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A.M.
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Published Wednesday, June 22, 2016, in
Vol. 17, No.
122
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San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, June 22, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 122
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U.S. escape
artist is back in custody
By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Editor’s Note: This
story originally was published Tuesday
afternoon.
Fuerza Pública officers said Tuesday that they have captured the Michigan escapee who fled the immigration lockup in Hatillo here Sunday night. The man, John Wesley Saatio, 35, had been living in Jacó after his escape from a Michigan law enforcement officer a year ago. He was captured June 13 and then remanded to immigration officers even though he was an obvious escape risk. Police said they found him Tuesday morning on a street in the low-income district of Los Guidos in Desamparados. He faces a 25-year sentence when he reaches the United States. Saatio has a long record of convictions that include home invasion, probation violation and burglary. He escaped in Houghton County, Michigan, on the state’s upper peninsula June 19, 2015. Officials here said that after he was arrested in Jacó the man, a registered sex offender, sought refugee status, but that was denied. As a refugee, he would not face extradition to the United States. Officials are investigating the circumstances of his escape in Hatillo where he appears to have climbed though the roof. U.S. retired detective backs medical use By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
An internationally known drug law reformer gave his support to the medical use of marijuana. The reformer, retired New Jersey detective Jack A. Cole, testified before the Comisión Permanente de Asuntos Jurídicos, which is considering bill No. 19.256. A legislative summary said that he told lawmakers that he opposes the personal and recreational use of marijuana but that he has known families with members who were diseased who were aided by the substance. Cole is a founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a non-profit made up of current and former police officers and others who oppose the U.S. war on drugs. Cole rose to the rank of lieutenant with the New Jersey State Police. He urged lawmakers not to prohibit the medical use of cannabis said the summary of his testimony. Also testifying was the Rev. Martin Ignacio Díaz Velásquez, a clergyman specialized in human rights and drug policy. He works with youngsters involved with drugs in El Salvador. He also supported the medical use of cannabis, according to the summary. Our reader’s
opinion
U.S. drug policy driven by
corporate greedDear A.M. Costa Rica Your article's claim that cocaine is being replaced by heroin is absurd! Oxycodone and other legal synthetic opiates are being replaced by heroin as the U.S. clamps down on the oxy-mills that have proliferated there for two or three decades, thanks to Big Pharma and greed. The market for cocaine overlaps with, but is not the same as, the opiate market. And fentanyl salts might be made in China now, but could just as easily be made in a garage in Kansas (as they were 20 years ago), given the right precursor chemicals, and can more easily be made in Mexico. The problem isn't the drug, it is the user and drug policy. Of course the U.S. effort of international prohibition is being made more difficult by jurisdictions both in and outside their country legalizing various drugs, Uruguay and Portugal being the best known examples. The world is starting to see that prohibition has failed and the U.S. needs to get its head out of the sand, but the military-correctional-armaments-pharmaceuticals lobbies are too strong to allow change in a country driven by corporate power. Look to retired law enforcement officials (as in LEAP -- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) for a reasonable stand on drug policy. Those in office today are just following the existing policy. John French
Heredia
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San
José, Costa
Rica,
Wednesday,
June 22, 2016,
Vol. 17, No.
