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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 10, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 222
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 Municipalidad de Palmares
photo
Those
riding the San José-Palmares route operated by Autotransportes
Truck was carrying a dangerous cargoPalmares JAV, S.A. might be in one of these new buses purchased by the firm. The company invested $800,000, said the Municipalidad de Palmares. They go into service today. By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A trucker tried to smuggle into the country 100 cases of soft drink and 35,000 oranges hidden under legitimate cargo. The oranges are a threat to the Costa Rica citrus industry, so agricultural ministry workers were quick to destroy the product. Citrus trees can be harmed by a bacteria that is carried by the Asian citrus psyllid. The ailment is called yellow dragon disease. There are other types of diseases that can be serious for the citrus crops. That is why there are close inspections of produce brought into the country legally. Fuerza Pública officers stopped the truck at a checkpoint not far from the Panamá border. The illegal contents are believed to have come from that country.  Observatorio
Vulcanológico y Sismológico
photo
The
Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico reports that ash
from the Turrialba volcano is causing plant damage like this on a
Gunnera Insignis.
The weight of the ash is too much for the plant. Then there is acidity, too. Investigators say gang trio admitted killings By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Mexico's government said Friday that three Guerreros Unidos gang suspects had admitted killing 43 missing students after police handed the students over to the gang in the southern state of Guerrero Sept. 26. Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said evidence pointed to the students being killed and their bodies burned near a municipal garbage dump in the town of Cocula, near Iguala City. Their remains were thrown into a river. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping, including Guerreros Unidos members, 36 Iguala and Cocula police officers, and Iguala's ousted mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, and his wife. Authorities said Abarca ordered the officers to confront the students over fears they would derail a speech by his wife, who headed the local child protection agency. Murillo said teeth of victims found at the scene were so badly burned, they virtually disintegrated into dust upon being touched. He said it would be very difficult to extract DNA to confirm identities of the victims of an incineration that lasted 14 hours. Murillo said Mexico would continue to view the students as missing until remains were confirmed to match their identities. Before the announcement, relatives of the missing said they would not accept that their children had been killed until they received results from independent Argentine forensic experts. The case has drawn international outrage, brought tens of thousands of people to the streets in protest and turned into a full-blown crisis for President Enrique Peña Nieto, undermining his claims that Mexico has become safer on his watch. China loses high speed rail deal in Mexico By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Mexico has withdrawn a multibillion-dollar deal with a Chinese consortium to build the country's first high-speed passenger train. Mexico revoked the $3.74 billion contract with the China Railway Construction Corp. Thursday after complaints from lawmakers about the bidding process. China Railway was the only firm to submit a bid. The Transport Ministry said a new auction for the contract will be held. The date of the auction was not immediately clear. Mexico has sought to forge closer business ties with China, but the revocation of the project is an embarrassment as it comes just days ahead of President Enrique Peña Nieto's visit to China. The Transport Ministry announced the deal Monday to build the 201-kilometer link between the capital, Mexico City, and the central city of Queretaro.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 10, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 222 | |
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| Tourism sector continues to battle to keep airport arrival
tax |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers in a committee are considering giving half of a tax that is supposed to promote the country's tourism to national parks instead. The Cámera Nacional de Turismo considers this a grave error. That was the message brought to lawmakers last week by María Amalia Revelo on behalf of the chamber. She works with AERIS, the company operating the country's international airports. The session was with the Comisión Permanente Especial de Ambiente where the reception was mixed. Those who travel by air to enter the country are supposed to pay a $15 tax that goes to the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo. The tax was created March 27, 2009, to replace a 3 percent levy on housing and other activities for tourists. The summary for the bill said that the airport tax raised about double what the previous tax did. But the summary also noted that the tourism institute had a surplus of 10 billion colons in the first full year the tax was in force. That was 2010. That was with an income of $26 billion colons or about $52.5 million. The tax raised 10.1 billion colons or about $18.6 million, almost as much as the surplus. This appears to be a reason why drafters of the bill figured that the tourism institute could get along without half the tax. They pointed out pressing needs for the national parks, which also are visited by tourists, and noted that there are unresolved cases of |
