Artistic Gymnastics Gala
With the participation of more than 130 children and teens of the Líder Club Gimnástico (Curridabat), 6:30 p.m., at Colegio de Abogados Gymnasium, Zapote. Info: 8842-7087.

Manuel Obregón in concert
“Piano Malango,” 7 p.m., at Kiosko SJO, Barrio Amón, Calle 7, Avenida 11. Info: 2233-8775.

Catfight, Liverpool, Mustang 65 and SD in concert
Rock, 9:30 p.m., El Observatorio, opposite Cine Magaly, Barrio La California, info: 2223-0725.

Tico Jazz Band in concert
Big band jazz, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, info: 2288-4740, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

La Liga Deportiva Alajuelense will host Deportivo Saprissa tonight in the first of the two-part Winter Tournament final in another chapter of the Costa Rican soccer classic between the country's two most dominant club teams.

La Liga, led by the Argentine Marcelo Hugo Herrera, will look to make the most of the home field advantage and to shed once and for all the albatross of 20 consecutive games against Saprissa without a win.

On the other side of the turf, Head Coach Jeaustin Campos is focused on a fifth consecutive title for Saprissa, the 28th in the club's history, and will be playing all his best players.

The “Purple Monster” will hope to close the matter on Saturday when it hosts La Liga at Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in Tibás in northern San José in the second leg of the two-part finals.

La Liga is riding a high after qualifying for the final with a come-from-behind in the semifinal against San Carlos, while the morados, who led throughout much of the tournament, glided into the final after beating Pérez Zeledón in their semifinal.

Saprissa is the most successful team in the league's history. Alajuela, with 24 titles, is the second most victorious squad.

The match will kick off at 8 p.m. at the Alejandro Morera Soto Stadium in Alajuela, northwest of the capital.

The European Union has suspended $32 million in budget support to Nicaragua this year to protest the Daniel Ortega government's failure to comply with the EU's governability, transparency and human rights requirements.

The European Commission's spokesman in Nicaragua, Pedro Mucciolo told The Nica Times yesterday the EU will release only about half the $68.2 million in aid it planned on providing for Nicaragua's government budget this year.

The EU's aid suspension comes after the U.S. government froze $64 million in aid under its Millennium Challenge Account in Nicaragua because of the impoverished country's deteriorating democratic freedoms.

U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan told reporters yesterday that Nicaragua has three months to find a solution to its electoral crisis, in which the polarized country has come to an institutional standstill after allegations that the Nov. 9 mayoral elections were rigged by the ruling Sandinistas. Otherwise, Nicaragua's frozen Millennium Challenge aid will be cut for good. The United States has backed opposition calls for a vote recount with international observers.

“Nicaraguans are the ones who have to find a solution to this problem,” Callahan said.

President Oscar Arias is creating a new ministerial post to manage public relations for his administration, as a weakening economy threatens to erode his popularity.

Mayí Antillón, a National Liberation Party (PLN) lawmaker and business leader, will become communications minister in mid-January.

“2009 will be a complicated year,” she said. “The government will take measures to soften the effects of the (financial crisis), and we need to communicate those measures effectively to the press and to Costa Ricans. ”

Rising crime and a souring economy caused Arias' approval ratings to fall to 44 percent in October from 64 percent in January, according to the polling firm CID-Gallup. Some 29 percent of those polled for the October survey said that the Arias administration has poorly managed the economy, up from 17 percent in January.

The economy has become a liability for Arias, who has prided himself on spearheading social programs that reduced poverty and unemployment during the first half of his administration. A global financial crisis will erode those social gains in the coming months, analysts say.

Arias, who enjoyed a honeymoon with the national press early in his presidency, has expressed frustration with negative coverage this year.

“Hiding good news or questioning it to the point of making it look like bad news is not just unethical, it is one of the worst traps the media can fall into, ” he wr ote in a February editorial in the daily La Nación.

Antillón has long been close to the Arias administration. She championed the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) as PLN faction head and president of the International Affairs Committee. Before her election to the Legislative Assembly in 2006, she was executive director of the Chamber of Industries.

She will be replaced by Víctor Láscarez, a former Costa Rican consul to Nicaragua, who was on the PLN list for the 2006 elections and is next in line to take a departing lawmaker's seat. Arias fired Láscarez from his consulate post in April on charges that he smuggled foreigners into Costa Rica in a diplomatic car last year.