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San
José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 242
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Illegal nets
target spawning sports fish
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
This is spawning season for a fish known locally as the pez calva. The fish likes the sometimes brackish water of lakes and canals of the Refugio de Vida Silvestre in Barra del Colorado. And they come by the hundreds from the Caribbean. These are game fish, but some individuals have been putting up nets to catch them. The Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas said that its crews over the weekend have found nine nets installed illegally in the refuge. There were ninety fish and nearly half were dead, the agency said. The nets also managed to trap a few tropical gars, known here as pez gaspar (Atractosteus tropicus), which also can be challenging game fish when adults and up to six feet in length. The gar is considered a living fossil because it has not changed in millions of years. This could be crucial day for Cubans By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Soon Costa Rica will have more Cubans than some communities on the island. The Cuban population has at least exceeded 5,000 and there are thousands more waiting to enter the country from the southern border. Today is a crucial day for the Cubans and government officials. The government of Belize is expected to report its decision on whether the migrants will be allowed to pass over its territory on their way to the United States. Approval from Belize would be a big assist to the Costa Rican government, which would like to stop housing the Cubans in public shelters. The Cubans, of course, would like to continue heading north to the United States where they can take advantage of a favorable 1966 immigration law that will allow them to enter. Nicaragua has closed its border to the Cubans, perhaps as a favor to the Cuban government that does not want to continue to lose skilled workers and professionals. Guatemala already has declined to be a land bridge for the migrants. The Costa Rican government already is making plans to extend the temporary visas that were awarded the Cubans when they arrived. This would be the second extension. There have been few incidents at the dozen shelters housing the Cubans. The weekend saw live bands in some shelters that provided an evening of dancing. One Cuban woman was stopped Thursday at the Paso Canoas border crossing because she was wanted as a criminal suspect in Cuba. Local police officials could not give a consistent reason and she was varyingly reported to be a murder suspect or part of an international drug ring. Neither may be true. By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers surprised five persons from Bangladesh and 12 from Nepal at a home in southern Costa Rica. Police said that the conditions in the ramshackle home in Guaycará, Golfito were unhealthy. The men are accused of entering the country illegally from Panamá. None has identification, police said. Turrialba spits out some rocks and grit By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Turrialba volcano produced a 30-minute eruption early Monday afternoon, said the Red Sismológica Nacional at the Universidad de Costa Rica. The day was overcast, but scientists could follow the eruption because the cameras at the volcano summit can record heat. The eruption started at 1:08 p.m., and about 1:21 p.m. the volcano was throwing out flaming blocks of rock, said the Red. However, the expelled rock remained along the edge of the crater, the Red said. There also were some tremors in the earth, the Red added. Officials have long awaited a major eruption from the mountain, and most of the residents have moved elsewhere. Those who have not received a shower of cinders Monday from the mountain. In communities such as El Central on the flank of the mountain, vehicles were covered with the fine, black grit. Iran ignores U.N. and tests missile again By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. media reports say Iran has tested a new medium-range ballistic missile in defiance of two United Nations Security Council resolutions. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told media outlets the test was held Nov. 21, and they say the missile traveled within Iranian territory. Fox News cited intelligence sources as saying the test was held near Chabahar, a port city near Iran's border with Pakistan. In October, Iran tested a long-range ballistic missile, drawing condemnation from the U.N. Security Council. The council is still debating how to respond to that test. Following that earlier missile test, the White House said there were strong indications that Tehran "did violate U.N. Security Council resolutions that pertain to Iran's ballistic missile activities." However, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said those violations are entirely separate from the historic nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers. Under that deal, reached in July, most sanctions against Iran will be lifted in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program. |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 242 | |
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| Lawmakers act to make the radio spectrum more democratic |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers voted in the first of two opportunities to allow vulgar or alarmist announcements to be aired on the radio and television. Although that sounds bad, the lawmakers did so in order to further democratic principles and freedom of the press. The bill, No. 19.555, faces one more vote in the Asamblea Nacional. The measure eliminates a section of the national radio law that forbids vulgar language, transmissions contrary |
to good
customs as well as false information or alarming reports
without foundation. Although these prohibitions sound good, they have been used elsewhere to put pressure on radio and television stations and their reporting of current news. The bill received a favorable recommendation from the Comisión Permanente Especial de Ciencia, Tecnología y Educación. The measure received unanimous approval on the floor Monday. |
