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A.M.
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Published
Friday July 1, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 129
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San
José, Costa Rica, Friday
July 1, 2016, Vol. 17, No.
129
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By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Police and local Jacó businesses are teaming up to keep at-risk adolescents off the streets by offering jobs and teaching a trade. The program called “Emprendiendo Una Vida Sin Violencia” (undertaking a life without violence) is the creation of the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública. The idea is that young people who are following an entrepreneurial path are less likely to lead a life of crime. The vice minister of public security, María Fullmen Salazar, said the program is viewed as an alternative form of crime prevention by encouraging entrepreneurship in young people. The communities of Quepos and Bahía Ballena are launching similar programs. U.S. Coast Guard win docking OK again By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Costa Rica lawmakers have approved the docking and port stays of U.S. Coast Guard vessels. The U.S. and Costa Rica are working together to develop counternarcotic operations under a joint patrol agreement. But the agreement to allow the boats to dock require periodic legislative approval. Lawmaker Luis Vasquez Castro said the permission to dock is crucial in Costa Rica’s fight against drug trafficking and corruption. “And I say this from my position as representative of the province of Limón, an area that is vulnerable where the drug scourge painfully threatens youth,” Castro said. Lawmaker Mario Poveda Redondo said assistance from the U.S. is important because of the technological advances the U.S. Coast Guard brings with it to detect the movement of drugs off the coasts. Not all legislators agree that it’s a good idea to essentially allow carte blanche to other nations in the use of Costa Rican ports. José Ramírez Aguilar argued that with or without the help of other nations, about 90 percent of the cocaine destined for the United States has been moving through Costa Rica this year. In 2012 that number was only 80 percent. In October 2015, lawmakers fought bitterly after a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft was not permitted to land in Costa Rica. Tolls increase today on Caldera highway By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Motorists will pay a little more beginning Friday for the privilege of driving on Costa Rica’s Ruta 27. The toll increase is minimal (10 colons) for normal vehicles, although multi-axle commercial trucks will see a 50-colon increase at some stations. The increase was the decision of Globalvia, the company that runs the 48-mile highway as a concessionaire. According to the firm, its contract allows it to make adjustments in toll fees based on the behavior of the dollar against the colon. Police are on the wrong side of law By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Sometimes police are on the wrong side of the law. Four San José municipal police officers have been detained on burglary allegations. Investigators also disclosed that one of 20 persons detained in a major narcotics sweep in Guanacaste is a police officer. And judicial agents said Thursday that they had detained a Fuerza Pública officer in Santa María de Dota on the allegation that he beat up a man who was attending a funeral last March. The four San José officers are accused of breaking into fruit stores during the night and stealing money. They range in age from 31 to 49. The Policía de Control de Drogas said it had detained 20 persons since March 1 in relation to the Guanacaste drug gang. The last 10 arrests took place this week, and investigators said that the ring mainly was involved in the sale of cocaine in Liberia, Cañas and Bagaces. The aggression at the funeral took place after police were told that a man was creating a disturbance perhaps because he was drunk. The man who suffered injuries is from Panamá. The police officer is accused of attacking the man and carrying him off to jail at the local police station. Country to rejoin regional organization By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Costa Rica has taken steps to re-affiliate with the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana. The country left the organization because officials thought there was lack of support from other member countries in the matter of thousands of stranded Cuban migrants last November. The goal of the organization is the integration of the countries of Central America. That includes matters like a uniform customs system, among others. The organization held a summit of government leaders this week.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado S.A 2065 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday July 1,
2016, Vol. 17,
No. 129
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| Embassy
staffers put out another misleading report on sex
