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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 196
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 Consejo Nacional de Vialidad photo
Steel sheets nearly 60
feet tall have been installed as part of the project. Road officials
give assurance
Circunvalación work is OK By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
As the rains fell Wednesday and motorists were struggling with roads saturated by water and vehicles, the nation's road agency said all was going well at the Circunvalación work site. This is the location where a concrete channel is being constructed for the Río María Aguilar so that a washout can be spanned by temporary bridges. By late evening the officials of the Consjeo Nacional de Vialidad certainly had their fingers crossed and another tour of the site scheduled for today to inspect the impact of Wednesday rains, but in a press release they seems confident. The explanation given by the road agency about progress at the site was more detailed than usual. Workers are building two steel walls from pieces of metal 18 meters (about 60 feet) high and two or three meters wide. They also are driving pilings and pouring concrete walls that hold the sheet steel in place with anchors. This work is progressing on either side of the washout. The collapse of the drainage system at the four-lane highway is a highly visible aspect of the nations road problems, even though it cannot be viewed directly. All over the Central Valley roads are jammed by vehicles whose drivers would prefer to take the Circunvalación, the city's southern bypass route. Several months will pass before the temporary bridges are erected again at the collapsed part of the road. The construction work there now is mainly to provide a firm place to set the bridges. Afterwards, workmen will concern themselves with a new system of guiding the river under the road.  Consejo Nacional de Vialidad
photo
Workmen are seen
atop the new concrete wall on which thetemporary bridges will set. Golfito will be
host in April
Final U.S. ban on game fishof major sports fishing tourney By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Presidential Challenge sport fishing competition plans a three-day tournament where anglers seek out game fish with a base in Golfito. The dates are from April 24 to 27 with Hotel Casa Roland Marina Resort being the headquarters. Boating action will be at two nearby marinas, Fish Hook and Banana Bay, said the Presidential Challenge Charitable Foundation, Inc. This is the first time in 18 years, that the tournament will be based in Golfito, an announcement said. The former banana port is on the Gulfo Dulce in the southern Pacific section of the country. The event is not for the weekend angler. The entry fee is $5,000 a team, which can be from two to four persons. The three most successful teams win cash prizes, according to the tournament format. Proceeds from the Presidential Challenge Events will benefit The Billfish Foundation's Central American and Caribbean conservation projects as well as the Adopt-A-Billfish Satellite Tagging Program and the International Game Fish Association, the foundation said. The tournament is likely to give a tourism boost to the area. The Golfito tournament is followed by the Presidential Papagayo Cup June 5 to 8 from Marina Papagayo in northern Costa Rica. Both are part of a series of sport fishing tournaments. due soon, proponents report Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
When the Billfish Conservation Act was signed into U.S. law nearly a year ago, conservationists worldwide expected that the globe’s largest market for imported marlin, sailfish, and spearfish would soon be closed. Although the challenge of getting a bill passed through the legislative process was won, there is still work to be done to make sure the measure will be properly enacted, said the International Game Fish Association. The association and the organization Wild Oceans met last week with Fisheries senior fisheries staff members to discuss progress on implementing the new law. Both organizations reported that they learned that a complete ban on the sale of billfish in the mainland United States is nearing reality. The Billfish Conservation Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama Oct. 5, 2012, prohibits the sale of all marlin, sailfish, and spearfish in the continental United States and effectively eliminates an estimated 30,000 billfish being imported each year from foreign countries, the organizations said. In April the fisheries section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a proposed rule and sought comments. Of particular concern is whether or not billfish harvested in Hawaii and nearby U.S. territories under an exemption for traditional Pacific island fisheries may be shipped to the mainland, said the two organizations. When the International Game Fish Association and Wild Oceans, through a joint Take Marlin Off the Menu campaign, promoted the creation of the Act in 2011, the intent was to completely close the mainland to importation and sale of all billfish, thus ending a sizable foreign market, while still allowing the traditional local consumption of billfish in the Hawaiian Islands, they said. After the act was signed into law, both groups immediately began working with legal and trade experts to emphasize the law’s intent to federal officials, they said. Both organizations have said they have submitted detailed