The Costa Rican, identified as 19-year-old Abel Sandí, died on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, in Panama in a very strange manner, when the car he was traveling with two friends and their father fell from the fourth floor parking lot of the PH Breeze building in Panama’s posh neighborhood of Costa de Este.
Panamanian authorities reported two others died in the accident that although is a traffic accident, is being investigated by the Homicide and Femicide section of Panama’s Ministerio Publico (MP).
Rafael Baloyes, a senior prosecutor, confirmed the three fatalities were Eduardo Murillo, 60 (the driver), his 17-year-old daughter, Paola Murillo, and Sandi.
Seriously injured and rushed to the Santo Tomás hospital is 20-year-old Sabrina Murillo, also Eduardo’s daughter.
Sección de Homicidio/ Femicidio del Área Metropolitana atiende accidente ocurrido en Costa del Este. Fiscal Superior Rafael Baloyes en el lugar. #EnDesarrollopic.twitter.com/2QHO1U3tPc
“It is an unfortunate fact, it is a father who was traveling with his two daughters, one of them died and the other is in the hospital, the other one is a Costa Rican citizen (…) The investigation of this case is in process,” Baloyes explained in a video broadcast on the YouTube channel of the Panamanian Public Ministry.
The prosecutor also explained that they are evaluating the mechanical part of the vehicle, a red Mini Cooper because although it would be a traffic accident, the investigation can establish the exact cause of the event. Also, the structure of the building in which the accident occurred is being analyzed.
The newspaper El Siglo mentioned reported that, unofficially, the Murillos lived in the building. The La Estrella Panama de Panama says the Murillos were Venezuelan nationals living in Panama. Today Panama reports the car had been a graduation gift by Paola’s father two weeks ago.
“It is an unfortunate fact, it is a father who was traveling with his two daughters, one of them died and the other is in the hospital, the other one is a Costa Rican citizen (…) The investigation of this case is in the process,” Baloyes explained in a video broadcast on the Panamanian Public Ministry’s YouTube channel.
Panama city’s mayor, José Isabel Blandón, said on Twitter that “they will thoroughly investigate the security conditions in that building and will coordinate inter-institutionally to review current regulations.”
According to the mayor, by way of Twitter, apartments in the 42 storey PH Breeze buidling rented from between US$2,200 and US$4,000, for units between 216m2 and 240m2 (2,300 sf and 2,600 sf); and the project was approved in 2007 with construction beginning in 2009 and occupancy permits issued in 2010.
“Very sad the accidents occurred today in Costa del Este and San Miguelito, our thoughts and prayers with the victims and their families,” wrote Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela.
On Thursday, the Ministerio Publico confirmed the remains were delivered to the relatives of the victims.
El día de hoy fueron entregados los restos a los familiares de las víctimas de nacionalidades costarricenses y venezolanas del accidente de Costa del Este para la repatriación, informa el Ministerio Público. pic.twitter.com/nKFffocREZ
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” a growing Costa Rican protest movement led by a dozen women in the context of the impending presidential runoff election, seeks to confront a “fundamentalist threat” and defend the country’s social advancements.
Dressed in crimson robes and white bonnets, and looking down in complete silence, this group of Costa Rican women is attempting to denounce the censorship, inequality and subjugation of women that many seem comfortable with.
More folks experience luxury travel to invest in the self. Travelers crave a different kind of luxury these days, as more hotels offer the five-star experience. They aren’t looking at the number of stars anymore, nor do they desire to frequent the places that celebrities tend to go. Tourist traps are out, and authentic, experiential luxury travel is in.
Luxury travel is no longer about the biggest, most lavish places and amenities anymore. People feel more interested in luxury experience. Among millennials, 78% spend on experiences over material possessions, and statistics show the experiential luxury sector continually outperforms other categories of luxury goods.
Today, luxury travel centers more around curated experiences that allow travelers to get away, broaden their horizons and experience a culture authentically without getting swamped by the pretense of globalization.
Small is big, and Costa Rica is making a big splash in luxury tourism.
Hoteliers shouldn’t think of luxury experiences as a trip behind the velvet rope. Luxury tourism isn’t classist — in fact, it opens doors for those with moderate incomes to splurge on experiences where precise details are curated for deeper needs and based on the surrounding area. Luxury, in this case, is about the meaningful details.
A traveler, who is also a foodie, may camp out for the dining experience of having a personal chef on site to prepare true local cuisines. It’s not about piling on over-the-top experiences. It’s placing the extraordinary within the ordinary and getting away to a country like Costa Rica is already out of the ordinary. What seems ordinary to locals will offer comfort and something new to luxury travelers.
Trending Destinations and Experiences in Costa Rica
While Costa Rica is a premier ecotourism destination, roughly a decade ago, the only places visitors found comfort in were a few hotels for those traveling for business and the odd luxury property for rent.
Now, luxurious hotels and resorts spring up around trending destinations and experiences in Costa Rica, but there’s much unique and personal to be found in these popular places.
Papagayo For travelers who want a posh experience, the Gulf of Papagayo is the place to go in Costa Rica. Sparkling beaches line the Guanacaste Province in the northwest.
The Papagayo Peninsula serves as one of Costa Rica’s most luxurious destinations. The location is accessible from the Liberia (LIR) airport. Guests can personalize their experience through the rental of a lavish property or stay in a premier hotel, such as the Four Seasons Papagayo and Secrets. The region also offers spas, golf courses and white sand beaches.
Manuel Antonio Visitors, especially honeymooners, flock to Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica for its untouched beauty and closeness to the San Jose airport (SJO). Manuel Antonio National Park is a popular ecotourism destination, along with Central America’s largest marina — Marina Pez Vela.
Pacuare River Visitors seeking a unique experience wind down the narrow gorge of the Pacuare River to reach the Pacuare Lodge, a restored Spanish Colonial house with 14 suites that also serves as a coffee plantation. The poro and banana trees enrich the volcanic soil — visitors have access to limited hours of electricity on the self-sustaining plantation, but that doesn’t mean missing out on luxury.
An open-air restaurant serves all meals on a beautiful deck overlooking the natural area. Visitors have access to wildlife prowls and discovery hikes, along with trips to nearby villages. Once the trip is over, going back home means a trip again down the Pacuare River.
The Cloud Forests Travelers escape the humidity and lowland heat with a visit to Costa Rica’s famous Cloud Forests. The landscape unfolds among a series of volcanoes and mountains where misty cloud forests please the eye and rare plants and other species reside. Visitors can dwell in the sky in a luxurious mountain lodge. The most popular forest is Monteverde, but those who shy away from crowds know it’s best to move on to Tenorio, Maravalles, Braulio Carrillo and Los Quetzales, among others.
From the Gulf of Papagayo to the Cloud Forests, Costa Rica is a flourishing gem for luxury tourism. Modern luxury travel doesn’t come pre-packaged in a chic brochure handed to a traveler by their agent. Today, the industry affords more interconnected cultural experiences outside the anticipated and expected.
Not long ago, many came to Costa Rica to backpack or for business, but the country is diverse for nature lovers, foodies and more. It’s safe and one of the oldest democratic nations in the world, with more than 2 million visitors annually — luxury travelers look to make a social impact with their dollar while getting the finest experiences. Costa Rica aims to be carbon-neutral by 2021, so its focus on environmentalism brings tourists in.
After almost two decades later, the former local television personality, Glenda Peraza, is showing us how she overcame the many critics and humiliations she has suffered, which have served as a teaching in her life.
With more than 139,000 followers on Instagram, Peraza broke out the old photo album, comparing a photo from the 90s to today, to show the “two” Glendas, writing she has no regrets, although she never believed that she would get this far.
“I never thought that Glenda, who was far from her 30s, would become as strong as I am today, where she obviously had the beauty of age, but she was not even half the woman I am today. Thanks to God for every stage lived, for every obstacle overcome, for every humiliation or vanquished contempt, for every ill-intentioned betrayal or criticism. I have never regretted anything in life, precisely because of that, because every stage, experience and good or bad moments they are necessary to achieve dreams,” she wrote.
The former television presenter and former Dancing With the Stars dancer said that almost two decades after that phone, she feels more secure, without fear and even more beautiful.
“I prefer that disheveled Glenda, without makeup, with a few extra chanchitos (pounds)and that smile on my real face. The funny thing is that without the Glenda of the 90s I would never be who I am today,” she said.
Last year, the 43-year-old Peraza underwent a breast reduction surgery – mastopexy. On the social networks she told the story of how her natural breasts caused a lot of discomfort and physical pain, because her back is very small and could not bear the weight of her big breasts.
It was also the same social networks that got Peraza fired from her job at Repretel, Channel 6, in May 2016, Peraza did a live broadcast on Facebook in a pre-party prior to the Alejandro Sanz concert, when she and her husband, Byron Garita, visited the home of model and television personality, Nancy Dobles, in La Sabana.
Peraza, joking around said live “If they (Repretel) fire me, I am gone” while partying in the apartment with the folks at rival Teletica, Channel 7.
The Tibas delegation of the Fuerza Publica where thre officials worked, suspected of
The deputy director of the Fuerza Publica (National Police) in San Jose, Ericka Madriz, acted quickly in denouncing three of her officials for corruption with the Ministerio Publico (Attorney General): the officials did not issue a receipt for confiscated property – a box of 300 aerosol deodorants – during a routine police check.
The Tibas delegation of the Fuerza Publica where thre officials worked.
On learning that the deodorants had gone missing when the owner complained to the Tibas delegation, in San Jose, that he never received a confiscation voucher, Madriz immediately called for the whereabouts of the three officials with the surnames Jiménez, Bonilla, and Salas, and ordered to have them brought immediately to the Fiscalia (Prosecutor’s Office) to explain themselves.
“The deputy director of San José, Commander Ericka Madriz, immediately reported the facts and presented the officers to the Ministerio Publico to clarify the matter, it was the same institution that brought them, the institution reiterates zero tolerance for corruption and urges citizens who, in the face of a suspicious event, make the pertinent complaint, because the police service is for the of good citizens,” informed the press chief of the Ministerio Publico, Carlos Hidalgo.
The officers are now suspects of the crime against property, confirmed the Fiscalia.
