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San
José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 243
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Prosecutors are seeking 12 years in prison for Roberto Dobles, the former environmental minister in the Óscar Arias Sánchez administration. Six-year prison terms were requested Monday for six other persons, all former or present public employees. The prosecutors allege that Dobles took actions against the law that gave an advantage to Industrias Infinito S.A. and its parent, the Canadian mining company. Dobles and the staffers were involved in trying to expedite the development of an open pit gold mine in northern Costa Rica. The prosecutors are Luis Diego Hernández and Natalia Rojas, who are skilled in environmental matters and in battling corruption, said the Poder Judicial. Infinto had a lengthy legal battle to follow through on its efforts to open the mine. In 2010 the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo inexplicably canceled the mining company's permit and asked prosecutors to investigate public officials involved in the case. The tribunal also asked for a criminal investigation of Arias, but prosecutors so far have declined to do that. Dobles is accused to two counts of prevaricato or doing something forbidden by law. Infinito's Las Crucitas mine became a controversial issue, and eventually the company had to abandon its project after its concession was canceled. Now it is seeking a money judgment in international arbitration. The company also is accused of cutting some trees at the site. Tree cutting, of course, was the logical result of trying to put in an open pit mine. The company planned to restore the land after extracting the gold. The trial began Oct. 27 and is expected to continue for two more weeks, said the Poder Judicial. These representing Costa Rica in the international arbitration are hoping for a conviction of Dobles so they can defend the country's actions. Dobles has said there is no motive and no indication that he had received anything of value. 500 more kilos of cocaine confiscated By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An alert from law enforcement in Colombia allowed Costa Rican police to intercept a fishing boat carrying 500 kilos of cocaine, the security ministry said Monday. The boat was off Punta Burica in extreme southwest Costa Rica. A helicopter crew of the Servicio de Vigilancia Aérea sighted the craft first and followed the crew as they fled to the nearby beach. There Fuerza Pública officers detained them, the ministry said. Our reader's opinion
Seekers have to do their own researchDear A.M. Costa Rica: With your two articles Monday pointing out the human frailty factor in evaluating scientific research, one might conclude that there are cracks forming in your previous stance which appeared to be, that if research is published, it must be gospel. With powerful trade guilds that exist to safeguard the interests of their members, that hold sway over many of the journals that publish, there are systemic problems inherent in the traditional way of evaluating research. Indeed your editorials touch upon the obstacles to the truth, that traditional means of vetting of research pose on researchers. With the private sector now more than ever providing much of the funding for research — the same interests who control the various trade groups, and guilds who own/control publishing houses — this system is coming apart at the seams. In these times of rapid growth in discovery, the Internet itself provides a direct means for by-passing the ¨middle man.¨ One need only know where to look and what to look for. In essence, we are all being forced to become ¨scientists.¨ Hari Singh Khalsa
Cóbano
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 243 | |
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| Changes in labor code become a hot issue for president and
lawmakers |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Another drama is playing out in the Costa Rican convoluted political scene. This time the issue is whether the current president should withdraw the veto a prior president issued against a proposed law. Just like convictions and acquittals, vetoes appear to lack permanence here. There is precedence. In July President Luis Guillermo Solís announced that he was lifting the veto issued by then-president Oscar Arias Solis to let merchants who sell tourist items to continue to do so on Calle 13 bis. That is the street just west of the Plaza de la Democracia which now is dominated by stalls with tin roofs. The Municipalidad de San José is challenging the action by Solís in court. This time the issue has more far-reaching effects. The proposed law reforms the labor code to allow strikes by public employees in critical occupations, such as police and medical care. Solís is being pressured by the Frente Amplio political party as well as union leaders to lift the veto that was issued by then-president Laura Chinchilla. To do so was one of his campaign promises. |
The
Unión Costarricense de Cámaras y Asociaciones del Sector
Empresarial Privado objects strongly to this idea and says