| Investigators try to figure out why a man became engulfed
in flames |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Investigators are trying to figure out if the burning death of a man Monday was murder or the result of some type of accident. One person is in custody. The case developed in Hatillo 1 about 11 a.m. Neighbors heard an explosion, and when Fuerza Pública officers arrived they found a man in an abandoned building, and he was in flames. Officers worked to put out the flames, but they also had to stop |
a second man
who was about to flee, they said. The site was near the Escuela Manuel Belgrano. Although police were successful in putting out the flames, the man died later in Hospital San Juan de Dios, the Judicial Investigating Organization confirmed. He had not been identified. The suspect in custody is a 22-year-old man. Both are described as being without permanent addresses. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 242 |
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| Brain research seems to support Chomsky's concept of
internal grammar |
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By the New York University news staff
A team of neuroscientists has found new support for linguist Noam Chomsky’s decades-old theory that humans possess an internal grammar that allows the brain to comprehend even nonsensical phrases. “One of the foundational elements of Chomsky’s work is that we have a grammar in our head, which underlies our processing of language,” explains David Poeppel, the study’s senior researcher and a professor in New York University’s Department of Psychology. “Our neurophysiological findings support this theory: we make sense of strings of words because our brains combine words into constituents in a hierarchical manner — a process that reflects an ‘internal grammar’ mechanism.” The research, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, builds on Chomsky’s 1957 work, "Syntactic Structures." It posited that humans can recognize a phrase such as Colorless green ideas sleep furiously as both nonsensical and grammatically correct because humans have an abstract knowledge base that allows them to make such distinctions even though the statistical relations between words are non-existent. Neuroscientists and psychologists predominantly reject this viewpoint, contending that comprehension does not result from an internal grammar. Rather, it is based on both statistical calculations between words and sound cues to structure. That is, humans know from experience how sentences should be properly constructed, a reservoir of information employed upon hearing words and phrases. Many linguists, in contrast, argue that hierarchical structure building is a central feature of language processing. In an effort to illuminate this debate, the researchers explored whether and how linguistic units are represented in the brain during speech comprehension. To do so, Poeppel and his colleagues conducted a series of |
experiments
using magnetoencephalography, which allows
measurements of the tiny magnetic fields generated by brain activity,
and electrocorticography, a clinical technique used to measure brain
activity in patients being monitored for neurosurgery. The study’s subjects listened to sentences in both English and Mandarin Chinese in which the hierarchical structure between words, phrases, and sentences was dissociated from intonational speech cues, the rise and fall of the voice, as well as statistical word cues. The sentences were presented with identical timing between words and participants listened to both predictable sentences (e.g., “New York never sleeps,” “Coffee keeps me awake”), grammatically correct, but less predictable sentences (e.g., “Pink toys hurt girls”), or word lists (“eggs jelly pink awake”) and various other manipulated sequences. The design allowed the researchers to isolate how the brain concurrently tracks different levels of linguistic abstraction. Their results showed that the subjects’ brains distinctly tracked three components of the phrases they heard, reflecting a hierarchy in the neural processing of linguistic structures: words, phrases, and then sentences at the same time. “Because we went to great lengths to design experimental conditions that control for statistical or sound cue contributions to processing, our findings show that we must use the grammar in our head,” explained Poeppel. “Our brains lock onto every word before working to comprehend phrases and sentences. The dynamics reveal that we undergo a grammar-based construction in the processing of language.” This is a controversial conclusion from the perspective of current research, the researchers note, because the notion of abstract, hierarchical, grammar-based structure building is rather unpopular. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's
Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 242 | |||||||
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| Ban urges Paris conference to aim for being carbon free By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged nations to make the compromises necessary to put the planet on a carbon-free trajectory or risk a climate catastrophe, as negotiators raced to reach a climate agreement by Friday. “Your decisions can lay the foundations for a sustainable future where all the peoples and planet can thrive,” Ban told delegations from nearly 200 nations meeting at Le Bourget outside Paris Monday. “Your work here this week can help eradicate poverty, spark a green energy revolution, provide jobs, opportunities and hope for tomorrow.” Saturday negotiators produced a first draft agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is presiding over the climate talks, called a step toward a final deal. Fabius, who has divided ministers into working groups to tackle the biggest themes, wants what he calls the first vision of the final agreement by Wednesday. Ban’s address set the tone for Monday’s talks among ministers who have arrived to give a final push to the climate negotiations at Le Bourget, outside Paris. In speeches Monday, many used dramatic language to sum up the stakes, saying negotiators faced a historic choice with