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>>Costa Rica News Digest<<
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TODAY'S CONTENTS
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*Feature Article:
Lee Watkinson joins Poker Tour International Dream Team


*News Digest

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LUXURY OFFICES FOR RENT IN SAN PEDRO!
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TWo small luxury offices are available for immediate occupancy in
the finest office building in San Pedro Montes de Oca. High speed
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porongo@safe-mail.net for full details and to make arrangements to
talk to the listing agent.

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FEATURE ARTICLE
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*Lee Watkinson joins Poker Tour International Dream Team

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 11, 2004--Watkinson joined the

Poker Tour International Dream Team including Producer Steve Kates of

Driftwood Ventures, Director Burt Kravette, and Pro Players Ted Lawson and

Humberto Brenes. Together, they have lined up a bimonthly televised series of

tournaments in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Central America. Lawson,

winner of this year's Las Vegas Omaha World Poker Series ($500,000),

comments, "Watkinson is probably the best in the world."


This year alone, Watkinson has played four televised final table appearances

in multi-million dollar events with winnings totaling $1,453,573 in No Limit

WPT Legends of Poker Texas Hold `em Championships, Mirage Poker Showdown,

35th Annual Omaha World Series of Poker, and No Limit Texas Hold `em

Championship World Series of Poker.

The second tournament of the PTI bimonthly series, the Costa Rica Classic is

scheduled for December 1, 2004, includes daily satellite tournaments this

month to be held at the Holiday Inn Aurola Casino in San Jose.

Winners will receive seats for the PTI Costa Rica Classic plus a variety of

other prizes. Schedules and prices for the daily tournament buy-ins will vary

and players should contact the hotel at 011-506-227-1695 in Costa Rica or the

main headquarters in Fort Lauderdale at 954-359-9898.

Prices for the Costa Rica Classic start at $2599 and include Texas Hold `em

buy-in, airfare, accommodations at Holiday Inn Aurola in San Jose,

receptions, and refreshments. One re-buy will be available for $400. Winnings

include seats in upcoming tournaments and $500,000, based on entries.

Upcoming tournaments in the Poker Tour International are scheduled for Puerto

Rico and St. Kitts. For more information, contact 1-800-432-2294 ext. 127.

Media Contact: Dana Klein 954-923-4343 or DLKLEIN@msn.com.



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WHAT'S NEW AT THE COSTA RICA PAGE!
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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!

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DISCUSSION
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Please send your discussion topics to

costarica@destiny-worldwide.net

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NEWS DIGEST
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*Elca creditors hear of mystery bank buyout plan

Banco Elca depositors heard Wednesday night that an unidentified U.S.

institution wants to purchase the troubled company.

This was revealed at an evening meeting at the Hotel Ambassador by

representatives of B y L Asesores, a consulting firm operating here on behalf

of the unidentified bank.

Costa Rican officials closed down Banco Elca, which carried deposits from a

number of expats, June 29 when, they said, the bank had less reserves than

the law allowed.

The meeting Wednesday night attracted from 80 to 120 persons according to

individuals who attended. The U.S. bank would pay about $9 million to obtain

the license, the assets and liabilities of Elca. It was unclear who would get

the money.

Elca itself has limited long-term assets, the crowd was told, because the

bulk, some 80 percent, of its mortgages and obligations from customers has

been sold off to Banco Promerica.

The consulting firm has set up an e-mail address, bancoelca@hotmail.com, and

a phone numbers, 301-2349, for depositors who want more information. The

person who will answer the questions was identified as Ana Gutiérrez.

The bank appears to have nearly $10 million in debts and obligations, but

some 75 percent of the depositors have been paid off, the group was told.

The Asociación Bancaria Costarricense used an
emergency fund to pay off most of the depositors who had $10,000 or less in

the bank.

Subsequent to the closure of Corporación Elca S.A., investigators of the

Ministerio Público detained bank president Carlos Alvarado Moya. He still is

jailed for investigation.

The regulator agency, the Superintendencia de Entidades Financieras, did not

appear to be represented at the meeting Wednesday. The agency has been shy

about making public statements, and rumors are rife.

Elca has a bigger image among expats than its size would suggest because

employees frequently attended seminars for persons thinking of moving to

Costa Rica.

Most of the depositors were not at the meeting Wednesday. One source

estimated that there are about 1,400 depositors still with claims against the

bank.

The consulting firm said it would like depositors to set up a committee for

negotiations. Several persons at the meeting said that the key point was the

identity and the stability of the unidentified U.S. institution.


