was ordered closed Wednesday night for much the same reason. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that more rain should be expected this afternoon in the Central Valley and along the Pacific coast. The heaviest rainfall was expected to be in the mountains of Guanacaste and in the south Pacific. The afternoon thunderstorms are a product of humid and hot mornings that encouraged evaporation. The country is cloaked in unstable air, too, said the institute, which is typical of the rainy season. The weather institute reported that some 72 millimeters of rain, nearly three inches, fell at Juan Santamaría airport from 7 a.m. Wednesday. That seemed to be the heaviest rainfall based on the institute's automatic weather stations. Meanwhile, there should be little rain along the Caribbean coast today, the forecast said.  Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Púbica photo
Police
and neighbors subdue wandering reptile
Scaly
intruder gets heave-ho in Cañas
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A mature crocodile, out for a little swim in the Río Cañas Wednesday, made some human bathers there a bit nervous. The croc measures 3.5 meters or about eleven and a half feet. Fuerza Pública officers and neighbors in the area combined forces to land the reptile, tie it up and prepare it for transport. The animal ended up at a forest refuge managed by the environmental ministry. Police said about 50 persons were cooling off in the river when the crocodile made an appearance. Such reptiles have gotten bad press in May. In one case a drunk challenged the crocodiles that inhabit the Río Tárcoles near Jacó. He waded into the river against a friend's advice. The crocodiles accepted the challenge, and his head turned up several days later. Another body with clear indications of being gnawed by crocodiles showed up in the Río Tempisque. The circumstances of the man's death have yet to be learned, and it is possible that someone killed him and put him into the river as a way of disposing the body and, in a way, slandering crocodiles. Such dumping by drug dealers is common in the various territorial wars. Crocs also can be found in the surf. The Universidad de Costa Rica has documented the genetic mix of the various groups of crocodiles that live at the mouths of rivers. Clearly male crocs go courting via the ocean to find mates at other river mouths. Our readers opinions Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Only in Costa Rica where up is down and black is white, where no two government agencies can ever agree on policy and where no effort is ever made to plan a strategic future for the country, would the newly elected president go to the U.S. looking for investments. Two large U.S. employers have not even completely moved out, and he is hoping to convince other companies that Costa Rican policies have changed for the better. Intel did not leave only for cheaper wages in Vietnam. The Caja would not flex in their rigid rules for workers’ shifts, making it very difficult for Intel to run their production efficiently. The problem is that the bureaucracy is well dug in and independent of national goals, each bureau is like a fiefdom staking out its own terrain. President Solis is looking for U.S. investors. How about easing up on pensioner immigration status like Costa Rica had 20 years ago? Panamá and Ecuador are earnestly enticing U.S. pensioners to retire to their respective countries offering discounts at stores and services and moving incentives, and U.S. retirees are flooding into those countries. What could be better for a country than these cash cows that pour money into the country and require very few national resources? How about putting some attention and common sense into the maritime zone law? As it is now, coastal development only moves forward by corruption and/or by those wealthy enough to accomplish their projects. By establishing a cohesive plan regulator and issuing sensible concessions, the country can begin to collect millions and millions of dollars in property taxes. 95 percent of the coastal occupants have no property rights but pay no property taxes either. U.S. companies have seen how the Costa Rican government treats U.S. investors from Millicom to Intel, and they will not rush to invest in a country where the rules change from agency to agency and from one administration to the other, and where energy prices have no end in sight. Businesses want profits but they also want stability and fair play. The president needs to correct the situation here in his own government, and businesses will come knocking on the doors. James Loren
