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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 188
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 U.S. Department of Agriculture
photo
This is the larva stage
of Tuta absoluta that
threatens tomatoesTico moth
threatens world's tomatoes
By the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University news staff
The rapid spread of a highly destructive invasive species that threatens tomato crops has prompted a Virginia Tech scientist to lead the charge in issuing a set of recommendations, including quarantine measures, designed to thwart the advance of the pest around the globe. The insect, established in Panama and Costa Rica, is moving northward but has not yet arrived in the United States. Its potential arrival is a big concern among U.S. government agricultural officials. "Our domestic tomato industry could be severely affected," said Devaiah Muruvanda, senior risk manager for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "The United States is taking it so seriously, we haven't even given permits to do research, in order to prevent any possibility of the insect's escape." The pest in question is the South American tomato leafminer, Tuta absoluta. No larger than an eyelash, the tiny moth spreads from its native Latin America to Europe in 2006 and later crossed the Mediterranean to Africa. Now threatening Asia, the moth strikes at the world's most commercially important horticulture crop, the tomato, valuable to farmers around the world. Its path is destructive and its advance rapid, moving from Spain in 2006 through Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India. "When the tomato leafminer strikes, it can cause between 80 and 100 percent crop loss unless proper management technologies are adopted," says Muni Muniappan, entomologist and director of the Virginia Tech-led Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab. "The moth can't be completely eradicated. The best you can do is control it." Muniappan convened a group of plant protection scientists at the 18th International Plant Protection Congress in Berlin in August. Scientists and policy makers who attended represented the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and the United States. World production of tomato is approximately 163 million tons annually, and production of the crop covers 10 million acres worldwide, Muniappan says. In 2011, Tuta absoluta infested 404,000 acres of cultivated tomato, representing 40 percent of the world's crop. In the United States, the tomato industry accounts for more than $2 billion in annual farm cash receipts, according to the agriculture department. The economic impact of this insect has already been severe in countries where it has become established. In Spain, its presence led to an increase of $209 per acre per season related to pest management. In central Argentina, management of Tuta accounts for 70 percent of the pest management costs for late-season tomato crops. As director of an agricultural development program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Muniappan noticed the insect's arrival in Senegal in 2012, where the program conducted research. Since then, the program has held half a dozen workshops to raise awareness about the invasive species and help public officials and farmers prepare to minimize the destruction. "We have held workshops on Tuta in Senegal, Ethiopia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Tanzania in order to sensitize administrators in countries where it's set to invade and to provide management information to countries where it's already established," he says. Solís to speak Friday at U.N. summit By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and wire service reports President Luis Guillermo Solís will address the U.N. summit Friday with a speech discussing the fight against inequality, and the empowerment of women and girls. The summit is evaluating priorities after this year. Costa Rica also is urging that a woman be selected as the next secretary general of the international organization. Solís will spend six days in the United States with one day with the Costa Rican delegation in Washington, D.C. Casa Presidencial also said that the president would be seeking foreign investments. More than 150 presidents and prime ministers will attend this year’s General Assembly which also marks the U.N.’s 70th anniversary. There will be no shortage of crises for the leaders to discuss. Pope Francis arrives at the U.N. Friday, just hours ahead of the opening of the major anti-poverty summit. He will address the U.N. staff and have a private meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whom he has met three times before at the Vatican. Richard Gowan of Columbia University predicted the migrant crisis in Europe and the Islamic State group would be major agenda items. “There is going to be a lot of self-congratulation about the Iran nuclear deal, but that will be overshadowed by the humanitarian crisis in Europe and the continued power of the Islamic State in the Middle East,” said Gowan. Next Wednesday, there will be a high-level meeting on the refugee crisis in Europe. The secretary-general says he hopes to mobilize a humane and effective response. The majority of refugees are Syrians, fleeing nearly five years of civil war. Marriage at 18 bill promoted By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmaker Lorelly Trejos continued to promote her marriage bill Tuesday. The measure would raise the legal age to marry from the current 15 or 16 to 18. The lawmaker said in a meeting of the Comisión Permanente de Juventud, Niñez y Adolescencia that marriages under the age of 18 continue the cycle of violence, poverty and early pregnancies and cause young women to forgo their studies and expose themselves to diseases. The bill cites a litany of international agreements that suggest that the marriage age should be 18. Costa Rica now permits marriage at 15 with parental consent or at 16 without consent. Specifically the bill prohibits the Registro Civil from accepting marriage documents if either party is under 18. Our reader's opinion
