World Poker Showdown
Daily cash games starting at a $50 buy-in, through Nov. 15, sign-in begins daily at noon, Jazz Casino, Hotel Amapola, Jacó, Puntarenas. Info: 8344-5574, www.worldpokershowdown.com .

Sabinazo
Concert honoring Spanish songwriter Joaquín Sabina, 9:30 p.m., Jam the House of Music, Centro Comercial Las Palomas, 2.5 km west of Multiplaza, Escazú.

9th International Baroque Music Festival
Castella Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, oboist Carlos Ocampo, soprano saxophonist Katia Calderón, flutist Ilda Padilla, performing works by Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, 7:30 p.m., Santa Ana Church.

Soul 2 Flow in concert
Tamela Hedstrom and Dan Robinson, hip hop fusion, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, http://jazzcafecostarica.com .

Tico Jazz Band in concert
10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, http://jazzcafecostarica.com .

Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit Costa Rica this month in his first trip to Latin America, a sign the two nations continue to cozy up since establishing diplomatic ties 17 months ago.

Hu will be in Costa Rica Nov. 17, after attending the G-20 summit in Washington, D.C., and before flying to Cuba and then Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

He and President Oscar Arias, who visited China in October 2007, are scheduled to sign “new bilateral accords,” according to a press release from the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry. Spokesman Miguel Díaz declined to give more details on Hu's agenda or length of stay.

The visit was announced yesterday by Qin Gang, spokesman at China's Foreign Ministry.

The news agency EFE reported that Hu will celebrate the establishment of a Confucius Institute at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) to promote Chinese culture and language here.

In June 2007, Costa Rica became the only Central American country to recognize China, ending a six-decade relationship with Taiwan. China has since showered Costa Rica with gifts, including a $20 million donation for flood victims and the $150 million purchase of low-interest Costa Rican bonds.

A Chinese firm will soon begin construction on a $73 million national stadium in La Sabana Park, on the western edge of San José. The two countries are also exploring a possible free-trade agreement.

Arias came under fire in August for asking the Dalai Lama to postpone a nonofficial visit to Costa Rica because, Arias said, he would be out of the country and unable to greet the exiled Tibetan leader. The Tibetan-Costa Rican Cultural Association accused Arias of uninviting the Dalai Lama to avoid alienating China in anticipation of Hu's visit (TT, Aug. 22).

Prices increased 16.3 percent in the past 12 months, breaking a 10-year inflation record set in September.

Prices for food and nonalcoholic drinks increased by 26.7 percent over the 12 months ending in October, while transportation increased by 20.4 percent, and restaurant food increased by 19.5 percent, according to a monthly report by the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC) released yesterday.

The institute measures inflation using a basket of 292 goods and services. In October, 72 percent of the basket's contents increased in price, while 18 percent decreased and 10 percent stayed the same.

The goods and services that most contributed to an October inflation of 1.04 percent were water, taxi fares, potatoes, tomatoes and the casado, a popular Tico dish that includes rice, meat, beans and salad.

As salaries fail to keep pace with inflation, more Costa Ricans are slipping over the poverty line. An INEC study released late last month showed that 17.7 percent of households were poor in July 2007, up from 16.7 percent 12 months earlier.

During those 12 months, real salaries grew just 0.3 percent for employees of private firms, and they shrunk by 1.2 percent for domestic servants. State employees saw their real wages grow by 4 percent.

Despite the government's refusal to accredit Etica y Transparencia to officially observe Nicaragua's Sunday municipal elections, the group will send 30,000 electoral observers to scrutinize the electoral process, nearly tripling its amount of observers in the 2006 presidential elections.

“Accreditation is not an obstacle, quite the contrary,” said Roberto Courtney, director of the civic group. The extensive vote-counting network that monitored the 1988 referendum that toppled Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from power wasn't officially accredited either, he noted.

Despite repeated requests, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) has not accredited the 12-year-old Etica y Transparencia to officially observe the elections.  CSE President Roberto Rivas has publicly chided Etica y Transparencia for allegedly participating in opposition protests, which Courtney denies.

The CSE did, however, accredit two organizations: the Electoral Council of Latin American Experts (CEELA), and a group of 1,000 mostly student volunteers called the Foundation Shaping the Nicaraguan Future (Forfunic), according to a CSE spokesperson.

Courtney says Etica y Transparencia will have more than enough volunteers to cover the 12,000 voting centers in all of Nicaragua's municipalities, with the exception of municipalities in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, where elections were suspended until January.

Courtney called for peaceful elections on the heels of clashes between groups of opposing protestors in recent weeks.

“There will be no problems if the elections are carried out calmly,” he told The Nica Times.