consequences for both the planet and humanity. “I’m often asked what keeps me up at night,” said executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Costa Rican Christiana Figueres, told delegates. “Here’s what keeps me up: I often see seven sets of eyes of seven generations beyond me, asking me: ‘What did you do? What did you do? “The same question will be asked of each of you,” Ms. Figueres added. “May we all be able to stand tall and clearly say, ‘We did everything that was necessary.’” The stakes are highest for some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations, who are pushing for an agreement that goes further, and limits global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, instead of the current 2 degrees C goal. Going beyond 1.5 degrees, says Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Enele Sosone Sopoaga, will mean the demise of his tiny island nation and others like it. “There is a big whale in the lagoon, as we say in the Pacific. We must rise above this fear, and address this whale or else we all perish,” he said. So far, national climate plans tabled by 186 countries will limit global temperature rise to nearly 3 degrees C, about double the ceiling that islands like Tuvalu are demanding. Giving impetus to the Paris talks, analysts say, is a broad will to avoid a repeat of 2009 climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, widely considered a failure. Known technically as COP21, this year’s conference is also driven by grim new statistics showing 2015 will likely be the world’s warmest in history, topping a string of other record-breaking years. In another reminder of the fallout of fossil fuel emissions, the Chinese capital Beijing went on the highest red alert Monday for smog levels. Yet another driver is what Ban called a rising tide of support for a tough agreement on the part of local governments, businesses and ordinary citizens, some of whom are attending the climate talks outside Paris. “The world is expecting more from you than half-measures and incremental approaches,” he told negotiators. Environmental groups are closely following the progress of discussions that are entering their second week, and still remain pitted by complex divisions, including financing for developing countries to adapt to climate change. Jennifer Morgan, head of the climate program for the Washington, D.C.-based World Resources Institute think-tank, described Saturday’s draft agreement as showing more common ground. “Though there is plenty of hard work ahead, the table is now set for ministers to get this done,” she said in a statement. At a press conference Monday, non-profit organization representatives were quick to point out shortfalls like vague language and goals, particularly on climate financing. Referring to the term climate neutrality, Martin Kaiser who heads international climate politics at Greenpeace, asked, “Could someone explain what this means?” Secretary-General Ban is calling for a review of draft national plans every five years, starting before 2020, not only to make sure countries abide by them, but also improve on them. Even as he urged negotiators to reach an ambitious accord, he also called for compromise in overcoming differences, with the understanding that whatever deal is reached in Paris can be strengthened. “Sometimes perfection may be our enemy,” he said. Global carbon dioxide said to take a small dip in 2015 By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An international collaboration of scientists, in a new report, predicts the percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may actually dip slightly in 2015 compared to 2014 levels. “In 2014, global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels grew by just 0.6 percent,” said the report’s lead author Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth System Science at California’s Stanford University in a press release. “This year we expect total emissions to flatten or drop slightly, despite strong growth in gross domestic product worldwide.” The researchers noted that the projected 2015 CO2 levels are an estimate and an actual annual level won’t be reported until all final numbers are provided. The scientists conducted the research on behalf of the Global Carbon Project, an organization that provides regular examinations of the global carbon cycle. The possible decrease in fossil fuel CO2 emissions in 2015, along with the slight increase in levels in 2014, are contrary to levels posted previously when annual levels rose between 2 percent and 3 percent each year, said the researchers. They also reported that any previous slowdown on annual CO2 emissions also happened to coincide during a time of global economic difficulties. This new possible dip in levels could mark the first time such a drop took place during a period of improved global economic growth. According to the report, China emitted 27 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide in 2014. The U.S. had a 15.5 percent CO2 emission rate, followed by the European Union with 9.5 percent and India with 7.2 percent. “Decreased coal use in China was largely responsible for the decline in global CO2 emissions,” said report co-author Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia. “After a decade of rapid growth, China’s emissions rate slowed to 1.2 percent in 2014 and is expected to drop by 3.9 percent in 2015.” The researchers said any continued slow growth of annual CO2 output will depend on the use of coal in China and in other countries, and if more renewable sources such as hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar are used to produce energy. “But even if we reach peak global emissions within a decade or two, we’ll still be emitting massive amounts of CO2 from burning fossil fuels,” said Jackson. In order to stabilize the world’s climate, he also said the emissions will need to be reduced to near zero. “Reaching zero emissions will require long-term commitments from countries attending the climate meeting in Paris this week and beyond,” Jackson said. U.S. High Court to consider one-man, one-vote challenge By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments today in a voting rights case over the constitutional requirement to make electoral districts roughly equal in population. A decision by the court could test the framework of the so-called one person, one vote principle that has defined political boundaries for decades. In Texas, two voters challenged the way the state draws its senate districts. Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger highlighted the difference in eligible voters in the mainly rural districts outside Houston, Texas, where they live, and those in a downtown Houston district with equal population, but at least 170,000 fewer eligible voters. Ms. Evenwel and Pfenninger said the State Senate redistricting map signed into law in 2013 did not equally distribute voters, improperly inflating the voting power of urban areas and giving them more sway in dictating the outcome of elections. Conservative groups have said the current system distorts the rights of non-voters in the democratic process, particularly in states such as California, Texas and Florida, where larger numbers of non-citizen immigrants live and are counted in the census figures. They have challenged the premise based on a simple argument that counting overall population, including those ineligible to vote, unfairly diminishes the power of citizens who are eligible to vote. They have urged the Supreme Court to invalidate the current system, which would force states to completely redraw local and state political districts using different factors and perhaps open the door to eventually reconfiguring congressional districts. Experts predict the Supreme Court is unlikely to back such a dramatic overhaul, but they believe overturning Texas' system would trigger a radical political change nationwide, likely shifting more political power in some states from urban centers to rural areas. "If the court sides with Texas and keeps the status quo, it's no big deal," said Rick Hasen, a University of California at Irvine law professor. "But it would be a huge deal if the court goes the other way." Latino advocacy groups worry that changes to local political boundaries would be unfair in areas where non-citizen immigrants might not get equal treatment from their elected lawmakers. "Texas has a history, a shameful, disgraceful history, of discrimination against Latinos for over 150 years," said Dallas immigration attorney Domingo Garcia. With the U.S. presidential election less than a year away, the backdrop of voting rights has created a political battle between Republicans and Democrats. At issue are voting regulations from the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling gutting key provisions in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision removed the requirement that states with a history of voting discrimination like Texas had to get pre-clearance from the U.S. Justice Department before being allowed to make changes to election laws, including the redrawing of political boundaries. There are also court challenges in several states to enact stricter voter identification laws that critics say unfairly target minority voters inclined to vote for Democratic candidates. "Partisan politics plays a big role in the debate," said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin. "In public opinion surveys, we found the Democrats support reinstating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “On the other hand, Republicans were largely opposed to the enforcement provision. "Voting rights cases have become a partisan issue like so many other things, and now we see the party polarization like we see in so many other areas in politics." Homeland security chief seeks changes in threat alert levels By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced Monday a new phase in the local terrorism threat in the U.S, following an attack last week in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead. He said his agency needs to get beyond the current terror-alert system and go to a new system that has an intermediate level to it. Johnson spoke during a Defense One forum in Washington, D.C. that precedes the unveiling of a new U.S. government domestic terrorism alert system. The announcement comes after husband and wife, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in a shooting referred to by the White House as an act of terror. The couple was not flagged as terror suspects. U.S. government officials have expressed concern about so-called lone-wolves who commit attacks in support of organizations like the Islamic State but without direct orders. Johnson said even if there is no specific credible intelligence of a plot, there can still be risk. He emphasized the possibility of a terror-inspired act by a person who might not be on law enforcement’s radar. A color-coded alert system was put in place, following the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Nearly 10 years later, it was replaced by a two-tier advisory. Johnson said the National Terrorism Advisory System is inadequate, and has never been used because it is dependent on a specific threat or threats to the country. “We need a system that adequately informs the public at large, not through news leaks of joint intelligence bulletins to law enforcement, not through leaks from anonymous government officials,” said Johnson. But Seth Jones, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center for RAND Corp. said this change won’t make much of a difference to the public’s sense of safety. “I don’t really think that the alert system is particularly that important for most Americans. I don’t think most Americans pay attention to it. What they probably pay attention to, in some cases, is when senior administration officials have come out publicly about plots.” Johnson said that after the Paris attacks, the U.S. has been on a heightened security posture. He said there currently is no actionable information, however, of a planned attack in the U.S. “There is no specific credible intelligence of a Paris-like attack on the homeland, but we are concerned about copy-cat acts. We are concerned about terrorism-inspired acts by the lone wolves,” Johnson said. The Homeland Security secretary also mentioned that his department and the State Department are evaluating vetting procedures of