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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 214
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Rice growers
have to live with imports
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Rice growers will get no special protection from the government this month. The Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio said Tuesday that it would not impose restrictions on imports. Rice growers have complained that imports threaten to damage the national industry. The ministry said that it is doing a study to see what the impact on rice has been. That study is expected to be done in a month, so the ministry said that this is a short period to impose restrictions. Rice is a protected commodity in Costa Rica, and rice growers have used their political weight to get subsidies from the government. Of course this has an impact on the price of rice that shoppers have to pay. The ministry plans a public hearing next week. Obama is key figure in Tuesday vote By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
President Barack Obama’s name will not appear on ballots across the country next Tuesday but Republicans have done a pretty good job of convincing voters otherwise. Americans head to the polls Tuesday to elect a new Congress, and how the elections turn out will have a major impact on President Obama’s final two years in office. And the way the polls look right now, the president should prepare for an even more difficult last two years in office if Republicans are able to capitalize on the sour public mood and retake a majority in the Senate as well as bolster their majority in the House of Representatives. In one sense, the 2014 midterm election is Barack Obama’s final campaign, one last chance to win over voters and help Democrats hold their majority in the Senate. And surprisingly the president has not been shy about acknowledging that his policies are subject to public scrutiny. “Now, I am not on the ballot this fall,” he said in a recent speech in Illinois. “Michelle is pretty happy about that. But make no mistake. These policies are on the ballot, every single one of them.” That was music to the ears of many Republicans across the country including North Carolina Senate candidate Thom Tillis, who is in a tight race with incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. “If you want the same failed policies of President Obama, you’d vote for Kay Hagan,” Tillis said. Sen. Hagan, like so many Democrats in swing states and states that lean Republican, has been forced to run away from the president and his policies. “Speaker Tillis wants to make this race about the president,” Sen. Hagan said. “This race is about who is going to represent North Carolina.” The Republican effort to put President Obama front and center in this year’s election has already paid dividends, said American Enterprise Institute political scholar Norm Ornstein. “You have individual candidates who have some serious weaknesses and the best way to go around that is to nationalize an election at a time when people are unhappy and believing that things are out of control and the government’s not working and the president is not competent,” he said. President Obama’s dismal public approval ratings, some of the lowest of his presidency, have caused many Democrats to keep a distance. Frank Newport of the Gallup Polling organization said the public is down about the president’s handling of the economy and foreign policy, especially with the rise of the Islamic State group in the Middle East. “Just about a quarter of Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States and that is low,” Newport said. “You can do the math and that means about three-quarters of Americans are not satisfied, so I would say the mood in general is not great.” Karlyn Bowman, who monitors public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute, said the voter mood this year reflects long term pessimism about the economy and the future of the country. “You’ve got a kind of passive dissatisfaction and I think that is related to aftershocks from the Great Recession and the financial crash in 2008,” she said. “We just haven’t seen a public opinion recovery of the kinds that we have seen in the past, and the public is disengaged overall.”
