Concert
By Túpac Amarulloa Kwarteto, 0 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro.

Art opening
Mayra Bonilla opens her n ature photography, 7 p.m., Galería Mayra Bonilla, Centro Comercial Manara, 1 km north of BAC, Guachipelín, Escazú, 2289-5568.

Piano performance
By French pianist Claude-Victoria Maillols, procedes to disabled children's orphanage, 8 p.m., Melico Salazar Theater, 2257-6005, 2203-8561, 8384-9778.

Radio Malpais party
Club Capone, 8 p.m., www.radiomalpais.com.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – In a rare show of cooperation and solidarity, the leaders of Central America and participating governments from South America and the Caribbean pledged to work together to combat the regional food crisis that has resulted in a doubling of basic food costs over the past year.

Though the participating leaders represent a sliding scale of political ideologies, they spoke in one voice in criticizing the United States and its economic policies toward Latin America.

Left-leaning leaders blasted the free-market model of globalization promoted by the U.S., claiming it has led to increased economic and agricultural dependency on the North American giant, which protects its own farmers with government subsidies.

Center-left Honduran President Manuel Zelaya joined in the charge.

“There was confidence that globalization would resolve our energy and food problems, but they have made them worse,” said Zelaya. “Now we have less production in our countries and more emigration by those seeking the American dream.”

Zelaya also criticized the governments of Central America for ceding their roles to the free-market economy.

“We need to reactivate the role of the state. We can't be passive,” Zelaya said, urging a new era of agrarian reform, in reference to the Sandinistas' revolutionary policies in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Even Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a defender of the free-market system, seemed to get into the spirit by criticizing the United States for spending billions on war in Iraq while not paying sufficient attention to more real threats, such as hunger, closer to home.

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, who received praise from the other leaders for organizing the summit initiative, noted the food crisis is nothing new to the poor countries of Central America, but said now it's receiving wide international attention because the slumping U.S. economy is having a “multiplying” effect on the problem.

Despite the spirit of cooperation and solidarity, politics did play a role at the end of the afternoon when Arias declined to sign the final agreement. It included several new points by Venezuela, such as the creation of a $100 million ALBA bank for production, a proposal to create a new airline tax to finance a special energy and food security fund in the region, and a vague proposal to create an oil-agricultural alliance.

“There are some value judgments that I don't share,” Arias said of the final declaration that he refused to sign.

During a speech at the summit, however, Arias pledged to give $70 million to boost agricultural production.

Blake Schmidt contributed to this report.

First-trimester traffic deaths have dropped nearly 25 percent over the same period last year.

The Public Works and Transport Ministry reported 107 deaths from January through April, a decrease of 33 from the first four months of 2007.

The 107 deaths are the lowest since 2005, when the ministry reported 97 deaths in the first quarter.

The ministry gave no explanation for the cause of the decrease but sought to take credit for it.

“Each life that we save is worth all the effort that the ministry and the Transit Police make every day to stop the war on our roads,” Minister Karla González said.

A press release cited speeding, drunken driving, and pedestrian and cyclist “imprudence” as the leading causes of traffic fatalities.

Armed with folders of photocopied legal papers, members of the Guácimo municipal council traveled from the agriculturally dense Caribbean plains to San José yesterday looking to halt a nearby pineapple plantation.

Area residents, concerned that toxic herbicides used on the plantation have found their way into the community's drinking water, have been pushing for years to shut down the plant.

After discovering the company was operating without an approved environmental impact study – a requirement for nearly every development and industry in the country granted by the Technical Secretariat of the Environment Ministry (SETENA) – the local government stripped Tico Verde of its operational permits, said Erlinda Quesada, one of the city council members in San José this week.

Much of the plantation is spread over steep hills and has produced “severe erosion,” as well as “severe” pollution of the soil and nearby waterways with pesticides and other agrochemicals, the delegation said.

SETENA, following a visit to the site, agreed with local concerns and gave the company four months to complete a “technical closure” of all operations, but then reversed its decision.

“We are not very clear on what they based (the decision) to lift the technical closure order,” Quesada said.

According to a letter from the Environmental Prosecutor, a branch of the Costa Rican Prosecutor's Office, concerns about water contamination are strong enough to warrant a criminal investigation.

“The proximity of the plantations in relation to the water intake for said community has generated the contamination of water collected for human consumption,” reads a letter directed to SETENA's general secretary, Sonia Espinoza, from environmental prosecutor Luís Diego Hernández.

The prosecutor said an analysis of the drinking water showed the presence of bromacil and diuron, both toxic herbicides.

This week, however, Tico Verde handed the municipal council an analysis of the local drinking water showing no detectable amounts of either.