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José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, July 14, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 137
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Lawyers
offered civil responsibility policy
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The state insurance company has set up a group policy to cover lawyers for breaches of their professional obligations. The insurance is voluntary, and the coverage can range up to 100 million colons, about $190,000, depending on the premium. The group policy was announced Monday by Elian Villegas Valverde, executive president of the Instituto Nacional de Seguros, and Eduardo Calderón Odio, president of the Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas. A spokesman for the insurance firm was unable to say Monday if the policies would cover fraud on the part of the lawyers. The premiums are minimal. Coverage of 100 million colons is available for a monthly premium of 23,629 colons, about $45. Lawyers can opt for coverage a low as 5 million colons, about $9,500. More than 25,000 lawyers are eligible, said the state insurance firm.
 Genetics Society of
America/John
Doebley
Teosinte, a first
generation
hybrid and modern cornTiny genetic
change gave world ear corn
By the Genetics Society of America news
staff
If not for a single genetic mutation, each kernel on a juicy corn cob would be trapped inside a inedible casing as tough as a walnut shell. The mutation switched one amino acid for another at a specific position in a protein regulating formation of these shells in modern corn’s wild ancestor, according to a study published in the July issue of GENETICS, a publication of the Genetics Society of America. “Humans completely reshaped the ancestor of corn, effectively turning the cob inside out. Our results show that a small genetic change has had a big effect on this remarkable transformation,” says study leader John Doebley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The domestication of corn has long fascinated biologists studying evolution. Corn can provide clues to how organisms change under selection, whether it’s natural selection or selection by humans choosing the most delicious and productive plants to grow in next year’s crop. Corn was domesticated in Mexico around 9,000 years ago from the wild grass teosinte. Teosinte seeds are protected by a hard casing that makes them impractical to eat, but ancient plant breeders developed varieties with naked kernels. In these plants, the structures that form the seed case instead turn into the cob in the center of the ear, leaving the seed exposed for humans to eat. Besides having lost the inconvenient seed case, corn kernels today remain firmly attached to the cob, rather than scattering easily as they do in teosinte. The cobs are also much larger, and the corn plant has fewer leaf branches than its ancestor. Gene changes for these traits were discovered by Doebley and his colleagues over the past few decades. All these changes evolved relatively quickly, within a few thousand years at most. Previous studies have shown that many of the dramatic differences between corn and teosinte were built on a foundation of genetic changes at perhaps as few as six genes. One of those genes, tga1, controls formation of the seed case. The TGA1 protein encoded by the gene acts as a master regulator of a suite of other genes involved in this complex developmental process. “TGA1 acts a bit like an orchestra conductor coordinating the actions of many different musicians,” says Doebley. “The same orchestra can play in different ways, depending on the conductor’s signals.” In teosinte, TGA1 regulates genes in a way that helps seed cases form. But in corn, TGA1 action disrupts this process, resulting in cases that are smaller and don’t close over the kernel properly. But what exactly is different about the two versions of the tga1 gene? To find out, the team compared the tga1 DNA sequence in 16 different varieties of corn and 20 varieties of teosinte. They discovered only one change present in all the corn samples but in none of the teosinte: at one particular position in the tga1 sequence, the corn version carried a “C” DNA base instead of the “G” found in teosinte. The study provide an example of how selection by ancient plant breeders triggered profound structural change in an organism through relatively minor genetic alterations, allowing new traits to evolve rapidly. “Twenty years ago, it was much harder to study evolution in such detail. It’s exciting that we can now understand complex examples like maize domestication at their most fundamental level,” says Doebley. Less rain is predicted for today By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The atmosphere still is unstable even though another one of those tropical waves has passed over and left the country. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said it expects cloudy skies this morning with downpours and electrical storms in the central and south Pacific in the afternoon. Some rain is predicted for the Central Valley, the Nicoya peninsula and the mountains of the Caribbean and the northern zone, the institute said. As the tropical wave, a trough of low pressure, passed over the country Monday, there were heavy afternoon rains. The institute said that its sensors counted 150 lighting strikes in the metro area. Rainfall ranged from a little over an inch to nearly twice that in the Central Valley and Limón. In San José the rains stopped about 4 p.m. Nuclear deal reached with Iran By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Iranian and Western diplomats said today that international negotiators have reached a historic, long-sought agreement limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Teams from Iran and the so-called P5+1 group of nations that includes Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany were due to hold one final meeting this morning in Vienna, followed by a news conference. Exact details of the agreement were not publicly available ahead of an official announcement.