122
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| Coral
reefs face even more dangers, including zombies,
researchers say |
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By the University of Central
Florida news staff
Scientists have known for a while that coral reefs around the world are dying, and in a worst-case scenario they were counting on large, healthy-looking corals to repopulate. But a new study presented at the 13th International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu this week shows that these seemingly healthy colonies are coral zombies with no reproductive ability, which makes them useless in a recovery effort. “It’s pretty discouraging,” said John E. Fauth, one of the researchers who sampled 34 sites across the Caribbean for the study. “This is not good news.” He is a biologist at the University of Central Florida. Cheryl M. Woodley, a marine biologist led the study, which sampled 327 coral colonies off the coasts of Florida, Puerto Rico, and St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The researchers analyzed the samples to determine the reproductive ability of elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), which is a threatened species. She is with the National Ocean Service of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In some places, including two sites in the Florida Keys, the coral had no eggs or sperm. The study suggests that with no ability to propogate, elkhorn corals in those spots will eventually die out. Like zombies, they essentially are walking dead. Two samples from a more remote area in St. Croix found the coral had 100 percent reproduction ability. “Basically the places with the heaviest tourism had the most severe damage,” Fauth said. He dove and took samples from all of the Puerto Rican sites in the study, along with marine biologists Michael Nemeth and Katie Flynn. This study adds to growing evidence that coral reefs frequented by divers are in peril. Last year a study found that oxybenzone, a common UV-filtering compound in sunscreen, is in high concentrations in the waters around the more popular coral reefs in Hawaii and the Caribbean. The chemical not only kills coral, |
it
causes DNA damage in adult corral and deforms the larval
stage, making it unlikely they can develop properly. The highest concentrations of oxybenzone were found in reefs most popular with tourists. Fauth was a co-investigator of that 2015 study, which was published in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Oxybenzone also causes coral bleaching, which is a prime cause of coral mortality worldwide. Corals bleach when they lose or expel the algae that normally live inside them, thus losing a valuable source of nutrition. In another study presented at the symposium Monday, researchers found the same sunscreen chemical is common in Hawaii, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and concentrations peak during high tide. “It’s almost counterintuitive,” said Fauth, who is a co-author of that study as well. “We think that aerosol sunscreen is to blame.” When you spray sunscreen, much of it lands on the sand or water, Fauth said. So when the high tide comes in, it collects all the overspray and pulls it back out to sea. Together, the two new studies show that coral reefs are in more danger than already thought. Several species of coral are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Reproductive failure in Caribbean coral already was identified as a critical factor preventing their recovery. The news that even corals that appear healthy may be incapable of reproducing and that a chemical linked to coral decline commonly occurs at high concentrations is a double blow, Fauth said. “We have to act now,” Fauth said. “It is simple things like not using chemicals that harm our coral. Wear rash guards or go without sunscreen during dives. And it is making a serious commitment to conservation and management of our reefs. Coral reefs are the world’s most productive marine ecosystems and support commercial and recreational fisheries and tourism. We want to do everything we can to ensure that the underwater beauty we see today is around for generations to come.” |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, June
22, 2016, Vol.
17, No. 122
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| Immune
response to mosquito bites said to enhance virus
infections |
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By the University of Leeds news
staff
The itchy swelling that appears at the site of a mosquito bite isn't just an irritating nuisance. It also makes viral infections spread by the insects far worse, new research has found. The study, led by the University of Leeds, found that inflammation where the insect has bitten not only helps a virus such as zika or dengue establish an infection in the body more quickly, but that it also helps it to spread around the body, increasing the likelihood of severe illness. “Mosquito bites are not just annoying. They are key for how these viruses spread around your body and cause disease,” said Clive McKimmie, a research fellow at the School of Medicine and senior author of the study. “We now want to look at whether medications such as anti-inflammatory creams can stop the virus establishing an infection if used quickly enough after the bite inflammation appears.” In the new research, published in the journal Immunity, the researchers used mouse models to study the bites of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the species that spreads infections such as zika, dengue and chikungunya. When a mosquito bites, it injects saliva into the skin. The saliva triggers an immune response in which white blood cells called neutrophils and myeloid cells rush to the site. But instead of helping, some of these cells get infected and inadvertently replicate the virus, the researchers found. The team injected viruses into the skin of the mice with or |
without
the presence of a mosquito bite at the injection site
and compared the reaction. In the absence of mosquito bites and their accompanying inflammation, the viruses failed to replicate well, whereas the presence of a bite resulted in a high virus level in the skin. “This was a big surprise we didn’t expect,” said McKimmie, whose team worked alongside colleagues at the University of Glasgow. “These viruses are not known for infecting immune cells. “And sure enough, when we stopped these immune cells coming in, the bite did not enhance the infection anymore.” Despite the enormous disease burden of mosquito-borne viral infections there are few specific therapies or vaccines. Bites are responsible for hundreds of millions of medical cases across the world. “This research could be the first step in repurposing commonly available anti-inflammatory drugs to treat bite inflammation before any symptoms set in,” said McKimmie. “We think creams might act as an effective way to stop these viruses before they can cause disease.” He added that if it is proven to be effective, this approach could work against a multitude of other viruses. “Nobody expected zika, and before that nobody expected chikungunya,” he said. “There are estimated to be hundreds of other mosquito-borne viruses out there and it’s hard to predict what’s going to start the next outbreak.” |
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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
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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San
José, Costa
Rica,
Wednesday,
June 22, 2016,
Vol. 17, No.
