Piano recital
Instituto Superior de Artes, 8 p.m., National Theater, Avenida 2, Calle 3/5. Info: 2221-9417.

‘Clavo D'Olor'
Theater production, Spanish Cultural Center, Avenida 13, Calle 31, 7 p.m. Info: 2257-2919, ext. 118.

On the eve of his departure, Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Minister Roberto Dobles defended his administration amid accusations of nepotism, fraud and corruption to the Legislative Assembly on Monday.

An investigation by Channel 7 TV News revealed last week that Dobles had awarded a mining concession in 2006 to a corporation owned by family members. On Friday, President Oscar Arias issued a statement saying he had accepted Dobles' resignation and that his actions “were in total compliance with the law and existing procedures.”

Dobles said that, while he had done nothing wrong, he was resigning to avoid “hindering” the president's agenda, which includes getting a series of laws passed in the Legislative Assembly, where opposition lawmakers were clamoring for Dobles' head.

At the start of more than three hours of often aggressive questioning from lawmakers, Dobles detailed the bureaucratic process the mining concession followed since the request was submitted in 2001, five years before President Arias assumed power and named Dobles to head the Environment, Energy and Telecommunication Ministry (MINAET), the ministry that oversees and approves all mining concessions in Costa Rica.

“I have not broken any law, as these documents show,” Dobles said, referring to an internal audit and legal study by MINAET that concluded he did not intervene in any way in the application and approval process, and that it was proper and legal for Dobles to sign the concession.

Dobles also cited Costa Rica's mining code, which prohibits the president or ministers from awarding concessions to “relatives in the first degree of blood relation.”

The controversial concession authorized a corporation called Agricultura Mecanizada Chapernal S.A. to draw gravel and sand from the Aranjuez River, near the central Pacific coast. Dobles' uncle – who is also President Arias' cousin – is listed as the vice president of the corporation. In his defense, Dobles pointed out that an uncle is not a first-degree relation.

However, according to the report by Channel 7 and information released by the opposition Citizen Action Party (PAC), another corporation called Azucarera El Palmar S.A. holds 100 percent of the shares in Agricultura Mecanizada Chapernal and has closer family ties to the outgoing minister.

Azucarera El Palmar is in turn owned by a four other corporations headed by a series of immediate family members, including Dobles' wife, two brothers and his mother.

According to a statement released by PAC, the five-year concession allows the corporation to extract 96,000 cubic meters of sand and rock which, when sold at today's market price, equals a total of $10 million over the length of the concession.

Roxi, a giraffe weighing 50 kilograms and standing 1.5 meters tall, was born at Costa Rica's Africa Mia animal park, becoming the first of her kind to be born in Central America, the press reported Monday.

“This is a great success for Africa Mia because it's the first time that such a delicate, exotic species is born in Central America. It's great news because everything worked out well,” the park's veterinarian, Tania Pivovarova, told reporters.

Roxi was born on Sunday and is doing well. She is the daughter of Adriana, of the reticulated giraffe subspecies found in the African savanna of Kenya and Ethiopia that can grow to be six meters tall and weigh up to 1,400 km.

Roxi was named for Roxi Blen, the mother of Africa Mía owner Mario Sotela.

Park officials said Roxi could soon have company since another female giraffe, Amapola, is pregnant.

Africa Mia, which opened in 2005, is located in Liberia, a city in the Pacific province of Guanacaste, some 200 km northwest of San José.

The park exhibits African wildlife, including zebras, giraffes, antelope, ostriches and warthogs, as well as local species, such as deer and monkeys.

MADRID – A new book said Latin Americans now have the best image of Spain they've had in 500 years, although feelings toward the so-called “mother country” are not the same in all countries. Colombians and Dominicans are the most Hispanophilic while Guatemalans and Bolivians are the least.

The book, “La Nueva Imagen de España en America Latina ” (The New Image of Spain in Latin America), written by Javier Noya and published by the Elcano Royal Institute, sums up the opinion of Latin Americans from surveys published by this institute from 2003 to 2007.

The study of these polls shows that this is likely the first time in 500 years that Latin Americans' hold an image of Spain in which “the positive side far outweighs the negative.”

Noya said those negative attitudes towards Spain in the past were based on memories of the conquest of the Americas, the exercise of power in a “cruel and greedy” way, the independence movements at the beginning of the 19th century and the commemoration in 1992 of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America.

Things have changed now, the analyst said, and seven out of every 10 Latin Americans have a good opinion of Spain, compared with 12 percent who say they have a bad opinion.

From a global point of view, the best image of Spain is found in the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay, followed by Peru, Ecuador and Chile.

At the other extreme are Guatemala and Bolivia, two countries with large indigenous populations, while somewhat less negative are Paraguay, Chile, Costa Rica and Argentina. Mexico marks the midway point between the two groups.

The overall opinion is that Spanish influence historically has been positive for 61 percent of respondents, above all for Venezuelans, Mexicans and Central Americans, while for 22 percent it has been negative, particularly for Peruvians and Bolivians.

In terms of migration, Mexicans are those who most highly praise the treatment they get in Spain, while Ecuadorians and Bolivians tend to have the most pessimistic feelings on that score.

The countries most interested in Spanish culture are again Colombia and Central American nations, while Chile and Argentina are the least.

Noya lamented that Spain's image has become so “polarized” and that, in general terms, leftist Latin Americans as well as indigenous populations are less and less pro-Spanish.

One of the factors that Noya believes has contributed to improving Spain's image is King Juan Carlos, seen as the most respected among Latin leaders (5.8 percent), followed by Brazilian President Luiz In á cio Lula da Silva (5.7 percent), and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (5.5 percent).