Live blues
By the Blues Devils, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, http://jazzcafecostarica.com/ 

Caribbean songs
Tico singer-songwriter Luis Angel Castro, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, http://jazzcafecostarica.com/

Photo show: 'Shadow Hunters'
Photo exhibit by 16 Spanish photographers, through June 20, Contemporary Art and Design Museum.

The country is one step closer to passing a smoking ban in public places, including bars.

The Legislative Assembly yesterday ratified the World Health Organization's Tobacco Control Convention. In 2005, Costa Rica signed the agreement, which requires countries to take steps to regulate, minimize and penalize tobacco sales. But is has taken the assembly three years to ratify it.

Citizen Action Party (PAC) Legislator Orlando Hernández, one of the proponents who sought to build consensus to ratify the agreement, said the assembly still needs to pass follow-up legislation to comply with its commitment.

He said a law now needs to be passed to ban smoking in public places, including bars, restaurants and night clubs, increase taxes on tobacco products, ban advertising and require better labeling and health warnings.

Hernández said there was a lack of political will previously to ratify the agreement but that dynamic changed over time.

“The key was we got a conscience,” he said. “It got to the point where we had so many people lobbying for passage – the Drug Abuse and Alcoholism Institute (IAFA), the World Health Organization, the Health Ministry and the National Anti-Tobacco Network – we finally understood. Now we're obliged to follow through with the next stage.”

The legislator said the convention still has to survive a review by the Constitutional Court but he didn't foresee any problems.

“A hundred and nine countries signed this convention and if they didn't have any problems, I don't see why we would,” he said.

Western Union deepened its hold in the country yesterday when it announced an expansion of its service sector, effectively doubling the size of its workforce on Costa Rican soil.

Company executives and top government officials attended the ribbon cutting ceremony, held at the company's shiny new facility at Forum II in Santa Ana, west of San José.

Taking a shot at free-trade opponents, Vice President Laura Chinchilla interpreted Western Union's growing presence as proof that private companies have helped develop the country.

“Costa Rica … did not develop by itself, but through a chain of solidarity and collaboration between the government, private companies and local communities,” Chinchilla said.

Ten years ago, Western Union opened its doors with 33 people working in a call center that covered Latin America and the Caribbean. It now employs 600 people and has extended services to the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa.

With the opening of the new Santa Ana office, Western Union hopes to double its workforce to 1,200 people, making it the fifth largest employer in the country's service sector and bringing its overall investment here to ¢4,600 million (about $9 million).

The company provides a variety of services through its local Global Service Center, including software development, technical support, and accounting services in eight different languages.

But most people recognize the company's black and yellow insignia as a money-transfer Mecca.

“Remittances are a large part of who and what we are at Western Union,” said CEO Christina Gold.

In 2007 alone, migrant workers sent home $369 billion – a figure that dwarfs by three times the official aid received by developing countries, she said.

“We see our company as a positive example of the power of globalization and the way pioneering people can use the market to change the world,” said Gold.

The service industry in Costa Rica employs roughly 20,000 people, from architects to financial consultants, according to Gabriela Llobet, general director of the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency.

Relief workers persevered yesterday, making headway to reach residents of some of Costa Rica's hardest hit communities after Tropical Storm Alma drenched the region last week killing at least four people.

The National Emergency Commission (CNE) carved a path to Pérez Zeledón, a Southern Zone canton that had been isolated since Alma swept in from the Pacific Thursday, and brought food and other supplies to the region's inhabitants, the state-run relief agency said in a communiqué yesterday.

CNE said it managed to reach 80 percent of the communities that were cut off.

Many of the more than 1,750 people forced from their flooded homes to take refuge in 45 shelters returned home yesterday. Now only 412 remain in six shelters, the emergency authorities said.

However, the commission said it will maintain its “Red Alert” for Pérez Zeledón, and the cantons of Aguirre and Parrita, both in the central Pacific Puntarenas province, until further relief reaches inhabitants there and more progress is made on the roads and rivers surrounding them.

One main road, the Inter-American Highway South, remains a major concern since motorists and tourists were trapped for two days atop Cerro de la Muerte, its highest point, and later brought to safety.

But the road damage remains severe, according to a separate report yesterday by the Transportion and Public Works Ministry (MOPT). Motorists have been forced to use alternative routes such as the Costanera (Coastal) Highway.

Parts of the Inter-American washed away at Kilometer 114, and workers are racing to fill the gap within a week. From Kilometer 60 to 98, workers are also trying clear out the rubble from subsidence. At Kilometer 117 and 120, an entire lane disappeared.

MOPT warned that along the coastal route traffic has slowed significantly, mainly at the rivers.

But at some rivers, the ministry reported progress. Workers dredged up dirt in three rivers linked to Pérez Zeledón – El General, Buena Vista and San Isidro – to slow the flooding in the communities of Hermosa, Rivas, Hollón, and Gravilias, according to a separate bulletin yesterday by the Transportation and Public Works Ministry (MOPT).

MOPT hired a private company, PROCON, to lift a metal bridge that fell into River Buena Vista and to repair another bridge over El General, which commuters use to go from Palmares de Pérez Zeledón to Las Juntas de Pacuar, the ministry said.

The CNE is waiting for full damage reports from each municipality, while the government on Monday estimated the cost in wrecked bridges, homes and roads to exceed $35 million.

The government declared a state of emergency in almost two dozen of the country's 81 cantons: in the San José province, Acosta, Aserrí, Dota, León Cortés, Pérez Zeledón and Puriscal; in Guanacaste, Bagaces, Cañas, Carrillo, Hojancha, Nicoya, Nandayure and Santa Cruz; and in Puntarenas, Aguirre, Buenos Aires, Corredores, Garabito, Montes de Oro and Parrita.