School supplies drive
The Central Pacific Chamber of Commerce is collecting education supplies to help children with limited resources. People can donate backpacks, uniforms, shoes, notebooks, pens, pencils, education materials, teacher supplies or money to buy them. Commercial Pacific Center in front of the Cable Tica office, tel. 2643-2853, e-mail gabrielaariaschacon@gmail.com, christinatruitt@gmail.com.

Inter-Versiones II
Collective art show of engravings, opens Tuesday, Costa Rica Country Club, Escazú. Info: 8381-5903.

Boccalupo in concert
Pop, ballads, Tuesday and Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m., El Observatorio, Barrio La California, opposite Cine Magaly. Info: 2223-0725.

Jazz jam session
Jazz Café Trio and guests, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San José, 2253-8933, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

China and Costa Rica on Monday began their first round of talks on a bilateral free-trade treaty, which they hope to conclude in the first quarter of 2010.

Costa Rica seeks to “improve the conditions of access to the Chinese market, discover new potentials and establish some rules for investment,” Fernando Ocampo, chief negotiator for Costa Rica, said before the first meeting in San José.

The first phase “is to establish a course” for the next six rounds, he said.

Seated at the negotiation table were 18 Chinese representatives and 60 Costa Ricans, who discussed market access, investment, health measures and intellectual property, among other issues.

This is the first time that Costa Rica has negotiated a trade pact with the Asian giant. China already has such accords in place with Chile and Peru.

China is Costa Rica's second-largest trade partner after the United States.

Costa Rica's exports to China totaled $848.2 million in 2007, compared with imports from the Asian nation valued at $763.2 million.

Seventy-four percent of Costa Rica's exports to China consist of electronic circuits, mainly made by U.S.-based multinational Intel, while it imports manufactured goods of all kinds, toys, motorcycles and cotton products.

The second of the scheduled negotiation rounds will be held in April.

Costa Rica and China established diplomatic relations in June 2007, after Costa Rica broke its ties with longtime friend Taiwan, which Beijing considers a rebel Chinese province.

Costa Rica formally accepted a Palestinian ambassador Monday, nearly a year after forging diplomatic ties with what Costa Rica calls the “State of Palestine.”

Riyad H. Mansour, the Palestinian Authority's permanent observer to the United Nations, officially became ambassador to Costa Rica in a ceremony with President Oscar Arias at San José's Casa Presidencial. He will serve as ambassador from New York City, where the U.N. is based.

Costa Rica joins a group of about 100 countries, mostly in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, where the Palestinian Authority has diplomatic representation. The United Nations and the United States do not recognize Palestinian statehood.

Asked the significance of Costa Rica's move, Mansour said, “It means a lot. …This is a principled position, a good position that will open the door for other countries” to follow suit.

See Friday's print or digital edition of The Tico Times for a full interview with the new Palestinian ambassador to Costa Rica.

Various leaders of Nicaragua's indigenous community on the Caribbean coast are accusing the ruling Sandinista Front of trying to steal Sunday's municipal elections in several key municipalities in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, including Puerto Cabezas (Bilwi).

Meanwhile, The Nica Times received unconfirmed reports of “strong bouts” of post-electoral violence last night in the jungle area around Waspam, near the Honduran border.

Following an election day marked by relative calm on Sunday, the situation reportedly became tense Monday afternoon when the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) announced that the Sandinista Front was positioned to win in four of seven municipalities in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN), including the regional capital of Puerto Cabezas.

Osorno “Comandante Blas” Coleman, the Liberal party's candidate for mayor of Puerto Cabezas, told The Nica Times Monday evening by phone that he refused to accept defeat following an election he says was “marred by fraud.”

Coleman claims the Sandinistas bused in some 700 party supporters from different municipalities to vote in Puerto Cabezas, and that some 1,500 military soldiers voted in the elections, even though they weren't from the area.

Similar reports were coming out of the rural border outpost of Waspam, where Coleman, a former guerrilla leader in the 1980s, said his YATAMA NO SANDINISTA group was clashing with Sandinista supporters.

Coleman's nemesis, YATAMA leader Brooklyn Rivera, who allied with the Sandinista Front in the 2006 general elections, is also refusing to recognize the results in Puerto Cabezas. Rivera reportedly held a rally with several hundred Miskito supporters Monday afternoon and told them to “prepare to take action,” according to local press reports.

Read this Friday's Nica Times, a publication of The Tico Times, for more on this story.

Costa Rica's Social Security System reported on Monday that 2008 saw job cuts almost across the board, with construction and industrial sectors hit especially hard, shedding 4,800 and 1,200 posts, respectively – telltale signs the nation's economy is buckling amid the global downturn.

Eric Vargas, strategy manager at financial consulting firm Aldesa, believes Costa Rica has entered a recession.

“Many sectors started to contract a few months ago, such as construction, hotels and retail, and gross domestic product (GDP) seems to be contracting already,” he wrote Monday morning during an online chat with The Tico Times readers.

He continued, “There is no universal definition of recession. Some economists use two consecutive quarters with negative GDP growth as a measure. Second and third quarters of 2008 have negative GDP readings, and IMAE (monthly indicator of economic activity) suggests the economy has been contracting since April.”

For more of Vargas' comments, from tourism to real estate to investment and small businesses, see the chat's full transcript at www.ticotimes.net/chats.htm.