|
|
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
|
Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
|
|
|
San
José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 8, Vol. 15, No.
111
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
|
|
 |
|
Milanes fraud trial might begin July 1
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Saving Unlimited investors are expecting a trial of Luis Milanes to take place starting July 1. This would be nearly 13 years after Milanes closed up his high-interest borrowing operation in Edificio Colón and vanished for six years. Milanes, a prominent casino owner, is accused of fraud involving some 500 investors. The Poder Judicial puts the amount at $46 million. The trial date was set last September, the judicial workers are making arrangements now. But it may be a false alarm. The complicated trial could be derailed by illness or other court cases. Milanes entered into an agreement with most of the investors to pay back some of the money by surrendering property, including the downtown Hotel Europa. Lawyers formed a trust that has been handling expenses and receiving money, including rent for the casino until it closed last year. Some investors have complained that they have not seen any financial reports for three years, so the exact status of the trust is uncertain to them. Some properties have been sold with the proceeds going to the trust. Milanes, a Cuba-American, is in poor healthy, and he might not be physically able to attend the trial. Any number of unanticipated motions might also cause long delays. Milanes has been successful in prolonging the judicial case as well as staying out of jail. He returned to Costa Rica in June 2008 to face the legal process and managed to spend just one night in jail. While he was gone, his casinos operated normally. Lately some of the casinos have been sold or closed. Last year a judge said that Milanes did not live up to the agreement he reached with his investors, so the trial was ordered. That put the entire conciliation process in limbo. Milanes was one of a handful of high-interest operations in Costa Rica until 2002. His was considered a more professional operation when compared to a similar scheme run by Luis Enrique Villalobos. The Savings Unlimited offices was in a building also populated by embassies and other enterprises. There was a cashier window and smartly dressed, mostly female employees, working in the view of the visitors. The entry door was an elegant work of etched glass. Milanes told his visitors the money they gave him would be invested into casino development. They would be given walking tours through the nearby Casino Tropical. There is some question whether the casinos were owned by the corporations that accepted the investor money. That is a point likely to be argued at trial. By contrast, Villalobos operated out of a back room to the family's money exchange business in Mall San Pedro. He declined to say exactly what he did with the money entrusted to him, although at times there were comments about factoring. He paid his creditors with envelopes stuffed with cash every month. Villalobos gave his investors Bibles and was a member of the International Baptist Church in Escazú. Although both firms closed down about the some time, some loyal Villalobos investors for years expected him to return and make good on the money he owed, which may have been as much as $1 billion. The investors in the Milanes firm were less generous. Prosecutors raided the Villalobos holdings, and some of the papers seized in these operations were key evidence in the conviction of Oswaldo Villalobos, a brother, on allegations of aggravated fraud.. The Milanes office was cleaned out completely of all furniture and paperwork. The lack of documents might present a problem for the prosecutors in any trial. Direct flights to and from France sought By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica is seeking an airline that would offer direct service from France to Costa Rica and a second airline that would offer service via the French Antilles. That was the outcome of a meeting in France of Manuel González, minister of Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, with Annick Girardin, a member of the French foreign ministry. The goal is to beef up tourism between both countries. Also approvers were scholarships in France for some Costa Ricans and the development of advanced French classes in tourist zones in anticipation of more tourists from that country. In 2013 some 39,728 French tourists visited the country, according to the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería.  Internationl Surfing Association
photo
The Costa Rican surf
team celebrates gold medal win at the WorldSurfing Games in Playa Popoyo, Nicaragua. Costa Rica’s Noe Mar McGonagle dominated the men’s final to win there as well as lock in the team Champion Pacific coast under high seas alert By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Pacific storm Blanca is being blamed for high seas along the Pacific coast. The tropical storm made landfall at the tip of Baja California early today. Another weather system has created choppy seas around Isla del Coco, according to ocean experts at the Universidad de Costa Rica. Meanwhile in Jacó rescue workers are in search of the body of a U.S. tourist who got in trouble in the surf Sunday. High seas are expected to continue along the Pacific coast at least through Tuesday, said the Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología of the Universidad de Costa Rica. Women held as robbery suspects By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers located five persons early Sunday and said they were suspects in a string of street robberies. Three women among those detained are believed to have been the individuals who did the crimes, police said. The women are accused of grabbing pedestrians in strangleholds, threatening them and hitting them. Police tracked the car containing the five after they were alerted by a victim. The arrests took place near Parque la Merced in San José. Manhunt on for pair who fled N.Y. prison By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Authorities in New York state have launched a manhunt for two prisoners who broke out of maximum security at the Clinton Correctional Facility, the first escape from there in its history. New York State Police posted pictures of the escapees, Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34, on Facebook Saturday morning, asking the public to be on the alert and wary. "Both are considered to be a danger to the public. If located DO NOT approach them," the posting said. Sweat is serving a life sentence for killing a sheriff’s deputy, while Matt is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for murder, kidnapping and robbery. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had been scheduled to attend Saturday's Belmont Stakes in Elmont, instead spoke to reporters at the prison in Dannemora. He said the prisoners, in adjoining cells, used power tools to drill through the back wall and crawl through the opening Friday night.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this Web site are
copyrighted by Consultantes Ro Colorado S.A 2015 and may not be
reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 8, Vol. 15, No. 111 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Costa Rica agrees to provide bulk financial data on
foreigners |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica has agreed to provide each year to the home country of foreigns who do business here details of financial transactions. The agreement was brokered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which said now 41 countries have agreed to the automatic exchange. Said the organization: "Automatic exchange of information involves the systematic and periodic transmission of bulk taxpayer information by the source country to the residence country concerning various categories of income (e.g. dividends, interest, etc.). It can provide timely information on non-compliance where tax has been evaded either on an investment return or the underlying capital sum, even where tax administrations have had no previous indications of non-compliance." The exchange is supposed to begin either in 2017 or 2018. In addition to Costa Rica, the organization said that Australia, Canada, Chile, India, Indonesia and New Zealand also have agreed last week to the automatic exchange. The details still are to be worked out, but initially the financial date of expats who are residents in Costa Rica do not |
appear to be
the
information that will be reported. The key word is
country of residence. Data would come from banks. Foreign firms that do business here would seem to be covered by the agreement. The main purpose of the exchange is to catch tax cheats. Since only the United States among major nations taxes its citizens no matter where they live, the agreement seems to target those who are stashing money in countries other than where they reside. The project received its first approval from major nations in 2013. The organization is the entity that Costa Rica seeks to join so it can be considered a mature democracy, according to President Luis Guillermo Solís, who visited Ángel Gurría, secretary general of the organization, last week. Said Gurría of the automatic transfers: “The world is quickly becoming a much smaller place, both for tax evaders and tax administrations. We expect a truly significant amount of additional financial information to circulate among authorities in the coming years, resulting in less tax evasion, greater tax revenues and a fairer tax system for honest taxpayers.” The exchange agreement is structured so that it need not receive approval as a treaty, the organization said. |
|
Testing devices
Crossing gate operations in la Sabana are being delayed because the six-meter arms of the devices touch cable television lines strung above the street. So workers have installed 4-meter arms for testing while the lines are relocated, said the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes. These will be he first rail crossing gates in the metro area. They are at the intersection where the Universal store and McDonald's are located. |
 Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Trasnportes
photo
|
| Regulating agency promises a crackdown on pirate taxis |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The utilities regulating agency says it is beginning a push with the help of other government entities to crackdown on what is being called informal transportation. The regulator is the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos which said Friday that the pirate taxis are even using radios just like licensed taxi companies. The Autoridad called on the Superintendencia de |
Telcomuniciones
to provide data on who is licensed to use the radio spectrum. Taxi firms and other legitimate transport companies are signing up for spectrum allocations now, and a new law provides heavy penalties for misuse. The Autoridad said it was working with the Policía de Tránsito to halt pirate taxis because they are a danger to the public. Licensed taxis and those companies providing door-to-door service at least have to have insurance. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this Web site are
copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2015 and may not
be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
 |
 |
||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 8, Vol. 15, No. 111 | |||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Glittering
