Art exhibit ‘Luz y Paisaje'
Collective exhibit, through July, Central Bank Museums, underneath the Gold Museum in Plaza de la Cultura, San José.

Son del Pueblo in concert
Salsa, 9:30 p.m., El Observatorio Barrio La California, opposite Cine Magaly. Info: 2223-0725.

Sege in concert
Afrobeat, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, info: 2253-8933, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

MANAGUA –Three Russian navy ships that arrived Friday off Nicaragua's Caribbean coast departed earlier than expected after opposition lawmakers complained that the Constitution requires congressional approval for such a visit.

The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels – carrying a crew of 650 – were received by Moscow's ambassador to Nicaragua, Igor Kondrashev, and Nicaraguan navy commander Adm. Juan Santiago Estrada.

The ships sailed in from Panama, where they had stocked up on provisions after taking part at the beginning of this month in joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy.

The vessels docked nine miles east of El Bluff port in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region. They were planning to stay till Monday but pulled up anchor and departed about midnight Saturday.

Kondrashev and Santiago Estrada told the local press that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega would pay a visit on Saturday but that visit was canceled, ostensibly for bad weather, according to official media.

The Russian ambassador said the fleet was participate in a “friendly” mission in Nicaragua and will provide $200,000 in humanitarian aid to communities in that country's poor Caribbean region.

Hours before the arrival of the Russian ships, however, opposition lawmakers sent a letter to the Russian ambassador demanding the vessels stay in international waters until the constitutionally required congressional approval for the visit could be granted.

“We would greatly appreciate, out of respect for the territorial sovereignty of Nicaragua and the close ties of friendship that unite our peoples, that the indicated military vessels remain in international waters,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

Ortega said Thursday night that he complied with the Constitution in issuing an executive decree – already published in the official gazette –authorizing the Russian ships in Nicaraguan waters.

However, that decree has not been ratified by Congress, as is required by the Constitution, because the legislative body's sessions have been suspended for a month due to a dispute over municipal elections that the opposition says were marred by fraud.

The governing leftist Sandinistas won 105 of the 146 mayoral races in the Nov. 9 balloting.

The Liberal opposition has demanded a recount and even new balloting in some municipalities under the supervision of independent international observers, but election officials have certified the results.

Russia's navy deployment to Nicaragua's close ally, Venezuela, was the first to the Caribbean since the end of the Cold War and came after Moscow expressed its anger over Washington's move to send Navy vessels to Georgia during that country's military conflict with Russia last summer. Nicaragua was the only nation other than Russia to recognize the independence of two Moscow-leaning breakaway provinces of Georgia.

Although Moscow said the early-December joint exercises with Venezuela – governed by socialist Hugo Chavez, a fiery critic of U.S. foreign policy –had nothing to do with “third countries,” they were widely viewed as a challenge to the U.S. influence in Latin America.

As part of the visit to Panama, a Russian warship traversed the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II.

The United States is seeking the extradition of two U.S. citizens arrested last week in Costa Rica in connection with fraud ventures throughout the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Stephen Schultz on Friday became the second detainee, after the Dec. 9 arrest of his alleged co-conspirator Jeffrey Pearson, both of whom U.S. authorities suspect of selling bogus business opportunities to purchasers in U.S. states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Operating out of Costa Rica, Pearson and Schultz purportedly scammed investors across the United States to buy into business opportunities in USA Beverages Inc., Twin Peaks Gourmet Coffee Inc., Cards-R-Us Inc., Premier Cards Inc., The Coffee Man Inc., and Powerbrands Distributing Company, according to a press release on the Justice Department's Web site.

The suspects allegedly used Internet technologies to make it appear they were based in the United States.

“We greatly appreciate the effort and cooperation of Costa Rican authorities in arresting these two defendants,” said Gregory G. Katsas, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Division, according to the press release.

The U.S. Postal Service was also involved in the crackdown.

“The Postal Inspection Service investigated a virtual office in Reno, Nev., and learned that it and the U.S. Mail were being used as part of a international fraud scheme aimed at United States citizens. Our investigation discovered a web of deception that led to Costa Rica. With international cooperation, we have now arrested two of the leaders of this scheme.” said U. S. Postal Inspector in Charge Pete Zegarac, based in Phoenix, Arizona.

The suspects, if convicted in a U.S. court, could face up to 10 years in prison, a possible fine and mandatory restitution for a conspiracy count, and for each mail and wire fraud count, a maximum term of 25 years' imprisonment on each of the mail and wire fraud counts, a possible fine and mandatory restitution.

Read Friday's The Tico Times and upcoming online Daily News for more on this story.

CUATRO MILLAS, Costa Rica – Rosa Castillo is used to yearly flooding in her village Cuatro Millas, but this was the first time the water inside her home reached her knees.

Castillo, who is pregnant with twins and has a young son, stayed with her grandmother in their one-story house for a week, fearing that if they left, their house would get looted.

“It wasn't safe, so I couldn't leave,” Castillo said while waiting to receive provisions from the Costa Rican Red Cross Thursday in the center of this small village in the canton of Matina, one of the hardest hit by the recent flooding in the Caribbean province of Limón.

Castillo's was one of 66 families in the area to receive hygiene and kitchen kits provided with funding by the French Embassy through the Red Cross in ongoing efforts to bring relief to the region.

Cuatro Millas is a small community that was hit particularly hard by the rains at the end of November and beginning of December, which left one man dead and caused an estimated $82 million in infrastructural and agricultural damage.

The French ambassador, a National Emergency Commission official, Red Cross representatives and the mayor of Cuatro Millas each made barely-audible short speeches, standing in front of a pile of mismatched, donated clothes. Residents quieted down to hear the French Ambassador, Fabrice Delloye, speak.

“We aren't here because the press is here,” Delloye said. “We're here because people need dignity. … Hand in hand, we'll get through this.”

The onlookers broke into applause.

The French Embassy donated 50,000 euros, enough to give hygiene and cooking kits to 1,500 families in Limón. The kits contain toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, pots, flashlights, matches, bleach spray, detergent and other necessities.

“It's one of the biggest floods of the past 25 years,” said Milton Chaverri, deputy manager of relief coordination for Costa Rica's Red Cross. “Fifteen hundred kits only resolve a small part of the problem. It's not that the government doesn't want to help, it's that there's a serious lack of resources.”

The United States has donated some $50,000 and provided helicopters to help evacuate trapped residents, while Holland is giving money and expertise to help prevent future floods.

Freddy Roman, spokesman for the Costa Rican Red Cross, said that Tico citizens and businesses have donated about 100 tons of clothes and food since relief efforts began.

Walter Fonseca, the National Emergency Commission's deputy manager of relief efforts, said that in the canton of Matina alone, about 2,000 people were displaced into 25 shelters. Most started returning to their homes last week but often to homes heavily damaged or stripped of necessities.

Fonseca added that about 80 percent of the local population depends on banana plantations for their jobs and that the destruction of many of those farms would lead to unemployment.

The National Banana Corp., an industry organization, reported damage to at least 10,000 hectares of plantations, totaling $30 million in losses.

Emergency officials and Limón residents are grimly facing the rest of the rainy season.

“The rainy season isn't over yet,” Roman said. “But we hope for the best.”

Read The Tico Times print and online editions for photos and more coverage of the aftermath of the recent Limón floods.