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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 1
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Bee attacks lead
the list
of reasons for fire calls By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The biggest reason fire fighters are called out in Costa Rica are bee attacks, according to statistics released Wednesday by the agency. The Bomberos de Costa Rica are the first line defense against aggressive bees, and there were 13,133 such incidents in 2013. That number represented 531 more calls than in 2013. By contrast there were only 1,082 structural fires last year, a small reduction from the 1,102 in 2012. The bees in Costa Rica have genetic characteristics of the African bees that took over the local bee population in the last decades of the 20th century. The bees are far more aggressive and respond in masses to vibrations or odor from a bee sting. Attacks can be fatal. The bees are descendants from a few queens liberated in Brazil in 1957. They swept north and replaced existing bee varieties. Most of the attacks come from wild or feral bee hives that are accidentally bumped or otherwise subjected to vibration. The hollow concrete utility poles are perfect locations for hives as are hollow trees and building walls. The fire agency issued warnings about tampering or trying to eradicate such hives. Fire fighters have special equipment for that purpose. They seek reports on hive locations. In all the fire agency responded to 51,000 calls in 2013, a 26 percent or 10,498 call increase over the prior year. Field fires numbered 9,682 and liquid petroleum emergencies were 6,839. Gas calls were up to 6,839 in 2013 from 2,940 in 2012. That may have been caused by several serious and a fatal event that made the news and prompted more gas users to seek outside help when there was a leak. Financial trouble besets Panama Canal widening By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Financial problems are causing uncertainty at the Panama Canal expansion project. The Panamá News said that Geodis Willson Italia SPA, the shipper that brought massive gates for a new lock from Italy, has not been paid and is seeking via Panama’s maritime courts to sequester them until it gets its $47,850,785.50 bill paid. Meanwhile, other news outlets in Panamá are reporting that the Unidos por el Canal, the consortium doing the expansion project, faces a $1.6 billion cost overrun. The consortium gave the Panama Canal authority three weeks to settle the issue and threatened to suspend work on its $3.2 billion contract. The canal job totals $5.2 billion and is designed to let much larger ships use the facility. The job is said to be about 75 percent finished. The job is supposed to be done in June 2015. The Panama News warned that international recognition of the project’s problems is just beginning and a reaction by foreign investors and would-be foreign residents of Panama could be more harmful to Panama’s economy than the canal expansion fiasco itself. Nosara welfare organization plans annual meeting Sunday By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Friends of Nosara plans to hold its annual meeting Sunday at Marlin Bill's Restaurant in the Pacific coast community. Friends of Nosara serves as a clearing house for donations, and each year it distributes more than $100,000 to various community organizations. They include Surfing Nosara Foundation, Biblioteca David Kitson, Nosara Wildlife, Nosara Animal Care, Del Mar Academy Scholarship Foundation, and Nosara Recycling Association. Friends of Nosara is a U.S. registered non-profit. The meeting Sunday is a time for the partner organizations to present their reports for the year and for a report on achievements, said Friends of Nosara in an announcement.  Royal Holloway University photo
Janus, the god who looked
backwards and forwardsNew year's
resolutions date
from Rome, professor notes By
the Royal Holloway University news service
The tradition of making promises on the first day of the year is a custom started by Romans. “Rome’s highest officials made a resolution to remain loyal to the republic and swore oaths to the emperor on First January,” said Richard Alston, a professor in the Department of Classics at Royal Holloway University in London. “A grand ceremony marked the occasion, where the Roman legions would parade and sacrifices were made on the Capitoline Hill. This annual event renewed the bonds between citizens, the state and the gods.” New Year’s Day offered all Roman citizens an opportunity to reflect on the past and look to the year ahead, he said. People would exchange sweet fruits and honey, greet each other with blessings for the coming year and the courts only worked in the mornings, so they had a half day holiday, he added. “On 1 January, our Roman ancestors celebrated Janus, the god of new beginnings who had two faces, one looking into the past and another looking to the future,” Alston added. “Janus represented doors and thresholds, and the Romans named the month of January in his honor. “Janus also symbolized the values of home, family, friendship and civilization, and the doors of his temple were closed when Rome was at peace and thrown open in times of war, as if the god was no longer present. “Just like we do today, we also know that the Romans celebrated a mid-winter festival in which they met with friends, exchanges gifts and had a good time before the start of the year ahead,” said the professor.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 1 | |
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 A.M. Costa Rica/James Marshall
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 A.M.
Costa Rica/James Marshall
Penalty for
forgetfulness
Gary Jiménez, a traffic policeman, removes the plates of a vehicle whose owner did not pay the obligatory insurance and road tax for 2014. The scene was Wednesday on the Autopista General Cañas. The fine is 47,000 colons, some $95, plus a surcharge on the marchamo fee. Officers, like the one to the left, were out in force New Year's Day. The police agency reported that more than 100 motorists were snagged for non-payment in the first day the law was enforced this year. |
| Driver wins ¢2 million because employer told why he was fired |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The top labor court has ordered a bus company to pay two million colons to a driver who was fired for irregularities in the accounting of fares. The decision by the Sala Segunda of the Corte Suprema de Justicia assesses a penalty for the publication of truthful information. However, the court said that the bus company denigrated the worker by sending a wanted-type poster to other bus firms describing why the man was fired. The court case said the man was let go because of irregularities in the accounting of adult fares. Seniors can ride for free on local lines, but the driver has to keep track. The implication in the court case was that the driver generated excess free passages. |
The court also ordered the bus
company to pay the man 210,420 colons, about $400, an amount that was
disputed for vacation time and overtime. The court based its ruling on an article in the civil code that forbids denigrating workers. The court likened this to defamation, even though there was not falsity alleged. The court said that because the bus firm notified other companies about the financial irregularities it created depression and pain for the worker and that the act impeded the man's effort to obtain work elsewhere. Still, the court ruled that the firing without employer responsibility was justified. The amount awarded, two million colons, is about $4,000. The court said that the bus company abused its disciplinary power and caused moral damage. The reason for the firing that was affirmed was loss of confidence. The case originated in a lower labor court in Desamparados. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 1 | |||||
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| Young tropical forests contribute little to diversity, study
reports |
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By
the Smithsonian Tropical Research Center news staff
A satellite image of a green swath of tropical forest doesn’t tell the whole story. About half the world's tropical forests are relatively young. Unless protected, they’re unlikely to last more than a human generation before falling to bulldozers or chainsaw. These secondary forests may contribute little to tree biodiversity conservation, according to a new report by scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panamá. "Secondary forests in the tropics are normally cut within a few decades, and very often in less than ten years," said Michiel van Breugel, lead author of the study published in PLOS ONE. "From the perspective of tree species conservation, this doesn't work." Even 30-year-old forests have a very low percentage of the reproductive trees essential to long-term species survival, he notes. Perhaps the most extensive of its kind in the tropics, van Breugel’s study suggests that forests subjected to regular human disturbance may undergo profound, long-lasting tree biodiversity loss. While fallow forests can have a surprisingly high tree biodiversity, a large proportion of tree species only occur as seedlings and saplings. They do not reproduce before the forests are cleared again. "A tree only contributes to the conservation of its species when it arrives at a site, establishes, grows and reproduces," said van Breugel. The study was conducted on the Smithsonian's 700-hectare Panama Canal Watershed Experiment, a long-term research site designed to quantify ecosystem services provided by different land uses. Van Breugel and colleagues had two questions in mind. First, can secondary forests recover their original diversity through natural succession in the long-term? And to what extent can short-lived secondary forests in dynamic agricultural landscapes contribute to the conservation of a high diversity of tree species? They randomly selected 45 secondary forest plots ranging from two to 32 years of age in which they counted more than 52,000 trees, palms and lianas. To the authors' knowledge, this was the first study of its kind ever conducted in the tropics. In the study plots, researchers found 324 tree and shrub species, about 55 percent of the Agua Salud's suite of some 600 tree species. They estimated relative reproductive size thresholds and determined that in forests between 18 and 34 years of age, 51 percent (137 of 268 species) reached reproductive size. In forests between two and seven years of age, the figure |
 Smithsonian Tropical Research Center
/Christian Ziegler
This young tropical forest loses
