9th Palmares Piano Camp
Kids 9 and up, must study piano, have three works ready to perform, July 15-18, register through June 30, Etapa Básica de Música, Palmares, Alajuela. Info: 2453-6444.

‘Theater at Noon'
Concert by Grupo Musical Experimental Universitario, June 30, noon, National Theater, Avenida Ctrl./2, Calle 3/5.

Bob Marley tribute
By Kingo Lover, part of Mundoloco series, Jazz Café, Escazú, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Representatives of 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries descended upon Nicaragua Monday to express their solidarity with ousted Honduran President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, and to reaffirm their commitment to supporting his return to power following Sunday's military coup.

What started out as a scheduled meeting of the presidents of the Central American Integration System (SICA) turned into what almost seemed a three-ring circus with the inclusion of the seven socialist leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and representatives of the hemispheric Grupo de Río.

Attending the meeting, in addition to the presidents of Central America, were Cuban President Raúl Castro, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Mexico's Felipe Calderón and the Dominican Republic's Leonel Fernández, in addition to José Miguel Insulza, president of the Organization of American States (OAS), among others.

In the names of SICA, ALBA and the CA-4, the presidents emitted a flurry of resolutions backing Zelaya and implementing a series of political and economic sanctions on the “de facto” government of Honduras, which none of the countries said they would recognize.

The countries of ALBA announced they are recalling their ambassadors to Honduras in protest of the coup and will be asking other countries to do the same – a move the Brazilian government echoed Monday night. The Central American leaders of SICA, meanwhile, said they are suspending all types of political, economic, financial and cultural meetings with Honduras until Zelaya is reinstated, and will ask the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) to suspend financial aid to Honduras.

El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala – all of the CA-4 countries excluding Honduras – announced they are freezing all land trade with Honduras for 48 hours.

However, Costa Rica, which this week takes over SICA's rotating presidency from Nicaragua, has no plans to block trade with Honduras, the Costa Rican government said in a statement Monday evening.

The ALBA declaration said the member states will be on “permanent alert” and that the people of Honduras have “the right to insurrection” to overthrow the “usurper” government. And Venezuela's Chávez said Honduras will be cut off from oil aid immediately and thrown out of Petrocaribe.

“We have to do everything to overthrow this government,” Chávez said.

Zelaya is heading today to Washington, D.C., to meet with the OAS.

Insulza, for his part, said the OAS has to do something “as quickly as possible” and said he is willing to offer whatever support Zelaya needs to return to power.

The flu virus that's claimed 311 lives worldwide played a hand in the death of a 35-year-old woman from San José Sunday.

The woman had a severe case of pneumonia, health officials reported, and it was only after she died that the strain was detected.

“We haven't identified any source,” said Daniel Salas, spokesman and doctor at the Health Ministry. “ We are currently investigating where the strain could have come from.”

Costa Rica has 210 confirmed cases and two deaths, according to the latest numbers from the Health Ministry. In mid-May, a 53-year-old man from Heredia, north of San José, died of several health complications, the Influenza A(H1N1) virus among them.

Symptoms are very similar to the normal flu and can range from a mere stuffy nose to a combination of fatigue, high fever and body aches.

According to recent numbers from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 70,893 cases worldwide. The WHO currently considers the situation a pandemic.

Health officials are advising frequent hand washing, among other sanitary measures. They are encouraging anyone who may have been in contact with the virus and who is exhibiting symptoms to visit the closest medical facility.

Two and half years ago, Don Ratliff, executive director of the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology, came to San José to speak at a logistics trade show organized by the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promotion Office (PROCOMER).

During his visit, Ratliff and members of PROCOMER and the Costa Rican Chamber of Industries discussed the idea of bringing a supply chain management and logistics center to Costa Rica.

“We had a number of conversations with people in Costa Rica about how a logistics center could impact trade,” Ratliff said. “We began talking about developing a project here that could potentially be a hub for all of Latin America.”

On Aug. 20, the idea born that weekend will become reality, when the Georgia Tech Trade-Chain Innovation and Productivity Center opens in San José. The center, located in a building shared by PROCOMER and the Chamber of Industries, aims to improve efficiency of foreign trade. The goal of the center will be to research the areas in which trade is slowed and attempt to ameliorate those flaws to improve the process of trading commodities between the United States and Costa Rica.

“Studies show there are trade inefficiencies in Latin American and Costa Rican trade with the U.S.,” Ratliff said.

See the July 3 print or PDF edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.