In Costa Rica, at least five medical centers are preparing to expand their current sites and construct new buildings in different areas of the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM).
One of the investments announced recently is the construction of a medical tower by Clinica Unibe. The investment will be US$3 million located in Tibas.
A greater supply of insurance for medical expenses – without a doubt, the opening of the insurance market in 2008 which ended the monopoly that the state Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) held for 84 years – opened a door for private medical complexes to increase their clientele.
Another factor is the growth in population density in areas far from the center of the capital that explains the greater demand for private medical services in the country. Added to this is the greater culture of preventative health care that exists in the country, and the poor attention that is provided at the public level.
For example, in December 2015 the total payment for health insurance premiums was US$106.7 million, increasing to US$144.6 million in December 2017, among the same eight insurers, that is, an increase of 35% in two years, according to the data published by the Superintendencia General de Seguros de Costa Rica (Sugese) – the insurance superintendent in the country.
The Sugese registers 13 insurance companies active in Costa Rica. Among them: Adisa, Assa and Pan American Life, which have health insurance or medical expenses plans.
Elfinancierocr.com reports that “… Hospital Universal, Clínica Unibe, Hospital Metropolitano, Hospital Clínica Bíblica and Hospital La Católica are some of the medical companies that have recently made investments or that plan to do so.”
The EF report indicates that the increase in people who live and work in Santa Ana, Heredia and Cartago has prompted private hospitals to invest in infrastructure.
For its part, the Hospital Clínica Bíblica plans to open three hospital complexes, one each in Santa Ana, Heredia and Tres Ríos west of Cartago) for a total investment of more than US$40 million. The Santa Ana project, the first open its doors by the end of 2018, at US$25 million is the largest of the Biblica investment. The others are in the horizon, expected to be completed in the next 24 to 60 months once the operation in Santa Ana begins.
Construction of the Clinica Biblica in Santa Ana is underway and expected to open by the end of 2018. The new medical center is located at the cruce Santa Ana on the Ruta 27. Foto: Alejandro Gamboa Madrigal / El Financierio
In January the Universidad de Iberoamérica (Unibe) announced plans to build a medical tower of 50 offices and 3,000 square meters, together with its clinic in La Florida de Tibás, at an investment of US$3 million dollars and opening in 2019.
The Hospital Universal in Cartago recently expanded and modernized its facilities after an investment of US$2.3 million. This amount includes the construction of a building of 760 square meters, with an area for intensive care and more medical offices, as well as the remodeling of five rooms.
The Hospital Metropolitano in the course of 2016 and 2017 invested US$13.2 million in renovations, openings, and acquisitions, and plans to open two more clinics in 2018.
Both the Hospital Universal and Hospital Metropolitano each invested in the acquisition of a CT (Computed tomography scan) recently.
All the investments made by each of the hospitals, to attract and retain new clients, is not viewed with suspicion by the businessmen since they consider that for now the competition is healthy and that encourages them to constantly improve their operations.
An ambitious project of the Cámara de Comercio, Industria y Turismo de Limón (Limon Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism) aims to turn the province into a Costa Rican version of Cancun, through a major hotel development along the coast.
La Zona Hotelera del Caribe (the Caribbean Hotel Zone), as the initiative has been called, consists of the development of 500 hectares of “all-inclusive” hotels. Investment in the first stage is US$40 million, a figure that does not include the hotels.
If Limón wants to attract mass tourism, according to the Chamber, it needs the following projects to materialize:
The geographical and accessibility features offered by barrios La California, Escalante and Rohrmoser, make these three San Jose neighborhoods booming destinations in terms of real estate development, gastronomic and entertainment projects.
Wide streets, good public transport, access to services, presence of nearby universities, absence of conflicting communities in their surroundings and the need for people to live experiences are some of the aspects that favor them.
“The three zones are emerging (…) Firstly, because demand still has a high attraction, and second because there are still spaces for development,” said Esmeralda Barreiro, director of Triada Research & Planning.
Apparel makers in Mexico and Central America could benefit from the US’s $50 billion of proposed tariff hikes on Chinese imports if retailers boost sourcing south of the border, industry experts say.
“If Chinese imports become more expensive for American retailers they could buy more from us,” says Arturo Rodriguez, a senior industry consultant based in Guadalajara, Mexico, a US apparel export hub.
However, “this would happen as long as Mexico maintains its price competitiveness with China. Even with a 25% to 35% higher tariff, many Chinese products are still cheaper, so manufacturers will have to put their batteries on and lower prices.”
With the Mexican peso hovering at about 18 per dollar, Mexican garments have become more attractive to US buyers – at least when compared to the $13 to $14 it traded at before Trump won the White House, launching his anti-NAFTA campaign and sending into a tailspin.
Even so, Mexican exports have not surged as much as expected, due mainly to producers’ unwillingness to budge on price. As Vietnam, Asia and Central America continue to steal market share (exports have halved to $4-$5 billion in a decade), Mexico must seize the opportunity stemming from a weaker Chinese manufacturing machine, observers say.
Central America celebrates
In Central America, expected tariffs on Chinese footwear and apparel to punish its US intellectual property law violations is another cause for celebration.
Already, Trump’s decision to exclude the region and the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) from his protectionist agenda, coupled with a strengthening US economy, are fuelling an export bonanza.
According to Guatemalan apparel industry trade association Vestex, the nation’s clothing exports could surge 15% to over $1.8 billion this year, up from a 10% gain in 2017. The group, the largest of its kind in Central America, expects a similar jump for the rest of the region too.
“100% of what we sell goes to the US through CAFTA or Mexico, so if there is a trade war with China that would help us. What China doesn’t do is good for us,” said Vestex general manager Alejandro Ceballos, who is a Trump sympathiser.
“We have had two years of double-digit growth, with expectations of an 11% to 15% export increase this year, so Trump has been good to us.”
While US clothing brands and retailers have sounded the alarm over Trump’s Chinese tariffs, as well as steel and aluminum duties likely to trigger retaliatory moves, Rodriguez argues the damage may not be as severe.
“Can live with it”
“I think that American consumers can live with a small increase in T-shirt prices,” he says. “They have a lot of clothing already. They buy seven to nine pairs of jeans per year, so now they may just buy five or six.”
Rodriguez sees the Chinese tariffs – and China’s assertion that it will retaliate – as an ephemeral system shock as the toughening inquiry over Russia’s meddling with Trump’s election could shorten his reign.
“If these tariffs were like the Berlin Wall and set to last 50 years, I could then see a dramatic shift [in the supply chain] but I don’t think that is going to happen,” Rodriguez concludes.
While the country is in holiday mode, several wanted by Costa Rica took the opportunity thinking they could slip through the immigration controls points at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), Peñas Blancas and Las Tablillas.
However, they were detected by the immigration police thanks to the “Special Operations of Semana Santa” that began on March 23 and will be carried out to April 4, with a total of 209 officials throughout the country monitoring movements of travelers entering or leaving the country by air, land, sea, and rivers.
At the San Jose airport, an American identified by his last name Webb was arrested on Monday, who, when attempting to leave the country, detected by the system through the Migración Visible (Visible Migration) process was an international arrest warrant, wanted by the Cartago criminal court since 2009, for the crime of rape.
An American wanted in Costa Rica since 2009 for rape was detained at the San Jose airport while trying to leave the country on Monday. Photo Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería Costa Rica (DGME)
Also on Monday, at the Peñas Blancas border with Nicaragua, immigration officials detained the Nicaraguan with surname Mairena Guevara, wanted since 2017 by the Criminal Court of the First Circuit of San Jose.
A Nicaraguan national wanted in Costa Rica was caught leaving the country by way of the Peñas Blancas border crossing. Photo Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería Costa Rica (DGME)
On Wednesday, a Nicaraguan with the surnames Obando Jiron is detained when trying to leave the country through the Las Tablillas border post. The man had an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the Heredia criminal court for homicide since 2017.
This Nicaraguan man tried to slip through the border at La Tablillas. Photo Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería Costa Rica (DGME)
Also on Wednesday, a Canadian, identified by his last name Toledo, was arrested as he intended to enter Costa Rica by way of the Juan Santamaria airport. Toledo is wanted by the San Jose criminal court since October 2017 for sexual abuse against a person of legal age.
The Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería Costa Rica (DGME) reports a total of 78.939 people have left the country and 58,110 people entered in the period of March 23 and 26, during which a total of 209 people were refused entry at the Juan Santamaría and Daniel Oduber airports and the land border posts of Peñas Blancas, Los Chiles and Las Tablillas in the north with Nicaragua and Sixaola and Paso Canoas in the south with Panama.
Photos courtesy of the DGME.
With respect to the regulation of immigration fines, beginning on April 20, 2018, for overstaying a visit in Costa Rica, the DGME has prepared the following video (in Spanish).
A bus with 35 passengers overturned the morning of this Wednesday on Rtua 2, the Interamericana Sur, in the area of Villa Bonita de Osa, Puntarenas.
According to the Policia de Transito (Traffic Police), the bus came very close to the side of the road, which caused it to destabilize and overturn. The emergency was recorded at about 11:43am.
According to the Colosal Informa, in that area, local authorities report many of the passengers banged up, a few with minor injuries, but none in serious condition.
The bus had left Puerto Jimenez and was headed for San Jose.
Banco Central (Central Bank) building in downtown San Jose
In the local market, an issuance was made of a fixed-rate security with maturity in November 2021 and 216 billion in securities in colones, with terms ranging from 2020 to 2029.
In a statement, the Ministry of Finance reported that “…The issue in colones raised a total amount of ¢216,205.83 million, in different titles with maturity from 2020 to 2029, associated with fixed and variable rate coupons (Sovereign Adjustable Real) and a fixed rate in dollars with expiration in November 2021, in which $514.82 million was raised; assigned to 15 participants.”
Nelson Alvarado, desk manager at Prival Bank, explained to Nacion.com that “… the agreed rate in the issue was 6.5%, which is attractive to savers, if we consider that a previous issue which expired in June 2021 had an interest rate of 5.70%.
“… Aldesa also reported that dollar values were allocated equally to the market (15 buyers) and not to a single participant. The greatest share was that of Citi with $156 million.”
