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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 249
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Rains cause
landslides
that closed Ruta 32 for a time By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Heavy rains Monday afternoon north of San José caused landslides that closed Ruta 32, the key highway to the north and to the province of Limón. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad announced the closure about 5 p.m. and said that the area around the Río Danta and in Zurquí had problems. The road was reoped about 10 a.m. today. The highway runs through the Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo where there are steep cliffs alongside the roadway. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said there were heavy rains Monday afternoon in the northern zone and on the Caribbean coast. Rains in the mountains caused rivers to rise. Elsewhere in the country there were high winds. The weather institute said that the winds and the rains would continue for the first couple of days of the week. Taoist Tai Chi Association plans introductory classes Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The Taoist Tai Chi Association of Costa Rica is offering introductory classes to the internal arts of health beginning Jan. 7 at the Grecia Cultural Center, from 10 a.m. to noon and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The movements of Tai Chi Taoísta are designed to restore health naturally and maintain good physical, mental and spiritual condition, said the organization. They are slow and harmonious. They incorporate the rotation and the stretching of the spine, equally exercising all parts of the body, while relaxing and soothing the mind. The practice of Taoist Tai Chi internal arts of health can help alleviate many medical conditions, such as those that result from accidents, stress, chronic or degenerative diseases and many other specific conditions, the organization said. Benefits include improved circulation, balance and posture, increased strength and flexibility, and stress reduction, it added. To register for classes in Grecia, those interested can call 8308-9726. To learn more about the benefits of Taoist Tai Chi those interested can consult: www.taoist.org and http://costarica.taoist.org. Our reader's opinion
We must change eating habitsto a more sustainable diet Dear A.M. Costa Rica: Unfortunately as long as there is a demand there will always be someone to supply that demand legally or illegally. The main target catch for these long line fisherman is not sailfish but more about catching fish like dorado (aka mahi mahi). As the article mentioned the fisherman were found to have 50 dorado, 75 smaller fish and two sailfish. It is obvious they are not getting rich on the sailfish. The article doesn't include how often sea turtles are caught on these long lines, left to die, before they pull in the miles of long lines. The real problem is the over consumption of our ocean's natural resources, namely the fish and shrimp populations that are being over harvested. We shouldn't be shaking the fingers at these fisherman since many people are purchasing their catch to eat. If we consumed less of their product, there would be less of these fisherman. It reminds me of a friend of mine. He complains about the shrimp boats and how they dump so many dead fish and turtles overboard while harvesting shrimp. He is quite appalled at all the dead creatures floating on the surface of the ocean when he is out fishing with some friends. Yet he still consumes shrimp. If we want these atrocities to stop we need to change our own eating habits in a more sustainable way. Henry
Kantrowitz
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 249 | |
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| Unscheduled landing results in quick
capture of aircraft |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An aircraft loaded with cocaine either experienced an emergency or the pilot deliberately made an unscheduled landing in the Caribbean coast early Monday. Whatever the plans, the quick arrival of police officers resulted in the detention of the pilot and his son, both Guatemalans. The aircraft, a Beechcraft King Air, landed on a private crop spraying strip in Pandora, Valle de la Estrella, Limón. The aircraft was en route from Colombia. The pilot was identified by the last name of Cruz. His son has the same last name. The King Air is well known as a craft that can land and take off on short runways. The aircraft involved is a 1980 model, said the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública. |
 Ministerio
de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública. photo
Police
guard the Beechcraft.
