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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday,
Aug. 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 165
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 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública
photo
This was the result when police got a tip
on a stolen motorcycle
at a gas station in La Uruca. Five persons were jailed Tuesday night. Mandela movie kicks off African festival By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The 16th edition of the Festival Flores de las Diaspora Africana kicks off today with a tribute to Nelson Mandela. This tribute includes an airing of the 2013 film “Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom” and live music from Malawian musicians Master Key and Masauko Chipembere. Running until Tuesday, Sept. 2, the festival is held in varying locations throughout the Central Valley and, later in the week, in Limón. Movies of African themes and origin will be playing at Terramall in Tres Ríos, Cine Magaly in Barrio La California, and Universidad Nacional in Heredia, among other locations. Only movies playing from Friday to Sunday will cost money as the rest will be free admission. There will also be a host of conferences and music concerts. Sunday, Aug. 31, an homage to Marcus Garvey is planned at the Plaza de Puerto Viejo with a movie, parade, and music. That following Tuesday there will be a speech on Garvey titled “Tribute to 100 years of fighting for the betterment of African descendants,” which will be held at the historical Black Star Line in Limón at 10:30 a.m. Santa Ana merchant gunned down By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Someone gunned down a Santa Ana pawn shop owner Wednesday at his business in the middle of the community. The man was identified by the last name of Aguiluz. He was 43, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. The man received three bullets, said agents. The shots could be heard throughout the community's business district about 9:30 a.m. The crime does not appear to be a robbery. Agents said that a car pulled up and a man got out just as the victim was opening up for the day. After shooting Aguiluz, the man returned to the vehicle and fled, agents said witnesses told them. The victim still was alive when he was carried to a nearby clinic, but he died there a short time later. Agents said he had been shot twice in the neck and once in the chest. Punta Burica suspect gets helicopter ride By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Local police detained a man in Punta Burica Tuesday afternoon. The man is suspected of sexually assaulting a minor. The area's regional director of Fuerza Pública, José Domingo Cruz, said the man was arrested by order of the prosecutor of native affairs. From Punta Burica in extreme southwest Costa Rica, the man was then taken in a helicopter by police to Corredores Wednesday morning. From Corredores, the man was taken to Golfito.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 165 | |
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| Tourism operators seek help from Solís and lawmakers
on new tax |
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By
Michael Krumholtz
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Tourism officials and business leaders say they are doing everything they can to stop a retroactive tax that they say could cripple Costa Rica's tourism industry. A tax agency decree issued July 30 applies a 13 percent sales tax on entrance into protected areas for recreation centers and related activities, per the finance ministry's open interpretation of the general tax law. Officials say the retroactive tax would cost tourism operations billions of colons. Pablo Heriberto Abarca, president of Costa Rica's tourism chamber, said this new interpretation that targets tourist activities like canopy, rafting, and hiking is illegal and would provide a major blow to industry businesses. At a Wednesday press conference Abarca asked rhetorically if playing on a soccer field would soon illicit a charge from the government. “The finance ministry doesn't make clear what will be charged and what won't be charged,” he said. “If they don't have clarity, then how should we know what will be charged? It's a mess.” Abarca and the tourism chamber sent a letter to President Luis Guillermo Solís, requesting his intervention on the retroactive charge known as decree DGT-CI-06-14. Tuesday the chamber presented a petition to lawmakers in search of signatures and in hopes of creating an immediate action in the Asamblea Legislativa that would rescind the finance ministry's decree. According to a chamber release, the fine has already been applied to businesses in La Fortuna and surrounding areas. Around 10 local |
businesses were
notified that they would not only have to pay the tax starting Sept.