putting the law in force would cause chaos. The union organization Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados said that if Solís fails to withdraw the veto his credibility is in question. The organization's secretary general, Albino Vargas Barrantes, said that the measure conforms with the requirements of the International Labour Organization. Legislative rules say that Solís has until Monday to act because such bills have a four-year life span. Vargas said that Ms. Chinchilla bowed to the big banana and pineapple companies and says Solís might, too. Vargas cites what he calls the axis of evil, the neoliberal coalition. The politics of this issue is enough to make the head of the average expat to swim. But if the measure becomes law, there will be more strikes. The Cámaras y Asociaciones del Sector Empresarial Privado said that the disputed measure would permit strikes even when employees are not represented by a union and when only a small percentage seeks a work stoppage. The employers would prefer to start again with a proposal being introduced in the legislature. Some politicians said they expect Solís to support the same maneuver in order to "kick the ball down the road." |
| U.S. fraud fugitive sought adoption here to avoid extradition |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man who visited Costa Rica on his luxury yacht was a fugitive from U.S. justice for well over 10 years, said the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles. The man is James Eberhart, 73, who was sentenced Monday to 120 months in federal prison. Eberhart ran an Internet scam that brought in $13 million, and he spent the 10 years as a fugitive traveling to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and most recently to Malaysia, as well as Costa Rica. He spent most of that time living on his 58-foot yacht, the Infinity. Over 800 victims throughout the United States reportedly invested amounts as high as $100,000 individually. The U.S. Attorney's Office said Monday that while in Costa Rica Eberhart tried to have a Tico family adopt him so he would be immune to extradition as a Costa Rican citizen. He was detained in Malaysia in 2012 and pleaded guilty to fraud in September. The U.S. Attorney's office said he operated a fraudulent Newport Beach, California, company called YES Entertainment Network, Inc. According to court documents, he and associates used dozens of boiler room telemarketing firms and a Hollywood celebrity spokesman to raise millions of dollars by telling investors that YES was creating an 18-channel, multimedia, family-oriented Web site . |
that would carry
various forms of entertainment programs Investors were told that YES would generate profits through the sale of advertising on the Web site, and that their investment funds would be used to build and market the Web site, said the U.S. Attorney's Office. Eberhart and associates also told investors that the company planned an
accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore that Eberhart had formed with the help of an attorney. In late 1999, while Eberhart was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an earlier investment fraud scheme, and shortly after FBI agents had executed search warrants at the offices of telemarketing companies affiliated with YES, Eberhart and other employees destroyed company documents and fled the country. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 243 | |||||
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| Computer model reveals clues that would predict change in
Atlantic flow |
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By
the University of Exeter news staff
A new study by researchers at the University of Exeter has identified early warning signals of a reorganization of the Atlantic oceans’ circulation which could have a profound impact on the global climate system. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, used a simulation from a highly complex model to analyze the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important component of the Earth’s climate system. It showed that early warning signals are present up to 250 years before it collapses, suggesting that scientists could monitor the real world overturning circulation for the same signals. The circulation system is like a conveyor belt in the ocean, driven by the salinity and temperature of the water. The system transports heat energy from the tropics and Southern Hemisphere to the North Atlantic, where it is transferred to the atmosphere. Experiments suggest that if the circulation is switched off by extra |
freshwater
entering the North Atlantic, surface air temperature in the North
Atlantic
region would cool by around 1 to 3 degrees C, with
enhanced cooling of up to 8 degrees C in the worst affected regions. The collapse would also encourage drought in the Sahel, the area just south of the Sahara desert, and dynamic changes in sea level of up to 80 centimeters along the coasts. That's about 31.5 inches. “We found that natural fluctuations in the circulation were getting longer-lived as the collapse was approached, a phenomenon known as critical slowing down,” said lead author Chris Boulton of Geography. “We don’t know how close we are to a collapse of the circulation, but a real world early warning could help us prevent it, or at least prepare for the consequences” adds co-author Tim Lenton. The study is the most realistic simulation of the climate system in which this type of early warning signal has been tested. “The best early warning signals in the model world are in places where major efforts are going into monitoring the circulation in the real world – so these efforts could have unexpected added value" added Lenton. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 243 | |||||||
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 New
anti-malaria compound
tricks body to kill infection By the St. Jude Children’s Research