Nicoya Peninsula Obama was not only person with a red line Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Regarding the article about the Syrian chemical weapons "red line," it may have been President Obama who used the now infamous words, but the fact that a universal chemical weapons red line existed was understood by the U.S. and all of the NATO members who are also signatories of the Chemical Weapons Treaty of 1984. When Assad used the weapon of mass destruction, he crossed everybody's line, not just Obama's Little did Obama or anybody else know that Congress, the American people, and the British and French public would reject even the limited military action that was proposed as a response to a clear violation of the treaty, and that the Chemical Weapons Treaty would be rendered virtually worthless as a result. Even though the retaliatory bombing attacks Obama proposed would more than likely have been ineffective, and might have sucked America into a deeper involvement in the fighting, this retreat from the long presumed Chemical Weapons Treaty red line by NATO is most unfortunate and ominous because it demonstrates to the world and the nastiest people in it, that chemical weapons can be used against civilians without fear of retaliation. And on a larger scale, the president has the unfortunate but necessary task of ramping down our military involvements in the Middle East and South Asia after more than 12 fruitless years of warfare that has cost more than 7,400 American lives to date, that has killed tens of thousands of non combatants, and that has drained the U.S. treasury of trillions of dollars, all while accomplishing next to nothing. In fact, Iraq and Afghanistan are less stable than when America first unleashed the Bush doctrine, and the radicalization of Islam in its entirety has been greatly accelerated. Further, a majority of the American people now say that (1) America's military adventures in the Muslim world were a mistake, (2) America should "mind its own business," and (3) "national defense" should start at home. Trying to paint this shift in attitudes and strategies as a failure of policy or of will by the President is disingenuous in the extreme. The inconvenient truth is that America's policies in the region have been a massive, collective failure for more than 60 years, ever since the CIA overthrew the Iranian government in 1953. Everything that's happening now is a culmination of those failures and more importantly, a reflection of the will of the American public that is demanding a more pragmatic and less pugnacious foreign policy and a renewed focus on domestic problem solving. It's long past time to let Muslims solve their own problems, even if we don't like the solutions. Dean Barbour
Manuel Antonio
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 5, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 110 | |
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| Judicial agents make an arrest for pimping at a bar-brothel
in Guápiles |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents detained a 50-year-old man and accused him Wednesday of running a house of prostitution at his bar in Guápiles. The man was not identified, but the business is Bar y Hotel el Viajero, based on a photo provided by the Judicial Investigating Organization. Although such operations are common all over Costa Rica, at the Guápiles operation the women lived on site. Agents said that they received a token from each customer that they would redeem at the end of the week. There were 17 women there when agents entered. They said that 10 were Dominican, one was Nicaraguan and the rest were Costa Rican. They were between the ages of 20 and 30 agents said. Agents said that the prostitution operation was open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and that customers were charged 10,000 colons for each half hour of sexual activity. That amount is a bit less than $18. El Viajero is in a 200-meter section of Guápiles about 100 meters east of the soccer stadium. The section is popularly called the zona rosa because of the illicit activity. Curiously even in a 2007 news article in La Nación reporters said there were several such places of prostitution in that area. The news was that a new police station was being set up there to reduce street crime. Using tokens to keep track of prostitution clients is a bit anachronistic in these days of computer-assisted accounting. Such techniques were popular in the West of the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Upton Sinclair called his 1919 self-published book on shoddy |
 Judicial Investigating Organization photo
Fuerza Pública officers
keep watch outside the El Viajero.journalism "The Brass Check," branding news people with the reference to the brass tokens typical of houses of prostitution then. Prostitution, of course, is not prosecuted in Costa Rica, but pimping is. However, there are many such operations, and many women say they prefer to work in one because of the personal security and regular hours There was no indication why agents targeted this particular location. The arrest Wednesday was made by the Sección Delitos Contra la Integridad Física Trata y Tráfico. |
| Fishing chamber says court ban on shrimp trawlers has cost
jobs |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Shrimp processing companies in Costa Rica continue to lay workers off and shut down operations as the fishing industry suffers without regulatory laws, according to the Puntarenas fishing chamber of commerce. Talmana, one of the nation's principal shrimp factories, recently went out of business, leaving 132 former employees without jobs, the chamber said. Another company, Don Emmanuel del Pacífico, cut its workforce by 50 percent, it added. There is a Sala IV prohibition on trawler net fishing that damages coral and traps turtles. The government fishing regulation agency, the Instituto Costarricense de Pesca y Acuicultura, is not allowed to issue new licenses or reactive expired ones to those who fish with shrimp trawler nets. The Cámara Puntarenense de Pescadores is now calling on lawmakers in the Asamblea Legislativa to pass legislation that would regulate semi-industrial shrimpers. Chamber President Roy Carranza said legislators need to help fishermen by changing the fishing law |
