Today's Stories: Intel Opens New Plant Advertisers Exploit IE Flaw to Push Advertising Inflation Reached 5.14 Percent/Lower Trade Balance Deficit Challenge to Export News Summary

In a meeting held at the Club Unión in downtown San José, President Pacheco signed a presidential decree that will permit the private sector to do feasibility studies and complee public works projects with private financing, as the government does not have the economic capacity to undertake major construction projects and public works. It is hoped that this new direction will show more transparency in public projects, reducing corruption and reactivating the participation of the private sector in public works.

Some 600 engineers and technicians will work at the new facility, which is located west of San José, minutes from the international airport.

Costa Rica will now join China and Malaysia as one of three countries in the world making Intel's "chipset" component, a processor that accomplishes a range of tasks formerly requiring multiple components.

"This plant confirms the trust that Intel has in the ability of the equipment and people of Costa Rica and is a sign the company wants to continue to develop products in Costa Rica," Intel vice-president Gulzar Mohd Ali was reported as saying.

The company opened manufacturing facilities in 1998 in Costa Rica, which currently produce 99% of the Itanium and Xeon processors sold worldwide. Intel employs 2,100 people in Costa Rica and has a 6% turnover rate, among the lowest of its global manufacturing facilities.


Advertisers Exploit IE Flaw to Push Advertising
Internet advertising took a new twist this week. While most everyone is aware of the ever-annoying pop-up and pop-under ads littering the internet, advertisers have now stooped to exploiting security flaws in Internet Explorer to push their message.

A Costa Rica-based search firm called i-Lookup.com, associated in the past with aggressive, intrusive advertising, launched a Trojan horse virus that infects your PC automatically when you visit certain websites.

Student researcher Jelmer Kuperus of the Netherlands first analyzed the Trojan and became one of the first unwitting victims. "Being rather skeptical, I carelessly clicked on the link only to witness how it automatically installed adware on my PC!" writes Kuperus.

The virus immediately altered numerous settings on the PC, not the least of which was forcing the browser's home page and default search engine to i-Lookup.com.
i-Lookup might have bitten off more than it can chew with this latest move, however. Microsoft is now directly involved and is seeking legal action against the advertiser.

Further, Microsoft has involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). "We consider that any use of an exploit to run a program is a criminal use," stated Stephen Toulouse, a security manager for Microsoft. "We are going to work aggressively with law enforcement to prosecute individuals or companies that do so." Microsoft has offered bounties for virus writers in the past, and successfully caught the perpetrator of the Sasser worm when someone turned in the virus writer to claim the bounty.

For the moment, Microsoft has no permanent fix for this exploit. Microsoft advises users to alter their IE security zone settings to deny script execution from untrusted sites, but many users refuse to heed this advice because it may affect functionality of popular websites.
 

Inflation Reached 5.14 Percent/Lower Trade Balance Deficit
Prodded by hikes in the prices of fuel, rice, beans, eggs, and bread, mainly, the cumulate inflation for the first five months this year reached 5.14 percent.

It was 0.67 percent in May, as compared to 0.91 percent in April.

By comparison with the first five months last year, when it was 3.65 percent, the inflation in the same period in 2004 is almost 1.5 percent higher.

According to analysts, the goal established by the Central Bank for this year, namely a 9 percent overall inflation for the 12 months, is not likely to be attained.

Because exports are growing at a faster pace than exports, the deficit of the trade balance - the difference between purchases and sales - has decreased.

According to the Central Bank, while the cumulate inter-annual deficit was $1,775 million through April 2003, it was $1,636 million the fourth month this year. The sources pointed out that even though purchases abroad continue increasing, they do so at a lower pace, thus explaining the positive trend of the balance.


Challenge to Export
Several institutions are prodding small-size industries to export, following the example -basically in the food sector- set by several Costa Rican firms which, last year, sold $486 million abroad.

New markets and opportunities have sprung as a result of the different trade agreements under way or in progress that Costa Rica has entered, sector sources remark.

With the United States as the leading individual customer -19 percent of the overall sales -, hundreds of products are also sold in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia. One example is Kamuk Foods, which sells 300 different types of spicy sauces, classified in 14 categories, throughout the world.


News Summary

• Costa Rica appointed Jachevet Weinstock as ambassador to Poland, the nation with the largest population among the 10 that joined the European Union in May. Mrs. Weinstock has held diplomatic posts in Spain and Israel and, according to President Abel Pacheco, she is now likely to add the representation in Latvia and Lithuania -also new members of the European Union- to her current duties
   
• The new Comptroller, Alex Solís, is being asked to give up his newly appointed post. Luis Ramírez, head of the Liberacion Pary, has asked for an investigation in the anomalies levied against the new Comptroller, but fell one vote short of the majority needed. Ramirez said he will re-introduce the motion on Monday.
   
• Did you feel it? Two earthquakes affected the Limon and Central Valley yesterday morning. The first quake occurred at  9:03am with a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter scale that was felt in the Central Valley. The second, only at 3.5,  occurred at 10:41am. The epicentre was located about 17km south of the city of Limon.
   
• Without much fanfare, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) on Monday signed the contract with the firm Ericsson de Costa Rica for the purchase and installation of 600 new GSM lines.