future seen for 3-D printing techniques using metals |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It is amazing to think that printing of three-dimensional objects, now commonly referred to as 3-D printing, was invented only a little more than 30 years ago. Once bulky, complicated, and enormously expensive, 3-D printers have since shrunk into devices no larger than a microwave oven and can be bought in a store or online for as little as $500. Experts say that rapid technological improvement of these machines, together with affordability, will have huge impact on manufacturing and service industries as well as on our private lives. The automobile industry is already printing plastic parts for its vehicles, while the U.S. Department of Energy, together with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, recently printed a life-size plastic replica of a classic American roadster, the Shelby Cobra. The man behind that project, Robert Ivester, deputy director of the department’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, admits that polymer plastic printing is attracting a lot of attention, but he says 3-D printing with metals presents a more profound level of technical innovation. In his office in the huge James Forrestal Building, in downtown Washington, D.C., Ivester demonstrated a complex metal part called a circular hot gas diffuser. “What’s special about this is that it’s a 3-D-printed example,” he explained. “There are internal passage geometries that they can achieve in a much more straightforward way when it comes to production. So, this is a more straightforward and far less expensive way of manufacturing common parts.” In metal 3-D printing, powdered metals are consolidated layer upon layer by heating them with a laser or electron beam. There have been concerns about mechanical durability of parts made of layers, but Ivester says that problem has been resolved. “It’s certainly possible with the latest technology to print metal components that are comparable and in some cases superior to the mechanical performance of conventionally produced parts.” Showing off a small sample made of smoothly finished metal, he said, “If you look very carefully at it, you can see that the letters DOE are visible in the structure. The reason for that is that inside the block letters, that D, O and E, there’s one type of a crystalline structure and surrounding them is a different type.” Ivester points out that this is still an early stage of research |
 Voice of America photo
This classic AC Cobra is not
really the iconic Ford sports
car. The U.S. Department of Energy made this electric version with a 3D printer. The car was built in six weeks by a group of six persons at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The body is plastic. into metal 3-D printing, but says he is confident that very soon it will be transferred to industry. The advantages are enormous. What now takes weeks or months to manufacture in conventional way, in a metal 3-D printer may take only hours, which brings down the cost, especially if what is needed is only a small number of parts or a highly specialized component of a machine. The other advantage concerns geometry of printed parts. “We can achieve internal part complexities that were either impossible or very difficult to produce through other means,” Ivester said. So, where is metal 3-D printing going to be in the next 10, 20, 30 years? Ivester says he expects simultaneous reduction of printer cost and expansion of printer capabilities. They will become faster, with higher resolution and smoother finish. He predicts crafts workers soon be able to simply scan a complicated part in a 3-D scanner and print it within hours rather than weeks or months. “That,” he pointed out, “on a much broader scale, in hands of everybody, has a potential to really transform how we operate as a society and in terms of how we make things and opens the door to people making things for themselves in a way that has never been there before.” And this, he adds, will open doors to creativity as never before. The ideas that really work will bubble up and propagate, accelerating the pace of innovation. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2015 and may not be reproduced anywhere without
permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
|
A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
|
||
 |
 |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 8, Vol. 15, No. 111 | |||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
 Belmont Stakes
photo
American Pharoah is in the lead
at the final turn on the way to claiming the Triple Crown of horse
racing Saturday. The 3 year old is the first to win three famous races
including the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes since 1978.Mexican midterm elections marred by some violence By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Protesters burned ballot boxes in several troubled states of southern Mexico Sunday, in an attempt to disrupt midterm elections that are being seen as a test for President Enrique Peña Nieto. Eighty million people are eligible to select the lower house of congress, hundreds of mayors and nine governors. The run-up to the poll has been marked by violence with drug cartels blamed for the deaths of several candidates. Midterm elections usually draw a light turnout, but attention was unusually high this time as a loose coalition of radical teachers' unions and activists vowed to block the vote. They attacked the offices of political parties in Chiapas and Guerrero states, and burned ballots in Oaxaca ahead of the vote. The teachers' demands include huge wage increases, an end to teacher testing and the safe return of 42 missing students from a radical teachers' college. Those students disappeared in September, and prosecutors say they were killed and incinerated by a drug gang. Only one student's remains were identified by DNA testing. Cyber spying is at top of list when U.S. meets Chinese By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The hack of millions of U.S. government personnel files and allegations that the attack may have originated in China will put cybersecurity at the top of the upcoming U.S.