to more fairly
accommodate them, or else more jobs will be lost. “What we're going through in Puntarenas is a true emergency,” Carranza said. “Hundreds of families are without jobs and without power to bring food into their homes. For us fishermen that get our livelihoods from shrimping, there is no other way than the modification of the Ley de Pesca, which is not a priority in the Asamblea Legislativa right now.” The chamber has long campaigned for official laws that encourage sustainable fishing practices and allow for fishermen to have more access to fishing licenses. So far this year, two fishing licenses of chamber members have expired, leading to the layoffs of 60 workers. Carranza said another expiration coming in August will cause 30 more jobs to be lost if the government does not act quickly to turn things around. “We feel helpless because government authorities don't realize the impact that this brings to our families in Puntarenas,” Carranza said. “How is it possible that they don't care about this problem and that they don't come to us to eliminate any doubts or to know more about our livelihoods and the sustainable practices we employ?” |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 5, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 110 | |||||
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| Origin of devastating potato blight tracked down to a valley
in México |
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By
the Oregon State University news service
The cause of potato late blight and the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s has been tracked to a pretty, alpine valley in central México, which is ringed by mountains and now known to be the ancestral home of one of the most costly and deadly plant diseases in human history. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by researchers from Oregon State University, the U.S. Agricultural Research Service and five other institutions, concludes that Phytophthora infestans originated in this valley and co-evolved with potatoes over hundreds or maybe a few thousand years, and later spread repeatedly to much of the world. Knowing the origin of the pathogen does more than just fill in a few facts in agricultural history, the scientists say. It provides new avenues to discover resistance genes, and helps explain the mechanisms of repeated emergence of this disease, which to this day is still the most costly potato pathogen in the world. Potato late blight continues to be a major threat to global food security and at least $6 billion a year is spent to combat it, mostly due to the cost of fungicides and substantial yield losses. But P. infestans is now one of the few plant pathogens in the world with a well-characterized center of origin. “This is immensely important,” said Niklaus Grunwald, who is in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University, a researcher with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and lead author on the study. “This is just a textbook example of a center of origin for a pathogen, and it’s a real treat,” Grunwald said. “I can’t think of another system so well understood. This should allow us to make significant headway in finding additional genes that provide resistance to P. infestans.” Finding ways to genetically resist the potato late blight, scientists say, could help reduce the use of fungicides, and the expense and environmental concerns associated with them. There had been competing theories about where P. infestans may have evolved, with the leading candidates being the Toluca Valley near Mexico City or areas in South America where the potato itself actually evolved thousands of years ago. Gene sequencing technology used by this research group helped pin down the Toluca Valley as the ancestral hot spot. The P. infestans pathogen co-evolved there hundreds of years ago with plants that were distant cousins of modern potatoes, which produced tubers but were more often thought of as a weed than a vegetable crop. |
 Oregon State University photo
Toluca Valley where researchers
say the potato blight originated.Today, the newly-confirmed home of
this pathogen awaits researchers almost as a huge, natural laboratory,
Grunwald said. Since different potato varieties, plants and pathogens
have been co-evolving there for hundreds of years, it offers some of
the best hope to discover genes that provide some type of resistance.
Along with other staple foods such
as corn, rice and wheat, the potato forms a substantial portion of the
modern human diet. A recent United Nations report indicated that every
person on Earth eats, on average, more than 70 pounds of potatoes a
year. Potatoes contain a range of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals,
fiber and – for hungry populations – needed calories.