trafficking |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The U.S. State Department came out with its annual human trafficking report Thursday, and once again the summary involving Costa Rica is internally inconsistent. As in many prior year reports, the summary, believed prepared locally by U.S. Embassy staffers, overlooked the fact that consensual prostitution is not penalized in Costa Rica. A.M. Costa Rica has brought this omission to the attention of embassy staffers for years with no results. Consequently the distinction between so-called sex trafficking and the movement of entrepreneurial individuals is blurred. Also blurred is the distinction between coerced prostitution and voluntary prostitution. The report says that child sex tourism is a serious problem, with child sex tourists arriving mostly from the United States and Europe. But it also notes that “Despite an identified child sex tourism problem, the government did not prosecute or convict any child sex tourists or other individuals who purchased commercial sex acts from children, although the government did collaborate with international partners to restrict entry to registered sex offenders.” As A.M. Costa Rica has reported in the past, the largest number of child sex cases involve family members or family friends, but these crimes are not within the scope of the State Department report. The report covers 2015 but embassy staffers have overlooked the flood of Cuban migrants and those from other countries who have accumulated in and passed through Costa Rica toward the end of the year. The Costa Rica’s government's efforts to air lift more than 8,000 Cubans to El Salvador certainly comes under the heading of what the report calls movement trafficking. The report also said that the Costa Rican “government conducted 25 targeted raids of sites where sex trafficking was suspected and interviewed 934 potential victims (931 women and 3 men), but did not identify any trafficking victims among them, despite media reports that some were unpaid, deceived about the type of employment and working conditions, or compelled to remain in prostitution through threats of violence and other forms of psychological coercion.” But the report said that the failure to find so-called trafficking victims is not because they do not exist, but “this suggests shortcomings in the methodology or implementation of the interviews.” The report appears to be referring to a number of raids of San José nightspots where customers were forced to remain and many made to submit to intrusive interviews by volunteers for non-profit agencies that receive support from the U.S. government. The report also makes no mention of the September arrest of a U.S. citizen, Dave Strecker. The Florida man remained incarcerated awaiting a preliminary hearing on a charge of promoting Costa Rica as a sexual tourism destination, which it |
 U.S. State
Department graphic
This is a graphic from the 2016 reportis. Investigators followed Strecker for 12 days in the hopes that he would be caught in some crime as he visited various nightspots. Strecker for years has posted tales of his Latin America sex exploits on a Web page, although the server is not located in Costa Rica and the man did his writing elsewhere. Prosecutors are not inclined to bring the case forward because of the charge’s violations of basic human rights. They also are trying to wear him down for a guilty plea. Some of the man’s friends are trying to find out if the United States was complicit in the case. The report repeats the statement from the prior year that “Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Costa Rican women and children are subjected to sex trafficking within the country, with those living in the north and central Pacific coastal zones being particularly vulnerable.” The State Department again puts the country on what it calls its tier 2 watch list. The report may suffer from some deficiencies because embassy staffers usually are told not to go into downtown San José or to other places where much of the prostitution exists. They also would see transvestite prostitutes working various corners after dark. There does not seem to be any input from an organization that represents prostitutes. The entire report stresses forced labor and forced prostitution. The State Department said despite sustained anti-trafficking efforts, millions of individuals are bound by “mental, physical, and financial coercion” and manipulation by traffickers who “exploit their vulnerabilities for profit,” according to a wire service report. “Modern day slavery that still today claims more than 20 million victims on any given time, all 20 million are people . . . they have names, they have or had families,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, calling human trafficking an industry that makes billions of dollars each year, the wire services said. The summary on Costa Rica is HERE! |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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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 without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday July 1,
2016, Vol. 17,
No. 129
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| Brain
activity while at rest said to predict language-learning
speed |
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By the Office of Naval Research