expropriation of
private land for national parks. The government has been slow in paying
those from whom they took the land. Curiously, the tax income for 2010 only represents the arrival of about 1.2 million air passengers, far lower than what has been reported. The tourism institute said that 1,417,980 international tourists arrived by air that year. And even Costa Ricans are supposed to pay the tax. The argument that the tourism institute needs the money for promotion found disagreement with at least one member of the committee. José Ramírez Aguilar of Frente Amplio said that marketing and promotion are not indispensable, according to a summary of the committee session provided by staffers. He said that responses to questionnaires at the airports show that most of those who visit Costa Rica do so based on recommendations by friends of family members, said the summary. Coincidentally, tourism officials and operators are meeting today in an effort to create an improved marketing image for the country. The event is part of the XVIII Congreso Nacional de Turismo. Since May 8 the minister of tourism has been a professional who actually operates a company. The principal promotional activities of the institute include setting up booths at various tourism fairs worldwide and buying expensive space during the Winter Olympics on television and during the World Cup soccer championships. At the meeting today two representatives of the Atlanta, Georgia, agency that set up the Facebook talking sloth campaign are supposed to appear. |
 A.M.
Costa Rica/Jesús
Bermúdez
With no warning, motorists find
Avenida 7 is closed.Water leak
throttles traffic for three days
By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Traffic was so bad Friday evening in San José that local radio stations were broadcasting a warning to motorists to stay out of the center of the city. Some motorists spent two to three hours in a major traffic jam that was caused, in part, by the closing of Avenida 7 so water company workers could fix a leak. This has been a long-time effort, and the problem reached a peak Thursday morning when a backhoe operator snagged underground high tension lines. The major water leak took backseat to restoring power to much of the city. Fridays always are a time of heavy traffic even without the additional problems caused by the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados. The road closing resonated for blocks and blocks with homebound motorists struggling against buses and trucks. The leak finally was fixed Saturday, so says the water company. |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Jesús Bermúdez
How many supervisors are at the
dig? |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Nov. 10, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 222 | |||||
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| International agreement gives more protection to 21 shark
species |
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Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
An unprecedented number of sharks, including two species of hammerheads, the entire genus of thresher sharks, and the silky shark species received additional protection Sunday. The species were incorporated into Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals during its 11th Meeting of the Conference of Parties in Quito, Ecuador, said Andy Bystrom and Randall Arauz, who attended the session. They are members of the Programa Restauración de Tiburones y Tortugas Marinas. The favorable vote by the 120 member convention parties to list these six species of sharks in its Appendix II is the culmination of an eight-month collaborative effort between an international group of non-government organizations, the convention secretariat, the European Union, and the Costa Rican, Ecuadorian, and Egyptian governments. "The species listed under Appendix II are very important for Costa Rica," said Gina Cuza, who represented the Costa Rican government. "Hammerhead sharks are a main attraction of the recreational dive industry, particularly in Cocos Island, while silky sharks are the most commonly caught species by our pelagic fisheries, where thresher sharks are also commonly caught, she said, according to the Programa. "Sharks face an uphill battle, there's no doubt about that," said Bystrom. "This is why governments need to implement regional and global conservation strategies that include decreasing the fishing pressure on these animals and protecting essential coastal habitats where many shark species reproduce," he said, according to his organization's summary. "The work has only just begun, as many pressures exist due to the many interests at stake," said Arauz, "If we don't act now, it will be impossible to restore the populations of these threatened marine species, which are vital for the function of the marine ecosystem, and upon which humanity itself depends on." The vote means that the 120 governments that belong to the convention have identified them as among the shark species most in need of conservation action and have committed to work together to better protect them. The convention is the only global entity that specializes in the conservation of migratory species, their habitats, and their migration routes. “The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Time for Action,’ and governments did not disappoint,” said Bradnee Chambers, convention executive secretary. “Thanks to a truly international coalition of shark champions, CMS will now help with global coordination to protect these species throughout their range.” |