biodiversity as it suffers repeated disturbance.fell to 36 percent (79 of 220 species). Importantly, these included few large canopy species, slow-growing shade-tolerant understory species, and species that rely on forest-dependent animals for seed dispersal. If left undisturbed, secondary forests may regain levels of tree diversity similar to those of mature forests – but only when the surrounding landscape includes natural seed sources like protected parkland, patches of old forest and remnant trees as it did in this case. The research underscores the importance of protecting old forests to maintain the tree diversity for which the tropics are famous. "In the long term, we might see a distinct shift in the functional composition of human-altered landscapes," said van Breugel. "This kind of landscape becomes more and more dominated by a small group of species with specific traits like the ability to survive grazing and fire, high fecundity, good dispersal and the ability to grow to a reproductive age in a short period of time. On the other hand, many shade-tolerant trees are poorly dispersed, grow slowly and depend on forest-bound species for pollination and dispersal. Their conservation will depend on our ability to protect large areas of old-growth forests." |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 1 | |||||
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| Rocky Mountain high really is as pot sales begin in Colorado By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The world's first state-licensed marijuana retailers legally permitted to sell pot for recreational use to the general public opened for business in Colorado Wednesday with long lines of customers, marking a new chapter in America's drug culture. Roughly three dozen former medical marijuana dispensaries newly cleared by state regulators to sell pot to consumers who are interested in nothing more than its mind- and mood-altering properties began welcoming customers as early as 8 a.m. The highly-anticipated New Year's Day opening launched an unprecedented commercial cannabis market that Colorado officials expect will ultimately gross $578 million in annual revenues, including $67 million in tax receipts for the state. Possession, cultivation and private personal consumption of marijuana by adults for the sake of just getting high already has been legal in Colorado for more than a year under a state constitutional amendment approved by voters. As of Wednesday, though, cannabis was being legally produced, sold and taxed in a system modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales but which exists for marijuana nowhere in the world outside of Colorado. Scores of customers lined up in the cold and snow outside at least two Denver-area stores on Wednesday morning waiting for doors to open. “I wanted to be one of the first to buy pot and no longer be prosecuted for it. This end of prohibition is long overdue,” said Jesse Phillips, 32, an assembly-line worker who was the day's first patron at Botana Care in the Denver suburb of Northglenn. He had camped outside the shop since 1 a.m. A cheer from about 100 fellow customers waiting in line to buy went up as Phillips made his purchase, an eighth-ounce sampler pack containing four strains of weed labeled with names such as King Tut Kush and Gypsy Girl. That sold for $45 including tax. He also bought a child-proof carry pouch required by state regulations to transport his purchase out of the store. Robin Hackett, 51, co-owner of Botana Care, said before the opening that she expected between 800 to 1,000 first-day customers, and she hired a private security firm to help with any traffic and parking issues that might arise. Ms. Hackett said she has 50 pounds or 23 kilos of product on hand. To avoid a supply shortage the shop was limiting purchases to quarter ounces on Wednesday, including joints, raw buds or cannabis-infused edibles, such as pastries or candies. Like other stores, Botana Care also stocked related wares, including pipes, rolling papers, bongs, and reusable, locking child-proof pouches. Voters in Washington state voted to legalize marijuana at the same time Colorado did, in November 2012, but Washington is not slated to open its first retail establishments until later in 2014. Still, supporters and detractors alike see the two Western states as embarking on an experiment that could mark the beginning of the end for marijuana prohibition at the national level. “By legalizing marijuana, Colorado has stopped the needless and racially biased enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws,” said Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Criminal Law Reform Project. Cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law, though the Obama administration has said it will give individual states leeway to carry out their own recreational-use statutes. Nearly 20 states, including Colorado and Washington, had already put themselves at odds with the U.S. government by approving marijuana for medical purposes. Opponents warned that legalizing recreational use could help create an industry intent on attracting underage users and getting more people dependent on the drug. Comparing the nascent pot market to the alcohol industry, former U.S. rep. Patrick Kennedy, co-founder of Project Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said his group aims to curtail marijuana advertising and to help push local bans on the drug while the industry is still modest in stature. “This is a battle that if we catch it early enough we can prevent some of the most egregious adverse impacts that have happened as a result of the commercialized market that promotes alcohol use to young people,” he said. Under Colorado law, however, state residents can buy as much as an ounce of 28 grams of marijuana at a time, while out-of-state visitors are restricted to quarter-ounce purchases. Restraint was certainly the message being propagated on New Year's Eve by Colorado authorities, who posted signs at Denver International Airport and elsewhere around the capital warning that pot shops can only operate during approved hours and that open, public consumption of marijuana remains illegal. Northeast U.S. facing twin major snow storms this week By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The eastern United States faces a major winter storm this week that could reach blizzard conditions in some areas and snarl plans for travelers returning from holiday trips, forecasters said on Wednesday. The powerful storm will stretch from the Midwest into the mid-Atlantic states and New England today and Friday, forecasters said. “We are telling people, prepare for road closings and take mass transit. Especially tomorrow,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters in a conference call about the storm. A double-barreled weather system aimed at both upstate New York and the New York metropolitan area, especially Long Island, could dump 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30.5 cm) of snow accompanied by high winds and frigid temperatures, he said. The National Weather Service forecast snowfall along the I-90 highway corridor from Chicago to Syracuse, New York, to Boston through early Friday. The heaviest accumulations, up to a foot (30.5 cm), were forecast for the New York metropolitan area, parts of Connecticut and in Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston, said Alex Sosnowski, senior meteorologist for Accuweather.com. Less snowfall is expected in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. A quick freeze and slippery conditions are likely around Baltimore and Washington, he said. “It will be far from the worst storm to ever hit the area, but people should be prepared for flight delays and cancelations,” Sosnowski wrote on the Accuweather.com Web site. More than 94 million people were estimated to be traveling during the holiday season through Jan. 1, according to the automotive group AAA, although many people may not be planning to head home until later this week or over the weekend. The last time a major storm slammed into the New York area at the winter holidays was in 2010, when 20 inches (50 cm) of snow fell on the city two days after Christmas. Streets were clogged, transportation slowed to a crawl and emergency services were snarled for days. This powerful storm is likely to bring biting winds, said Sosnowski. Another storm may move into the Northeast Sunday, according to Accuweather.com. Gay couple exchange vows on Pasadena Rose Parade float By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A gay Los Angeles couple exchanged wedding vows atop a flower-covered float trundling through Pasadena Wednesday as part of the nationally televised Tournament of Roses Parade, capping a momentous year for same-sex marriage in the United States. The nuptials of Danny Leclair, 45, and Aubrey Loots, 42, who have been together for 12 years and own a local chain of hair salons, marked the first same-sex marriage on a Rose Parade float in the 125-year history of the annual event, organizers said. In the past, two heterosexual couples have tied the knot during Rose Parades, in 1989 and last year. Leclair and Loots made it official aboard a float shaped like a wedding cake coated in white coconut chips, accented with red kidney beans and festooned with 12,000 roses and other floral decorations, said Ged Kenslea, a spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The foundation sponsored the float to celebrate same-sex marriage and the role it can play in helping to reduce new HIV infections among gay men, he said. The minister who performed the wedding, Alfreda Lanoix, an openly lesbian minister for the Unity Fellowship Church of Christ, tossed handfuls of rose petals into the air to mark the completion of the ceremony. The parade was witnessed by an estimated 700,000 spectators who lined the 5.5 mile (8.8 km) procession route and by millions of viewers tuning into one of several networks carrying the event live in the United States and broadcasting it around the world. The parade also was live-streamed over the Internet. The wedding float ended up winning the tournament's Isabella Coleman Award for “best presentation of color and color harmony through floral use.” In the parade procession, the wedding float was in a lineup that included a high school marching band from Reno, Nevada, a float sponsored by the city of Beverly Hills, and another float sponsored by the Lutheran Laymen's League featuring a banner that said “Jesus Welcomes All.” Joining the newlyweds on the float was a married lesbian couple, Sharon Raphael and Mina Meyer, who have been together 42 years, Kenslea said. Loots, who is originally from South Africa, and Leclair, a native of Canada, met at a Los Angeles nightclub and originally had planned for a relatively low-key wedding until the opportunity to exchange vows in the Rose Parade surfaced. “For me, I was moved by the stand that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation was taking,” Leclair said Monday. Loots said he had been traveling when he got a message from his partner asking if he would want to get married on a Rose Parade float. “I said, 'You're crazy! Of course, let's celebrate our love in front of the world,”' he recounted, adding that the couple also were motivated by the chance to offer hope to same-sex couples who in most states cannot marry. “Being on top of this cake floating down the road is truly for the men and women in the world that don't have these opportunities,” he said. As of this month, same-sex matrimony has been legally recognized in 18 states and the District of Columbia, with the tally more than doubling during the past year, due in most cases to litigation over the issue. Medical workers wondering what Obamacare will bring By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Hospitals and medical practices across the United States braced for confusion and administrative hassles as new insurance plans under President Barack Obama's healthcare law took effect Wednesday. More than 2 million people enrolled in private plans offered under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, during the initial sign-up period for health benefits. Enrollment began in October and lasts through March, but Americans in most states had to enroll by last week to get coverage that takes effect with the start of the new year. The expansion of coverage through the new plans is one of the main parts of the 2010 law, the most sweeping U.S. social legislation in 50 years. Over time, the law requires most Americans to buy insurance, offers subsidies to help low-income people get covered and sets minimum standards for coverage. The measure aims to dramatically reduce the number of Americans who lack health insurance, which the U.S. government has estimated at more than 45 million. After a difficult October launch plagued by problems with the Web site used to enroll people in coverage, the focus for the government and healthcare providers has turned to what will happen beginning when patients with the new coverage start to seek care. The law still faces political and legal hurdles. Roman Catholic Church-affiliated organizations obtained last-minute court injunctions Tuesday that gave them temporary exemptions from a part of the healthcare law that requires employers to provide insurance policies covering contraception. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted one temporary injunction to Baltimore-based Little Sisters of the Poor and Illinois-based Christian Brothers Services, plus related entities. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, had 10,000 agents on call for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to field questions from people dealing with enrollment problems. At the start, confirming a patient's plan may present headaches for care providers. The Obama administration has acknowledged that errors occurred in transmitting enrollment data to insurers, especially early in the enrollment period. “It will be difficult for us to actually verify coverage. That's my concern,” said William Wulf, chief executive of Central Ohio Primary Care, which has 250 primary-care physicians. The task could be made more difficult by decisions by the U.S. government and many states to push back enrollment deadlines toward the end of the year. The late deadlines mean that many enrollees who seek care initially may lack insurance cards or other proof of coverage. Wulf said his physician offices will assume existing patients are covered if they say they are when they come in for appointments and their coverage cannot be verified immediately. But if they require expensive tests, such as MRIs or heart-stress tests that can cost up to $700, the practice will check with insurers first to make sure the patient has coverage. Andy Chiou, chief executive of Peoria Surgical Group Ltd in Illinois, said that if the practice finds a significant minority of its patients do not have coverage when they believe they do, it might delay elective surgeries for patients until their insurance is confirmed. For the Obama administration, the political stakes are high in ensuring a smooth transition period for coverage, particularly after the Web site's problems damaged the popularity of the Democratic president and the healthcare overhaul, his signature domestic achievement. Republicans, who have called Obamacare a costly program that will rob many Americans of insurance choices, have said they will make Obamacare's problems their top issue in the November 2014 elections, when control of Congress will be at stake. U.S. merchandising landscape in U.S. changing quickly By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
If there was one lesson from this year's holiday shopping season, it is that many traditional retailers are having to work a lot harder to persuade Americans to open their pocketbooks. A lot of stores had to discount heavily to eke out a modest increase in sales, likely squeezing profit margins in the process. Some improvement in the U.S. economy and declines in the jobless rate, plus gains in stock and home prices, are failing to resonate with many Americans whose incomes are struggling to catch up to where they were before the financial crisis. But to many retail experts and economists there are other less cyclical factors at play. Consumers are spending more. Government figures show monthly personal consumption has risen for seven straight months with November's outlay marking the fastest increase in five months. But they just are not spending in the shopping malls like they used to. And that means that, even if the economy picks up significantly, retailers of many products could still struggle. “We are in a something of an evolutionary process, said Bill Martin, founder of data firm ShopperTrak, which monitors foot traffic in about 60,000 retail stores. Americans are spending more online and becoming more careful about what they buy, he said. Some of this has been unfolding over a long period, although the changes might be picking up pace. For example, department stores have found themselves on the wrong end of trends for some time. They now capture just $3.37 of every $100 of U.S. retail spending, the lowest since records began in 1992, when the number was nearly $9. Some of that is explained by the rise of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and other big box discount retailers. But the pace of decline has picked up, with department stores losing about 0.28 percentage points of market share at an annualized rate between 2002 and 2011, compared with 0.22 in the prior 10 years. The problem is two-fold. The middle class consumers to whom the likes of JC Penney Co., Inc., and Kohl's Corp. cater to have struggled with stagnant wages and a payroll tax rise, prompting them to reduce spending on apparel, said Scott Tuhy, a retail analyst at Moody's Investors Service in New York. People have also gravitated toward spending on services such as travel. Airline ticket prices and hotel room rates are up as well as movie downloads and other content for their TVs, smart phones and tablets. Prices to attend live sports events, theme parks, movies and rock concerts have also been rising. In addition, increasing healthcare costs have been eating up discretionary income, with many employers seeking higher contributions from their staff. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, spending on services hit an annual rate of $7.1 trillion in November, by far the biggest slice of overall consumption. “There was a day you bought your TV, refrigerator, furniture, everything in a department store, whereas today, it's really just apparel and maybe jewelry,” said Stuart Hoffman, an economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “But as incomes rise over time, people spend more on services, travel, entertainment.” As data from MasterCard showed last week, it took deep discounts and hefty promotions to spur a 2.3 percent rise in holiday sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 compared with a year earlier. The figures include apparel, jewelry, electronics, luxury goods and home furnishings. U.S. sales of big-ticket items such as autos and home-related goods such as washing machines, as well as purchases in home-improvement stores, surged in 2013, boosting overall retail sales. Homes sales also increased pretty steadily from mid-2012, although a summer spike in mortgage rates cooled things off a bit this fall. Some of the gains reflected a long-anticipated release of pent-up demand as the economic recovery has gained momentum, but it might also be partly a reflection of changing attitudes, with the focus on more practical purchases. According to the National Association of Realtors, more than half of home buyers between July 2012 and June 2013 made some sacrifices, such as reducing spending on luxury items, entertainment and clothing. Haiti marks its 210 years and gets Kerry's praise By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
As the new year begins, Haiti is celebrating 210 years of independence. In a New Year's Day statement, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States "joins in commemorating the courage and spirit of independence of all Haitians as well as the ties of friendship and family that bind our peoples together." Kerry said the United States has a "strong commitment to help all Haitians as they chart a path toward greater peace, security and, prosperity." When it gained independence from France in 1804, Haiti became the only nation in the world established as the result of a successful slave revolt. The Caribbean country was the second republic in the Americas, following the United States. Haiti occupies the western portion of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Encrypted data in plastic is new look in credit cards By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The recent news that data from 40 million credit and debit cards used at Target department stores were hacked has raised concerns about the security of plastic bank cards. These contain financial information on a magnetic strip or a memory chip embedded in the plastic. A new method of storing encrypted data is in its early stages, but the company developing the technology says some credit card companies are paying close attention. Most credit and debit cards today use magnetic strips that hold the data about the owner’s bank account and personal identification number called a PIN. Other credit cards hold the data in memory chips that communicate wirelessly with card readers. Both systems are vulnerable. Criminals can steal the data by hacking into the banks’ or retailers' computer systems or, as in the case of Target, tampering with card readers in stores. Now, scientists in Britain say they are developing a way to make encrypted data more secure by storing it in the plastic itself. Gordon Smith, a professor emeritus at Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick said researchers are manipulating a plastic molding machine to use the colors of the card to encrypt data. “As it's making that plastic from a molten plastic into a solid component, we are moving the pigments such that they form specific images,” he said. The way the pigment is configured inside the plastic ensures the security of the data. When the card is passed through a special scanner, similar to magnetic strip readers, the software reads the embedded image containing the data. “When we first developed the images within the plastic, it looked as though it would just be an aesthetic aspect to it, but then we've realized that once we could make it covert, we could color the plastic so that the image was hidden, then it became something a lot more special," said Smith. Smith admits the system could be compromised if someone discovers how the card was made, though he said that's unlikely. The counterfeiter would need to have access to an injection molding machine that costs more than $300,000. The patents for this new method are pending, and it has not been used commercially at all. Smith said some credit card companies, however, already have indicated they are interested in the technology. |
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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Passengers on
trapped ship are leaving by helicopter By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Dozens of passengers aboard a Russian research ship stuck for over a week in the Antarctic ice were preparing to be evacuated today after a rescue helicopter finally was able to land nearby. Video posted on YouTube by Chris Turney, one of the scientists on the ship, showed a Chinese helicopter landing on the ice near the "MV Akademik Shokalskiy," which has been stranded since Christmas Eve. Fifty-two passengers, including scientists, tourists, and journalists, are waiting to board the helicopter, 12 at a time. After being dropped off at a nearby Chinese vessel, they will be taken by barge to an Australian icebreaker ship, which they will take on a weeks-long journey to dry land. Blizzard conditions hampered previous attempts to evacuate the passengers by helicopter. Icebreaker ships from China, Australia, and France have also failed to reach the Russian vessel. Seventy-four scientists, tourists and crew members are on board the "MV Akademik Shokalskiy," which has weeks of supplies and is in no danger of sinking. Most of the 22-member Russian crew are expected to stay behind and wait for the ice to break up naturally. The Russian ship, which left New Zealand Nov. 28, was trying to recreate Australian explorer Douglas Mawson's century-old voyage to Antarctica. |
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| From Page 7: Latvia becomes 18th state to adopt euro By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Latvia joins the eurozone on Wednesday, banking on its experience of self-imposed austerity to bring it prosperity in a currency union where other economies have floundered. The Baltic country of just two million people was set to become the bloc's 18th member at midnight, taking a step further out of the shadow of neighboring Russia a decade after joining the European Union and NATO. The euro, which was launched 15 years ago, will now be the official currency of 333 million Europeans. Even so, neighboring Lithuania is the only remaining EU country showing much enthusiasm for euro admission after the temptations and strains of sharing a currency forced Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus to seek international bailouts for their government finances or their banks. Among the ex-Communist EU countries that have yet to adopt the euro, Croatia is stuck in recession while bigger economies such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary have become reticent about currency union. But Latvia's acting Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who led his country through its worst economic crisis since it left the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, was keen to mark the currency change by withdrawing the first euro banknote from a cash point after midnight. ”It's sad, but we will get used to the euro, which marks our return to Europe,” former central banker Einars Repse, who led the introduction of the lat currency in 1993, said. Latvia, which becomes the fourth smallest economy in the eurozone after Malta, Estonia and Cyprus, expects the euro to lower its borrowing costs and encourage investors by eliminating currency risk. Both Standard & Poor's and Fitch have raised the country's credit ratings in anticipation of its euro entry. But opinion polls show ordinary Latvians are divided on the euro's merits, with many worried that its adoption will be an excuse to raise prices. Latvia won praise from EU policy makers for emerging with strong economic growth and relatively low debt levels from a deep recession after it slashed spending and wages, and hiked taxes to keep the lat pegged to the euro during the global financial crisis. |
