Son de Tikizia in Concert
Salsa, Jan. 15, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro.

Dogandul in Concert
Ska, Jan. 15, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú.

Palmares Fiestas
Jan. 15, Trying the biggest chifrijo (traditional dish made with rice and beans, pork and a tomato salad), 3 p.m.; bullfights, 7 p.m.; cultural show, 7 p.m. Jan. 16, Mountain Bike Race, 9 a.m.; Opening of the soccer championship Palmarín Cup, 10 a.m.; Ranchero Festival with Mexican Singer Lucero, 7 p.m. Jan. 17, salsa concert by Puerto Rican Victor Manuel, noon; bullfights, 3 p.m.

Mountain Bike Race ‘Clásica Palmarín'
Jan. 16, 9 a.m., Palmares.

Cornell University Symphony Band in Concert
Jan. 16, 6 p.m., Unesco High School, Pérez Zeledón. 

Live Music at La Vida Loca
Big Mo and the Blues Devils, blues, Jan. 16, 8 p.m., Bar La Vida Loca, Playas del Coco, Guanacaste, 2670-0181, 2670-1463.

Lecture by Gary Craig
Founder of the high grade therapeutic Young Living Essential Oils, Jan. 17, Panama Marriott Hotel, Panama City (507-210-9200) for more details call Janine at 2289-7524.

Ecological Hike
Guided by Luis Fernando Boza, at Irazú Volcano, Jan. 17, leaving at 6:30 a.m., from the Cartago Bus Stop in San José, for more details call 8306-6354, 2223-3186.

Skating Summer Tournament
Jan. 17, 9 a.m., Skating Court, south-east Sabana Park.

While the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA) technically has been in effect in Costa Rica for more than a year, a piece of it still languishes in the Legislative Assembly and awaiting approval.

That piece, which treats copyright law, is perhaps the most controversial.

It's the section that ignited massive student protests over the ability to copy from textbooks. It pitted rights-holders against certain radio outlets for use of protected material. And, it's the part that has unnerved health officials concerned that the process of copyrighting pharmaceutical products would bankrupt the public health system.

Yet, until the final piece is approved, the United States is delaying market access to sugar. Costa Rican sugar producers will not be able to sell their product in the U.S. unless legislators approve the last part, known as the 14th amendment (see this week's Business story).

The original deadline for approval of the final section was Dec. 31, but government processes and political disagreements pushed discussion into this year.

Independent legislator Evita Arguedas said she hopes it will be approved in March. But, she added, that date might be too optimistic.

“The moment that the Legislative Assembly closed for Christmas break there were 121 motions (relating to this law),” Arguedas said. Each motion must be discussed and voted on in commission and then allowed 45 minutes of debate on the floor of the assembly. “The process in the Legislative Assembly is very extensive,” she said.

Arguedas said another issue stalling passage of the 14th amendment is the fact that legislators are looking to pass a law that is more extensive than the requirements of the agreement.

“For me, it's very important that we finish this final law and that we come to an agreement soon,” she said.

See the Jan. 15 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

A strike in a factory in France is holding up the shipment of 200,000 H1N1 flu vaccines, Costa Rican health officials said Thursday.

The vaccines, which were originally expected in November, are now scheduled to arrive on Jan. 23, according to Health Minister María Luisa Avila. She said the strike began Dec. 15.

Meanwhile two more Costa Ricans died of causes related to the H1N1 flu, and health officials are investigating the presence of the virus in three additional fatalities. In total, the Health Ministry is reporting 1,847 confirmed cases and 49 deaths, since the first cases surfaced in May.

Once the vaccines arrive, they will be distributed to vulnerable populations through local health centers or EBAIS clinics. Medical personnel, pregnant women and the chronically ill will receive top priority.

Foreigners who do not subscribe to the public health system, but exhibit signs of risk, can present a physician's note to a local EBAIS center to petition for a vaccine.

Avila said on Thursday that “at-risk populations are obligated to be vaccinated”, but quickly followed that comment with the fact that this first round “will show a higher demand than there are doses.”

Avila has petitioned for 1.6 million more doses of the French-manufactured Panenza through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), but does not know whether her request will be filled, at least in time for a projected second wave of the pandemic.

Though the vaccines will be distributed for free in Costa Rica, each costs $7.50 and are given via injection.

GUATEMALA CITY – The Spanish jurist who chairs Guatemala's International Commission Against Impunity said Tuesday that prominent attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg planned his own murder.

The May 10, 2009, crime ignited a political scandal in the Central American country, as Rosenberg pointed the finger at President Alvaro Colom in a posthumously released video, but Carlos Castresana this week told a press conference in Guatemala City that the evidence shows the lawyer “decided to put an end to his life.”

“In the investigations we have conducted up to now, we have found no indication of the participation of the president” in the murder, the Spaniard said.

Based on an analysis of cell phone calls, Castresana said, investigators concluded that Rosenberg asked his cousins, businessmen Francisco and Jose Valdes Paiz, to arrange a contract killing without telling them the identity of the intended victim.

The Valdes brothers, in turn, instructed one of their bodyguards, Nelson Wilfredo Santos Estrada, to recruit gunmen to carry out the deed, the jurist said.

Gunmen arrested in September in connection with the crime said they were paid more than $6,000 to kill Rosenberg, who was fatally shot while riding his bicycle in an affluent area of Guatemala City.

Rosenberg's slaying became a political scandal with the appearance days after the murder of a videotape in which the attorney said he feared that President Colom was planning to kill him.

The attorney said his life was at risk because he had evidence of the involvement of the president and his associates in the April 14 slayings of businessman Khalil Musa and his daughter, Marjorie.

Musa, appointed by Colom to the board of the public-private Banrural development bank, was killed for refusing to cover up “illegal, multi-million-dollar transactions being carried out day after day” at the financial institution, Rosenberg said.

Amid a pervasive lack of confidence in the police, the Commission Against Impunity took charge of the investigation.

Rosenberg's murder and the ensuing uproar divided Guatemalans largely along class lines, as the wealthy elite demanded that Colom step down and the country's poor majority stood behind the head of state, who staunchly maintained his innocence.

Eleven people, some of them police officers, are in custody in connection with Rosenberg's murder. The Valdes brothers and Santos remain at large and are rumored to have fled Guatemala.