122
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to see a vote in U.S. Senate By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
One day after the U.S. Senate blocked four gun control measures, a proposal emerged Tuesday that could ease the partisan furor over the chamber’s failure to act in the aftermath of the attack on an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, America's deadliest mass shooting. Forged by a bipartisan group that included some of the Senate’s most centrist members, the measure would deny gun sales to terror suspects who are barred from boarding commercial flights and subject to enhanced security screening at U.S. airports. It also would allow those flagged for terrorist ties to contest the government’s findings and recover legal fees if a judge determines they had been placed on the terror watch list by mistake. “Our goal is simple and straightforward. We want to make America safer,” said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who was the proposal’s lead author. “Surely the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando that took so many lives are a call for compromise, a plea for bipartisan action.” “I owe it to the people of Orlando to get something done,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who co-sponsored the measure. The proposal’s nine sponsors, four Republican, four Democratic and one independent, appeared together at a news conference as partisan fallout continued after Monday’s votes in which Republicans blocked Democratic gun reform measures and Democrats blocked Republican ones. Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, accused Republicans of being pawns of America’s most powerful gun rights lobbying group. “Senate Republicans proved again that, regardless of how brutal the massacre, their actions will be dictated by the National Rifle Association,” Reid said. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, argued that the Islamic State group would be unable to inspire domestic terrorist attacks in the United States had the Obama administration taken stronger steps to eradicate it. “Why don’t we get serious? ISIL is not the JV team," McConnell said, using acronyms for Islamic State and junior varsity. "It’s not contained. And we need to defeat it overseas if we want to prevent more terrorist tragedies here at home.” Immediately after Monday’s votes, Democrats pledged to make long-standing Republican opposition to gun reform a central issue in the November election. Republicans are defending 24 Senate seats compared with just 10 by Democrats eager to retake control of the chamber. Among Republicans waging a tough re-election battle is Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a co-sponsor of the compromise proposal. “I hope that we can stop the politics and really focus on a result that will make a difference for the American people,” Sen. Ayotte said. “Gun control won’t stop terrorism. However, I think we can all agree that we do not want terrorists to purchase firearms.” Working with Democrats on gun control will not endear Ayotte to conservative gun rights proponents, but could prove popular with independents and moderate voters who often decide close elections. Vulnerable Republican senators are in a tough spot on gun control, according to political analyst Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution, a Washington public policy research group. “Their party largely opposes gun limits, but the average voter back home likely supports some steps,” Binder said. “Finding a bipartisan compromise to vote for will be important for these GOP senators in the fall.” Perhaps not surprisingly, New Hampshire Democrats are giving Sen. Ayotte no credit for working across party lines. Sen. Ayotte “remains opposed to efforts to expand criminal background checks, which are necessary to prevent terrorists from simply buying weapons online or at a gun show,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley. “Her refusal to support this common-sense measure exposes just how much Kelly Ayotte puts the gun lobby ahead of the safety of her constituents.” Proponents of the compromise measure acknowledged that even if it became law, a terror suspect could avoid federal detection by purchasing firearms at venues where gun sales are not scrutinized. “If a terrorist goes to a gun show, there is no check at all,” said Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent. “That’s another discussion for another day.” Speaking with reporters Tuesday, McConnell said he would allow a vote on the bipartisan proposal, which would need three-fifths backing to advance in the chamber. Senate approval is far from assured, according to the measure’s sponsors. “I’m not optimistic that Senator Collins can get 15 or 16 Republican senators to support the bill,” said Democrat Nelson. Moments after the news conference ended, the NRA tweeted to its members, warning: “More Gun Control Votes Coming!” The lobbying group urged supporters to tell their senators, “NO NEW GUN CONTROL!” At the news conference, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, anticipated the NRA’s move. “To my friends at the NRA: I understand your concern about denying somebody the right to buy a gun,” Graham said. “But every right, whether speech or buying a weapon, has boundaries on it.” “Imposing new limits on access to guns has long faced an uphill battle,” Binder said, adding that the carnage in Orlando and a surge in public support for limited gun reform “have put the issue back on the table.” Trump acknowledges gap in raising campaign funds By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Donald Trump, the presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee, acknowledges he is struggling to win vocal support from Republican officials, but Tuesday voiced little concern that he is badly trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton in fundraising for the Nov. 8 national election. "We have a party that, I mean, I'm having more difficulty frankly with some of the people in the party than I am with the Democrats. Because they just don't want to come on," Trump told NBC's “Today” show. "They will probably eventually come on. Honestly, if they don't, it's just fine. I can win it either way." The billionaire real estate mogul and one-time television reality show host assessed his campaign in the hours after new reports showed his campaign had just $1.3 million on hand at the start of June, compared to Mrs. Clinton's $42.5 million. "Hillary Clinton will spend a billion dollars of Wall Street money and money from the Middle East," Trump told Fox News' “Fox & Friends” show. "I can go a different route. I can just spend my own money." He was referring to the largely self-funded campaign he ran in surging past 16 other Republican candidates to become the party's likely nominee at its national convention next month. Trump said, "I've raised a lot of money, but you also have to have some help from the party." Top Republican officials, including key lawmakers in Congress, have been slow to embrace Trump's candidacy. They say they plan to vote for him even as they attack his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States in an effort to stop a new terrorist attack, the deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country and construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to halt more immigrants from illegally entering the United States. Some Republicans, including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have rejected Trump's candidacy, rebuking his comments as insults against Muslims, Mexicans, women and the disabled. With his fundraising lagging and a collection of national political surveys showing Mrs. Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of State, with an average of a 5.8-percentage point lead, Trump on Monday fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. One longtime U.S. political scientist, Alan Abramowitz of Emory University in Atlanta, said that Trump is running "the most inept presidential campaign that I can remember." Abramowitz cited what he said are Trump's "lack of focus, lack of strategy, disorganization." "This is a guy who's never run for office before," Abramowitz said, "but he shows no interest in learning about subjects he knows little about. He's running against a politically vulnerable Democratic candidate, but he has to stop the insults and name-calling." Asked what Trump has to do to regain his footing in the campaign, Abramowitz said, "He'd have to stop being Donald Trump and that's not going to happen." Another analyst, political scientist John Sides at the George Washington University in Washington, said, "It is remarkable that Clinton can go up with ads in the battleground states and have no Trump response. Or that he has only 30 field staff, while she has something like 800. "To be clear," Sides said, "I'm not suggesting that we'll see massive double-digit effects of Clinton's ads or ground game. Party identification still provides some ballast for voters, and this may limit the swing in the electorate. But, Trump's strategy, if we want to call it that, amounts to a sort of unilateral disarmament." A new CNN/ORC poll shows Mrs. Clinton, seeking to become the first female U.S. president, with a 47-42 percent national lead over Trump, an edge that narrows slightly to 42-38 in a four-way race that includes Libertarian Gary Johnson (9 percent) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (8 percent). A Quinnipiac University poll of three key battleground states showed Mrs. Clinton with a 47-39 percent lead over Trump in the southeastern state of Florida, up from a near-even count a month ago. The poll, however, showed Trump and Mrs. Clinton virtually even in head-to-head matchups in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with Mrs. Clinton slightly ahead in four-way contests in the two states that include Johnson and Stein. Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission showed Mrs. Clinton raised more than $26 million in May and Trump $5.6 million. Both Trump and Mrs. Clinton will get help from their parties and outside groups known as super PACs that will spend money on television advertisements backing the candidates. But, it is important for each of them to have a lot of their own money on hand to spend on ads of their own and campaign efforts across the 50 states. The last presidential election in 2012 shows just how much cash is needed in modern campaigns. President Barack Obama's campaign committee spent $775 million of its own money to get him re-elected, while Romney spent $460 million. The parties and super PACS added several hundred million more dollars to the race. Mrs. Clinton has outspent Trump $196 million to $63 million so far, according to the federal election figures. At this point in the 2012 race, Obama had outspent Romney $232 million to $107 million. Mrs. Clinton rips Trump on handling of economy By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has portrayed Republican rival Donald Trump as unfit to oversee the U.S. economy, declaring his reckless policies would “throw us back into recession” and boost unemployment. Speaking in the key battleground state of Ohio, Mrs. Clinton attacked Trump’s business record as an indication of how he would manage the world’s largest economy. “Just like he shouldn’t have his hands on the button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy,” Mr. Clinton said in remarks at an alternative high school in Columbus, Ohio. Mrs. Clinton cited multiple bankruptcies and lawsuits alleging fraud against his for-profit