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José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 145
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Construction
chamber opposes direct deals
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national construction chamber is calling on the pubic works ministry and the budget ministry to annul proposals for direct contracts instead of the usual bidding process. The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes seeks to build a $20 million office tower, and the Ministerio de Hacienda has a $2.2 million project in the works to construct buildings at the Peñas Blancas border crossing. The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes argued Thursday that it needs a speedy direct contract because it is working under a demand by the Sala IV constitutional court to vacate its current facility. The chamber, the Cámara Costarricense de la Construcción, said that the original proposal was skewed because the contracts call for firms skilled in prefabricated concrete. Guillermo Carazo, president of the chamber, said that the proposals violate the fundamental principles of administrative contracting. The chamber said that only three firms are eligible to bid on the office tower and two of them are related. The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes said that the plan had approval from the budget watchdog, the Contraloría General de la República.  A.M. Costa Rica file
photo
An example of intentional
dreadlocks.Schools
told that dreadlocks are OK now
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Public school students can now wear dreadlocks to class. Epsy Campbell, the legislator, said that the minister of education has lifted a rule against the hairstyle. The lawmaker said that this guarantees respect to the Afro-Costa Rican population. The case involves a student at the Liceo de Escazú. Ms. Campbell, who also is Afro-Costa Rican and a lawyer, has campaigned for students in such cases in the past. Sonia Marta Mora Escalante is the minister of Educación Pública who issued the decree. In addition, the Escazú school has been told to change its internal regulations. Neither the report from Ms. Campbell nor the brief message from the minister specified whether the change in regulation includes intentional dreadlocks or those naturally occurring for people who do not take care of their hair. Online sources point out that Mayan priests wore their hair matted. The intentional dreadlocks are identified with the rastafarians, the Jamaica religious group that avoids alcohol and uses marijuana ritually. However, this groups only dates from the 1930s. Such hairstyles have been found on Egyptian mummies, according to online sources, and Maasai men also wear their hair that way. But so do certain holy men in India. Mrs. Clinton may face a criminal probe By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A report in a leading U.S. newspaper says two federal inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used when she was the U.S. secretary of State. The New York Times reports the request followed a June 29 memo that said the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton's private email account had hundreds of potentially classified emails. The newspaper said it was not clear if any of the information in the emails was designated as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton received or sent them. News of the former secretary of State's use of a private email account made headlines in March and quickly became a campaign issue in her presidential bid. She has maintained there was no classified information in the account. The New York Times said senior officials told the newspaper that the Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation. Study: Teen brains respond to band training By the Northwestern University news staff
Music training, introduced as late as high school, may help improve the teenage brain’s responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills, suggests a new Northwestern University study. The research, to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that music instruction helps enhance skills that are critical for academic success. The gains were seen during group music classes included in the schools’ curriculum, suggesting in-school training accelerates neurodevelopment. “While music programs are often the first to be cut when the school budget is tight, these results highlight music’s place in the high school curriculum,” said Nina Kraus, senior study author and director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at the School of Communication. Professor Kraus and colleagues recruited 40 Chicago-area high school freshmen in a study that began shortly before school started. They followed these children longitudinally until their senior year. Nearly half the students had enrolled in band classes, which involved two to three hours a week of instrumental group music instruction in school. The rest had enrolled in junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which emphasized fitness exercises during a comparable period. Both groups attended the same schools in low-income neighborhoods. Electrode recordings at the start of the study and three years later revealed that the music group showed more rapid maturation in the brain's response to sound. Moreover, they demonstrated prolonged heightened brain sensitivity to sound details. All participants improved in language skills important for language and reading, but the improvement was greater for those in music classes, compared with the ROTC group.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 145 | |
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| Both porous borders have continual floods of illegal
merchandise |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The country's porous borders are continual scenes of smuggling, and there is no way to figure out what quantity of merchandise gets through. The frontier police intercepted another load of medicines, syrups and creams from Nicaragua Wednesday. This plus foodstuffs are the typical items smuggled in the vicinity of Peñas Blancas. The Fuerza Pública said that in just the first three months of the year officers confiscated nearly 56,000 boxes or jars of medicines, and 99 percent of the seizures were at the northern border. The case Wednesday was on a back trail that bore the signs of heavy use. The officers reported that they found 63,000 pills, 100 jars of syrup and 150 jars of creams during a search. The back trails there also are used for outgoing drug shipments, human trafficking and other illegal activities, including rustling. Many smugglers have a number of spotters and electronic devices so they can avoid police patrols along the mostly unguarded border. In the south the merchandise is alcohol and drugs. The checkpoint at Kilometer 35 of the Interamericana Sur is well known, so the surprise is that police continue to find illegal shipments there. That checkpoint received construction money from the U.S. Department of State and has sophisticated equipment to catch drugs and other smuggled goods. Untaxed cigarettes also are brought in from Panamá |
 Ministerio
de Seguridad Pública photo
This
is the confiscation at well-worn northern trail.
