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A.M. Costa Rica
Your daily English-language news source Monday through Friday |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 229 | |||||||||
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Chilly and windy climate
means dry season nears By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Blue skies, chilly nights and a steady wind can only mean one thing; The Costa Rican summer is approaching fast. The weather experts predicted an early end to the rainy season this year, and Guanacaste already is in a dry season. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that the humidity will decrease slowly in the country as would the velocity of the winds. But both conditions are expected to increase again Sunday. The mornings over the weekend are expected to be cloudy or partly cloudy in the entire country with a chance of some showers in the early morning along the Caribbean coast and in the northern zone. Afternoons might see some showers along the Caribbean coast and in the northern zone especially on Sunday. There also is a chance of showers in the Central Valley and the central and southern Pacific. The Caribbean and the northern zone might also see some evening showers Saturday night as perhaps will higher elevations in the Central Valley, said the institute. The temperature is expected to dip to 15 C. (59 F.) overnight in the Central Valley. That is a cold wave by Costa Rican standards, and residents could be seen bundled up in winter coats already Thursday evening. An overnight low of about 19 C. (66 F.) is predicted for the northern Pacific. Winds from 50 to 70 kph (about 31 to 43 mph) are predicted again today. Electrical fire destroys 15 buses in Santa Ana By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fire destroyed 14 buses of the Compañía de Inversiones La Tapachula early Thursday in Brasil de Santa Ana. The wind whipped the blaze, and some diesel tanks were ruptured by exploding tires. Fire officials were seeking possible contamination of an adjacent stream that feeds the Río Virilla, said the Cuerpo de Bomberos. The fire department said that the blaze seemed to result from a short in a wire between the starter and the alternator in one of the buses. The company had 75 buses parked in the lot. Lawmakers fire magistrate without a clear reason By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers declined to reappoint a Sala IV magistrate to a second eight-year term Thursday. There was no clear reason given by the lawmakers who voted this way. The magistrate, Fernando Cruz Castro, has sought to be reappointed. The opposition was a bloc of Partido Liberación Nacional and other parties in the legislature. These included Movimiento Libertario and some lawmakers from the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana. Proponents of the magistrate called the vote a blow to democracy, and another likened the action to a coup. Cruz has a reputation of being an independent thinker on the court. A supporter said that the period in which the legislature has to take the vote has passed and that the magistrate was automatically re-elected. That concept might be part of a Sala IV petition. Man on run for sex crimes finally caught in Sarapiquí By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial police captured a man Thursday morning who had been sentenced to 36 years in prison for three counts of child rape and eight counts of sexual abuse. The man has been at liberty since the sentence was handed down in 2007. The Judicial Investigating Organization said that the man with the last name of Paniagua was located at a farm in Horquetas de Sarapiquí where he had been working for 15 days. Agents said the man avoided detention by moving around from Guanacaste to Limón. He is 58, they said. The sentence was in the Tribunal Penal de San Carlos. The crimes involved a 6-year-old victim of the rapes and a 12-year-old victim of the sexual abuse, said the judicial agency. Criminal sentences are not final until they are reviewed by the Sala III high court. Consequently jailing a recently convicted individual is at the discretion of trial judges. 3G Internet service out of service By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad suffered an outage of its mobil service for two hours Thursday morning. The company said that 3G mobil Internet was interrupted. Voice and messaging was not affected, it added. The outage was from 6:30 a.m. until 8:40 a.m., the company said. The cause was believed to be a technical problem with one of the company's computer devices. Central Pacific shaken by earthquake By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Jacó, Quepos and Fraijanes got an early morning shaking today when an earthquake estimated at a 4.0 magnitude took place offshore at 2:45 a.m.. The Laboratorio de Ingenieria Sismica said the estimated epicenter was 23.1 kilometers south of Jacó. That's about 14 miles, and because of the curvature of the coastline, the location is well out to sea. The Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica estimated the magnitude at 3.1.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page | |
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 229 |
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Jo Stuart |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Aaron
Knapp
