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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 217
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Casa
Presidencial will push animal bill
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Every dog has his day. And cats, too. And the day will be in December when Casa Presidencial has agreed to back a bill that penalized mistreatment of animals. December is a time when the executive branch controls the legislative agenda. Animal lovers were at Casa Presidencial Sunday morning to promote the idea to Luis Guillermo Solís. With them were some animals that have experienced ill treatment from humans The bill has been in the legislative hopper since the last session. Flurry of quakes reported in metro area By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Earthquake detection equipment counted 25 events Saturday, but most were so small that they could not be detected by humans. The 1:23 a.m. quake was the largest, and the remainder are considered aftershocks. The early morning quake was estimated between 4.3 and 4.2 magnitude. The Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico said the smallest quake its equipment noted was 0.6 magnitude. All were in the vicinity of Hatillo, northern Desamparados and Guácima. No damage was reported. Contact finally made with missing hikers By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Those eight lost hikers made contact with search crews Thursday evening and were extracted from the Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo Friday. The Cruz Roja said that a search team spent three hours working its way through the jungle before reaching the lost group, mostly of judicial workers. The Cruz Roja said that detonations helped the searchers find the lost hikers. That is presumed to mean that a judicial worker was firing a sidearm. Searchers spent 50 hours on the job. They began the search Tuesday morning. 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. The public employees were on their day off. Chocolate festival receives a setback By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Puerto Viejo Chocolate Festival suffered a setback Friday when health ministry officials closed down the opening event at the Hot Rocks Bar & Restaurant in the Caribbean community. An official concern appears to have been the sale of chocolate products that had not been registered for consumption. Those involved in the festival said they were unaware that they also needed a permit because of the large gathering. They said that the Ministerio de Salud should not have waited until the last minute to act and should have worked with them to generate the needed permit. One wrote on a social media site that hard drugs are readily available in Puerto Viejo but chocolate appears to be prohibited. Those in cacao cultivation had come from distant areas of Costa Rica to attend. Some activities, including tours of local production facilities continued through Sunday. Private ambulance yields surprise By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers discovered a new twist on smuggling illegals into Costa Rica Friday. They stopped a private ambulance that contained 11 illegal foreigners, including five minors. The stop was in Sucre, Dulce Nombre de San Carlos. The foreigners were headed to an unspecified location in San Carlos. All of the illegal individual were Nicaraguans, police said. The driver was a Costa Rican.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 217 | |
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| Volcán Turrialba continues to concern emergency
officials |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some 2,000 mostly dairy cows continue to chew their cud in the proximity of the Turrialba volcano. Although most humans are prohibited from within six kilometers of the volcano crater, most of the animals have not been moved out. Farmers there have been through volcano scares in the past. This one may be different than the others. Experts from the Observatorio de Sismológico y Vulcanología said an analysis of material being ejected from the volcano shows up to 10 percent what is being called new material. This suggests that magma is closer to the surface than it has been in the past. Still the bulk of the emissions from the volcano have been gas and water vapor. There are an average of two eruptions a day in which material is ejected from the crater. The gas is acidic and causing damage to the vegetables being produced near the volcano, which is east of San José. Observatorio staffers conducted a flight over the volcano Saturday morning and documented the damage to the trees and other vegetation. Closer to the volcano vegetation is being damaged by the ash. Much of the material was deposited toward the northwest, but emergency commission officials are keeping an eye on the weather because a change in wind can change the direction of the ash dispersal. Over the weekend the Observatorio asked residents to document the dispersal of ash by reporting via the academic organization's Web page. |
 Observatorio de Sismológico y
Vulcanología/Dani Moore