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 214 | |
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| Salary increase for private employees for first half of 2015
is 2.01% |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Private employees who receive the legal minimum wage will get a 2.01 percent increase Jan. 1 That was the decision of the Consejo Nacional de Salarios, which adjusts the minimum salaries, the salarios minimos, every six months. Domestic employees, however, will get a raise of 2.5 percent, the Consejo decided. In Costa Rica there is no single minimum wage. |
There are minimum
wages based on job categories. The salary increase came after input by labor and management. Employee advocates sought increases of from 2.91 to 4.68 percent. The Unión Costarricense de Cámaras y Asociaciones de la Empresa Privada suggested an increase of 1.62 percent. The Ministerioo de Trabajo usually posts the new salaries on its Web site before the first payment is due. The salaries are daily for some job classifications, mostly blue collar, and monthly for most skilled positions. |
| Thanks, drug lord The security ministry's air service confiscated this Beechcraft King Air F90 along with a ton of cocaine. Now it is in service with crime fighters and for hunanitarian missions. The craft has a ceiling of about 25,000 feet and can reach the Isla del Coco in 90 minutes, said officials. If purchased new, this craft would have a $3.4 million price tag. |
 Dirección del Servicio de Vigilancia
Aérea photo
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| Government official accepts apology and resumes negotiations |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Government officials were miffed when they hear that striking Limón dockworkers burned photos of Luis Guillermo Solís and some of his ministers in a protest Monday. So Casa Presidencial broke off negotiations with the striking union, the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Japdeva. Víctor Morales Mora, the minister of Trabajo, said later Tuesday that negotiations were back on after the union leaders issued an apology. However, there is no sign of an agreement even after government officials offered a fat package of development money for the docks |
and the central
canton of Limón. Negotiations might pick up today after the president returns from a trip seeking investments from Canada. He has not been present physically for many of the meetings with dock workers, and Morales and other ministers have been handing the discussions. Strikers went out Wednesday, and the Fuerza Pública took control of the docks that evening. Although the government says the docks at Moín and Limón are functioning normally, those who depend on the docks have told reporters that shipments are tied up. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 214 | |||||
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| Galapagos giant tortoises are making an astounding comeback |
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By
the State University of New York news service
A population of endangered giant tortoises, which once dwindled to just over a dozen, has recovered on the Galapagos island of Española, a finding described as a true story of success and hope in conservation by a university professor who is the lead author of a study published Tuesday. Some 40 years after the first captive-bred tortoises were reintroduced to the island by the Galapagos national park service, the endemic Española giant tortoises are reproducing and restoring some of the ecological damage caused by feral goats that were brought to the island in the late 19th century. "The global population was down to just 15 tortoises by the 1960s. Now there are some 1,000 tortoises breeding on their own. The population is secure. It's a rare example of how biologists and managers can collaborate to recover a species from the brink of extinction, " said the professor, James P. Gibbs, a professor of vertebrate conservation biology at the State University of New York at Sracuse and lead author of the paper published in the journal PLOS ONE. Gibbs and his collaborators assessed the tortoise population using 40 years of data from tortoises marked and recaptured repeatedly for measurement and monitoring by members of the Galapagos national park service, the Charles Darwin Foundation and visiting scientists. But there is another side to the success story: while the tortoise population is stable, it is not likely to increase until more of the landscape recovers from the damage inflicted by the now-eradicated goats. "Population restoration is one thing, but ecological restoration is going to take a lot longer," Gibbs said. After the goats devoured all the grassy vegetation and were |
 State University of New York/James P. Gibbs
One of the reintroduced
tortoises. subsequently removed from
the island, more shrubs and small trees have
grown on Española. This hinders both the growth of cactus, which
is a
vital piece of a tortoise's diet, and the tortoises' movement. Chemical
analysis of the soil, done by Mark Teece, a university chemistry
professor, shows there has been a pronounced shift from grasses to
woody plants on the island in the last 100 years.
