Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts
At Le Beach Club, Tamarindo. for tickets and information, call Jean-Francois Billon at 8858-2982.

“Arabes y Americanos” Film Festival
“Expulsados 1609,” with roundtable discussion, Feb. 11, 4 p.m., Political Science Faculty, UCR, San Pedro.

Expo Pérez Zeledón
Sports, cultural events, rides, food, souvenirs, Feb. 11-22, Pérez Zeledón, Southern Zone. Info: expopz@gmail.com.

Mule Festival
Feb. 11-22, Parrita, Central Pacific. Info: 2779-5508.

National Avocado Fair
Food made of avocado, contests, rides, comedy show, music, Feb. 11-14, soccer stadium, San Pablo de León Cortés, Los Santos region, Southern Zone. Info: 2544-1680, www.feriadelaguacate.com.

Sasha Campbell in concert
Soul singer, 9 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, 2253-8933, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

A three-week-long NASA topography and land change study in Costa Rica and throughout Central America comes to a close Thursday.

While images won't be ready for a matter of months, Armond Joyce, a NASA retiree living part-time in Costa Rica who has been in close touch with the pilots, said on Wednesday that the mission has “gone very well.”

In Costa Rica this week, the 14-person team has flown over and shot images of 22 square kilometers of forest that includes La Selva Biological Station, north of San José near Sarapiquí, and Sierpe on the southern zone's Osa Peninsula. The images will help scientists gather data for vegetation studies that could determine the carbon storage capacity of the forest in these areas, according to Costa Rican officials. The team has also scanned La Amistad International Park on the Costa Rican-Panamanian border. This information will be used in the creation of 3D maps of the area.

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, NASA's 83-foot Gulfstream III jet flew over Costa Rica's main mountain ranges and gathered images of their volcanoes. Joyce expects these images to illustrate significant land changes because of the continuous volcanic activity.

The data will be gathered from the jet's radar and pre-processed for analysis, a procedure that takes roughly two months. Once analyzed, the information and images will be available to the public. Costa Rican government institutes and public universities also plan to use the new data.

On Wednesday, officials from several government agencies learned how to analyze the data collected by NASA's radar during a workshop sponsored by the U.S. space agency and Costa Rica's Center for High Technology.

During the three weeks, the crew also examined ancient archeological sites in Guatemala and visited the Golfo de Fonseca, which hosts a mangrove forest that extends from Honduras into El Salvador.

The NASA squadron will rest in Costa Rica on Friday and head to Puerto Rico on Saturday.

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NASA Launches Mission to Study Lands

Costa Rican coffee would enter China's market tariff-free as part of a host of deals reached Wednesday at the close of the sixth and final round of the Costa Rica-China Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations, provided the agreement is approved by Costa Rica's Legislative Assembly. The accord is slated to be presented to the assembly in April.

Fifty-eight percent of Costa Rican products already being exported to China, such as certain fruit juices, would begin entering the Asian giant's market without tariffs immediately upon the FTA's approval. Coffee is among a variety of other goods that would begin an incremental 10-year progression toward free-trade, reaching 94 percent of Tico-made goods flowing into China by 2020.

Sugar, an old hallmark of the Costa Rican economy, was left out of the deal despite the best efforts for the Ticos to get it in, Fernando Ocampo, Costa Rica's chief negotiator, told reporters on Wednesday at the San José Palacio in La Uruca, in the northwestern area of the capital.

Microprocessor chips produced by the computer company Intel are Costa Rica's biggest export to China.

China, the world's biggest exporter, offered 99.6 percent of its market up for free trade.

Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said the Costa Rican sectors should be “satisfied” with the outcome of the FTA.

“This agreement is a milestone for Costa Rican commercial policy,” said Ruiz.

However, the Costa Rican Industrial Chamber, a staunch critic throughout the negotiations process, swiftly issued a statement saying the treaty is not satisfactory.

See the Feb. 12 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

The climate of insecurity in Guatemala is forcing women to arm themselves to protect themselves and their families, the Central American nation's state newspaper, Diario de Centroamerica, reported Monday.

The official newspaper said an increasing number of women of different professions are acquiring weapons and registering them with Guatemala's Arms and Munitions Control Office.

Some 9,200 weapons have been registered at that agency in the name of women, representing 4 percent of the total weapons registered.

DIGECAM Assistant Director Guillermo Mejía said it is uncommon for women to visit the weapons regulatory agency. However, they are increasingly showing more interest in carrying a firearm for self-defense.

What is motivating women to arm themselves, the official told the Diario, is the need to feel more secure and protected, because many of the women own businesses and have been the victims of crime.

Many of the female gun owners have received training on how to fire their weapons and others have been shown how to do so by their husbands or sons, Mejía said.

Activist Rosario Escobedo, of the women's organization Sector de Mujeres, said she feels that violence will not be done away with by arming oneself and it is the duty of the authorities to provide security for the public.

But women have been strongly affected in recent years by the climate of insecurity.

Between 2003 and 2008, the murders of women increased in Guatemala by 179 percent, according to a report prepared by the national Ombudsman's Office.

During 2009, 720 women were murdered in Guatemala and another 899 were injured in acts of violence, according to the same report.

Meanwhile, last month 40 women were killed in violent acts.

Guatemalan authorities blame gangs and other organized-crime elements for much of the violence in this Central American country of roughly 13 million people, which recorded 6,475 homicides last year, an average of 18 murders per day.

By comparison, 7,724 people were slain last year in neighboring Mexico, a nation of more than 100 million where rival drug cartels are waging war with each other and the security forces.

All but 4 percent of Guatemalan murders go unpunished, according to the U.N.-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.