In the statement, the Deputy Minister of Finance explained that “…”With this amount raised, the Ministry of Finance will manage to meet a large part of the obligations due to the maturity of domestic debt in the first half of the current year.”
Marijuana. Dope. Pot. Weed. Ganja. These are just some of the slang names of the psychoactive drug from the Cannabis plant stereotyped as the preferred drug of hippies, stoners and irresponsible members of society.
This image of cannabis, however, is the corrupt twin brother of a plant that has been used for thousands of years to treat a wide range of ailments. Chinese physicians in 2,700 B.C. were the first to prescribe cannabis tea to treat illnesses such as poor memory, malaria, and rheumatism.
Cannabis as a medicine went out of favor in the early 20th-century when the plant’s alter ego – mind-altering marijuana – grew popular and many governments worldwide banned the cultivation and use of cannabis and its derivatives. A century later, scientific investigations are revealing that the effects of pot and medicinal cannabis on the human body lie on opposite sides of the spectrum.
One of the most famous case studies to illustrate the therapeutic properties of cannabis is Charlotte Figi from Colorado, USA. Charlotte was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome – a rare, genetic drug-resistant childhood epilepsy – and had 300 seizures a week. Where modern medicine failed, cannabis succeeded to calm Charlotte’s frantic brain activity. Today her seizures are limited to two or three per month.
Martha Secue shows marijuana plants growing outside her house in the mountains of Toribio, Cauca, Colombia. | Photo: Reuters
A report published in 2017 by the National Academy of Science in the USA stated that there is conclusive evidence that cannabis acts as an antiemetic in adults with nausea or vomiting induced by chemotherapy; an analgesic in adults with chronic pain; and as an antispasmodic in adults with spasticity or Multiple Sclerosis. Other investigations, albeit with limited evidence, have shown how cannabis can reduce inflammation caused by Crohn’s disease, and help patients with PTSD by suppressing dream memory recall. Although the short and long-term health benefits and risks of treating patients with cannabis remain elusive, drug laws in several countries – such as Israel, Canada, Australia, Uruguay, parts of the USA, and Colombia – have softened to allow the cultivation, harvest, and use of cannabis for medical purposes.
The Colombian government, however, has more ambitious plans than just legalization. At the end of 2017, the Ministries of Health, Justice, and Agriculture authorized the harvest of 40,5 tons of medicinal cannabis for export, and aims to provide 44% of the global demand of cannabis in 2018.
It was a huge step when President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree in 2015 legalizing medical cannabis.
More than just growing medicine, this new venture will provide thousands of jobs. Already twenty-one companies have applied for licenses to cultivate the plant, among them are Khiron Life Sciences Corp., Canmecol S.A.S. and PharmaCielo Colombia Holdings. Companies are only permitted to handle converted products such as oils and serums, and the entire process – from seed production to the manufacture of cannabis derivatives – will be highly regulated by several government Ministries.
To provide Colombian physicians with an introduction to applying medicinal cannabis within their clinical practice, Khiron and the Colombian Association of Neurologists co-hosted Colombia’s first International Medicinal Cannabis Symposium last month in Bogotá. Over 250 neurological specialists attended to hear both national and international doctors explain this plant’s role in modern medicine.
Cannabis versus Marijuana
Despite the escalating scientific evidence of the restorative properties of Cannabis, how do societies remove the stigma and negative emotions attached to this plant? Are sick patients really getting high? The answer lies in biochemistry and a name change.
Dr. Vincent Maida, a consultant in Palliative Medicine and Wound Management at the William Osler Health System in Toronto explained at the Symposium that “we need to understand the difference between the recreational versus the medical side of things. What is used in medical applications is a different chemical profile than the recreational side. Even words like marijuana are misleading.”
The main distinction lies in the user’s end objective and in the concentration of cannabinoids, specifically psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and the key therapeutic chemical, Cannabidiol (CBD).
Marijuana refers to the dried buds and seeds of the plant and contains relatively high THC concentrations. The percentage of THC has increased over the last decades to suit users’ demands. Strains in the 60s and 70s contained 2-7% THC; today, some strains can have as much as 30-35%. Marijuana is grown purely for recreational purposes, and smoking can cause long- term cerebral damage. Dr. José Fernando Hernández, a neurologist at the Militar Hospital in Bogotá, says studies have shown that adolescents who frequently consume marijuana tend to have low brain connectivity and impaired cognitive function when they reach adulthood.
Colombia has one of the greatest climates and soil conditions to grow cannabis, it’s easy and fast. It’s a cannabis paradise.
Conversely, medicinal cannabis consists of plant extracts in the form of an oil. And according to Dr. Danial Schecter, co-founder of the Cannabinoid Medical Clinic in Toronto, and one of Canada’s leading experts in medical cannabis, the goal of cannabis treatment is to improve people’s lives, to enable them to re-engage with society and have a normal, comfortable life. Current scientific research has revealed that CBD has antipsychotic, anticonvulsant, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic properties. So depending on the needs of the patient, different extracts will contain different concentrations of CBD and THC.
Furthermore, CBD may actually mitigate the euphoria-producing effects of THC by blocking certain cannabinoid receptors – the so-called “entourage effect” where cannabinoids interact to produce a synergistic chemical result. Israeli researchers have recently discovered how specific strains of cannabis stopped the growth of specific types of cancer. “We are only beginning to see the possibilities of cannabis,” says Dr. Michael Dor, Senior Medical Advisor of Israel’s Ministry of Health.
Destigmatizing the future
Cannabis may seem to be the elixir of life, the “cure-all” treatment but studies are showing that not every patient responds to cannabis and not every patient should take it. “Medicinal cannabis is rarely used as a first-line in defense”, says Dr Michael Boivin, Pharmacist Consultant for CommPharm. “A patient who insists on cannabis could be a warning sign of a cannabis-use disorder.” He goes on to explain that patients who suffer from or are genetically prone to psychiatric problems such as schizophrenia, psychosis, drug addiction, or manic depression can worsen after cannabis treatment.
“There is still a wide gulf of knowledge concerning the administration of prescribed medicinal cannabis around the world,” explains Dr. Paulo Vega, Medical Director for Khiron. “The full range of alternative cannaceuticals and phytotherapeutic products needs to be reviewed and discussed.”
There are 113 cannabinoids and scientists have only studied THC and CBD. With so many therapeutic properties being extracted from this powerful plant, the full range of possible cures may still take centuries to be revealed.
The effects of this month’s massive oil spill in a major Colombian river are becoming more evident.
The crude spill along the Lizama River on March 20, 2018 in Barrancabermeja, Colombia. | Photo: EFE
“I have almost nothing to eat. The entire life we had from the (Magdalena) river is now contaminated,” Elkin Cala tells local media.
So far, hundreds of people in the eastern part of Santander province are without food and water after the Colombian state oil company, Ecopetrol, let some 24,000 barrels of crude oil spill into the Lizama River, close to the 1,528 km long Magdalena River. The crude flow now pollutes 24 km of the Lizama river and 20 kilometres of the Sogamoso River.
Claudia Gonzalez from the National Authority of Environmental Licensing (ANLA) says that 70 families have been treated for medical complications due to the oil spill. France 24 reports that an estimated 2,400 tropical species have died as a result of the crude spill, while some 1,200 have been saved, reports Ecopetrol.
Environmentalist Julio Carrizosa says of the spill: “Nothing like this has happened before. This is a warning of what oil extraction can bring in vulnerable places where people still live from nature. That’s why we have to be more careful with oil extracting,” Carrizosa tells France 24.
ANLA officials say that the spill occurred March 2, but the cleanup effort was botched owing to poor emergency clean up planning by Ecopetrol. Colombia’s Ministry of Environment is planning to sanction the company for its inability to control the major spill and for the extensive damage it has caused. Authorities still don’t know what caused the initial spill.
Ecopetrol joined the clean-up initiative, constructing 13 control points and 56 barriers along two separate ravines, as well as containment dikes, but the crude still flows. The company’s website reads that a specialized “snubbing unit” that can “cap the well definitely” will be arriving to help with the cleanup.
“The environmental damage that oil extraction produces has to do with the unplanned events or having a lack of information regarding these situations, for example, fracking,” added Carrizosa.
Four years ago food trucks started in the Costa Rican market with the aim of conquering public and private spaces.
On the way, a lack of legal standards to regulate their use in public spaces is preventing entrepreneurs of these mobile establishments from increasing their sales, clinging to private events to survive in Costa Rica.
The first Food Truck park in Costa Rica is located in Curridabat called Calle Vieja Food Trucks. Photo: Facebook
To date, about 36 food trucks have been counted, of which 23 joined the Asociación Costarricense de Food Trucks – Food Trucks Association of Costa Rica – founded in 2016 to promote activities and give confidence to the organizers of events and customers.
Among this gastronomic model are: Bombona La Vocha Crepera, Go Fish, Apetico, Papata, Ventanita Meraki, La Cebichería, Aguizotes, Armonía and Dr. Grill, among others.
What difficulties do they face?
In Costa Rica there is no national legislation on the use of food trucks in public spaces, so each municipality is responsible for managing the permits as it deems appropriate, usually looking for a similar and related model such as that for restaurants, express services (home delivery) or catering services.
Although I first discovered Food Trucks at the Parque Viva last March, my first taste of Food Truck food was last July 1 at the Canadian Embassy serving up Poutine and Montreal Smoked Meat
“There are no spaces allowed for a food truck to park and sell to customers in an area unless there is an activity in that space,” the association’s vice president, Adrián Araya, told El Financiero.
For Transitarte, which took place from March 16 to 18, the Municipality of San José managed the presence of food trucks under the rules of the use of public space for gastronomy.
This meant that the nine trucks that participated had to fill out a temporary patent form (license) and pay ¢25,000; likewise, the Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud) requested of them before the event the food handling card to their employees, the truck’s insurance policy and hoja de funcionamiento (sic).
For their part, the Municipality of Montes de Oca (San Pedro) is in the process of consulting the Municipal Council for clarifying some points related to the regulatory plan and the regulations that would be implemented for the operation of food trucks.
By relying on public events held by municipalities, Food Trucks boost their sales at private activities such as business events, weddings, baby showers, concerts, exhibitions and mass festivals (such as a picnic or the street food festival).