frequently as well as illegal aliens headed for the United States Two most recent stops involved alcohol. One vehicle had various liquors, and another motorist had beer, including Milwaukee's Best, not a high-quality product. Officers said that they also intercept suspicious stashes of cash and perfumes. |
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Prison
break results in death
for one of the fleeing inmates By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Two inmates escaped from a prison in Agua Zarcas early Thursday but a guard in a tower gunned down one just a few feet outside the razor wire. The Ministerio de Justicia y Paz quickly blamed the escape on the over population of prisons and the poor infrastructure. However, the ministry said that an investigation would be done. The dead man was John Marcos Martínez Gómez, 23. He suffered multiple wounds and died some 50 meters from the final row of wire. The escape happened at the Centro de Atención Institucional La Marina between 3 and 3:20 a.m. A little while later a 911 call alerted the Fuerza Pública to the location of the second escapee, José Ramón Jirón, 40, who was captured without difficulty. The Judicial Investigating Organization said that the two men went in different directions once outside the confining wire. Judicial agents also said that the shots came from a security tower. Guards are likely to be subjected to strong criticism. The Ministerio de Justicia in a written statement expressed its condolences to the family of the inmate who died. |
 Ministerio de Seguridad Pública photo
José Ramón
Jirón in custody |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 145 | |||||
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| University glyphosate study
contradicts tainted breast milk claim |
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By the Washington State University
news service
Washington State University scientists have found that glyphosate, the main ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, does not accumulate in mother's breast milk. Michelle McGuire, an associate professor in the university's School of Biological Sciences, is the lead researcher of the study, the first to have its results independently verified by an accredited, outside organization. Her findings, presented at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Conference in Big Sky, Montana, show that glyphosate, the most used weed-killing chemical in the world, does not accumulate over time in human milk. She conducted the study with Kimberly Lackey, a doctoral candidate in zoology, laboratory technician Janae Carrothers and colleagues at the nearby University of Idaho. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is using the study as part of an ongoing review of glyphosate regulations prompted by public concern over a controversial report on the chemical released by the advocacy group, Moms Across America, last year. "The Moms Across America study flat out got it wrong," said Professor McGuire, who is an executive committee member for the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation and a national spokesperson for the American Society for Nutrition. "Our study provides strong evidence that glyphosate is not in human milk. The MAA findings are unverified, not consistent with published safety data and are based off an assay designed to test for glyphosate in water, not breast milk." A large body of scientific evidence shows breast feeding offers unparalleled nutritional and immunological benefits for both mothers and children. Profesor McGuire, a lactation physiologist with more than 25 years of research experience, was taken aback when a study by activists publicly called into question the safety and healthfulness of breast milk. The Moms Across America and Sustainable Pulse study claimed that traces of glyphosate were found in three out of 10 breast milk samples submitted for analysis. The findings, which were published on the Moms Across America Web site, garnered national media attention and quickly led to a good deal of public concern about the safety |
of
glyphosate, a product widely used for weed control for over 30 years. Independent regulatory and safety assessments of glyphosate conducted by scientists at organizations like the National Institutes of Health, the German Agency for Risk Assessment and the Georgetown University School of Medicine have found no consistent effects of glyphosate exposure on reproductive health or developing offspring. In Professor McGuire's research, she and her colleagues collected milk and urine samples from 41 lactating women living in or near the cities of Moscow, Idaho, and Pullman, Washington. The area is a highly productive agricultural region where glyphosate is routinely used in farming practices. Ten of the women reported living on or directly adjacent to a farm or ranch, 23 of the women described their personal diet as conventional and five had personally mixed or applied glyphosate sometime in the past. Milk and urine samples were analyzed for glyphosate and glyphosate metabolites using high sensitivity liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods specifically optimized for the task. The study detected neither glyphosate nor any glyphosate metabolites in any milk sample, even when the mother had detectable amounts of glyphosate in her urine. Urinary