comments on the proposed rules The organization's position is that the act was intended as a mechanism to conserve imperiled billfish and not to replace foreign origin billfish in the mainland United States with fish caught under the domestic exemption. Allowing billfish harvested in Hawaii to be shipped and sold to the mainland, where imports are prohibited, would violate international trade law, they noted. So far the federal fisheries officials are interpreting the law as a complete prohibition on possession and sale of billfish covered by the Act in the continental United States and will continue to do so until it issues a final rule, said the organizations. A federal enforcement order that existing billfish product on the mainland be destroyed or donated to charity. Federal fisheries officials said they intend to issue a proposed rule by the end of this year or early 2014, the organizations reported. U.S. returns the favors ejecting three Venezuelan diplomats By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States has expelled Venezuela's top diplomat and two others, after Venezuela kicked out three U.S. diplomats it accused of plotting sabotage. The Caracas government criticized the U.S. response, saying the Venezuelan diplomats had not been meeting with groups opposed to U.S. President Barack Obama. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had accused U.S. Charge d'Affaires Kelly Keiderling and the two other U.S. officials of conspiring with the South American nation's political opposition when he announced their expulsion Monday. Ms. Keiderling ranks as the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela since the two countries have not had ambassadors in each other's capitals since 2010. The U.S. State Department has said it rejects allegations the U.S. was involved in any type of conspiracy to destabilize Venezuela's government. The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela and Keiderling herself said the diplomats' trip to Bolivar state was part of normal diplomatic engagement. The State Department said it is regrettable that the Venezuelan government has again decided to expel U.S. diplomatic officials on what it called groundless allegations. The department called the move counterproductive to the interests of both countries. The dispute is a clear setback in Washington's attempts to improve ties with Caracas after the death of leftist leader and long-standing U.S. foe Hugo Chávez.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 196 | |
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 Drexel University photo
A hooked turtle fights against
the pull of the longline fishing gear. |
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| Longline fishing called major threat to
sea turtles and sharks |
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By the Drexel University news staff
The second-most-common catch on Costa Rica’s longline fisheries in the last decade was not a commercial fish species. It was olive ridley sea turtles. These lines also caught more green turtles than most species of fish. These findings and more, reported in a new study in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, indicate that the Costa Rican longline fishery represents a major threat to the survival of eastern Pacific populations of sea turtles as well as sharks. The researchers argue that time and area closures for the fisheries are essential to protect these animals as well as to maintain the health of the commercial fishery. The research was conducted by a team from Drexel University, the Costa Rican non-profit conservation organization the Programa Restauración de Tortugas Marinas, known as Pretoma, and a U.S. non-profit working in Costa Rica, The Leatherback Trust. The researchers used data from scientific observers on longline fishing boats who recorded every fish and other animal caught by the fishermen from 1999 to 2010 and the locations of the captures and fishing efforts. Those data provided the basis for a mathematical analysis of the fishery resulting in maps of geographic locations and estimates of the total number of captures of sea turtles in the entire fishery. The most commonly targeted fish, mahi mahi, was also the most common species caught in the Costa Rican longline fishery. But the researchers were surprised by their finding that olive ridley turtles, internationally classified as vulnerable, were the second-most-common species caught. They estimate that more than 699,000 olive ridley and 23,000 green turtles were caught during the study period 1999 to 2010. Although about 80 percent of captured sea turtles are released from longlines and survive the experience, at least in the short term, long-term impacts are not yet adequately measured. “It is common to see sea turtles hooked on longlines along the coast of Guanacaste in Costa Rica. We can set some free but cannot free them all,” said James Spotila, a professor of environmental science at Drexel. “The effect of the rusty hooks may be to give the turtles a good dose of disease. No one knows because no one holds the turtle to see if its gets sick.” Spotila, a co-author of the study, has been studying sea turtles on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica with colleagues and Drexel students for 23 years. The university is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The researchers also noted that even a few deaths of reproductive females may have a significant toll particularly