SEOUL | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:23pm EDT SEOUL (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) is looking to gain close to complete control of its South Korean unit by buying a 17 percent stake held by the unit's second-biggest shareholder, a move that has renewed concerns it could be paving the way for restructuring steps. GM owns close to 77 percent of GM Korea but Ko...

SAO PAULO | Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:23pm EDT SAO PAULO (Reuters) - GM (GM.N) has no immediate plans to build cars with French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA) in Brazil, the company's South America chief Jaime Ardila said on Sunday. "So far the entire focus of the alliance has been Europe and I expect that t...

By Chikako Mogi TOKYO | Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:30pm EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Monday as risk sentiment was dented by lackluster earnings from leading U.S. companies, and a bigger than expected fall in exports from Japan, a key driver of the world's third-biggest economy. U.S. stocks ended on Friday with their worst day since late Jun...

By Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON | Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:10pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Backers of liquefied natural gas will launch the first major campaign on Monday to press lawmakers to allow the sale of more U.S. gas abroad, as the industry push for exports intensifies. The effort by the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas will include a new web site ...

By Lauren Tara LaCapra NEW YORK | Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:02pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - The tell-all book that Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) former equity derivatives salesman Greg Smith has delivered may end up being remembered more for the marketing skills he picked up at the Wall Street bank than for any bombshell revelations. Smith created a furo...

By Scott Haggett and Euan Rocha CALGARY/TORONTO | Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:10pm EDT CALGARY/TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian markets could face a bloody opening on Monday after the government blocked the C$5.17 billion ($5.22 billion) acquisition of Progress Energy Resources Corp (PRQ.TO) by Malaysian state oil company Petronas PETR.UL, raising questions a...

By Paul Taylor PARIS | Sun Oct 21, 2012 6:45pm EDT PARIS (Reuters) - European Union leaders face two months of tough bargaining on money, power and the future governance of the euro zone before they can boost confidence that the existential threat to the single currency has faded. The European Central Bank's pledge to buy the bonds of struggling ...

NEW YORK | Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:30pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dish Network, the nation's third largest pay-TV provider, has settled its four-year old lawsuit filed by Cablevision and AMC Networks over a high-definition programming agreement, according to statements from the companies released on Sunday. As a result of the settlement, Dish will resume broad...

This week, BBC Mundo included Costa Rica as one of the top places in Latin America for technology start ups, in an article titled "What is the Silicon Valley of Latin America?".  This was a follow through based on an Economist article on Chile, dubbing it "Chilecon Valley". The BBC piece highlighted Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico.  Chile made a strong case for being the...

By Euan Rocha and Stuart Grudgings TORONTO/KUALA LUMPUR | Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:07am EDT TORONTO/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Canada has blocked Malaysian state oil firm Petronas' C$5.17 billion ($5.2 billion) bid for gas producer Progress Energy Resources in a surprise move that could signal problems for a much larger Chinese deal in the country's ener...

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA – October 19th, 2012 – Misinformation and miscalculations in real estate appraisals in Costa Rica has driven the Chamber of Costa Rican Official Real Estate Agents (CCCBR) to create the first Property Price Index (PPI) in the country. Though it is still in the data collection phase, the Chamber has promised a first draft for the province of San Jose for the first trimester of ...

October 18th, 2012 – The 3rd round of negotiations surrounding the possible free trade agreement between Costa Rica and Colombia will begin in Cali, Colombia, on Monday. Anabel Gonzalez, Foreign Trade minister, said that this round of negotiations would focus on determining which of each nation’s products would be included in the agreement. “In order to prepare for this 3rd round, we have had a se...

MOSCOW | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:15am EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - BP (BP.L) has approved Russian group Rosneft's (ROSN.MM) bid to buy out the British oil company's stake 50 percent stake in its Russian joint venture TNK-BP (TNBP.MM), Kommersant reported. Separately, the Financial Times reported that BP's board would continue its discussion on the matter over the w...