glyphosate levels were either non-existent or extremely low and not of concern, Professor McGuire said. Additionally, no relationship was found between subjects who self-identified as consumers of conventionally grown foods instead of organics or was there a difference between women who lived on or near a farm and those who lived in an urban or suburban non-farming area. Analyses of the milk samples were conducted both in Monsanto laboratories in St. Louis and independently verified at Wisconsin-based Covance Laboratories, which is not affiliated with the university research team or Monsanto. "In conclusion, our data, obtained using sophisticated and validated methods of analyses, strongly suggest that glyphosate does not bioaccumulate and is not present in human milk even when the mother has detectable glyphosate in her urine," Professor McGuire said. "These findings emphasize the critical importance of carefully validating laboratory methods to the biological matrix of interest, especially when it is as complex as human milk." |
Here's reasonable medical care
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 145 | |||||||
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| New movie theater gunman murders two in Louisiana By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A gunman in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana opened fire Thursday evening in a movie theater, killed two people and wounded at least eight others before killing himself. Officials say they know the identity of the gunman, but have only revealed that he was a 58-year-old man. The assailant began shooting during a screening of the film "Trainwreck" at the Grand Theater in the town of Lafayette. Police were deployed to other area theaters following the shooting, but there were no more attacks. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the shooting was a seemingly random act of violence on families out for a night of entertainment. “We heard a loud pop we thought was a firecracker,” theatergoer Katie Domingue told the Daily Advertiser. Domingue said she saw an older white man standing up and shooting down into the theater, but not in her direction. “He wasn't saying anything. I didn't hear anybody screaming either,” Ms. Domingue said. Ms. Domingue told the newspaper she heard about six shots before she and her fiance ran to the nearest exist, leaving behind her shoes and purse. Another moviegoer told CNN that he thought the sound of the gunfire was part of the movie. There is no word on a possible motive. Lafayette is located about 90 kilometers southwest of the state capital, Baton Rouge. Trump visits Mexican border and says he's in great danger By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Thursday visited the southern Texas town of Laredo on the U.S.-Mexico border and vowed to tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Border security and immigration have been two key topics for the real estate magnate since he announced his candidacy. Trump upset the presidential race weeks ago when he branded Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, sparking a feud with his Republican rivals that intensified after his dismissive comments about Arizona Sen. John McCain's military service in the Vietnam war. Asked whether he had evidence for his claim that Mexico sends rapists and other criminals across the border, he replied, "Yes, I have, and I've heard it from a lot of different people." He also said Mexican immigrants were not offended by his comments, contending the media had misconstrued them. He said he thought he would win the Hispanic vote. Trump set up a dramatic scene in advance of his trip, saying he was putting himself in great danger by coming to the border area across from the volatile Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo. But he gave no clear answer when asked for evidence of specific danger. A local branch of Border Patrol agents who were going to host the Laredo event pulled out at the last minute. Trump said they were scared. "They were totally silenced directly from superiors in Washington who do not want people to know how bad it is on the border, every bit as bad as Mr. Trump has been saying," a Trump campaign statement said. A spokesman for the national office of the agents' union was not immediately available for comment. Trump's suggestion that the area is dangerous brought a rebuke from State Sen. Judith Zafferini, a Democrat. "Contrary to Trump's vitriolic rhetoric, the border is not a dangerous war zone," she said. "Laredo and El Paso have been ranked among the safest cities in the country, and most border communities' crime rates are equal to, or lower than, the state and national averages." Even as immigration remains a hot topic, the number of people emigrating from Mexico to the United States, legally and illegally, peaked in 2003 and has fallen by more than half since then, according to research published on Wednesday by the University of New Hampshire. In Washington on Wednesday, former Texas governor Rick Perry denounced Trump's campaign as a cancer on conservatism and a barking carnival act in a speech that defined Trumpism as "a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued.'' Trump nevertheless remains at or near the top of many opinion polls among the 16 candidates in the race for the party's nomination for the 2016 