“Urban Epicenter: Hip-hop and Arts for Peace”
Concerts, poetry, dance, exhibits, graffiti, workshops, Jan. 25-29, Children's Museum.

Last day of Palmares Festival
Tico bullfights, 3 and 7 p.m.; fireworks, 9 p.m., www.fiestaspalmares.com.

“Vacaciones Felices” Urban Camps
Includes snacks and lunch, acting techniques, puppet-making and puppeteering, traditional games, science workshops and more, Jan. 25-29, 7:30 a.m.-noon (ages 3-6); 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. (ages 6-13), Children's Museum, north end of Ca. 4. Info: 2258-4929, ext. 125 or 126, educacion@museocr.org.

National Museum Summer Workshops
Making a Pre-Columbian Vase, all ages, Jan. 25, 9 a.m.-noon, bring medium-size bag and snack; Pre-Columbian Gold, ages 8-10, Jan. 25, 1-3 p.m. at National Museum, Ca. 17, Av. Ctrl./2. Info: 2257-1433, www.museocostarica.go.cr.

Canine First Aid
Jan. 25, 6-9 p.m., and Jan. 28, 9 a.m.-noon. Register at cursos@petsymas.com, 2283-0446.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – After weeks of speculation and rumors that Channel 8 TV, Telenica, has been purchased by President Daniel Ortega's Sandinista Front for $10 million, Nicaragua's leading journalist, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, announced Sunday that he will no longer be a part of the government-controlled station.

Chamorro, a leading critic of Ortega and son of martyred newspaper publisher Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who was gunned down in 1978 for criticizing the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, said he refuses to be Ortega's accomplice in any way.

“Today I ratify my position in front of Nicaraguan society that I don't want to be a partner or collaborator with Mr. Ortega, either directly or indirectly, in any of his economic or political businesses that seek to help him whitewash his authoritarian image,” Chamorro told the cameras, during what was to be his last show of “Esta Semana” (This Week), Nicaragua's most-respected and viewed weekly television news program.

The award-winning news program, which started airing in 1994 on Channel 2 TV, has been airing on Channel 8 since 2005. Esta Semana has become a weekly institution in the homes of thousands of Nicaraguans every Sunday evening.

Chamorro's nightly news talk show, “Esta Noche” (Tonight), began airing on Channel 8 in 2006.

Combined, the two programs helped set the pace for other news outlets, influence national debate and expose corruption and fraud.

“As the most influential journalist in Nicaragua, Chamorro's programs are vital for the debate of issues of public interest. Therefore, not having that space for discussing issues that affect the daily lives of many Nicaraguans will have a large impact on freedom of expression in the country…. Nicaraguan democracy will suffer a blow,” Carlos Lauria, senior Americas program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, told The Nica Times in an e-mail.

Chamorro said some of his viewers urged him to stay on Channel 8 after Sandinista media envoy Alberto Mora allegedly had told him his existing contract would be honored under the new Ortega ownership. But Chamorro said his decision is one of principle, and he can't be part of any manipulation by Ortega to clean his image.

“No one is more interested in my staying on at this channel than Ortega himself,” Chomorro said. “The continuance of the programs Esta Semana and Esta Noche would validate his history of abuses against the freedom of expression during his presidency. Even worse, he wants to make us accomplices in his aggressive policies towards other journalists and media; my continuance at this channel would create the image of tolerance that the regime has never had nor will ever have toward independent media in this country.”

As a result, Carlos Fernando Chamorro says he is signing off in order to honor his mother, former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, and the memory of his father. At the moment, he said, there are no other offers from other TV channels to pick up his shows.

“In the meantime, I have profound faith that Nicaragua will change irreversibly once everyone starts to make decisions based on principled ethics,” Chamorro said.

See the Jan. 29 print or digital edition of The Nica Times, a Nicaragua-based publication of The Tico Times, for more on this story.

This week Costa Rica is set to unveil a long-awaited highway from San José to Caldera, which will cut the usual two-hour journey from the capital city to that central Pacific town down to as little as 45 minutes.

Planning for the highway began more than 30 years ago. Motorists can begin using it Wednesday, according to the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT). The toll will be ₡ 2,000 ($3.58) total each way for cars.

However, MOPT Minister Marco Vargas said last week that he will not open the toll booth in Ciudad Colón unless authorities find it necessary. The statement came at a time in which drivers in Santa Ana and Ciudad Colón have objected to the ₡ 160 ($0.29) toll to travel between the two towns. The road authorities will increase the tolls at other booths to make up the revenue, according to MOPT.

The route cuts through mountain sides and includes 14 new bridges, unlike the current tortuous routes that climb steep mountainsides and weave around sharp bends.

The project was initially estimated to cost $100 million, but, after construction began, the price tag rose to more than $229 million.

The private company Autopistas del Sol will maintain and operate the highway under the concession granted by MOPT.

See the Jan. 22 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

MONTEZUMA, Costa Rica – Eve Ingalls has spent the past few days making a hammock. But it doesn't looks very comfortable. She didn't intend it to be.

Using articles of trash gathered from the beaches of Montezuma and Playa Grande, Ingalls has lined the hammock with rows of forgotten sandals, discarded water bottles and worn plastic oil quarts that have come to rest on the rocky beaches of the Nicoya Peninsula, which juts out into the Pacific Ocean from Costa Rica's northwestern corner. Ingalls, as well as 18 other artists from around the world, is participating in the 10th annual “Chunches de Mar” festival in Montezuma, which means “things of the sea.”

For the better part of January, the artists have set up a campsite in a forest north of Montezuma. There, they sleep in tents, shower outside in a stall built from driftwood and eat candlelight dinners. They spend most of their days collecting waste that has washed ashore and transforming the waste into works of art.

“What's really interesting to see is that every artist here has taken things from the same beach and created something completely different with it,” said Joanna Platt, a contributing artist in the festival.

Platt is creating piece that symbolizes a sense of disappointment with the mounds of waste that pollutes the local beaches, a common motif in the festival. Using chards of black plastic and rubber collected on the beach, Platt spends her days whittling the waste to create a black branch and leaves that she intends to attach to one of the many almond trees in the forest.

“The black sort of represents the death of nature that is created by all the waste,” Platt said.

Platt and the other artists will present their finished pieces at the Chunches de Mar finale scheduled for Jan. 30 in Montezuma.

The Chunches festival also incorporates the community of Montezuma, as each weekend groups of 20-25 children create their own projects from trash. On Saturday, 21 students spent the morning collecting plastic water bottles from the beach. They then used the bottles, an empty toilet paper roll and two small pieces of mirrors to create kaleidoscopes out of the collected waste.

“We had lots of fun making the kaleidoscopes,” said Aarón Henkel, a boisterous 10-year-old who took part in the Chunches weekend program. “It's fun to pick up the trash and make something with it…. Of everybody's projects, I think mine was the best one.”

On Feb. 8, the work created by artists during Chunches de Mar will be on display at the National Gallery in the Children's Museum in San José. The pieces will remain on exhibit until Feb. 28.

See the Jan. 29 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.