Archaeologists find fossils, Mayan relics in giant underwater cave in Mexico

Yahoo – AFP, February 20, 2018

Remains of a Pleistocene bear from 2.5 million years ago, in the Sac Actun underwater
 cave in Quintana Roo state, Mexico, in an image published by the National Institute
of Anthropology and History (INAH) on February 19, 2018 (AFP Photo/HO)

Mexico City (AFP) - Archaeologists who have been exploring the world's largest underwater cave -- recently discovered in Mexico -- presented their findings Monday, including fossils of giant sloths and an elaborate shrine to the Mayan god of commerce.

Researchers discovered last month that two large networks of underwater caves in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the Sac Actun and Dos Ojos networks, are in fact connected, forming the largest such structure on Earth.

Diving with SCUBA gear, they have been exploring the ancient relics left in the caves over the millenia, in a project sponsored by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Researchers believe the water level in the caves has fluctuated over time, and that they were a source of water in times of severe drought -- a sometimes perilous one.

Some of the animals and humans who ventured inside never made it out alive. Today, their remains are a treasure trove for scientists, enabling them to piece together bits of the cave's history dating all the way back to the Pleistocene epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).

Remains of a mask in the Sac Actun underwater cave in Mexico's Quintana Roo 

state, from an image published by the National Institute of Anthropology and History

(INAH) on February 19, 2018 (AFP Photo/HO)

The animal remains include gomphotheres -- an extinct elephant-like animal -- as well as giant sloths and bears, archaeologists told a press conference.

Then there are the artefacts left inside by humans: burnt human bones, ceramics, wall etchings and more.

"It is very unlikely that there is another site in the world with these characteristics. There is an impressive amount of archaeological artefacts inside, and the level of preservation is also impressive," said Guillermo de Anda, an underwater archaeologist.

The relics include a shrine to the Mayan god of war and commerce, with a staircase accessed through a sink-hole in the middle of the jungle.

Many other of the hundreds of sink-holes that connect to the cave have elaborate signs of ritual activity around them, archaeologists said.

The ancient Mayans viewed caves, "and especially ones that led to water, as extremely sacred places," the INAH said.

Rabobank settles US money laundering charge for €300m

DutchNews, February 8, 2018

Rabobank’s headquarters in Utrecht. Photo: Depositphotos.com

Rabobank has settled a long-running charge that one of its US subsidiaries – RNA – laundered money for Mexican drugs cartels and deliberately withheld information from the authorities. 

The settlement means Rabo will not have to undergo prosecution in the US, the Volkskrant said on Thursday. 

The bank has forfeited nearly $370m (€298m) for anti-money laundering funds that authorities say allowed untraceable money transfers on behalf of criminals and for hiding information from US regulators. That includes a $50 million fine the bank will pay to the US treasury. 

The case involves a RNA branch in Calexco, a US city on the Mexican border, which US authorities had been monitoring since 2006. A formal investigation on laundering Mexican drugs money through three accounts at the branch was launched in 2013.

Dutch government assumes control of Caribbean island Sint Eustasius

DutchNews, February 6, 2018  

Photo: Walter Hellebrand via Wikimedia Commons

The Dutch government has taken direct control of the tiny Caribbean island of Sint Eustasius following years of neglect by the island’s local authority. 

Sint Eustasius is one of three Caribbean islands which have independent local authority status within the kingdom of the Netherlands. 

A six month investigation into conditions on the island has found that it is in ‘a very neglected condition’ and that the local authority is more concerned with its own status than the public interest, Trouw said on Tuesday. 

Junior home affairs minister Raymond Knops has now started emergency legislation which will allow him to dissolve the island council and replace it with a government commissioner. 

Measuring just 21 square kilometres, the population of Sint Eustasius is around 4,000.

Top UN court draws new borders for Costa Rica, Nicaragua

Yahoo – AFP, Jan Hennop and Toni Cerda, February 2, 2018

Experts examine the damage to a tract of land lying in a border area that
has caused years of tension between Costa Rica and Nicaragua (AFP)

The Hague (AFP) - The UN's highest court drew new maritime boundaries between Costa Rica and Nicaragua on Friday seeking to end a decades-long frontier dispute, and ordered Managua to pay compensation for environmental damage.

In a multi-pronged judgement, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also ordered Nicaragua to remove a military camp near the river San Juan -- which divides the two neighbours -- and which the Hague-based ICJ said "violated Costa Rica's sovereignty."

Friday's judgements resulted from a string of disputes between the two Central American neighbours before the ICJ, set up in 1945 to rule on border and territorial disputes between nations.

Apart from a ruling on the disputed San Juan wetlands area, Costa Rica also asked the ICJ to set its maritime boundaries on both its western Pacific Ocean coast and in the Caribbean Sea to the east.

Environmental damage

On Friday morning, the ICJ judges ruled that Managua must pay San Jose almost $380,000 for environmental damage and to compensate for the costs of efforts to restore the area on the San Juan River.

"Costa Rica has sovereignty over the whole of Isla Portillos up to the point at which the right bank of the San Juan River reaches the low-water mark of the coast of the Caribbean Sea," judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said.

The Somali-born judge was referring to a slither of land on Costa Rica's disputed northern border, where Nicaragua set up a military camp in 2010, dredged the San Juan River and dug three channels.

The judge ordered Managua to pay the compensation before April 2 for the damage to the land, known in Costa Rica as Isla Portillos and in Nicaragua as Harbour Head.

But the amount fell far short of the $6.7 million demanded by Costa Rica in the ICJ's first-ever compensation ruling for environmental damage.

The judges then drew maritime borders between the two countries in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean along "delimitation lines."

'Spectacular' ruling

Costa Rican ambassador Sergio Ugalde said San Juan was happy with the marathon set of judgements, calling the ruling on maritime boundaries "spectacular."

Nicaragua and Costa Rica first held negotiations in 1976 to try to reach an agreement

on the border which broadly follows the San Juan river (AFP Photo/YURI CORTEZ)

"Although a little less than what Costa Rica had estimated, the decision this morning (too) remains a very important economic remedy," he added.

Costa Rica now wanted to normalise relations with its northern neighbour, Ugalde told AFP.

Nicaraguan ambassador Carlos Arguello also said his country was pleased with the outcome, calling it "a fair assessment".

"There is no longer a major problem, or there should be no problem to have normal relations between Nicaragua and Costa Rica," Arguello said.

The new rulings came more than two years after the ICJ found that Costa Rica had sovereignty over Isla Portillos, basing its ruling in part on an 1858 treaty.

In December 2015, the court reproached Managua for violating San Jose's right to navigation in the waters and ordered the two countries to negotiate an amount of compensation.

But the neighbours failed to reach a deal and the issue trundled back to the ICJ so judges could set the compensation amount.

The two countries first held negotiations in 1976 to try to reach an agreement on their border which broadly follows the San Juan river, but talks dragged on.

Costa Rica brought the case to the ICJ in 2014 saying it had "exhausted its diplomatic means" to resolve the row.