This eruption was at 5:34 a.m. Saturday. Enough residents have fled the volcano area that there are pets on the loose. Animal activists brought 60 kilos of pet food to the the area over the weekend. Only scientists and dairy farmers are being allowed within a ring of three kilometers around the crater. |
| No dock strike progress, but new options emerge for the port |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The strike by dockworkers in Limón enters its 13th day today with little likelihood of a quick settlement. Casa Presidencial revealed Friday that the striking union has rejected a proposal by the government that would have lavished public funds on the central canton of Limón as well as the Moín docks and nearby infrastructure. Strikers are asking that the central government renegotiate a contract with APM terminals so that the Dutch firm did not have exclusivity over handling containers at the $1 billion port it proposes to build as a concession. Strikers and their Sindicato de Trabajadores de JAPDEVA have exhausted their legal remedies, but the claim that the contract bestows an illegal monopoly on the Dutch company appears to be something new. President Luis Guillermo Solís has said the government must adhere to the law and the existing contract. Casa Presidencial seeks a renewal of negotiations. Meanwhile, there appears to be a proposal for much more work at the docks. |
The Laboratorio
Nacional de Materiales y Modelos Estructurales at the
University de Costa Rica held a seminar on a dry canal Friday. The dry canal, a rail line, would traverse the relatively flat northern part of Costa Rica from Moín to a new port in northwest Costa Rica. The project would compete with the soon-to-be-enlarged Panama Canal. The idea is not new, and government officials have toyed with the idea of a dry canal using the country's existing rail network. Containers would be unloaded from a ship at one port and transferred by rail to the other port and a waiting ship. Representatives of the Empresa Tren Interoceánico Continental and Americas Gateway Development Corp. Ltda, appeared at the seminar Friday. The advantage of the project is that the trains would not have to pass through the congested metro area where rail cars compete with autos and buses. There are other projects. One of course, is the plan by a Chinese businessman to dig a real canal across Nicaragua. Chinese firms also are in discussion in Honduras for a similar project there that would include El Salvador. The Limón port agency is the Junta de Administración Portuaria y Desarrollo Económica de la Vertiente Atlántica, known as JAPADEVA. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 217 | |||||
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| 35 years after their ordeal, Iranian hostages still seek
compensation |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
They were taken hostage by Iranian student revolutionaries at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and held for 444 harrowing days laced with interrogations, beatings, solitary confinement and mock executions. Now, 35 years later, dozens of Americans and their families still seek redress for their suffering. Many remain frustrated and impatient — not only with the Islamic Republic but with the U.S. government. In a sense, it’s as if they’re still held hostage, several former captives suggest. From Iran, they say they want — but don’t really expect — a formal apology acknowledging they and their country were wronged. "There’s never been accountability from the Iranian side. They’ve just been in denial," said former State Department diplomat John Limbert, one of the 52 Americans held hostage and among four interviewed for this report. From the United States, they want support for reparations — blocked for years by the government’s refusal to violate the treaty that freed them. "That’s not exactly what I expected when I was sitting in a cell" in Tehran, said David M. Roeder, now a retired Air Force colonel. While that official opposition has since given way to support for new routes to compensation, some former captives aren’t counting on it anytime soon. They’ve experienced ups and downs before. Some were buoyed by last fall’s cordial phone call between the U.S. and Iranian presidents. But months later, they bristled at Iran’s appointment of a United Nations envoy, Hamid Aboutalebi, who’d served as a translator during the hostage crisis and was suspected of aiding in their detention. Sixteen of them voiced their objections in a teleconference arranged by government representatives — and were relieved when the White House denied a visa for Aboutalebi, effectively barring his participation at the U.N.’s New York headquarters. Former hostage Kevin Hermening chafes at the ongoing talks between Iran and six world powers - including the U.S. - over Iran's controversial nuclear program. "Watching this farce of negotiations with Iran continues to open old wounds," said Hermening, who closely follows any Iran-related news. "Just when you think it’s been put behind you, they rub it raw again." Now a certified financial planner, Hermening was a 20-year-old Marine