=========================================
>>Costa Rica News Digest<<
=========================================
A publication of Destiny Worldwide Net
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net
Also Visit the Costa Rica Page:
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/costa-rica/
Subscribe: costa-rica-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: costa-rica-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
=========================================
TODAY'S CONTENTS
=========================================
*News Digest
=========================================
WHAT'S NEW AT THE COSTA RICA PAGE!
=========================================
Our real estate section has just been totally updated
with lots of
new listings, mostly in the residential real estate
section, but also
we have a new rental on the rental page and some new
additions to the
land for sale section.
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/costa-rica/real.htm
We are adding new things every day, and when our
merger comes with
COSTARICACENTER.COM, we will have a fully operational
Mercado Central
for you to buy Costa Rican products over the internet
from local merchants
[if you have a reputable business here, and want to
sell through the
Mercado, just let us know. We can help you to accept
credit cards and
all the major e-currencies on the net! We break
through the Great Barrier
that many Costa Rican merchants face getting their
products on the net!].
Hotels and tourist businesses will be able to add
their own links, and you
will be able to place your own online classifieds and
MUCH MUCH MORE!
Watch this newsletter for our official launch, coming
soon!
=========================================
FEATURE ARTICLE
=========================================
=========================================
DISCUSSION
=========================================
Please send your discussion topics to
costarica@destiny-worldwide.net
=========================================
SPONSOR'S MESSAGE
=========================================
If you want to be successful in the years to
come, with the new technology of the internet,
you need to break free of the limitations that
bind the majority of people. ONe of the worst
problems individuals and businesses face today
are high taxes, unfair litigation, lack of
privacy in financial matters, etc.
You cannot be truly successful and free unless
you use all the tools at your disposal, which
includes being financially free, and learning
the ingredients to true success.
These secrets used to not be available to the
ordinary person. They were the guarded secrets
of the elite.
Destiny Worldwide is unique in that we not only give
you the education you need to succeed, but we also
give you access to cutting edge tools in many
different aspects.
From e-commerce to success in your career, regular
business, and handling your finances secure from
the many risks out there today, our constellation
of services gives you the advantages you need to
succeed.
Go to these websites to begin running down the road
to your successful future today!
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net
http://www.offshorearnings.com
You'll be glad you did!
=========================================
NEWS DIGEST
=========================================
“Business & Beyond” to feature CINDE, Costa Rican
Investment Board
Platinum Television Group will feature the Costa
Rican Investment
Board, CINDE, for its innovative, educational
television series,
Business & Beyond. It will be featured in a segment
on “Economic
Development--Investment Opportunities Abroad.”
The Costa Rican Investment Board (CINDE) assists
foreign investors in
establishing their operations in Costa Rica. A
private, nonprofit
organization, CINDE has an expert staff that will
provide complete,
updated economic and business information, prepare
customized visits to
the country, assist in making initial contacts with
suppliers and
professionals, and do any follow-up required to
establish the operation.
All of these services are part of their free assistance.
For example, recently CINDE announced that Intel had
invested $110 million
in Costa Rica for the manufacturing of “chipset” in
addition to its already
successful operation in the country, because it has
found good prospects in
Costa RicaÂ’s investment climate conditions.
Costa Rica assigns the utmost importance to the
influx of foreign
investment into the country, not only for balance of
payment reasons, but
most importantly as a significant contributor to the
generation of
employment, technology transfer and diversification
of exports. As a
rule, foreigners have exactly the same rights as
locals for conducting
business in Costa Rica. Therefore, companies and
individuals can
establish operations in several ways and in almost
every industry
without limitations. This also means that the
possibility of creating
strategic alliances between foreign and local
companies is only limited
to identifying the right market opportunity and
finding the right partners
in the country.
Within that context, CINDE works to foster Costa
Rica's development, by
serving as a catalyst and facilitator for the
investment process in the
country. From its non-political, non-sectorial
interest position, CINDE
has excellent relations with both the public and the
private sectors.
CINDE has reorganized itself and now concentrates in
promoting Costa Rica
as a competitive investment site in three sectors
that benefit from
significant strengths and advantages that the country
has to offer:
Medical Devices, Electronics, and Services. A fourth
sector, Special
Projects, includes projects in areas such as
textiles, tourism, and
others.
