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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 240
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to be around 80 percent By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Hospitality operators expect at least 80 percent occupancy over the holiday and firm reservations already are about 60 percent, said the Cámara Nacional de Turismo, which surveyed 134 establishments. The expectations cover from Dec, 13 to Jan. 5, the peak of the high tourism season. The average expectation of all the establishments was 78 percent, said the chamber. The chamber said that officials hope that occupancy will be higher than the 74 percent that was registered in the same period last year. The survey broke down the hospitality businesses by geographical location. The expectation was: Central Pacific 87 percent; Puntarenas, islands in the gulf and including Monteverde, 83 percent: south Pacific, 79 percent; Guanacaste, 77 percent; the Caribbean coast, 76 percent; the northern zone, 75 percent, and the Central Valley, 72 percent. The chamber also said that five-star hotels with 100 or more rooms anticipated better than 90 percent occupancy. The nature of the survey and the number of respondents means that each percentage should be considered a broad range. The chamber will provide actual figures in January. Previous estimates had been fairly accurate. The Central Valley usually has the lowest occupancy during holidays due to the movement of vacationers to beaches and the mountains. The hospitality industry relies on the holiday season to provide the lions share of its annual income.  Ministerio de Gobrnación,
Polícia y Seguridad Pública photo
Police
officer displays some of the confiscated explosives.
Woman on bus was
importing
fireworks, Fuerza Pública says By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Fuerza Pública made its first haul of illegal fireworks less than 24 hours after officials announced a major crackdown for the holidays. The location was in Santa Cecilia, La Cruz, Guanacaste, where a woman was found bringing some 2,487 individual fireworks in from Nicaragua. She was on a bus. Police said they found the fireworks under a seat. Monday officials said that some 3,000 officers were being detailed to find illegal fireworks. The rule in Costa Rica is if it explodes it is illegal. Still illegal rockets and other devices are easily available around the holiday season. State power firm again rejected for a rate hike By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The rate setting agency has again rejected a tariff increase for the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. The state power generating firm sought increases of from 2.8 to 13.18 percent Sept. 13. The agency, the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos, said there were inconsistencies in the data that was provided. The rate setting agency has rejected four rate increase requests from various power companies, including the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad this year and has awarded increases less than companies sought in three occasions, it said. Amigos de la Educación set dates for fundraisers By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Amigos de la Educación in Guanacaste will be holding its annual tournament this year at a miniature golf course. The organization raises money for education and scholarships in that area. The Have a Heart St. Valentine's Day fundraiser this year will be taking place on three separate days, said the organization in a release. Feb. 8 the annual silent auction and cocktail party takes place at Hotel Cala Luna. Feb. 14, St. Valentine's Day, there is the first Cena Con Amigos gourmet dinner at Villa Alegre B&B providing local chefs to showcase their talents. Then Saturday, Feb. 15, there is the miniature golf tournament at the new Bolas Locas course next to Dragonfly restaurant. The day will include a street party with food, entertainment, music and activities for all ages. For more information readers can contact Amigos office at 2653-1945 or email infoamigoseducacion@gmail.com Lawmakers vote their approval of bill against dog fighting By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers have passed out of committee a proposed law that prohibits dog fights and restricts the raising and sale of what are considered aggressive breeds. The action was Tuesday afternoon in the Comisión de Asuntos Agropecuarios. The vote was unanimous to send the measure to the full Asamblea Legislativa. The bill would prohibit actual fights among dogs but also any show or display that implies aggression by dogs, involved maltreatment or caused injuries to the animals. The bill prohibits the breeding and sale of animals for the purpose of dog fights and also said that owners of American Staffordshire Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, Bull Terriers, have to seek permission to breed or sell the animals. The restriction also would apply to any breed designated by the Servicio Nacional de Salud Animal. Five detained as members of mall store shoplifting ring By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial police said they have detained three women and two men as suspects in a shoplifting ring that took up to $20,000 in clothing, cell telephones and electronic equipment from mall stores in Heredia, Cartago and San José. The thefts were said to have taken place from January through November. Agents confiscated a number of items in raids they made at six locations Tuesday morning. They said some of the items still had price tags and security devices attached. The shoplifting operated in the usual way with some individuals distracting employees while others took items. The Judicial Investigating Organization said that it appears that some items that had security devices attached were put in bags lined with aluminum so that sensors at the door were not activated. The raids were in Desamparados, San Sebastián, Alajuelita and Tibas.