A clearer legislation at the municipalities on the operation of food trucks would allow them, instead of having to park at a single point, can expand its coverage on national roads without investing in a fixed place.
(From Suitcase and Heels) I wasn’t planning on travelling this winter/spring. I really wasn’t. I told all my friends as much. I made plans for how I’d squirrel away money instead to pad up my savings account.
I was a bit tired of always playing financial catch-up after trips. I tried to find ways to convince myself that seeing a slowly growing account would be just as thrilling as tropical adventures. I tried to find ways to resign myself to a winter without going anywhere. But then came the seat sales.
I managed to dismiss the US$450 return flights to LA and San Francisco with relative ease. I’ve been to both places and neither were particularly calling me back at the moment. The US$340 return flights to Nashville were more tempting. I could picture nights listening to honky tonk and sipping PBRs at Robert’s Western World. I’d certainly enjoyed it in 2016. But the deal was only up until April and I wasn’t sure it would be as warm as I’d want by then so I was able to say no to the sale. I found cheap flights to Boston. To New York. To Miami. I was feeling positively stoic in the face of good deals. But then came Costa Rica.
My roommate was looking for a relaxing semi-spontaneous getaway. Since I love the planning part of travel I had a look for a few options for her. US$450 return from St. John’s to San Jose, Costa Rica? Holy hell. That’s a good deal. I passed on the info and was a bit jealous of the adventures she’d have. Sloths! Beaches! Jungles! A few days later though and she hadn’t pulled the trigger on the trip. “I don’t know why I’m hesitating. If I had someone to travel with….”
Well. Twist my rubber arm. I am weak after all. So I’m going to Costa Rica at the end of the month. I’m actually pretty thrilled.
Sometimes, the more things change, the more things change.
Costa Rica was the scene of my first real international solo trip six years ago. I planned a similar 10 day trip and visited La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano, the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and the beaches of Tamarindo. I was such a baby traveller back then. The thought of hostels horrified me and I booked myself into a swanky resort type hotel for my first two nights in the country. AirBnB wasn’t really a thing at the time so I’m sure I overpaid on rooms but I was more concerned with ease and comfort.
I thought I needed specific travel/hiking clothes so I bought a pair of ill-fitting, quick-dry, zip-off hiking pants. I hated them, but I wore them. I felt decidedly unchic next to the Brazilian girl on my zipline tour in her cute outfit. I wore them as shorts with a MEC hiking sleeveless shirt for my Arenal volcano hike, which was really more of a walk up a hilly trail. I felt like a bit of a tool. I didn’t pack my hair dryer because I thought that being concerned about my hair was the sign of a bad traveller. So I wore ponytails most of the week and lamented my frizziness.
This time I’m only packing outfits that are practical but that I also feel cute in. Life’s too short to feel frumpy. This time I’m going to try to pack fewer, but better clothes. This time we’re also splitting our accommodations between guest houses and a hostel. There are certain social benefits of hostel life that I like…not to mention the pool. This time I’m packing the damn hair dryer.
QCostarica.com was not involved in the creation of the content. This article was originally published on Suitcaseandheels.com. Read the original article.
Wahbi Khazri celebrates scoring the only goal for Tunisia against Costa Rica. Photograph: Paul Greenwood/BPI/Rex/
Tunisia’s captain Wahbi Khazri scored the only goal in the game, giving the north Africans the win over Costa Rica’s La Sele in the friendly played on the French Riviera on Tuesday evening.
Wahbi Khazri celebrates scoring the only goal for Tunisia against Costa Rica. Photograph: Paul Greenwood/BPI/Rex/
The win was Tunisia’s second after beating Iran, Costa Rica’s loss was their first after winning over Scotland, on Friday
Khazri’s goal came from a ball played over his head from inside his own half, controlled it and swept past the Costa Rican defense before striking it against Keylor Navas and then getting his foot to the rebound first.
Following the game, Tunisia fans invaded the field, climbed goalposts and set off flares in celebration after their win over Costa Rica.Hundreds of fans breached security at the Allianz Riviera Stadium in Nice, France, and began to hassle players for selfies and mount the goalposts.
“Nations could be avoiding issuing stronger economic sanctions against Maduro’s dictatorship because this could drive even more the migration of Venezuelans,” says Mariano de Alba, an expert in international affairs.
Photo | (Twitter)
The political and international analysts said in an interview that, despite governments studying new sanctions against Venezuela’s dictatorship, there is concern about the consequences to the Venezuelan people.
However, On March 19, Trump’s government took decisive actions by deciding to bar any transactions with “Petros”, the illegal cryptocurrency created by Maduro. The decision ‘clips the wings’ of Maduro’s attempts to avoid economic sanctions. The G20 attendees and European Union’s member states followed suit and decided not to recognize the “crypto-assets” as a sovereign currency, in another blow against Nicolas Maduro’s attempts to legitimize the petro as an international form of payment.
“Nothing will stop the petro, buddy. Not Trump, nor a million Trumps can stop us..”
-Nicolas Maduro
Maduro reacted by saying, “Nothing will stop the petro, buddy. Not Trump, nor a million Trumps can stop us with the petro. The petro will be implemented, no doubt, and it’s blooming. Long live Venezuela’s people! Nobody is going to stop the Venezuelan cryptocurrency, nothing will stop it.”
De Alba told the PanAm Post that Nicolas Maduro is in “a more difficult position” because he is facing “a tight international isolation.”
For the analyst, recent sanctions directly affect the regime’s corrupted officers and put more pressure on Maduro. He explained that an oil embargo or suspending international relations would further deteriorate the dictatorship, especially its already precarious financial situation.
“If the oil embargo is implemented, the economic problems will worsen, ..which means less revenue to support the government,” said De Alba.
María Teresa Romero, a Ph.D. in Political Sciences, says the international community is about to make stronger decisions against the dictatorship. She expects that oil and generalized sanctions are getting closer.
“Now governments are not only joining the US with sanctions, but are also starting to take measures for a near future, including, for example, expelling Maduro from international groups and organizations, and from multilateral bodies,” she said.
“I believe that in cases of extreme governments such a Maduro’s regime, international pressures work. We should remember that in Cuba’s case, governments left the US virtually alone with the sanctions, if other countries had isolated Cuba in the same way they are doing with Venezuela, the island experience would have been totally different,” she noted.
Still, it remains to be seen just how long restraint on sanctions will last in the face of the increasingly untenable situation in Venezuela.
It sounded like another grim chapter in the repression that has gripped Venezuela during the rule of President Nicolas Maduro.
Joseph Poliszuk, the editor of Armando.info in Venezuela, has been forced to leave the country.
Earlier this week, four journalists from the investigative website Armando.info have been forced to leave the troubled country citing fears of state persecution after they were sued by a business executive with ties to Maduro’s party. Armando.info is a long-term partner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and worked on many projects, including the two most recent projects, Panama Papers and Paradise Papers.
Their dramatic investigative series last year revealed how Colombian executive Alex Saab took advantage of connections, government contracts and an offshore enterprise to sell food at inflated prices to a government program meant to feed Venezuela’s desperately poor.
End of story? Not by any stretch.
So much more could have been done with that money.
– Joseph Poliszuk
One of the journalists, ICIJ member Joseph Poliszuk, told ICIJ that he and his colleagues would soon publish additional revelations in their series and would be safer doing so from outside the country.
“We are temporarily going abroad to publish these pieces,” Poliszuk told ICIJ.
He said they eventually plan to return to Venezuela to continue their reporting, despite the lawsuit by Saab.
“I am still a little bit in shock,” he said. “We didn’t expect this reaction.”
The scandal centers on a series of articles published by Armando.info that revealed questionable dealings in a government food program to aid the poor, an operation involving offshore companies allegedly linked to President Maduro himself.
The first article, published in April 2017, alleged that Saab, who has enjoyed close business ties with the Venezuelan government, was benefiting from a state contract to import food supplies for a program to feed the poor. The program, known as CLAP for its acronym in Spanish (Comites Locales de Abastecimiento y Produccion), is meant to prevent hunger among poor communities amid Venezuela’s ongoing economic crisis.
Documents obtained by Armando.info showed Saab’s ties to an offshore company incorporated in Hong Kong called Grupo Grand Limited. Grupo Grand Limited received a contract of $340 million from the Venezuelan state of Tachira to import food for CLAP.
The documents showed that Grupo Grand Limited charged prices well above the market rate for food staples such as tomato sauce, pasta and beans. The offshore firm charged nearly 50 percent more than the market rate for tomato sauce and roughly 80 percent above market rates for pasta and beans – even as hundreds of children across Venezuela were dying of hunger during the country’s economic collapse.
“So much more could have been done with that money,” Poliszuk said. “And what’s more, there were people who benefited.”
Saab has denied any connection to Grupo Grand Limited, although the documents obtained by Armando.info show his son listed as a beneficiary of the company, and the company is registered at the same address as another company owned by Alex Saab.
But it was another dramatic twist last August that brought the story national attention in Venezuela. Luisa Ortega, who spent a decade as Venezuela’s top prosecutor, was dismissed from her post after denouncing the Maduro regime. She then leveled an explosive allegation at a press conference in Brazil several weeks after her dismissal. President Maduro himself was a beneficiary of Grupo Grand Limited, she asserted.
Ortega said she had evidence to support these claims and would hand it over it to authorities outside Venezuela but so far has not provided proof to the public.
“With that it became scandalous because it was related directly to the president of the Republic,” Poliszuk said.
In September, Armando.info published its story about Ortega’s allegations. Poliszuk and his colleagues began receiving threats sent from an anonymous Twitter account. The messages included their home addresses and other personal information, as well as an ominous statement: “Greetings to you and your beautiful family.”
Poliszuk and his colleagues, including fellow editor and ICIJ member Ewald Scharfenberg, editor Alfredo Meza and reporter Roberto Deniz, remained in the country and continued their reporting.
But mounting fears of persecution by the government later forced them to leave Venezuela. This week they noted in a press release that Saab had charged them with defamation and “aggravated injury,” crimes that carry sentences of one to six years in prison. Concerned that they would not receive a fair trial in Venezuela’s courts, all four have now temporarily left the country.