CINDEÂ’s offices in New York and California
proactively look for
expanding companies and provide tailor-made services
to investors. An
additional team in Costa Rica advises on how to do
business in the
country, creates customized itineraries according to
the investorÂ’s
needs, and provides support during and after the
establishment of
operations. CINDE develops a long-term relationship
with the investor
established in the country and is committed to
providing continued
assistance as may be required.
Costa Rica offers attractive tax incentives, other
important foreign
corporations, preferential access to important
markets, and highly
skilled and educated human resources among other
advantages, as well as
the free professional assistance from CINDE. For more
information, please
visit the official website at: http://www.cinde.or.cr./.
*Judicial Investigators Confirm Comptroller General
Forged Signatures
The Comptroller General of Costa Rica, Alex SolÃs,
forged 27 signatures
of family members in his power as an attorney,
concluded the Judicial
Investigation Police (OIJ) at the request of a group
of legislators
investigating alleged irregularities of the comptroller.
After learning of the OIJ report, Patriotic Bloc
legislator Humberto Arce,
who originally filed the complaint against the
comptroller, said the
evidence is sufficient to nullify the naming of
SolÃs. The Legislative
Assembly named SolÃs to his position earlier this year.
Using handwriting analysis, the OIJ determined SolÃs
forged the
signatures of his mother, his wife and his brother,
while acting as
a lawyer.
The OIJ had determined in September that
approximately 39 signatures
in the protocol of SolÃs – lawyer and notary – were
false, but at that
time did not determine their author.
A special Legislative Assembly commission is
investigating SolÃs in
relation to these alleged forgeries, and dozens of
loans made to residents
of Pérez Zeledón, 100 kilometers south of San José,
where he is from.
According to media reports, many of the loans SolÃs
made were used by
unemployed people to travel illegally to the United
States.
SolÃs has rejected the accusations, and attributes
them to politicians
who are against him.
*FISCHEL-CAJA SCANDAL:
Eliseo Vargas Fingers Calderón
The Fischel-Caja scandal took on a new twist as
former president of the
Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS), Eliso
Vargas, talked to
prosecutors on Tuesday to make a deal for a change in
his housing
arrangements and charges dropped against his
daughter, in exchange for
more incriminating information.
Vargas is preventive detention in the Cocorà jail in
Cartago, but soon
could be home under house arrest and all
investigations will be dropped
against his daughter for receiving a Toyota Rav4,
paid by the Corporación
Fischel from funds received in connection the the
us$39 Million dollar
loan from Finland.
Vargas told prosecutors that former president Rafael
Ãngel Calderón tried
to hide the deposit of us$520.000 dollars in Panama
paid form the Finnish
loan.
In an interview that took some 12 hours, Vargas,
detailed to prosecutors
how Calderón attempted to mask the movement of the
funds as part of a
sale of stock in a Miami hotel.
Vargas also told prosecutors that it was Calderón who
showed him how to
funnel funds to U.S. accounts and that an aide to
former Panamanian
president, Mireya Moscoso, helped in opening the
Panamanian accounts.
The statement by Vargas also indicated that Calderón
was very worried
about covering up the payments made through the
Sultana company in Panama
and had dealings with Fischel president, Walter
Reiche Fischel, over the
movement of the funds.
According to Vargas, it was Calderón who decided how
the "commission"
would be split up and who got what. Calderón paid out
us$300.000 to
himself, another us$300.000 to Gerardo Bolaños
(Calderon's law firm
partner) and another us$300.000 to Juan Carlos Sánchez.
Vargas got us$600.000 for his part, being told by the
former president
that he deserved double the amount of the others,
since he had been a
deputy in the Legislature and then president of the
CCSS.
Vargas, who has been in preventive detention since
September 7 and who
may soon see more liberty, also told prosecutors that
he received a
payment from Alcatel. Through his friendship with
Rodrigo Méndez, an
engineer at the Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE), he met
Edgar Valverde, the them president of Alcatel Costa
Rica.