It’s believed that the potato was first domesticated more than 7,000 years ago in parts of what are now Peru and Bolivia, and it was brought to Europe by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s. A cheap and plentiful crop that can grow in many locations, the ability to increase food production with the potato eventually aided a European population boom in the 1800s. But what the New World provided, it also took away in the form of a potato late blight attack that originated from Mexico, caused multiple crop failures and led, among other things, to the Irish potato famine that began in 1845. Before it was over, 1 million people had died and another 1 million emigrated, many to the U.S. That famine was exacerbated by lack of potato diversity, as some of the varieties most vulnerable to P. infestans were also the varieties most widely cultivated. Collaborators on the research were from the University of Florida, the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, the University of the Andes in Colombia, Cornell University, and the International Potato Center in Beijing. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 5, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 110 | |||||||
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| Three Canadian policemen slain, and two are wounded By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Police in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick are searching for a man who shot and killed three police officers and wounded two others Wednesday. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police say the shooting occurred in the city of Moncton, when police responded to a call about an armed man wearing camouflage clothes. The suspected gunman has been identified as 24-year-old Justin Bourque. The two wounded officers are in stable condition at a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Mass shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun control laws. Wednesday's attack was the deadliest on Canadian police officers since 2005, when four officers were gunned down in the town of Mayerthorpe in western Alberta province. Some invasion veterans able to mark anniversary By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
World leaders are due to attend ceremonies in Normandy Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Around 160,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel June 6, 1944 to Nazi-occupied France, the biggest ever invasion fleet, which would help secure an Allied victory. On board a passenger ferry bound for Normandy, 98-year-old Tony Pyatt is making the same journey he took 70 years ago across the English Channel. Then, he was a lieutenant in the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and part of the biggest seaborne invasion ever launched. Seven thousand vessels set sail from Britain on June 6, 1944 to take back Nazi-occupied France. “I sat on the deck of this Liberty ship, reading a book without a care in the world, except that a few bombs were coming over from German planes, which did not hit us," Pyatt said. "It is difficult to recall. I was not frightened. But, on the other hand I was not doing any heroics either. We just had to accept it,” he said. In the eyes of many, Europe owes its freedom to veterans like Pyatt. Archive news reports from that day capture the hope and expectation for the D-Day invasion. “In the high spirits of free men launched on the grandest of all crusades, the trained soldiers of democracy left the shores of England. For all who had so long awaited the event, this was indeed an hour of triumph,” reads one. Within 12 months of the 160,000 Allied troops wading ashore in Normandy, Nazi Germany was on its knees. “We used to sleep in holes in the ground or we used to sleep inside the tanks sometimes. As signals officer, I had a jeep and I used that jeep all the way from Arromanches to Berlin,” Pyatt said. Further west, U.S. forces took command of the Utah and Omaha beaches. Thousands of young men waded onshore from landing craft amid a storm of German artillery and gunfire. For the generations that followed, those images are seared in the mind through history books and movies. For the veterans, a return to Normandy brings back vivid personal memories. George Shenkle, 92, was a communications corporal in the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. On D-Day he jumped into Normandy with the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He has returned to visit the U.S. cemetery above Omaha beach. “I will never forget the words of Dwight Eisenhower, ‘The eyes of the world are on you’. Now even today this makes shivers run up and down my spine.” Eisenhower, later a U.S. president, was the supreme allied commander. Bill Byers, from Oklahoma, was making his first trip back to Normandy since coming ashore in 1944 with the 300th Combat Engineers. He has come to the cemetery to pay his respects to a friend, Clifford Alexander, who did not survive the assault. Alexander was aboard a ship sunk by enemy fire off Omaha Beach. His body was never recovered. “To me it is just something that happened, you know. And we have never talked about it. I did see his wife, and told her what had happened. And she said ‘Well he is still alive somewhere.’ She would not take the hint that he was gone,” said Byers. Most of the veterans are now in their ninth decade or older. Many say this will be their final visit to the beaches that still bear the scars of war to the battlefields where so many of their comrades fell. Last of original code talkers dies at 93 in New Mexico By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Chester Nez, the last surviving U.S. Marine from the original unit of World War II Navajo code talkers, died early Wednesday in his home state of New Mexico. He was 93. Nez, a 10th grader in 1941 who lied to recruiters about his age, and 28 other Navajo enlisted in the Marines shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The 29 recruits were later assembled to develop a communications code for use in the Pacific theater that could not be deciphered by the Japanese military. Few people spoke the language, and historians say the cipher was so successful that even those fluent in Navajo could not understand what was being said. Nez and his fellow code talkers were honored at the White House in 2001 with Congressional Gold Medals. Navajo President Ben Shelly ordered flags across the 71,000 square kilometer reservation in the American southwest lowered from sunrise Thursday to sunset Sunday to honor Nez. In comments to the Associated Press in 2009, Nez described the wartime exploits of his fabled unit as "one of the greatest parts of history...that we used our own native language" to aid the Pacific war effort. "We're very proud of it," he said. His wartime service included the 1942 landing at Guadalcanal, the battle of Bougainville in New Guinea, and combat in Guam, Angaur and Peleliu. Some 400 code talkers would go on to use the battlefield cipher, encrypting messages for use in field telephones and radios across the Pacific theater. Ebola appears to be making a fast comeback in Guinea By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The ongoing ebola outbreak is resurging in Guinea, where the virus has killed about 200 people since it appeared in February, and in neighboring Sierra Leone, said Doctors Without Borders Wednesday. Health workers appeared to be making progress against the outbreak, but Guinea and Sierra Leone are now reporting fresh cases, some in areas previously unaffected by the disease, said the doctors group. The organization said it has seen more than 20 new cases of ebola at its treatment centers in Guinea in the past week. Areas like the capital, Conakry, and the towns of Gueckedou and Macenta, near the border with Liberia, have seen a spike in the number of new patients, it added. But ebola is also cropping up in previously unaffected towns, such as Telimele, north of the capital, and the coastal town of Boffa. Between May 29 and June 1, at least 21 people died and 37 new cases of suspected ebola were recorded in Guinea, the World Health Organization said, undermining the government's claims that the disease was coming under control. The new figures take to 328 the number of cases linked to the disease in the West African country, of which 193 have been confirmed by laboratory tests. In total, 208 deaths have been linked to ebola, making the outbreak one of the deadliest in recent years, according to World Health. Bart Janssens, director of operations for the doctors group, said the geographical spread of the disease in Guinea is a problem. "It clearly indicates that the epidemic is not at all under control as we might have hoped one or two weeks ago, when we really saw cases continually going down over time,” Janssens said. He said people should seek treatment as soon as they show symptoms or if they believe they have been exposed. The ebola virus is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and the virus can be transmitted even after that person dies. Health workers said families moving bodies for funerals have been a factor in the spread of the disease. It can take up to three weeks for symptoms, including fever, vomiting, body aches and uncontrollable bleeding, to appear. There is no cure. Janssens said some people do recover with medical care. "People are afraid to come out. It's difficult to identify all cases and also to track the contact of these cases,” he said. “These people travel to new sites either because they do not know they are sick or because they want to get away from places where they can be identified." The ongoing outbreak in West Africa has had a fatality rate of about 70 percent. Those who have survived, as well as relatives of those who have died, reported being stigmatized by their communities. U.S. to invest $1 billion in African electricity plan By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The U.S. government is investing more than $1 billion to create about 20 million new electricity connections in sub-Saharan Africa as part of its Beyond the Grid Initiative. The African continent has the world’s lowest rates of electrification, a fact that caught the attention of U.S. President Barack Obama when he visited the continent last year. So he announced an ambitious plan to electrify 20 million households in six countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania. U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz visited the Ethiopian capital this week to formally launch the program. From there, he said even basic electricity can light up many lives. “In villages, or rural families who have no electricity, a remarkably small amount is a life-changer. It changes the quality of life very, very dramatically," he said. "If you just think about what young people can do in terms of reading at night, etcetera in a safe and clean environment . . . . So it is really across the board, and clean energy opportunities in Africa are really immense.” The Beyond the Grid Program has pulled in more than two dozen international investors and will cost more than $1 billion. Much of its work will go towards serving people who live off the traditional electric grid, and to investigate clean energy options like solar and geothermal power. Officials also say the project is looking to unlock the energy potential of rising African nations like Angola, which is the continent’s second-largest oil producer, and Mozambique, which is in the midst of a natural gas boom. U.S. Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said six countries have been named in the initiative, but many others will benefit, either from technical advice or from regional partnerships. “This really covers all of sub-Saharan Africa. The six countries have an additional degree of technical assistance and some planning engaged in those six countries," he said. "But in no way is this initiative limited to six countries, it is across the sub-Saharan continent and many of the projects we are looking at and are more active in are in a multitude of countries.” Hochberg said regional businesses are also likely to gain from the initiative. U.S. tightens its controls on oil from the Bakken By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The U.S. Department of Transportation recently issued an emergency order requiring shippers of Bakken oil to ensure that the substance is properly classified prior to transit. The order comes nearly a year after 72 tank cars derailed in the Quebec town of Lac Megantic, sparking a massive explosion and fire that killed 47 people. The crude oil in the tanker cars had come from the Bakken formation, a crude deposit that underlies subsurface portions of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Montana, and North Dakota, the country's second largest oil-producing state, where companies extract roughly one million barrels of crude per day. Since several accidents have raised concerns about Bakken crude transportation methods — and the volatility the substance itself — some regulators are seeking safer methods of transport. But several industry-funded studies say Bakken is no more dangerous or volatile than other U.S. crude. According to Jeff Hume, vice chairman of the oil production company Continental Resources, current regulations suffice. About 70 percent of North Dakota and Montana crude oil leaves by rail. North Dakota Petroleum Council Vice President Kari Cutting says shippers and producers are following government rules. “All of those federal regulations that have been followed by Bakken, since we started producing Bakken — as far as classifying it, putting it in rail cars, moving it safely, all of the things that the shippers and producers have to do before it goes in to that railcar — all of those rules were followed,” Cutting said. The safety concerns about rail have underscored the benefits of pipelines, but North Dakota State University economist Dean Bangsund describes the existing pipeline infrastructure as inadequate. The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline would connect pipes from Canada to the southern United States and allow 100,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil to flow daily to a proposed link in the town of Baker, Montana. “Some of the crude that is coming through the existing pipelines would get moved into that, therefore displacing and adding existing capacity to some of the pipelines we already have in place,” Bangsund said. But concerns about the environmental risks of the Keystone XL pipeline have put it on hold. Though the cost to ship crude oil by rail is typically more expensive than pipelines, some companies still prefer that option because trains can reach more refineries than existing pipelines. China reacts angrily to Tiananmen comments By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
China has responded angrily to comments by the United States on the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The White House said Wednesday it "will always speak out in support of the basic freedoms the protesters at Tiananmen Square sought." It also called on Beijing "to account for those killed, detained or missing in connection with the events surrounding June 4, 1989." China's Foreign Ministry said the country is strongly dissatisfied with the statement, which showed what it called a total disregard of facts. In an article in the official Xinhua news agency, spokesman Hong Lei said China has lodged solemn representations over the comments. Wednesday's anniversary of the Beijing massacre passed quietly in China, where public discussion of the incident is not allowed. In Hong Kong, tens of thousands of people held candles, sang songs and listened to speeches Wednesday at a vigil to mark the anniversary. Renz Tse, an activist taking part in the vigil, said it is crucial that Beijing know Hong Kong supports democratic freedoms and opposes violence. "We understand the importance of fighting for the democracy of the China. As Hong Kong is a part of China and nowadays the political reforms are now opposed by the Communist Party - they are trying to elect a chief executive that only responds to the mainland China government," said Renz. At least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people died on June 3 to 4, 1989, when troops broke up the student-led pro-democracy protests. China's government has never given a death toll or an official statement of what happened. It defends its actions as necessary to preserve stability. Pope takes political chance to hosting Mideast factions By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are expected to meet at the Vatican Sunday for what is being called an intense prayer session with Pope Francis. The unexpected invitation was extended during the pope's recent visit to the Middle East, where Francis engaged in the kind of photo opportunities that popes usually avoid. He stopped at the barrier erected around the Palestinian territories and at an Israeli memorial for victims of terrorism. On the plane home, Pope Francis told reporters he is not getting involved in the stalled peace process. Nonetheless, said Daniel Petri at the Catholic University of America in Washington, the invitation is a bold move. “If something happens, it’s tremendous. Pope Francis is the miracle worker of the Middle East,” he said. The pope is already seen as a maker of miracles by many of his followers. His prayer vigil for peace in Syria on Sept. 7, 2013, was followed by an agreement a week later that prevented U.S. air strikes over the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. Christopher Hale of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has argued in Time magazine that the pope’s accomplishments in the Middle East have shown him to be the world’s best politician. But Petri, a doctoral candidate, argued in a rebuttal that there have been tens of thousands of fatalities in the Syrian conflict, as well as new allegations of chemical