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| The star of the protest was this
mother-to-be who painted "This is not what I want" on her stomach. She
was photographed and taped repeatedly. Meanwhile David |
Sancho displays a sign in front of towering Caja building. It reads: "We do not fear the repression of the government but the silence of my people." |
| Officials counter Caja protest with
squads of female cops |
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By
Aaron Knapp
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Thousands of protesters in two marches descended on the street in front of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social in downtown San José Thursday. Unlike a protest last week, this protest ended without any arrests or clashes between police and demonstrators. That may have been because the Fuerza Pública fielded an exclusively female force. Members of the crowd, which was made up of primarily public university students, had numerous issues that they wanted to address. However, preserving the financially unstable public healthcare system was the priority for most. “We are defending the social security system that has been
Although some protesters donned ski-masks, hoods and bandanas to hide their identities in case of a confrontation with the police, the marchers peacefully came to the site, protested and departed without arrests or incidents. “The movement does not want violence,” said Arroyo, who is 21-years-old studying at the Universidad de Costa Rica to become a social studies teacher. Two marches came to the building on Avenida 2 from opposite directions. One came from Parque Merced close to the center of San José and the other came from the Universidad de Costa Rica in San Pedro. The protest was primarily conducted by students from public universities like the Universidad de Costa Rica, the Universidad Nacional and the Tecnológico de Costa Rica as well as some from private universities like ULatina. Still, several public employee unions came to protests as well. These groups largely gathered in defense of the Caja |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Aaron Knapp
Banners still visible, students
march back to San Pedro.Costarricense de Seguridad Social, or simply the “Caja.” This is the financially troubled public healthcare program through which the vast majority of Costa Ricans obtain basic medical care. Many protesters see the government's lack of intervention as an indirect attack on citizens, especially the poor. “I am indignant,” said law and political science student Vivian González. “The government has distanced itself from the unprotected lower social class.” Ms. González, who one day strives to work in politics, also carried a sign that said “a people that elects the corrupt is not a victim. It's an accomplice.” ULatina student David Sancho also echoed these sentiments and blamed corrupt officials for the problems. “What will happen without the Caja will send Costa Rica into poverty,” he said. Some people also carried banners protesting older or broader issues that were seemingly unrelated to the Caja or police violence. Many protesters carried banners protesting free trade agreements, high taxes on farmers and some people even carried rainbow flags indicating solidarity with the gay community. “Protesting in the streets is the only way that they will hear,” said Sancho. By about 2 p.m., most of the protesters had dispersed and the remaining 1,000 or so students peacefully marched back to the Universidad de Costa Rica. |
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Some hereos of
empathy and how it helps to understand culture
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| Expats
in Costa Rica, like elsewhere, are given stereotypical definitions,
sometimes sympathetic, but usually unflattering, handy sobriquets that
point out their worst side like “ugly American" or "arrogant French,"
"inscrutable Chinese," etc. I won’t go on because I am sure I
will get into trouble. However, I do recall once being told that
a Canadian was someone who smiled even when there was no reason to. Lately there has been little in most of the world to smile about. Where there are no wars, there are floods or droughts, uncontrolled fires, rampant crime or just plain hunger. People who are hit by one disaster or another complain and blame others, feel victimized and just want to get back to the way things were before their misfortune. At one point during the Sandy hurricane a reporter on the scene in New York said that it looked like a war zone. That comment prompted me to wonder if anyone hit by the hurricane could step back and think "Yes, it is like a war zone, and this is what people went through in the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan and are going through in the Syrian civil war day after day." But that is rare. The ability to empathize even in a like situation is rare, and those who have said “We lost our house, but we still have what is important -- ourselves” have my admiration. The idea of empathizing with Mother Nature and what has been done to her (thus, perhaps her revenge), is unthinkable, some would even find, laughable. And this is where I want to pay tribute to Grace McCracken and Tim Gormley, two Canadians who recently came to Costa Rica for a week’s vacation. Their story was reported by Connie Foss and the paper’s staff on Page Four of last Monday’s A.M. Costa Rica. Shortly after the couple arrived at the house they had rented near Puerto Viejo, they went out to take some photos of the beaches, and in the short time they were gone, robbers entered their house and stole everything with resale value in the unlocked house: cash, new electronic pads, camera, their passports and credit cards. At first, they were shaken up and disbelieving as most people would be, but then they took a philosophical and good humored view. Recovering her sense of humor faster than I could, Ms. McCracken said, “We see this as a sort of tourist tax.” They left Costa Rica saying they had enjoyed themselves, even taking some blame for not knowing more about the |