the K-1 visa program or fiancé visa, after direct orders from President Barack Obama. Ms. Malik, the wife of U.S. born Farook, entered the country with that visa. Overall new HIV cases drop 19 percent, U.S. agency said By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The number of HIV diagnoses in the U.S. has fallen by 19 percent since 2005, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The drop was driven largely by dramatic and continuing declines among heterosexuals, intravenous drug users and African Americans, but gay and bisexual men have not seen the same reductions, the Centers said. “Although we are encouraged by the recent slowing of the epidemic among black gay and bisexual men, especially young men, they continue to face a disproportionately high HIV burden and we must address it,” said Jonathan Mermin, director of Center’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. “Much more must be done to reduce new infections and to reverse the increases among Latino men," he said. "There is hope that the national HIV/AIDS strategy and other efforts are beginning to pay off, but we can’t rest until we see equal gains for all races and risk groups.” For male gay and bisexuals, the picture is much more nuanced, depending on race and ethnicity, the Centers said. Among white gay and bisexual males, diagnoses fell by 18 percent, but for Latinos and blacks, diagnoses were up 24 and 22 percent respectively though the Centers noted positive diagnoses among blacks had leveled off since 2010. Age also appeared to be a factor with young black gay and bisexual men aged 13 to 24 seeing an 87 percent jump in diagnoses between 2005 and 2014. That too has appeared to level off after 2010. The Centers said that HIV testing levels have “remained stable or increased among the groups experiencing declines in diagnoses in recent years,” leading them to believe the decreases in diagnoses reflects a drop in new infections. Justice Department announces Chicago Police investigation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Justice Department has started an investigation into the pattern and practice of the Chicago Police Department to determine whether it violated the Constitution or federal law with its handling of use of force. The probe follows the release of a video last month showing the shooting death of a 17-year-old by a police officer in October 2014. "Every American expects and deserves the protection of law enforcement that is effective, that is responsive, that is respectful, and most importantly constitutional," said Attorney General Loretta Lynch in announcing the investigation Monday. "We will examine a number of issues related to the Chicago Police Department's use of force, including its use of deadly force, racial, ethnic and other disparities in its use of force and its accountability mechanisms, such as disciplinary actions and its allegations of misconduct," she said. Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder Nov. 24, more than a year after the killing of Laquan McDonald and just hours before the release of police dashboard camera footage showing the officer shooting the black teenager. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 242 | |||||||||
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Beneficial
compounds identified in coffee
By the American Chemical Society news staff
Much to coffee lovers’ delight, drinking three to four cups of coffee per day has been shown to decrease the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Now, scientists report in the Journal of Natural Products that they have identified two compounds that contribute to this health benefit. Researchers say that this knowledge could someday help them develop new medications to better prevent and treat the disease. Patients with type 2 diabetes become resistant to insulin, a hormone that helps turn glucose from food into energy. To overcome this resistance, the pancreas makes more insulin, but eventually, it just can’t make enough. High blood glucose levels can cause health problems, such as blindness and nerve damage. Several genetic and lifestyle risk factors have been linked to the development of type 2 diabetes, but drinking coffee has been shown to help prevent its onset. Caffeine was thought to be responsible, but studies have shown it has only a short-term effect on glucose and insulin, and decaffeinated coffee has the same effect as the regular version of the drink. To investigate which of coffee’s many bioactive components are responsible for diabetes prevention, Søren Gregersen and colleagues tested the effects of different coffee substances in rat cell lines. The researchers investigated different coffee compounds’ effects on cells in the lab. Cafestol and caffeic acid both increased insulin secretion when glucose was added. The team also found that cafestol increased glucose uptake in muscle cells, matching the levels of a currently prescribed antidiabetic drug. They say cafestol’s dual benefits make it a good candidate for the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. However, because coffee filters eliminate much of the cafestol in drip coffee, it is likely that other compounds also contribute to these health benefits. |
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| From Page 7: Petroleum price is lowest since 2009 By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The price of crude oil fell more than $2 Monday to its lowest level since early 2009, with Brent crude closing a bit above $40 a barrel. The decline follows Friday's meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, where the 13 members announced no agreement to limit production. Experts say global demand for crude is already about 2 million barrels a day below the current supply. That oversupply may grow as Iran gets out from under international sanctions imposed on its exports. Some analysts say key OPEC member Saudi Arabia continues to pump oil in a bid to push the price low enough to drive new competitors out of business. Some U.S. producers use advanced techniques like hydraulic fracturing to boost oil output, but the practice costs far more than the traditional techniques that work in the Saudis' abundant oil fields. |