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| Northern border crossing will have
24-hour days of operation |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Because of the flood of travelers, the Peñas Blancas border crossing will remain open 24 hours a day for Dec. 22 and Dec. 23, said the Dirección General de Migración. However, the agency referred any questions about possible reinstatement of the $5 land exit tax to the Ministerio de Hacienda. For the rest of the days, the border posts will be open from 6 a.m. to midnight, except Christmas and New Year's Day when employees will work until 6 p m., the agency said. To speed up the border crossing, immigration police will conduct checks of international buses in Liberia, said the |
agency. That technique has
been successful in past years, the agency said. In the first 15 days of the month 152,602 persons have left Costa Rica for Nicaragua and 139,445 have entered the country. That represents 3 per cent fewer persons than last year, the agency said. The exit tax was suspended when not having a way to pay at the border created chaos. The tax is expected to be reinstated when credit card machines are available at the major border crossing points. Officials expected travelers to pay the tax at a bank even though most did not know of the tax. Officials rushed to get the tax into effect to catch the heavy flow of travelers over the holiday. |
| Santa Ana-Belén roadway to be
widened to five traffic lanes |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The two-lane Santa Ana-Belén highway will be widened to five lanes, the Consejo de Nacional de Vialidad said Monday. The work is being supported by the Asociación Consejo de Desarrollo Inmobiliario, a real estate advocacy organization, which is putting up $2 million. The entire job will be $34 million, said the Consejo. |
The job includes replacing
four bridges, including one of 180 meters (about 590 feet) over the
Río Virilla. The work is scheduled to begin in January with the relocation of public utilities in advance of road work. The Consejo will finance its share of the cost. The distance is two kilometers, about 1.24 miles. This section of roadway carried about 31,500 vehicles a day. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 249 | |||||
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| Study says that musical training does not make a youngster
smarter |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It’s commonly believed that teaching children music makes them smarter. But the authors of a new study say there’s no scientific evidence that early musical training has any effect on the intelligence of youngsters. An estimated 80 percent of American adults think music lessons improve children's grades or boost their learning ability. In fact, children can get a lot of benefit from music lessons, say experts, from the pride that comes with learning how to play a new song to serving as an outlet for creativity. Harvard University researchers in Massachusetts, however, have discovered that there’s one thing early musical training does not do. It does not increase intelligence. Researchers led by School of Education graduate student Samuel Mehr say it's a misconception that learning to play an instrument enhances a child's cognitive development. Mehr bases his conclusion on the results of studies that measured the mental aptitude of two groups of 4-year-olds and their parents. One group was assigned to a music class; the other to a class that emphasized visual arts. “The evidence there is 'no.' We found no evidence for any advantage on any of these tests for the kids participating in these music classes," said Mehr. |
While dozens of
studies have been conducted to see whether musical
training can make children smarter, Mehr says the results have been
mixed. He says only one study, published several years ago in the
journal Nature,
seemed to show a slight 2.7 percent increase in IQ, or intellectual
quotient, scores among students after one year of lessons. But Mehr, who says IQ is not a good measure of a child’s intelligence, says researchers decided to compare how well children in the musical training group fared on mental processing tasks compared to those who received no music lessons. There was no evidence that the musical training group significantly outperformed the other group on mental tasks. To confirm the results, researchers conducted a second study with a larger group of youngsters and their parents, and found no cognitive advantage to music lessons. While lessons may not offer children a shortcut to prestigious academic institutions, Mehr says they are of significant cultural importance. “We teach music because music is important to us. And I think to make an analogy to another area, we don’t teach Shakespeare so that our kids will be better at physics. We teach Shakespeare because it matters, because it’s important. And I don’t think music needs to be any different than that.” An article looking at the benefits of musical training in children is published in the journal PLOS ONE. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 249 | |||||
