Art auction
200 Costa Rican and international works, up from $50, 7 p.m., Galería Dau al Set, Los Yoses, from Subaru 200 m south, 125 m east. Info: 2281-2260, 8820-4033.

Escats in concert
Pop ballads, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, http://jazzcafecostarica.com.

Bernardo Quesada in concert
Tico trova, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San José, http://jazzcafecostarica.com.

Tico leaders from across the political spectrum cheered Democratic candidate Barack Obama's victory yesterday after he became the first black president-elect of the United States.

Winning a large majority of Latino voters, Obama captured 349 electoral votes, compared to 162 for Republican candidate John McCain, excluding North Carolina and Missouri, tossups at press time.

“I think Barack Obama's election is huge – huge for the United States and also for the world,” President Oscar Arias, who represents the social democratic National Liberation Party (PLN), said in a recorded statement. “He is new blood. He has some of the idealism of John F. Kennedy. He will no doubt do a great job directing U.S. policy, above all its foreign policy.”

Obama's face plastered the covers of every major Spanish-language newspaper yesterday, and his name was on the lips of Ticos and expats alike. Many cheered his election as a welcome change after eight years of Republican President George W. Bush, who is little liked within the United States and around the world.

Epsy Campbell, president of the left-leaning Citizen Action Party (PAC), said Obama's election was “one of the most emotional events of my political life.”

“He represents the change that the United States needs and that the world was waiting for,” said Campbell, who is of Afro-Caribbean descent. “He broke the glass ceiling for African-Americans and Afro descendents in Latin America and across the world…I thought about all our black ancestors who fought for our people's rights. Barack Obama embodies (that) fight.”

Ana Helena Chacón, a lawmaker for the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), was rooting for Obama, even though her party has historically aligned itself with the Republicans.

“I hope relations with Latin America improve,” she said. “There have been few efforts at cooperation, except in the field of security.”

Even Otto Guevara, leader of the Libertarian Movement (ML) party and a hesitant McCain supporter, saw a silver lining in Tuesday's results.

“McCain's speech was extraordinary,” he said. “He put himself at the service of the new president and (promised) to work together for the good of the United States.”

Citibank finalized its fusion with Banco Cuscatlán and Banco Uno in Costa Rica this week, and the two absorbed banks will now operate under the name Citi.

The merger creates one bank in Costa Rica with a net worth of more than $100 million, and total assets of more than $750 million, the daily La Nación reported.

In addition, Citi now has 500 ATM machines in Costa Rica, 67 branches and 80,000 clients.

Citibank acquired Grupo Financiero Uno in October 2006 and Cuscatlán the following December.

The banks were closed early in the week as the companies completed the merger.

The realities of the Nazi nightmare are quickly spreading through Budapest. Jews wear yellow stars and some of their family members are disappearing. But the Hungarians seem to not yet know the horrific depths of Adolf Hitler's “final solution” – least of all 14-year-old György Köves.

For Köves, the protagonist of the film “Sorstalanság” (“Fateless,” “Campos de Esperanza” in Spanish), Dad has just been sent to work in a labor camp somewhere far away. When Köves, too, is shoved into a train to Auschwitz – then to Buchenwald, then Zeits – the teenager quickly learns what this kind of camp is all about.

Director Lajos Koltai's 2005 film, based on the Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész semi-autobiographical novel, falls somewhere between the tear-jerking darkness of “Schindler's List” and the almost unbearable lightness of “Life Is Beautiful.” But, make no mistake: “Fateless” will drain you, as most Holocaust movies do.

“Campos de Esperanza,” in Hungarian with Spanish subtitles, premieres tomorrow at Cine Magaly in San José.

See Friday's print or pdf edition of The Tico Times for the full review.