guard at the embassy when student radicals — angered that the United States had taken in the overthrown Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — seized control on Nov. 4, 1979. They took 90 hostages, including 66 Americans. They soon released all but 52 embassy staffers, mostly civilian diplomats and military personnel. For 14 months, the young Marine and many of the others endured interrogations, beatings and more brutality. Hermening recalled being pistol-whipped, and having his hands and feet bound. After a failed escape attempt, he spent 43 days in solitary confinement. Roeder was eight days into his job as Air Force assistant attaché when the embassy fell. His captors repeatedly whipped him with rubber hoses, held guns to his head and once chained him, exposed to biting cold and snow, for more than two days, he said. "The physical stuff got your attention," Roeder said. But the psychological warfare struck at his core. "They threatened to kill my handicapped son and send pieces to my wife because I wouldn’t answer questions during interrogation," Roeder said of his captors, who he believed had arranged surveillance of his family, then in northern Virginia. "I can probably forgive the Iranians for what they did to me," he said. "... I can’t forgive them for that, which is why I’m such a big proponent, if there’s going to be any compensation, that the wives and children receive it. They’re the heroes." The hostages finally were freed Jan. 20, 1981, through a set of agreements that, they learned, barred them from suing Iran over the ordeal. Some of the former hostages eventually did sue under a 1996 law they believed gave them an opening. Roeder was the named plaintiff in a suit filed in 2000 seeking punitive and compensatory damages from Iran. But when a trial court scheduled a hearing in 2001, the U.S. |
government
intervened. It called for the case’s dismissal, saying it
would abrogate terms of the so-called Algiers Accords and compromise
the government’s ability to conduct foreign policy. The hostages’ legal team took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which rejected an appeal in May 2012. So, the legal team shifted from judicial to legislative tracks. A Senate bill introduced last year would grant the former hostages $4.4 million apiece through a surcharge on fines paid for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. While the Justice for Former American Hostages Act has bipartisan support, it has yet to reach a floor vote. But the move for compensation now has the State Department’s backing. "We are committed to working with members of Congress to explore options for providing the former hostages with additional compensation consistent with our nation’s foreign policy and national security interests," a State Department official wrote in an email response. The official said the department believes the bill "aims to achieve those goals." The e-mail noted the U.S. government already had provided some compensation. In the 1980s, each hostage received a cash payment of $22,000, or $50 for every day of captivity, similar to previous treatment of U.S. prisoners of war. The e-mail also repeated the stance that, because of the Algiers Accords, the government would not support "any claims by the former hostages against Iran in U.S. courts. While the Department understands the former hostages’ frustration, the United States is bound by this commitment." Alan M. Madison, spokesman for the hostages’ legal team at the Virginia law firm of Lankford & Reed, said it is in serious conversations with senior State Department and congressional officials. "Everyone is supportive. They’re trying to figure out how to do this," Madison said, noting discussions over timetables, dollar amounts and funding sources. The hostages’ earlier lawsuit, for instance, had sought compensation from frozen Iranian assets. A scholar of no-fault compensation systems, Arizona State University law professor Betsy J. Grey, called funding plans like this a terrific idea. Victims of terrorism deserve compensation, she said. “A compensation fund allows for some psychological relief in that the government is there behind us.” The ex-hostages have had their doubts about that backing. "All of the administrations for the last 35 years have represented the interests of Iran over the interests of Americans," said Hermening, who twice was a Republican candidate for Congress in Wisconsin. "Iran has never paid a price in dollars or in blood for having violated every tenet of international law." Don Cooke, who retired from the foreign service in 2012, said several months ago that the hostages’ "quest for compensation would end tomorrow if the State Department would change its mind." He called its adherence to that position an excuse, not a reason. He’s still suspicious of Iran, as he wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece. But he recently described himself as optimistic about a resolution for the ex-hostages. The passage of time increases the urgency for a deal, said Limbert, noting that only 39 of the 52 former hostages survive. "A lot of people who were with us in Tehran have had a