educational venture Trump University. "This is not normal behavior. We can't let him roll the dice with our children's futures," she said. Mrs. Clinton also alleged 3,500 lawsuits have been filed against the Republican presidential hopeful in the past 30 years, many of which she said were filed "by ordinary Americans and small business who never got paid, not because he couldn't pay them, but because he could stiff them." Mrs. Clinton mentioned a report issued Monday by Moody’s Analytics that was written by a former adviser of one of Trump’s fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain. The report predicted Trump’s economic proposals would trigger a recession and the loss of 3.5 million jobs in his first term alone. With her latest attack on Trump, Mrs. Clinton hopes to convince voters she would be a better steward of the economy. Several recent polls have found that the majority of likely voters favor Trump on economic issues. A Gallup survey conducted this month found that Trump leads Mrs. Clinton by 10 points on who to trust on the economy, and by seven points on the issue of employment. And a Bloomberg Politics poll issued last week showed 55 percent of those surveyed thought Trump was more knowledgeable about how to create jobs. Campaign officials say Mrs. Clinton’s speech is part of a strategy to disqualify Trump on the economy and to counter his success in winning the support of working-class voters in swing states such as Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Mrs. Clinton’s speech, aides say, is also designed to capture support from supporters of Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders, a senator from the Northeastern state of Vermont. The campaigns of the two Democratic candidates are discussing key economic issues, such as free college tuition and expanding Medicare and Social Security, that may be incorporated into the Democratic Party platform at the convention in Philadelphia next month. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, quickly responded to his Democratic opponent. On his Twitter account, Trump said "Hillary Clinton's open borders immigration policies will drive down wages for all Americans, and make everyone less safe." And "Hillary Clinton surged the trade deficit with China 40 percent as secretary of State, costing Americans millions of jobs." Trump has previously said he would be more effective than Mrs. Clinton in managing the economy. Citing his business acumen, Trump has said he is the best candidate to strengthen the economy and negotiate with other nations. Trump has criticized Mrs. Clinton for supporting past trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he also said had cost the U.S. millions of jobs. Mrs. Clinton has previously said she would renegotiate parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement and has expressed opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she supported as secretary of State. Mrs. Clinton’s latest address follows one she delivered on June 2 in San Diego on national security. Free food for physicians seen driving up drug costs By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The practice of pharmaceutical sales representatives treating doctors to free meals may be driving up the out-of-pocket price of drugs in the U.S., a new study suggests. Writing in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, found that the marketing practice makes doctors more likely to prescribe expensive name brand drugs, which are not always covered by insurance, over cheaper generics. The study found that doctors who were treated to just one meal costing less than $20 “were up to two times as likely to prescribe the promoted brand name drugs as physicians who received no meals.” Doctors who accepted multiple free meals were three times more likely to prescribe name brand medicine. “Whether a formal dinner or a brief lunch in a doctor’s office, these encounters are an opportunity for drug company representatives to discuss products with physicians and their staff,” said Adams Dudley, director of the Center for Healthcare Value at the university, and the senior scientist on the study. “The meals may influence physicians’ prescribing decisions.” Previous studies have shown that people prescribed more affordable generic drugs are more likely to stay on the medication for the prescribed amount of time while they are less likely to do so with more expensive name brand drugs. “A lot of the financial burden of using brand name drugs instead of generic drugs falls on the seniors enrolled in Medicare, who pay an average monthly co-pay of $40 to $80 for brand name drugs, but only $1 for generics,” said Colette DeJong, a University of California, San Francisco, medical student who was involved in the study. Previous studies have shown that doctors who take payments from pharmaceutical companies through activities like paid speeches are more likely to prescribe the more expensive name brand drugs.  nadia-murad.com photo
Nadia Murad in a file photoYazidi rape
survivor brings