Vargas said that he was promised a "good" commission
if Alcatel was able
to get the ICE contract to install 400.000 GSM
cellular telephones lines
in Costa Rica, a contract that Alcatel did get and
was worth
us$149 million dollars.
Former president Rafael Ãngel Calderón is to appear
before the FiscalÃa
this morning (Thursday) to answer questions over the
new allegations by
Vargas and could see the investigation place
preventive measures against
the former president, as the case with former
president Miguel Angel
RodrÃguez who is under house arrest in the
ICE-Alcatel scandal.
Calderón told the press that his is hurt by the
allegations by Vargas,
a man he had helped with his career and personally.
Gonzalo Castellón, Calderón's lawyer, says that the
possibility exists
that his client (Calderón) may face stiffer measures
against him
following the meeting this morning with prosecutors.
He told the press
that his client will walk in the main doors of the
'Tribunales' in San
José like any other citizen, referring to the way
former president
RodrÃguez was escorted in handcuffs, as a common
criminal, following his
arrival to Costa Rica last Friday.
Internal court house security has been intensified
for this mornings
appearance by the former president and additional
security measures
are in place to avoid the disorder around and inside
the court buildings
last week with the arrival of RodrÃguez.
*PRESIDENTIAL SCANDAL:
Taiwan's Impact of Costa Rica Scandal Widens
The Taiwan legislative foreign affairs committee
yesterday temporarily
froze an annual secret budget to South and Central
America nations,
demanding that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA)
provide a clear
explanation of Taiwan's donations to former Costa
Rican president Miguel
Angel RodrÃguez.
KMT legislator Bill Sun, who initiated the freeze,
argued that MOFA has
failed to provide an explanation of the situation,
which might lead to
more damage to Taiwan and its ties with Costa Rica.
Costa Rican prosecutors confirmed that they are
investigating alleged
payments by the government of Taiwan into accounts
controlled by former
president Miguel Angel RodrÃguez, who allegedly
received US$200,000 in
2001 from the Foreign Ministry and another US$200,000
in 2002 from the
Taiwanese Embassy in San Jose.
Furthermore, there are reports that a Panamanian
company controlled by
Rodriguez allegedly accepted two separate donations
of US$500,000 each
and that Taiwan had provided a total of US$1.4
million in political
donations to RodrÃguez over three years.
The MOFA, which submitted an explanation of Taiwan's
contributions to its
Costa Rican counterpart Tuesday, has denied making
any political donations
to former president RodrÃguez, but has not made
proper disclosure of such.
The MOFA also said that it had allocated US$200,000
for a personnel-
training project and international conferences in
2001 and 2002, after
the Foundation for Liberty and Human Development in
Costa Rica sent a
letter to Taiwan's embassy seeking a donation of
US$1.2 million, to
defray the cost of seminars and training."
The MOFA, however, claimed that it was unaware of the
source of the
remaining US$1 million that was supposedly donated to
RodrÃguez's
Panamanian company.
RodrÃguez's lawyers, however, said that the amount of
US$200,000 dollars
sent in 2001 and 2002 to the foundation was a
personal loan to the then
president.
Taiwanese banks arranged to loan RodrÃguez the money
through the
government in Taipei, lawyer Rafael Gairod said.
The MOFA yesterday declined to comments on the
statement by RodrÃguez's
lawyers.
Sun emphasized that the Legislature is seeking to
exercise damage control
to ensure that Taiwan's image would not be further
tarnished as the case
continues through the legal process.
To protect Taiwan's image, Sun said, a special
committee was needed to
investigate the case.
He said yesterday that he was not satisfied with the
MOFA's explanation,
which left many uncertainties concerning the secret
budget, which would
be again reviewed by the Legislature's foreign
affairs committee today.
*Abengoa Loses Costa Rican Contract
Spain's Abengoa SA 's Inabensa SA unit has lost a
€162.4 Million Euro
contract in Costa Rica due to bribery charges facing
ex-president of
the country Miguel Angel RodrÃguez, El Mundo
reported, without citing a
source.
According to El Mundo, Abengoa's alledged involvement
in the bribery
allegations facing the ex-president has led the
Instituto Costarricense
de Electricidad (ICE) to cancel a contract to build
the Miramar de
Puntarenas power plant.