very bad time indeed," he said. "We’ve had suicides, attempted suicides, family problems, substance abuse.” Limbert, who now teaches international affairs at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, said that in closing off access to reparations for years, “our own government has made common cause with the Islamic Republic. They wouldn’t admit to that, but it’s what has happened, in effect.” He’s critical despite his long career at the State Department and his deep connection to Iran. "I was in the Peace Corps there in the '60s," he said. "My wife is Iranian, my children are half Iranian." But, as a diplomat, he sees potential — for the ex-hostages’ cause and for some kind of relationship between the United States and Iran. "Look, I’m always hopeful," Limbert said. "You have to believe eventually things will get better. You can’t deny we’re in a very different place than we were a year ago. For 34 years, we bashed each other, we insulted each other, we threatened each other. We have to do something different." |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 217 | |||||||
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| Candidates make last pitches to win in Tuesday's election By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Across the United States, candidates are making final pleas for votes ahead of midterm elections Tuesday. At stake: which party will control each house of the U.S. Congress for President Barack Obama’s final two years in office. It is crunch time for candidates seeking to rally supporters and convince any remaining undecided voters. “We are reminding everybody about the power to make a difference in this election by getting out and voting,” explained Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn. Both parties have deployed their biggest names to the campaign trails: former Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and John McCain, and, on the Democratic side, former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Notably absent from most Democratic campaigns: President Obama, whose declining approval numbers have vulnerable Democratic lawmakers distancing themselves from the White House. Even so, Obama did make a campaign appearance in Michigan last week. “I want to tell you why you need to vote. This country has made real progress since the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes,” the president told the audience. “Over the past four and a half years, we have seen American businesses create more than 10 million new jobs. Over the past six months, our economy has grown at the fastest pace in more than 10 years.” “Barack Obama finds himself in the same kind of position that Bush did six years ago,” explains political analyst Norm Ornstein, speaking of former president George W. Bush. “For an awful lot of his own candidates, persona non-grata, except for raising money. They do not want to have the president side-by-side with them.” Republicans, on the other hand, are eager to tie their Democratic opponents to the president. “The Obama-Shaheen agenda ends right here, right now!” said Senate candidate Scott Brown while campaigning in New Hampshire. Republicans are widely expected to retain control of the House of Representatives. In the Senate, they would need a net gain of six seats to seize control from Democrats. “We have a fairly clear idea that the trends favor, as they normally would, the Republican Party,” Ornstein said. “The party out of the presidency does well in midterms. It is a tough road for Democrats. There is a route to keeping the majority. Republicans have multiple routes to taking a majority.” Democrats tout a massive voter mobilization effort they say will prove the polls wrong. Republicans, meanwhile, are sounding increasingly confident of victory on Tuesday. But as always, those who show up to vote Tuesday will have the final say. México releases Marine jailed for seven months By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A former U.S. Marine freed after spending seven months in a Mexican prison on a gun charge is back in the United States. The State Department said it was pleased that Mexican judicial authorities had ordered the release of Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, who then returned to his family's home in Florida. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday that U.S. officials were grateful for the cooperation from Mexico, which allowed Tahmooressi prompt and continued consular access and visitations. Doctors said Tahmooressi suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, which he developed after serving with the Marines in Afghanistan. Mexican border agents arrested Tahmooressi in March when they found three guns in his truck after he crossed the border from San Diego, California, into Tijuana. Tahmooressi said he crossed into Mexico accidentally after getting stuck on a California freeway with no way to turn back from the border. Mexican police, however, said he entered the country deliberately. Bringing guns into Mexico is a federal crime.  Voice of America photo
No human lives within the
protected swampOkefenokee is
recovering