*Focus of flood aid is in southeast

More than 450 persons have been flooded from their homes in the Sixaola and

Talamanca areas in southeast Costa Rica.

In all flooding on the Caribbean coast forced out more than 2,000 persons,

most of them to public shelters.

Sixaola suffered severe flooding from the swollen Río Sixaola. Also hit were

the communities of Catracho, Margarita, Celia, Catalina Bambú and China Ki

Cha.

However, the Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de

Emergencias noted Wednesday that the weather conditions were moderating and

that rainfall has decreased significantly.

A number of business and residential sections of Sixaola were under five feet

of water.

The commission warned that care should be taken further north on the

Caribbean coast, including Limón centro, Siquirres, Matina and Sarapiquí. All

those areas were exposed to Caribbean rainfall. The most recent was brought

on by a cold front parked over the Caribbean since Sunday.

Despite the flooding, there have been no reports of serious injury, death or

major damage to public facilities.



*Debate Over GMO Moratorium Heats Up

Government leaders yesterday dove into the debate of whether Costa Rica

should put a halt to the growth of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and

proved to be divided along the same battle lines as the rest of the country.

Environment Minister Carlos Rodríguez appears to be on the side of many

environmentalists supporting a moratorium on the controversial technology,

while Pedro León, director of the National Center for High Technology

(CENAT), stood alongside scientists in supporting GMOs.

Scientists, activists, students and farmers packed a room at the University

of Costa Rica (UCR) for the roundtable discussion, which also included

environmentalist and agricultural engineer Fabián Pacheco, son of President

Abel Pacheco.

While Rodríguez and León played buddies, despite their differences of

opinion, Fabián Pacheco stood by his passions and demonstrated how polemic

the growth of GMOs in Costa Rica has become.

The activist said that he and other GMO opponents are not just asking for a

moratorium, they are calling a moratorium. They will not allow the growth of

more genetically modified crops and will destroy those that exist, he said.

GMOs, also known as transgenics, are crops that have been genetically

modified by scientists to exhibit certain traits, such as resistance to

disease or herbicides.

Opponents suggest the technology presents unknown health and environmental

risks. They maintain normal crops will be contaminated by the spread of

genetically modified pollens.

Opponents have presented a proposal for a moratorium on the growth of GMOs to

the National Commission on Biosecurity, which is working to create a national

framework on how to approach the GMO question.

Rodríguez said he supports the moratorium not because he entirely backs the

assertions made by transgenic opponents, but because a growth of GMOs should

be halted while the country determines its policies on the subject.

He repeatedly insisted a moratorium would not ban GMOs, but rather put their

cultivation on hold.

León said no scientific evidence has proven GMOs have done any harm to the

environment or consumers' health, after more than 12 years of studies.

He did say he is very concerned about the fact that producers of transgenic

seeds are the same vendors of herbicides used on transgenic products. For

example, GMO-giant Monsanto produces genetically modified products that are

“Roundup Ready,” meaning they are resistant to the herbicide the company

produces. Problematic weeds – and all other species – are killed without

affecting the Roundup Ready plants.

GMO opponents are hosting a video forum on the problems of transgenic soy

cultivation in Argentina today at 2 p.m. at the State University at a

Distance (UNED) in Sabanilla. For more information, call 283-6128.


*Ex-President Calderon will leave jail early

SAN JOSE - A judge on Wednesday reduced the time former President Rafael

Angel Calderon must spent in jail while being investigated on corruption

charges, according to a written announcement. A nine-month sentence was

reduced to two months, so that Calderon will be released Dec. 22.

Calderon is under investigation for a $40 million Finnish government loan

meant to help Costa Rica's social security system purchase medical equipment.

Investigators say that almost $10 million wound up in the hands of a local

company, Fischel, which allegedly passed about $450,000 to Calderon. He has

denied the charges.

Meanwhile, Costa Rica's constitutional court rejected an appeal by

ex-President Miguel Angel Rodríguez, who has been jailed as prosecutors

prepare corruption charges against him for allegedly accepting kickbacks

while in office. The charges forced Rodríguez to resign as president of the

Organization of American States on Oct. 8.

Rodríguez is under investigation for receiving kickbacks from a government

contract while he served as Costa Rica's president from 1998-2002. The court

said it ``considered that elements of proof exist that link the accused to

the investigation.''


*Vargas Leaves Prison

Eliseo Vargas, former president of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social

(CCSS), was ordered to leave jail yesterday, where he has been in preventive

detention since September 8.