Another statement against squattersDear A.M. Costa Rica: Sheldon Haseltine has a point, whether or not his opinion has been soured by his 20-year battle. Squatters’ rights in Costa Rica allow and possibly encourage flagrant thievery of property that belongs to someone else. In the U.S., squatter’s rights exist such that if a property ownership was uncertain, or the property not being used, a person who tended and lived on it for a certain period of time then owned the property. In the U.S.A., the adverse possession laws vary from state to state and within states as well. But if the owner initiates eviction, the possession is reversed. Not so here, as evidenced by Haseltine’s battle, among those of many others, over property. It should not be necessary to pay someone to live on or monitor one’s property to maintain ownership of that which one purchases or otherwise rightfully owns. This is just plain WRONG. In my opinion, Hazeltine is correct in his evaluation of how the “law” is interpreted or enforced in Costa Rica. It is indeed selectively enforced and often according to how much one lavishes upon the right person. Greed abounds in much of the upper class of this country, as do lack of respect for the law as it was written and intended, and lack of concern for the rights of others, including the struggling poorer citizenry who manage, somehow, to feed and house their families despite the abuses of power. Hazeltine correctly asserts, in my opinion, that some laws are written for everyone except the moneyed, or otherwise favorably endowed with power, rank, status, and occupation. I believe that here, the status quo is almost everyone’s enemy. Darlene Mokrycki
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 188 | |
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| Expats here report that country is a good place for family
life |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The country ranked 20th in a survey of expat family life. The survey comes from InterNations, the expat organization. The survey drew responses from 41 nations. Austria is at the top of the Family Life Index, but Finland and Sweden also finished second and third with high marks on the quality, cost, and availability of childcare and education, said the organization. The overall ranking drew from those categories. Costa Rica was 16th in cost of child care and education, 28th in availability of child care and education, 27th in quality of education and |
11th in
family well being. Saudi Arabia finished last behind Brazil. The survey results can be found HERE! In an August report, the organization said that once more Ecuador tops the list of the best places to live abroad. More than 14,000 respondents participated in one of the most extensive studies ever conducted to explore the general living situation of expatriates, it said. Costa Rica was in 12th place in that survey. The Family Life Index did not report findings for countries in which fewer than 30 expats responded. |
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Storage for LPG gas This is one of four tanks that will hold 4,000 cubic meters (141,259 cubic feet) of liquid petroleum gas. Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo S.A. reported Tuesday it had negotiated financing for the tanks, some $19 million from European banks. The Moín storage system is being developed in anticipation of much greater use for the gas as a motor fuel. The company said that use of the gas has increased more than 19 percent in the last five years. |
 Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo
S.A. photo
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| Government says it has six requests from Syrians to join
family here |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Casa Presidencial said Tuesday that the country is handling immigration requests from six Syrians who have family here. In addition, there are four Syrians who have received refugee status, Casa Presidencial said. Carmen Muñoz Quesada, a vice minister who heads the Consejo Nacional de Migración, met Tuesday with family |
members and
Syrians who are residents in Costa Rica as well as representatives of
the Muslim faith. In the meeting, the Costa Rican official stressed the nation's commitment to helping persons in humanitarian crisis, Casa Presidencial said. There are 38 Syrians who are residents of Costa Rica, said the summary. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2015 and may not
be
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 188 | |||||
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| New twist on credit cards defeats skimmers, researchers
report |
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By the Lehigh University news staff
From large-scale data breaches such as the 2013 Target case to local schemes that use skimming devices to steal data at the gas pump, credit card fraud is becoming commonplace. The key challenge is that existing magnetic card readers use plain text to store confidential information, which makes them vulnerable to an untrusted card reader or skimming device. Analyst firm Alite Group estimates that this vulnerability is adding up to $8 billion in incurred losses per year in the U.S. Solutions have been proposed, such as integrated circuit cards and mobile wallets systems. However, they are incompatible with current systems making them too costly and time-consuming for retailers to implement. For the first time, researchers have developed an inexpensive, secure method to prevent mass credit card fraud using existing magnetic card readers. The novel technique, called SafePay, works by transforming disposable credit card information to electrical current and driving a magnetic card chip to simulate the behavior of a physical magnetic card. The research, led by Yinzhi Cao, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with coauthors Xiang Pan and Yan Chen from Northwestern University, will be presented at a conference on communications and network security next week. "Because SafePay is backward compatible with existing magnetic card readers, it will greatly relieve the burden of merchants in replacing card readers and at the same time protect cardholders from mass data breaches," said Cao. Here's how it works: First, the user downloads and executes the mobile banking application which communicates with the bank server. During transactions, the mobile application acquires disposable credit card numbers from the bank server, generates a wave file, plays the file to generate electrical current, and then drives the magnetic card chip via an audio jack or Bluetooth. |
