Federico Carrillo resigned as Finance Minister on Thursday, he had only been in the post since September of 2004. This is nothing new at the Finance Ministry, which has had 4 ministers, 3 vice ministers of income, 3 directors of tax collection and 4 Customs Directors.

Yesterday, Hewlett Packard announced that they will offer 500 more positions in their Costa Rica call center. This will double their payroll and will substantially increase the investment here as the company will purchase equipment for the new operators and to increase the handling capacity of the center from 600,000 to 6 million calls per year.

It looks like the 700 positions available at the Tourism Job Fair in Liberia won´t be enough. On Friday over 1000 people attend the fair and organizers expect at least another 1000 on Saturday and Sunday.

The unemployment rate in Guanacaste in 2004 was 7.6%, as compared to 6.5% nationwide.

Yesterday, the Nicaraguan Army put tanks on the street for ¨”routine excercises” and “disaster response” training. Also, the Nicaraguan ambassador was called back for consultations in Managua.

The Costa Rican Chancellor stated that they had no comment, “… this is a peace loving country, respectful of international law, and our decision to go to court could never signify a break in the friendship of our peoples.”

The annual big lottery prize will go on sale shortly (probably within the next 2 weeks) as the JPS (Social Protection Board) announced the number and size of the prizes.

The sheet of 40 tickets will cost 20,000 colones and the winner will take home 350 million (about $714,000).
The fraction will cost 500 colones and will pay 8.7 million (about $ 17,755).

If you want to take a real longshot (or avoid one), keep in mind that last year´s winner was 62 with 249 as the series. That number had not appeared since 1963.

The drawing will be December 18th, which will make 18 a popular number. Other popular choices are low numbers in the