His release is conditional on Vargas signing in at the Fiscalía every two

weeks, barred from leaving the country and not having any contact with any of

the witnesses of accused in the Fischel-CCSS case, that includes, Corporación

Fischel president, Walter Reiche Fischel and former president of Costa Rica,

Rafael Angel Calderón, who are both in preventive detention.

Second Circuit Court judge Rafael Gullock Vargas made the decision for the

release.

Eliseo Vargas was the key witness that resulted in the detention of Calderón,

after spending several weeks in detention and seeing his daughter implicated,

Vargas decided to tell prosecutors more about the Fischel-CCSS case.

He told prosecutors of how Calderón was the key player behind the commission

paid to the the Fischel corporation and who got what and how much. Vargas

told prosecutors that he got double of the others, since he had been a

legislator at the time of the approval of the loan and the president of the

CCSS when the us $39 million dollar loan was paid by the government of

Finland for the purchase of medical equipment by the Caja.

Vargas was rumoured to have struck a deal with prosecutors, getting charges

dropped against his daughter and a release from preventive detention

following his testimony. Calderón was detained on October 22 and Vargas

remained in detention.

However, yesterday, it seems the rumours were well founded.



*Union Wants Karen Olsen Questioned

Union leaders of the Hospital San Juan de Dios have made a request to the

Ministerio Público, to make arrangements for the return of Karen Olsen,

former legislative deputy and mother of former president José María Figueres

Olsen.

Union leaders want the Ministerio Público to investigate her role in the

"Credito Español" (Spanish Credit), a loan that was given to Costa Rica by

the government of Spain in 1997. Union leaders say that are too many

unanswered questions.

According to judicial sources, the Fiscalía (prosecutor's office) has the

files on the Spanish Credit sealed. The loan was for us$40 million dollars.

Doctor and medical staff that comprise the Union, say the equipment bought

with the Spanish Credit money was of poor quality and in some cases,

overpaid.

Some examples given by Union leaders is the purchase of 75 ambulances at more

than us$46.000 each. Questions were raised by officials at the time, but the

purchase was completed and many of the ambulances have had problems from day

one, some constantly in the repair shop.

Icuatro S.A. appears as the major supplier of the equipment purchased with

the Spanish Credit. Critics at the time complained that the prices offered by

Icuatro was much higher than what could be paid elsewhere.

The list of equipment purchased from Icuatro is long and so are the

complaints that the equipment has been faulty, not working properly or at

all, and that the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) was ripped off.

Figueres Olsen was president at the time of the Spanish Credit and it is

believed that Karen Olsen was a major player in the negotiations in arranging

the loan and the provider of the medical equipment.

Karen Olsen left costa Rica several days following the news that her son had

received us$900.000 dollars from Alcatel, by way of his former government

advisor, Roberto Hidalgo, for consulting work.

Karen Olsen's departure was unannounced and is not known clearly why she left

and if she will return to Costa Rica voluntarily.



*Naranjo With the Best Coffee

Looking for the best coffee? You don't have to look too far.

It wasn't difficult for the coffee tasters to make their choice. The best non

brand coffee is from the coffee plantation Herbazu in Naranjo and the best

brand name coffee is the Don Quijote, also from Naranjo.

The coffee tasters had to make their decision based on taste and smell. The

best taster award was given to Swiss, Carlos Alvez.

The awards were given at the end of the eight Semana Internacional del Café,

an annual event, that saw more than 500 coffee producers and buyers in

attendance in San José.


*More Tourists Expected This Year

Tourism Minister, Rodrigo Castro, told is audience in Madrid, Spain, that

Costa Rica will have received about 1.5 million visitors this year, which is

an increase of 300.000 more visitors than in 2003, leaving behind some us$1.5

billion dollars in the local economy.

Castro attributed the increase to the "maturity" of the tourism industry and

the county's campaigns to promote tourism abroad.

Notwithstanding the minister's comments, the tourism industry in Costa Rica

is worried about the possible lack of accommodations, poor treatment tourists

get and the potential back logs at the Juan Santamaria airport in San José

due to the the increase in traffic.

According to tourism officials, 1.2 million or 60% of the tourists last year

came from the United States, Canada and Mexico. 200.000 Europeans visited

Costa Rica last year, which an expected increase to 250.000 for this season,

which commences within the next few weeks.

Charter flights have already started arriving in Liberia, where tourists can

be on the beach with an hour of landing.




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