Shakespeare's ‘Midsummer Night's Dream'
British theater company TNT, today and tomorrow, Teatro Dionisio in Café Britt Heredia, 7 p.m., telephone: 277-1600.

Dubbed Out
Live dub-reggae group Moonlight Dub, Jazz Café, San Pedro, 10 p.m.

Exhibit: Sebastian Mello and Luciano Goizueta
Through March 29, Galería Amón, Barrio Amón, Calle7, avenidas 9/11, 223-9725, www.amon937.com.

Face-Painting Course
For parents and teachers, 5:30-8 p.m., CCCN, San José , 305-6074.

Workshop: ‘Art in Your Hands'
For children, today and tomorrow, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Costa Rican Art Museum.

Diego Maradona, once the Michael Jordan of soccer, will not be bringing his “Showbol” program as planned for March 1 to San José's Ricardo Saprissa stadium, the event's organizer Novaterra said.

Novaterra did not give details as to why the show by Argentina's most celebrated, and controversial soccer player had been cancelled, although it said the admission fee – between $8 and $80 – will be returned to fans that purchased tickets for the event, according to newswire ACAN-EFE.

Hospital visits planned for celebrity “Showbolers” to spend time with child cancer patients have been cancelled, too, the wire reported.

Maradona, 47, became famous for his goal-scoring with such clubs as Argentina's Boca Junior's, Spain's FC Barcelona and Italy's SSC Napoli. His fame was later overshadowed by his failing doping tests, but fans still love him the world over. Maradona has had a stadium named after him and has become a television host in his home country, as well as the subject of a documentary by renowned Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica.

In May 2007, the soccer legend appeared on Argentinean television and declared he had quit drinking and had not used drugs for two and a half years.

“Showbol,” an indoor, seven-on-seven soccer event that pits past stars from Argentina against retired celebrity players from whichever home team the show happens to visit, has already scored big with fans in many countries in Latin America and Europe. Costa Rica, for now, will have to wait.

By Blake Schmidt
Nica Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net

Nicaragua's National Assembly is looking to create a special commission to investigate reports that Costa Rican farmers' dredging waters that flow into the San Juan River are lowering the river's level, with potentially drastic effects, legislators say.

Carlos Garc í a, president of the assembly's Environmental Commission, says the special commission would bring together Nicaraguan officials from the Tourism Institute, defense and foreign policy representatives, and environmentalists on a possible tour to the river.

“We want to see the veracity of the information we're receiving,” Garc í a said, referring to recent reports from liberal legislator Maximino Rodríguez that dredging in waters that feed into the San Juan have caused lower water levels in the San Juan, which, in turn, have affected the river's flora and fauna and navigability. Rodríguez received the information from aides who recently visited the river.

Additionally, the commission would also look into possibilities that the pesticides from Costa Rican rice, banana and citrus farms have contaminated the river, and also that environmental damage has been caused by mines near the border.

The San Juan River has been a magnet of controversy for centuries. During the colonial era, it was sought after by governments and pirates alike as a transportation route from the Caribbean to the Pacific, and inspired dreams of a trans-Oceanic canal since before Panama capitalized on the idea.

Read this Friday's print or digital edition of The Nica Time's, an eight-page publication of The Tico Times, for more on this story.

A group of 14 students, lecturers and archeologists from a Nicaraguan university have found what they believe to be a "pre-Columbian settlement" in the area of the Laguna de Nejapa, 8 kilometers (5 miles) west of Managua.

But the group of researchers is facing difficulties establishing the age of the settlement, due to a lack of funds, as well as problems performing laboratory tests on the items they have unearthed at the site.

The dig, which is set to conclude on Jan. 31, is being conducted by a group from the Research Center of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, with the coordination of professor Sagrario Balladares.

Archeology professor Leonardo Lechado told reporters that in the area, the team had found pieces of ceramic containers, parts of a pre-Columbian house, animal bones, firepits and burned animal remains.

Lechado said that they have also found stone and earth structures created in polygonal shapes, which indicate the type of food consumed by the inhabitants of the zone during the pre-Columbian period.

The sources said that the group is carrying out its excavations with a budget near $2,600, which is insufficient for the work required.

Even so, the researchers are prepared to venture that the settlement could date from as early as the ninth century.