from a year-long blaze By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
On a map, the Okefenokee Swamp seems too close to the Atlantic Ocean’s white sandy beaches and Florida’s golf courses and theme parks to be a wilderness area. That proximity led to an ill-conceived plan at the beginning of the 20th century to drain the 180,000 hectare wilderness and reclaim it as farmland. Developers dug a 19-kilometer long canal right into the center of the swamp, called the Suwanee Canal. But the project failed: it had engineering problems, and it ran short of money. The Okefenokee was sold to a timber company, and for 30 years, until the 1930s, millions of cypress trees were cut down and hauled out of the swamp. Today, all that remains of human development is the canal, perhaps the most beautiful drainage ditch in the world. Its banks are green with vines, shrubs, trees, and Spanish moss. The canal is now a superhighway for alligators. There are thousands of alligators in the swamp. They sun themselves along the banks of the canal, or hide, just below the water surface so only the tops of their heads can be seen. Their population is held in check, in part, by the hundreds of black bears that call the swamp home. When they find an alligator nest, they will dig it up and eat every egg in it. Red shouldered hawks are the most common avian raptor in the Okefenokee. They prey on everything from wood ducks to snakes and frogs, rodents and squirrels to baby alligators and lizards. The Okefenokee shelters more than 30 kinds of fish, 200 types of birds, dozens of different amphibians and reptiles, and 600 to 800 black bear. No humans live in the swamp. It is truly an American wilderness. The Okeefenokee is a blackwater swamp, the largest in North America, and the water really looks black. In a glass, it looks like tea. But that’s not because of suspended mud or particles; the water is stained by the tannic acids leaching from the organic material in the swamp. In the days of sailing ships, sailors took Okefenokee blackwater on ocean voyages. The acidity of the water suppresses bacteria, so the blackwater stayed fresh while clear water sources would tend to spoil. The dominant habitat of the swamp is called prairie. It’s an open area where, as far as the eye can see, are water lilies, dotted with little mounds with trees and shrubs growing on them. The prairies have sandy bottoms covered by peat, a natural composting of the swamp’s organic material, like leaves and grass. Sometimes the peat floats to the surface creating domes and little islands that are unstable, squishy to walk on. That’s probably how the Okefenokee got its name: from a Native American Indian term for land of trembling earth. The Wilderness Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson 50 years ago, protects the Okefenokee from humans but not from nature. There are frequent fires in the swamp, started by lightning. When it is dry, fire spreads. When it is very dry, fire spreads underground, burning down along tree roots. 2011 was a very dry year. Fire swept through the swamp, and when it finally died out, a year later, it had burned 85 percent of the Okeefenokee. What were lush areas of vegetation became open prairies. In some areas, there were only charred trees where there once were forests. But, now, after the devastation comes rejuvenation. Yellow flowers, called biddens, are coming out, and shrubs and wild vines are starting to sprout. There are tangles of green briar that shelter migrating songbirds on their way to South America. Trees are sprouting new branches and leaves. There’s an abundance of insects and food sources, and that’s good for wildlife. Fire has reshaped the swamp, but not destroyed it. World War I departure remembered in Australia By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Tens of thousands of people have flooded into the coastal town of Albany in Western Australia to mark the departure of the first fleet of troops to the battlefields of World War I. The soldiers became part of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps legend that was born from the savage defeat at Gallipoli in what is now Turkey. One hundred years ago the whaling town of Albany, south of Perth in Western Australia, would have been the last sight of home for many of the young men sailing off to war. 30,000 soldiers were to make the journey to a far-away conflict. Many would end up on the beaches of Gallipoli, where Australia and New Zealand, two former British colonies, fought for the first time as independent nations. There was carnage on the battlefield. Troops from Britain, France and Turkey suffered terrible losses, while more than 8,000 Australians died at Gallipoli. Almost 3,000 New Zealanders were also killed. Australia’s Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, says leaving Albany a century ago, few would have contemplated the horrors that would lie in wait. “There would have been excitement, trepidation," he said. "I think there was also a sense of exhilaration because the rumor at the time was that this war would be over quite quickly. There was this naive perception that Germany would fall