-China summit later this month, according to news reports. The breach of computer systems of the Office of Personnel Management was disclosed Thursday by the Obama administration, which said records of up to 4 million current and former federal employees may have been compromised. Investigators are aware of the threat that is emanating from China, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday. “We know that the attack occurred from somewhere in China, but we don't know whether it was an individual or a group or a nation-state attack,'' Rep. Jim Langevin, a leading voice in Congress on cybersecurity, was quoted as saying. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called the accusations irresponsible and noted that China also is a victim of cyberattacks. Accusations of a Chinese role in the attack, including possible state sponsorship, could further strain ties between Washington and Beijing. Tensions are already heightened over Chinese assertiveness in pursuit of territorial claims in the South China Sea. The hacking also raises questions about how the United States would respond if it confirmed that the Chinese government was behind it. Disclosure of the breach comes ahead of the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue scheduled for June 22 to 24 in Washington, D.C. Cybersecurity was already expected to be high on the agenda. U.S. officials said the talks would proceed as scheduled, as would Barack Obama's plans to host Chinese President Xi Jinping on a state visit to Washington in the fall. "The Chinese have been saying privately, and somewhat in public, that we want the summit to go really well. 'Let's not talk about espionage. Let's talk about how we can work together,' " James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, was quoted as saying. "This might be a U.S. response to that: 'No, we are going to talk about espionage,’ ” Lewis said. These are not the first large-scale cyberattacks allegedly traced to China. Chinese hackers were also blamed for penetrating Office of Personnel Management's computer networks last year. In 2014, the FBI indicted five officers in China’s People’s Liberation Army for coordinating hacks on six U.S.-based corporations such as U.S. Steel and Alcoa. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in such attacks, saying the U.S. has never offered definitive proof of a hack directly traced back to Beijing. Bruce Schneier, a leading cryptographer, said it’s very hard to trace attacks. “When we can, it’s often because hackers have made mistakes in hiding their tracks and it’s not something we can do quickly,” Schneier said in an interview earlier this year. “In other cases, we’ve known with reasonable assurance the attacks came from certain buildings and offices in China and that the government knew about it and approved it.” Serena Williams once again wins a French Open title By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
American tennis star Serena Williams has won her 20th Grand Slam title with a victory over Czech Lucie Safarova in Saturday's finals of the French Open in Paris. After an easy 6-3 first-set win, Ms. Williams built a 4-1 lead in the second set. However, the 13th seeded Ms. Safarova came back to win a tiebreaker and force a deciding set on the Roland Garros clay. Ms. Williams dominated the final set 6-2 to pull within two victories of German Steffi Graf who holds the record for the most Grand Slam singles titles with 22. The world's top player, who overcame the flu to win in Paris, goes into Wimbledon as the favorite to win her sixth title on the English grass courts. The men's final at the French Open Sunday features world number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia against eighth seed Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland. Luxembourg voters veto foreigners' election rights By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Voters in Luxembourg Sunday rejected the idea of giving voting rights to foreign-born residents. About 80 percent of voters cast a no ballot in a referendum even after Prime Minister Xavier Bettel urged them to support the move. He said it would enhance Luxembourg's democracy and diversity. Many Luxembourgers who voted no said they feared losing political and economic influence to foreign-born nationals who make up close to half of the tiny, but wealthy country's population. Had the referendum approved the move, Luxembourg would have become the first European Union member to grant foreign nationals who are not citizens the right to vote in national elections. Coffee making a comeback in the Republic of Congo By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In the mid-1980s, the Democratic Republic of Congo was officially exporting up to 130,000 tons of coffee per year, but by 2012 that figure had shriveled to 8,000 tons, owing to war, coffee disease, low prices and smuggling. But international buyers of specialty, high-quality coffee started to realize they had been missing out. In 2012, the World Coffee Research Institute, after doing a survey of the two Kivu provinces in eastern Congo, described the area as a paradise for coffee. That same year saw a Congolese coffee cooperative break through into the world specialty market, helped by the U.K.