San Ramón de Alajuela 165th anniversary
The celebration starts Monday, 5 a.m. with a diana (a parade around town with music performed by a cimarrona band) and firecrackers, and activities through the day. The fiesta will close with dancing at 9 p.m., at the San Ramón Museum. Info: 2447-2178.

Czech and Tico jazz musicians in concert
Under direction of Czech pianist Beata Hlavenková, and featuring Costa Rican drummer Kin Rivera, 8 p.m., Eugene O'Neill Theater, Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center, Barrio Dent.

Soccer quake fundraiser
Soccer match, Barrio México vs. Club Sport Cartaginés, to raise funds for earthquake victims, 7 p.m., Colleya Fonseca Stadium, Guadalupe.

‘Playing, Learning and Having Fun' workshop for kids
Ages 7-11, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Simón Bolivar Zoo, Barrio Amón. Info: 2280-5375.

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

Bernardo Quesada in concert
Costa Rican singer-songwriter, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, 2288-4740, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Western Union has set up a no-fee money transfer service for donations from the United States to the Costa Rican Red Cross to help victims of the Jan. 8 earthquake, which killed at least 23 people and left more than 2,000 others homeless, Western Union and the Red Cross announced Friday.

Donors (in the United States only) can send up to $1,000 through the account called EARTHQUAKERELIEF, CR. In Costa Rica, donors can use a domestic Western Union account called AYUDATERREMOTO, CR, the Red Cross said.

Western Union announced the new relief account along with a $50,000 donation it made to Red Cross through the money transfer company's global poverty-fighting initiative Our World, Our FamilySM.

The Red Cross also announced Friday that donations can be made through its Web site, www.cruzroja.or.cr.

Click here for details on how to donate through Banco de Costa Rica.

Click here for more information on where to donate.

GRANADA, Nicaragua – Sunday's mayoral elections held in the seven mostly indigenous municipalities in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) were held in a relatively calm and orderly manner, despite earlier concerns of vote fraud and possible electoral violence, according to preliminary reports by Nicaraguan electoral authorities Sunday afternoon, before the polls closed.

Roberto Rivas, the controversial president of Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), announced at 3 p.m. that “basically all is well” in the electoral process being carried out in the municipalities of Bonanza, Mulukukú, Prinzapolka, Puerto Cabezas, Rosita, Siuna, and Waspam.

Rivas said the CSE would announce its preliminary vote tally Sunday around 11 p.m., but the final results would not be announced until around 11:30 a.m. Monday. Rivas said that results are slow to come in after the polls close at 6 p.m. because some 80 percent of the voting stations are in very rural areas of the RAAN.

Though there were some early reports of market ballots being discovered at several of the voting stations, Rivas said that domestic electoral observers – including representatives of the Moravian and Catholic Churches – were present at many of the voting stations.

The abstention rate, meanwhile, was expected to be high, with several municipalities reporting that only a quarter of the registered voters had turned out to the polls by noon Sunday.

In a crucial precursor to the 2010 national elections, the two biggest political parties elected local leaders this weekend.

The Citizen Action Party (PAC) elected representatives to the party's National Assembly, which ratifies all major party decisions and chooses candidates for the Legislative Assembly. The assembly will first meet Feb. 7 to choose new party leaders and revise rules.

The National Liberation Party (PLN), less far along in a process that is similar for all parties, elected leaders on a district level. Those leaders will then choose leaders for each canton, who will choose provincial leaders, who will choose representatives to the party's National Assembly.

PLN's four presidential hopefuls visited voting booths today, and one, San José Mayor Johnny Araya, brought cake and Coca-Cola to the party headquarters in La Sabana.

Araya faces a tight race against former Vice President Laura Chinchilla, according to recent polls, while the dark horses include former Public Security Minister Fernando Berrocal and former Culture Minister Carlos Francisco Echeverria. PLN's candidate will be elected in an open primary in early June.

PAC's likely presidential candidates, Epsy Cambell and Ottón Solís, also traveled the country this weekend to meet provincial leaders who were choosing representatives to the National Assembly. Campbell, now the president of PAC, would be Costa Rica's first black president, as well as its first female president.

The party has never held a primary because Solís has been the sole candidate since the party was founded in 2000. The National Assembly will likely set rules for a primary when it meets next month.

Costa Rica's socialized heath system is now offering vaccines to protect children against the bacteria that cause pneumonia, meningitis, sinusitis, middle-ear infections and other illnesses.

Babies born after Sept. 1 and covered under the health system, known as the Caja, will receive four doses of the vaccine – at two months, four months, six months and 15 months. Babies under 2 born before Sept. 1 will be vaccinated during a day-long event in late April, according to a Casa Presidencial press release.

The Caja will spend ¢4.366 million (about $7.9 million) on the vaccine, which normally costs about ¢55,900 ($100) per dose.

The treatment is free for families covered under the Caja, which includes about 88 percent of the population.