quickly and that everybody would be home for Christmas or so thereafter, and there was almost a sense that you had better rush if you are to join the excitement. And, of course, perhaps some of the older, wiser heads thought perhaps not. But I imagine that going over the horizon many thought ‘oh, we would be back in a few months.’” The loss of so many lives during the disastrous allied Gallipoli campaign in 1915, along with the troops’ courage under fire, has become legendary in Australia and New Zealand. Many regard this defeat as the moment their young countries came of age and helped to forge the national characters of both Pacific neighbors. Thousands of people have gathered in Albany in Western Australia for a parade and a memorial service to remember the heroism of those who are called the Anzacs. Their sacrifice is also honored on April 25 every year. Anzac Day is arguably the most revered national occasion in both Australia and New Zealand. Ice drillers are critical to testing ancient air By the
University of Wisconsin
news service
Wisconsin is famous for its ice fishers — the stalwarts who drill holes through lake ice in the hope of catching a winter dinner. Less well known are the state’s big-league ice drillers — specialists who design huge drills and use them to drill deep into ice in Greenland and Antarctica, places where even summer seems like winter. The quarry at these drills includes some of the biggest catches in science. A hot-water drill designed and built at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center and the Physical Sciences Laboratory was critical to the success of IceCube, a swarm of neutrino detectors at the South Pole that has opened a new frontier in astronomy. Hollow coring drills designed and managed by the university's Ice Drilling Design and Operations program are used to extract ice cores that can analyze the past atmosphere, says Shaun Marcott, an assistant professor of geoscience. Marcott was the first author of a paper published in the journal Nature documenting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 23,000 and 9,000 years ago, based on data from an 11,000-foot hole in Antarctica. “Without the ice cores being as pristine as they are . . . we would not be able to understand how this powerful greenhouse gas has affected our planet in the past.” The ice drilling program traces its roots to Charles Bentley, a legendary glaciologist and polar expert. “Building on Charlie’s achievements, IceCube enhanced our competency of drilling expertise,” says ice drilling principal investigator Mark Mulligan. “A 2000 award from the National Science Foundation brought in more engineers and technicians who understand coring and drilling.” Drilling program director Kristina Slawny spent six summers on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide project, which provided cores for Marcott’s climate study. “It’s an experience like no other,” she says. “We sleep in unheated single tents that get really warm in the day and quite cold at night.” Crew compatibility is huge, says Ms. Slawny, “and in a remote environment we focus on it, so we’ve had really good continuity in our driller hiring. Once a group has worked together, we want them to stay. When everyone is cold and tired, they can get agitated easily, but for the most part, the crew was happy to be down there.” Still, “everything goes wrong, even the stuff you don’t expect,” she said. “One year it’s mechanical, the next year it’s electrical. One of our staffers, Jay Johnson, is a brilliant engineer and machinist who can fix anything, but it can take long hours and sleepless nights to keep the drill running.” Many projects under development require mobile drills, says Mulligan. “The science community has said we need a certain type of core in a certain location, but you may only be able to get there with a helicopter or small plane. That forces us to design smaller, or make something that can be set up relatively quickly. Agile and mobile are very big words.” “We need to know how the Earth system works, but without these ice cores, and the great effort from the drilling team, we would not be in a position to know.” Marcott says deep, old ice offers a ground-truthing function. “How do you know that today’s carbon dioxide variations are even meaningful?” he asks. “We have only 50 years of instrument data.” Climate studies require a much longer horizon, Marcott adds. “When I measure CO2 from 20,000 years ago, I actually have air from 20,000 years ago, and so I can measure the concentration of CO2 directly. There is no other way to do that.” Much of the credit, Marcott says, is due to ice drillers. “Without the ice cores being as pristine as they are, without the drillers being able to take out every single core unbroken to provide us with a 70,000-year record of CO2, we would not be able to understand how this powerful greenhouse gas has affected our planet in the past.” Today, carbon dioxide is growing at 2 parts per million per year — 20 times faster than the preindustrial situation recorded in the ice cores. But even at the slower rate, climate reacted very quickly to changing levels of