30 but that they would have to reimburse the government for non-payment
over the past three years, a retroactive tax
that the tourism chamber estimated would be billions of colons. Abarca said this added tax will make Costa Rica less attractive as a tourist destination when compared to its Central American neighbors, leading tour companies to provide less jobs or shut down operations entirely. Rodrigo Valverde is the general manager at Costa Rica Sky Adventures in Monteverde, a zip lining and suspension bridge tour company that is affected by the retroactive tax. He said having to pay this new tax would mean the business responsible for providing 200 jobs would have to fold. Valverde called the government's decision irrational and said the initial tax law was not designed to target the types of activities his business offers. “This could turn out to be the worst case scenario for tourism on a national level,” he said. Valverde added that this negatively affects Costa Rican families, whether they are involved on the business side or the consumer side of these recreational tours, even more than foreigners. Tourism representatives argue that a Procuraduría General guideline from 1999 says that activities cannot be included in tax cases unless the law has an exclusive clause to the contrary. Abarca said that if something is not resolved soon within the Asamblea Legislativa or directly through the president then the tourism chamber will take legal action against the government. “The sector is appealing this to the president so that he may contribute to the industry's stability by completely blocking the retroactive charge,” he said. “This measure is disproportionate, unfair, confiscatory, and of immeasurable aggressiveness.” |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 165 | |||||
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| Two researchers rip homeopathy, reiki and other so-called
quackery |
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By
the Cell Press news staff
Experts writing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Molecular Medicine called for an end to clinical trials of highly implausible treatments such as homeopathy and reiki. Over the last two decades, such complementary and alternative medicine treatments have been embraced in medical academia despite budget constraints and the fact that they rest on dubious science, they say. The writers, David Gorski of Wayne State University School of Medicine and Steven Novella of Yale University, argue that, in these cases, the medical establishment is essentially testing whether magic works. Gorski and Novella are both editors for Science-Based Medicine, an organization and blog dedicated to exploring the complicated relationship between science and medicine. "We hope this will be the first of many opportunities to discuss in the peer-reviewed literature the perils and pitfalls of doing clinical trials on treatment modalities that have already been refuted by basic science," said Gorski. "The two key examples in the article, homeopathy and reiki, are about as close to impossible from basic science considerations alone as you can imagine. Homeopathy involves diluting substances away to nothing and beyond, while reiki is in essence faith healing that substitutes Eastern mysticism for Christian beliefs, as can be demonstrated by substituting the word 'god' for the 'universal source' that reiki masters claim to be able to tap into to channel their 'healing energy' into patients." "Studying highly implausible treatments is a losing proposition," |
Novella added.
"Such studies are unlikely to demonstrate benefit, and
proponents are unlikely to stop using the treatment when the study is
negative. Such research only serves to lend legitimacy to otherwise
dubious practices." What is needed, say Gorski and Novella, is science-based medicine rather than evidence-based medicine. Biologically plausible treatments should advance to randomized clinical trials only when there is sufficient preclinical evidence to justify the effort, time, and expense, as well as the use of human subjects. "Somehow this idea has sprung up that to be a holistic doctor you have to embrace pseudoscience like homeopathy, reiki, traditional Chinese medicine, and the like, but that's a false dichotomy," Gorski said. "If the medical system is currently too impersonal and patients are rushed through office visits because a doctor has to see more and more patients to cover his salary and expenses, then the answer is to find a way to fix those problems, not to embrace quackery. Integrating pseudoscience with science-based medicine isn't going to make science-based medicine better. One of our bloggers, Mark Crislip, has a fantastic saying for this: 'If you mix cow pie with apple pie, it does not make the cow pie taste better; it makes the apple pie worse.' " Gorski and Novella call on patients to exercise their critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the evidence for or against any kind of treatment, whether it is deemed alternative or not. "Critical thinking will help patients learn to recognize when a course of treatment is not supported by data or to tell when a health claim from any practitioner is just too good to be true," Gorski said. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 165 | |||||||
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 National Aeronautic and Space
Administration graphic
Satellites observed
the largest ozone hole over Antarctica in 2006. Purple and blue
represent areas of low ozone concentrations in the atmosphere. Yellow
and red are areas of higher concentrations.Gas from mystery source continues to hurt ozone layer By the National Aeronautic and Space
Administration news service
Carbon tetrachloride, which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica. Parties to the Montreal Protocol reported zero new carbon tetrachloride emissions between 2007 and 2012. However, the new research shows worldwide emissions of carbon tetrachloride average 39 kilotons per year, approximately 30 percent of peak emissions prior to the international treaty going into effect. "We are not supposed to be seeing this at all," said Qing Liang, an atmospheric scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a study. "It is now apparent there are either unidentified industrial leakages, large emissions from contaminated sites, or unknown CCl4 sources." For almost a decade, scientists have debated why the observed levels of carbon tetrachloride in the atmosphere have declined slower than expectations, which are based on what is known about how the compound is destroyed by solar radiation and other natural processes. "Is there a physical CCl4 loss process we don't understand, or are there emission sources that go unreported or are not identified?" Liang said. With zero emissions reported between 2007 and 2012, atmospheric concentrations of the compound should have declined at an expected rate of 4 percent per year. Observations from the ground showed atmospheric concentrations were only declining by 1 percent per year. To investigate the discrepancy, Liang and colleagues used data from global networks of ground-based observations. The measurements used in the study were made by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory and its Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Model simulations of global atmospheric chemistry and the losses of carbon tetrachloride due to interactions with soil and the oceans pointed to an unidentified ongoing current source. The results produced the first quantitative estimate of average global emissions from 2000 to 2012. In addition to unexplained sources, the model results showed the chemical stays in the atmosphere 40 percent longer than previously thought. The research was published online this week in Geophysical Research Letters. "People believe the emissions of ozone-depleting substances have stopped because of the Montreal Protocol," said Paul Newman, chief scientist for atmospheres at the Goddard Space Flight Center, and a co-author of the study. "Unfortunately, there is still a major source of CCl4 out in the world."  Universitat Politècnica de
València photo
The device could also be
used as a power supply.New device
will charge
electronics without cable By the Universitat Politècnica
de València
news staff Researchers at the Universitat Politècnica de València have designed a new device for wireless energy transfer that will, for example, charge mobile phones or laptops without cables. The system is based on the use of resonators designed with radial photonic crystals; one of them would act as an energy transmitter and the other would be set on the device that needed to be charged. Between them a phenomena known as resonant coupling is produced, which is what finally produces the charging or recharging of the equipment. “This phenomena is produced when a resonant object is moved closer to a second resonant element and both resonance frequencies are equal or quite similar. This physical proximity produces an energy coupling from the first device, that acts as the source, to the second one, that acts as the charge,” says José Sánchez-Dehesa, researcher at the Wave Phenomena Group of the university. The device could also be used as a power supply system for equipment such as keyboards and wireless mice, speakers, etc. Besides consumer electronics, it could also be used in an industrial environment as power supply for robots or guided vehicles, and bioelectric devices like cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators. The researchers' study was released last June in the Annals of Physics magazine. After the first laboratory simulations and calculations of the system’s performance, the engineers of the Wave Phenomena Group are now working on the development of the first prototype. With regard to the implementation of these devices, researchers say that, "although it may seem futuristic, it is foreseeable that they become universal due to the spread of charging infrastructure in many settings. This technology could follow the same path as WIFI networks," explains Jorge Carbonell, another researcher at the Wave Phenomena Group. U.S. tried to free hostages with rescue operation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. military forces unsuccessfully tried to rescue a number of American hostages being held in Syria by Islamic extremists, said the U.S. Defense Department Wednesday. News reports said those hostages included the freelance journalist James Foley, whose beheading was shown in a video released Tuesday. The Pentagon gave few details of the operation, declining to say when and where specifically in Syria it took place, or how many U.S. forces were involved. The Washington Post, The Associated Press and other media said the operation took place earlier this summer. “The United States attempted a rescue operation recently to free a number of American hostages held in Syria by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. This operation involved air and ground components and was focused on a particular captor network within ISIL,” the statement said. "Unfortunately, the mission was not successful because the hostages were not present at the targeted location." White House officials told The New York Times that Special Forces commandos exchanged fire with militants, and one American was slightly wounded when one of the U.S. aircraft came under fire. The grisly beheading of James Foley, a freelance journalist who had been held captive since