Smoking in Costa Rica is not only unhealthy for the lungs, but it may soon make a bigger dent in the wallet too.

A handful of legislators, backed by the Health Ministry, are supporting a bill that would raise the tax on each cigarette sold by ¢100 ($0.18) or ¢2,000 ($3.52) for a pack of 20.

The new price would nearly quadruple the cost of cigarettes, from ¢650 ($1.14) for the cheapest brands to ¢2,650 ($4.67).

Rather than reacting with anger, some smokers welcomed the news.

“It's a good idea for everyone,” said Christian Luna, as he puffed on a cigarette outside the courts on Friday. “I will certainly smoke less.”

Even cigarette seller Ana Catalina Soto was open to the idea.

“It's become an epidemic here and this might improve the situation. People will smoke less,” she said, after displaying a few of the packs she sold at a pulpería (small shop) on Avenida 8.

She wasn't too concerned about the effect on sales, saying, “(Cigarettes) are not our principal business.”

The initiative stemmed in part from an agreement with the World Health Organization in which Costa Rica agreed to address its smoking problem.

The law would also limit smoking in work places, in recreation or cultural areas and near health centers, according to an advisory to the Legislative Assembly.

An estimated 400,000 men and 140,000 women in Costa Rica – about 12 percent of the population – are smokers, according to statistics on the Social Security System's Web site (http://www.ccss.sa.cr).

Under the proposed law, the tax of ¢100 will vary according to inflation and manufacturers would be required to cover at least 70 percent of the front face of the cigarette pack with a health warning.

Three urban planning experts visited Costa Rica last week and recommended a new plan for San José.

Hal Moggridge, Kathryn Moore and Peter Bosselman, internationally recognized planners, spent five days in San José analyzing maps and photos of the capital city. The designers determined, among several observations, that San José must make better use of the rivers that run through the city and the mountains that surround it.

“They thought that we have been wrong in considering rivers a problem instead of a value,” said Manrique Vindas, vice rector of research at the University of Costa Rica. Vindas said the experts recommended planning buildings that “showcase the rivers and allow for the enjoyment of the fantastic scenery.”

Bosselman, an urban planner from the University of California in Berkeley, drew attention to the city's transportation problems. He said authorities need to focus their efforts on improving the public transportation system instead of building more streets and highways to solve traffic problems.

He recommended a more integrated city plan.

“The metropolitan area is structured in an east-west pattern but there is no north-south connection,” Bosselman noted in a press release. “This combination would take advantage of the mountainous landscape that surrounds the central valley and the rivers that cut through it.”

The principal and only client of the recently created regulatory agency overseeing the opening of Costa Rica's telecommunications market finally agreed to turn over the fees had collected to keep the agency afloat, bringing to an end a battle that threatened to close the regulator.

It wasn't until the Comptroller General's Office intervened Thursday on behalf of the Superintendent of Telecommunications (SUTEL) that the Costa Rican Electrical Institute (ICE), formerly a monopoly, reluctantly gave SUTEL the approximately $920,000 it was owed since January.

The turmoil has cast a shadow on the newly opened market, which still has only one provider to monitor – ICE. Meanwhile, at least 24 companies are interested in stepping into the market, which was just opened to competition at the beginning of the year.

On Saturday, the daily La Nación reported that SUTEL recommended that three companies be given permits to operate in Costa Rica.

While many have called some of ICE's actions obstructive and claim they are trying to block out competitors, SUTEL has delayed taking direct action. Interested companies have been waiting five months, and even the three companies SUTEL recommended for approval may not be able to actually enter the market for another year, La Nación reported.

“This is a learning curve,” said Lynda Solar, the executive director of the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce. “It's like SUTEL is starting at, well, zero, really.”

The chamber released a statement condemning ICE's reluctance to pay SUTEL on Friday, and said the government needed to take quick action to resolve the issue.

“This is how it goes in Costa Rica,” Solar said. “Literally, you wait until the shoe drops off the foot and then react. It's always reactive here, never proactive.”

SUTEL was created as a regulator of the telecommunications market in January. As part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Costa Rica was forced to open certain markets to competition – one of those being Internet and cell phone services.

SUTEL went from being a small division within the Public Services Regulatory Agency to becoming a much bigger, autonomous agency facing the gigantic task of opening up the market.

Costa Rica's National Dance Company has wasted no time this season in leaping intensely into the theme of the uncomfortable cruelty of human beings.

The company opened its season this weekend with “ In-humano ,” a hard-hitting piece by choreographer Valentina Marenco that laid bare a painful reality: child exploitation.

While lining up to enter the Dance Theater in San José's National Cultural Center (CENAC), audience members gaze at Polaroid photos hanging from crisscrossed elastic string, with images of everyday Costa Rican kids who had written in pen below what they wished to be when they grow up.

With the audience still filing in to find seats, more elastic white strings were being extended around the periphery of the stage. Later, the string could do little to separate the audience from the dramatic scenes the company interpreted through an aggressive modern dance style, with scenes of child prostitution, rape, and abstractions of violence almost reminiscent of the film Fight Club.

Veteran dancer Alex Solano stole the show with a commanding performance, starting from a lifeless body that needed to be held up and moved by other dancers, later to become a patron of child prostitution holding a sweaty wad of cash.

The sound and score, by Esteban Howell, lent further eeriness to the production. Near the end of the show, the sound included the voices of children playing at a schoolyard, happy, and again talking about what they'd like to be when they grow up. One only hopes their dreams will be fulfilled.