Costa Rica Cup
Soccer clubs of police, airline crews, firefighters and others from around the world compete in World Cup-style format, today through May 6, Jacó, Puntarenas, www.costaricacup.org.

Camilo Sesto in concert
Spain's balladeer, tonight (sold out) and tomorrow 8 p.m., Palacio de los Deportes, Heredia, www.mundoticket.com.

Ska show
Tico ska and reggae group Mentados, Jazz Café, San Pedro, 10 p.m., http://jazzcafecostarica.com.

Caribbean music concert
Band Cantoamérica plays music from Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, Jazz Café Escazú, 10 p.m., http://jazzcafecostarica.com.

San José is slated to see its own police force next week after Costa Rica's public security minister, Janina del Vecchio, announced the creation of the Metropolitan Police.

After the April 10 graduation of 150 new recruits, the security ministry decided to create yet another police force to exclusively patrol the capital's downtown area.

“I don't want desk cops, nor do I want them hiding in branch offices,” said the recently appointed minister, Del Vecchio. “I want them in the streets, the neighborhoods, within reach of the people and on the front lines of the battle against crime.”

Del Vecchio also indicated she would begin distributing police according to a “scientific” model based on the zones and hours where and when crimes most often occur.

In February, the Comptroller General's office, after conducting an audit of Public Security Ministry procedures, issued a scathing report that stated police branches were not being located in high-crime areas.

The report states the ministry was required to use a “public-security index” in 2002 to help it decide where to allocate branches and manpower. But officials never followed through and the department responsible for implementing it declined to cooperate with the audit investigators.

The new police will begin patrolling on May 8 and their branch office will be at the Parque Central.

Costa Rica's Legislative Assembly is sitting on a bill that would eliminate caps on electricity production by regional producers, a move President Oscar Arias' administration hopes will help the country's power supply keep pace with growing demand.

The bill would reform the Law of the Participation of Electrification Cooperatives and Municipal Public Service Businesses, in effect since 2003. Under that law, regional cooperatives can only account for 15% of the total capacity of the nation's electricity production infrastructure.

Four regional cooperatives – Coopesantos, Coopeguanacaste, Coopealfaro Ruiz and Coopelesca – would benefit from the reform, as would the Heredia Public Services Company (ESPH), a public utility in the province of Heredia, north of San José, and the Electric Services Administrative Board of Cartago (JASEC), a utility in the province of Cartago, east of the capital.

In 2007, these producers together generated 7.34% of the 8,889 Gigawatt-hours produced nationwide, according to Elbert Durán, a spokesman for the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE).

All other electricity production comes from the ICE, the state-owned electricity and telecom firm with a monopoly over both fields, and its subsidiary, the National Power and Light Company (CNFL).

The Arias administration presented the bill to the Legislative Assembly April 17.

In 2008, ICE is expected to spend $220 million on diesel and bunker fuel to run thermal power plants to make up for what isn't produced by the nation's mostly hydro-power electricity infrastructure, the daily La Nación reported.

This follows the nationwide blackout that surprised Costa Ricans last April, and the programmed power outages that followed. A lack of rainfall left the reservoirs that feed the mostly hydropower infrastructure too low to produce the needed power, forcing the country to depend on outdated thermal plants. When two of those went down, there was not enough power to go around.

Critics said ICE restrictions, such as the caps on regional production, have kept the nation's power infrastructure from expanding fast enough to keep pace with the growing demand, which is between 5% and 6% per year.

Tico Times readers will now enjoy Sudoku puzzles.

The puzzle will be located every week on the second to last page, which also features the weather and Michael Curl's ever-popular crossword puzzle. It can be found in this week's edition on Page 23.

The scale of difficulty will rotate over a three-week period.

For example, this week it will be an easy puzzle, with instructions for first-timers on how to do Sudoku. Next week, the numbers puzzle will be of medium difficulty, and the following week it will be the most difficult.

A solution to each puzzle will be published the following week.

To make room for Sudoku, The Tico Times altered the weather report, which is custom-prepared for the newspaper by AccuWeather. The report features a seven-day forecast including temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, as well as an almanac of the previous week, with temperatures and rainfall data, the monthly moon phases and both Pacific and Caribbean tides. For the latest updates on weather, visit www.ticotimes.net.