Fiestas de Palmares all weekend
Concerts, food, crafts, rides. Friday, carnival, 5:30 p.m.; fireworks, 9 p.m.; Los Pericos in concert, 9 p.m. Saturday, athletic contest, 3 p.m.; Ranchero Festival, featuring Mexican singer Ana Bárbara, 7 p.m.; Calle 13 in concert, 9 p.m. Sunday, Calle 13 in concert, noon; bullfight, 3 p.m.; Tico-style bullfight, 7 p.m. Monday, bullfight, 3 p.m.; Tico-style bullfight, 7 p.m.; fireworks, 9 p.m., all in Palmares, Alajuela, www.fiestaspalmares.com. 

Poetry Day in honor of Jorge Debravo
Featuring poets Elliette Ramírez, Valeria Varas, Ana Zelaya and more, 4-6 p.m., Café Latino, top of Librería Lehman, Plaza de la Cultura, San José. 

Trova festival
9 p.m., Latino Jazz Café, Barrio La California, www.latinorockcafe.com.

Burns Supper
Haggis, dinner buffet, wine and whisky, dancing, live Celtic music by Peregrino Gris, 7 p.m., Costa Rica Country Club, Escazú, Ian Young at 2282-4717, Scott Simpson at 2258-2025.

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

Malpaís in concert
Trova, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, 2288-4740, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Caricaco Music Festival
Featuring Kurt Dyer, Jippo, Tropa 56, Jan. 31, 3-11 p.m., at Tierra Magnifica, Nosara, Guanacaste, www.tierramagnifica.com.

40th anniversary of relationship between San José and Okayama
Featuring martial arts, origami, music, arts, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., San Francisco de Dos Ríos Park.

The Leatherbacks in concert
Blues, 8 p.m., at La Vida Loca, Playas del Coco. Info: 670-0181.

Magaly Gutiérrez and Allan Aguilar in concert
Pop, ballads, 9;30 p.m., El Observatorio, Barrio La California, opposite Cine Magaly, 2223-0725.

Super Bowl party
10-11 a.m., Bar La Antigua, Hotel Costa Rica Marriott. 

Joe Anello Quartet in concert
Jazz, noon, Vista del Valle Inn, Rosario de Naranjo, Alajuela, 2450-0800. 

Motocross fundraiser
To support earthquake victims, race could provide up to 10 provisional houses for them, 10 a.m., Pista Olla, near Sabanilla.

Concert fundraiser
To help build new schools, featuring Humberto Vargas, Acusticracia, Malpaís, Grupo Octavo and Grupo Caribe, 9 a.m., Fraijanes soccer field.

Two prominent companies in Costa Rica, publisher Grupo Nación and pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme, announced department cutbacks and layoffs this week.

The announcements came amid reports this week that as many as 2.4 million Latin Americans could lose their jobs this year in the wake of the global economic downturn, ending a five-year rally of declining unemployment, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Tuesday.

Merck Sharp & Dohme will close its packaging plant in the western San José district of Pavas at the end of 2009, making about 104 employees expendable, according to company spokeswoman Irene Arguedas. However, Arguedas stressed that the scheduled closure is “an unfortunate coincidence,” not a consequence of the global financial crisis.

Grupo Nación, which publishes the newspapers La Nación, Al Día, La Teja and Vuelta en U, announced that the restructuring was the result of reduction in advertising. The publisher will lay off 25 people, cut budgets in all areas of production by 15 percent, and eliminate Vuelta en U's print product, turning it into an online-only newspaper, management said in Thursday's La Nación.

Another sign of recession, the construction sector has reported 15,000 job losses, according to TV channel 7.

“The employment crisis has arrived in the region,” ILO's regional director for Latin America Jean Maninat said in Lima, Peru. “After five consecutive years of unemployment, until 2008, the rate will go back up in 2009.”

The 6.2 magnitude earthquake that recently devastated the northeastern periphery of the metropolitan area, killing up to 30 people, brought to mind a troubling possibility:

Had a similar quake occurred in the Central Valley, the death and destruction would have been much greater, according to geologists, engineers and even political leaders.

“If (the earthquake) had been in an important city, in an urban area, we wouldn't be talking about a few victims but rather hundreds, if not thousands,” President Oscar Arias said.

More than half the country's population, hospital beds and grade school students are in the greater metropolitan area, a 1,778-square-kilometer area that stretches roughly from Cartago in the east to Alajuela in the west, and from Moravia in the north to Aserrí in the south.

“A high-intensity earthquake here would be a real disaster,” said Andres Calvo, a national program officer for the Pan-American Health Organization. “We have a long way to go before we are able to withstand a 6.2 earthquake here.”

The last major quake to hit the Central Valley occurred in 1910 in Cartago, the old colonial capital east of San José. The quake virtually destroyed the city, killed up to 1,000 people and injured thousands.

Some scientists say that could happen again. Of Costa Rica's 150 potentially active faults, about a third are located in the greater metropolitan area, according to Guillermo Alvarado at the Costa Rican Electricity Institute.

A strong quake in the Central Valley would be more devastating today than in 1910 because population density is much higher, said Walter Montero, a UCR geologist.

See this week's print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

Tico chefs will start polishing up their chops for “Maestro culinario,” a gourmet cooking contest, which organizers officially launched Wednesday.

Wannabe contestants can sign up for the event at www.maestroculinario.cr through March 31.

Coordinated by French chef Vincent Boutinaud, the contest will include an event in which contestants have to cook the best dish using such compulsory ingredients as steak, heart of palm and peach palm, known to Ticos as pejibaye.

May and June will see finals in the northwest province of Guanacaste and San José respectively, while the grand finale cook-off will take place Aug. 24 and 25 at Hotel Ramada Plaza Herradura, in Heredia, north of San José.

Organized by the Costa Rican Tourism Board, the event includes sponsorship by gourmet import company Delika, as well as Café Britt and Ramada.