Art opening: 'Alquimia'
Cali Rivera's latest work opens at 7 p.m. at Galería Kandinsky, Calle Real Shopping Center, San Pedro, info: 2 234-0478.

'El Cumpleaños de la Infanta' dance show
Tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., National Theater.

Reggae's Julian Marley in concert this weekend
With Tico singer Michael Livingston, reggae, Sat. at 6 p.m., La Marina, Guápiles; Sun. at 1 p.m., Club Capone, El Pueblo, Barrio Tournón, tickets at Tribals Tattoo and Mr. Rasta at Mall San Pedro. Info: 2221-4233.

Early Music Festival
Talk on 18th century Spanish dances and music by María Luisa Morales, UCR Arts School, Room 107, 6 p.m.; tomorrow Grupo Ganassi performs opera “Venid, venid deidades,” Spanish Cultural Center, 7 p.m. Info: 2271-4090, maria.vargascullell@ucr.cr.ac.cr.

French film festival
“Selon Charlie” at 3, 5 and 7 p.m.; “L'homme de sa vie” tomorrow and Sat. at 3 and 5 p.m.; “Transylvania” on Sun. and Mon. at 3 and 5 p.m.; “Le serpent,” June 17 and 18 at 3, 5 and 7 p.m., Variedades Theater.

Workers reopened Costa Rica's Inter-American Highway South yesterday morning, but only for daytime traffic and just one lane in some sections.

Motorists can use the Inter-American from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The highway was closed from Cerro de la Muerte, its highest point, down to the Southern Zone canton of Pérez Zeledón after Tropical Storm Alma washed chunks of it away late last month.

Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT) spokesman Omar Segura said the areas affected on the Inter-American are between the 77-kilometer and 136-km markers. He also said the Coastal Highway, which has been bottlenecked with traffic during the almost two weeks the Inter-American was closed, has been reinforced and is functioning normally.

Workers reinforced the rickety Parrita and Paquita bridges with stainless steel plates.

The International Development Bank will donate $200,000 to help the country recover from Alma, the first tropical storm of the season, the bank's Costa Rica representative, Fernando Quevedo, told reporters yesterday.

Red Cross spokesman Freddy Romano said the agency has ceased Alma-related emergency operations. He said the Red Cross is asking people to step up their donations because they are running low after responding to Alma.

The National Emergency Commission has reduced the alert levels for affected communities from red to green, its lowest warning. The agency announced the country is facing another tropical depression, which it is monitoring closely in the hopes it won't morph into another tropical storm.

“In spite of the calm that is slowly returning to communities in the south, the (commission) is not lowering its guard and is maintaining an intense response operation in the cantons where Alma left a profound fingerprint,” states a press release.

Costa Rica's Arenal Volcano spewed a cloud of ash and an avalanche of incandescent rock Tuesday, the Volcanology and Seismology Observatory (OVSICORI) said.

The wind carried ash as close as 4 kilometers from the town of Arenal, Tomás Marino, OVSICORI's volcanology coordinator, told The Tico Times yesterday.

An OVSICORI communiqué said the activity was the second small-scale eruption in the past five days, but experts ruled out the possibility of major explosive activity and said these emissions of volcanic material are normal.

“The activity of recent days is characterized by small (volcanic) flows (and) a series of detachments of material due to the collapse of the lava front at the summit of the volcano,” the communiqué said.

Marino said that observatory workers yesterday were studying the mountain closely and will provide another report tomorrow.

Although Arenal, located in northern Costa Rica about 100 kilometers from San Jose, has been permanently active since a major eruption in 1968, scientists have observed an increase in the amount of material spewed from the volcano since Friday.

OVSICORI experts who have been carrying out flights above the volcano verified that the increased activity continued Tuesday and that a cloud of ash had been carried by the wind as far as 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the crater.

Marino said the spewing did not continue yesterday.

No damage has been reported in towns near Arenal and no inhabitants have been evacuated, although some parts of the national park that surrounds the volcano have been closed and authorities remained on alert.

Hungry for change: Dora María Téllez, left, on Monday greets a sympathizer at her protest against the Nicaraguan government at the Metrocentro in downtown Managua. A former guerrilla leader, Téllez today begins Day 9 of her hunger strike.

Mario López | EFE

MANAGUA – As the popular protest movement grows in the streets against President Daniel Ortega, sparked by the continued hunger strike by legendary guerrilla heroine Dora María Téllez, today entering her ninth day without eating, the Nicaraguan American Chamber of Business (AMCHAM) is adding its voice of dissent to the growing chorus calling on Ortega to step up the presidency and seek a national consensus to stop the spiraling economic and political situation here.

AMCHAM released a statement yesterday denouncing the “critical situation” of Nicaragua due to high petroleum prices and the deterioration of the country's institutional democracy.

In recent weeks, the Ortega government has moved to eliminate minority parties from participating in the upcoming municipal elections, suspended the elections in the Caribbean until January of next year, and started to crack down on civil society – a series of moves that critics claim threaten the country's democracy.

AMCHAM is stressing that action must be taken immediately to prevent the situation from worsening.

“We issue an urgent, clear and energetic call to Nicaragua's political society, especially to the president of the republic, to, in the shortest time possible, convoke an inclusive dialogue with participation from economic, political and social sectors to find a Minimum Agreement for Governability,” the AMCHAM statement reads.

The group also expressed its solidarity with Téllez and its “strong admiration” for the media outlets that are conducting the “valuable work” of defending the principles and values of democracy.

Téllez's hunger strike has spawned a massive outpouring of solidarity from Nicaraguans of all political stripes. During the last week, there have been nightly vigils, concerts, marches and protests against what the group claims are Ortega's efforts to establish a dictatorship in Nicaragua.

The protests, to date, have been mostly peaceful except for an incident several days ago where several masked men in pickup trucks without license plates visited Téllez's protest camp around midnight, shouting for her to die and tearing down several dozen protest signs against Ortega.

Téllez and others were quick to blame the incident on Ortega, who still hasn't acknowledged the strike or the growing street protests.

Tomorrow, see The Nica Times, an eight-page publication of The Tico Times, for the feature story “Is Nicaragua Returning to Dictatorship?”