The International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games begin in Costa Rica Friday.

The nine-day competition begins today at 10 a.m. with the opening ceremonies in Jacó, on the central Pacific coast, and concludes with the closing ceremonies on Sunday, Aug. 9.

The ISA World Surfing Games, which is the biggest sporting event in the history of Costa Rica, features 34 teams from around the world, including Australia, the winner of the last three competitions. With the addition of the Dominican Republic, which registered Wednesday, the 2009 World Surfing Games will have the biggest international turnout in competition history, breaking the previous record of 33 teams in 2006.

The actual surfing begins Saturday morning with the Men's and Women's Open competition, starting at 7a.m. at Playa Hermosa. Though the home base for the competition is in Jacó, all the surfing will take place about three miles south of there on Playa Hermosa.

The Costa Rican national team, which finished fifth in the 2008 World Surfing Games, is excited for the opportunity to surf on their home beaches.

“We are surfing at home,” said Carlos Brenes, spokesman for the national team and member of the Surfing Federation. “We have been training and surfing at Playa Hermosa almost every day for the past eight months. We hope it will give us an advantage that will help us finish as well or better than we did last year.”

The Costa Rican team is led by Jason Torres, who finished fifth in the Open competition in 2008 and was the winner of the Central American Open. The Costa Rican team, like all others in competition, is composed of 12 surfers, including four male Open surfers, two female Open surfers, two longboarders and four alternates.

The games, which are sponsored by sportswear company Billabong, will be televised worldwide. Coverage is expected to reach an estimated audience of 80 million people. Javier Cruz, director of the World Surfing Games, said at least 15,000 people are expected to attend the event.

The municipality of Garabito, which includes Playa Hermosa and Jacó, has dedicated 11 months to preparing the beaches, parks and roads of the area and improving security.

“It looks perfect,” Cruz said about the venue. “This will show the world the amazing beaches and natural beauty Costa Rica has to offer.”

See the July 31 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya will mobilize a “popular, pacific army” of loyal followers to join him in his promised return to Honduras, he said from his exile post in Nicaragua opposite the border with his homeland.

“We will begin with a training period. The best way is for five trainers to train 20,” Zelaya said Wednesday evening to a crowd of hundreds of supporters in Ocotal. He added that the struggle will remain peaceful and the members of his force “will use weapons of intelligence and reason.”

On Thursday, Zelaya held a surprise meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, which came after Zelaya made statements on television urging the United States to step up pressure against the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti.

Though Nicaragua's Sandinista president, Daniel Ortega, has proven to be a gracious host and staunch supporter of Zelaya's cause, Nicaraguan opposition leaders such as the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC) have grown wary of the exiled leader's pronouncements and prolonged stay in their country.

“The PLC demands that the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, because of his conduct disrespecting our sovereignty, his warmongering language and utilization of our national territory to organize militias of popular resistance to attack his own country, leave Nicaragua immediately,” reads a party statement released Thursday.

The PLC is also urging Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a close ally of Ortega and Zelaya, to “lay off Central America.”

For in-depth coverage from Manuel Zelaya's encampment at the Nicaraguan border, see the July 31 print or digital edition of The Tico Times.

Sweeping reforms to the electoral code approved this week by the Legislative Assembly will grant more transparency to elections in Costa Rica, while updating old rules to better accommodate modern processes.

Among the changes implemented for the February 2010 presidential election is a reduction in the amount of state aid directed toward elections, restrictions on who can donate to campaigns and elimination of the long-standing dry law.

“This is a great opportunity for democracy and the transparency of democracy,” said Wendy González, an advisor to the Supreme Elections Tribunal, which worked alongside legislators in drafting the changes. She explained the reforms will allow people to more clearly see how campaigns are funded, by prohibiting donations from corporations and more explicitly recording contributions.

Perhaps the most tangible reform is the one that now permits the sale of alcohol on the days preceding elections. Since 1952, restaurants and other establishments have been barred from serving alcohol for fear alcohol consumption would incite violence and interfere with the democratic process.

“We think this law is obsolete,” Kattia Monge, aid to congressman Mario Núñez, who authored the motion to repeal the law, told The Tico Times while the motion was being debated. “And, in reality, it is no longer necessary. We haven't had a violent conflict relating to elections in decades” (TT, May 22).

By 2014, legislators plan to make voting available to Costa Ricans living outside the country (which is not currently possible) and balancing the gender representation in congress by requiring 50 percent of elected officials to be female and 50 percent to be male. Right now, the quota within the Legislative Assembly for female representation is 40 percent.

“This will have a big impact on the electoral level,” González said. “It's an enormous leap forward, in the words of the president of the electoral tribunal.”

Congress approved the changes on Wednesday of this week. The vote was 42 in favor and three opposed.

Until last week, the A(H1N1) flu virus had not claimed the lives of any senior citizen living in Costa Rica, according to official records here.

Although the virus seems to target individuals with weakened immune systems, people over 65 years old were escaping the death tallies and not registering infection in medical tests.

A 75-year-old man with Parkinson's disease recently became the first senior citizen in which the virus was a factor in the death.

But the phenomenon of apparent immunity still persists among older populations.

“Senior citizens have a lower risk because they have built up defenses after so many years of life,” said José Angel Córdova, Mexican health secretary, who was in Costa Rica this week for the Tuxtla Summit in the northwestern province of Guanacaste.

In the most recent age tally of confirmed cases provided by the Costa Rican Health Ministry, people over 50 years of age represented a mere 3 percent of flu infections. The most vulnerable age group seems to be in the 10-to-19-year-old population. That group represents 13.5 percent of the cases; followed by 20-to-29-year-olds, representing 11.9 percent of the cases.

The death toll in Costa Rica surged to 21 this week, and confirmed cases of the flu climbed to 668. Health officials are urging heightened caution as the virus moves into its peak period.

Officials cancelled this weekend's Romería, Costa Rica's largest religious event, hoping to stem transmission of the virus (TT, July 24). And they've also issued a call to schools and workplaces to send any sick people home.

In a recent press release, the Health Ministry cited Section 155 of the General Health Law that “prohibits persons infected with diseases from attending schools, work and recreational areas during the period of transmissibility.”