presidential election, and he threatened in an interview published Thursday to run as a political independent if he does not get fair treatment from the Republican Party. Distribution of live anthrax much broader than thought By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new report finds that the U.S. military mistakenly has shipped live anthrax samples to dozens of labs in the United States and to seven other nations for more than a decade. The Defense Department report, released Thursday, said live anthrax spores were sent to 86 labs in 20 states and Washington, D.C., plus facilities in Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and South Korea. The investigation did not identify a root cause for the faulty shipments, saying defense personnel appear to have followed correct procedures to make the anthrax samples inactive before they were sent. But it found inherent deficiencies in protocols, including radiation that failed to kill the spores and testing afterward that failed to detect their viability. The spores did not pose a risk to the general public, according to the report. "Nonetheless, the shipment of live samples . . . at any concentration is a serious breach of regulations," it said. At a press briefing Thursday, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work called the program a failure that exposed a major problem in the Defense Department's handling of anthrax, a potentially deadly bacterium. "By any measure this was a massive institutional failure with a potentially dangerous biotoxin," Work said. "The first thing we had to know was: Why did it happen?" He said everyone is extremely fortunate that the anthrax samples came in minimal amounts of liquid form. "Anthrax has spores and is therefore generally transmitted through spores in the air you breathe," Work said. "The samples were handled in laboratory environments by technicians and workers that were used to handling hazardous material, and there were extremely low concentrations of spores in these samples. This helps explain to us why over a 12-year period there has never been a single incident of infection. We are very, very confident that because of these unique circumstances, there were no known risks to the broader public." The live spores originated from one U.S. military site, Dugway Proving Ground in the western state of Utah. It is one of four Defense Department facilities that ship inactivated anthrax to labs in the U.S. and abroad to help develop medical countermeasures to protect the U.S. military in case anthrax is used as a biological weapon. The inadvertent shipment of live anthrax spores first surfaced in May when a private company notified the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that inactivated spores in its possession were live. U.S. officials subsequently ordered an investigation. An initial review said 51 labs in the U.S. and three other countries, Australia, Canada and South Korea, might have received the potentially dangerous shipment. Work said those numbers could grow as the investigation proceeds. Contact with live anthrax can lead to a severe flu-like illness that could be fatal if not treated early. Obama faces strong criticism for visiting rights abusers By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama’s trip to Ethiopia and Kenya, a first for a sitting U.S. president, is drawing criticism from human rights groups who fear his appearance will give backing to strong-arm governments that have been condemned for squeezing opposition parties, independent media and civil society. Kenya is considered a valuable U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism in East Africa. But its campaign against the Somali radical group al-Shabab has been marred by accusations of rights abuses and arbitrary arrests. Kenyan President Uhurru Kenyatta has also faced crimes against humanity charges by the International Criminal Court for ethnic violence that erupted after the 2007 election. The court dropped the case last December. The Kenyatta government may be “undermining the new constitution and commitments to international human rights law, under the pretext of promoting national security and combatting terrorism,” a group of 17 international and African human rights groups said in an open letter dated July 14. “The abusive approach, including unlawful restrictions on civil society and independent media, leads to both ineffectiveness and disenfranchisement thereby undermining the goals of Kenya’s counterterrorism efforts,” the groups said. The White House says Obama will not ignore the human rights issues on his visits. “The president will also stress the importance of strong, democratic institutions, respect for the rule of law, fighting corruption, and our support for open and accountable governance, and respect for human rights across the continent,” said Susan Rice, the president’s national security adviser. “This trip is an opportunity to voice strong support for the vital role played by civil society, as well as to call attention to other important issues, such as the global campaign to combat wildlife trafficking and to stress the importance of equal opportunities for women and girls,” she said. The Kenyan government is likely hoping that pledges of increased U.S. security assistance, such as weaponry, training or intelligence, will come from the Obama visit, William