Ever wonder why some people seem to learn new languages faster? The secret might lie in the brain activity they generate while relaxing. New findings by scientists at the University of Washington demonstrate that a five-minute measurement of resting-state brain activity predicted how quickly adults picked up a second language. The study, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, is the first to use patterns of resting-state brain waves to determine subsequent language learning rate. “This is vital brain function research that could enable the military to develop a more effective selection process of those who can learn languages quickly,” said Ray Perez, a program officer in the office’s Warfighter Performance Department, who oversees the research. “This is especially critical to the intelligence community, which needs linguists fluent in a variety of languages, and must find such individuals rapidly.” Study author Chantel Prat, an associate professor and faculty researcher at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, wrote that the way someone’s brain functions while at rest predicts 60 percent of their capacity for learning a second language. For the experiments, 19 participants, adults between the ages of 18 and 31, with no previous experience learning French, visited Prat’s lab twice weekly over eight weeks for 30-minute French lessons delivered through an immersive, virtual-reality computer program called Operational Language and Cultural Training System. The training system is designed to make military personnel proficient in a foreign language after 20 hours of training. The self-paced program guides users through a series of scenes and stories. A voice-recognition component enables users to check their pronunciation. To ensure experiment participants were progressing well, the researchers used periodic quizzes that required a minimum score before proceeding to the next lesson. The quizzes also |
served as
measures for how quickly participants moved through the
curriculum. For five minutes before and after the eight-week curriculum, Prat had participants sit still, close their eyes, breathe deeply and wear an electroencephalogram headset measuring resting-state brain activity from the cerebral cortex, an area of the brain crucial to memory, attention and perception. “The brain waves we recorded reflect synchronized firing of large networks of neurons,” said Ms. Prat. “We found that the larger the networks were in beta frequencies, the faster our participants learned French.” These are the brain frequencies associated with language and memory. To confirm this, at the end of the eight-week language program, participants also completed a proficiency test covering the lessons they had finished. Those with the larger beta networks learned French twice as quickly. However, Ms. Prat is quick to point out that language learning rates were the only things predicted by the recorded brain activity. Participants with smaller beta networks still learned the material to which they were exposed equally well. “There’s more that goes into learning a new language than speed,” said Ms. Prat. “You also have to factor in motivation, study habits and practice methods.” The next stage of Ms. Prat’s research focuses on ways to improve and accelerate resting-state brain activity through neurofeedback training. This is a workout regimen that bulks up grey matter with brain games and mental cognition exercises like puzzles. Prat will have participants perform a range of neurofeedback techniques before completing the language program, and evaluate the results. “By studying individual differences in the brain, we’re figuring out key constraints on learning and information processing, to develop ways to improve language mastery,” said Ms. Prat. “This not only could benefit our nation’s military, but also our industry and educational system. In our increasingly connected global society, it pays to be able to speak multiple languages.” |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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of
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without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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San José, Costa
Rica, Friday July 1, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 129
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transgender men and women By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The Pentagon has lifted its ban on transgender men and women serving openly in the military. "We have to have access to 100 percent of America's population," Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters Thursday. "Our mission is to defend this country, and we don't want barriers unrelated to a person's qualification to serve preventing us from recruiting or retaining the soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who can best accomplish the mission," Carter said. He said servicemen and women can serve openly immediately and will no longer be discharged just for being transgender. He said there are currently an estimated 2,500 transgender people serving in active duty. The military will begin accepting transgender Americans who meet all of the physical and mental standards “no later than one year from today,” Carter added. The announcement follows a yearlong study by the RAND Corp. that concluded there would be minimal readiness impacts from allowing transgendered people to serve openly. The change removes one of the last barriers to military service by any individual. It comes nearly a half-decade after the formal end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which barred gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military, and less than one year after all combat positions in the military were opened to women. More identify as transgender, new statistical study says By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