“I have doubts about Venezuelan justice,” Poliszuk said.
His own reporting had provided ample grounds for concern on this front – a July 2017 Armando.info investigation authored by Poliszuk found that 40 percent of the judges in Venezuela are members of Maduro’s ruling party.
It was not the first time Saab has taken legal action against journalists – last year he also sued Univision’s Gerardo Reyes, another ICIJ member, after Reyes reported that Saab was under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for possible connections to money laundering.
Poliszuk said he and his colleagues were determined to continue their work and publish what Poliszuk said will be significant new revelations in their series.
The incidents of domestic violence soared this Sunday, the first day of Semana Santa, the 911 emergency service reporting 412 calls requesting police intervention.
Domestic violence during Semana Santa or Holy week has been increasing in recent years.
In 2016, there were 2,360 incidents reported; last year, 2017, the number of incidents grew to 2,542.
The 911 emergency service reports that calls at times come in while the victim is under attack. Operators are trained to handle such situations or situations where the caller cannot talk, that is asking for help directly. In such situations, operators will try to determine the level of the emergency, obtain an address and dispatch help where it is needed.
According to the Inamu, The National Institute for Woman of Costa Rica, the days of greatest incidents during Semana Santa are Thursday and Easter Sunday.
Despite progressive steps to curb domestic violence against women, it remains interwined in the fabric of Latin American society. “Violence against women is rooted in centuries of discrimination,” says Guía para la detección del Machismo “It is deeply stemmed in values that promote unequal relations of power between men and women at all levels of society, and the risk of occurrence depends on a number of complex and interrelated factors.”
The Inamu has prepared a “Guía para la detección del Machismo” (Guide for the detection of Machismo). See it here.
Carlos Alvarado, presidential candidate of the ruling Citizens' Action Party (PAC), speaks during an interview with Reuters in San Jose, Costa Rica March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate.
Carlos Alvarado, presidential candidate of the ruling Partido Accion Cuidadana – Citizens’ Action Party – PAC, spoke to Reuters during an interview in San Jose, March 26, 2018.
Carlos Alvarado, presidential candidate of the ruling Citizens’ Action Party (PAC), speaks during an interview with Reuters in San Jose, Costa Rica March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate.
Carlos Alvarado says he will slash the country’s growing fiscal deficit by half if he wins Sunday’s run-off election, a contest in which economic concerns have taken a back seat to a debate over gay marriage.
Carlos Alvarado, 38, trails in some polls behind Fabricio Alvarado – no relation – while others show the pair running neck-and-neck.
Carlos Alvarado, who unlike his opponent supports gay marriage, told Reuters on Monday he aims to shrink the deficit from 6.2% to 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2022.
The deficit is set to grow by one percentage point next year, authorities and credit rating agencies have warned.
The current administration, where Carlos Alvarado was Minister of the Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano e Inclusión Social. (IMAS) – Human Development and Social Inclusion, was blocked by a divided Congress over the last four years from passing measures to create a Value-Added Tax (VAT), cut public salaries and tax capital gains.
Fitch downgraded Costa Rica’s rating from stable to negative in January, citing “institutional gridlock” that has thwarted fiscal reform and warning that more delays will raise risks to growth.
However, debt has now increased so much that parties previously opposed to tax reform may support it to avoid further economic malaise, Carlos Alvarado said.
“The competitive advantage I have is that time has run out,” he said in an interview at an organic market in the capital.
Lawmakers have been discussing a 13 percent VAT rate, more modest than an originally proposed 15 percent, but he said that was “not enough.”
His opponent Fabricio Alvarado has yet to present concrete proposals to stem the growing deficit and crime rate, instead focusing on opposition to gay marriage, sex education and abortion.
MAINTAIN FLOATING SYSTEM
Carlos Alvarado says he opposes the export sector’s demands to devalue the colon and wants to maintain the floating exchange rate while making central bank interventions more transparent.
But he pledged to support agricultural and industrial sectors by negotiating better terms for joining the Pacific Alliance trade pact with Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru.
In the fight against record crime, Carlos Alvarado rejected his rival’s “firm hand” stance, saying it would aggravate violence. He also criticized President Luis Guillermo Solis’ handling of corruption cases that have rocked the government.
He repeated his support for gay marriage, contrasting with his opponent who gained widespread support in the conservative country after rejecting an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling to legalize same-sex unions.
“I did not hide my position for political gain. I was honest with citizens (even though it was unpopular),” Carlos Alvarado said.
However, the novelist and ex-rock singer’s anti-abortion stance highlights the limits to his progressive agenda.
Carlos Alvarado is proposing to develop specific regulations to better enforce a 50-year-old law allowing a pregnancy to be terminated only if the mother’s health is at risk. He said this will better protect women who are often unsure of their rights due to the stigma of abortion.
Alliances of politicians, young and progressive groups are alarmed by one of the presidential candidates, Fabricio Alvarado, who comes from a religious background and has suggested that Costa Rica should separate from the Inter-Aamerican Human Rights Court for ruling in favor of defending LGBTQI people's rights. Photo by Julieth Méndez.
Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz and Carlos Alvarado Quesada will vie for president of Costa Rica in a closely contested election scheduled for April 1, 2018. Defenders of human rights and the LGBTQI community are concerned that if religious candidate Fabricio Alvarado wins, they face grave risk.
Fabricio Alvarado, a psalmist and Christian singer, belongs to the Partido de Restaruación Nacional (National Restoration Party–PRN), representing the most conservative party on the Costa Rican political scene. Carlos Alvarado Quesada represents Partido Acción Ciudadana (Citizen Action Party–PAC).
Costa Rican feminist groups are most alarmed by Fabricio Alvarado’s campaign proposal to convert the National Institute of Women (a ministerial institution) into the “Family Institute.”
I was going to call this column “The Hidden Costa Rica,” but then I realized all of Costa Rica is hidden. I’ve traveled the world, but have never found it harder to get information about the most basic things than in this user-unfrienldly paradise. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, given my house doesn’t have an address.
Want to mail a package, or receive one? Renew your driver license, go to a soccer game, find out what concerts are coming to the country? Good luck. I’ve been visiting Costa Rica for 18 years and now spend half the year here, but I knew Hong Kong better after three days than I knew Costa Rica after three years.
Want to take a local bus? True, the terminals are marked, but not the stops, nor the times. I looked for printed routes, or online information, but none exists. I asked locals, but they only know about the buses they take themselves. You just have to get on and see where it goes.
And if you want to save the driver the trouble of making change – Costa Rica the only country left where people still pay fares with coins? – how do you know the fare? It can be 390, or 370, or 340. True, the fare is printed on the windshield, but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate. The other day I gave the fare printed on the windshield, only to have the driver ask for ten colones more. I pointed to the figure, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Costa Rica is the nearest country I’ve ever come to the Twilight Zone. The Soviet Union and Paraguay were more oppressive. Costa Rica isn’t oppressive. Oppression requires lots of information. But no country on earth is more inept at simple communication.
The first time I took a taxi to Jaco the driver got lost. How do you get lost on the way to Jaco? The first time I asked my girlfriend where she lived she gave me a landmark, a small bar, that was a mile away from her house! When I recently went to Banco Nacional to pay for a visa application, the clerk told me I needed two copies of the receipt I had handed her.
I’d followed the instructions on the embassy’s page very carefully. Nowhere did it say I needed two copies. The clerk clearly wanted me to leave her desk so she could serve the next customer. But I couldn’t understand the problem. If she needed another copy, why didn’t she simply make one? She said she couldn’t. I would have to leave the bank, find a printer, make one copy, come back, take a number and wait once more in the interminable queues that are the bane of the Costa Rican financial system.
I said, “You’re a bank. You have copy machines.” She finally got up and made the copy. It took less than 30 seconds.
So imagine my delight, when after nearly two decades of wandering the information desert of this tropical country I found a tennis court five minutes’ walk from my house!
Tennis is one of my passions, one of the few things I can’t live without. But except for soccer, drowning in riptides, and the pothole slalom, Ticos seem to care nothing for athletics. There aren’t any sports teams in schools and I’ve never seen an actual basketball rim, only desecrated backboards in public parks. When I came here the only tennis courts I saw were in hotels. I even stayed at the Costa Rica Tennis Club in Sabana one week, just to play.
Then one day I changed my normal walking route and spotted a tiny, handwritten sign, “Tenis” on a quiet street corner. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I followed the yellow brick road—in this case potholed gravel—to a cul-de-sac with rabid dogs and crowing roosters. There, like the Emerald City itself, was a green gate. A single tennis court, covered against the Coronado rain, but otherwise open to the mountain air, rose like a pinnacle of civilization.
I dared not ask Sergei, the pro, how long it had been here. The worst kind of suffering is needless suffering, and I didn’t want to know that I might have been playing tennis regularly all these years. Nor did I want to contemplate that perhaps all my other Costa Rican dreams and wishes were only five minutes’ walk away, but that, in this most labyrinthine of countries, I would never find them.
Academia de Tenis el Fortin. 12,000 colones per hour, either lessons or to play on the court. No membership required. By appointment at 8937 3992.
On March 16 the Restoration candidate, Fabricio Alvarado, met with a hundred pastors in a church located in Tibás to ask them to manage donations to face the second round of elections and to convince their parishioners about the need to vote for he. The graph is accompanied by his candidate for the first Vice President, Ivonne Acuña. Photography: Alejandro Gamboa Madrigal
The Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones (TSE) – Costa Rica’s election tribunal – ordered the Partido Restauración Nacional (PRN) led by Fabricio Alvarado not to use religion to attract votes and ask for private contributions.
On March 16 the PRN presidential candidate, Fabricio Alvarado, met with a hundred pastors in a church located in Tibás to ask them to manage donations to face the second round of elections and to convince their parishioners about the need to vote for him. In the above photo Fabricio is accompanied by his candidate for first Vice President, Ivonne Acuña. Photo: Alejandro Gamboa Madrigal
The TSE said it issued the precautionary measure after receiving 86 complaints about mixing religion with politics.
All these claims come after the meeting of PRN presidential candidate Fabricio Alvarado and hundreds of evangelical pastors from the seven provinces on March 16, held at the International Biblical Temple, in Tibás, San José.