 A.M. Costa Rica archives
Isla de Cocos hammerheads are
famous.The action is a significant step toward better management of these species, and it is a crucial acknowledgement that healthy sharks are critical to healthy oceans. Governments will now have to coordinate through various global or regional agreements and organizations to better protect and manage these migratory species. “Today is an important day for sharks and rays,” said Luke Warwick, a global shark conservation expert with The Pew Charitable Trusts. “Countries have acknowledged that cooperation is key to properly managing at-risk shark populations and that species such as silky, hammerhead, and thresher sharks are in urgent need of better protections. The CMS action gives these already depleted species a chance to recover and encourages precautionary, sustainable management of all sharks.” About 100 million sharks are killed each year in commercial fisheries, an unsustainable figure. In some regions, numbers of the newly protected species have plummeted to less than 20 percent of their populations’ original size. This urgently needed action came about because the governments of Ecuador, Costa Rica, Egypt, Fiji, Kenya, and the United Kingdom together proposed the listing of these 21 species, Pew said in a statement. The convention's Appendix II listings allow sustainable fishing of sharks, but if management measures are not effectively implemented, the listed species could qualify for the more strict protections offered under Appendix I. To ensure that these listings have the needed impact, the convention parties must follow through on their commitments to cooperate by developing stronger domestic shark protections, while considering international management, said Pew. |
Here's reasonable medical care
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| Obama taps N.Y. prosecutor to be next attorney general By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama has named New York federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to join his cabinet as attorney general, the nation's top law enforcement official. Announcing the nomination Saturday, Obama said he can think of no better public servant for the job. Throughout her 30-year career, he said Ms. Lynch has distinguished herself as a tough, fair and independent lawyer, aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud and cybercrime, all while vigorously defending civil rights. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Lynch would replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder and become the first African-American woman to head the Justice Department. Holder was the first African-American man in the post. Ms. Lynch currently is the chief U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, New York, known as the Eastern District of New York in the U.S. court system. Appearing with President Obama and Holder at the White House Saturday, she pledged that if confirmed, she will work every day to safeguard American citizens and their liberties and rights. Ms. Lynch has served as the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn twice, from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2010 until now. She and her staff have been responsible for prosecuting many high-profile criminal cases, including tax evasion charges against a current member of Congress, which have not yet gone to trial. President Obama said Ms. Lynch has boldly gone after public corruption, successfully prosecuted terrorists and jailed some of New York's "most violent and notorious mobsters and gang members." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the 55-year-old Harvard Law School graduate is "a strong, independent prosecutor who has twice led one of the most important U.S. attorney's offices in the country." In 2010, Holder appointed Ms. Lynch to his advisory committee, and in 2013, he asked her to serve as its chairwoman. In a statement Saturday, the outgoing attorney general, who has been a target of Republican criticism on Capitol Hill, congratulated Ms. Lynch on her nomination. He said she is uniquely positioned to build upon the progress he said the Justice Department has made in the past six years, from advancing criminal justice reform to safeguarding civil rights. Ms. Lynch began her career as a federal prosecutor in 1990, after growing up in Greensboro, North Carolina. Study says a few humans can eliminate a species By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It did not take a large human population to quickly hunt New Zealand's largest bird species to extinction. A new study suggests there were less than 2,500 Polynesian settlers in New Zealand by the time the moa disappeared in the early 15th century. Archeological evidence indicates human settlements on the islands were established in the early 14th century. A new study suggests that the flightless birds named moa were completely extinct by the time New Zealand's human population had grown to two and a half thousand people at most. Researchers Richard Holdaway and Chris Jacomb analyzed moa eggshell pieces excavated from early settlements to determine when moa hunting began. Dating moa remains from non-archeological sites indicate they were exterminated in much of the island only 70 to 80 years after hunting began. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, researchers say their findings show population size can not be used to absolve humans of involvement in other extinctions. They note it has been suggested that people could not have caused the extinctions of North American mammoths or giant Australian marsupials because the human population at the time was too small. The researchers also estimate during the time of the moa's extinction, New Zealand had one of the lowest population densities of any pre-industrial society, one person per 100 square kilometers. Two U.S. citizens freed from N. Korea return home By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller arrived Saturday night at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the Pacific Coast state of Washington. They flew in the company of U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who worked to gain their freedom. Bae was met by his family, including his mother, Myunghee Bae. She said earlier in the day that she waited so long for the news, she could not believe it when the State Department contacted her Saturday. In a brief news conference at the military base, Kenneth Bae expressed thanks to President Barack Obama and to those who had been "supporting me and lifting me up and not forgetting me." He also thanked the North Korean government for releasing him. “It's been an amazing two years, I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight,” said Bae, a Korean-American missionary with health problems. Asked how he was feeling, he said, “I'm recovering at this time.” His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain. Bae, a Korean-American missionary, had been in detention since 2012 on a conviction of anti-government activities while leading a group of tourists. Miller was also greeted by his family. He had been in prison since April for tearing up his tourist visa in the Pyongyang airport and demanding asylum. The two were the last Americans held by North Korea, which is accused internationally of widespread human rights abuses. The exact circumstances of the Americans' release or with whom Clapper met are not clear. A senior Obama administration official said the president approved the mission last week and U.S. officials spent the next several days planning the trip. Clapper spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials, the official said aboard Air Force One as Obama prepared to head to Beijing for another meeting. Obama said the United States is very grateful for their safe return. He said he appreciates Clapper doing a great job on what he described as an obviously challenging mission. Secretary of State John Kerry called their release a humanitarian gesture and said U.S. officials had been working all the angles to bring Bae and Miller home. In New York, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Ban is relieved the two Americans are free and hopes positive momentum for peace and security on the Korean peninsula will be built on. The State Department also thanked Sweden, which represents U.S. interests in North Korea, and repeated its warning to U.S. citizens not to travel to the North. Bae, 46, of Lynnwood, Washington, had been in detention since 2012 for alleged anti-government activities while leading a group of tourists. Later, Pyongyang sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for committing hostile acts against the regime, making him the longest-held American in North Korea in recent years. The Korean-American missionary's reported health problems only added to concerns about his captivity. His family this week appealed again to the North Korean regime to release him. Relatives released a video clip on the Web site YouTube wishing for Bae’s swift return home. Miller, of Bakersfield, California, had been charged with espionage and detained since April. He was taken into custody after tearing up his tourist passport at the Pyongyang airport. He was 24 at the time. In September, he was tried for hostile acts and sentenced to six years of hard labor. They were freed less than three weeks after the unexpected release of another U.S. prisoner in North Korea, Jeffrey Fowle. Fowle, of Miamisburg, Ohio, was held for nearly six months. Fowle was jailed for leaving a Bible in a nightclub. Fowle said his fellow Americans' release is an answer to a prayer. U.S. president to double military presence in Iraq By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama says his decision to double the number of American forces in Iraq signals a new phase in the campaign to defeat radical Islamic militants who have seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. Obama