attacks, since the pope’s prayer. “To claim it a success, I think, is wrong, morally and intellectually,” he said, adding that the symbolism of the pope’s actions is what’s important. Sunday’s prayer meeting will follow a morning Pentecost service in St. Peter’s Square. It’s far from clear that anything concrete can be offered by the two political leaders. Peres is nearing the end of his term as Israeli president, and Abbas recently swore in a unity government including Hamas, which advocates the destruction of Israel. Short of a miracle, the main thing the Vatican prayer session can be counted on to produce is an image of a peace effort, with the pope at the center. Sterling reported ready to sell team for $2 billion By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A lawyer for embattled owner Donald Sterling of the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Clippers says his client has agreed to sell the team for an NBA-record $2 billion. Maxwell Blecher said Wednesday that Sterling will sell the Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who agreed last week to buy the team for $2 billion through negotiations with Sterling's wife, Shelly Sterling. Blecher said Donald Sterling will also drop his $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA. Sterling had alleged the league violated his constitutional rights by forcing him to sell the Clippers based on a recording that was illegal under California law. Segments from the private audio recording emerged in April. On it, Sterling made racist remarks about black people, telling a female companion not to bring African-Americans to Clippers games. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver responded by banning Sterling from the league for life and vowing to urge the other NBA owners to force Sterling to sell the Clippers. Silver also fined Sterling $2.5 million, the maximum allowed under NBA rules. The NBA's Board of Governors must approve the sale of the Clippers to Ballmer, who retired as Microsoft CEO in February. Sterling's lawyers originally said he would not agree to last week's deal to sell the team to Ballmer. The 80-year-old Sterling, who bought the Clippers for $12 million in 1981, is the longest-tenured owner of any of the NBA's 32 teams. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, June 5, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 110 | |||||||||
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 Iván
Vargas, who comes from Grenanda, Spain
Flamenoco
presentation is this Saturday
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Spanish flamenco dancer Iván Vargas will head more than 10 persons who will perform Saturday at 8 p.m. in Casa España. Some of the performers will play the guitar and sing as well as dance, said an announcement. Casa España is in Sabana Norte. The musical contingent will be led by guitarist Álvaro Madrigal. All but Vargas are residents here. Admission is 5,000 colons, and reservations can be made at 8861-8715. Tax conciliation becomes political issue By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Should the government negotiate with tax evaders who owe big sums? Laura Chinchilla said no when she was president and issued a decree that forbade tax collectors from this type of negotiation. That decree was issued even though conciliation is generally a step in the criminal process. Helio Fallas, the first vice president and minster of Hacienda, says yes. He told lawmakers Wednesday that the decree issued by Ms. Chinchilla has been rescinded. A decree signed Thursday replaced it. After meeting with the Asamblea Legislativa's Committee for Financial Affairs to go over the fiscal deficit, Fallas told reporters that this settlement does not mean the government will pardon the alleged tax offenders. On the list of potential targets for punishment are a pair of large media groups, Grupo Nación and Teletica's Canal 7, for alleged tax evasion. In a statement released Wednesday, Ms. Chinchilla said she hoped the government does not take Fallas' advice to change the directive and that no special treatment should be given to those guilty of tax evasion. “In my last speech on May 1, I referenced the risk our democracy faces when particular groups use the influential platform of the media to take advantage of economic interests,” she said. President Luis Guillermo Solís denied that there was confusion between his department and the finance ministry. He said the government is not looking to grant impunity to those found guilty of corruption, specifically tax crimes. “Conciliation is a tool in a process that allows us to fully repair the financial damage caused by tax crimes,” said Solís via Twitter. The ministry headed by Fallas issued a statement late Wednesday saying that the decree signed by Solis Thursday would not authorize reducing the debt of tax evaders. But the statement was unclear on several points. There would seem to be very little to discuss at a conciliation session if the amount owed was not on the table. |
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| Frtom Page 7: Chamber addresses generational change By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Cámara de Industrias de Costa Rica says that surviving what it calls a generation change is one of the biggest challenges of family-owned enterprises. Only 30 percent of such firms in Costa Rica manage to survive this change, which usually is the result of the death of a senior member of the family. Only 15 percent of such firms end up being passed to the third generation, said the chamber. Today and tomorrow the chamber is holding training sessions for members of family-owned enterprises to help them meet a generational change. An expert, identified as Miguel Ángel Gallom, will be present, the chamber said. The first session begins today at 8:30 a.m., and more information can be obtained by calling 2202-5676, or by writing. capacitación@cicr.com. The seminar has a $300 fee for chamber members and $350 for those who are not. |