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| U.S. district judge rejects NSA phone harvesting By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. government's gathering of Americans' phone records is likely unlawful, a judge ruled Monday, raising serious doubts about the value of the National Security Agency's so-called metadata counter terrorism program. “I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002, wrote in a 68-page ruling. The U.S. Department of Justice said it was reviewing the ruling in a case brought by Larry Klayman, a conservative lawyer, and Charles Strange, described in court documents as the father of a cryptologist technician for the NSA who was killed in Afghanistan in 2011. The judge ordered the government to stop collecting data about the two plaintiffs, who were Verizon Communications, Inc., customers. Verizon declined comment. “We believe the program is constitutional as previous judges have found,” Department of Justice spokesman Andrew Ames said in a statement. Leon suspended enforcement of his injunction against the program “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues” pending an expected appeal by the government. A U.S. official said an appeal was likely. Leon expressed skepticism of the program's value, writing that the government could not cite a single instance in which the bulk data actually stopped an imminent attack. “I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism,” he wrote. That is important, he added, because for the program to be constitutional, the government must show its effectiveness outweighs privacy interests. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the massive phone record collection to U.S. and British media in June. Documents provided by Snowden showed that a U.S. surveillance court had secretly approved the collection of millions of raw daily phone records in America, such as the length of calls and the numbers that are dialed. Snowden, in a statement sent by journalist Glenn Greenwald, applauded the ruling. “I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,” he said. “Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many.” In its defense, the NSA says the data collected are key to spotting possible terrorism plots and do not include the recording of actual phone conversations. Judge Leon wrote, however, that the program likely violated Americans' right to be free of unreasonable searches. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of both NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency, said the metadata made a contribution to weaving the tapestry of intelligence and that judges “are not really in a good position to judge the merits of intelligence collection programs.” An Obama administration official said that on 35 occasions in the past, 15 separate judges assigned to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court had declared bulk communications of telephone metadata lawful. Judge Leon has issued headline-making rulings before. In 2011 he blocked cigarette-warning labels that showed graphic images such as a man with a hole in his throat, saying they were unlawful compelled speech, and this year he ruled that the Federal Reserve ignored the intent of Congress in a case about debit card swipe fees. Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group in Washington, said the ruling “means that the NSA bulk collection program is skating on thin constitutional ice.” In defending the data collection, U.S. Justice Department lawyers have relied in part on a 1979 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that said people have little privacy interest when it comes to records held by a third party such as a phone company. Leon wrote that the latest circumstances were different. “The government, in its understandable zeal to protect our homeland, has crafted a counter terrorism program with respect to telephone metadata that strikes the balance based in large part on a 34-year-old Supreme Court precedent, the relevance of which has been eclipsed by technological advances and a cell phone-centric lifestyle heretofore inconceivable,” he wrote. Greenwald, a former columnist for The Guardian who wrote about the metadata collection program based on documents leaked to him by Snowden, praised the court ruling. “This is a huge vindication for Edward Snowden and our reporting. Snowden came forward precisely because he knew that the NSA was secretly violating the constitutional rights of his fellow citizens, and a federal court ruled today that this is exactly what has been happening,” Greenwald said in an email. A committee of experts appointed by the Obama administration to review NSA activities is expected to recommend that the spy agency give up collection of masses of metadata and instead require telephone companies to hold onto it so it can be searched. But intelligence officials and the phone companies themselves are said to oppose such a plan. EPA's power to regulate power plants questioned By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case that could have broader implications in the effort to fight climate change. Last June, the Obama administration announced an ambitious series of measures to reduce climate-changing carbon emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency enacted stricter rules for cars and new power plants and is working on developing new standards for existing coal-fired power plants. Opponents say the EPA is over-reaching its authority to regulate carbon emissions. The case focuses on a single, narrow question: Does the EPA's authority to limit emissions from new cars and trucks give it the authority to issue permits for power plant construction or modification? Scott Segal, who directs the industry trade group the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, says the requirements for pollution controls on vehicles should not be applied to the permitting process for power plants, factories and other stationary sources of emissions. “It has always been extremely controversial for the agency to condition the granting of these permits on new requirements, and what the agency has done has created some confusion of whether they will condition future permits on carbon controls,” Segal said. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate pollution coming from new motor vehicles. In 2011, it ruled that the EPA could set pollution standards for power plants. Industry appeals to reverse those rules failed. The case now before the Supreme Court won’t change those earlier decisions, according to David Doniger, who directs the climate policy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “So even though there is a case before the Supreme Court, we have mostly won this question of EPA authority,” Doniger said. Segal is not so sure. He says the fact that they took this case is a sign that some of the justices on the high court have concerns about the legality of the EPA's moves to regulate carbon emissions. He says it is Congress, and not the EPA, that determines U.S. climate policy. “And this Supreme Court case may be the first opportunity for the Court to speak and perhaps direct the agency that they have gone too far, too fast,” Segal said. Doniger notes Congress has failed in recent years to create climate laws and stresses that the case before the court focuses on permits only. It is not a challenge to established rules under the Clean Air Act that Congress passed in 1970, the same year the EPA was created. “It’s like a defense shield against new pollution problems," Doniger said, "and it’s EPA's job to carry that law out even if the current Congress doesn’t like it.” Until Congress can harness a majority to strengthen or repeal the Clean Air Act, the law stands and is binding and enforceable under the Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate, according to Doniger. A decision in the case is expected by June. States rejecting Obamacare lose access to federal funds By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Nearly half of all U.S. states are rejecting a key component of the new U.S. health care reform law popularly known as Obamacare. These states, almost all with strong Republican majorities, are citing unsustainable costs as the reason for opting out. But, by not participating, states like South Carolina could lose billions of dollars in federal funds. At the Anderson Free Clinic in South Carolina, people line up early in the morning to see a doctor. The clinic treats more than 2,000 people a year. Most of the patients like Ronnie Green, who is 60-years-old and living on a small pension, are either unable to work or have limited incomes. “My nerves are real bad. I cry all the time. I shake. Can’t hold nothing. My nerves just gone," said Green. Under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, almost all of these patients would have their costs covered by Medicaid, the government-funded health care program for the poor. But because South Carolina has chosen not to expand Medicaid, free clinics remain the only option for many people. Barb Baptista, the clinic's director, says there are not enough exam rooms to handle the growing number of patients. “The exam rooms are only a piece of it. Having the providers who are willing to volunteer at the free clinic and having the financial means to support our budget are a huge concern," said Ms. Baptista. The clinic sends seriously ill patients to the AnMed hospital emergency room often by taxi rather than ambulance to save money. Hospitals that accept federal funds are required by law to provide emergency care regardless of an individual’s ability to pay. But Obamacare will phase out the federal program that reimburses hospitals for some of these bills, replacing it by covering more people under Medicaid. Bill Manson, who heads AnMed Health, says South Carolina’s decision not to expand Medicaid imposes on hospitals all of the law's cuts but none of the benefits. “By not participating in the expansion, we kind of have almost a perfect storm of all the reductions that were built into the law without the resulting increase in coverage of the uninsured," said Manson. Under Obamacare, federal funds will pay 100 percent of added Medicaid costs, gradually reducing that to 90 percent by 2020. But conservatives like Ashley Landess with the South Carolina Policy Council say the costs are adding to a budget deficit that is unsustainable. “The fix is not to continue the cycle of dependency on dollars that are really coming from debt for the most part but rather to cut that dependency and put control of health care back into the hands of providers and the patients," said Landess. Google purchases another firm that deal in robotics By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Google has bought another robotics firm, the eighth robotics firm it has purchased recently, making it a leader in the robotics industry. The latest acquisition is Boston Dynamics, maker of robots for the U.S. military, including Cheetah, the world's fastest-running robot as well as other animal-like machines. Google has been coy about the type of robots it’s looking to develop, but the company has put Andy Rubin in charge of the effort. He was in charge of Google’s popular Android operating system. In a statement on his Google+ page, Google co-founder Larry Page wrote of the Boston Dynamics purchase, “I am excited about Andy Rubin's next project. His last big bet, Android, started off as a crazy idea that ended up putting a supercomputer in hundreds of millions of pockets. It is still very early days for this, but I can't wait to see the progress.” The price of the purchase has yet to be made public. Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 and largely develops robots for the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Many of those robots such as BigDog and WildCat, are well-known because of YouTube videos showing them in action. Some analysts say Google’s foray into robotics means it’s trying to develop a robot that could potentially deliver goods to people at home and at work. Amazon recently proposed developing robotic drones that could do that, but analysts say Google’s robots would likely make the deliveries in self-driving vehicles, a technology that Google is actively developing at its headquarters in California. Google has already begun experimenting with a grocery delivery service in the San Francisco Bay area called Google Shopping Express. Google’s robotics team will be headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with an office in Japan, a leader in the robotics industry. "I feel with robotics it's a green field," Rubin told The New York Times. "We're building hardware, we're building software. We're building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack." The previous companies Google has acquired are Autofuss, Bot & Dolly, Holomni, Industrial Perception, Meka Robotics, Redwood Robotics and Schaft. Antibacterial soap makers asked to prove their value By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. regulators are calling on the makers of antimicrobial soaps to prove their products are more effective than plain soap and water. The Food and Drug Administration says the widespread use of these products may be contributing to rising rates of drug-resistant bacteria, and some evidence suggests they may even be harmful to health. The agency has issued a proposal that would require manufacturers to demonstrate that antimicrobial soaps lower rates of illness more than plain soap, and that the benefits outweigh potential risks. There are about 2,000 antimicrobial soaps on the market today, according to the FDA. Consumers may believe these products do a better job protecting them from getting sick, “but we don’t have any evidence that that is really the case, over simple soap and water,” said FDA Deputy Director Sandra Kweder. Some test tube and animal studies suggest long-term exposure to the active ingredients in antimicrobial soaps can affect hormone levels and may be linked to cancer, but Ms. Kweder says these are preliminary. “The challenge is to try and understand what those actually mean for effects on humans,” she said. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that has sued the FDA over triclosan and triclocarban in soaps, welcomed the move. “This is a good first step toward getting unsafe triclosan off the market,” says Mae Wu, an attorney with the defense council. “FDA is finally taking concerns about triclosan seriously.” Soap industry representatives say they are perplexed by the announcement. In a statement, the Personal Care Products Council says it has given that FDA “in-depth data showing that antibacterial soaps are more effective in killing germs when compared with non-antibacterial soap.” And the statement cites evidence that antimicrobial soaps do not contribute to antibiotic resistance. Ms. Kweder says the FDA’s move is “all part of the general equation of, what are the benefits of using antibacterial products and how do they stack up against any potential risks.” Last week, the FDA said the use of antibiotics to help healthy livestock grow better is contributing to rising drug resistance and asked drug makers to place tighter limits on their use. If the proposed rule is approved, soap manufacturers would have to conduct clinical studies showing their products are safe and more effective than plain soap. Ms. Kweder stressed the FDA is not discouraging hand-washing. “Washing with plain soap and water is one of the most important steps people can take to avoid getting sick and prevent the spread of germs to others,” she said. The rule would not apply to alcohol-based hand sanitizing gels and wipes that do not require water. The FDA is asking for comments on the proposal over the next six months. If approved, Ms. Kweder expects the rule would go into effect in September of 2016. Bitcoin electronic money is popular and controversial By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
People who want to buy goods, pay for services, or transfer money anywhere in the world bypassing all the banks, credit cards and other financial services, even the governments, increasingly use virtual money called Bitcoin. Devised in 2009 by a secretive software developer, whose real name is not public, the digital currency is generating a lot of interest and controversy. About 1,700 businesses around the word now accept Bitcoins. The encrypted electronic money is sold, bought and transferred like traditional currencies through trading companies. Transactions are done without involvement or regulation by third parties or governments. That makes Bitcoin the world’s first, completely decentralized digital currency, says technology policy analyst Jerry Brito. “Bitcoin basically solved a computer science problem that, for the first time, allows just two people to transact online, so it’s decentralized. There’s no Bitcoin company, there’s no government, it’s kind of like email.” That makes it attractive to criminals who want to transfer money secretly. But U.S. law enforcement agencies recently shut down an online black market based on the system. As the chairman of Bitcoin Foundation’s Regulatory Affairs Committee, Marco Santori, points out, all Bitcoin transactions can be seen by all other computers. “Absolutely. Bitcoin is in fact heavily regulated. It is very heavily regulated. Those who exchange Bitcoins for other digital currencies or exchange Bitcoins for dollars are money transmitters under the Bank Secrecy Act,” said Santori. The reliability of the system is based on the fact that the amount of bitcoins in the entire system must always be accounted for. Users' computers that constantly monitor and approve transactions are rewarded with new bitcoins, which is how additional funds are added to the system, said Brito. “Every 10 minutes there