culture before they came and realizing they should not have brought so much "stuff’ with them and certainly should not have left the house unlocked when they left it, even for a short time. (This is the problem of many tourists wherever they go – they think they are immune to danger or bad things happening.) But the part that surprised me most, even with their own troubles, the couple noted the poverty of many of the people living on the East Coast, Ms McCracken said, “Tourism brings high prices to the area so the local people steal in order to have money to pay these inflated prices.” She added, “We can go home and within a few days make the money to replace what was stolen. But these people here have to live in a tourist economy where it is difficult to survive.” That is empathy. The dictionary defines it as “the projection of one’s personality into the personality of another in order to understand the other better; the ability to understand another’s emotions.” Most of this column I was writing in my head while I waited at the Hospital México for an echocardiogram. Two and a quarter hours later on the gurney, or whatever they are called, waiting for the young (incredibly young), but capable doctor to finish the exam, which had been interrupted twice for two emergency exams he had to attend to, I wondered what lesson I could learn from these two unique people. In the middle of my wondering, I wondered about the doctor. I saw a plastic bag on the desk nearby with two styrofoam containers – obviously his lunch, and from time to time he took some urgent calls on his cell phone. But he had given his careful attention to the two emergency patients, and now to me. By now it was nearly 4 o’clock. I had arrived before 11 a.m. I had no idea how long he had been there. “Poor you,” I said. “This has been quite a challenging day for you.” He smiled, and said, “Yes, it has been.” |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 229 | |||||
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| U.S.
man seeking to show how oceans can create power By
Kayla Pearson
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff As nations search for energy independence while protecting the environment, an American company has an option that one man describes as rooted in love. “This is a love story because I love humanity, and this technology loves humanity also," said John McGilvray, business developer for Sea Solar Power, Inc. This organization creates an alternative energy source by
“This type of technology wasn't available to us 20 years ago, but it is today because we built it. We had to invent it and Hilbert was just the person to do it because of his background,” said McGilvray. Over the years, the company has been testing and developing the technology waiting for a time when it would become an affordable and likely energy source. “It was not possible to do this before because we didn't have the compressor, pumps and heat exchange technology," McGilvray said. "Hilbert was the world's leading authority in all these subjects.” Now the company has a design, and is ready to move forward to make sea solar power a likelihood. The proposed plant is composed of large compressors that work in a closed cycle system. Beneath the floating ocean vessel is a centrifugal pump that pumps water from a depth of one kilometer. “This is the most powerful pump known to mankind. I only know of three places where this pump exists, atomic submarines, Saudi Arabia and Sea Solar Power.” The natural properties of water allows it to separate by temperature and density. Water at the surface is heated by the sun to 82 degrees F. or 28 degrees C., and the water 1 kilometer down is a temperature of 42 degrees F. or 6 degrees C., the company notes. The technology only works in the tropical seas, 23 degrees above the equator and 23 degrees below the equator, McGilvray explained. “This happens to be where the greatest need for both water and electricity exists for all of humanity,” he said. This is because resources are scarce in these areas, he added. The surface is skimmed for the hot water which is used to change propylene into vapor. The vapor turns a turbine generator to make electricity. The cold water pumped from below is then used to condense the propylene back into a liquid state, and the cycle is repeated. The compressor circulates the propylene millions of times just like freon is circulated in a refrigerator. “I tell people this is not rocket science, this is refrigeration technology,” he said. What can be produced is electricity and drinking water. The largest design, a 100 megawatt electrical plant, can create 100 megawatts