disappearing in Syria in 2012, prompted wide outrage, including condemnation from President Barack Obama who called the Islamic State militant group that took credit for the execution a spreading cancer that must be eradicated. "The entire world is appalled by the brutal murder of James Foley," Obama said earlier Wednesday. The United States "will continue to do what we must do to protect our people." U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday confirmed the authenticity of the video, which was released Tuesday and shows Foley being put to death. It also showed a second American journalist being held hostage, Steven Joel Sotloff, and included militants' threats to kill him. The Sunni extremist group claimed it had killed Foley in retaliation for U.S. air strikes targeting the group’s fighters in northern Iraq. The strikes, which began Aug. 8, helped rescue thousands of Yazidi refugees trapped on Mount Sinjar and helped Iraqis regain control of the country's main dam, near Mosul. In the hours after the video's release, the U.S. said it carried out nearly a dozen more air strikes near the dam. The 40-year-old Foley disappeared Nov. 22, 2012, after being abducted in Syria by unidentified gunmen. He had reported in the Middle East for five years, for organizations including GlobalPost, and previously had spent six weeks in captivity in Libya. It was not immediately clear where or when the execution took place. Obama, in a brief televised appearance from the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, said he had telephoned Foley's family members in New Hampshire to say "we are all heartbroken at their loss." The Islamic State militants, Obama said, have rampaged across swaths of Syria and Iraq. "They abduct women and children and subject them to rape and torture and slavery,” he said. Obama also said the fighters had murdered people of all faiths, including Muslims. He called for a common effort – in Iraq, the Middle East region and elsewhere – "to extract this cancer so it does not spread." French President Francois Hollande told Le Monde newspaper there should be a global strategy to counter the Islamic group, which he called well-structured, well-financed and well-armed with sophisticated weapons. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killing as "an abominable crime." Foley's killing has also drawn a sharp response in Britain, where counterterrorism police were trying to identify the journalist's killer. In the video, he spoke with a British accent. The Foley family implored the kidnappers to spare the lives of other hostages, including Sotloff: "Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.'' Foley “gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people," said a Facebook statement attributed to his mother, Diane, Tuesday. The Islamic State holds more hostages, including three American nationals and at least two British nationals, as well as others, according to the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College, in London. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the U.S. is aware of other Americans being held in Syria and that an estimated 12,000 foreign fighters have joined the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. In the video, titled "Message to America," Foley is shown wearing an orange, prison-style jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert as a masked man in black standing beside him holds a knife. The video was initially posted to YouTube, before being taken down late Tuesday by the video-sharing service. “My message to my beloved parents: Save me some dignity and don’t accept any meager compensation for my death from the same people who effectively hit the last nail in my coffin with their recent aerial campaign in Iraq," he says. The masked man denounces the U.S. government, saying it is "at the forefront of aggression toward the Islamic State" and he accuses the United States of interfering in its affairs. "Today, your military air force is attacking us daily. In Iraq, your strikes have caused casualties amongst Muslims," the man says. "You are no longer fighting an insurgency. We are an Islamic army and state that has been accepted by a large number of Muslims from all walks of life, who have accepted the caliphate as their leadership." The video then shows the man beginning to cut Foley’s neck before fading away and then finally showing Foley’s headless body. Sotloff appears near the end of the nearly five-minute video. The man suggests that his fate rests with Obama. U.S. foes cite Ferguson to ridicule Washington By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The racial tensions story in Ferguson, Missouri, is not only making international headlines. It’s being used by some foreign governments to spread an anti-American message. For countries whose rights records Washington has criticized, Ferguson offers an opportunity to even the score. Some governments and media are using some of the same language Washington has used against repressive police tactics in their countries. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it was closely monitoring events in Ferguson and called for “restraint and respect for the right of assembly and peaceful expression of opinion.” “U.S.A. used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a protest in Ferguson,” Alexei Pushkov, head of Russia’s State Duma Committee for International Affairs, tweeted Friday. “Is it not a sign of dictatorship and excessive use of force?” “It is regrettable that countries which claim to defend human rights are pursuing such racist approaches,” Iran’s Press TV quoted Iranian deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi, as saying. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also weighed in on Twitter: China’s Xinhua news agency suggests it is time for America to stop focusing on human rights flaws in other countries and clean its own house. “In its annual human rights report issued in February, the United States assaulted almost 200 countries across the world for their so-called poor human rights records,” Xinhua said this week. “However, the U.S. human rights flaws extend far beyond racial issues….What's more, Uncle Sam has witnessed numerous shooting sprees on its own land and launched incessant drone attacks on foreign soil, resulting in heavy civilian casualties,” the news service said. In countries where a more free press flourishes, Ferguson has served as a lens for viewing America’s complex social and economic tapestry. In Europe, the media coverage has drawn questions about America’s racial divide. “How can this be happening in an America that has elected a black president?” asks Tim Stanley, a British historian of the United States, in the Telegraph, who concludes that change isn’t likely to come from the White House, but at the street level. France’s Le Monde calls Ferguson “a cruel metaphor for contemporary America, its tensions, its fractures and its old demons.” |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 165 | |||||||||
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Texas
governor denies abusing power
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
One-time U.S. Republican presidential candidate and current Texas Gov. Rick Perry has formally pleaded not guilty to charges of abuse of power. A grand jury indicted Perry last week on allegations that he threatened to cut funding to a state office that investigates wrongdoing of public officials to coerce the Democratic district attorney, who ran the office, to resign. Before he was fingerprinted and photographed Tuesday, Perry insisted he did nothing illegal. He said as governor, he has veto power and the constitutional right to speak his mind free of political interference. Perry is the longest governor in Texas history and a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016. He carried out his threat and cut off funding last year for the state's public integrity unit. The unit was run by a Democratic country district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, who pleaded guilty to drunk driving but refused to step down. Texas Democrats accused Perry of using the veto threat to force Ms. Lehmberg to resign so he could appoint a Republican political ally to take her place. If convicted, Perry faces as much as 109 years in prison. But some legal experts believe the case against him is shaky. Guatemalan general dies in air crash By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A top military general in Guatemala and four other officers were killed Wednesday when their military helicopter crashed near the Mexican border. Guatemalan Defense Minister Manuel López confirmed that Gen. Rudy Ortiz was among the five people killed in the crash. Ortiz and the other officers were on a routine inspection of military installations when the Bell 206 helicopter went down in the village of El Nenton. Lopez said the cause of the crash is under investigation, adding that weather may have been a factor. Ortiz has been touted by Guatemalan media as a potential defense minister in recent weeks. The president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez, offered his condolences via Twitter. Environmentalist joins presidential race By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Environmentalist Marina Silva will join the race for president as Brazil's socialist party candidate. The candidate who began the election cycle as the running mate of Eduardo Campos made the announcement Wednesday, a week after Campos died in a plane crash. Beto Albuquerque, who heads the party in Brazil's House of Representatives, will be Ms. Silva's running mate. Campos was polling a distant third behind Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff of the workers party and the centrist candidate, Aecio Neves. However, polls since Campos' death show Ms. Silva running about even with Neves. Many political analysts say Ms. Silva may be a stronger candidate than Campos. They say she might at least thwart a first-round victory for Ms. Rousseff Oct. 5. Ms. Silva’s main support comes from Brazilians unhappy with sluggish economic growth, high taxes and poor health care and education. |
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| From Page 7: Trade deal with four European countries begins By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Wednesday marked the first steps in activating the free trade agreement between the European Free Trade Association, Panama, and Costa Rica as Norway officially became the first country activated in the trade agreement. “This free trade agreement consolidates access of our exports to the European market and opens up new opportunities for our production industries,” said the minister of Comercio Exterior, Alexander Mora. “This also provides a valuable tool for promoting the attraction of foreign direct investment.” Switzerland, Iceland, and Liechtenstein make up the remaining three-quarters of the European association. Both Switzerland and Iceland's contracts begin on Aug. 29, while Liechtenstein will officially begin on Sept. 5. According to the trade agreement, 98.7 percent of Costa Rican exports directed to these countries will be free of import duties. Businesses with key products like bananas, fresh fruit, flowers, coffee, and industrial products should benefit from this access. On the other end, 93.3 percent of the exports from the European countries into Costa Rica will not be subjected to duties. This agreement was signed in Trondheim, Norway, June 24, 2013. |