The shrubs and trees also inhibit the movements of the endangered waved albatross that breeds on the island. Gibbs said the plants make it difficult for the ungainly sea birds to take flight. "This is a miraculous conservation success accomplished by the Galapagos national park service," said Gibbs, " but there is yet more work to fully recover the ecosystem upon which the tortoises and other rare species depend." |
Here's reasonable medical care
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 214 | |||||||
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 Napoleon Chagnon photo
In this mid-1960s photo, men
from two Yanomamö villages in the Amazon engage in non-hostile
combat to determine the strength and fighting prowess of potential
alliance partners. Culture of war
in Amazon
has some unusual twists By
the the University of Utah news service
When Yanomamö men in the Amazon raided villages and killed decades ago, they formed alliances with men in other villages rather than just with close kin like chimpanzees do. And the spoils of war came from marrying their allies’ sisters and daughters, rather than taking their victims’ land and women. Those findings, which suggest how violence and cooperation can go hand-in-hand and how culture may modify any innate tendencies toward violence, come from a new study of the so-called “fierce people” led by provocative anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and written by his protégé, University of Utah anthropologist Shane Macfarlan. Macfarlan says the researchers had expected to find the Yanomamö fought like bands of brothers and other close male kin like fathers, sons and cousins who live in the same community and fight nearby communities. That is how fights are conducted by chimpanzees. the only other apes besides humans that form coalitions to fight and kill. Instead, a more apt description might be a band of brothers-in-law, in which Yanomamö men ally with similar-age men from nearby villages to attack another village, then marry their allies’ female kin, Macfarlan, Chagnon and colleagues write in the study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study provides a mechanism to explain why Yanomamö warriors in a 1988 Chagnon study had more wives and children than those who did not kill. “We are showing these guys individually get benefits from engaging in killing,” Macfarlan says. “They’re getting long-term alliance partners – other guys they can trust to get things done. And they are getting marriage opportunities.” Since his 1968 book “Yanomamö: The Fierce People,” Chagnon has been harshly criticized by some cultural anthropologists who claim he places undue emphasis on genes and biology as underpinnings of human violence, based on his 1964-1993 visits to the Yanomamö. Defenders such as Macfarlan say Chagnon takes a much more balanced view, and that “it’s never a genes-versus-culture argument. They operate in tandem.” Chagnon got what was seen as vindication in 2012 when he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. The new study, with Macfarlan as first author and Chagnon as senior author is Chagnon’s inaugural PNAS article as a member. Macfarlan joined the University of Utah faculty this year an assistant professor of anthropology. He worked as Chagnon’s postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri from January 2013 to June 2014. Chagnon and Macfarlan conducted the study with two Missouri colleagues: anthropologists Robert S. Walker and Mark V. Flinn. The Yanomamö, hunters and farmers who live in southern Venezuela and northern Brazil, once gained social status as unokai for killing. Up to 20 Yanomamö (pronounced yah-NO-mama, but also spelled Yanomami or Yanomama) would sneak up on another village at dawn, “shoot the first person they saw and then hightail back home,” Macfarlan says. Some Yanomamö men did this once, some up to 11 times and some never killed. Data for the study, collected in the 1980s, covered somewhat earlier times when spears, bows and arrows were the primary weapons. Macfarlan says the classic debate has been, “does warfare in small-scale societies like the Yanomamö resemble chimpanzee warfare?” – a theory known as the fraternal interest group model, in which bands of brothers, fathers, sons and paternal uncles all living in the same community fight other similar communities. The new study asked whether Yanomamö killing follows that model or the strategic alliance model, which the researchers dub the band of brothers-in-law model. This model, supported by the study’s findings, indicates that Yanomamö men form alliances not with close kin from the same community, but with men from other communities. After killing together, a bond is formed and they often marry each other’s daughters or sisters and move into one or the other’s village or form a new village. “When we started off this project, we all assumed it would be the chimpanzee-like model. But in human groups we have cultural rules that allow us to communicate with other communities. You certainly don’t see chimpanzees doing this.” Is the study a retreat from what Chagnon’s critics see as too much focus on genetic and biological underpinnings of violence? Macfarlan says no, that Chagnon “has never been as all-biology as people have painted him. Most of his published research shows how unique cultural rules make the Yanomamö an interesting group of people.” Earlier research suggested that for chimps, warfare is adaptive in an evolutionary sense, and that it also benefits small-scale human societies. The new study asked, “If warfare is adaptive, in what way do the adaptive benefits flow?” Macfarlan says. “Some people, myself included, said, to the victor goes the spoils, because if you conquer another territory, you might take their land, food