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 240 | |
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 Correos de Costa Rica graphic
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| Holiday stamp issue will benefit boys
home in Cartago |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Correos de Costa Rica has come out with a new stamp issue to benefit a boys school in Lourdes, Agua Caliente de Cartago. The issue is titled "Pro-Ciudad de los Niños 2013: and consists of four 60-colon stamps featuring winners of an art contest held for this purpose. The stamps depict the Cachí dam, Chirripó, the beauty of Costa |
Rica and an historic church
structure. Correos released the stamp Monday with little fanfare. As with a previous issue in 2009, the money paid for the stamp will benefit the residential institution run by the Augustinian Order. More than 300 young men, mostly from low-income families, live at the facility. Like many of Correo's stamps, this one was designed by Cristian Ramírez Vargas and printed at Gozaka S.A., La Uruca. |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Cody Gear
Makeshift pedestrian bridge
gives way to a one-lane, modern structure suitable for vehicles. |
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| In Costa Rica, it takes a community to
build a bridge |
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By
Casey Bahr
Special to A.M. Costa Rica It took five years, but Saturday a small community in southern Costa Rica finally got a replacement bridge spanning the Río San Ramón River. The site is about 5 miles northwest of San Isidro de El General. More than 40 residents for whom the bridge provides a much shorter route to a nearby medical clinic, stores and churches, came together for the celebratory dedication ceremony at the western end of the span. The mayor of San Isidro, Vera Corales, who helped fund the project, also attended. Joining the mayor was Luis Valverde, who has been a catalyst for numerous infrastructure improvements in the locality since his arrival 25 years ago. Valverde maneuvered through ever-changing requirements and promises from government |
bureaucrats for over four years
before receiving project approval. Ten months later, the bridge was in
place. The city donated an engineer to oversee construction and provided some materials, but as is usual in Costa Rica, the community put up the lion’s share with weekly donations of money and construction labor. The new bridge is far superior to the one it replaced. The span was increased by 33 percent and the larger piers were set two meters below the riverbed. The chance of another washout is now slim. The previous suspension bridge, built in 1994, survived Hurricane César in July 1996 and Pacific cyclone Alma in May 2007. It washed out, however, during a particularly forceful rainstorm just four months later. Residents salvaged cable and pylons from the remains of that bridge to construct a rickety, lurching footbridge, which still sways next to the new red span. The new bridge is named Puente Kiko Chacón for Valverde’s father-in-law who died last January. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 240 | |||||
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| Major study outlines differences between the brains of men
and women |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
and the University of Pennsylvania news service It turns out that men’s brains may literally be wired differently than those of women. Researchers say the differences could explain why the sexes seem more suited to certain types of tasks than their counterparts. For example, women seem to be hardwired for multitasking. Using imaging techniques, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found men tended to display neural activity in one hemisphere of the brain for certain activities, while in women the activity bounces across hemispheres. “These maps show us a stark difference — and complementarity — in the architecture of the human brain that helps provide a potential neural basis as to why men excel at certain tasks, and women at others,” said Ragini Verma, an associate professor in the department of Radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study shows that on average men are more likely better at learning and performing a single task at hand, like cycling or navigating directions, whereas women have superior memory and social cognition skills, making them more equipped for multitasking and creating solutions that work for a group. Past studies have shown sex differences in the brain, but the neural wiring connecting regions across the whole brain that have been tied to such cognitive skills has never been fully shown in a large population, the researchers said. The study imaged brain activity of 949 people, 521 females and 428 males, using DTI imaging. DTI is a water-based imaging technique that can trace and highlight the fiber pathways connecting the different regions of the brain, laying the foundation for a structural connection or network of the whole brain. Researchers found that in the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, females displayed greater connectivity between the left and right hemispheres. Males, on the other hand, displayed greater connectivity within each hemisphere. By contrast, the opposite prevailed in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that plays a major role in motor control, where males displayed greater inter-hemispheric connectivity and females displayed greater intra-hemispheric connectivity. These connections likely give men an efficient system for coordinated |
 University
of Pennsylvania/Ragini Verma
Brain networks show increased
connectivity from front to back and within one hemisphere in males
(upper) and left to right in females (lower).action, where the cerebellum and cortex participate in bridging between perceptual experiences in the back of the brain, and action, in the front of the brain, according to the authors. The female connections likely facilitate integration of the analytic and sequential processing modes of the left hemisphere with the spatial, intuitive information processing modes of the right side. The findings meshed with other University of Pennsylvania studies in which females outperformed males on attention, word and face memory, and social cognition tests. Males performed better on spatial processing and sensorimotor speed. Those differences were most pronounced in the 12 to 14 age range. The study was published this month in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 240 | |||||
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 A.M. Costa Rica archives
Depiction of Neanderthal based
on skull characteristics.Neanderthal
housekeeping
a surprise to researchers By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
New research says Neanderthals organized their living spaces around certain activities, much like people do today. The study shows that man’s close relative butchered animals, made tools and gathered round the fire in different parts of their shelters. “There has been this idea that Neanderthals did not have an organized use of space, something that has always been attributed to humans,” said Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver and lead author of the study. “But we found that Neanderthals did not just throw their stuff everywhere but in fact were organized and purposeful when it came to domestic space.” Using excavations at a collapsed rock shelter at Riparo Bombrini in Italy that was once inhabited by Neanderthals and humans for thousands of years, the archeologists found that the Neanderthal portions were divided into different areas for different activities. The top level was used as a task site, likely a hunting stand, where they could kill and prepare game. The middle level was a long-term base camp and the bottom level was a shorter term residential base camp. Riel-Salvatore and his team found a high frequency of animal remains in the rear of the top level, indicating that the area was likely used for butchering game. In the middle level, which has the densest traces of human occupation, artifacts were distributed differently. Animal bones were concentrated at the front rather than the rear of the cave. This was also true of the stone tools, or lithics. A hearth was in back of the cave about half a meter to a meter from the wall. It would have allowed warmth from the fire to circulate among the living area. The discoveries are the latest in continuing research showing that Neanderthals were far more advanced than originally thought, creating bone tools, ornaments and projectile points. “This is ongoing work, but the big picture in this study is that we have one more example that Neanderthals used some kind of logic for organizing their living sites,” Riel-Salvatore said. “This is still more evidence that they were more sophisticated than many have given them credit for. If we are going to identify modern human behavior on the basis of organized spatial patterns, then you have to extend it to Neanderthals as well.” The study was published in the latest issue of the Canadian Journal of Archaeology. Obama and Santos agree that peace process is difficult By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
President Barack Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos have met at the White House to discuss U.S. security and economic assistance for the South American country. Obama also said peace talks with rebels are the right path for Colombia. Santos has used his U.S. visit to highlight progress in peace negotiations with guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC. The United States has been supportive, and Obama spoke about the issue during his visit to Colombia last year to attend the Summit of the Americas. The U.S. and Colombia have a longstanding security relationship, but the U.S. has been re-focusing it to economic and development assistance, and promoting human rights progress in Colombia. Obama said success on the security front has made a wider discussion possible on cooperation in areas such as education and enhancing economic opportunity for Colombia's people, along with energy projects and technology. He directly addressed what he called Santos's bold and brave efforts to bring about a lasting and just peace in negotiations with the FARC. "It is not easy. There are many challenges ahead. But the fact that he has taken this step, I think, is the right one, because it sends a signal to the people of Colombia that it is possible to unleash the enormous potential if we can move beyond this conflict," Obama said. Santos thanked Obama for U.S. support for the peace process. "It is a process that is doing very well, and it is my hope this is a conflict that will come to an end. We have been shedding blood for over 50 years, and the support of the United States and the entire world is decisive in reaching that peace we all want," Santos said. The Colombian president announced in November that he is seeking re-election. His opponent is a former Colombian finance minister, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who has vowed to halt peace talks with FARC if elected. In his remarks, Obama said he also spoke with Santos about efforts to improve human and labor rights in Colombia, saying this serves as an example for other countries. Human rights organizations continue to be critical of Colombia and say government security forces, sometimes acting with paramilitary groups, and guerrillas are responsible for serious abuses. In its budget request to Congress for the 2014 fiscal year, the Obama administration sought $323 million in aid to Colombia, a decrease of $61 million. Aid to Mexico, another major regional partner, has also decreased, reflecting a shift in U.S. priorities as Washington increases funds for a Central America regional security initiative. U.S. demands freedom for contractor jailed in Cuba By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States called on Monday for the immediate release of an American contractor jailed for the past four years in Cuba, saying his continued captivity on the Communist-ruled island was gravely disappointing. “Tomorrow, development worker Alan Gross will begin a fifth year of unjustified imprisonment in Cuba,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement. It is gravely disappointing, especially in light of Cuba's professed goal of providing Cubans with Internet access, that the Cuban government has not allowed Gross to return to his family, where he belongs, the statement read. Gross was arrested in Havana on Dec. 3, 2009, for his work on a semi-covert U.S. program promoting political change on the island. Cuba has said it considered the work to be subversive. Gross said he was in Cuba to set up communications equipment to give unrestricted Internet access to Jewish groups. A judge said that activity was a crime against the Cuban state and sentenced Gross to 15 years behind bars. “Mr. Gross is a 64-year-old husband, father, and dedicated professional with a long history of providing aid to underserved communities in more than 50 countries. We reiterate our call on the Cuban government, echoing foreign leaders and even Cuba's allies, to release Alan Gross immediately and unconditionally,” the State Department said. The Gross case has often been described as an obstacle to any serious improvement in U.S. relations with Cuba after more than 50 years of hostility. Asian students trounce world in tests of academic skills By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
Students from Asian countries have outranked others worldwide in a test of high school students conducted every three years. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says 15-year-olds in Shanghai, China and Singapore scored the highest in math. The Program for International Student Assessment tested more than half a million students in 65 countries on math, reading and science. Asian countries outperformed the rest of the world in math, with the United States scoring below average with no change from previous testing. In fact, the 15-year-olds in Shanghai scored the equivalent of two-and-a-half years of schooling above the top U.S. students. The highest math scores were in Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, and South Korea, followed by Macao, Japan, Liechtenstein, Belgium and Switzerland. Organizers attribute higher scores to parental involvement, better teachers and higher expectations. Jenny Jung has attended schools in South Korea and the United States. She says her classes in South Korea lasted from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and were often followed by tutoring. "It’s very competitive there because it’s a relative grading system, so instead of here, where it’s an absolute grading system, where if you get over a 90, you get an A. If you get over an 80, you get a B. But in Korea, only like the top percentages can get an A," said Ms. Jung. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan would like to increase early childhood education and attract quality teachers. "Virtually every one of the high performing nations attracts their teachers from the top 30 percent of the college graduating class and many from the top 10 percent," said Duncan. Duncan called on policy makers to make the right choices. "We know intellectually what the right thing is to do. What we have lacked is the political will and the sense of urgency to take education to the next level," he said. But the study shows money might not be the only answer. The U.S. already spends $115,000 per student, which is more than most countries. Yet students in the Slovak Republic, which spends less than half that amount, scored near the same level. Angel Gurria, the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, warns the United States of consequences if the scores do not rise. "It shows that we have a lot of homework. It shows that somebody else is doing much better than us and if this continues, over the years, they are going to take away our cheese. Because this translates into productivity, it translates into competitiveness, it translates into exports, it translates into jobs, it translates into well-being. So this is not about just comparing the grades of students," said Gurria. Critics fault the study for comparing small regions of the world to large countries. They also say the test lacks an assessment of creative and critical thinking. The one area in which U.S. students bested their peers was confidence in their math abilities. The challenge for educators is to reflect that confidence in their test scores. Detroit can default on debts, judge decides in bankruptcy By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
The once-prosperous industrial city of Detroit is now eligible for bankruptcy protection, and might pay only part of pensions and other financial obligations. A bankruptcy judge approved this key step Tuesday in the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Unions facing pension cuts and other creditors are likely to appeal the decision. Detroit is home to the U.S. auto industry and the city once had a population of 1.8 million. As U.S. automakers had difficulty selling their products the Motor City lost more than one million residents, which hurt property values and the tax base. Mismanagement and borrowing compounded the financial problems and city services such as police, garbage pickup, and street lighting deteriorated. Officials have until March to craft a plan to pay just a portion of Detroit's $18 billion long term debt. Creditors including unions, bondholders, and retiree groups are in mediation talks under judicial supervision, haggling over who will get paid and how much. Guardian editor says paper released tiny portion of leaks By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
Britain's Guardian newspaper has published less than 1 percent of the information leaked by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and kept the rest secure, editor Alan Rusbridger told a parliamentary committee Monday. Summoned by parliament's home affairs select committee as part of its counter-terrorism inquiry, Rusbridger defended his decision to publish the leaks as some lawmakers suggested he had helped terrorists by making top secret information public and by transmitting it to other news organizations. “We have published I think 26 documents so far out of the 58,000 we've seen, or 58,000 plus. So we have made very selective judgments about what to print,” he said. “We have published no names and we have lost control of no names.” The Guardian was among several newspapers which published leaks from U.S. spy agency contractor Snowden about mass surveillance by the National Security Agency and Britain's eavesdropping agency GCHQ. Guardian articles over the last six months have shown that the United States and some of its allies, including Britain, were monitoring phone, email and social media communications on a previously unimagined scale. The revelations provoked diplomatic rows and stirred an international debate on civil liberties. Britain's security chiefs have said the leaked data had put lives at risk and the country's enemies were rubbing their hands with glee. Countering criticism by some lawmakers and security experts, Rusbridger said more emphasis was being given to The Guardian's decision to publish the information than to the fact it had been so easily obtained in the first place. “We were told that 850,000 people ... had access to the information that a 29-year-old in Hawaii who wasn't even employed by the American government had access,” he said. Some on the committee suggested Rusbridger had committed terrorism offenses, and asked if he loved his country. “We are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of the democracy and the nature of a free press and the fact that one can in this country discuss and report these things,” Rusbridger said. Earlier on Tuesday, The Guardian published a letter of support from Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein. Bernstein, 69, said Rusbridger's appearance before the committee was a dangerously pernicious attempt by British authorities to shift the focus of the surveillance debate from excessive government secrecy to the conduct of the press. During Rusbridger's testimony, Keith Vaz, the committee's chairman, announced it wanted to publicly question Andrew Parker, head of the domestic intelligence service MI5. End of Prohibition is marked by drinkers in United States By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
Many Americans this week will toast the 80th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, a 14-year ban on the sale and production of alcoholic beverages that turned booze-smuggling thugs into celebrities and otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. They may also want to toast one unintended consequence of Prohibition: a renaissance of cocktail creation that began as a way to make moonshine whiskey and bathtub gin more palatable. Creative bartenders have kept the tradition alive, and it continues to this day. While the cocktail has been around since early 19th century, the combinations of spirits, sugars, water and bitters really started pouring into shakers during Prohibition. In the 1920s, there were 15,000 speakeasies in Detroit, "Great Gatsby'' author F. Scott Fitzgerald favored gin rickeys and politicians and the famous hid out at New York's 21 Club with its secret wine cellar and disappearing bar. Unlike saloons that were male bastions before Prohibition, speakeasies were coed and women, who had just gotten the vote, enjoyed a liberated lifestyle. "The whole