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, July 14, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 137 | |
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| Solís fires aides because they may have suggested
doing wrong |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Luis Guillermo Solís sacrificed six staffers Monday because they may have been thinking about doing something wrong. The six are members of Juventud Progresista of the Partido Acción Ciudadana, which equate to something like Young Democrats or Young Republicans. Minutes from one of their meetings said that someone suggested using government resources for political purposes. That is a big no no in government, and even though no one did that, they were fired by the president. |
They were
staffers at Casa Presidencial and at other ministries.
The staffers are of the same political party as the president. A
seventh individual is in a civil service job, and Casa Presidencial
said that an action has been started against him. The issue was raised by Ottón Solís, a legislator, who also is from the same party. The fired individuals told reporters that the minutes did not reflect what actually transpired at the June meeting of the group. And even if the suggestion was made, it could have been in jest. The minutes did not reflect a context. And the comment itself was vague, suggesting just using public resources for the benefit of the party without giving specifics. |
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Trio held in murder of clerk
at popular La Bomba pharmacy By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The murder was unnecessary. The 24-year-old female manager at the popular La Bomba pharmacy in Guayabo de Curridabat had gotten the job just six days before. The bandits might have been upset because she could not or would not open the cash draw when they stuck up the place. One of them shot her in the ear, and she died a short time later in Hospital Calderón Guardia. She left a 3 year old. Judicial agents responded by detaining three persons in Desamparados early Monday. They are accused of being the persons who arrived at the store on two motorcycles. That was Dec. 17 Judicial agents said that a 26-year-old suspect already was in custody on another charge. The dead woman was Rosberly Córdoba Murillo. Agents said they confiscated a pistol. |
 Judicial Investigating Organization photo
One of the suspects heads
for a ride downtown |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, July 14, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 137 | |||||
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| Millennials seem to have a different take on the world
situation |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Move over, baby boomers: Millennials now outnumber them as America’s largest living generation. And their very different views of themselves and their place in the world will likely reshape U.S. foreign policy for decades to come. Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1965, came of age during a period of unprecedented American prosperity and peril: The omnipresent nuclear threat created in boomers a sense of unease and uncertainty that made the world seem a very threatening place, experts say. Millennials, roughly defined as those born between the early 1980s and early 2000s, came of age after the Cold War and, therefore, see the world as less menacing despite 9/11 and the rise of global terrorism. “It’s not to say that they don’t appreciate danger,” said Trevor Thrall, an associate professor at George Mason University and co-author of a recent CATO Institute white paper on Millennials and foreign policy. “It’s just that compared to the danger that older people feel, it’s just markedly less.” Thrall said he wasn’t surprised to learn that Millennials were not more affected by 9/11 than they appear to have been. Most were too young to understand events at the time, and their understanding of the attacks is based on how the discussion on terror has evolved since that time. “Older people think, ‘We’re a great people, we got attacked by these crazy people, and now we are dealing with it and we have to be careful,’ ” Thrall said. “Millennials are the only generation the majority of which think the U.S. must have done something to provoke 9/11.” His finding is based in part on a 2011 Pew Research poll that found 52 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. believed U.S. actions might have motivated the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, millennials take a dim view of American exceptionalism. A Pew poll in 2011 found that only a 32 percent of them perceive the United States as superior to other countries, as compared to 64 percent of boomers. The study also found that although most millennials say they are patriotic, they express that patriotism far less fervently than older Americans. Millennials also showed that being patriotic does not mean they are uncomfortable criticizing government policies nor do they believe in an aggressive foreign policy. “But they are very strong on human rights, and although they are more resistant to using military force around the world to solve problems, one way in which they are the most likely to be moved by arguments to use force is humanitarian intervention," Thrall said. "They are actually a little bit more supportive in most polls of humanitarian military intervention than older folks," he added. His study also shows that millennials view Asia, not Europe, |
as the most
important region of the world, and China will figure
strongly in U.S. foreign policy and perhaps push it in a less