or potentially their females.” But the new study indicates “the adaptive benefits are the alliances you build by perpetrating acts of warfare,” he adds. “It’s not that you are taking land or females from the vanquished group, but for the Yanomamö, what you acquire is that you can exchange resources with allies, such as labor and, most importantly, female marriage partners.” The study’s findings that the Yanomamö form strategic alliances to kill suggest that “our ultracoooperative tendencies tend to go hand-in-hand with our ultralethal tendencies,” Macfarlan says. “We show a relationship between cooperation and violence at a level unseen in other organisms.” That may seem obvious for allied nations in modern wars, but “we’re saying that even in small-scale societies this is the case.” The new study analyzed data collected by Chagnon in the 1980s, when about 25,000 Yanomamö lived in about 250 villages ranging from 25 to 400 people. The study examined 118 Yanomamö warriors or unokai who had killed a total of 47 people by forming raiding parties of two to 15 men. The researchers analyzed the relationships between every possible pair of men in those raiding parties. Among the 118 unokai men, there were 509 possible pairs. Macfarlan says the findings revealed surprises about the relationship between co-unokai, pairs of men who kill together: - Only 22 percent of men who kill together were from the same lineage. - Only 34 percent of co-unokai pairs were from the same place of birth. “Guys who come from different places of birth are more likely to kill together.” - Among co-killers known to be related, a majority were related on their mother’s side rather than their father’s side – more evidence of forming alliances beyond the immediate paternal kinship group. In Yanomamö culture, true kin are viewed as being on the paternal side, while maternal relatives are seen as belonging to another social group. - The Yanomamö preferred forming coalitions with men within a median of age difference of 8 years. “The more similar in age, the more likely they will kill multiple times,” Macfarlan says. - Of the 118 unokai, 102 got married in a total of 223 marriages to 206 women. Of married killers, 70 percent married at least one woman from the same paternal line as an ally in killing. And “the more times they kill together, the more likely they are going to get marriage partners from each other’s family line,” Macfarlan says. - As a result, “The more times the guys kill together, the more likely they are to move into the same village later in life, despite having come from different village.” Texas ID law seen cutting numbers of voters at polls By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the Texas voter identification law, which requires voters to show an approved form of picture ID in order to vote at a poll. Those who are already registered and who are qualified to vote by mail can still cast a ballot, and the state provides free election certificates to those who can prove their U.S. citizenship and residence in Texas. Critics of the law say it puts an undue burden on poor people, minorities, the elderly and the disabled. Early voting began in Texas just a couple of days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state can require voters to show a photo ID to cast a ballot. Texas Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott said the law will prevent voter fraud. “Voter fraud is real and it must be stopped. How can you prove voter impersonation without an ID? You can’t. Which is exactly why it is needed,” said Abbott. The law's supporters say most democratic countries around the world require voters to show ID. But critics point out there have been few instances of voter fraud in the U.S. -- and that in Texas, where the state once blocked African-Americans and Hispanics from voting, it is more important to encourage voter participation. Marianela Acuna of VoteRiders, a non-profit voter advocacy group, said there are many reasons why someone may not have an approved form of identification. “There are people who need to renew their ID, there are also people who need to get their ID for the first time and do not have documents to prove their name change or their birth,” said Ms. Acuna. Political Science Professor Mark Jones at Rice University said around half a million Texans may not have a proper ID to vote. “Their only option is to get the free election identification certificate the state supplies, but that is not really free because you need a birth certificate to get it, which costs around $25, and you also have to go to a Department of Public Safety office to obtain it, and for someone without a car it is pretty difficult,” said Jones. Jones said the voter ID law is unlikely to have any impact on major state races, but it could have an impact on some very close local races, including a few in Houston. For example, Republican Devon Anderson and Democrat Kim Ogg are in a very tight race for Harris County district attorney. “We could have… perhaps a half dozen races that are decided because of the voter ID legislation,” said Jones. Activist groups like the Texas Organizing Project are fielding volunteers to help people with ID problems and provide transportation to the polls, but they are also encountering voter apathy. In Texas, it is expected that close to two-thirds of eligible voters will not exercise their right to vote this year even though most of them have an acceptable ID. While House computers generate suspicious activity By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
