A critical year for Costa Rican soccer kicks off this week with big goals in sight, namely South Africa 2010, the place and time for the next FIFA World Cup.

National Music Institute Auditions
For kids 7-12, through Jan. 9, 1-4 p.m., Moravia, 100 m. south, 100 m. west of the main entrance to former Lincoln School .

Traditional Fiestas
In Carrizal, Alajuela and Alajuelita, through Jan. 12, featuring family fun, rides, food, concerts and games.

Three previously unknown species of salamanders were discovered in Costa Rica's La Amistad National Park, near the border with Panama, U.K. scientists announced Friday.

Two are about the size of a pinky – one with a bold red stripe, one with a “ballistic” tongue that it propels at its prey – and the third is smaller than a fingernail. All three are probably unique to the remote rain forest reserve, Alex Monro of London's Natural History Museum told National Geographic Traveler.

Two of the creatures are members of the Bolitoglossa genus, and the tiny, three-centimeter species is a Nototriton, or dwarf salamander.

Monro and his team of scientists recorded more than 5,000 plants and animals during three expeditions to Central America. Their latest findings in La Amistad, the biggest forest reserve in the region, bring the total of the known number of Costa Rican salamanders to 43. Some 300 species are known around the world.

The punier critter and its striped and ballistic-tongued cousins will be named and catalogued by scientists here at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), in the project funded by the British government's Darwin Initiative to promote biodiversity conservation, the BBC reported.

-Tico Times

Costa Rican immigration officers and border police in just two days sent 1,700 undocumented migrants back to their native Nicaragua, the daily La Nación reported.

According to a separate report in newswire AFP, some 60,000 Nicaraguan residents of Costa Rica had crossed the border legally to spend the holidays in their homeland. Costa Rican police boosted their presence at the Nicaraguan border in anticipation of the massive return, and discovered many migrants attempting to bring undocumented friends and family members along with them, police said.

On Thursday and Friday, police detained hundreds of people who managed to enter the country illegally, have slipped through borders at Peñas Blancas, Guanacaste, in Costa Rica's northwestern corner, and Upala and Los Chiles, in the northern province of Alajuela.

In one of the operations Friday afternoon, police brought 52 undocumented Nicaraguan migrants by boat from Sarapiquí, a north-central canton, to Los Chiles (see photo), according to the Public Security Ministry.

“The Nicaraguans were led astray by the same ‘ coyotes' (human smugglers) to whom the foreigners had paid a sum of ¢5,000 for bringing them to Costa Rican territory,” read a statement by the ministry.

Police later found the smugglers after hearing the would-be immigrants' stories of entering clandestinely.

Return to Costa Rica continued through last night, coinciding with the many Ticos traveling back from holiday vacations in time to start work again today.

The police operations occurred at a time when tensions are mounting over Costa Rica's migrants from its northern neighbor. The arrests also came fresh on the heels of an accord signed by Nicaraguan and Costa Rican officials that would allow tens of thousands of guest workers to enter Costa Rica legally to help replenish flagging work forces in agriculture and construction.

Fernando Berrocal, the Costa Rican public security minister, was compelled to defend the arrests amid questions as to whether deporting manpower was in his country's best interest.

“We are grateful for the contributions to Costa Rican development from our brothers and sisters of the neighboring nation to the north,” Berrocal told La Nación. “But all those who wish to come here to work should do so obeying the law.”

-Tico Times

A critical year for Costa Rican soccer kicks off this week with big goals in sight, namely South Africa 2010, the place and time for the next FIFA World Cup.

Players and fans are looking to move on from last season, which for many brought more tears than cheers.

Next Sunday will see the Costa Rican national team in an at-home friendly match with team Sweden, which is warming up for this summer's Euro Cup 2008.

Sweden will be the first trial of the year for a Tico club that still hasn't found its way in the eyes of the national press or the fans, despite completing a year with Coach Hernán Medford at its helm.

But the team will have to get in gear for 2008's decisive rounds leading up to the World Cup, particularly in June, when Costa Rica will play against the winner of the Grenada-Virgin Islands showdown.

Last year the team finished with less-than-desirable results. Costa Rica's one achievement was to win the Central American UNCAF Nations Cup in February on penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw with Panama. But the team failed to pass the second round in the North and Central American and Caribbean CONCACAF Gold Cup in June.