 Lehigh
University photo
This is a picture of the SafePay
prototype system.The critical elements that make SafePay unique are: • Disposable credit card information that expires after a limited time or number of usages (i.e., just one time) so, even if the information is leaked, it cannot be used for future transactions. • A magnetic credit card chip that makes it completely compatible with existing readers. In the evaluation, the researchers show that the cost of the magnetic card chip is inexpensive. • A mobile banking application that automates the process making it extremely user-friendly. Cao and his colleagues conducted real-world experiments with the SafePay technology performing transactions with a vending machine, a gas station, and a university coffee shop. During the experiments, they used a bank application, cell phone application, and magnetic credit card chip. The disposable credit card information was acquired from ShopSafe by registering several disposable credit card numbers with Bank of America. In all three scenarios, the SafePay method worked and the transactions were successful, they reported. |
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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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado
S.A. 2015 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 188 | |||||||
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 White House photo
Pope Francis and Barack Obama.Obama greets
Pope Francis
on his arrival in United States By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Pope Francis arrived Tuesday afternoon to cheering crowds at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, beginning his historic six-day visit to the United States. The pope's aircraft, dubbed Shepherd 1, touched down at 3:49 p.m. at the suburban Washington D.C. base. Waiting to greet him were U.S. President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters, along with Vice President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials. The pope also was met by a retinue of cardinals, dressed in black cassocks with scarlet sashes. Hundreds of other spectators gathered on bleachers. "Pope Francis! Pope Francis!" rose a chant as the pontiff descended stairs from the airliner, his white skullcap in hand. After chatting with the Obamas, the pope, who has made humility one of his hallmarks, climbed into a small black Fiat. Then a motorcade whisked him off to other enthusiastic crowds outside the Vatican’s diplomatic mission, the Apostolic Nunciature, in northwest Washington. Hundreds applauded and sang, with schoolchildren waving small flags representing the Vatican, the United States and Argentina. The pope hails from that South American country. Washington is the first stop on the pontiff's visit to three U.S. East Coast cities: Washington, New York and Philadelphia. Francis came straight from a four-day trip to Cuba, a progression that makes sense not only geographically but symbolically. The pontiff played a secret backstage role in reconnecting the former Cold War rivals in a thaw announced last December. Today the pope is scheduled to make a formal visit to the White House where he'll be hosted by the president. Obama and Francis first met at the Vatican in March 2014. Francis has been invited to speak at a joint meeting of Congress Thursday and to address the U. N. General Assembly Friday. Saturday morning, he'll travel to Philadelphia for this weekend’s World Meeting of Families. His talks are expected to include critiques of the dominance of finance and technology, a condemnation of world powers over the conflicts gripping the planet, appeals to protect and welcome immigrants and climate change. In Cuba, the Latin American pope celebrated a Mass, the last of three, at the Basilica of the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the country's holiest shrine. With President Raúl Castro attending, the pontiff urged Cubans to rediscover their Catholic heritage and live a revolution of tenderness. The pope's homily was the latest in a series of carefully worded critiques of Cuba’s atheist Communist government. Installed after the 1959 revolution, it sought to replace the church as a guiding force in people's lives. The pope prayed for reconciliation among all Cubans, both at home and around the world. The 78-year-old Francis appeared to be moving in discomfort during Tuesday’s Mass in Cuba. He suffers from a bad knee and sciatica, a condition that causes intense pain in the lower back and down the leg. He'd had a packed schedule in the Caribbean island nation after arriving there Saturday. He visited three cities, celebrating Mass, performing blessings and prayer services, shaking countless hands with adoring crowds. He also met with Fidel Castro. Today after his visit to the White House, Francis is expected to meet and pray with bishops. In late afternoon, he'll canonize Junipero Serra, a 16th century Spanish friar who founded missions in what is now California, and conduct a Mass at Washington's National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Thursday, after speaking to Congress, he's scheduled to visit St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Washington, then fly to New York for an evening prayer service at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Friday, the pope is scheduled to address the U. N. General Assembly in the morning and celebrate an evening Mass at Madison Square Garden. Over the weekend in Philadelphia, he'll celebrate Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, then give an address at Independence Mall. He also plans to celebrate a Sunday afternoon Mass at the meeting. Survey shows many Latins are falling away from church By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Even on a weekday afternoon, the midday Spanish-language Mass at Saint Elizabeth church, located in New York city's Queens neighborhood, brings the faithful. More than half of all Hispanic Americans identify as Catholic. Many of this church’s parishioners are new immigrants from predominantly Catholic countries in Latin America. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, nearly 90 percent of Hispanic Americans have a favorable opinion of Pope Francis, who will be visiting the city starting Thursday. Sister Celia Cid says Pope Francis, who is the son of immigrants, understands their needs. “He identifies with the struggles on many different nationalities, different countries and what they are going through," she remarked. "It’s a great hope for me to have him come because this city is a melting pot. It is a city built on immigrants.” But nearly a quarter of Hispanic Americans are now former Catholics. Some leave for evangelical and Pentecostal churches, while others simply drift away from the Catholic church. Father Ambiorix Rodriguez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was raised in the Manhattan community where he now preaches. He says Pope Francis has a solution. The pontiff has advised his spiritual leaders to go out and connect beyond the confines of the church building. “He is telling the church we can no longer stay inside, self-enclosed, worrying about who we have, who is here, but no, the church needs to go out," Rodriguez explained. The departure of many Hispanics from the church is most pronounced among the young. Today, many under the age of 30 classify themselves as unaffiliated. But the Pope’s openness invigorates young parishioner, Alias. “If the Catholics who have drifted are based on ‘Oh, you don’t understand me,' or 'It’s too complicated,' or 'I’m tired of traditional habits,’ the pope is actually saying, ‘You know what, I am moving forward,' " Alias said, adding that the pope’s use of social media to connect with the next generation is one way he is keeping young people invested and interested. "The youth are the future people of tomorrow. They are ones who are going to keep this church alive. And they are keeping the church alive. So that's where it starts to be honest, it's the youth," Alias said. "If the youth are not being influenced or moved by it, you’re going to lose a lot of members because it starts there." Saudi Arabian is sent home after long Guantanamo stay By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it had transferred a Saudi Arabian national from the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay back to his native Saudi Arabia. Held since January 2002, Abdul Rahman Shalabi was cleared for release in June by a review board after previously being deemed too dangerous to be freed. He was a longtime hunger striker and was never charged with a crime. A Pentagon document had identified Shalabi as one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards. Shalabi is being released as part of the Saudi government's rehabilitation program for ex-detainees, and he will be monitored for years to come. With Shalabi’s transfer, there are 114 prisoners remaining at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, including 52 deemed eligible for transfer if host countries can meet U.S. security conditions. U.S. and Chinese leaders have long, difficult agenda By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
From cyber security to the South China Sea, President Barack Obama will welcome his Chinese counterpart to the White House amid U.S. concerns about China’s behavior in a range of areas. “Xi Jinping is coming here amidst the most difficult atmosphere in U.S.-China relations that any Chinese leader has faced in a major visit to the United States,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S. Daly said there are questions on the American side about China’s long-term intentions, the nature of Xi’s government, “about whether or not it is aiming to challenge the United States regionally and nationally, and whether it is planning to challenge the world order.” These concerns have prompted some critics of the administration to question whether Friday’s state visit should even be happening. But deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the U.S. policy of sustained engagement with Chinese leadership is critical. "This is the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world, given the breadth of issues on which the United States and China have common interests, or at times have differences,” Rhodes said in a press call on Tuesday. The talks come in the aftermath of a cyber attack that compromised the information of more than 21 million Americans, a breach blamed on China. In an interview published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal, Xi said China also has been a victim of hacking and denied any governmental role in stealing business data. "The Chinese government does not engage in theft of commercial secrets in any form, nor does it encourage or support Chinese companies to engage in such practices in any way," Xi wrote. Obama last week told U.S. business leaders that China’s behavior in cyber space would be one of the main topics during his talks Friday with Xi. Obama said he understands intelligence-gathering functions that all states engage in, including attempts by China to obtain state secrets or meeting transcripts. “We understand you're going to be trying to do that. That is fundamentally different from your government or its proxies engaging directly in industrial espionage and stealing trade secrets, stealing proprietary information from companies,” Obama said. “That, we consider an act of aggression that has to stop.” Obama has raised such concerns as far back as June 2013, when the two leaders met in California. David Lampton, director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said the credibility of the Obama administration is affected by how long it allows itself to be pushed back. “I think we need to make some progress on these issues or we are going to have to think about how to articulate our interests in a more effective way,” Lampton said. Among the options: countervailing