White House officials say technicians recently noticed suspicious activity on the computer systems at the U.S. presidential mansion. They say the situation was dealt with immediately and work continues, although the response has led to temporary outages and loss of Internet connectivity for some White House employees. Officials gave no details about who might who have been responsible or when the activity occurred. White House computer systems are a prime target of hackers, and the president's office receives daily alerts concerning numerous possible cyberthreats. U.S. is tightening security at some federal buildings By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson has ordered tighter security at federal government buildings in Washington and other major cities. Johnson said Tuesday that the reason for the enhanced presence of federal protective officers was self-evident. Terrorist groups have called for attacks inside the United States and elsewhere, including strikes on law enforcement and other government officials. Johnson said world events, including two attacks in Canada last week, dictated heightened vigilance in protecting U.S. government installations. Johnson did not mention specific threats and said the increased security would shift from location to location. U.S. officials have said they are concerned about possible attacks from so-called "lone wolf" terrorists — individuals inspired by extremist ideology but without direct links to well-known terrorist groups. Chinese tourism targeted by splashy U.S. efforts By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In one splashy television commercial segment, country music star Rosanne Cash croons about parts of the United States that potential visitors haven't seen in films and probably wouldn't know from popular music. Part of a public-private sector tourism campaign to lure more travelers, the ad was produced by Brand USA, whose CEO, Chris Thompson, calls the effort crucial to supporting a vital sector of the U.S. economy. Worldwide, tourists make more than one billion international trips annually, and the United Nations says their spending gives a boost to the global economy. Domestically, the tourism industry directly supports nearly eight million U.S. jobs and impacts millions more. While many of these tourists come from the expanding middle classes in Brazil, India, and China efforts are being stepped up to attract even more. Last year, the U.S. hosted 1.8 million visitors from China alone. "There is so much more to the United States then they even have any inkling of right now," says Thompson. "And it is pretty much any interest they have, we can deliver it in a way that only the United States can deliver." According to Daniel Chen, president of Lion Tours, Chinese tourists spend nearly $6,000 to make a U.S. visit, more than guests from other nations, thanks to the country's sustained economic growth, strengthening currency, and rapidly expanding wealth. While the campaign promotes a range of U.S. cities across the continent, specific criteria informs the decision to promote certain destinations. "Shopping is kind of a must thing for Chinese people," says Chen. "For Chinese, when a family member travels overseas, they always bring something back. When they return, give to their family, friends... colleagues, even." Ever since an agreement between the U.S. and Chinese officials made it easier for Chinese tourists to visit, Chen says he is hearing fewer complaints about visas or the long airport lines that once annoyed international travelers. And visitors, says Chen, are also get a more accurate picture of what the United States has to offer. Tourism officials are working on an IMAX film to showcase America's national parks. They hope to finish it in plenty of time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of these protected places in August 2016. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 214 | |||||||||
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 Policía de Control Fiscal photo
These are some of the
three million India-manufactured cigarettes that thePolicía de Control Fiscal confiscated at a warehouse in Guachipelín de Escazú Tuesday. They also found 2,000 bottles of alcohol. The tax police attributed the discover to calls from citizens. Searchers seek eight in Braulio Carrillo By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Cruz Roja said Tuesday that it was seeking eight employees of the Poder Judicial who have become lost in the mountains of the Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo north of San José. The seven men and a woman entered the park Monday, but did not appear when they were supposed to do so near the Río Sucio.. The Cruz Roja said that one member of the missing party managed to contact a family member to say that all were in good health but that they could not find their way out of the park. A search team was working since Tuesday morning and more searchers have been called to the park to help Adoption fair for pets planned By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Animales de Asís will hold a dog and cat adoption fair Saturday at the Walmart in Escazú. The animals are castrated and vaccinated, the organization said. A donation is requested. |
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| From Page 7: Doing Business ranking drops slightly By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica dropped five places in the World Bank Doing Business annual survey. But officials are suggesting that the dip to 83rd place was because the bank has changed the methodology. There is some sense to that argument. In a point total based on 10 categories, Costa Rica earned about the same score as it did last year. Last year's total was 63.08 for 78th position. This year the score is slightly higher at 63.67. The World Bank measures the 10 indicators with an eye to efficiency, such as the easy of getting a building permit and how insolvencies are handled and for how long. |
