Today's Stories: SUGEF Recommends Closing Banco ELCA Gasoline Prices to Increase Venezuelan Ambassador in Costa Rica Receives Threats Canadian Police Look for Links to Organized Crime Grieving Father Torches U.S. Marines Vehicle Church's Chicken Works With Local Costa Rican Talent Did you Know?

Costa Rica in Crisis One Day of Protest Continues, Picking Up Steam Protests Bring Costa Rica to the Verge of Paralysis Goodbye to Costa Rica on Foot

Did you Know? NASA's Astronaut, Costa Rican Franklin Chang Diaz is the astronaut that has traveled more times to space and is one of the scientists that discovered the fourth stage of matter , the plasma. NASA considers that Costa Rica's climate ranks among the healthiest climates of the world , according to its recent study.

Local banks Promérica and Lafise walked away from the negotiations to purchase the bank, as well as several foreign interests from the United States and Mexico.

Banco ELCA was intervened by the SUGEF on June 29, when the banking authority found irregularities with the bank's credit portfolio and ELCA's reserves were well below the 10% required the bank's supervisor.

Carlos Alvarado Moya, president of ELCA, along with two ELCA executives, Javier Filloy and Hernán González, were arrested on July 23 and are sitting out 90 days of preventive detention at the San Sebastian jail in San José.

According to figures released by the SUGEF, ELcA has some 2.500 depositors, most having less than $10.000 each on deposit. Some of the depositors were foreigners with the $60.000 each required for Costa Rican "rentista" residency application.

Gasoline Prices to Increase
The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (ARESEP) has announced that it will render a decision on the petition of the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo (RECOPE), asking for a price increase in the cost of gasoline.

The process by ARESEP is to analyze the request for the increase and then publish it's decision in the national newspaper La Gaceta within five days, when the price increase come into effect.

Yesterday we erroneously  reported that the price of super gasoline was ¢312.5 colones per litre. The price of a litre of regular gasoline is ¢3125.5 and the price of a litre of super gasoline is ¢326. The increase would set the prices to ¢332.5 and ¢348 respectively.

The new prices, if adopted, will bring the price of super gasoline, at the current exchange rate, past $3 per US gallon.

RECOPE says the rising price of world crude is the cause behind the high prices.
 

Venezuelan Ambassador in Costa Rica Receives Threats
The Venezuelan Ambassador to Costa Rica, Nora Uribe Trujillo, said she has received threats, by telephone, related to the Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez's recent triumph in that country's referendum on August 15.

Uribe said she has been threatened with kidnapping and believed to be by "extremists" opposing Venezuela's government. Uribe added, that perhaps they are unhappy on their attempt to remove Chazez.

The diplomat made the threats known to the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (Foreign Ministry) and the Unidad Especial de Intervención which is under the control of the Presidential Ministry.

The statement did not make clear the exact nature of the calls nor the exact message or messages received on various occasions.
 

Canadian Police Look for Links to Organized Crime
Montreal police said Wednesday they will look for links to organized crime after finding a large stash of weapons and explosives in a minivan, in front of a building along Rene-Levesque Boulevard that houses the consulates of Costa Rica and Panama.

But police don't believe they were targets.

It's unlikely to be the work of teenage gang members, said Const. Lynne Labelle, a Montreal police spokeswoman. "I believe it's too big to be related to street gangs," Labelle said of the seizure.

Officers seized 17 firearms, including submachine-guns, handguns and rifles, on Tuesday. They also found between 90 and 135 kilograms of explosives.

No arrests have been made and police aren't sure how many suspects are involved and if they have left the country, Labelle said. Officers will need to find out who rented the vehicle.

"There are no clues that are leading us to believe it's linked to terrorism," Labelle added.  "The only good news is that the explosives and the detonators were not connected so it could not explode."

Police were warned about the vehicle carrying commercial Quebec licence plates from a source but didn't receive a call through 911. The seizure tied up traffic through downtown streets for several hours.
 

Grieving Father Torches U.S. Marines Vehicle
Carlos Arredondo, a Costa Rican native,  was devastated by the death of his son in Iraq lashed out Wednesday by setting fire to the government van that brought U.S. Marines to deliver the news, severely burning himself in the process.

Arredondo ran toward the van with a lit propane torch and can of gasoline, smashed windows, doused the inside and set it afire as the stunned three-Marine team yelled at him to stop, just minutes after they had delivered the message that 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo was killed in combat.

Carlos Arredondo was thrown from the van when it exploded, and Marines rolled him on the ground to smother the fire at 2:14 p.m., witnesses said.

Arredondo, Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, where he was reported in serious condition. He was later transferred to the burn unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

Melida Arredondo, the Marine's stepmother, said her husband could see the Marines through a window when they pulled up. ''My husband knew that his firstborn son had been killed, and my husband did not take the news well,'' she said.

She said Carlos Arredondo, was proud of his son's service but wished it could have been during a more peaceful time. But the dead Marine's grandmother, Luz Marina Arredondo Piedra, took a harsher view toward the American invasion of Iraq.

''They should stop this now,'' she said. ``They send them like guinea pigs over there.''
 

Church's Chicken Works With Local Costa Rican Talent
Church's Chicken, a division of AFC Enterprises, Inc., employed Costa Rican on-air talent, support crew and an assistant director to film its new ad campaign in various locations across the country.

The Food Mall concept and the local talent were key factors in the decision to film in Costa Rica.

"Costa Rica was first to market the successful food mall concept,'' said Claudia Penuela, Director of Global Marketing for Church's Chicken. Corporacion Alimentos del Rey, S.A., a Church's franchisee, hosted corporate executives from Atlanta and a local production crew.

The corporation operates Church's Chicken locations in Centro Comercial Real Cariari where filming occurred, Food Mall Palace (Old Palace Movie theater), Food Mall Curridabat (in front of the National Register building), Food Mall San Francisco (main entrance for El Bosque Residential), Food Mall Liberia, and Centro de Comidas Rofas

"The efforts of Corporacion Alimentos del Rey began weeks before the filming and paved the way for a smooth and successful filming operation,'' stated Melinda Ennis-Roughton, Chief Marketing Officer for Church's Chicken.

Corporacion Alimentos del Rey, S.A. is a franchisee of Church's Chicken that operates six restaurants in Costa Rica.