By Jilian Mincer NEW YORK | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:01am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Corporate America is finally ready to deal with a monkey on its back: massive pension obligations. AT&T Inc on Friday said it plans to contribute a $9.5 billion stake in its wireless business to its underfunded pension plan. Earlier this week, Verizon Communications ...

NEW DELHI | Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:23am EDT NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Kingfisher Airline's (KING.NS) license to operate was suspended on Saturday after the debt-laden carrier failed to satisfy the aviation regulator's concerns about its operations. Struggling to pay bills, Kingfisher is seven months behind on salary payments, and its fleet has been grounded sinc...

By Alina Selyukh and Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON | Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:55am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic donors gave unprecedented amounts of money in September to their party's three main "Super PACs," federal disclosures revealed on Friday, a reflection of how wealthy Democrats' reluctance to give to such groups has faded in the week...

By Ronald Grover LOS ANGELES | Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:54am EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch is looking to buy the Los Angeles Times, one of the country's largest newspapers, from struggling media conglomerate Tribune Co, a source familiar with his plans told Reuters on Friday. News Corp executives -- including Mur...

By Tom Bergin LONDON | Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:24am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Starbucks's reputation among consumers in Britain has been hit by wave of criticism of its tax affairs from politicians and the media, pollster YouGov said. A Reuters report showed the coffee chain paid no tax on 1.2 billion pounds of sales in recent years by telling the taxman...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 10:49pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. earnings started the quarter on the wrong foot, and things have only gotten worse. Expectations for the third quarter were dismal, with forecasts for a decline in profits from a year ago. But a recent flurry of high-profile reports has investors scowling at...

By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:47pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended the week on Friday with their worst day since late June after Dow components General Electric and McDonald's, both barometers of the overall economy's health, added to a disappointing earnings season. Technology shares kept up a pattern of recent ...

By Jessica Toonkel NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:28pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Credit Suisse Group AG (MLPN.P) has put its $17.2 billion European exchange-traded fund business up for sale, according to sources familiar with the matter. BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) and State Street Global Advisors, the asset management arm of State Street Corp (STT.N), a...

In the past The Costa Rica Star reported on the opening of a new Reuters operations centre in Costa Rica. Effective immediately, The Costa Rica Star is pleased to offer World News from our partnership with Reuters. We will be making publishing changes to how we handle our content delivery. From day one, The Costa Rica Star has always had the goal of becoming the Central American version...

Costa Rica, a Latin American country, plans to sign an investment protection agreement with India to boost bilateral trade, especially in the service and manufacturing sector. It would soon put in place a framework for economic cooperation with India, with any eye on the country's IT sector. In the Capital to participate in the OECD forum, Costa Rica vice president Luis Liberman told FE: "W...

High interest rates, the product of the Treasury’s steady increase in financing with debt, is leading banks to seek funds abroad. In the country the average lending rate in dollars is about 11%, considerably higher than in the United States, where the average is 4%. This gap is the result of higher government borrowing in dollars, which has increased its debt in this currency by 165% y...

In order to adjust to new rules coming into effect in 2015 to improve services to consumers, gas stations will have to invest about $30 million. Since in Costa Rica fuel prices are set administratively, business operators must focus on delivering better complementary automotive services and convenience stores. In an article on Nacion.com, José Miguel Masís, executive director of the Fu...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has reported on Green Washing in Costa Rica, which lends itself to businesses being "too" Green when in reality, they are far from that fact. It makes it hard for legitimate businesses to compete when doing things honestly. Elfinancierocr.com reports that in Costa Rica, "at a rate of four bills per year, since 2006 Parliament has provided 24 new regulations...

Helping poor rural women become successful farmers is one of the best ways to build a food-secure world. That’s what the P4P programme is doing in Guatemala by teaching women farmers how to grow more and better food that they can sell on local markets. It's just one example of what investing in women farmers can achieve as we mark the International Day of Rural Women on October 15. When she...

Florida Ice and Farm has complained that vast amounts of beer are entering Costa Rica at very low prices. The complaint, originally made to the Directorate General of Taxation so that this institution could verify that the correct taxes were paid on these imports, was later presented to the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) as a suspected case of dumping or unfair competit...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has reported on how La Nacion is getting better at information visualization. Last year, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, who served as president from 1998-2002, was sentenced to five years in prison for accepting bribes from French telecom giant Alcatel; two years before Rafael Angel Calderon was jailed for embezzling funds from a Finnish loan intended for medical eq...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on this story and the private cities set to be developed in Honduras. In Latin America, branding someone a neoliberal is an offense that falls somewhere in between imperialist and pedophile. So it seems passing strange that Honduras, a poor unassuming isthmus in Central America, is cooking up the most brazen free-market proposal the Western Hemisphere h...

Orlando Castillo, the head of Nicaraguan telecoms regulator Telcor, has confirmed that a total of seven companies have paid the USD3,000 registration fee to participate in the government’s upcoming tender for two new mobile licences. Although Castillo was not willing to disclose the identities of the parties interested, he did confirm local press speculation implicating Beijing-based research ...

Nearly two decades after Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar died in a hail of bullets, his eldest son is conquering new markets in Mexico - with a fashion line in his father's image. Sebastian Marroquin's designer T-shirts, plastered with photos of Escobar, are hot sellers in Mexican states that are on the front lines of the country's deadly drug war. The shirts are emblazoned with ...

Cocaine trafficking and associated violence are still the chief criminal issues affecting Central America, according to a new UNODC threat assessment. But because of the increasingly inhospitable drug environment in Mexico, thanks to a crackdown that began in 2006, traffickers have shifted their focus to new routes along the Guatemala/Honduras border, the assessment said. Displacement to the C...

With an investment of $5 million in a new plant, the manufacturer and bottler of Big Cola soft drinks, plans to increase its market share. Ajecen del Sur, founded on Peruvian capital, has managed to get its main brand Big Cola, third in the ranks of sales of soft drinks in the Costa Rican market, behind the traditional Coca-Cola and Pepsi. According to statements by Enrique Moya, CEO o...

The content in this article was taken from CostaRicaLaw.com, the best online resource for getting familiar with the laws of Costa Rica. Always retain the advice of a lawyer, however you can educate yourself beforehand. Costa Rica is on the verge of passing two new laws, which will bring about significant changes to the tax structure currently in effect. The two legislative bills have alread...

Mail Drop Costa Rica has offered its services, including a mailing address abroad, for 5 years and has serviced over 1200 businesses The five year anniversary for Mail Drop Costa Rica, a Top Office Company, is occurring in October of 2012. The company was founded in 2007, and is the first in Latin America to offer dedicate phone or fax number in a full service package. As part of the celebratio...

  The Tico Times had a long standing tradition here in Costa Rica. At one point they were regarded as a pillar of English language media for many decades. However, The Tico Times is not the oldest English language newspaper in Costa Rica, that honour goes to "The News" founded in 1897. We know how The Tico Times likes to claim they are the oldest, but that is simply not true. With the end ...

When trying to find cars, real estate, jobs, and other products or services in Costa Rica (and Central America) it often proves to be difficult. Everyone knows about Craigslist, however it lacks the quality that a fully managed classifieds service has. Many of the listings on Craigslist are spam or opportunists looking to take advantage of people. Another option here in Costa Rica is En...

State-owned refiner Recope wants Costa Rica to boost use of natural gas as an energy source and reduce its dependence on liquid hydrocarbons, a switch that would require an investment of $181.2 million. Recope recommended the use of the cleaner-burning fuel after obtaining the results of the study “Perspectives on the Potential Use of Natural Gas in Costa Rica,” conducted by Canadian consul...

Honduras, Central America's largest coffee producer, is facing an outbreak of leaf rust - one of the world's most destructive coffee diseases - that some fear could dent the 6.1 million 60-kilogram bags due for export in the 2012/2013 harvest. The disease, a fungus known locally as roya, kills coffee leaves by sapping them of nutrients and lowering bean yields. It currently blights around 1...