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San
José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 177
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Court rejects tax
on tourism activities
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Tribunal Contencioso Administrativa has rejected the central government's effort to place a sales tax on tourism activities. The Cámera Nacional de Turismo has called upon the Luis Guillermo Solís administration to refrain from appealing the decision. The chamber presented the case last year after tax officials said that they would assess five years back taxes on tourism activities like bungee jumping, canopy tours, hiking, spas, bird watching and similar. The tax proposal came from a redefinition of what is covered by the tax in the last days of the Laura Chinchilla administration. Later, government officials struck a deal with tourism operations to stage in the tax. But the chamber appealed anyway. The victory might be short lived because a new proposal for a value-added tax probably will cover tourism activities, if passed. The decision on the appeal came from a chamber press release. Corporate tax bill pushed by minister By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The security minister made a pitch to lawmakers Monday to reinstate the tax on corporations. His ministry needs the money, he said. This is the tax that was declared unconstitutional because the measure that finally passed was not the one that was advertised. Even though the tax is unconstitutional, the Sala IV inexplicably ruled that holders of the various forms of corporate ownership should still pay it this year. The central government moved to resubmit the bill for passage, and it is being considered by the Comisión Permanente Especial de Seguridad y Narcotráfico la Política Nacional de Seguridad. That was where the minister, Gustavo Mata, testified Monday. The money would go in part to create a series of commissions and subcommissions to develop strategic plans. The minister also pushed for approval of a law to confiscate property that might be products of criminal enterprises. That bill is being studied by the committee, too.  Ministerio de Obras Públicas y
Transportes
photo
The best advice is to avoid
this mess with a taxiLicense plate
travel ban clarified
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There has been plenty of confusion abut exemptions to the downtown travel restrictions, so the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes has issued a clarification. For example, vehicles that are at full capacity are not subject to the restriction between 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., said the ministry. That includes passenger vehicles with five occupants. But it also includes a pickup that only has seats for two persons if the second seat is occupied. The restrictions are from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day depending on the last digit of the vehicle license number. But if a family has two vehicles with the same digit, the owners can apply for permission to operate one during times they would otherwise be forbidden, said the ministry. Getting permission requires a lot of paperwork, according to the process described by the ministry. There also are exemptions for persons with disabilities, noted the ministry. However, there are no exemptions from expats who live far from the city who might accidentally violate the law, despite the tiny signs on the highways. The restricted area is basically the center of the city inside the Circunvalación from La Uruca to San Pedro. The forbidden license plate numbers are two a day starting with 1 and 2 on Mondays and ending with 9 and 0 on Fridays. Dogs and birds confiscated in Coronado By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Humane Society International reports that in conjunction with the Servicio Nacional de Salud Animal it has rescued 17 dogs and 37 wild birds and two parrots. All the animals appeared to be readied for sale, the organization said. The animals were confiscated at a home in Coronado because they did not appear to be in good shape, said the organization. The dogs included 11 beagles. The birds appeared to be underfed. Keeping and selling wild birds is illegal. Incineration protest is planned for today By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Opponents of incineration plan to demonstrate at Casa Presidencial today at 9 a.m. to promote their view that recycling is better than burning. An announcement said that some 30 organizations would participate. They oppose a decree by President Luis Guillermo Solís that would allow some municipalities to install incinerators to handle their garbage problem. |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 177 | |
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| Costa Ricans seem to sympathize with Mrs. Bender's travails |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
If online comments are any indication, Ann Bender has captured the sympathy of Costa Ricans. Ms. Bender is the U.S. citizen a judicial panel acquitted Monday in the death of her multi-millionaire husband, John, who died from a gunshot wound Jan, 8, 2010. Leave the woman in peace, said one person who posted below the early report of the acquittal in La Nación. "I am happy for Ann. She was innocent since the beginning," said another. "Why don't prosecutors go after the corrupt politicians the way they have after this woman," asked another poster. The comments echoed those in the expat community where a third murder trial was considered excessive. More troubling is the statement by a prosecutor at the beginning of the trial that if the woman is acquitted he would appeal again to seek a fourth trial. Usually those who appeal court cases need to have some concrete reason, but a poster addressed this possibility, too. "What is this persecution by the prosecutor. Three trials have passed and two have said she is innocent," said the fourth poster, adding that prosecutors should respect the results even if they do not like the verdict. Mrs. Bender made several appearances on Costa Rica television when she testified in Spanish. She looked frail but did not appear deceptive. |
She was the
only other person in the room with her U.S. citizen husband
when he died. She said he took his own life even as she tried to stop