the key greenhouse gas, Marcott says. “It’s not just a gradual change from an ice age to an interglacial. We need to know how the Earth system works, but without these ice cores, and the great effort from the drilling team, we would not be in a position to know.” U.N. worker with ebola airlifted to Paris location By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A United Nations employee suffering from ebola has been flown to France from Sierra Leone for treatment. A spokesman at France's U.N. mission in New York said Sunday the worker had been transported aboard a specially equipped jet and placed in high security isolation at a military hospital outside Paris. The worker's name and nationality have not been disclosed. The United Nations Children's Fund worker is the second aid worker to receive ebola treatment in France since the epidemic erupted in Guinea late last year and then spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia. A French nurse treated in September has since made a full recovery from the virus, which has killed almost 5,000 people in West Africa. President Barack Obama spoke by telephone Saturday with U.S. military forces providing engineering support and construction services in the region. A White House statement said Obama voiced his gratitude and stressed that the ongoing civilian-led, government-backed strategy to tackle ebola on the front lines is the most effective way to prevent further spread of the disease. He also said the strategy best protects the American public from additional cases at home. For its part, Canada said Friday it will suspend issuing visas to residents of countries experiencing what it calls widespread and persistent-intense transmission of ebola. Australia recently announced a similar move. Ebola is spread through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. The virus causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. |
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Whenever the weather is going to change for the worse, when the storm clouds build up and the pressure falls, the hummingbirds flock
Attracting hummingbirds to your garden is fairly easy. Plant the right flowers and shrubs, and they will find you. The sanchezia is one, and it is a pleasure to look at as well as being good bird food. The flowers are tubular and it takes a particular kind of bill to reach inside for nectar. Hibiscus, with its deep-throated flowers, is another hummer favorite. Since they don’t have a set blooming season, the flowers are always available for snacks. Abutilon, another of our tropical shrubs and a member of the mallow family, also attracts the birds. Plant clerodendrums, like the java glory bower, and you are sure to find hummingbirds in your yard. Justicia, a genus of over 400 species, are also great attractors of these birds. But what about a smaller garden with more flowers than shrubs? Cardinal flower, lobelia cardinalis, grows here as a roadside weed and is easily transplanted to the garden. They reseed so they are an easy plant to grow and provide continual color in the garden and continuous nectar. Fuchsia is another hummer favorite as is anisacanthus (desert honeysuckle or flame anisacanthus) which is native to the American tropics. You are also likely to see hummers at your amaryllis and bird of paradise flowers. Something you may notice about all these plants is that they produce brightly colored flowers in red, orange, and pink shades preferred by hummingbirds. They are also often tubular an unusually shaped flower with a nectar reservoir. So fill your yard with vibrant colors and certain shapes when you are planting and you are sure to attract hummingbirds.
The Java Glory Bower is a lovely open shrub that can grow to 2.5
If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit The Arenal Gardeners Facebook page. |
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| From Page 7: Smaller firms can duck corporation tax By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Corporation managers have just six weeks to designate their operation as a small or medium enterprise and avoid paying the persona juridica tax for 2015. The tax this year was 199,700 colons, nearly $370, and the amount is expected to be higher in 2015. Under the law, those corporations that are registered as a mipyme with the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio do not pay this tax. Mipyme means micro, pequeña o mediana empresa, that is a small- or medium-sized business. There is no charge for registering, but the process has to be repeated each year. The ministry said that any applications that are received by Dec. 12 will be processed in time so that the company is exonerated from the 2015 corporate tax. But tax relief is only one of the advantages. Companies and individuals with the designation have an advantage in seeking government contracts and access to various forms of government-supported training. Other government agencies and some private banks and other firms have special programs for mipymes. Registration can be done online at www.siec.go.cr, but there will be additional documents that need to be submitted. |
