STREET Party: Mexican singer Alejandra Guzmán (second from right) and her dancers rocked the Pacific port city of Puntarenas Saturday at a concert to close the second weekend of Carnaval festivities. Ticos headed to the coast from around the country to experience the food, music, tope (horse parade) and other traditions of Carnaval.

The food chain took a turn for the fatal in a recent case of 500 brown pelicans found dead on an islet in the Pacific Golf of Nicoya. Scientists have discovered that these birds ate sardines contaminated with a toxic algae, according to the daily La Nación.

Ricky Martin in Concert
8 p.m., Ricardo Saprissa Stadium, Tibás, north of San José. Tickets on sale at Megasuper stores. Info: www.specialticket.net, 206-7770.

Friendship Tennis Tournament
Today through Saturday, Costa Rican Country Club, Escazú, west of San José. Info: 892-9097.

Cultural Shows
Storytelling, poetry, theater, dance, music, 7 p.m., Casa de la Cultura, Nicoya, northwestern Guanacaste province.

Costa Rica will soon step into the next generation of cell phone technology, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the country's state-run telecommunications monopoly, announced Friday.

The institute plans to acquire 1.3 million 3G cellular lines to be installed by April of next year, according to an ICE statement.

3G networks are long-range networks that were designed to facilitate high-speed wireless Internet access, massive e-mail use, video telephony and other services cell phone users can access in places with wireless connections. 3G networks can support more voice and data users than the existing technologies, especially in urban areas.

GSM and TDMA are the cell phone technologies now offered in Costa Rica. The new 3G lines would nearly double the amount of cellular lines nationwide.

The announcement comes after ICE decided earlier this month to cut short its $149 million contract with the multinational telecommunications firm Alcatel, which was operating 400,000 GSM lines for the institute. The announcement came amid allegations that Alcatel officals had dished out $9.6 million in bribes for the contract (TT, Feb. 9). ICE officials had been considering buying another 200,000 GSM lines from the company after Costa Rica ran out of these lines last October.

No company has been contracted as the provider of the 3G network. The institute plans to begin the public bidding process next month, the statement said.

-Tico Times

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net

Peanut butter being recalled by a U.S. food company because of a potential link to the food-borne illness salmonella was found Friday on the shelves of one Costa Rican grocery store and in the pantries of a couple of Tico Times readers.

ConAgra Foods, based out of the U.S. city of Omaha, Nebraska, is recalling all varieties of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter that have a product code beginning with 2111 printed on the jar's lid, according to a statement posted on the company's Web site.

The Tico Times Friday received an e-mail with accounts of two readers discovering they had jars of Peter Pan peanut butter purchased here with this code.

Zaida Oviedo, manager of Supermercado Saretto in the western suburb of Escazú, said she had not heard news of the recall; however, upon checking, she discovered several Peter Pan peanut butter jars on the store's shelves with a product code beginning in 2111.

Oviedo said she plans to call the importer from whom she bought the peanut butter to find out more about the recall.

According to ConAgra Foods, customers with this product should discard it, but save the product lid and mail it, along with their name and mailing address, to the company for a full refund. The company's U.S. mailing address is ConAgra Foods, P.O. Box 3768, Omaha, NE 68103.

ConAgra Foods is “working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate a statistical report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that these products may be linked to the food-borne illness salmonella,” the statement said.

ConAgra Foods provides grocery retailers, restaurants and other food establishments with products including Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Healthy Choice and Hunts.

For more information on the recall, consumers can call a hotline set up by ConAgra Foods in the United States at 866-344-6970.

The food chain took a turn for the fatal in a recent case of 500 brown pelicans found dead on an islet in the Pacific Golf of Nicoya. Scientists have discovered that these birds ate sardines contaminated with a toxic algae, according to the daily La Nación.

The sardines consumed an algae called Diatomea, which appears in Pacific waters and can kill pelicans but is not dangerous to humans, according to Public Health Minister María Luisa Avila.

“Fortunately, this is not an infectious disease,” Avila told the daily, citing reports from scientists at Universidad Nacional (UNA) in Heredia, north of San José, who had been researching the pelicans' cause of death.

The dead birds were found by Costa Rican Coast Guard officials and taken to UNA on Feb. 9 (TT, Feb. 16)

Dead pelicans are continuing to pop up in Pacific waters near San Lucas Island as baby birds whose mothers were killed by the toxic sardines are starving to death, according to La Nación. Their carcasses are being eaten by crocodiles and carnivorous birds.