when longline operations are held in shallow waters of the continental shelf close to nesting beaches. They reported that declines in olive ridley nesting populations in Ostional, where massive nesting occurs, were associated with these captures. In addition to mahi mahi, other species targeted in the Costa Rican longline fishery were tunas, sharks and marlins. The researchers observed that longlines caught large numbers of mahi mahi, silky sharks, stingrays, sailfish and yellowfin tuna. But the fishing patterns showed that shark populations have declined in numbers and that sharks have become smaller over 11 years. Adult sharks were generally small, and juvenile sharks alarmingly abundant, suggesting that some shark species were being overfished, the researchers said. Overall, only 14.6 percent of the abundant silky sharks observed during the study period were sexually mature. In 2010, the last year of the study, average fork length of silky sharks was 97 centimeters, a bit over 38 inches, they said. This is far far below the observed 144 centimeter average, about 56.7 inches for mature adults. These decreases in size of silky sharks through time indicated |
a reduction in relative
numbers of adults in the population. Additionally, many small blacktip sharks were captured in an area near the Osa Peninsula, indicating that fishing was occurring at a nursery ground for that species, the researchers said. The small size of adult sharks and large numbers of juveniles captured suggest that species are being overfished, they added. In addition to these indicators of overfishing of sharks, the researchers warned of broader uncertainty about the health of the fishery. They said that capture of large numbers of mahi-mahi does not guarantee that that population is sustainable because the available data can not determine if mahi mahi will remain abundant or decline. Based on these findings, the researchers caution that populations of fish affected by the Costa Rican longline fishery may be in danger of collapse and that there are insufficient scientific data to predict whether and when such a collapse will occur and in what species. To better manage the fishery and protect the threatened and endangered species of sea turtles in Costa Rica, the researchers argue that policy makers in Costa Rica must enforce time and area closures for longline fishing. They criticize both the fishing industry and the Instituto Costarricense de Pesca y Acuicultura, the fisheries management agency of the government, for failing to recognize that the fishery is unsustainable and failing to enforce existing fisheries laws, such as those against landing of shark fins and harming of sea turtles. The fisheries institute is known as INCOPESCA. “INCOPESCA has failed to adequately study and regulate the fishery in Costa Rica for many years. It does not even enforce national laws. Board members have serious conflicts of interest because they are commercial fishermen,” said Randall Arauz, president of Pretoma and a leader in marine conservation. “Until INCOPESCA is reformed in such a way that the board of directors is eliminated and its mission is to defend the public interest, neither the fish nor the turtles will be safe.” Arauz, a co-author of the study, has been studying sea turtles and fisheries in Costa Rica for more than 30 years. He directed the at-sea observer program that collected the data on longline boats that were the basis for this study. Aurauz and Spotila argue for the need to establish well-enforced marine protected areas where both turtles and fish are safe from longlines. They also recommend targeted seasonal closures to longline fishing in coastal waters close to the main turtle nesting beaches when and where sea turtle interactions with the fishery are highest. They further recommend a general seasonal longline fishery closure for five months, from June to November, which can shift, according to the seasonal abundance of mahi mahi. To enforce these recommendations and provide needed data to manage the fishery, they recommend placing observers on at least half of longline boats, as was done in Chile. Education of local fishermen would improve their fishing techniques and encourage them to release sea turtles unharmed. “There is still time to save both the fishery and the turtles if action is taken soon,” Arauz said. In pursuit of such action, Pretoma and The Leatherback Trust are providing leadership for a coalition of environmental groups in Costa Rica who have united for a special marine conservation initiative called “Front for Our Oceans” . For fish and turtle populations to recover successfully, Spotila, who is also chairman of the board of The Leatherback Trust, said, “the challenge is to collect good data on the fishery, establish protected areas of refuge for the animals and to encourage or force INCOPESCA to enforce the laws that have been already passed by the national legislature. What is being done up until now obviously is not working.” |
| Election campaign season kicked off with
formal ceremony |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The nation's Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones formally opened the political season Wednesday with a ceremony. The electoral process is controlled closely in Costa Rica. For example, firms that do voter preference surveys must register with the tribunal. Wednesday the banner of the Fuerza Pública came into the hands of Luis Antonio Sobrado González, the president of the election tribunal. That symbolic act meant that the 14,000 members of the police force will be under the control of the tribunal with regard to election activities and are committed to defend the purity of the vote. Sobrado urged citizens to vote, although the campaign is generating little enthusiasm now. He warned against casting a blank vote or not showing up at the poll at all. The election tribunal wants citizens to vote with their heads, so they have expressed unhappiness in the past with the hard-hitting television commercials that win elections. Sobrado said he thought that the electorate had matured. He urged citizens to ask questions about policies and proposals of the various candidates. Part of the reason that the public has not become excited by the Feb. 2 elections is because Johnny Araya Monge, the former San José mayor, has a commanding lead. |
 Partido Liberación Nacional photo
Luis Antonio Sobrado
González, president of the election tribunal, accepts the banner
of the Fuerza Pública as a symbol of the transfer of power from
Mario Zamora Cordero, the security minister. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 196 | |||||
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| Surveillance and new laws reduce world freedom on the
Internet, study says |
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Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
Broad surveillance, new laws controlling Web content, and growing arrests of social-media users drove a worldwide decline in Internet freedom in the past year, according to a new study released Wednesday by Freedom House. Nonetheless, "Freedom on the Net 2013" also found that activists are becoming more effective at raising awareness of emerging threats and, in several cases, have helped forestall new repressive measures. “While blocking and filtering remain the preferred methods of censorship in many countries, governments are increasingly looking at who is saying what online, and finding ways to punish them,” said Sanja Kelly, project director for "Freedom on the Net" at Freedom House. “In some countries, a user can get arrested for simply posting on Facebook or for liking a friend’s comment that is critical of the authorities,” she added. "Freedom on the Net 2013," which identifies key trends in Internet freedom in 60 countries, evaluates each country based on obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights. An uptick in surveillance was the year’s most significant trend. Even as revelations by former contractor Edward Snowden prompted an important global debate about the U.S. government’s secret surveillance activities, "Freedom on the Net 2013" found that 35 of the 60 countries assessed had broadened their technical or legal surveillance powers over the past year. |
Such monitoring is
especially problematic in countries where it is likely to be used for
the suppression of political dissent and civic activism. In several
authoritarian states, activists reported that their e-mail and other
communications were presented to them during interrogations or used as
evidence in politicized trials, with repercussions that included
imprisonment, torture, and even death. Many governments, fearing the power of social media to propel nationwide protests, also scrambled to pass laws restricting online expression. Since May 2012, 24 of the 60 countries assessed adopted legislation or directives that threatened Internet freedom, with some imposing prison sentences of up to 14 years for certain types of online speech. Overall, 34 out of 60 countries assessed in the report experienced a decline in internet freedom. Notably, Vietnam and Ethiopia continued on a worsening cycle of repression. Venezuela stepped up censorship during presidential elections, and three democracies, India, the United States, and Brazil, saw troubling declines. Iceland and Estonia topped the list of countries with the greatest degree of internet freedom. While the overall score for the United States declined by 5 points on a 100-point scale, in large part due to the recently revealed surveillance activities, it still earned a spot among the top five countries examined. China, Cuba, and Iran were found to be the most repressive countries in terms of internet freedom for the second consecutive year. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 196 | |||||
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| Obama meets with lawmakers but there is no agreement By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In a meeting at the White House late Wednesday, President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders failed to resolve differences and stop the federal government shutdown. House and Senate leaders emerged from the White House after meeting with the president for about an hour, and based on their statements, the news was not good. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, was the first to the microphones: "In times like this, the American people expect their leaders to come together to try to find ways to resolve their differences. The president reiterated one more time tonight that he will not negotiate," said Boehner. Boehner repeated the offer by House Republicans to go to conference negotiations to try to resolve differences. But he gave no indication of any progress during what he called a nice and polite conversation with Obama and Democratic leaders, who he said should listen to the American people and have a serious discussion. A clearly disappointed and angry Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Boehner spoke in the meeting only about negotiations for a short-term funding measure to get government operations going. Reid said President Obama strongly rejected anything that would damage Obamacare, the health care reform law Congress passed three years ago. "This has never happened before. They can make all the historical analysis that they want, it just has never happened before where a political party would be willing to take the country to the brink of financial disaster and say we're not going to allow us to pay our bills. The president said he would not stand for that," said Reid. Reid blamed what he called Tea Party-driven members of the House for pushing the country to a government shutdown and in the direction of a potential default. Congress must raise the government's debt ceiling by Oct. 17. House Democratic Minority leader Nancy Pelosi said Republicans keep moving the goal posts on the budget issue, as they try to overturn Obamacare, but she suggested a way forward. "I am just saying for the good of the order and the confidence of the American people, we should take the debt ceiling debate off the table. The United States of America will always honor the full faith and credit of our country," said Ms. Pelosi. In an interview with CNBC, President Obama acknowledged being exasperated by the government shutdown, which he called entirely unnecessary. "When you have a situation in which a faction is willing potentially to default on U.S. government obligations, then we are in trouble, and if they are willing to do it now they will be willing to do it later," said President Obama. Obama said he would be open later to having a reasonable, civil, negotiation on broader budget issues. A White House statement said Obama made clear to congressional leaders that he will not negotiate over the need for Congress to act to reopen the government or to raise the debt limit. It said Obama was glad the leaders were able to engage in a useful discussion and he remains hopeful that common sense will prevail. Obama administration pressure on Republicans included a meeting Wednesday in which the president and key business leaders discussed the dangers of default and the ongoing shutdown. Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, say Republicans should not use the threat of default as a cudgel. "There is a consensus that we shouldn't do anything that hurts this recovery that is a little bit shallow, not very well established and is quite vulnerable, and this shutdown of the government but particularly a failure to raise the debt ceiling would accomplish that," said Blankfein. The Republican-controlled House has passed spending measures to fund specific parts of the government or programs. The White House and Democrats reject this, saying House Speaker Boehner should allow a clean Senate-passed bill to come to a vote that would fund the entire government. Visiting veterans admitted to barricaded memorial By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The National Park Service gave elderly veterans access on Wednesday to the barricaded National World War II Memorial, the site of a skirmish in the partisan war over the U.S. government shutdown. Veterans will be allowed into the memorial under the Constitution's First Amendment, which includes the right to free speech and assembly, said National Park Service spokeswoman Karen Cucurullo. “It's allowed by law,” she said, adding that a handful of other sites also were open as a “First Amendment demonstration.” World War II veterans, many in wheelchairs, and up to a dozen Republican lawmakers pushed open barricades on Tuesday to get into the 7.4-acre memorial on the National Mall. The Mall had been shuttered under the federal government shutdown that started on Tuesday after Democrats refused to go along with Republican restrictions on President Barack Obama's healthcare program as a condition of funding the government. The veterans had long been scheduled to visit, and Republican lawmakers denounced the Obama administration's closure of the site, saying it was an insult to veterans. The National Park Service opened the site Wednesday to a total of about 500 veterans from Chicago and Missouri. They were visiting under the non-profit Honor Flight program that helps veterans visit Washington memorials. Tourists also were let in, but once the veterans left the barricades went back up. A handful of lawmakers, mostly Republicans, were there to greet veterans. “We were about to think we weren't going to get in,” said Frank Hanter, an 89-year-old veteran from Missouri, who was stationed in the Philippines during World War II. When asked how he felt about being greeted by lawmakers, he said it was “nice, but they probably ought to be working.” Adding to the partisan wrangling, the Republican National Committee offered to pay to keep the monument open. The Democratic National Committee shot back, calling the offer a silly stunt. U.S. partisan divide traced back at least two decades By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The ongoing partial shutdown of the U.S. government is the culmination of years of political polarization in the United States with roots that go back at least two decades. At the heart of the dispute in Washington is a clash between the two major political parties over the role of the central government in American life. Political polarization began to ramp up