Hospital
news staff An international research collaborative has determined that a promising anti-malarial compound tricks the immune system to rapidly destroy red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite but leave healthy cells unharmed. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists led the study, which appears in the current online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The compound, (+)-SJ733, was developed from a molecule identified in a previous St. Jude-led study that helped to jumpstart worldwide anti-malarial drug development efforts. Malaria is caused by a parasite spread through the bite of an infected mosquito. The disease remains a major health threat to more than half the world’s population, particularly children. The World Health Organization estimates that in Africa a child dies of malaria every minute. In this study, researchers determined that (+)-SJ733 uses a novel mechanism to kill the parasite by recruiting the immune system to eliminate malaria-infected red blood cells. In a mouse model of malaria, a single dose of (+)-SJ733 killed 80 percent of malaria parasites within 24 hours. After 48 hours the parasite was undetectable. Planning has begun for safety trials of the compound in healthy adults. Laboratory evidence suggests that the compound’s speed and mode of action work together to slow and suppress development of drug-resistant parasites. Drug resistance has long undermined efforts to treat and block malaria transmission. "Our goal is to develop an affordable, fast-acting combination therapy that cures malaria with a single dose," said corresponding author R. Kiplin Guy, chairman of the St. Jude Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics. "These results indicate that SJ733 and other compounds that act in a similar fashion are highly attractive additions to the global malaria eradication campaign, which would mean so much for the world's children, who are central to the mission of St. Jude." Whole genome sequencing of the Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the malaria parasites, revealed that (+)-SJ733 disrupted activity of the ATP4 protein in the parasites. The protein functions as a pump that the parasites depend on to maintain the proper sodium balance by removing excess sodium. Researchers showed that inhibiting ATP4 triggered a series of changes in malaria-infected red blood cells that marked them for destruction by the immune system. The infected cells changed shape and shrank in size. They also became more rigid and exhibited other alterations typical of aging red blood cells. The immune system responded using the same mechanism the body relies on to rid itself of aging red blood cells. Another promising class of antimalarial compounds triggered the same changes in red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite, researchers reported. The drugs, called spiroindolones, also target the ATP4 protein. The drugs include NITD246, which is already in clinical trials for treatment of malaria. Those trials involve investigators at other institutions. Malaria deaths fall sharply and intervention credited By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The World Health Organization reports there has been a dramatic fall in the number of malaria deaths since 2000 and the number of cases is also steadily going down. Sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt of malaria, with 90 percent of global deaths occurring there. But this year’s World Malaria Report says Africa’s population has grown by 43 percent since 2000, with fewer people getting infected. WHO Global Malaria Program Director Pedro Alonso says the number of people infected fell from 173 million in 2000 to 128 million in 2013. He says that is particularly good news for children, who are the biggest victims of this fatal, but preventable disease. “Mortality in children under five, the age group, which concentrates the biggest malaria problem in terms of severe disease and death, has reduced by a staggering 58 percent," he said. "And, if we try to quantify the number of lives saved since 2000 up to 2014, we estimate that over four million deaths have been averted.” The World Health Organization says the results are due to greater access to malaria-control interventions. It notes in 2013, almost half the people at risk of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa had access to an insecticide-treated mosquito net. It says a record 214 million bed nets will be delivered to malaria-endemic countries in Africa by the end of the year. Alonso says greater access to rapid diagnostic tests and effective treatment also has significantly improved. He says these are not complex, expensive interventions and health systems can build on these measures. “We also need to sustain a strong pipeline of research and development and innovation to develop new tools," he said. Another sign of progress is the increasing number of countries moving toward malaria elimination. In 2013, World Health says two countries, Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka, reported no cases of malaria, joining 11 countries including Argentina, Egypt, Iraq, Oman, and Turkmenistan that succeeded in maintaining zero cases. But the report says indoor residual spraying has decreased in recent years and insecticide resistance has been reported in 49 countries. World Health also says only about one half the $5.1 billion needed to prevent and control malaria has been received. U.S. will review policy in handling hostage cases