On a day when the Pentagon announced it is lifting its ban on transgender men and women openly serving in the U.S. military, a research institute in California announced findings that the number of men and women identifying as transgender has doubled over the last 10 years. Jody Herman, a public policy scholar at the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, said Thursday that the results are from people self-reporting on U.S. government surveys. She said while the study did not examine the factors behind the rise in self-identification, growing social acceptance of transgender people might have influenced the rise in numbers. "That's one possible explanation," she said, "that it's becoming more mainstream." She says that as social acceptance of transgender identity grows, it is likely that people would be more willing to identify as such on a survey. Four Williams Institute researchers, Ms. Herman, Gary Gates, Andrew Flores and Taylor Brown, all public policy experts, compiled their results from the surveys by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that ask respondents if they identify as transgender. A previous study compiled from data collected in 2003 and 2007 to 2008 estimated that 0.3 percent of the U.S. population identified as transgender. The new results, using a larger sample size, put the estimate at 0.6 percent across the United States, with extremes of 0.3 percent estimated in the sparsely populated, conservative state of North Dakota and 0.8 percent in the Pacific Island state of Hawaii. Because the transgender question was an optional part of the survey, the earlier study had data only from the states of California and Massachusetts. The latest study, using 2014 data, had responses to the question from 19 states, enabling the researchers to use more sophisticated tools to estimate the transgender population across all 50 states. The newer method relies on demographic information such as race, ethnicity, age and educational level to predict the likelihood that an individual would identify as transgender in states where that information was not available. Perhaps not surprisingly, younger people, those between the ages of 18 and 24, were more likely than older people to identify as transgender. They were also more likely to be of racial or ethnic minorities and to have lower incomes. In some cases, the demographic factors explained results that might otherwise seem surprising. The conservative southern state of Texas, for example, had a transgender population on the high end of the scale, at 0.6 percent. But 38 percent of the Texas population is Latino, according to the Pew Research Center, and Latinos are more likely than whites to identify as transgender. It might be worth noting that a study of transgender identification does not equal a study of sexual orientation, although those identifications can coincide. "Transgender people can be of any sexual orientation," Ms. Herman said. "But you do of course see LGBT together quite a bit,"the acronym that represents "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender." She explained that those groups might be referenced together because they tend to experience the same types of discrimination, even when they don't overlap. There has been some research to suggest that people who are homosexual or bisexual are discriminated against because they don't express gender in a traditional way, “and you hear about trans people experiencing discrimination because of anti-gay bias," she said. Herman says researchers might do another follow-up study in the future, although nothing has been scheduled. Ms. Herman says five more U.S. states added the transgender question to their surveys for 2015, and if more follow suit, "that would certainly be a reason to re-do the study." Was the study done in service to any particular policy goal? Ms. Herman says while the mission of the Williams Institute is to study law and policy issues centered on sexual orientation and gender identity, the researchers' goal is only to provide data. "We try to be timely and put out research that can dispel myths with facts and figures. We try to inject policy debates with solid, rigorous research," she said. "To the extent that people can get the information they need, that's great. That's the mission of the Williams Institute." British political parties face convulsions over leadership By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The contest to replace David Cameron as Conservative Party leader and Britain’s prime minister started in earnest Thursday with top candidates outlining their strategy on how to grapple with the huge consequences of last week’s Brexit vote. The race, however, will be without the colorful Boris Johnson, the tousle-haired former London mayor, who, after falling out with his Leave campaign colleague, Justice Minister Michael Gove, unexpectedly decided not to contest the party leadership. Johnson said he doubted he could unify the party split between pro- and anti-EU camps. Johnson’s withdrawal shocked political circles and dismayed Britain’s tabloid journalists, who were counting on him for lively copy. His withdrawal, some Conservatives said, was linked to an extraordinary private email by Gove’s wife, the well-connected journalist Sarah Vines, to her husband. It laid bare the distrust between the top two Leave campaigners and the email leaked to the media helped propel Gove to throw his hat in the ring. In the email, Ms. Vines also hinted at the shadowy involvement in the Conservative leadership contest of press baron Rupert Murdoch, who owns a chunk of the British press, and Daily Mail editor Lord Dacre. Vines argued they “instinctively dislike Boris.” With Johnson out, Theresa May, the strong-willed interior minister who reminds many in the Tory party of Margaret Thatcher, is now the favorite to replace Cameron. Just before Johnson’s withdrawal from the race, she presented herself confidently as the unity candidate in a feisty, no-nonsense speech that included well-aimed slaps at