him. Prosecutors claimed she killed him although they never came up
with a motive. Agents claimed at the time there were inconsistencies in the death scene that led them to characterize the case as a murder. Subsequent testimony showed that the investigation lacked professionalism. The Benders lived at a 5,000-acre private wildlife refuge in La Florida de Barú de Pérez Zeledón in a five-story 8,000-square-foot glass-walled showplace home. A trial court Jan. 21, 2013, gave the benefit of the doubt to Mrs. Bender. She was set free because judges said that there was not sufficient evidence that she had killed her husband. Bender was said to be bipolar and had attempted suicide once before. However, prosecutors appealed the decision. In May 27, 2014, a new trial panel in Peréz Zeledón convicted the woman and imposed a sentence of 22 years and remanded her to prison for nine months until a higher court reviewed the case. An appeals court reversed the conviction, and the trial that ended Monday was held. The case attracted international attention. CBS news hired a husband and wife team of forensic experts who raised serious doubt about the investigation and the evidence that was used to convict the woman. They said that the testimony of Ms. Patton was plausible. A U.S. television crew was present for the latest trial. |
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Today is a
day for puppets
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Puppets will be taking over the Teatro Nacional today. At 9 a.m. is a special program for school children to mark Día del Niño y la Niña. Adults and children they might bring will have their show at the same theater at 12:10 p.m. when the Teatro a Mediodía presents the Colectivo El Queso and its show “Nuni.” The theater says the story line involves a chicken and an owl who have to flee a farm and confront the woods. The theater staff said that there are two parts to this event. The visit by the puppets and the puppeteers marks a first. Usually the Tuesday performance is related to music. In addition, today is the eve of children's day, and the hope is that entire families will come to enjoy the show, they said. |
 Ministerio de
Cultura y Juventud photo
Colectivo El Queso |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 177 | |||||
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| Prolonged viewing of television can be deadly, researchers
confirm |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new Japanese study finds that binge watching television could kill. Binge watching, or viewing a number of movies or a television program’s episodes in one sitting, has become a popular pastime in parts of the world. This 18-year study, involving more than 86,000 people, revealed that those who sit and watch a lot of television in a day have a higher risk of dying from a pulmonary embolism, a sudden blockage or blood clot in one of the lung’s pulmonary arteries. According to the Mayo Clinic, in most cases a pulmonary embolism is caused by blood clots that travel to the lungs from mostly the legs but also, rarely, from other parts of the body too. The new study’s lead author is Toru Shirakawa, a public health research fellow in the Department of Social Medicine at Japan’s Osaka University. Shirakawa presented the study in an address at the recently held congress of the European Society of Cardiology. “Pulmonary embolism is a serious, sometimes fatal, lung-related vascular disease characterized by sudden onset of symptoms such as chest pain or difficulty breathing,” said Shirakawa in a press release. “The disease is caused by obstruction of the pulmonary arteries by blood clots, generally formed in the leg vessels. Risk factors include cancer, prolonged bed rest or sitting, and oral contraceptive use,” he added. The new Japanese study finds that the more hours a person spends watching television per day results in a corresponding increase in the risk of death from a pulmonary embolism. The researchers found that someone who watched an average of five or more hours of television per day had twice the risk |
of dying from
a pulmonary embolism than those who watched less than two and a half
hours a day. These recent findings have added more support to the link between prolonged sitting and the risks of having a pulmonary embolism. Other health concerns that have been associated with sitting for long periods of time include obesity, heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer. The association between prolonged sitting and pulmonary embolisms was first reported in a paper published in the December 1940 edition of the medical journal The Lancet. The paper’s author Keith Simpson, found that there was an increase in the rate of pulmonary embolism fatalities among those who sat for long periods of time in London’s air-raid shelters during World War II. To calculate the risk of death from a pulmonary embolism the Osaka University researchers first considered their test subject’s gender, history of hypertension or diabetes, body mass index, exercise habits, if they smoked or drank alcohol and among older women, menopausal status. The researchers discovered that those under 60 years of age who watched TV for more than five hours a day had six times the risk of a fatal pulmonary embolism compared to those who viewed less than two and a half hours of TV per day. They also found that those within this age group who viewed between 2.5 to 4.9 hours of TV per day had three times the risk of those who watched television less than 2.5 hours a day. To those who indulge in TV binge watching, Shirakawa recommends that they take a break from time to time, stand up, and walk around. He also said that drinking water to prevent dehydration is also important. Related research has found that prolonged computer gaming has also been associated with pulmonary embolism fatalities. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 177 | |||||||