By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The death last week in Yemen of a British-born American photojournalist during a rescue operation mounted by American commandos is reviving the debate over U.S. hostage policy. While congressional critics agree the Obama administration had little choice but to launch an 11th-hour military raid to try to save Luke Somers, who was shot dead by his captors, they say there is a growing disconnect between government agencies, which is reducing the chances of freeing American captives. Too often the State Department and the FBI sideline options presented by other U.S. government agencies, they claim. In a letter to President Barack Obama, Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican congressman from California, said he is aware of a government organization that has offered “credible information that could lead to the return of several Americans.” But Hunter said the FBI has dismissed the information, despite having so far failed to turn up any actionable leads in working on the cases for several years. In the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, "options exist to recover Americans in captivity but, because of the FBI and the State Department control on these operations, various lines of effort are being sidelined and even discarded,” he writes. A White House review of U.S. hostage policy, ordered after the beheadings in Syria by Islamic militants earlier in the year of American journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Kassig, is still under way. This week relatives of former and current American hostages are due to meet with officials from the National Security Council overseeing the review. Several families have criticized publicly how the Obama administration has handled captive situations and have complained of feeling pushed around by administration officials and of being kept purposely out of the loop and denied information. In September, James Foley’s mother and brother accused Obama administration officials of repeatedly warning the family that they could face criminal prosecution if they paid a ransom to the Islamic militants from the self-styled Islamic State to secure their son’s release. “We were told that several times, and we took it as a threat and it was appalling,” Foley’s mother Diane told ABC News. And members of the Somers family added Monday to the criticism. Penny Bearman, Somers' stepmother, and his half-sister Lucy Somers told Britain's The Times newspaper they were angry because they think, “if there had not been a rescue attempt he would still be alive.” Nov. 30, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula released a video threatening to kill the 33-year-old photojournalist, who had been held for a year, within three days, if the U.S. government failed to meet their demands. They warned against a repeat of a rescue attempt made by U.S. Special Forces on Nov. 25 that resulted in the freeing of eight other hostages. Somers’ captors moved him shortly before that raid. Somers’ family members say they were kept in the dark about the U.S. government's plans to mount rescue attempts. And, Ms. Bearman said, “there had been threats before that had not been carried out.” She added: “We are sure Luke would have given support to the ongoing discussions in Yemen rather than the conflict approach.” Administration officials argue they had little choice but to proceed on Saturday with the second rescue attempt, and had no reason to believe the captors would refrain from carrying out their threat to kill him. Somers was shot along with a South African hostage who was due to be released, according to his charity employers as the raid unfolded. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has defended the Somers rescue mission publicly, arguing it was extremely well executed, while acknowledging it was complicated and risky. He added in a statement: “There were compelling reasons to believe Somers' life was in imminent danger.” He has said he sees no reason for a review to be conducted of the actual rescue mission. But Joe Kasper, an aide to Rep. Hunter, said the failed rescue mission should be part of the NSC-led review. “It is impossible to conduct a review and not consider what went right and what went wrong in every hostage situation and recovery attempt,” he said. “Otherwise, we are not learning from our experiences, and there are definitely a lot of them to learn from.” A number of European hostages held by Islamic militants in Syria have been released following million-dollar ransom payments. Both the U.S. and British governments have long followed a policy of refusing to pay terrorists in exchange for hostages. But with the executions of Foley, Sotloff and Kassig, political pressure has mounted on the Obama administration to reconsider how it handles hostage situations. Administration officials say the review will not lead to a reversal on the prohibition of paying ransoms. They say ransom payments only encourage the seizing of more hostages. But the review is likely to conclude that there should be greater coordination between U.S. government agencies and the sharing of information, they say. California drought said to be completely natural By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The drought parching the U.S. State of California is one of the worst on record. And although researchers say greenhouse gases likely made heat waves worse in Asia, Australia and Europe last year, climate change is probably not behind California’s troubles. The last three