actions, such as economic sanctions. Rhodes said that while the administration’s preference is dialogue and diplomacy, “we would be prepared, if necessary, to pursue sanctions as a tool if we felt that there was a case that merited that type of punitive action.” Another area where some would like to see more assertive U.S. action is in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been creating artificial islands in waters where other countries have overlapping claims. The Wilson’s Center Daly said the United States should conduct freedom-of-navigation cruises within 12 nautical miles of China’s man-made islands to send a clear message to Beijing. “There can be a new normal in which we put down markers and assert our navigational rights or a new normal in which we don’t. And that is acceding to Chinese wishes,” Daly said. White House officials emphasized that the United States has a global freedom-of-navigation program it conducts around the world, including in the South China Sea. Dan Kritenbrink, the National Security Council’s senior director for Asian affairs, said the U.S. military intends to operate anywhere and at any time it is allowed to do so under international law. “Our goal is to support and sustain the liberal rules-based order, and that applies on maritime issues,” Kritenbrink said in a press call. “We are looking to uphold these larger principles of international law, such as freedom of navigation, freedom of overflight, unimpeded lawful commerce and peaceful resolution of disputes.” Despite significant differences on certain issues, White House officials emphasize areas where the United States and China have collaborated, including on climate change in advance of the U.N. conference in December. “As the two biggest emitters, our ability to work together is what unlocks the possibility of reaching that type of agreement,” Rhodes said. “On Iran, China was instrumental in reaching the P5+1 agreement. On North Korea, I think we have seen in recent years an increasing Chinese willingness to understand that we need to be underscoring the necessity of denuclearization and, as necessary, applying pressure on the North Korean regime.” The Wilson Center’s Daly agreed that differences should not be a reason for disengagement. “I think engagement remains extremely important and has to be the cornerstone of the relationship," he said. "We do not have the option of ignoring or isolating China.” But while Obama looks to frankly convey U.S. concerns, analysts say Xi will most likely be concerned with how the visit plays out on television sets back home. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 188 | |||||||||
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 NASA graphic
This representation shows
the blood red moon in Earth's shadow.Supermoon
eclipse is this Sunday
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A rare celestial event will happen in the heavens Sunday evening in the Western Hemisphere. What’s in store is a lunar eclipse, which by itself isn’t that uncommon. There might be as many as three of those a year. What’s special is that this eclipse coincides with a supermoon, when the moon is closer to Earth than any other time in its orbit. It appears bigger and brighter. The moon will be about 14 percent bigger. “The last supermoon and lunar eclipse was in 1982,” said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.. “So we’ll go from being very bright to turning this beautiful red color, the effect of the sunrises and sunsets of the Earth being projected on to the lunar surface,” he said. Petro said it’s a unique opportunity to measure the surface temperature of the moon. “What we see is that surfaces that stay warm longer generally have larger blocks or smaller pebbles and things like that; where surfaces that cool off very quickly have smaller sand-sized particles. And so by measuring how the surface of the moon, the temperature of the surface of the moon changes during an eclipse, we learn about the makeup of the surface of the moon, the structure of the surface," he said. NASA has had its eye on the moon for a long time, beginning with the Apollo program in the 1960s. In more recent years, the space agency has collected data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that flies as low as 20 kilometers above the moon's surface. Petro said Orbiter discoveries have shown the moon is much more dynamic than previously thought. “We are seeing new impact craters that have formed in the six years that we have been there. We are seeing evidence of migrating water across the surface. Not a lot of water, a small amount of water. But still the view that the moon is a static unchanging place is now completely different,” he said. Some moon rocks date back 4.5 billion years to the earliest history of the solar system. Petro said that record is almost all gone from the Earth. He said studying the surface of the moon is a natural laboratory for investigation to see what was happening just after the planets formed. “When we look at the moon, we are really looking into the deep history of the Earth as well,” he said. “I think from that we can learn a lot about how our planet has changed and how all planets have changed over time.” The supermoon eclipse will be visible Sunday after sunset in North America and all of South America, and before dawn Monday in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. While the event is rare, scientists can predict it. The next opportunity to see this celestial wonder won't be until 2033. |
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| From Page 7: ICE says it has beefed up its 4G network By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad says it has enlarged coverage of its 4G cell telephone network. The company said it invested $19.9 million to do so and installed 80 new sites this year. The total is expected to reach 195 next year, the state firm said. The firm said it also was installing devices inside large buildings to better handle communications there. The 4G system, the fourth generation, is based on the long term evolution technology. The firm said that its mobil Internet network is 10 times faster than competitors. |