Johnson. May backed the Remain camp in last week’s referendum, but on Thursday reached out to the party’s euro-skeptics. “Brexit means Brexit,” she said, adding, “The campaign was fought, the vote was held, turnout was high, and the public gave their verdict. “There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum," she added. May ruled out also a rerun referendum or a plebiscite on the terms of Brexit once negotiated with the European Union and ruled out an early general election. May also said any subsequent free trade deal with the bloc could not include freedom of movement, a likely deal-breaker for European leaders. They are insisting any trade deal include the right of EU citizens to live and work in Britain and Britons accorded the same opportunity in EU states. The other 27 EU member states signed a tough statement Wednesday hardening their conditions for allowing Britain access to the EU market after departure. At the explicit demand of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the statement included the non-negotiable principles of the European Union, free movement of capital, labor, services and goods. “Access to the single market requires acceptance of all four freedoms, the statement said. Asked by the BBC if the European Union would shift on freedom of movement, the Anglophile Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, said, “It is a non-starter.” The Conservative leadership competition features five candidates, including Pensions Minister Stephen Crabb, who was raised in local authority housing by a single mother, an unlikely Conservative background. As the contest got under way, there were other worrying signs that jilted EU leaders are prepared to squeeze Britain on Brexit negotiations. May said the negotiations won't be able to start until the end of the year. In a bid to maneuver Paris into a position to be able to grab international banking business, French President Francois Hollande is seeking EU rules that would threaten London’s status as the continent's financial capital. He wants to require banks and clearing houses involved in euro-denominated trading to do so only in the eurozone countries. With any informal negotiations being ruled out by EU leaders before Britain’s formal notification of departure, the pre-talks positions of the British and Europeans are being pegged out very publicly via television interviews and statements to the press. This is adding to an escalation in tension, and in the war of words, between the continent’s leaders and the British. But, as tempers flare, the two sides appear to be talking past each other. Anger is not only rising when it comes to EU leaders versus the British. An open rebellion by 80 percent of Labor’s lawmakers against leftist party leader Jeremy Corbyn is turning more toxic. Despite a vote of no-confidence in his leadership being passed earlier this week by lawmakers, Corbyn has rebuffed all appeals to resign, including from former Labor leaders Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. Corbyn is surrounded by former members of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party and Stalinist groups, including the Communist Party of Great Britain, says Labor lawmaker Mike Gapes. They also stock the constituency parties. “They have hijacked the party and don’t care what happens to it, nor if Labor gets trounced in elections,” he said. “They believe in so-called revolutionary defeatism, electoral defeat doesn’t matter for them as long as they recruit a few more members for their cadre,” he said. Gapes added, “The Labor Party hasn’t a God-given right to exist. We are fighting an existential battle, and if Corbyn remains as party leader, we will face a wipe-out at the polls.” Several anti-Corbyn lawmakers have been forced to call the police over death threats made by far-left party activists. Corbyn is expected to face a leadership challenge from Anna Eagle, a minister in Gordon Brown’s government. U.S. House plans to vote on terrorism-firearms ban By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives will vote next week on a bill aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists. A week after Democrats staged a nearly 26-hour sit-in demanding a vote on gun control measures, Speaker Paul Ryan told fellow Republicans of the vote in a conference call Thursday. Ryan said the House would vote on a broad bill that will include measures to prevent radicalization and recruitment by extremist groups, as well as a provision to stop suspected terrorists from buying guns. Ryan called it just common sense' to keep firearms from terrorists, but said it must be done while protecting the right to own guns. Democrats held their daylong protest on the House floor, demanding a vote on gun control legislation in the wake of the shooting rampage that killed 49 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The killer, Omar Mateen, who was shot by authorities during the siege, was an American who pledged allegiance to a leader of the Islamic State extremist group, according to a transcript of his phone calls with officials during the incident. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office said Ryan might well offer National Rifle Association-backed legislation that would put the burden on the government to prove that someone on a terror watch list should not have a gun. Ms. Pelosi's spokesman, Drew Hammill, warned that a vote on an NRA-written bill "just isn't going to cut it.'' The House next week will also take up a bipartisan bill by Pennsylvania Republican Tim Murphy that seeks to address gun violence by overhauling the mental health system. Republicans believe terrorism and mental illness, not access to guns, have been leading causes of most mass shootings. Protective ozone layer is reported to be healing By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