The meeting, which coordinated the help of the pastors in the elections on Sunday, April 1, was recorded and the 1 hour and 41 minutes of the meeting broadcast this past Sunday by Interferencia news of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) radio stations.
The Director of the TSE, Hector Fernandez, said that for now, it is a guideline to not mix religion with politics but if there is recidivism the Penal Code allows a prison sentence from six months to three years.
Specifically, the order is directed at the President of the PRN Executive Committee, Carlos Luis Avendaño, the Candidate for the Presidency, Fabricio Alvarado and the PSN Superior Executive Committee.
Fernandez explained that, according to Article 126 of the Electoral Code, “the parallel management of private contributions is forbidden so that no person or group of people can take steps in this direction for the benefit of the political party, without due authorization.”
“It should be noted that, in all cases, the donor must be fully identified and the time of receipt will be verified by proof of bank deposit or the official receipt issued by the party, as appropriate. The treasurer shall be obliged to inform the Court of these to the deadlines set forth in article 132 of the Electoral Code,” Fernández warned.
In the event that the TSE determines that the Restauracion party is guilty of failure to observe the limits of the propaganda invoking religious motives, it could be subject to a fine of ten to fifty basic salaries and, if it is determined that there would be infractions related to the financing supporters, those who contribute through third parties, groups or parallel organizations could be punished with imprisonment for two to four years.
The world’s largest bottler of Coke, Coca-Cola Femsa, shuttered its operations in a town in southwest Mexico on Friday, saying the shutdown was prompted by constant aggression from organized-crime groups.
Attacks on big companies and multinationals have been rare in Mexico in the decade since the country ramped up its war on drugs and organized crime.
However, Femsa said on Friday it was indefinitely shutting down operations in Ciudad Altamirano, a town at the northern edge of Mexico’s Guerrero state, because of harassment from organized crime and a lack of response by authorities.
“The measure was taken to put first the security of more than 160 workers who work in the distribution center,” the firm said in a release. “The lack of necessary conditions to operate in an efficient and secure manner in this zone … as well as the recent unjustified aggression toward one of our workers, led the company to make this decision.”
The firm said it “rejects energetically all violent action against its workers, families, and communities where it operates. It laments profoundly that the absence of rule of law and the prevalence of impunity that affects the region.”
Coca-Cola Femsa is a joint venture between Coca-Cola and Fomento Economico Mexicano, which owns 47% of the venture. The firm had been operating in area for 40 years, and with the shut down there it has no other distribution center in the Tierra Caliente region.
Since January, Coca-Cola Femsa workers in Altamirano have received “constant threats and aggression” from organized-crime groups, which also affected its facilities, the firm said. Locals said products bottled at the Altamirano plant were being sold at higher prices because of difficulties the company had distributing them.
Masked protesters empty a Coca-Cola distribution truck in Chilpancingo, Mexico, November 4, 2014. Coca-Cola Femsa temporarily suspended operations in the capital of Guerrero following attacks on its workers and its trucks. (AP Photo/Alejandrino Gonzalez)
Guerrero state government spokesman Ricardo Alvarez Heredia said that early Friday morning police stopped an attack on a Coca-Cola Femsa facility in the area, exchanging fire with 20 armed men who tried to force their way into a compound belonging to the company. The attackers fled, but authorities seized a pickup truck, a firearm, and Molotov cocktails, “with which they intended to set fire to the soft-drink facility,” Alvarez Heredia said. One person was arrested.
On Wednesday, gunmen opened fire on workers who were reopening the plant’s sales section, which had been closed since January because of extortion threats. One worker was wounded.
Alvarez Heredia told Expansion that authorities had meetings with operators from businesses in the area because of insecurity. He said he did not know if the state governor had spoken with businesses from the area, but he said the state and federal government had reinforced security there at the request of businesses.
Coca-Cola Femsa has previously encountered similar problems elsewhere in the state.
In mid-2015, it suspended operations at its plant in Arcelia because of threats from organized crime.
In February that year, the firm halted operations in the state capital, Chilpancingo, for two weeks amid violence in the aftermath of the September 2014 abduction of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa school, most of whom have yet to be found.
In August 2014, the firm shut down operations in Arcelia because of harassment from organized-crime groups, mainly cells of La Familia Michoacana, which were attempting to take control of the area.
Attacks on trucks and warehouses belonging to PepsiCo brand Sabritas in mid-2014 were thought to be the first to directly target a global company. Foreign firms continue to invest in Mexico, though they often favor areas with lower levels of violence.
Guerrero is one of Mexico’s poorest and most violent states. The region where Ciudad Altamirano is located, called Tierra Caliente, is especially lawless. The region spreads across Guerrero and neighboring Michoacan and has become a hub for drug production and trafficking. A number of criminal groups are present there, including elements of La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar cartels. There are no local police in the municipalities that make up the region; that role is filled by state authorities and the Mexican military.
Statewide, homicides increased 14% between 2016 and 2017. The state’s homicide rate also rose over that period, from 61.67 homicides per 100,000 people in 2016 to 64.26 last year — both among the highest in the country. Guerrero was home to six of the 50 most violent municipalities in Mexico in 2017, including Acapulco, a once idyllic tourist hotspot that was named the third-most violent city in the world last year.
Fomento Económico Mexicano, doing business as FEMSA, is a Mexican multinational beverage and retail company headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico, operating the largest independent Coca-Cola bottling group in the world and the largest convenience store chain in Mexico. It is also the second largest shareholder of Heineken International.
FEMSA has operations in Latin America: Half of Mexico (including Mexico City, Oaxaca, Tabasco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Veracruz, Puebla and Michoacan); the Buenos Aires region of Argentina; São Paulo and other areas of Brazil; greater Guatemala City, Guatemala; most of Colombia; and all of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela.
British car dealership chain buys Suzuki dealerships in Costa Rica and Panama
British car dealership chain buys Suzuki dealerships in Costa Rica and Panama
(Reuters) – UK Car dealership chain Inchcape Plc announced on Monday it would buy family-run Grupo Rudelman, an automotive distribution business in Central America, as it looked to strengthen its presence in the emerging markets.
Inchcape, which trades in more than two dozen countries, will pay Grupo Rudelman’s shareholders US$284 million, gaining access to the Suzuki-led distribution business – which sold 12,500 new Suzuki vehicles in 2017 – in Costa Rica and Panama.
Costa Rican Ambassador to Korea Rodolfo Solano Quiros (left) poses with Embassy Minister Counselor and Consul General Sofia Salas Monge (right) and Laura Barahona a Costa Rican expat in Korea, drink Costa Rican coffee at the embassy in Seoul last week. (Costa Rican Embassy)
Costa Rican coffee has secured a stronger position in the Korean market, where coffee consumption is steadily growing, according to the Costa Rican Embassy in Seoul, as the country readies to host the Coffee Expo 2018 in Seoul from Apr. 5-8.
Costa Rican Ambassador to Korea Rodolfo Solano Quiros (left) poses with Embassy Minister Counselor and Consul General Sofia Salas Monge (right) and Laura Barahona a Costa Rican expat in Korea, drink Costa Rican coffee at the embassy in Seoul last week. (Costa Rican Embassy)
Costa Rica, with several of its coffee producers and exporters participating and presenting their sustainable production method will also hold coffee-making sessions and expand their networks with Korean buyers and consumers.
Korea’s domestic coffee market reached 11.7 trillion South Korean won ($10.8 billion) last year, and the demand for the beverage continues to rise. The figure is more than triple the amount of 3 trillion won a decade ago, and translates into 26.5 billion cups last year at an average 512 cups per person.
The Costa Rican Embassy, Costa Rica Coffee and Costa Rica Foreign Trade Promoter, Procomer, have collaborated to bring together a successful trade delegation to Korea, where Costa Rica supplies 4.5% of all coffee.
“Korean consumers look for highly specialized flavors. They are students of quality,” said Mario Arroyo, promotion and information manager at the Costa Rica Coffee Institute. “As they like to know where the coffee comes from, our focus on traceability and sustainability will help Costa Rican coffee gain a stable footing in the Korean market.”
Scenes from Costa Rica. Clockwise from top right: chifrijo, a dish from Bar La Selegna, in Liberia; a view of Marina Papagayo; the Tropical Wind School soccer field in Playas del Coco; an estate home at the Four Seasons Costa Rica. CreditJada Yuan/The New York Times
Some nights on Peninsula Papagayo, on the northern Pacific side of Costa Rica, the moon shone so bright, with so little evidence of human life, that I felt like an interloper just for bearing witness, for breathing through its stillness. Then I would remember how much it cost to be able to look at that moon from this particular part of the world and the poetry was quickly shattered.
Scenes from Costa Rica. Clockwise from top right: chifrijo, a dish from Bar La Selegna, in Liberia; a view of Marina Papagayo; the Tropical Wind School soccer field in Playas del Coco; an estate home at the Four Seasons Costa Rica. CreditJada Yuan/The New York Times
If this bio-diverse Central American country has branded itself as a playground for rich North Americans — 40 percent of its tourists come from the United States — then Peninsula Papagayo, in the Guanacaste Province, is where the ultrarich go to avoid having to interact with the regular rich. The 1,400-acre luxury resort area is in a tropical dry forest, 70 percent of which is conserved as open green space. Guard stations and miles of cliffside roads separate its dwellings from any public byway. Lady Gaga and Christian Bale rang in the New Year there (separately). A night in a basic room at the Four Seasons, which is part of a development group that controls most properties on the peninsula, would set me back more than my monthly New York City rent (around $1,445, with taxes and resort fees). A night at its most expensive estate home goes for $34,500 in peak season.
As a traveler, I am deeply uncomfortable with frills. Our typical family vacation when I was growing up near Santa Fe, N.M., consisted of stuffing a black cargo van with camping gear and driving as far south across the Mexican border as we could before the van broke down. In this case, though, some frills couldn’t be avoided. I’m on assignment to visit every destination on The Times’s 52 Places to Go in 2018 list, and the entirely private, entirely exclusive Peninsula Papagayo — not to be confused with the plain old Papagayo region just to the south — came in at No. 20. Beyond the Four Seasons, one can stay in private condos (more expensive), properties managed by Exclusive Resorts (more expensive), and the Andaz, the “budget” option, where the cheapest room I could find for a single night came in at $735 (resort fee and tax included).