adversarial direction. This, he said, could work out well, if the Chinese are similarly inclined. It could fail, however, if millennials are misreading Beijing’s intentions. In general, Thrall predicts millennials will steer the U.S toward a more restrained grand strategy that relies less on unilateral force than on cooperative ventures. Back in 2002, a researcher at Britain’s Warwick University noted that youngsters’ thumbs had evolved to become more dexterous than their other fingers due to their constant use of hand-held electronics. Today, technology may be the single greatest factor shaping the thumbers' – now millennials’ – world view. They are less likely to read newspapers because they find all the information they want online – even if they aren’t consciously looking for it. “Even if they are playing online, the amount of information that they are consuming and are exposed to, it’s probably difficult for them to have a large online presence and not be exposed to some perspective on key foreign policy issues,” said Jarrel “J.P.” Price, president of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, a nonpartisan group looking to groom the next generation of foreign-policy leaders and promote international relationships. “Technology also makes it easier for a millennial sitting at home in the United States to reach out and build a personal relationship with someone overseas,” Price said. "And to the extent that is used well by our generation, then I think the global partnerships that we could see could be transformative," he said. Census data show another important factor contributing to millennials’ global view: More than 44 percent of them belong to a minority race or ethnic group. Price and Thrall both pointed out that millennials are not just the largest generation in the United States, but the largest in many regions of strategic interest to the U.S. Telecommunications giant Viacom estimates the global millennial population to be 2.5 billion, though this figure is higher than other estimates. Millennials account for about a quarter of the European Union’s population, according to Pew findings. And in the Middle East, they account for 40 percent of the population and are powering dramatic change from Tunisia to the Gulf States. Thrall points out that Arab youths’ view of the U.S. is so horrible right now that American millennials are going to be dealing with the fallout for the rest of their lives. “How American millennials respond to that is going to be one of the defining features of American foreign policy for the next fifty years,” Thrall said. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, July 14, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 137 | |||||||
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| Defense Department to study transgenderers in the military By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. military will consider allowing transgender individuals to join, and there will be a six-month study into the issue. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter ordered the review Monday, saying the "Defense Department's current regulations regarding transgender service members are outdated and are causing uncertainty that distracts commanders from our core missions." Carter said he is creating a working group to review current policies banning transgender individuals. However, he said the group will begin the process with "the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified." The secretary said that during the six-month review process, any decisions to discharge transgender military personnel will be referred to his personal undersecretary, Brad Carson. Carson will also head the working group. "At a time when our troops have learned from experience that the most important qualification for service members should be whether they're able and willing to do their job, our officers and enlisted personnel are faced with certain rules that tell them the opposite," Carter said. In 2011, the U.S. military formally ended its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that allowed gays to serve only if they did not reveal their sexual orientation. The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was instituted in 1993 during the administration of President Bill Clinton, as a compromise to the complete ban on homosexuals in the military. During the nearly two decades the policy was in effect, about 14,000 members of the U.S. military were kicked out for revealing their orientation. Obama commutes sentences for 46 federal prisoners By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama has cut the prison sentences of 46 non-violent offenders, as part of a push to reform the nation's chronically overcrowded federal prison system. In a White House video released Tuesday, Obama said "these men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years." The president has now issued nearly 90 commutations during his presidency, with most of them targeting offenders imprisoned for drug crimes who met new criteria established by the Justice Department last year. The commutations leave the convictions in place, while ending the punishment. White House counsel Neil Eggleston said he expects the president to issue more commutations and pardons before he leaves the White House in 2017. The White House says Obama will elaborate on plans to improve the fairness of the criminal justice system in an address to the the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People today. Administration officials have described reform efforts as a push to give relief to inmates jailed under harsh mandatory sentencing guidelines formulated in the 1980s, at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. The commutations include the case of Stephen Donovan, a Wisconsin native who along with three accomplices was charged in 1992 with conspiracy to deliver dozens of kilograms of cocaine purchased elsewhere. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, quoting court records, said Donovan, unlike his accomplices, had two prior marijuana convictions. He therefore faced mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under controversial three strikes penalties widely imposed by courts in that era. At his sentencing, his lawyers unsuccessfully argued that it was unconstitutional to impose a life sentence for a non-violent crime. He was 35 years old at the time. Donovan's current lawyer is quoted as saying his now 58-year-old client will likely be transferred from a federal prison to a halfway house before his release. The presidential decree orders all 46 inmates released by Nov. 10. Tech experts reject the idea of back door for data devices By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It’s no secret that James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is not a fan of encryption, at least not when it puts data outside the reach of the FBI. For over a year now, Comey has pressured congressional leaders and Silicon Valley executives to curb the use and spread of encryption tools for computers, tablets and mobile phones, but with little effect. Comey said he wants encryption services to create secret back doors and key escrows for their products so agencies like the FBI can get emergency access to data critical for fighting crime and protecting national security. So far, the debate has been largely low-key and one-sided, with few corporate executives eager to pick a public fight with the FBI. But now, a group of cybersecurity professionals is pushing back at the FBI, warning that what Comey wants is not only infeasible, but could make the entire Internet significantly more vulnerable to hack attacks. With high-profile cyberattacks on the increase and continuing revelations of U.S. government surveillance activities leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, encryption has become a booming business. There are literally hundreds of encryption apps and services currently available that allow users to lock away their messages, texts, pictures, contacts and other data from prying eyes, with more on the way every month. Sensing this explosive growth, industry leaders such as Apple, Microsoft and Google now offer robust encryption options for devices using their operating systems. Last September, Apple included an iOS security change that makes it nearly impossible for police agencies to unlock devices such as an iPhone without the owner’s consent. Previously, the operating system allowed Apple to unlock devices if the government provided a search warrant. One month later, at a forum hosted by the Brookings Institution, Comey delivered a caustic broadside against the spread of encryption services. Comey cautioned that law enforcement agencies like the FBI are increasingly vexed by bad guys using encrypted data storage and keeping nearly all their information – some of which might be evidence of illegal activity – on encrypted phones, outside the traditional access of wiretaps or database searches. Encryption, he said, is turning every electronic device into a safe that can never be cracked. “If the challenges of real-time interception threaten to leave us in the dark, encryption threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place,” he warned. Since then, the FBI director has taken nearly every opportunity to warn about encryption’s spread. Just last week, while announcing the arrest of a number of individuals suspected of plotting terror attacks, Comey said that some of those arrested had been communicating with Islamic State militants through encrypted message platforms. Perhaps recognizing that the encryption genie is already out of the cyber bottle, Comey is pushing tech companies to build in secret access points to their services, allowing data to be recovered without the key-holders consent. He’s also calling for key escrows, essentially a digital bank holding the secret encryption keys for every user. While Comey has yet to score any significant concessions, his campaign to this point has been more lecture than debate, with corporate executives offering noncommittal assurances of working with the government to study the issue. Some of that may have changed, however, with the release last week of a report that pushes back against Comey and warns that his proposals would make private data even more vulnerable to hacking and theft. “Keys Under Doormats” was written by a group of 15 elite cybersecurity and cryptographic professionals and published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In brief, they argue that secret entry points into encrypted systems don’t currently exist because they simply don’t work. Moreover, they say such paths “pose far more grave security risks, imperil innovation on which the world’s economies depend, and raise more thorny policy issues than we could have imagined when the Internet was in its infancy.” Walker makes it official and joins crowded field By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker joined the crowded field seeking the Republican Party's 2016 U.S. presidential nomination Monday, saying he is in the race to "fight and win for the American people." The 47-year-old Walker is the 15th candidate in the Republican contest. Political surveys show him among the top Republicans seeking the nomination, with some of his biggest support in Wisconsin's neighboring state of Iowa, which holds the country's first nominating caucus next February. The deeply conservative Walker has not run for national office before, but gained prominence in Republican circles by winning three statewide elections since 2010 in a state that has voted for Democratic presidential candidates over Republicans in the past seven national elections, dating to 1984. A collection of national surveys about the Republican presidential campaign currently shows him trailing only former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the son and brother of two U.S. presidents. But the field is so splintered no candidate has emerged as a frontrunner. In 2012, Walker became the first U.S. governor to survive a recall election, a vote spawned by Walker's determined efforts to weaken public-sector unions in the state. Because of his staunch Republican following, and adamant Democratic opposition, some U.S. political analysts call him America's most polarizing governor. In a campaign video, Walker points to his political victories as a credential for his presidential campaign. "We did it by