case to U.S. Senate hearing By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The words of the young Yazidi woman echoed through the silent Senate hearing room, onlookers and grizzled lawmakers rapt in attention. Without hesitation, Nadia Murad told them how in August 2014, Islamic State fighters attacked Sinjar, killed her mother and six of her brothers in a single day and ended life as she knew it. She was 19 years old. “I was raped and sold and was abused, but I was lucky,” she said through her interpreter. “Girls at the age of nine were raped, as well.” Ms. Murad spoke of how she learned to live one hour at a time, treasuring every minute she was not sold or raped by another Islamic State fighter. She spoke of how, after her first attempt at an escape, she was gang raped as a punishment. And she told them how she finally made it to safety with the help of a family in Mosul. “I was freed, but I do not enjoy the feeling because those who committed these crimes have not been held accountable,” Ms. Murad said. Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is not the first time Ms. Murad, now a human rights advocate, has shared her story. But it seemed to impact U.S. lawmakers looking to better understand the Islamic State terror group. “We have a long way to go in fully understanding this, the American people do,” said the committee chairman, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. The message from Ms. Murad and the other panelists was less than optimistic, each painting a picture of a terror group bent on spreading it’s vision no matter how long it takes. “ISIS presents itself as a long-term project,” said Hassan Hassan, using an acronym for the terror group. Hassan, a resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror," also cautioned that no matter how many defeats coalition forces inflict on the terror group in Iraq and Syria, its core membership will not be deterred. “They want to exhaust the West, exhaust everyone else,” he said. Tarek Elgawhary, director of religious studies at the World Organization for Resource Development and Education, warned Islamic State members have become experts at finding ways to recruit and radicalize new members. “There is a spectrum of extremism thought within Islam,” he told senators. “I think when they find somebody that looks like they’re from central casting, they’re able to pull them to that side.” Nadia Murad told lawmakers she fears what the Islamic State may still be able to do, saying she was heartbroken by the terror attack in Orlando, where 49 people were killed by a killer pledging his allegiance to the group. “For no reason, they were killed and abused, just the way I was,” she said. “But I wasn’t surprised by this because I knew if ISIS was not stopped they would deliver their crimes everywhere.” |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, June
22, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 122
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Another tropical wave is passing by By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Uncharacteristic morning rain is predicted for part of the country today due to the passage of a tropical wave sometime in the pre-noon hours. The wave is a trough of low pressure generated off the African coast that is sweeping from east to west. The low pressure generates instability. So the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that some rain is predicted for the morning hours, mainly along the Caribbean coast. Then the clouds will build up for another afternoon of downpours, thunder and lightning along the Pacific coast, in the Central Valley and in the northern zone, as well as the mountains along the Caribbean coast. The rains are expected to last into the evening. July 3 lottery will have three top prizes By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
July 3 is the date for the little Gordo. This is the lottery with the fat prize at the middle of the year. The Junta de Protección Social said that three top prizes of 450 million colons will be awarded. That’s about $840,000 each. Individual tickets will be 2,000 colons, and a full sheet will be 20,000 colons or about $38. Chances are slim for any expat winning, but Costa Rica does not tax lottery windfalls. Accident reconstruction to close main highway By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The prosecutor’s office in Pococí said that Ruta 32, the primary highway between San José and the Caribbean coast, will be closed from 7:30 a.m. to noon today while a fatal traffic accident is reconstructed. The site is near a bridge over the Río Costa Rica in La Unión, Guápiles. |
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| From Page 7: Boeing selling Iran $25 billion in new jetliners By the A.M. Costa Rica
wire services
U.S. aerospace giant Boeing has signed a tentative deal to sell passenger jets to Iran, in what would be the biggest business deal between the U.S. and Iran in 37 years. The transaction would be worth as much as $25 billion, with Iran buying at least 100 commercial jets for its state-owned airline. With most economic sanctions against Iran lifted after it signed the recent nuclear deal, Iran Air is ready to expand its fleet. It already has made a pending deal with the European consortium Airbus for passenger planes. Boeing says the Obama administration approved its initial deal with Iran after determining that Tehran is meeting its obligations under the nuclear agreement. "Boeing will continue to follow the lead of the U.S. government with regards to working with Iran's airlines, and any and all contracts with Iran's airlines will be contingent upon U.S. government approval," a company statement said Tuesday. Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Boeing's deal with Iran is the kind of permissible business activity as foreseen in the nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. "The JCPOA provides an opening for civil aviation companies, including American companies, to pursue legitimate commerce with Iran, and we note reports of progress in the aviation sector, which is good for both the economy and for public safety." But Kirby said any U.S. approved license for aviation sales to Iran would include appropriate conditions to ensure that nothing is resold or transferred to anyone on the specially designated nationals list, individuals under sanctions for terrorism and other activities as drug trafficking. It is also unclear how Iran would pay for the planes because Tehran is still barred from doing business with U.S. banks. |