Extreme beauty does come with those price tags. I checked in for my one-night stay at the Andaz in an open-air reception area perched on a cliff above the ocean. Soon, though, I began to feel trapped. A laundry mix-up left me without pants — long story — and after an hour of waiting for help from a bellman, to no avail, I was forced to wrap a towel around my waist and wrest new pants from the trunk of my car myself. (The laundry bill was $34 for five items.)
Fellow cheap people: There is hope. I got three nights of terrific sleep gently rocking away on a $245-a-night yacht I’d found through some miracle of Airbnb, docked at Marina Papagayo. Low-key and just a 10-minute walk (and, weirdly, a 30-minute drive) from the Andaz, the marina has a dive bar called The Dive Bar and offers hotel rooms starting at $169 a night. (Laundry: $2 a load.)
The yacht also had a surprise that became the best part of Costa Rica for me. I knew from my communications with the owner that a 21-year-old sailor named Álvaro Álvarez would be letting me onto the boat. I didn’t know that he’d speak no English and he’d be my roommate the whole time, sleeping on a pad on the floor of the upstairs helm. Confusion turned to delight as I came to rely on him for his funny observations of the area’s extreme wealth, for the way he’d shout out “Dime!” (“Tell me!”) whenever I’d call out his name. He told me about his life in the coastal city of Puntarenas, where he has a new wife and a 6-month-old son he adores. I told him why I was in Costa Rica, and he was eager to guide me as a kind of reporter’s assistant.
Álvaro Álvarez on the beach at sunset in Liberia, Costa Rica. CreditJada Yuan/The New York Times
With his help, I found out how to enter the peninsula through a dinner reservation at Poro Poro restaurant, run by Exclusive Resorts. (Marina employees told me they do the same thing with lunch reservations at the Four Seasons’ trio of restaurants.) A short beach hike from the marina allowed me to spend a whole day at one of the Andaz’s outdoor restaurants using its fast Wi-Fi. The only hitch was when I stayed after dark and had to ask the hotel staff to drive me back because the walk had become “muy peligroso” (very dangerous). “I went looking for you!” Mr. Álvarez scolded me that night. “The forest is full of snakes and jaguars and pumas and I was worried they ate you!”
Every beach in Costa Rica is, by law, a public beach. But in two years of working in the marina, Mr. Álvarez told me he’d only seen the beaches on the Four Seasons property once — and the trek had been so arduous he didn’t think he’d ever do it again. One morning, we tried going to the best beach marina guests can get to, Playa Nacascolo, but that required an hour’s journey there and back on a Four Seasons shuttle.
So when the Four Seasons got wind that I was on the peninsula and invited me to tour the property, I knew I had to take Mr. Álvarez with me. It’s a vast and arresting resort that is doing commendable conservation work (the new Papagayo Explorers Club is cataloging every species on the peninsula), and offers the best-paying work in Guanacaste. I just didn’t enjoy being surrounded by English speakers in a place where no locals could afford to live.
The Costa Rica I’ll treasure is the one Mr. Álvarez and I visited on our road trips. One took us 45 minutes south to Playas del Coco, a populist beach filled with soccer-playing construction workers and fishermen just returning with their catch. On our way to another free beach, Playa Hermosa, Mr. Álvarez jumped a fence to gather green mangoes that he sliced up and served with lime and salt for dinner. (He also offered me Coca-Cola and Cup-o-Noodle soup from his own personal stash when it was clear he’d only brought enough for himself.)
On my last day, we made an epic drive across the island. He needed to go home to see his wife and child — he’d normally hitchhike, then take two multi-hour bus rides — and I needed his help navigating a civic festival in Guanacaste’s capital city, Liberia, in which everyone rides their horses through the streets, and then to a bar where they don’t have to dismount to grab a beer. Over many hours of language-challenged bonding, I learned that Mr. Álvarez dreams of seeing Texas someday and is afraid of bulls because one threw him into the air at a similar festival.
Most of all, though, I got back to something I’d been missing over a month of solo travel: the joy of getting lost with someone whose company you enjoy. At every wrong turn, Mr. Álvarez would throw his hands up and say, “Aventura!” Maybe, I thought, with a bit of attitude adjustment I could keep the adventure going for the rest of the year.
Practical Tips
Renting a car is highly recommended for getting around Costa Rica. Be sure to have tons of runway on your credit card for the $1,500 mandatory deposit, plus the cost of the rental. (I saw an American couple have to walk away carless and spend their vacation on busses because they didn’t.) If your credit card provides rental insurance, you’ll still need to present a formal letter, in paper form, to the agency to avoid getting charged. Beware potholes and unexpected dirt roads. Always drive in the left lane on a highway to avoid hitting the many cows, pedestrians or cyclists on the right-side shoulder. When home, double check that the massive deposit has been removed.
Jada Yuan will be traveling to every place on this year’s 52 Places to Go list. Follow her on Instagram @alphajada.
QCostarica.com was not involved in the creation of the content. This article was originally published on Nytimes.com. Read the original article.
The MS-13 gang operates in Central America, Mexico and the U.S. But so far its efforts to get into the drug business have failed. Jose Cabezas/Reuters
In October 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that pursuing the Mara Salvatrucha, a Salvadoran gang also known as MS-13, was “a priority for our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces.”
“Drugs are killing more Americans than ever before, in large part thanks to powerful cartels and international gangs and deadly new synthetic opioids like fentanyl,” Sessions told the International Association of Chiefs of Police on Oct. 23. He concluded that “perhaps the most brutal of these gangs is MS-13.”
President Donald Trump also cites MS-13 to justify his administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration from Latin America. In his 2018 State of the Union address, Trump threatened to “destroy” the group, which is responsible for a spate of brutal, high-profile murders in Boston, Long Island, Virginia and beyond.
There’s a problem here – and it’s not just MS-13’s violent ethos. It’s that the Trump administration is getting this gang all wrong.
That misconception is fueling failed U.S. policies that, in my assessment, will do little to deter MS-13.
Together, we’re going to restore safety to our streets and peace to our communities, and we’re going to destroy the vile criminal cartel, #MS13, and many other gangs…
The Trump administration is not the first administration to mischaracterize MS-13, which conducts vicious but rudimentary criminal activities like extortion, armed robbery and murder across Central America, Mexico and the U.S.
In 2012, the Obama-era Treasury Department put the group on a organized crime “kingpin” list with the Italian mafia Camorra, the Mexican criminal group the Zetas and the Japanese mob known as the Yakuza.
That designation gave the group a rarefied status in the underworld, which must have pleased its leadership.
But our research found that MS-13 is hardly a lucrative network of criminal masterminds. Instead, it is a loose coalition of young, often formerly incarcerated men operating hand to mouth across a vast geographic territory.
Then as now, MS-13 acted as a surrogate family for its members, though not a benign one. MS-13 created a collective identity that was constructed and reinforced by shared experiences, particularly expressions of violence and social control.
It has since spread to at least a half-dozen countries on two continents and has become a prime source of destabilizing violence, particularly extortion, in Central American countries like El Salvador and Honduras.
Inept at drug dealing
What MS-13 has not done is establish any real foothold in the international drug trafficking market.
It’s not for lack of trying. Our study found that MS-13 leaders have made several attempts to get into the business of running illicit drugs.
In the early 2000s, one MS-13 boss named Nelson Comandari tried to use the gang’s national criminal infrastructure to establish a drug distribution network. Comandari was well positioned to do it. He was powerful in L.A., had underworld family connections from El Salvador to Colombia and enjoyed strong ties to the feared Mexican Mafia, a U.S.-based prison gang with connections to Mexican cartels.
Yet within a few years Comandari was frustrated. MS-13 members turned out to be inept at drug smuggling and resistant to the whole idea. Our research found that the gang frowns upon those who put their personal business above the collective’s.
Comandari eventually went into the drug business on his own and was captured along the Texas-Mexico border in 2006.
Subsequent efforts have gotten nipped even sooner. In 2015, a midlevel MS-13 leader named Larry Naverete – spelled Navarrete in some federal documents – began smuggling small loads of methamphetamine into the U.S. via an MS-13 member operating from Tijuana.
Within two years, police on each side of the border had captured Navarete, who was operating from the California State Prison System, and his Mexican partner.
Why MS-13 fails at drug trafficking
One reason MS-13 has failed so roundly at becoming a drug cartel is that it is more of a social club than a lucrative criminal enterprise. Its members benefit from the camaraderie and support that comes with membership – not the heaping monetary rewards that never arrive.
Entrepreneurs who hope to leverage its network for their personal financial gain see the same strong resistance that scuttled Comandari’s plans.
MS-13 is mostly about quick money and camaraderie, not complex global distribution pipelines. Ulises Rodriguez/Reuters
Perhaps more critically, MS-13 is a decentralized organization with no clear hierarchy. The gang is broken into local cells called “cliques” – or “clicas” in Spanish – that are more loyal to each other than to the various leadership councils that operate around Central America and the U.S.
Put simply, it has no leader. So what looks on paper like a tremendous built-in infrastructure for moving illicit products across borders is actually a disparate, federalized organization of substructures with highly local, even competing, interests.
Finally, MS-13 is mostly about immediate gratification. It helps members eke out a living and get some perilous criminal thrills. That’s why extortion is a staple. Complex supply chains? Not so much.
Instead, the Trump administration has used MS-13 as a foil to push its political agenda.
MS-13 members allegedly killed several people on Long Island, New York, in 2016. AP Photo/Claudia Torrens
To justify imposing draconian immigration restrictions, Trump and Sessions link MS-13’s crimes to the issue of illegal immigration. Their rhetoric suggests that the group is staffed with undocumented migrants, thus proving that migrants are dangerous. In fact, statistics confirm that immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than native-born U.S. citizens.
What harsh law enforcement tactics aimed at ending immigration and breaking up drug cartels won’t do is address the real problems posed by MS-13 and other very violent, very American street gangs.
Those familiar with the island’s history will remember that Cuba lost its financial backing, after decades of dependence, when the USSR came apart.
A vendor sets out pork to sell on a street in Havana. Asked for beef, one butcher replied: ‘I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.’ Photograph: Enrique de la Osa/Reuters
Cuba then entered a severe crisis that began in 1989 that was known as the ‘Special Period’.
On the streets of Camagüey, a western province of Cuba, people are again talking about the arrival of a new ‘Special Period’.
The price of the chicken is more than the average Cuban salary and three times more than what a construction worker from Camagüey earns in a month
The horror of the ‘Special Period”
During the Special Period, daily essentials went missing. Items such as soap, cooking oil and rice that today Cubans can buy with the exchangeable currency for tourists, the CUC, were not available. During the Special Period, US dollars were needed but their use was prohibited. Having dollars was cause enough for imprisonment.
According to socialist logic wealth is distributed and managed collectively, and during that period nobody had the right to buy antiseptic wipes, nor baby clothing -never mind diapers- until a baby was five months old, because if he/she died it would be a waste of resources that could be used by others.
Sales control booklet for food products assigned by the regime
Worry in the shadow of another looming Special Period
In anticipation of another crisis, people are buying the products that were scarcest during those terrible years, the worst Cuban crisis.
“It feels like Armageddon”
-Cuban shopkeeper
Today – except for those who receive remittances– purchasing boxes with chicken for 30 CUC, equivalent to the same amount in dollars, is impossible. The price of the chicken is more than the average Cuban salary and three times more than what a construction worker from Camagüey earns in a month. “It feels like Armageddon,” merchants said, because of the fear that something terrible is looming.
Now the shortages are bringing in a crime wave against vulnerable sectors. For, as many know, food is rationed monthly in Cuba.
But the regime doesn’t distribute food to the people, instead, it controls how much they can buy. There are government stores where products are sold with CUP, the Cuban peso -equivalent to 2 CUP per US$-, and stores where they sell using CUC, the exchangeable peso for tourists, that has the same value as a US dollar.
The Cuban ration book keeps track of the purchases of essentials in CUC alotted to each family every month. For each child younger than 6 years old, a portion of meat is included. In a month, they can consume one pound of beef, approximately half a kilo. So, homes with children are becoming a target of potential theft.
Cubans are tired of being unable to access foods of animal origin other than chicken. (EFE)
Domestic burglary
Pork is the only meat available to Cubans citizens, but for days now there has been no pork to purchase, just as it was in the first Special Period. Cubans are now subjected to robbing to ensure access such a scarce, but precious asset.
The thieves stole even the lock
A single mother – who requested anonymity- living with her minor daughter received the beef portion offered by the ration book. Her house is under construction, her roof is leaking, and given the precarious conditions of Cuban housing, as we can in the picture, she doesn’t sleep there.
She was at a neighbor’s house, just above hers, when she was informed that her house had been robbed.
Two things were missing: the door lock, which was not only forced open but removed; and the meat that was in the refrigerator.
The ration books divide the access to products by age and allow exceptions in case of authorized medical conditions.
Consequences of state-controlled supplies
Public policies that control the number of things that people can buy according to arbitrary standards, such as age, result in making these groups vulnerable to domestic burglary and other attacks.
Ranchers cut off pieces of an animal, in a surgical manner, while it is still alive because in Cuba beef is like gold
Furthermore, people with a specific medical diagnosis, such as diabetes, are entitled to consume low-cost products restricted from ordinary citizens, particularly meat. This has led to a surge of counterfeiting medical diagnosis that grants access to certain food products not available to the average Cuban. Bear in mind a Cuban citizen who’s 7 years or older and healthy who dares to eat beef is sent to prison.
The killing game for food, or ‘illegal sacrifice’, was categorized as a crime in the Revolution’s first Criminal Code. This restriction leads to cases where ranchers cut off pieces of an animal, in a surgical manner, while it is still alive because in Cuba beef is like gold. In the socialist regime, the government has the only legal authority to distribute it and ban food items, which is why the black market and theft blossom in an effort to meet the desperate demand.
Colombian voters are calling for a pro-peace coalition in the run-up to the May 27 presidential elections Ivan Duque, who fought against the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), pulls ahead in new polls.
Colombian presidential candidates Gustavo Petro (L), Sergio Fajardo (C) and Humberto De la Calle. | Photo: EFE
A poll conducted by Invamer shows that 45.9 percent of Colombian voters would support Duque in the presidential elections, a trend supported by a YanHass poll, which showed him gaining 40 percent in the first round.
In both polls, left-wing humanist Gustavo Petro, who supports the peace accord, finished second to Duque. The result has led to calls for Sergio Fajardo and Humberto De la Calle; both supporters of the agreement, to join with Petro to preserve it with a single pro-peace candidacy.
Former presidential candidate Carlos Caicedo, who has been called the “architect” of an alliance between the three pro-peace candidates, met with the Colombia Coalition, which backs Fajardo’s presidential bid, on Thursday.
Gustavo Petro, who 26.7 percent of voters said they would support in the first round in the Invamer poll, called via Twitter on Wednesday for Fajardo and De la Calle “to build the convergence that would establish the pillars of peace… I invite @carloscaicedo to be the architect of the Convergence.”
In response, Caicedo said: “I accept the assignment of contributing to the architecture of the convergence demanded by the citizens, to promote a united candidacy for change.”
After the meeting, vice-presidential candidate Claudia Lopez, of the Colombia Coalition, posted on Twitter her gratitude for “a constructive dialogue… With a common vision for the country, affection and serenity, everything is possible.”
So far, only the coalitions supporting Fajardo, who has captured 10.7 percent of public support, and De la Calle, with 5 percent, appear near to an agreement.
El Colombiano newspaper reports that Fajardo and De la Calle will meet next week and could announce a provisional deal, although it would only put Fajardo or De la Calle on the path to 15.7 percent of the votes in the first round – some ten points behind Petro.
With Petro, however, a pro-peace ticket is projected to gain 42.4 percent of public support based on the current polls. This would give Duque, who has the support of 45.9 percent of voters, a slender 3.5 percent lead according to the poll, which surveyed 1,200 people between March 16 and 20 and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
“De la Calle, Petro, Fajardo: Coalition!” | Photo: @pierrealee
The reluctance to form a coalition which includes Petro is challenging for many to understand.
In February, members of the Green Alliance – part of Fajardo’s Colombia Coalition – publicly supported Petro, citing a “total correspondence of principles ahead of the March 11 legislative elections and primary consultation to determine if Caicedo or Petro would become the presidential candidate of the left.”
Petro’s platform and the Colombia Coalition share many policy positions, including opposition to fracking, support for the peace process and the importance of striving for social equality and opportunity. On Tuesday, Green Alliance lawmaker Angela Maria Robledo resigned her post in Congress to become Petro’s running mate.
According to another Green Alliance lawmaker, Alirio Uribe, “many sectors and directors of the Polo (the other party of the Coalition)” have issued “calls” for a convergence between Petro, Fajardo and the candidate for the Liberal Party, De la Calle.
Local media reports suggest the De la Calle campaign is exploring possibilities for approaching Petro.
What the final coalition will look like remains uncertain, but an alliance without Petro promises little in electoral terms.
With two months left before the presidential elections, there is still room to maneuver. The same Invamer poll revealed only 51 percent of Colombians surveyed are sure they will vote; over 34 percent are unsure, and almost 14 percent will not vote.
The Costa Rica leaf moth is truly a master of disguise. As a newly hatched larva, the species mimics bird poop. As a later-stage caterpillar, it can inflate its head to make it seem more snake-like. And as an adult moth, its wings look like every other dead leaf on the forest floor. With this impressive trickery, the moth avoids predation, first by being unappealing, then by looking threatening, and, finally, by blending in. But as one scientist recently discovered, that second stage—when the caterpillar impersonates a snake—can have unintended consequences.
Earlier this year, Jim Marden, a biology professor at Pennsylvania State University, was leading a tropical-ecology course in Costa Rica when he was tipped off to a fierce showdown between a serpentine caterpillar and a female Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. Mere inches below was the hummingbird’s compact, lichen-covered nest, filled with a pair of small white eggs.
As Marden’s thrilling photos and video reveal, the disguise was clearly working—but not to the insect’s benefit. “What normally works well to keep birds away backfired,” he says. “The hummingbird was checking it out, probing it, and attacking it almost continuously.”
The interaction was bizarre, though not surprising. With its eggs still days from hatching, the hummingbird couldn’t just fly away, so it put itself between the “snake” and the unborn chicks.
“This is a classic example of a mother defending her nest,” says Nick Hendershot, a biologist at Stanford University, who studies birds’ diets in Costa Rica. “It’s an evolutionary instinct to defend your babies.” And it’s a good one: Nest predation by snakes and other egg-hungry animals is a leading cause of hummingbird mortality in the tropics, he says.
Little did the hummer know, the threat was empty. Other than menacing some nearby leaves and possibly attracting larger, hungry birds, the caterpillar posed no real risk to the adult or its babies, says Alejandro Rico-Guevara, an ornithologist at the University of California, Berkeley. And vice versa. “Hummingbirds certainly don’t eat caterpillars that large,” Hendershot says.
As Marden explains, these two species were caught in a positive feedback loop. “You have two animals following behavioral rules of thumb that have been stuck in this loop,” he says. When the caterpillar became agitated, it whipped out the false snake head, making the hummingbird feel threatened. And as the hummer’s attack intensified, the caterpillar became more snake-like—lifting the false head up, flaring out the sides, and swaying it back and forth. From there, it escalated.
The scuffle lasted for at least half an hour, and it only ended when the seemingly unharmed caterpillar crawled away—not because it took the high road, but most likely because its appetite kicked in, Marden guesses. With its head tucked away, the insect relocated to a different leaf about a meter away. “The hummingbird settled down, and the caterpillar resumed feeding,” the scientist says.
A few days later, the hummingbird eggs hatched, revealing two delicate, wrinkly infants. The caterpillar, on the other hand, likely wrapped itself in a cryptic chrysalis—destined for a life of obscurity and much less drama.
What harsh law enforcement tactics aimed at ending immigration and breaking up drug cartels won’t do is address the real problems posed by MS-13 and other very violent, very American street gangs.