years have been among the warmest and driest on record in the West Coast state, costing an estimated $2.2 billion in crop and livestock losses so far. A ridge of high pressure has blocked Pacific storms from coming ashore for the last three winters. “The atmosphere, through its own internal weather variability, is quite capable of creating ridges like that,” said study lead author Richard Seager at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. “But what we found in this report was that the particular configuration of the ocean in these past three winters favored that ridge and dry conditions in California.” Cold temperatures in some parts of the Pacific Ocean and warm spots in others can affect how air circulates in the atmosphere. In the new report, researchers found that over the past three years, the cold and warm spots have lined up in a way that makes that rain-blocking ridge likely. Plus, Seager says, computer models predict that drought is not the impact that climate change will have on California. “The models are actually projecting not overall drier conditions as a result of rising greenhouse gases but a shorter, sharper rainy season,” he said. But Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says, at this point, climate change is not likely to have had much effect on global circulation patterns, “so, looking for a change in circulation with climate change is largely an irrelevant thing to do.” “There is absolutely nothing in this study that deals with one of the main effects of climate change, which is increased heating, high temperatures, increased drying, increased evaporation,” he added. The study authors acknowledge that ocean temperatures only explain part of the severity of the current drought. “In particular, why was the last year of the drought the most severe, even though the ocean conditions were perhaps the weakest during the three-year period?” asked study co-author Martin Hoerling at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s a bit of a puzzle to us.” |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 243 | |||||||||
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 Universidad de los Andes/ Juan A.
Sanchez
Eunicea fusca off CuracaoCaribbean coral unaffected by pH decline By the University of Miami news staff
A new study on tropical shallow-water soft corals, known as gorgonians, found that the species were able to calcify and grow under elevated carbon dioxide concentrations. These results suggest that Caribbean gorgonian corals may be more resilient to the ocean acidification levels projected by the end of the 21st century than previously thought. An international team of scientists, including from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, tested the effects of elevated CO2 concentrations on the growth and calcification rates of the sea rod, Eunicea fusca, a type of gorgonian or soft coral found throughout the Bahamas, Bermuda, South Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers collected E. fusca specimens from Big Pine Shoals in the Florida Keys to simulate a range of predicted future ocean acidification conditions – CO2 concentrations from 285-2,568 parts per million (pH range 8.1-7.1) – during a four-week experiment at the Rosenstiel School’s Coral Reefs and Climate Change Laboratory. Eunicea fusca showed a negative response to calcification under elevated CO2 concentrations, but growth and calcification did not stop under any of the CO2 levels used in the study. “Our results suggest that gorgonian coral may be more resilient than other reef-dwelling species to the ocean acidification changes that are expected to occur in the oceans as a result of climate change,” said Chris Langdon, a professor and director of the Coral Reefs and Climate Change Laboratory. “These findings will allow us to better predict the future composition of coral reef communities under the current “business-as-usual scenario.” The absorption of carbon dioxide by seawater, which results in a decline in pH level, is termed ocean acidification even though the water is not acidic. The change in the seawater is felt throughout the marine food web as calcifying organisms, such as corals, oysters and sea urchins, find it more difficult to build their shells and skeletons making them more susceptible to predation and damage. |
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| From Page 7: U.S. snooping called European problem By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A top EU official says mass surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency is a business problem for European Internet service providers. Paul Nemitz, a European Commission official, said Monday anyone in the United States using a European-based email service risks having the NSA reading his or her messages. Nemitz said that under U.S. law, the NSA basically can grab any data it wants as the information enters the United States. His comments come as the EU and the United States are renegotiating a data-sharing agreement that helps U.S. companies do business in Europe. A report from the Council of Europe Monday says continued mass data collection by the U.S. makes it more likely other countries will insist that their data be routed and stored locally. The report says this would create national barriers to a global network and would slow down Internet speeds. The European Commission is pushing for Washington to guarantee that it will only access Europeans' personal data for national security reasons, as it says it does with U.S. citizens' data. |