of electricity with a daily byproduct of 32 million gallons of drinking water. This energy could power 100,000 United States homes including those with heated swimming pools, said McGilvray. “Can you imagine what this would do for Costa Rica? It would go at least twice as far or maybe three times as far,” he said. As another option, this same design can also produce 140 million gallons of distilled water every 24 hours. “To put that into perspective, Singapore consumes 140 million gallons of water a day. The population of Singapore is about 2.7 million people,” McGilvray said. Instead of using the water to drink, electrolysis can be applied to the water to separate the oxygen and hydrogen atoms to produce the gas as another byproduct. “When you pump water from a depth of 1 kilometer, you circulate phytoplankton. If you pump phytoplankton to the surface, it becomes fish food,” McGilvray said. “Phytoplankton produces 90 percent of the oxygen you breathe. The additional 10 percent comes from oxygen and trees,” he added. With all the benefits, it is easy to wonder what are the drawbacks to ocean thermal energy. “Scientists have tried to find a drawback and they can't because we don't consume anything. We just constantly recycle,” said McGilvray. “We simply do not affect the environment at all because all we are doing is circulating water. We are not using anything up.” As for the drinking water, he said what is taken would be equivalent to filling a bucket out of the Niagara, and what is used would eventually go back to the rivers, lakes and oceans. However, he mentioned that a thing that could prevent countries from using the ocean thermal energy is the cost or the fact that they can't afford a distribution system for the electricity. McGilvray said that the whole process would be a benefit to places like Costa Rica where populations get a large portion of their energy from hydropower. “In doing so they flood land that could be used for agricultural purposes or land that can be preserved for fauna," McGilvray said. "You kill a lot of things when you flood lands, and you put a lot of weight in one place and they have proven this causes earthquakes.” “Not so much in Costa Rica, but in Panamá they have displaced large populations of people, washing away people's homes, livelihoods, medical facilities and schools," he continued. “The only land use we have is the cable that distributes electricity, and everyone can benefit from that without displacing people or destroying animal species," the Alabama native concluded. One thing hindering the technology from becoming widely used is the reliance on the current system. The rising cost of oil is making it more possible, but you still have to overcome the existing system, he said. “We're talking about changing a system, and we are resistant to change," said McGilvray. “If we build a plant, we can use it as a demonstrator and people can see it work.” It is his mission to communicate the process, and get companies to buy into the project. For McGilvray, the big picture is worth the work. It is a job he has made personal. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa
Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 229 | |||||||||
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| Eurozone
nations qualify for being in recession By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Europe's euro currency bloc says it has fallen into its second recession in three years. The 17-nation eurozone said Thursday its economy contracted one-tenth of a percent in the July-to-September period, following a drop of two-tenths of a percent in the previous three months. That meets the common definition of a recession — two straight quarters of declining growth. The eurozone's earlier recession in 2008 and 2009 was triggered largely by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the now-defunct American investment bank. The current recession, though, has been centered in Europe itself. It has been marked by the currency bloc's uneven response to its governmental debt crisis over the last three years, record unemployment and bailouts to debt-ridden governments in Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Germany and France, the eurozone's two biggest economies, advanced slightly in the third quarter, both up two-tenths of 1 percent. But the economies in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands all contracted. Debt-ridden eurozone governments have imposed sharp austerity plans to curb their deficits, but the spending cuts have stagnated economic growth. Workers throughout the eurozone's southern tier of countries have taken to the streets in protest of their governments' actions, but European leaders have been resolute in carrying out their plans to control their debt. Forecasters are predicting that the eurozone economy will advance very slightly next year, barely above stagnation. Stone tool finds push back humanity 500,000 years By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Archaeologists digging at a site on the southern coast of South Africa have found a trove of sophisticated stone tools they believe were made 50,000 years before the technology to create them emerged in Europe and other regions of Africa. The finding, reported in the journal Nature, could mean that the first modern humans evolved where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic. Small