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| Runoff vote will be Oct. 25 for Guatemalan presidency By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Guatemala faces a presidential run-off after the leading candidates at the polls on Sunday failed to secure the votes needed to avoid a second round of elections next month. Jimmy Morales, a comedic actor and political novice, led with 24 percent according to early results. With 97 percent of precincts reporting by late Monday morning, only a few thousand votes separate conservative businessman Manuel Baldizón and former first lady, social democrat Sandra Torres. Both are vying for runner-up, each with about 19 percent. The run-off is scheduled for Oct. 25. Morales' campaign slogan "not corrupt, not a thief" resonated with voters after a bribery scandal ended in the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina Thursday. Baldizón lost to Pérez Molina during the last election cycle following a run-off in 2011. Voter turn-out on Sunday was on par with the previous presidential race, with official polling data indicating 5.2 million Guatemalans — 69 percent of registered voters — casting ballots. The presidential, congressional and municipal elections are for a four-year term to begin in 2016. Until then, former Vice President Alejandro Maldonado will lead Guatemala. Pérez Molina said in court he is innocent of accusations that he accepted $800,000 from business owners in an alleged bribery ring. The former president said in court Friday that he accepted no bribes and bragged that he had been offered and refused 10 times that amount from fugitive drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán when the Mexican drug kingpin was captured in 1993. Protesters had demanded Pérez Molina's resignation for months. He has not yet been formally charged and is set to appear in court today. Same-sex marriage opponent is object of appeal filing By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Lawyers for a jailed Kentucky court clerk have asked a federal appeals court to force the state’s governor to allow her to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses in accordance with her religious convictions. Kim Davis’ attorneys sought emergency relief from the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Monday, for the second straight day, asking the court to exempt Mrs. Davis from “the governor’s mandate that all county clerks issue marriage licenses.” “As a prisoner of her conscience, Davis continues to request a simple accommodation from the governor,” wrote Mat Staver, chairman of the Liberty Council, a religious rights group that is providing legal counsel to Davis. Kim Davis, a born-again Christian, has been in jail since Thursday for contempt of court after she refused to issue same-sex licenses because she said that authorizing the gay marriages would violate her religious beliefs. Davis' lawyers filed an appeal of the contempt of court order on Sunday. “Coercing Mrs. Davis to authorize and personally approve same-sex marriage in violation of her religious convictions and conscience is wrong,” said Staver. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage in a ruling in June. District Judge David Bunning has said that Mrs. Davis, the Rowan County clerk, will be freed when she agrees to issue the licenses, as her position requires, or she resigns. But Mrs. Davis has refused to do either. Today Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is planning to hold a rally in support of Mrs. Davis in front of the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky, where she is being held. About 300 people gathered in support of Mrs. Davis Saturday. Her husband addressed the crowd outside the detention center. "She won't bow, I promise you," Joe Davis told the crowd. Mrs. Davis, 49, worked in the Rowan County clerk’s office for 27 years before being elected county clerk last November. After she was jailed, several deputy clerks started issuing the licenses to same-sex couples, allowing them to marry in accordance with the Supreme Court decision. Mrs. Davis’ supporters question whether such licenses are valid. A gay couple, James Yates and William Smith Jr., received a marriage license Friday from a deputy clerk at Mrs. Davis' office. "This means at least for this area that civil rights are civil rights and they are not subject to belief," said Yates. Forest situation improving, U.N. tree report determines By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The bottom line from the Food and Agriculture Organization's 2015 assessment of global forest resources: The state of the world's forests is better than it was. The U.N. agency released the report this week ahead of the 14th World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa. The agency's senior forestry officer, Kenneth MacDicken, is among those monitoring how the forests are faring. “What we’ve seen is a continued forest loss in the tropics, not surprisingly," he says. "But the good news is that it’s happening at a rate that is half of what it was in the 1990s. So, the deforestation rate is slowing." Forests are still being cut down to make room for agriculture, the U.N. agency said. But the process is slowing. "Overall, the forest area dynamics, you can say, are improving," MacDicken said. He said more countries are sustainably managing their forests. As of 2014, 112 countries had national forest inventories. The Food and Agriculture Organization report said, “Countries have more knowledge of their forest resources than ever before.” However, between 1990 and 2015, there was a net loss of 129 million hectares of forest. That’s an area about the size of South Africa. The biggest forest loss occurred in Africa and South America. The report said challenges remain and warned, “the existence of sound policies, legislation and regulation is not always coupled with effective incentives or enforcement … and that unsustainable forest practices and forest conversion to farmland clearly persist.” The United Nations opens a summit Sept. 25 to adopt 17 proposed sustainable development goals, intended to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals. Sustainable management of forests is expected to be included. The Food and Agriculture Organization forestry officer said he is concerned about recent human impact. Since 1990, the world's population has grown by 37 percent. Agricultural food demand has increased by 40 percent. At the same time, MacDicken said, forest areas have declined by 3.2 percent. “We’re using more wood than ever before. We’re using 200 million cubic meters more wood now than we were in 1990," he said. "That wood has to come from somewhere. ... There’s probably no person on Earth that doesn’t use wood products in some form or another." He said producing more wood must be balanced with protecting watersheds, biodiversity and forests’ role in absorbing