Inabensa has been accused of making a us$100,000
payment to RodrÃguez
for awarding the company a contract to lay
underground power cables in
downtown San José, a project that is coming to the
end of it's two
construction phase.
The contract was awarded to Inabensa when RodrÃguez
was president.
Inabensa said it 'has never made payments to public
servants in order to
improve chances of winning a contract,' denying any
involvement in a
bribery scandal surrounding the ex-president of Costa
Rica.
Four e-mails published in the Spanish daily Al DÃa
newspaper is
incriminating Inabensa in paying Rodriguez for
awarding the company the
contract. Al DÃa cited unnamed judicial sources on
Sunday, however, as
saying that the judge has refused to accept the
e-mails as evidence,
calling them 'spurious.'
The Abengoa unit said it was awarded the power line
contract because
'the second bidder offered a substantially higher
price than Inabensa.'
Amid the allegations contractor Inabensa, as well as
telecoms firms
Alcatel and Ericsson have been removed from the list
of government
suppliers.
The awarding of telecoms contracts in Costa Rica has
always been
somewhat mysterious, with a number having been won
and then subsequently
lost again. However, the mounting publicity
surrounding this scandal could
have serious consequences for Ericsson and Alcatel
throughout the region.
For example, the president of Honduras, Ricardo
Maduro, has said that
the country will begin an investigation into the
conduct of Alcatel in
relation to contracts awarded to it by state-owned,
fixed-line incumbent
Hondutel. Any more allegations against the company
could see it
blacklisted in one of the fastest-growing telecoms
regions in the world.
=========================================
COSTA RICA DIGEST DISPLAY AD RATES
=========================================
This publication is designed to have one display add
between each article or section. Thus, the more
articles or sections we have per day, the more room we
have for advertisements. Advertisements are filled
on a first come first served basis, and prices vary
depending on placement and frequency. You must order
a minimum of 5 insertions with your order. If there
are no advertising positions available right away,
you will be placed on a waiting list and notified
when a spot becomes available. Please email us
at destinads@safe-mail.net for more details.
One final note, if you want to do a solo mailing
to the list, that is available on a limited basis
if we decide that your product or service has merit.
Email us at the above address for more details.
=========================================
COSTA RICA CLASSIFIEDS
=========================================
If you have a worthwhile, honest offering, please
email us. New subscribers get a free five line
ad for a month. If you have used up your free
ad, or would like to place another one, the low
price is only $1.00 per line per issue. we have
a min. ad of three lines and you must insert in
at least three issues. to submit your ad, please
email your ad to destinyads@safe-mail.net
We accept Visa, Mastercard, Diners, Discover,
e-checks, e-gold, evocash, netpay, pecunix,
e-bullion, Picpay, Moneybookers, and
Offshorearnings. We make e-commerce EASY!
=========================================
We give you hard hitting, timely, common sense
articles and
news that the mainstream, or corporate media, either
will
not or cannot give you. Several times a week we
bring you
an up to date digest on what is going on in the world
around
you.
At The Costa Rica Digest, we don't give you hype or
BS or
"common knowledge" solutions, but we aim to give you
the cutting edge information you need. If you wish to
become a writer for us, submit your article[s] for
approval to costarica@destiny-worldwide.net. We cannot
pay for articles, but, instead, you may include a
resource
box at the end of your article promoting your website
or product. We welcome submissions of all kinds to
make this a great publication for all to read!
=========================================
Find out about our OTHER Exciting E-mail groups on a
broad
range of important topics. Subscription boxes for
all of
them may be found here:
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/boards.htm
The Restoration Website:
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/rcg/
Destiny Central Success Resources
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net
The Costa Rica Page --
The Fun, the Sun.... The business opportunity
http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/costa-rica/
Your Safe, Secure, Offshore Payment Processor
http://www.offshorearnings.com
-----------------> Visit our Blogs! <-----------------
----> SuccessQuest http://successquest.blogspot.com/
----> The Real Truth
http://destiny-worldwide.blogspot.com/
----> Costa Rica News
http://costa-rica-news.blogspot.com/
=========================================
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment