A new hook for displaced shrimp industry workers
Many people applauded Costa Rica for outlawing shrimp trawling last year. The new ruling has survived many court challenges and even today the shrimp industry and INCOPESCA, which manages the country’s fisheries, is doing technical studies on a supposedly sustainable type of trawling.Henry Marin, a socioeconomic expert and project manager for FECOP, an organization that advocates for sports fishing and of sustainable fishing in Costa Rica, understands that conservation also has a social cost.“What most people don’t realize is that the ruling displaced 300 women in Puntarenas who worked as shrimp peelers that now are left unemployed. Many of these women are the heads of their households,” Marin said.Hundreds of people in Puntarenas were employed by the trawling industry.Larry Dahlberg, the legendary fisherman, lure maker, and host of television show Hunt for Big Fish, visited Costa Rica recently and Marin explained the shrimp peeler blight. They both agreed that conservation had a social cost. Then they agreed they could do something about it.Dahlberg has designed many famous fishing lures and last year offered to come down and teach these women displaced from the shrimping industry how to make fishing lures since they were well adapted to working with their hands. Marin started the leg-work and contacted the women’s group. Then there were meetings with INCOPESCA, which is in charge of Costa Rican fisheries, and Instituto Nacional de Aprenizaje (INA), Costa Rica’s technical institute. Both groups were eager to participate.Dahlberg enlisted the help of Mike Faupel, President of Alumilite Engineering Company who owns MakeLure.com; Amazing Casting products, suppliers of molding and casting products; and Brad Roberts, a well-known lure maker and owner of Jaw Sportswear. The three will be spending the last week of February in Costa Rica training a group of these women as well as five INA instructors to carry on the training to keep the program growing.The group will be making fishing lures for both hard and soft baits and are planning to develop a bio-degradable lure. After they learned the molding process, they can expand to other products like souvenirs for cruise ship tourists that visit Puntarenas. The project will not be the solution for all 300 women, but if done properly, the co-op they form will employ a good number of women. Marin understands this is only the first step. “They will need help learning how to manage a business and INA has plans to include this in the program,” Marin said. “Volunteers are invited to participate, especially university students in business administration or with knowledge of 3D printing looking for a community project are welcome.”For more information or to volunteer for the project contact Henry Marin at 2291-9150 hmarin@fecop.org Todd Staley has run fishing sport operations on both coasts of Costa Rica for over 25 years. He recently decided to take some time off to devote full-time to marine conservation and is the communications director at FECOP. Contact him at wetline@hotmail.com.This story was made possible thanks to The Tico Times 5 % Club. If only 5 percent our readers donated at least $2 a month, we’d have our operating costs covered and could focus on bringing you more original reporting from around Costa Rica. We work hard to keep our reporting independent and groundbreaking, but we can only do it with your help. Join The Tico Times 5% Club and help make stories like this one possible.Support the Tico Times Facebook Comments Related posts:Hooray! Now we can go fishing with our children Fight over shrimp trawling continues in legislature Costa Rica declines to vote on shark protections at international convention Solís signs tuna fishing decree, but will it help Costa Rica’s oceans?
Top Stories WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer students say they are being bullied at school. Those who are bullied are more likely to be girls than boys and more likely to be white than minority students.The Education Department announced survey results Friday that found 22 percent of students age 12 to 18 said they were bullied in 2013. The figure, down 6 percentage points from 2011, is the lowest level since the National Center for Education Statistics began surveying students on bullying in 2005. Arizona families, Arizona farms: working to produce high-quality milk Bullying has spread from school hallways and bathrooms to social media, raising awareness in recent years of what was once largely an underground issue. The focus has resulted in an aggressive effort to tackle it from local school officials on up to the federal government.Among the survey findings:–About a quarter, or 24 percent, of girls said they were bullied compared to 20 percent of boys.–A higher percentage of white students — 24 percent — said they were bullied than black, Hispanic or Asian students. Twenty percent of black students said they were bullied compared to 19 percent of Hispanic students and 9 percent of Asian students.Among respondents, 9 percent of girls and 5 percent of boys said they’d experienced cyberbullying either in school or outside of school. Unwanted text messages was the most common way students said they were cyberbullied followed by hurtful information posted on the Internet.Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised the news of an overall decline but with a caveat: “Even though we’ve come a long way over the past few years in educating the public about the health and educational impacts that bullying can have on students, we still have more work to do to ensure the safety of our nation’s children.” Ex-FBI agent details raid on Phoenix body donation facility Former Arizona Rep. Don Shooter shows health improvement New Valley school lets students pick career-path academies Students bullied are more likely to struggle in school, skip class, face substance abuse and commit suicide, the department said research has found. Being made fun of, called names or being insulted was the most common way the surveyed students said were bullied. Being the subject of rumors or threatened with harm was also common.The survey is from the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. It is a nationally representative sample.___Follow Kimberly Hefling on Twitter: http://twitter.com/kheflingCopyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Quick workouts for men Comments Share Sponsored Stories Milstead says best way to stop wrong-way incidents is driving sober Check your body, save your life
Heathrow recently celebrated its 70th anniversary of becoming a commercial airport. With the New Year, Heathrow is planning on an extension of the new Terminal 2. If the Government supports a third runway at Heathrow in summer, then Terminal 2 will be extended and a new terminal will be built adjacent to Terminal 5, providing enough capacity to connect Britain to the world for the 21st century.The airport has also received a nod for installing 135 more chargers for at least another 260 electric vehicles, to help shift greater number of vehicles used on and around the airport to electric power. This also signals towards a greater ambition to ‘turn Heathrow electric’.Chief Executive, John Holland-Kaye said, “2015 saw us commit to a series of action plans that will make us a better neighbour, by reducing noise, emissions and traffic. We are now providing an update on the very significant progress already being made, thanks to the commitment of the airport community. But we know that we need to do more, and in the coming months will set out even more ambitious plans that will make an expanded Heathrow the most environmentally responsible hub airport in the world.”The reports provide a traffic-light rating – Red, Amber, Green – against each of the commitments published in the blueprints along with a supporting commentary. They show that 70% of the promises have been put into action and the remaining 30% are in progress.
GaultMillau Switzerland and its sponsoring partner, the Lucerne watchmaker Carl F. Bucherer, have made their selection: The reopened Grand Resort Bad Ragaz was chosen as the “Hotel of the Year 2009”.“It is wonderful to be here,” Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in his diary during his visit to Bad Ragaz. The Bad Ragaz Grand Resort, which reopened its doors in June 2009 after structural renovation and extension work, ensures that its guests still share this opinion. The Bad Ragaz Grand Resort, with its timeless elegance and accomplished hospitality, combines tradition with a contemporary feel, inspiration and savoir-vivre.On August 31st, 2009, Urs Heller, GaultMillau Switzerland, and Thomas Morf, CEO of Carl F. Bucherer, presented the Bad Ragaz Grand Resort with the “Hotel of the Year 2009” award. Apart from the above-mentioned watchmaker’s representatives, Frank M. Rinderknecht, the founder of Rinspeed, attended the event, along with numerous guests from the world of politics and tourism. Peter Riet, Director of the Bad Ragaz Grand Resort, was particularly pleased that this traditional hotel at the mouth of the picturesque Tamina Gorge, has received this coveted title a second time this year:“It is an outstanding pleasure that the newly built resort appeals and we are looking positivly into the future. We provide our guests a uniquely comination of luxury hotels, gastronomy as well as wellbeing with own thermal water.””This is the third time that Carl F. Bucherer has sponsored the GaultMillau Hotel of the Year award. This constitutes an excellent partnership, as the constant striving for perfection is the hallmark of both Carl F. Bucherer and the Swiss hotel trade. “We support pioneering people and companies who, like us, are ahead of their time. The Bad Ragaz Grand Resort is a unique combination of legendary Swiss Grand Hotel culture, exclusive elegance and quality, as well as innovative hospitality, which is why the resort absolutely deserves th GaultMillau award,” declared Thomas Morf at the awards ceremony.www.carl-f-bucherer.com
Cypriot banks may face additional challenges in reducing their stock of non-performing loans once the European Central Bank (ECB) decides to cut back its expanded asset-purchase programme, economists said.The economists commented in response to a Reuters report dated March 15, which said that banks in the European Union could face a non-performing loans problem totalling €1 trillion in case the ECB reduced its bond-buying programme of currently €80bn a month by one quarter. The Reuters report, which cited an “internal EU document,” said that the ECB is likely to do so next month.“Monetary transmission is complex, but such ECB action would likely increase risks for banks with non-performing loans and real estate on balance sheets like ours,” economist Marios Zachariadis, who teaches at the University of Cyprus, said.Cypriot banks, which struggle to reduce their almost €24bn, or roughly half of their loan portfolio, in non-performing loans, have been swapping debt for other assets in recent years, including real estate, as part of loan restructuring agreements. Bank of Cyprus, the island’s largest lender, saw its real estate portfolio rise to €1.4bn last year.While Cyprus does not at present participate in the ECB asset-purchasing programme, as its sovereign rating is still below investment grade and completed its adjustment programme a year ago, it has already benefited indirectly, as evidenced in the downward trend in the government’s borrowing cost. Bank rates have also fallen to record lows over the past two years, after the ECB reduced its rates to historic lows, part of its policy to fight deflation and stimulate the euro area’s anaemic growth.In February, the annual inflation rate in the single currency bloc accelerated to 2 per cent, from 1.8 per cent in January and -0.2 per cent in February 2016. The ECB’s main task is to safeguard price stability in the euro area by targeting an inflation rate of close to, but below, 2 per cent in the medium term.Winding down the asset-purchase programme, as part of which the ECB accumulated already €1.4 trillion in assets, including €248m in Cypriot securities, may result to an “important” additional burden for borrowers servicing their debt, economist Alexander Michaelides, who teaches at the Imperial College in London, said. “But if no one is paying their loans, then not a problem at all”.But with or without the ECB winding down its money printing, Cypriot banks would sooner or later would have to deal with the consequences of their mountain of non-performing loans.By November, lenders in Cyprus had only restructured roughly 57 per cent, or €13.6bn, of their total non-performing loans, with only three quarters of those being regularly serviced.“Of these €10,2 billion, or 42 per cent of the total, are restructured facilities, most of which we expect will be reclassified as performing once they meet the regulatory requirement,” Ioannis Tirkides, Bank of Cyprus’s economic research manager, said in an interview.“We are by no means at the end of the road but a lot has been done already and the banking sector is steadily returning to strength,” Tirkides said. “To get to the end of the road we need to persevere with restructuring workouts and understand that there are no other effective alternatives”.Still, the problem with non-performing loans may get even more complicated in a couple of years, when banks will ask guarantors of terminated loans to pay them, financial ombudsman Pavlos Ioannou said on Saturday. This would affect the ability of the guarantors to pay their own loans, he added.As Cypriot banks are likely to terminate roughly half of their non-performing loans within the next two years, this would imply significant write offs, economist Marios Clerides said on Monday.This, according to Tirkides, would not have a significant impact on the banks as they already booked a total of €9.6bn in provisions by November.You May LikeLuxury Crossover SUV I Search AdsThese SUVs Are The Cream Of The Crop. Search For 2019 Luxury Crossover SUV DealsLuxury Crossover SUV I Search AdsUndoHeart Failure Treatment | Search AdsThe Early Signs Of Heart Failure. Search Acute Heart Failure TreatmentHeart Failure Treatment | Search AdsUndoFigLeaf Beta AppFigLeaf brings You 3 Easy Steps to Privacy on Your Terms…FigLeaf Beta AppUndo Concern over falling tourism numbersUndoTurkish Cypriot actions in Varosha ‘a clear violation’ of UN resolutions, Nicosia saysUndoIsraeli rape suspects freed, woman who alleged assault arrested (Updated)Undoby Taboolaby Taboola
The total number of high-end residential properties sold during 2018 reached 324, recording a 2 per cent annual growth, according to the 2018 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) annual real estate report.“The 2018 transaction value stood at €810 million, which appears marginally higher compared to 2017. The high-end residential property segment represents 19 per cent of the total Cyprus transaction value in 2018,” the report said.Regarding sales, there was a 6 per cent increase in sale contracts across Cyprus during the last year, with the majority of transactions recorded in Limassol (37 per cent of total), followed by Paphos with 24 per cent. Growth of activity levels in Nicosia continued to be strong in 2018, with the capital recording a 10 per cent annual increase, the highest across Cyprus.According to the report, the value of new building permits issued during 2018 increased by 20 per cent. Reflecting the rising construction activity levels, average cost of construction materials increased in 2018 by 1,7 per cent.Some 4,367 properties in terms of sale contracts were acquired by foreigners, excluding transfers.“The highest concentration of properties for which sale contracts were filed by foreign buyers was recorded in Paphos (40 per cent), followed by Limassol (30 per cent). Approximately 67 per cent of properties acquired by foreigners relate to non-EU buyers.”The transaction value of the residential property sector reached €3.1billion (73 per cent of market total) comprising 10,600 housing transactions (6,900 apartments and 3,700 houses). 62 per cent of land transactions related to land parcels situated within residential planning zones, whereas 12 per cent comprises land parcels within tourist planning zones.Prices in Limassol outperformed all other districts in terms of annual growth.Apart from detailing the real estate market, the report also mentions the economic situation in Cyprus in general, which it views positively.“As of 2018, the Cyprus GDP per capita is equivalent to 93 percent of the EU average, shrinking the gap which stood at 88 per cent in 2015. By 2023, Cyprus GDP per capita is expected to represent 97 percent of the EU average. Unemployment levels in the country continue to shrink, dropping to 8.4 per cent by the end of 2018, marking a 7-year low for the country. The enlargement of key sectors of the economy, in particular the construction and tourism related sectors, provided employment opportunities for the most vulnerable groups, the young and the long term unemployed.”Even the shortages of qualified workers in the tourism sector has advantages, PWC noted, saying it signals a positive outlook for employment in the short term.The surging employment market across all sectors is seen as a sign for a further rise of household disposable income during 2018.You May LikeCalifornia Earthquake AuthorityReassurance for your refugeCalifornia Earthquake AuthorityUndoLivestlyChip And Joanna’s $18M Mansion Is Perfect, But It’s The Backyard Everyone Is Talking AboutLivestlyUndoPopularEverythingColorado Mom Adopted Two Children, Months Later She Learned Who They Really ArePopularEverythingUndo Three arrested in connection with hotel theftsUndoOur View: Argaka mukhtar should not act as if he owns the beachUndoRape suspects look set to go through police line-upUndoby Taboolaby Taboola