blades, called microliths, were unearthed at Pinnacle Point, about 500 kilometers west of Cape Town, and dated back 71,000 years. The thin, 3-centimeter-long blades were carefully crafted so they could be glued into slots at the tip of arrows or spears. Such projectile weapons gave these early humans a significant advantage when facing a prey animal — or a competing human. According to an Arizona State University professor, Curtis Marean, director of the Pinnacle Point excavation, the lethal technology “probably laid the foundation for the expansion out of Africa of modern humans and the extinction of our sister species, such as Neanderthals,” who did not have such projectile weapons. Previous digs have found similar stone weapons in use during an ice age 60,000 to 65,000 years ago. But the technology appeared in what archaeologists call a flickering pattern, with struggling cultures acquiring the weapons-making skills but failing to pass them on, and the technology seeming to vanish. The new find means the method actually was passed on through generations and survived for more than 10,000 years. Marean said he believes field work in Africa will continue to push back in time the evidence for uniquely human behaviors. A University of Toronto-led team of anthropologists working at another site in South Africa has done just that, finding new evidence that early human hunters were attaching stone points to the tips of their spears half a million years ago — 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. The researchers examined 500,000-year-old stone points from an excavation at Kathu Pan 1, in Northern Cape province, and determined that they had been used as spear tips. To do that, they recreated the ancient weapons and used a calibrated cross bow to shoot the replicas into an animal carcass. Then, they compared the wear and damage on each set of stones. The prehistoric points showed the types of breaks that occur more commonly on spear tips than on stones used for other purposes, such as scraping and cutting. The points were tied onto wooden spears, a process called hafting, which was an important advance in hunting weapons. Hafted spear tips are commonly found in 300,000-year-old Stone Age sites. The new study shows the technique was used in the early Middle Pleistocene, a period before Neanderthals and modern humans are presumed to have embarked on separate evolutionary paths. |
Your place to stay here As high season approaches, we like to feature our advertisers who offer long- and short-term rentals for expats and tourists.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2012 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa
Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 229 | |||||||||
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Latin America news |
Casa Presidencial
outlines
stand on decriminalization By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The nation's highest ranking anti-drug officials came out with an unusual statement Thursday and insisted that Costa Rica would not decriminalize drug trafficking. The officials are Mauricio Borashi Hernández, the anti-drug vice minister at Casa Presidencial, and Carlos Alvarado Valverde, director general of the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas. The written statement noted that drug use in Costa Rica is not prosecuted criminally but that trafficking and possession of drugs for sale is a crime. The men made a point that there is a gray area between decriminalization and strict enforcement. They called it black and white with gray in the middle. A country, they said, has to decide where in the gray it wishes to be. However, under no circumstance will Costa Rica consider decriminalization of drug trafficking because to do so would create a free zone for drugs that would affect the rest of the world, they said. Pockets of polio remain frustrating health workers By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The global scourge of polio has been virtually eradicated, reaching historically low numbers this year. But pockets of the disease remain in South Asia and Africa because of the refusal of some parents to immunize their children. International public health officials counted 177 polio cases worldwide for the first 10 months of this year. That’s a drop from just over 500 cases in 2011. Public health officials credit the drop to successful immunization campaigns against the illness, which attacks the nervous system and can cause partial or total paralysis. The malady has disappeared from most countries where it was once epidemic. For example, in India, there have been no cases of polio reported in two years. But in neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in Nigeria, West Africa, reservoirs of the viral illness remain. Experts say that is due to the refusal of many parents to vaccinate their children against the infection. Anita Zaidi is head of pediatrics at Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan. She said 74 percent of Pashtun or ethnic Afghan children go unvaccinated because many parents believe the immunization is harmful. “They believe that it can cause sterility in their children or that it’s a conspiracy to sterilize Muslim populations so that their population growth falls . . . . " |
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