made the remarks in a rare Sunday appearance on a U.S. television news program. The president who promised to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq is sending 1,500 additional forces to boost the training and equipping of Iraq’s military in the fight against Islamic State militants. “We are now in a position to start going on some offense. The air strikes have been very effective in degrading ISIL’s capabilities and slowing the advance they were making. Now, what we need is ground troops, Iraqi ground troops, that can start pushing them back,” said Obama, appearing on CBS’s "Face the Nation" television program. Many Republican critics of the president continue to doubt the ability of Iraqi forces to stand up to the Islamic State, even with U.S. and international support. Rep. Darrell Issa is among the skeptics. “When it comes to the Sunni-Shia divide that the Maliki government created, it makes it very, very hard to put together the kind of military units that they should have. That remains to be seen, whether or not the substantial portion of the 800,000 people we trained are willing to fight. The fact is, by the time they started fleeing, we were down to a quarter million,” said Issa of Iraqi troops. The Pentagon says the added U.S. forces will train nine Iraqi military brigades and three Kurdish peshmerga brigades over the coming year. Meanwhile, U.S. air strikes against Islamic State positions continue. While boosting U.S. forces deployed to Iraq, President Obama continues to insist American troops will not be engaged in combat there. Top British military official doubts jihadists are leaderless By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Britain's senior military officer is warning that the militant Islamic State group will regenerate its command even if it turns out that an American air strike in Iraq killed key jihadist leaders. Britain's Chief of Defense Staff Nick Houghton said Sunday that he could not confirm whether the U.S. attack late Friday near Mosul on a convoy of Islamic State vehicles killed the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But Houghton said that even if Baghdadi were killed, he would not rush to the conclusion that it would be a strategic reverse for the insurgents. "I can't absolutely confirm that Baghdadi has been killed. Even the Americans themselves are not yet in a position to do that," Houghton said Sunday in a BBC television interview. "Probably it will take some days to have absolute confirmation. What I wouldn't want to do is sort of rush to the sense that the potential death of one of their totemic leaders is going to create some strategic reverse within ISIS," he said, referring to another name for the group. "They will regenerate leadership. It's because of the current potential attractiveness of this warped ideology, unless we get the political dimension of the strategy in place, then ISIS has the potential to keep regenerating and certainly regenerating its leaders." Iraq, without elaborating, said Baghdadi was injured in the American air strike, but U.S. officials did not confirm the report. Houghton said that the role of the international coalition conducting air strikes, which includes Britain, was to buy time for a political solution to be put in place, and to becoming an existential threat to the region. The hardline Sunni Islamic State's drive to form a caliphate has helped return sectarian violence in Iraq to the dark days of 2006-2007, the peak of its civil war. Western and Iraqi officials say air strikes are not enough to defeat the Sunni insurgents and Iraq must improve the performance of its security forces to eliminate the threat. In an interview with the CBS program "Face the Nation," President Barack Obama said air strikes have been very effective in degrading the jihadists' capabilities and slowing their advance. He said his deployment of an additional 1,500 U.S. troops to Iraq to train Baghdad's military marks a new phase in the fight against the Islamic State group. Obama said the doubling of the American troop level will help Iraq go on some offense, but repeated his stance that U.S. troops will not engage in ground fighting.  Paramount Pictures photo
This is the craft that went
through the wormhole.'Interstellar'
captures sense
of Kubrick's masterpiece By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan takes audiences beyond the Milky Way galaxy with his philosophical sci-fi drama, "Interstellar." His award-winning cast, breathtaking cinematography, razor-sharp editing, haunting music score and profound story unlock the endless possibilities of space exploration on an IMAX screen. The visual story of cosmic proportions is grounded by an intimate tale of love between a father and a daughter. Cooper, a test pilot-turned-farmer, sees humanity’s dying spirit in a dying planet. Sometime in the near future, the climate change on Earth has caused an agricultural crisis setting the beginning of famine. Cooper knows that corn, one of the last crops to survive the permanent drought on the planet, will start dwindling soon. By then, it will be too late to save the world. Cooper is a widower who raises his two children on their corn farm with the help of his father-in-law. He shares a special bond with his young daughter, Murph, who also shares his love for science. Together they follow