Solo Flamenco
Tico flamenco group, Jazz Café Escazú, 10 p.m., http://jazzcafecostarica.com.

Adopt a Tree Campaign
Cultural and ecological festival at San Ramón Central Park; plant a tree through June, 2445-3842, 8832-0626, 8382-3582, info@azahartravel.co.cr.

Book Fair
Today through Sunday, Catholic Church boulevard and park, Liberia, Guanacaste, 2225-1363.

Today is May Day and all government offices and most businesses will be closed.

Known as International Workers Day in many parts of the world, the holiday is often marked by protests with social and economic undertones, such as the pot-banging rallies scheduled for this morning in downtown San José.

Though the United States commemorates Labor Day on the first Monday in September, the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica will observe May Day and be closed.

The Tic o Times is open today.

Commercial and small-scale fishing in the Gulf of Nicoya has come under heavy restriction this month in an attempt to protect the dwindling fish populations at a time when, according to government studies, they are reproducing most.

The Costa Rican Fisheries Institute (INCOPESCA), the nation's fishing authority, designated the months of May, June and October this year for a partial ban on fishing. According to the regulations, semi-industrial dragnet shrimp fishing is banned completely for certain areas of the gulf, while sardine fishing is limited in areas to Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, according to an INCOPESCA statement.

Small-scale fishermen are limited to fishing with hand-held lines no longer than 500 meters and with no more than 300 hooks.

Sport fishing and recreational fishing are not affected by the ban.

Peter Cianchette, a businessman and former Republican nominee for the governor of Maine, is set to be the new U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica following Senate's approval on Tuesday.

Sen. Olympia Snowe announced the confirmation saying it is a proud moment for Maine, according to the Associated Press.

Cianchette (pronounced “chin-kett”) takes over for former Ambassador Mark Langdale, who left his San José post to head the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation in Dallas.

In 2004, Cianchette led the Bush-Cheney campaign in Maine, where he is the state's Republican national committeeman. His business credentials include partner at CHK Capital Partners, a strategic planning firm, and chief operations officer of Pierce Atwood Consulting and The Cianchette Group.

The entrepreneur-politico says he is up for the job despite his rusty Spanish and having never visited Costa Rica, reported Maine's Morning Sentinel.

Acknowledging that Costa Rica's dependence on imports is partly to blame for rising prices here, Agricultural Minister Javier Flores said the government would substantially increase local production of rice, beans and white corn by offering credit, insurance and technical assistance to Tico farmers.

Flores wants Costa Rica to produce 80% of the rice it consumes within two years, up from 50% today. Within three years, he said, Tico farmers should be growing 70% of the beans and white corn eaten here, up from 25% today. 

Surging food prices worldwide – driven by high gas prices, demand in China and India, and the biofuel craze in the United States – have emptied some Costa Rican bellies. The price of the basic food basket – a measure of 10 items that commonly comprise local meals (such as rice, beans, eggs and vegetables) – rose 13.3% here in the first quarter of 2008.  

Increasing national production would help protect Costa Rica from instability on the world market. Flores said he would give more details on the plan next week.

When Public Works and Transport Minister Karla González promised a room full of journalists Tuesday that an electric train for San José's urban area was on track, she appears to have spoken too soon.

According to a story published yesterday in the daily La Nación, the comptroller general has annulled the contract awarded to a Brazilian firm to carry out the feasibility studies for the project. The yearlong study was to be the basis for the eventual contract to build the train, supplying details on the infrastructure necessary, number of passengers and costs, among other things.

The construction and operation of the train was to be bid out as a concession, and González had assured press this week that the contract would be assigned before President Oscar Arias' term ends in 2010.

However, the daily reported, the comptroller found that the National Concessions Council, a part of González's Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT), messed up in the international bidding process.

With plans for a metropolitan electric train dating back to 2003, MOPT originally attempted to put the feasibility study up for international bidding in years past, but abandoned it in 2005. When the CNC initiated the process again last year, it apparently failed to notify the original bidders, a procedural violation serious enough to annul the current contract, awarded to the Brazilian Firm Engevix Egenharia S.A. for $1.3 million, La Nación reported.

The comptroller also said the CNC failed to present a certification that it had a budget to pay the Brazilian firm.

While the vice minister of concessions, Guillermos Matamoros, assured the daily the contract would be fixed and sent to the comptroller again for approval by May, the time periods for the completion of the study and the preparation and bidding of another contract for the construction and operation of the train will take the project into 2010 and a new presidency.