Mark Bellamy, a former U.S. ambassador to Kenya, said. Obama’s decision to visit Ethiopia, meanwhile, was called a mistake by some analysts, given the government’s heavy-handed approach to political parties and journalists. The All Ethiopian Unity Party, one of the major opposition groups, has said 132 of its members have been arrested in recent months, 28 of which were arrested right before, during and after the May legislative elections. Those elections were swept by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and this Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been in power for almost 25 years. Bronwyn Bruton, an Africa analyst with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, called Obama’s trip to Ethiopia a mistake. “The fact that Ethiopia is getting a visit from President Obama in the wake of that guilty verdict and in the wake of sweeping the election, taking 100 percent of the seats, sends a disastrous message to the Ethiopian government,” said Bruton, who has met with Muslim democratic activists in Ethiopia, some who were recently found guilty of terrorism. Still, U.S. officials say the visit sends an important message. A senior Obama administration official said the United States regularly urges reforms and communicates its human rights concerns with the Ethiopian government, both in public and in private. Ethiopia’s government has also jailed reporters and shuttered independent media outlets in recent years. Ethiopia is Africa’s second worst jailer of reporters, with 11 other journalists and bloggers still imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based advocacy group. Earlier this month, one of the most prominent journalists, Reeyot Alemu, was unexpectedly freed from prison after four years behind bars for allegedly plotting terrorist acts, a charge she and her supporters called absurd. Her weekly Amharic newspaper, Feteh, was frequently critical of the ruling party and was shut down nearly two years ago. Smith argued for that and other reasons, Obama shouldn’t be traveling to Ethiopia, saying it sends the wrong message. Ahead of the trip, U.S. officials insisted that the president’s visit wouldn’t come at the expense of human rights and media freedoms. In Addis Ababa this week, many Ethiopians, like Kenyans, are excited about Obama’s visit, but many also said there’s the danger the president’s visit will be used to justify further government repression. Many Ethiopians took to Twitter this week to publicize a litany of rights abuses in the country, using the hashtag #EthiopiansMessageToObama. French governments plan to transform communities By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Many local governments in France are not waiting for a U.N. climate conference in December to set plans to fight heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Paris, which is getting special attention since it is hosting the climate summit, is planning to transform itself into an eco-city in the months ahead. It's another hot day in Paris. This summer has sent temperatures soaring across Western Europe, and this city has seen its hottest July day on record. It is going to get even hotter in the coming years. Climate change will make weather shifts more extreme. “The city of Paris is changing climate. So are other big cities in the world . . . . We can have snowstorms. We can have floods. We can have things we are not used to, so we are getting prepared to face them," said Deputy Paris Mayor Patrick Klugman. Like a growing number of cities, the French capital has drafted a climate action plan. By 2050, it aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent from 2004 levels. Klugman says fighting climate change starts locally. “Cities are really the places of the problems and of the solutions. So far, we are the places of the problems, the emissions, the concentrations of all kinds of pollutions, air pollution, all kinds of destruction of the climate. And now there is a common will to make cities the safe places to be for the environment. It is an emergency we are facing," he said. Searching for solutions is turning Paris into a giant construction site. The city wants to create green neighborhoods, new modes of transportation and many more pedestrian areas. An architectural study of what the French capital could look like by 2050 shows a transformed city, with plants sprouting from every building. Some of the changes are already underway. A new tramway ringing Paris is nearly finished, and the metro is being extended. Chunks of the city are closed to traffic on weekends. There are plans to ban diesel fuel and to turn a major artery by the Seine River into a pedestrian parkway. The city’s iconic electric car- and bike-sharing schemes have taken off. Electric motorbikes are next. For Parisian Lamine Camara, bike-sharing is a way to get around the city quickly and easily, but he does not consider himself an environmentalist. "If it can help fight climate change, then why not? But I am not really interested in the subject. It is not my first concern," said Camara. Climate expert Charlotte Izard works for the environmental group Climate Action Network in an eco-friendly building just across the city limit. She thinks the Paris plan is good, but moving too slowly. Experts say cities like San Francisco and Copenhagen are way ahead. “We are waiting for action now. We do not have time to wait. They have to make it now. Do not wait for another mayor. They have to do it now because climate cannot wait ... and citizens cannot wait, too ," said Ms. Izard. Many drivers think Paris is moving too fast. Car lanes are evaporating and a group called 40 Million Motorists is fighting the city to keep them open. Driver Fernando Figuera, who delivers metal closets, says getting around Paris is not easy. "I have to be organized and start early in the morning to avoid heavy traffic and find parking places," he said. "Reducing the number of vehicles in the city is a good idea, but compromises need to be made so it does not hurt business." |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 24, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 145 | |||||||||