are 25.5 bitcoins introduced into the economy, and it is given to one of the miners, kind of at random as it were, who are contributing the computer capacity,” said Brito. The United States, Germany, and many other governments accept the use of the digital currency, although some officials have called for greater oversight. China recently banned its banks, but not its businesses, from trading in Bitcoin. Santori said that sending money now across the globe has become much easier and cheaper. “They don’t always have to send dollars or some derivative of a dollar. They can send Bitcoin.” Since its introduction in 2009, the value of a Bitcoin has fluctuated from mere pennies to close to 1,000 U.S. dollars. And as more and more companies accept it for goods and services, and more and more consumers use it, the virtual currency is becoming a real fixture on the global financial scene. Malaria effort succeeding, World health report says By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The global effort to curb malaria is succeeding phenomenally, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization. More than three million lives have been saved so far this century with better prevention and better medicines. The organization expects even more success. Global efforts to end malaria and the human suffering it causes have made huge strides since 2000. Public and private donors have targeted hard hit countries by funding programs like the one in Kenya. The World Health Organization's latest report on malaria says three million lives, mostly those of children, have been spared. The death rate has been cut by nearly half. Robert Newman, a physician who heads the organization's global malaria program, said, "There’s been a large increase over the last 12 years in financing for malaria control efforts, and that has purchased lifesaving commodities like long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets, insecticides for indoor spraying, diagnostic tests, especially rapid diagnostic tests, and anti-malarial medicines.” Malaria is a plague in more than 100 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. |
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Moody joins
S&P in cutting Venezuela's credit ratings By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Moody's Investors Service downgraded Venezuela's credit rating Monday and warned it could cut them again given what it saw as the growing risk of an economic and financial collapse in the country. It was the second ratings downgrade in just a few days for the country after Standard & Poor's cut its bond ratings on the radicalization of economic policy and declining international reserves. President Nicolas Maduro spooked investors last month by forcing retailers to slash the prices of consumer goods as part of an economic offensive to rein in annualized inflation of 54 percent, a move critics say will spur shortages down the road. The populist move helped the ruling Socialist Party, however, to a strong showing in local polls earlier this month that shored up Maduro's political standing. Moody's said it cut Venezuela's local and foreign currency ratings to Caa1 from B1 and B2, respectively, while the outlook for the rating was negative. “The downgrade reflects Moody's view that Venezuela is facing increasingly unsustainable macroeconomic imbalances, including a skyrocketing inflation and a sharp depreciation of the parallel exchange rate,” the agency said. “As government policies have exacerbated these problems, the risk of an economic and financial collapse has greatly increased.” It cited high inflation, a black market exchange rate 10 times the official level, widespread shortages of goods, a shrinking current account surplus, perilously low foreign exchange reserves and anemic 1.4 percent growth during the first three quarters of 2013. “A sharp increase in Venezuela's sovereign yields to more than 15 percent in early December from less than 10 percent in mid-May suggests the country's ability to access markets has been severely curtailed,” it added. Moody's said the negative outlook reflected its expectation that conditions would continue to deteriorate. However, the outlook could stabilize if macroeconomic imbalances are reduced to levels that do not threaten an economic collapse, it added. Judicial investigators get new deputy director By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Gerald Campos Valverde, a lawyer with 23 years of experience in the agency, has been named subdirector of the Judicial Investigating Organization, the Poder Judicial said Monday. He now is the regional chief in San Carlos. The job became open with the retirement of director Jorge Rojas and the promotion of his second in command. Campos begins the new job Dec. 23. |
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| From Page 7: Foreign investments and exports reported higher By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The commerce ministry said that foreign investment and exportations increased in 2013 and exceeded goals even though there was a weak growth in the international economy. The Ministerio de Comercio Exterior estimated that by the end of the year, foreign investment would be $2.4 billion, an increase of 8 percent over 2012 and about $160 million higher than the annual goal. The ministry is estimating that exports of goods and services will be $17.3 billion, a 3 percent increase over 2012. The minister, Anabel González, also noted that the country had reached a free trade treaty with Colombia, an agreement with the European Union along with other Central American nations, improved border crossings and organized a trade summit for Latin American and the Caribbean with the People's Republic of China. |
