Costa Rica News - Jan 21, 2006

Arias All Set For Win

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Costa Rica's former president Oscar Arias is ready to return to power in presidential elections only two weeks away, as voters turn to an icon after a slew of corruption scandals.

Arias, running for the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN), is a 65-year-old free market moderate, and has a commanding lead and all polls show him easily winning more than 40 percent support required to sit in the presidential chair. The possibility of a second round vote, like in 2002, are unlikely as Arias should be declared president by end of the night of February 5. Read on...

NASA Announces New Mission in Costa Rica

NASA scientists said Thursday they have launched a new study on climate change using a special aircraft that will enter the high troposphere - the lowest level of the earth's atmosphere - in the tropics.

Paul Newman, one of the NASA project's coordinators, said the researchers will look at atmospheric contamination and how the ozone layer is changing. Read on...

América Móvil Eyes Costa Rican Market

Mexican mobile giant América Móvil is interested in entering the Costa Rican and Panamanian telecoms markets in the light of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Spanish news service EFE reported.

In an interview with Costa Rican newspaper La República this week, Marco Antonio Slim, the son of the owner of América Móvil, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, was quoted as saying, "we are interested in exploring new markets in telecommunications ... In Central America there are interesting countries."

Costa Rica and Panama are the last two Central American markets where the company does not yet have a presence. Read on...

PGA EUROPEAN TOUR:
Costa Rica Open 2006 Pays Posthumous Tribute to Kai Fieberg

The 2006 Costa Rica Open, a co-sanctioned event between the European Challenge Tour and the Tour de las Americas (TLA), has been re-named the ‘Kai Fieberg Costa Rica Open 2006’ as a posthumous tribute to the tournament’s promoter Kai Fieberg, who lost his life in a tragic car accident on January 11, 2006.

Fieberg was a key figure in bringing the Challenge Tour and the TLA together three years ago by staging the first co-sanctioned event between the two tours – the 2003 Costa Rica Open, which paved the way for the Challenge Tour to make its mark in Central and South America and offered the TLA Members the opportunity to make the breakthrough on the European stage.

The Kai Fieberg Costa Rica Open 2006, to be played at the Cariari Country Club from February 9-12 will carry a prize fund of us$150,000. Read on...

Costa Rica, Panama To Share Tourists

Americans who travel to Europe for the first time often sample several countries in the same region over the course of a week or two. Now Costa Rica and Panama tourism officials are encouraging American travelers to visit more than one destination on the same trip to Central America.

Airlines already have routes to the various destinations in Central America to and from San José. Tourism officials hope they can convince travellers to start their trip in one city and end it in another.

Major airlines offer flights to major cities, however, smaller regional airlines are offering flight to places like Bocas del Toro and David in Panama and Granada in Nicaragua. Nature Air and Sansa, Tacas' regional airline, are two companies that offer daily scheduled flights.

In 2004, the latest figures available, 5.7 million people visited Central America, a 15% increase over 2003.

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