carbon emissions. MacDicken said while a direct impact of climate change on forests is hard to measure, indirect effects are being monitored. These include more large wildfires and destructive insects and diseases that are not killed off by milder winters. The mountain pine beetle, for example, has destroyed millions of hectares of trees over the years. He added that the biggest challenge is actually not knowing what all the challenges are. “Forests are complicated. They are complex, dynamic landscapes," he said. "And whilst we learned an awful lot about them in the last 200 years or so, there’s still a lot that we don’t know. We don’t know how able they will be to respond to changes in environment. As populations, they can’t move very far, very fast. So, they can’t keep up in many cases to climate change," MacDicken said. Italian high court faults Amanda Knox murder case By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Italy's high court has faulted prosecutors for their case against American Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, who were acquitted for the murder of Ms. Knox's British roommate, saying the case had major flaws. The court Monday issued a formal explanation, as required by law, of its March ruling that acquitted Ms. Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, ending a years-long high-profile case. In the 52-page document, the court of cassation said there was no biological trace linking the two to the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. It also criticized the quality of the prosecution's case from the beginning, noting that expert testimony indicated there was possible contamination of the evidence. The court also said the media spotlight on the case hurt the investigation with the case undergoing a sudden acceleration. A lawyer for Ms. Knox, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said Monday the explanation from the court showed "the lack of evidence and the uncertainties of the entire reconstruction of the accusation." Ms. Knox and Sollecito each served four years in prison for the murder of Ms. Kercher, in a legal saga that saw the two of them convicted, acquitted, convicted again, and finally cleared a final time by the high court. The two have been free since 2011, when the first appeals court overturned their convictions. Ms. Knox has always maintained her innocence in the death of Ms. Kercher, whose throat was slit and body stabbed multiple times in 2007 when the two were exchange students in Perugia, Italy. A third suspect in the case, former drug dealer Rudy Guede, was given a 30-year prison sentence, which was later reduced to 16 years. Prosecutors argued that Ms. Knox and Sollecito stabbed Ms. Kercher while Guede held her down when a sex game turned violent. Obama orders paid leave for federal contract workers By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
President Barack Obama marked the Labor Day holiday in the United States Monday by ordering federal contractors to provide sick leave for 300,000 employees. Obama told a rally in Boston for union workers that he signed the executive order because Republicans have waged a constant attack on working Americans. Obama said the U.S. is the world's only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave. Many U.S. employees get such benefits. But about 44 million private sector workers, many of them low-wage workers, do not. The sick leave would let the workers care for themselves or other family members who fall ill. The president's order authorizes companies contracted by the federal government to give their workers up to seven paid sick leave days a year starting in 2017. Obama renewed his demand that Congress pass laws requiring all employers with 15 or more workers to offer seven paid sick leave days a year. But some small business owners say that while the president's intentions are in the right place, they simply cannot afford to pay wages to people who cannot work. Also on Labor Day Monday, Vice President Joe Biden told a steelworkers' union rally in Pittsburgh that Congress has to shrink income inequality by changing the U.S. tax code, which he says favors the rich. The workers chanted "Run, Joe, Run" at Biden, who is considering a run for the White House next year. Labor Day in the U.S. always falls on the first Monday in September, a creation of the country's labor movement and a salute to U.S. workers and their contributions to the country's economic well-being. It has been a national holiday since 1894 and marks the unofficial end to summer in the country. Most workers in the U.S. have the day off, with families gathering for backyard cookouts or trips to parks and beaches. Many American schools already have started their new academic years, but those that haven't typically reopen the day after Labor Day. U.S. volunteer in Nepal reported to have been slain By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An American woman who traveled to Nepal to help after April's earthquake has been beaten to death, Nepali police said. Twenty-five year-old Dahlia Yehia had arrived in Nepal on July 20 to help quake survivors in Pokhara, a popular tourist spot. Police said Monday a local teacher, Narayan Paudel, who was hosting Ms. Yehia at his home, has admitted to beating the volunteer to death and dumping her body in a river. Police officials say the two met through Couchsurfing, a Web site that connects travelers to hosts. They say Ms. Yehia's body has not been recovered. Ms. Yehia was reported missing Aug. 6. She was an art teacher who previously taught at a school in Austin, Texas. On a Facebook page originally set up to "Find Dahlia," her family said they received word from the U.S. Embassy that she had died. "We are devastated by this senseless loss of a beautiful life. For those who haven't had the joy of spending time with Dahlia, know that she is a giver, lover, and humanitarian, who devoted her life to others less fortunate both domestic and abroad," the page reads. The devastating Nepal earthquake on April 25 left nearly 9,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. Following the quake, many foreigners arrived in the country to provide help to the victims. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 177 | |||||||||
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 Wildlife
Conservation Society/ Tim
McClanahan
A
humphead wrasse off the coast of East Africa.