More than 30 years after scientists first found a hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer, they are seeing signs that it is beginning to heal. A study released Thursday in the journal Science says the hole is getting smaller. Researchers attribute the good news to the declining release of chlorofluorocarbons into the air. "It isn't just that the patient is in remission,'' said the study's lead author, Susan Solomon of MIT. "He's actually starting to get better. The patient got very sick in the ‘80s when we were pumping all that chlorine'' into the atmosphere. The chemical compounds, once commonly used in aerosols, dry cleaning and refrigerators, were banned when nations around the world signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 in an effort to repair the ozone hole. Measurements taken in September revealed the hole has shrunk by about 4.5 million square kilometers, about half the area of the contiguous United States, since 2000. The hole won't be completely closed until mid-century, but the healing is appearing earlier than scientists expected. "We can now be confident that the things we've done have put the planet on a path to heal," Solomon said. Ozone is a natural gas made up of three oxygen atoms. About 10 to 50 kilometers high in the stratosphere, the ozone layer shields Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. "There is a sense of mission accomplished,'' emailed University of California San Diego's Mario Molina, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his characterization of the ozone problem. He praised the study, in which he played no part.  NASA
graphic
This artist's rendering shows NASA's Junospacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter. Juno probe ready to
head
for its Jupiter encounter By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The Juno space probe is still millions of kilometers and 18 days away from Jupiter, but on July 4, the spacecraft will fire its main engine for 35 minutes as it enters a polar orbit around the gas giant. The probe, which is the size of a basketball court, will skim the planet's clouds, eventually coming within 4,667 kilometers of Jupiter as it attempts to get a look under the massive planet’s thick cloud cover, hopefully leading to better insight on the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. "At this time last year our New Horizons spacecraft was closing in for humanity's first close views of Pluto," said Diane Brown, Juno program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, Juno is poised to go closer to Jupiter than any spacecraft ever before to unlock the mysteries of what lies within." During the entire mission, Juno will make 37 close approaches to Jupiter, and each one could imperil the craft. For example, under the clouds, there is a layer of hydrogen under so much pressure that it conducts electricity. That, along with the planet’s fast rotation [one day on Jupiter is only 10 hours long], creates a strong magnetic field, creating what NASA calls the “harshest radiation environment in the solar system.” "Over the life of the mission, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of over 100 million dental X-rays," said Rick Nybakken, Juno's project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "But, we are ready. We designed an orbit around Jupiter that minimizes exposure to Jupiter's harsh radiation environment. This orbit allows us to survive long enough to obtain the tantalizing science data that we have traveled so far to get." Juno is also fitted with “radiation-hardened electrical wiring and shielding” as well as a unique titanium vault that protects the probe’s most vital equipment, such as the flight computer. The vault is so strong that it will reduce radiation exposure by 800 times. Without it, “Juno's electronic brain would more than likely fry before the end of the very first flyby of the planet.” Juno launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its July 4 arrival in orbit around Jupiter coincides with the U.S. independence holiday which is celebrated with fireworks displays. Murder of teen in her bed stokes outrage in Israel By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The United States and Israel bitterly condemned Thursday's fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old American-Israeli girl inside her home in a Jewish settlement by a Palestinian. The girl, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, who had dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship, died in a hospital shortly after the Palestinian teen barged into her house and stabbed her in her bed. A security guard shot the attacker dead. "The horrifying murder of a young girl in her bed underscores the bloodlust and inhumanity of the incitement-driven terrorists that we are facing," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, describing the scene of the slaying to television viewers. Displaying a photograph of Hallel's bloody bed and a teddy bear on a chair, Netanyahu called on the whole world to condemn the killing in the same way it condemned terrorist killings in Ankara, Orlando, Brussels and elsewhere. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby called the killing unconscionable. Hallel lived in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near the Palestinian city of Hebron. Israeli military officials said the attacker managed to get past a fence surrounding the settlement, but they were unsure how he got into the house. Israeli authorities sealed off the village where the killer lived and rescinded his family's work permits. Palestinian leaders have not reacted to the stabbing so far. There has been a relative lull in the wave of Palestinian stabbings and other attacks on Israelis that began 10 months ago when rumors swept through Palestinian areas that Israel was planning to take over an East Jerusalem religious site sacred to Jews and Muslims. Israel strongly denied the rumors and accused Palestinian authorities of inciting the violence. But young Palestinians say they are fed up with poverty, unemployment, a stalled peace process, weak leadership and Israeli settlements on land they want as part of a future state. U.N. Mideast envoy Nicolay Mladenov told the Security Council Thursday that an upcoming report on reviving peace talks would call on Israel to cut back on settlement activity. It will also urge the relatively moderate Palestinian Authority to take back control of Gaza, which is in the hands of Hamas militants. |
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| 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. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday July 1, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 129
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El Niño left many problems in its
wake Special to A.M. Costa Rica
with staff additions Urgent action by the international community and governments in the dry corridor of Central America is essential to help build resilience, food security, and restore livelihoods damaged by drought and other extreme-weather effects of El Niño, United Nations leaders said Thursday. The devastating El Niño event that began in 2015 was one of the worst on record and its impact continues to be felt in the dry corridor, compounding the damage from two consecutive years of drought. As a result, some 3.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance with 1.6 million moderately or severely food insecure in the hard-hit countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. To raise awareness and coordinate responses to both the protracted El Niño-related crises in the dry corridor and the possibility of a related La Niña event in the second half of 2016, U.N. agencies and other partners met at the Rome headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The meeting included the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme with the aim of mobilizing the international community to support the efforts of governments, U.N. agencies and other partners. In opening remarks, José Graziano da Silva stressed that "the challenge facing the dry corridor is not only climate change: it is also extreme poverty, and food and nutritional insecurity," adding: "We need to change the traditional response strategy and tackle the structural causes of poverty and food insecurity in Central America's dry corridor, and not settle for simply mounting a humanitarian response every time an emergency situation occurs." He is director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization. Some 10.5 million people, about 60 percent of whom are in poverty, live in the dry corridor, a region characterized by extensive deforestation, soil degradation and water scarcity. These conditions are exacerbated by El Niño and its counterpart La Niña which occur cyclically. However, in recent years extreme weather events associated with these two phenomena, such as droughts and floods, have increased in frequency and severity. The dry corridor runs from southern México south to Guanacaste in Costa Rica. Guanacaste has suffered from the drought, too, but another impact on Costa Rica has been the flow of Central American refugees from the north. Refugee applications in Costa Rica have increased to 800 in 2015. That number is five times greater than three years ago, said officials. U.N. refugee officials are holding a two-day session in Costa Rica next week. The sessions will be at the Hotel Real Intercontinental Wednesday and Thursday. Like refugees to the United States, many claim they are fleeing violence, but hunger and lack of employment also play a big role. A poor choice of cargo for the trip By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The first indication that something was amiss might have been when police asked themselves why is this truck hauling bananas to Honduras. That is kind of like the proverbial carrying coal to Newcastle. Honduras has plenty of bananas. The Policía de Control de Drogas looked further and found 39 one-kilo packages of cocaine hidden in the body of the truck. |
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| From Page 7: Free trade pact with Colombia begins Aug. 1
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The free trade treaty between Colombia and Costa Rica goes into effect Aug.1, officials point out at the XI Cumbre de la Alianza del Pacífico in Chile. María Claudia Lacouture, the Colombian minister of Comercio, Industria y Turismo, said that of that date 98 percent of the products of both countries will compete on an equal basis. Costa Rica and Colombia signed the agreement in May 2013. The last step was for both countries to agree on an official starting date. Colombia is well known for its clothing. It also is the world’s fourth largest producer of coffee, but Costa Rica would not seem to be a big market for that. Costa Rica is likely to export a lot of processed foods. Both countries are anxious for equal legal status for their investors. |