Prohibition cocktail thing was to cover up the poor quality of the alcohol,'' said John McCarthy, a bartender at New York's Bathtub Gin lounge. An estimated 10,000 people died of alcohol poisoning during Prohibition from bad bootleg whiskies, tainted gins and a federal government program that added poison to alcohol to frighten folks from imbibing, according to "The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.'' McCarthy credits the resurgence of cocktails to TV's Food Network with its celebrity chefs and cooking contests that popularize well-prepared foods. Dale DeGroff, author of "The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks,'' agreed. "If the culinary revolution hadn't happened, we wouldn't be where we are,'' said DeGroff. ``If we didn't have an audience that was willing to try new things and in love with these big flavors, we wouldn't be where we are.'' Flavored spirits starting with vodka have also fueled the cocktail craze. In addition to lemon and pepper, there is salted caramel and wedding cake flavored vodka and a host of other unusual pairings. Other spirits have also gotten more flavorful, with maple syrup-laced Canadian whiskies and honey or cherry or apple-flavored bourbons and Scotches. But McCarthy prefers to add his own flavors, mixing his own bitters, syrups and infusions. "If I make a drink and you taste lemon, it's because I want you to taste lemon,'' he said. McCarthy is working on perfecting a cocktail based on white rum, Szechuan peppercorns, pomegranates and lemon juice. Ray Foley, editor and publisher of Bartender Magazine and author of "Bartending for Dummies,'' said cocktails are going back to basics. "The manhattan, the martini, the side car, they're all coming back,'' he said. But there are still lingering reminders of Prohibition. It was only last April that the governor of Kentucky signed a bill repealing a Prohibition-era ban on Election Day sales of alcohol. And in 2012, 33 of the 50 states still permitted towns and counties to be dry, or prohibit sale of alcohol within their borders. To mark the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit devoted to the U.S. Constitution, is sponsoring a traveling exhibit, "American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,'' that began its national tour last month in St. Paul, Minnesota where it runs through March 16. |
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| A.M. Costa
Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 240 | |||||||||
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Abrupt climate
changes feared to be within decades By
the A.M. Costa Rica wires services
A National Research Council report is raising concern about the increased potential for abrupt climate changes in the near future, meaning change in a few years or decades rather than centuries, leaving little time for society and ecosystems to adapt. University of Colorado geological sciences Professor Jim White led the scientific committee assessing the risk. "It is important to recognize that not only does climate change itself, but there are impacts, on human systems and on natural ecosystems, and the report looked not only at those rapid changes in the climate system itself, like changes in temperature, precipitation, but also looked at the fact that a slowly changing system can push other parts of the system past thresholds," said White. He says such effects can be seen in the dramatic decrease in the amount of summer ice cover in the Arctic. While that opens up more shipping opportunities, it also allows more sunlight to penetrate the water, promoting the growth of algae, changing and impacting the Arctic food chain from the bottom up. As the number of frost-free days and the length of the growing seasons change, committee member Tony Barnosky, of the University of California, points to the increased extinction pressure on plant and animal species. "What is happening is the planet is going to be warmer than most species living on earth today have seen it, including humans, by the year 2070," he said. "The pace of change that takes us there is actually orders of magnitude higher than what species have experienced in past tens of millions of years. As a result, habitats are shifting and changing in ways that species just can not adapt to fast enough or move fast enough." In its report, the committee calls for the development of an abrupt change early warning system. It would monitor temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions, use improved computer models for predictions, synthesize and analyze the information, and communicate it to policy makers and the public early enough to give them time and flexibility to deal with the problem. |
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| From Page 7: Industrial chamber recognizes high achievers By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some 19 organizations, both public and private, have been honored by the Cámara de Industrias de Costa Rica in its 16th edition of the Premio a la Excelencia. There were 33 nominations that were studied in depth by 51 experts for nearly a year, said the chamber. Sociedad Rentacar Centroamericana S.A, was the big winner with awards in four categories, said the chamber. Other winners in the excellence category were Distribuidora Florex Centroamericana S.A. for the environment and Grúas y Montecargas Odio for focusing on the client and the market, the chamber said. |