Fish biomass
called key for reef diversity
By the Wildlife Conservation Society
news staff
Coral reef diversity hotspots in the southwestern Indian Ocean rely more on the biomass of fish than where they are located, a conclusion that has major implications for management decisions to protect coral reef ecosystems, said the Wildlife Conservation Society, which did the study. Using data gathered over 12 years from nearly 270 coral reefs across the southwestern Indian Ocean, the Wildlife Conservation Society study found that the highest conservation priorities in the region should be reef systems where fish biomass exceeds 600 kilograms per hectare. This finding conflicts with a common conservation and management policy that emphasizes the geographical location and physical factors that are often associated with reef diversity. The study, authored by Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society, appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Biogeography. "While geography has often been the main factor that conservation policy has used to establish protected areas, this study shows that protecting fish biomass should be the priority and this can be done with improved fisheries management," said McClanahan. "A hotspot is not a permanent feature and can be lost if the fish and the habitat are not protected." Experts agree that fishing is a primary cause in the degradation of coral reefs, and needs to be better managed but what is more controversial is the various roles of protected areas or fisheries restrictions. Protecting regions containing threatened biodiversity, considered to largely be an attribute of geography, has created a policy focus on the geographic hotspots. McClanahan found that the hotspot in the Indian Ocean is a real feature but is maintained more by fish biomass and habitat than by the geographic location. This means that fish biomass and habitat are the most influential factors and should be used to guide management decisions rather than location. McClanahan's study of 266 sites in seven countries of the southwestern Indian Ocean measured numbers of fish species while simultaneously collecting information on the abundance of corals and algae, depth, geographical location, and the types of fisheries management. This allowed him to compare the importance of each of these factors. The study also reveals that protected areas that lacked regular and strong enforcement of fishing bans, classified as 'low compliance' fisheries closures, had nearly as low numbers of fish species as reefs that were regularly fished. The low compliance category included 50 of the 104 reefs included in the study. McClanahan added: "Having fishing restrictions is better than closing reefs to fishing if the closure rules are not followed, which was common and found for nearly half of the studied closures." |
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| From Page 7: Nigeria seeks to beef up its coffee production By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Like many of its cash crops, Nigeria’s coffee sector has been neglected for years in favor of more lucrative commodities like oil. But one of the few commercial coffee roasters in the country plans to change that. The coffee found on the streets and supermarkets of Nigeria is mostly of the instant sort, and almost always imported. But Nasra Ali thinks Nigerians are ready for something different. A daughter of a Kenyan coffee family, she runs Kaldi Africa, which takes beans grown in eastern Taraba state and roasts them in a warehouse in the commercial capital Lagos to make perhaps Nigeria’s only local blend. Ms. Ali is counting on the country’s rising consumer class to shun imports in favor of her homegrown brew. “We are trying to see how to be able to be part of that growth, with our value addition and ensuring that we really are able to appreciate good coffee in Nigeria,” said Ms. Ali. Agriculture was once a major part of Nigeria’s economy, but it fell by the wayside as oil production began dominating the economy in the 1960s. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said he wants to build up the agriculture sector, although he has yet to appoint ministers to carry that out. Head of operations Alfred Mwai said one of Kaldi Africa’s goals is to work with farmers to improve the quality of Nigeria’s beans. |