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Whether it’s in a comic book or on the big screen, fans have always known the man behind the Spider Man mask as Peter Parker. But that is changing, at least in the comic book world. Marvel Comics' Spider Man is a superhero who connects to people unlike any other comic book character, says fan Daniel Wrobel. “You cannot really see his face while he is doing his super-heroing. So that is the great thing about him - that anybody could imagine themselves as Peter Parker," he said. Or as the character Miles Morales, the new Spider Man depicted as a biracial teen from Brooklyn, New York. Comic book reader Ryan Groves thinks the timing is right. “It is about time if you are going to do it for a newer generation or even go with the diversity, then I would definitely go with somebody like that," he said. Daniel Wrobel agrees. “It is exciting to see Marvel try to go away with the standard white bread male super hero," he said. Marvel Comics first introduced Miles Morales in 2011 in an alternative reality storyline of Spider Man. Also bitten by a spider, he discovered he had super powers including camouflage abilities and increased agility. Marvel is now transitioning him into a new series where he will be Spider Man, and Peter Parker will be his mentor. Marvel and Golden Apple Comics employee Joe Slepski have noticed how fans have embraced this fresh face. “The current up and coming crop of readers are definitely more diverse and so I think image has led the way with this, and Marvel and DC are starting to respond in a big way this year," he said. There is a trend of comic book characters being more reflective of what America is today. Marvel says it wants to introduce more characters that mirror its broad readership. The hero Thor is now female, and the new Spider Man is half Latino and half African-American. Comic book reader Lily Fierro says America is more multicultural than ever before and popular media need to catch up. “I think it is a great idea to update Spider Man, to update all these iconic characters that we have had that are possibly classic all American white males or females. I think it is a good change," she said. For now, this change is not reflected on the big screen. The man behind the mask in the next Spider Man movie will still be Peter Parker; but, comic book fans including Joe Slepski are hopeful. |
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| From Page 7: Rating firm expresses concern about banks here By Moody's Investors Service news
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Central America's leading banks will need to slow the pace of their loan growth as their core capital levels remain modest, said Moody's Investors Service in a new report. The relatively low core capital levels at three of Central America's largest banking franchises, Guatemala's Banco Industrial, Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, are credit negative. Moody's said the banks, which have averaged 14 percent loan growth since 2012, need to slow the pace of their lending expansion in light of their core capital constraints. "Core capital levels at Central America's leading banks are not enough to maintain the current pace of growth over the long term," said Moody's analyst Georges Hatcherian. "The low core capitalization at Banco Industrial, Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Nacional de Costa Rica will make it harder for these banks to confront rising local and regional competition." Low core capitalization relative to global peers drove Moody's to lower its baseline credit assessments for all three banks in June. The assessment of Industrial was lowered to ba3 from ba1, while the ratings of both Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Nacional were lowered to ba2 from ba1. Despite their different governance structures, all the three banks face pressures to core capitalization. For Industrial, a private bank based in Guatemala, high dividend payouts weigh on the bank's capacity to generate capital. Although Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Nacional are public banks and do not pay dividends, both are required to transfer about 20 percent of their pre-tax income on average to government programs. Moody's said it believes the reported capital ratios at the three banks overstate their ability to absorb losses, given that they incorporate understated risk-weighted assets and low-quality capital, including goodwill from acquisitions at Industrial and illiquid government securities at the Costa Rican banks. |