significantly in the early to mid-1990s following the election of Democrat Bill Clinton as president. Republicans won control of both houses of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. Differences over spending and the role of government sparked two government shutdowns. The bitterly contested presidential election of 2000 in which George W. Bush was elected president also exacerbated the partisan political climate. University of Virginia expert Larry Sabato traces the deepening of the partisan political battles to President Bush’s second term. “There is no question that the polarization increased first with the Bush presidency, because of the Iraq war and his handling of Hurricane Katrina," he said. "Then it accelerated once President Obama was elected.” The partisan divide grew wider when Obama pushed his signature health care reform law through Congress in 2010 without a single Republican vote. That in turn helped to fuel the rise of conservative Tea Party groups around the country, an important conservative voting bloc within the Republican Party. The health care law, also known as Obamacare, is at the heart of the current shutdown dispute between the White House and Congress. Republicans have made several attempts to either defund the law or delay its implementation. Obama believes the law is the signature achievement of his presidency and with the support of congressional Democrats is resisting any attempt to block or delay it. Behind the fight over Obamacare is a sharply divergent view over the role of government, says Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown. “Republicans like smaller government and lower government spending and therefore are more opposed to Obamacare," Brown said. "Democrats tend to be more supportive in general of government solutions to problems and they see Obamacare as the right thing to do to help on the health care issue.” Opposition to the health care law is led by a core group of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, many of whom now count on strong support from Tea Party activists to get elected. Sabato says many of them are willing, at least for now, to accept the political blame for forcing the government to shut down. “They will pay a bigger price but they seem willing to pay it in part because most of their members are in completely safe districts," he said. "The only thing they have to worry about is a challenge from the right in the Republican primary. So they do not want to let anybody get to their right.” Some of the Republican opposition is also driven by a deep-seeded animosity toward Obama, says analyst Charlie Cook. “There are a lot of Republicans where if President Obama said ‘up’, they would say ‘down.’ I mean, they will do the opposite just sort of no matter what," Cook said. For the moment, Sabato sees no quick resolution of the shutdown, which only adds to the political uncertainty given that Congress will soon have to raise the borrowing limit or risk the U.S. defaulting on its loan payments. “They are so deeply polarized by party and by institution that it is difficult to see, if people stick to the principles they have articulated, how this is going to be resolved," he said, adding that "...it could go on and on. And of course it will do tremendous damage, not just to our economy but to our image around the world.” The last government shutdown began in December of 1995 and lasted three weeks. Analysts say Republicans paid a political price for the shutdown and that the fallout probably helped President Bill Clinton win a second term in 1996. NSA director denies claim that cell users can be spotted By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. National Security Agency has tested its ability to collect Americans' cellular telephone location data but does not have a program to collect that information, the NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander, said Wednesday. Alexander told a Senate Judiciary committee hearing on the government's electronic eavesdropping that the NSA received data samples in 2010 and 2011 to test its ability to handle such information, but the data were never used for any other purposes. “This may be something that is a future requirement for the country, but it is not right now,” he told the committee. U.S. intelligence agencies' extensive collection of telephone and Internet data has been subject to scrutiny since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began leaking information in June showing that surveillance was far more extensive than most Americans had realized. Facing a public outcry, Republican and Democratic members of Congress are writing legislation to clamp down on the data collection and increase public access to information about it. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat and the Judiciary panel's chairman, said at the hearing that he is working on a bill that would tighten oversight of the government surveillance programs. Among other things, Leahy's program would end bulk data collection under Section 215 of the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which requires companies to turn over business records if a government request for them is approved by a secret intelligence court. “I find the legal justification for this bulk collection to be strained at best, and the classified list of cases involving Section 215 to be unconvincing,” Leahy said. Intelligence agencies, and many members of Congress who strongly support their efforts, staunchly defend the data collection plans as essential for national security. The Senate Intelligence Committee is working on its own legislation addressing the eavesdropping issue, which would not go as far as Leahy's proposal. The intelligence panel is not seeking to stop the bulk data collection. Leahy's legislation would also strengthen judicial review by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and require more oversight of the programs. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Republican and a leading advocate for privacy rights, asked Alexander about the cellular location data during a Senate Intelligence Committee last month. Wyden has blasted the intelligence chiefs in the past for what he sees as dishonest answers during committee hearings. He said after Wednesday's testimony that he did not think Alexander had answered the question as completely as he could. “After years of stonewalling on whether the government has ever tracked or planned to track the location of law-abiding Americans through their cell phones, once again, the intelligence leadership has decided to leave most of the real story secret even when the truth would not compromise national security,” he said in a statement. At the hearing, Alexander also denied a New York Times report on Saturday that intelligence agencies tracked Americans' social media data to see whether they had terrorist connections. The Senate Intelligence Committee had been scheduled to begin debating amendments to its legislation on Thursday, but that was delayed amid the government shutdown caused by Congress' budget impasse. Brazil's plan to force firms to store data may be mistake By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
For tech companies in Brazil, the government's decision to target their operations in response to U.S. spying is about as smart as sending an angry email in the heat of an argument. President Dilma Rousseff's plan to force Internet companies to store user data inside the country will not fix Brazil's security concerns and could instead send costs soaring and hurt future investments in a key emerging market for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, industry executives and analysts say. “It could end up having the opposite effect to what is intended, and scare away companies that want to do business in Brazil,” said Ronaldo Lemos, a professor at Rio de Janeiro State University who has helped draft Internet legislation in Brazil. Ms. Rousseff was outraged after documents leaked by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden showed the National Security Agency spied on ordinary Brazilians, the country's biggest company Petrobras and even her own communications. In response, the left-leaning president helped put together legislation that would require big Internet companies to house locally gathered data on servers inside Brazil. Otherwise, they will be barred from doing business in one of the world's fastest growing markets for technology and social media. The bill has not yet been made public, and the number of companies in the government's sight is unclear. However, Alessandro Molon, a congressman with Ms. Rousseff's Workers Party who is leading efforts to get the legislation approved in the lower house, recently said the number of companies affected could be counted “with two hands.” In what was interpreted by the industry as another sign of hostility, communications minister Paulo Bernando recently suggested tech companies were not paying enough taxes. An industry source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said many companies are still waiting to see the fine print of the legislation, and how it is implemented, before deciding whether to go ahead with investment plans, and some might even consider pulling the plug on Brazil. “It's a terrible idea,” said the source. “And even if the government knows it, they feel they need to press ahead and send a strong political signal.” Even if data were to be kept in Brazilian data centers, it would still be replicated in servers abroad, experts say. Having entire databases in one single country would make the information more vulnerable to cyber attacks. But the government has so far refused to back off its plans, essentially betting that Brazil is too big a market for companies to ignore. “I don't believe these companies will stop their profitable activities in Brazil,” said congressman Molon. He said building local centers would be a small cost for such large companies. Virgilio Almeida, a senior official at the ministry of science and technology, which is also involved in the issue, cited Facebook as a company that should be required to have a greater physical presence in Brazil. “Brazil is the second biggest market in terms of users and yet the company has zero infrastructure in the country. It would be natural, even from the business point of view, to have part of it here,” Almeida said. A study commissioned by the telecommunications industry group Brasscom recently found that the operating costs of a data center in Brazil can be up to 100 percent higher than in the United States. That is mostly due to the high cost of electricity and heavy taxes on imported technology. Installing a data center in Brazil would typically cost $61 million compared to $51 million in Chile and $43 million in the United States, the study showed. Brasscom estimates if Brazil were more competitive it could attract up to $22 billion in investments in data centers in the next five years. “You first have to create the right market conditions for data hosting to be profitable,” says Marilia Maciel, a digital policy expert with the think tank Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. “Even Brazilian companies prefer to host their data outside of Brazil.” And that's why Almeida says the technology ministry is considering tax incentives for companies willing to manufacture servers in Brazil. Electricity subsidies, he said, could eventually be discussed with the finance ministry. The idea of requiring local data hosting gained traction after Justice Minister Eduardo Cardozo tried to persuade U.S. authorities to run all further surveillance requests through Brazilian courts. He said his request was rejected during a recent trip to Washington. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 196 | |||||||||
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Scientists find bug repellents that may replace DEET By
the University of California at Riverside news staff
Insects are repelled by N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide, also known as DEET. But exactly which olfactory receptors insects use to sense DEET has eluded scientists. Now researchers at the University of California at Riverside have identified these DEET-detecting olfactory receptors that cause the repellency. This is a major breakthrough. Further, the team of researchers has identified three safe compounds that mimic DEET and could one day be used to prevent the transmission of deadly vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, and yellow fever. Study results appear online this week in Nature. “Until now, no one had a clue about which olfactory receptor insects used to avoid DEET,” said Anandasankar Ray, an associate professor of entomology, who led the research team. “Without the receptors, it is impossible to apply modern technology to design new repellents to improve upon DEET.” The method Ray’s team used to identify the receptors examined in an unbiased fashion all the sensory neurons in the insect, which was the key to successfully finding them. In their experiments, the researchers used the genetic model system Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, that was genetically engineered in such a way that neurons activated by DEET glowed fluorescent green. The researchers thus found the receptors, called Ir40a receptors, lining the inside of a poorly studied region of the antenna called the sacculus. Introduced in the 1940s, DEET has remained unchanged for the past 65 years largely because the receptor in insects for DEET was unknown. Capable of dissolving plastics and nylon, DEET has been reported to inhibit an enzyme, acetylcholinesterase, in mammals that is important in the nervous system. DEET is also unaffordable and inconvenient for use in Africa and other parts of the world where hundreds of millions of people suffer from insect-transmitted diseases. “Our three compounds, which we tested rigorously in the lab, do not dissolve plastics,” Ray said. “They are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for consumption as flavors or fragrances, and are already being used as flavoring agents in some foods. But now they can be applied to bed-nets, clothes, curtains — making them ward off insects.” Using novel chemical informatics strategies, Ray’s lab screened half a million compounds against the DEET receptor to identify substitutes. A computer algorithm the team developed identified which compounds are not only predicted to be strong repellents but also found naturally in fruits, plants or animals. The algorithm predicted nearly 200 natural DEET substitutes; of which the researchers tested 10 compounds. Of these, eight were strong repellents on flies, of which four were tested in Aedes mosquitoes and found to be strong repellents. Of the four compounds, three are already approved by the Food and Drug Administration as food additives. “All three compounds activated the same antennal cells in flies as DEET,” Ray said. “What’s really encouraging is that some of these compounds may be affordable to produce in large quantities. In the future, using this algorithm, we could find chemicals that activate DEET receptors but are substantially different, with far better properties than DEET. We could find truly novel repellants that have remarkable properties such as large spatial protection and long-term protection.” With the help of UC Riverside’s Office of Technology Commercialization, Ray is exploring options for commercializing the technology. The university has already filed two patents on the research. The three natural compounds, identified by Ray’s group, that mimic DEET are methyl N,N-dimethyl anthranilate, ethyl anthranilate and butyl anthranilate. |
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| From Page 7: Country's exports reported to be up By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The country's exports increased 7.7 percent in the first half of the year in comparison with the same period in 2012, the Ministerio de Comercio Exterior said Wednesday. Exports were $2.9 billion, the ministry said. Foreign direct investment was up, too. The Banco Central reports that in the first half of the year, the country saw $1.3 billion in this type of investment. The amount was 15.4 percent greater than the same period in 2012, said the ministry. There was a 97 percent increase in investments in real estate, according to the ministry data. |