coordinates that lead them to an underground site where a small group of scientists and engineers are preparing a space mission beyond the galaxy in search of habitable planets. One character in the film, Professor Brand – the brains behind the mission – informs Cooper that scientists are no longer meant to save Earth but to leave it. Nolan said his film does not advocate abandoning an ailing planet instead of reversing global warming. He said the intention is to show that, if necessary, humans have the spirit to move beyond the confines of the galaxy. But "Interstellar" shows that though the human drive for adventure is powerful. Brand offers Cooper the dream of a lifetime: Go out there and explore the universe. But Cooper is torn. He loves his children too much to leave, but also too much to stay and let them die. Nolan launches the astronauts into the cold unknown. They look so vulnerable against the backdrop of the awesome vastness of space. But their drive to save humanity scales unfathomable distances. They are the trailblazers of a new era. Nolan said his greatest inspiration was visionary Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi philosophical drama "A Space Odyssey: 2001." Nolan saw it when he was 7, he said. "Interstellar" takes audiences through wormholes and black holes at a dizzying speed. It looks at their backbones and probes their purpose with scientific integrity. Throughout the movie, Nolan consulted with leading theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, whose work focuses on detecting gravitational waves, studying black holes and conceiving the great possibilities or wormholes. But as big as this space film is, it is equally intimate. In the lead role, actor Matthew McConaughey offers a layered interpretation of conflicted Cooper, who promises his daughter he will return. But he fears he may never see his kids again. "It’s about the dare of exploration, discovery and courage," McConaughey said. "And it reminds us that our capacities are sometimes ... greater than we even give ourselves credit for. We have incredible capacity as a species and this film challenges us." |
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Over 1,200 meters gardening changes, and the biggest change may be that there are no earthworms at that altitude. There are also no termites. This means that leaf litter breaks down more slowly even in
There are other hazards at higher elevations here in the tropics and one is too much sun. “But sunlight,” you gasp, “is required for plant growth! How can there be too much sunlight?” Good question. After all, sunlight is necessary for photosynthesis which is required for growth. The problem with too much sunlight is threefold. First, the intense light in the tropics, especially at altitude, can scorch and bleach leaves reducing the chlorophyll needed for photosynthesis. Second, the sun’s heat can increase the rate of water loss through the leaves, drying the plant. Third, when the leaves are overheated, an important enzyme system in the plant becomes inactive, and this also slows photosynthesis. Combined, these things slow plant growth and slow the absorption of carbon dioxide and the production of oxygen. So there you are, above 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) and you wonder what to do next. You are going to experiment with shade cloth, that’s what. Most vegetables, tomatoes, beans, zucchini, carrots and such, benefit most from morning sun and some afternoon filtered shade. You have put in your veggies and now your job is to watch them. Really. You need to be there every day looking for tell-tale signs that they are getting too much sunlight. Look for bleaching of the leaves. Look for signs of wilting, which can mean that there is too much sun and the leaves are losing water quickly. Then, if you see the signs, take action. Get some shade cloth and experiment with partial or total protection from the late morning to mid-afternoon sun. Your elevation and gardening practices will come into play here and you may lose some plants or an entire crop, but keep at it. Once you find the right combination of sun and shade, your garden will prosper.
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: Tis the season to use the checkbook By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Ebenezer Scrooge might have reconsidered his Christmas conversion if he had to face the cuesta arriba. That is an expression for the financial uphill effort most business operators make in the last month of the year. But it also refers to expats. Most residents know about the aguinaldo, the mandatory Christmas bonus that must be given to workers. The amount is usually about a twelfth of what the employee collected in the last year, December to November. That has to be done by Dec. 15. That also is the same day that the annual income tax report is due along with any money that is owed. And Friday the Instituto Nacional de Seguros said it has begun collecting the marchamo or road tax for the coming year. The payment is due by Jan. 1. Then there is the tax on any corporation that an expat might own. Last year the amount was 199,000 colons, and it is due by Jan. 15. The municipality also will have its hand out again at the end of December for any business license that an expat might have. And don't forget the luxury home tax. |
