In honor of Cultures Day in Costa Rica, The Tico Times will be closed on Monday, Oct. 12.

The classified advertising deadline for the Oct. 16 edition remains the same, Tuesday Oct. 13, at noon. However, the display advertising deadline was Friday.

We will be open for business at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13.

Happy Día de las Culturas!

Proyecto Jirondai and Nagual Trío in concert
Costa Rican indigenous chants, 9 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, next to Banco Popular, San Pedro de Montes de Oca, 2253-8933, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Regional food festival
Celebrating Cultures Day, 10 a.m., Parque Alberto Manuel Brenes, San Ramón, Alajuela.

11th Latin American-Iberian Go Tournament
Open to Go players and spectators, through Oct. 12, Doubletree Resort, Puntarenas, www.ibero2009.go-tico.org.

Five hundred seventeen years ago Monday, Christopher Columbus landed – by mistake – in what would become the Americas.

In the United States, it is known as Columbus Day. In much of Latin America, the day is commemorated with a holiday called Día de la Raza (“Race Day”), symbolizing the meeting of indigenous peoples and Europeans. In Spain, it's called Día de la Hispanidad (“Hispanicity Day”).

In Costa Rica, the name was changed in 1994 to Día de las Culturas, or Cultures Day, because of the racial undertones behind using the word “raza.”

Around the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival – 1992 – historians and anthropologists here began to discuss the meaning of the day. After much lobbying, the Legislative Assembly changed the holiday's name to Cultures Day.

Other countries also have changed the holiday's name. In Venezuela, it is now called Día de la Resistencia Indígena (“Indigenous Resistance Day”).

The feriado, or legal national holiday, will be observed Monday, Oct. 12; banks, schools, government agencies and embassies and many businesses – The Tico Times included – will be closed.

Costa Rica's feriado traditionally falls within the week of the annual Limón Carnival, a colorful festival in the country's Caribbean port city of Limón. However, due to health and sanitation problems, the Health Ministry shut down the carnival for the past two years.

This year's carnival kicked off Thursday but was suspended the next day when health officials found that Limón still had not fixed its problem of a lack of garbage collection and proper waste water disposal systems, according to the daily La Nación. Following further inspections through the weekend, the authorities gave the carnival the green light to go ahead with the festivities.

The Finance Ministry has cut funds from the environmental services payment program for 2010, according to the National Forestry Office (ONF).

The office, which had been promised ¢ 11,219 million for the program for 2010, will only receive ¢7,336 million next year.

The Finance Ministry is expected to use the money from the 35 percent cut in other areas. The Tico Times could not confirm by press time how the money diverted from the program will be spent.

The environmental services payment program is a government subsidy paid to residents who live near forests and waterways to implement conservation practices and plant trees.

In total, the state promised to help fund the protection of 57,600 hectares. After the administrative cuts and quota liquidation, the ONF estimates that the only 23,358 will be protected.

Alfonso Barrantes, executive director of ONF, said the lack of funds could put Costa Rica's 2021 carbon neutrality goal in jeopardy.

“A large part of the forestry that has been planted in the last 15 years due to this program is still growing,” he said. “If there is no support from the state to protect these forests with the environmental services payment (PSA) we put these growing trees at risk of loss. When the state revokes support of the PSA, the impact that the forest will have in sequestering carbon will be much less.”

Since the early 1990s, Costa Rica has boosted the amount of forested land from 21 percent to 51 percent of the country's total land area.

A raid in a drug-riddled area north of San José was conducted by government officials on Wednesday, two days after a 78-year-old man was shot and killed when caught in a drug-related firefight.

The operation involved some 80 officials from the Public Security Ministry, the San José Municipality, the Health Ministry, the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) and the Immigration Police.

Sniffer dogs found marijuana and crack cocaine in some of the half-dozen businesses raided by police, according to Public Security Ministry spokesman Carlos Hidalgo, who said 16 Dominican and Colombian citizens were arrested. He added that a number of illegal weapons were also found.

The Dominicans and Colombians entered the country illegally and had no immigration papers, Hildago said.

The coordinated raid was aimed at combating lawlessness in an area well-known as a haven for crack dealers from the Dominican Republic and Colombia. It came after the murder of knick-knack salesman José Aguilar, who was caught in the crossfire of a shootout between two members of drug gangs.

Asked prior to the raid about the blatant drug trafficking by foreigners in the area only four blocks north of the Banco Nacional in downtown San José, officials said capturing traffickers is problematic as possession of small quantities of drugs is not illegal.

Immigration officials said their hands are tied because they cannot deport alleged criminals until after they are convicted. OIJ officials said the problem falls under the jurisdiction of the Public Security Ministry, which, in turn, said it can't take action without proof.

Hidalgo denied that the murder of Aguilar served as a catalyst for the officials to finally take action, saying that the authorities had made arrests in the area before.