leading," Walker says in the video. "Now, we need to do the same thing for America. It's not too late. We can make our country great again." But his lack of foreign policy experience already drew some disdain earlier this year when he said his fight against Wisconsin government worker unions will equip him to lead the fight against Islamic State insurgents in the Mideast. During his Wisconsin tenure, he has cut personal and corporate income taxes by nearly $2 billion, legalized the carrying of concealed weapons and made abortions more difficult to obtain. Like many of his fellow Republican candidates, Walker relishes his criticism of Washington and the national government, calling it "68 square miles surrounded by reality." Political surveys suggest Walker, the son of a Baptist preacher, has the potential to win broader support from Christian conservatives, Tea Party activists opposed to big government initiatives and business-oriented Republicans. A college dropout, Walker casts himself as an average guy in touch with working-class America, part of a family that packs brown-bag lunches and clips coupons for department store sales. Walker tweeted his presidential intentions early Monday but is set for a night-time campaign rally in the southeast Wisconsin community of Waukesha, just west of Milwaukee. He is then campaigning over the next week in several states where Republicans will vote early next year in nominating contests. Mrs. Clinton promises aid to the middle-class worker By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton laid out an ambitious economic plan Monday, aimed at boosting economic growth and middle-class wages. In a speech at the New School in New York City, Mrs. Clinton said as president she would be committed to both economic growth and fairness with a focus on raising incomes for middle-class Americans. “The defining economic challenge of our time is clear. We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle-class life," Mrs. Clinton said. "We must drive strong and steady income growth that lifts up families and lifts up our country. And that will be my mission from the first day I’m president to the last," she added. Mrs. Clinton said she supports raising the minimum wage, will encourage companies to offer profit-sharing with employees and favors tax benefits that favor workers. She also took shots at some of the Republican presidential contenders for some of their conservative economic views, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who officially entered the race Monday. Clinton’s focus on the economy comes as one of her four Democratic challengers, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has drawn enthusiastic crowds by hammering away at income inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. "The top 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. And my conclusion is that that type of economics is not only immoral, it is not only wrong, it is unsustainable," Sanders said. Sanders advocates higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans to benefit the poor and the middle class and has crept closer to Mrs. Clinton in recent public opinion polls in the early contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Analysts said Mrs. Clinton remains the Democratic favorite, but Sanders’ focus on income disparity may force her a bit more to the left. "I think Hillary Clinton will be the nominee at the end of the day, but we always knew that she would have a challenge from the left,” said John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “He will draw her to be more to the left on some issues. And right now that energy on the left is flowing to Bernie Sanders to make him a challenger to Hillary Clinton," Fortier said. Greece gets another bailout and for now stays in EU By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Following marathon negotiations over several days, European leaders announced a tentative agreement Monday to provide Greece with another bailout, its third in five years, and to ensure the country remains in the 19-nation eurozone family, for now. But despite sighs of relief in Europe and in financial markets, experts say now the hard part begins. Judging from the reaction in financial markets, it’s a done deal. A third European bailout for Greece worth nearly 90 billion euros. But Greek lawmakers have yet to ratify the terms, which include more spending cuts, tax hikes and the privatization of government assets. That’s the easy part, says Johns Hopkins international economics professor Cristino Arroyo. “The really hard part is that they’re going to have to make, besides the required reforms, they will also have to find ways to get growth going and that is the real challenge,” he said. Even if the Greek parliament ratifies the deal, it's an uphill climb for a country still trying to dig itself out of a deep recession. Market analyst Mike Ingram at BGC Partners says more spending cuts are unlikely to produce enough growth to reduce Greece's rapidly expanding debt. “We’re going to see further cuts in public sector expenditure," he said. "Broadbrush – a lot more austerity, probably forever.” Without a plan to grow Greece's cash-starved economy economist Robert Kahn at the Council on Foreign Relations says the latest bailout is just a bandage. "Even if we get a deal, my fear is that it will be really more an effort to kick the can down the road and buy some time, rather than really put in place policies that will return growth to Greece," he said. Greece’s largest creditor, Germany, which had been criticized for proposing more spending cuts in exchange for a bailout, says there may be room yet for compromise. “The Eurogroup is ready if necessary to grant longer grace period and longer loan maturities. We talked about it after the first successful review of the new Greek program,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. While Greek banks remain closed this week, some finance ministers expressed relief that negotiations have averted a potentially destabilizing Greek exit for now. Some say the bigger challenge in coming weeks is how to rebuild trust between Athens and the other 18 countries that make up the eurozone. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Mexico's notorious drug kingpin, Joaquin Guzmán, was still on the loose Monday, two days after he escaped from a maximum security prison for the second time in 14 years. Mexican police engaged in a massive manhunt, setting up highway checkpoints, stepping up border security and shutting down an international airport. But there was no sign of Guzmán, widely considered to be the world's richest and most powerful drug lord before his capture last year. He slipped away from the Altiplano prison, about 90 kilometers west of Mexico City, late Saturday after 17 months behind bars. Authorities say he climbed down a 10-meter ladder in a shaft under his prison cell's shower area and disappeared into a sophisticated 1.5-kilometer tunnel with ventilation, lighting and a motorcycle on rails apparently used to move dirt in the tunnel's construction. At the far end of then tunnel, a ladder led up into a gray brick building situated on a construction site on the side of a hill surrounded by pasture land. Investigators released a video showing the hole inside the building's dirt-covered floor. A bed and a kitchen were in the building, indicating that people may have lived there. On an official visit to Paris, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called Guzman's escape an affront to the state and demanded an investigation into whether prison guards had helped him flee. Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez said 30 people who worked at the prison are being questioned "so we can determine what their legal situation will be." Mexican Sen. Luis Miguel Barbosa, also in Paris for the state visit, said, "This is regrettable, very bad, because it without doubt affects the image of Mexico in the world." The United States, where the fugitive faces drug cartel charges, pledged any support Mexico needs in recapturing Guzmán. American authorities had sought to extradite Guzmán to stand trial in the U.S. but were rebuffed by Mexico. Latin American analyst Mark Jones of Rice University said Guzman’s second escape, following one from a Mexican prison in 2001, is a major embarrassment for Peña Nieto's government, whose crowning achievement in Mexico's war on drug cartels and their elusive kingpins was the capture of Guzmán, who had been on the run for 13 years after his earlier escape. Jones said there is little U.S. law enforcement can do in the effort to recapture Guzmán. Mexico analyst Barry Carr of Australia’s Latrobe University also said Guzman’s latest escape is one of a number of events in the past 18 months that have tarnished the anti-corruption image of the Peña Nieto administration. |
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| From Page 7: Investors may overlook early red flags By the North Carolina State University news
staff
New research identifies the types of investors who are vigilant about corporate fraud, but finds that most of those investors are tracking the wrong red flags, meaning the warning signs they look for are clear only after it’s too late to protect their investment. The work was performed by researchers at North Carolina State University, George Mason University, the University of Virginia and the University of Cincinnati. “Individual investors get hurt if they own stock in fraudulent companies that cook the books, such as Enron,” says Joe Brazel, a professor of accounting at North Carolina State and lead author of a paper on the work. “But we wanted to know how investors think about fraud and whether they try to protect themselves.” The researchers surveyed 194 experienced, nonprofessional investors from 38 states about fraud and their investment activity. Among other things, the researchers asked investors if they looked for specific red flags that can be indicative of fraudulent activity, such as abnormally high revenue growth, a change in the company’s auditor, or the launch of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The researchers found two factors that are common to investors who are concerned about fraud. First, if investors think corporate fraud is a common practice, they are more likely to place importance on assessing fraud risk when making investment decisions. Second, investors are more likely to assess fraud risk if they rely primarily on financial statements to make investment decisions, rather than other sources like news reports or advice from professionals. The survey also found that most nonprofessional investors are not diversified and hold shares in only five to 10 companies at a time. “That means these investors are more likely to get hurt if they hold shares in a fraudulent company,” Brazel says. “We also found that 25 percent of all survey respondents had been burned by fraudulent companies,” he added. “But investors who had been burned by fraud in the past were no more likely than other investors to now use fraud red flags. That was surprising.” Another surprise was that investors who were concerned about fraud were relying on late-stage red flags, such as an SEC investigation. The stock may already have dropped in value by the time these red flags appear. “If you’re waiting for an SEC investigation or a lawsuit before selling your shares, you’re tracking the wrong red flags,” Brazel says. “More sophisticated investors will likely have already sold their shares.” However, the researchers also found that investors who did track early red flags – such as high manager turnover – had higher returns than other investors on their investment portfolios. “Our findings raise a new question,” Brazel says. “If we care about the individual investor – then what can we do to get investors to pay attention to early red flags? One option is to make these red flags more transparent. For example, creating a Web site that tracks these early red flags for companies, so that they can be easily monitored.” |