-based fair trade organization called Twin. According to Richard Hide, one of Twin’s coffee experts, other cooperatives in the Kivu provinces could do the same. "We know that potentially all the coffee from South Kivu to North Kivu has the potential to be great coffee — it’s just a question of knowledge, of equipment, of follow through," said Hide. In other words, there is a kind of specialty-coffee-exports revival underway, and this week international experts held a specialty coffee tasting competition in the eastern city of Bukavu to grade the 30 cooperatives that took part. According to one of the organizers, Chris Treter of the U.S. coffee buyer Higher Grounds Trading, this was the first specialty coffee competition that's ever been held in Congo. "This is a very historic day to have people from all across the value chain in one plac with trained judges tasting and sampling the different coffees in the region ... to evaluate all of them on one table for the first time," he said. The competition used global standards drawn up by the Specialty Coffee Association of America. A blind tasting, meaning judges had no idea whose coffee they were sampling, it was a fairly silent process, except when judges noisily spat out each sample. The judges waxed lyrical about the entries to this competition. "I loved it from the beginning," said Stephen E. Vick, a buyer and taster for Bluebottle Coffee, who graded the sample 91 out of 100, an exceptionally high score. "The fragrance was I think the best of any of them we’ve had, super complex, plum, cherry, super silky body, I just wanted to drink the cups, just gorgeous." The winning cooperative, like several other entrants, had been helped by consultants working for Eastern Congo Initiative — a non-profit founded by Hollywood actor Ben Affleck. The reason non-profits get involved in the sector is because much of eastern Congo’s coffee is produced by farmers working in very difficult conditions. One of the ways eastern Congo Initiative tries to help those farmers is to lobby the DRC government on their behalf. The competition was an opportunity to do just that, as the provincial minister for agriculture was attending. The initiative’s Baraka Kasali pointed out one way the national government could have helped producers of a coffee consignment recently sold to a new international buyer. "The biggest hurdle I see is in the tax. We saw in that first lot. 70 percent of the cost of that coffee went to taxes, "said Kasali. Congo’s export tax on coffee is 12 percent, compared with 1 percent in neighboring countries. In reply to Kasali, the provincial agriculture minister Adolphine Muley simply said, "perhaps the taxes are exorbitant." Russia's secret list snags German negotiator at airport By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The thing about secret lists is that you don't know if you're on one until you find out you are. Germany's conservative lawmaker Karl-Georg Wellmann learned this lesson the hard way. Arriving in Russia for an official visit last month, Wellmann ended up spending the night in the Moscow airport transit zone. Much to his surprise, Wellmann says, airport officials informed him he'd been banned from entering Russia until 2019. The list is similar to the no-fly list in the United States where travelers do not know if their name is on it. "We wanted to have political talks with senior members of the government . . . ," said Wellmann. "As a result, they were canceled, and German-Russian relations are strained." So, too, are Russia's relations with the wider EU: Wellmann is just one of 89 officials from all over Europe who ended up on what, until recently, had been a secret Kremlin travel ban list. High-profile members include Britain's former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, Uwe Corsepius , secretary general of the Council of the European Union in Brussels, and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy. Kremlin officials say the move is a response to Western sanctions against Russia following Moscow's annexation of Crimea last year. The EU also imposed travel bans against 151 Russian and Ukrainian citizens over the issue. The United States has issued its own travel ban list of Russian and Ukrainian officials over Crimea. EU officials are expressing outrage over the Russian list for its secrecy, calling the Kremlin travel bans arbitrary, unjustified and without explanation or transparency. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier captured the general European mood with a statement of dismay aimed at Moscow. "At a time when we're trying to defuse a bitter and dangerous conflict in the heart of Europe," said Steinmeier, "this does not help." News of the blacklist comes as a negotiated cease-fire in Ukraine appears in danger of collapse amid a new outbreak of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine's army. It also arrives ahead of a key EU vote this year on whether to renew sanctions against Moscow. Seeking to defuse tensions, the Kremlin says a list of banned individuals had since been sent to EU states — on the condition of confidentiality. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later accused EU officials of violating that privacy agreement intentionally. The Europeans, he said, were playing for headlines. "We handed over the list under the European Union's request on a confidential basis and it immediately began leaking into the press," said Lavrov. The foreign minister noted that the European Union, which usually doesn't comment on leaks, was now commenting on this one with exuberance and accused the EU of a violation of diplomatic etiquette. But, Feodor Krashenninikov, a political analyst based in Yekaterinburg, Russia, said that Lavrov is merely feigning outrage as the Kremlin is trying to make news. The whole point of keeping the list secret, Krashenninikov argues, is to catch unknowingly blacklisted European officials — such as Germany's Wellmann — who would otherwise steer clear of Russia, creating what Krashenninikov calls "scandals for the sake of scandals" and, more importantly, "an opening for a future deal." "The most important reason for the blacklist is to make a trade," Krashenninikov says. "Soon you'll hear Moscow say, 'Our travel ban list bothers you and your travel ban list bothers us. Let's get rid of them both.'" And yet it appears more sanctions, rather than a grand bargain, are in the offing. The European Parliament says it will now restrict access of the Russian delegation to assembly meetings. The Kremlin, in turn, is promising an appropriate response. Yet Moscow-based analyst Vladimir Frolov calls the whole blacklist scandal a tempest in a teapot. He notes that while keeping the travel blacklist secret was a political miscalculation that bordered on stupidity, he believes the Europeans are fundamentally overreacting. The reason the Kremlin doesn't have to clarify who is on its no-entry list or why, Frolov says, is simple enough: unlike the U.S. or EU — where no-entry bans can be challenged in court — Russia's legal system offers no recourse. Besides, he adds, Russia, like it or not, ultimately holds the sovereign right to deny entry to whomever it pleases. "They can blacklist Santa Claus if they want to," he said. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado
S.A. 2015 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
|
||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, June 8, Vol. 15, No. 111 | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
||
|
Good gardeners
like to gab and swap tips
There is nothing like a
garden club for an exchange of information. What are your local
conditions and how do people cope with them? What have other people
planted and when? Is this phase-of-the-moon
This is not to say that I haven’t planted U.S. seeds and gotten positive results, I have, but I am used to much better results. For example, the radishes I used to plant up North grew in such profusion that I gave them away. In my local climate, not so much. They didn’t germinate well, they grew slowly, they got nasty very fast. The packaged zucchini I planted was the same. Not a lot of germination and very little harvest – and you know how much zucchini you usually harvest. Heaven help you if your neighbors couldn’t help you eat it all. Tomatoes? They like overnight temperatures of 70 degrees or better. At 650 meters, you need a greenhouse or the like to provide that kind of heat. And don’t get me started on corn. I planted U.S. packaged sweet corn, and the results were dismal. As it turns out, U.S. sweet corn is designed for 14 to 16 hours of sunlight a day. Who knew? Since our day is short by about two to three hours, sweet corn just doesn’t want to grow. But enough ranting about when won’t do well. You may live at an elevation and in climate conditions much different from mine. Your tomatoes flourish and so does your zucchini, but you have problems with other vegetables you have planted. So, if that’s the problem – U.S. seeds that don’t like our climate – what is the solution? I wandered into an agro-colono in Cañas and discovered small plastic tubes full of seed. Local seed! Harvested from plants grown right here in Costa Rica! Of course, they may not be from my local micro-climate, but they sure aren’t from a company in Michigan. Excellent! Oh, and remember that garden club I mentioned earlier and what a great place a club is for exchange of information? It’s also a great place to exchange seeds from plants that actually did well in your local area. Halleluiah!  Plant for the Week
There are some strange things growing on our property. The
latest is something called monkey ladder (escalera de mono). It’s a vine, but
not the usual roundish type like the grape vine, oh no. This vine is
ribbon-like; flattened, wide, and undulating. It belongs to its own
genus, the bauhinia. Here is a piece my gardener brought to me. I am
looking forward to its fragrant blossoms in July.If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arenal-Gardeners/413220712106845 |
| Costa Rican News |
AMCostaRicaArchives.com |
Retire NOW
in Costa Rica |
CostaRicaReport.com |
| Fine Dining
in Costa Rica |
The CAFTA Report |
Fish
fabulous Costa Rica |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2015 and may not be reproduced anywhere without
permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
| From Page 7: : Trade promotion authority not a sure thing By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services While President Barack Obama discussed trade and other matters with his G7 counterparts in Germany, the fate of two blockbuster international trade pacts could hinge on an upcoming vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. The United States is the lynchpin of proposed trade pacts spanning the Atlantic and the Pacific, but Washington is far from unified on authorizing simple yes-or-no congressional votes to approve them. It remains to be seen whether a bipartisan majority will emerge to pass trade promotion authority that would facilitate congressional approval of a Pacific Rim as well as a trans-Atlantic free-trade accord. “We’ve passed TPA in the Senate, and we’ve got an important vote coming up in the House,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi, who delivered the Republican Saturday address. “The world is engaging and trading like never before, and we must pass TPA so we will not be left behind.” But Republicans will need more than token Democratic backing, and so far fewer than 20 House Democrats are on record supporting trade promotion authority. “I can tell you it’s a very large number in our caucus that is not supportive of it,” said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the end of last week. Mrs. Pelosi put the burden of passing trade promotion authority on Speaker John Boehner. “It’s absolutely the speaker’s responsibility. It’s where the support exists: in his caucus. He has the majority,” she said. But Boehner is doing some finger-pointing of his own, saying if President Obama wants trade deals, he needs to convince fellow Democrats to support them. “We’re working to get trade promotion authority finished. I talked to the president,” said Boehner. “He’s got some work to do, too.” The White House believes trade promotion authority will pass. Spokesman Josh Earnest expressed cautious optimism last week. “Based on the success that we had in convincing nearly a third of Senate Democrats to support this legislation, we are optimistic that we have the opportunity to make the case to progressives across the country and to Democrats in the House, and we can give them a reason to support this bill,” said Earnest. The proposed trade pacts have the firm backing of America’s business community, but are strongly opposed by labor and environmental groups. |
