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Speaker's Forum
“Natural Health and Healing,” by Dr. James Howenstine, May 18, 5:30 p.m., Bello Horizonte, Escazú, 2289-6333, samjcr@pobox.com.

Rock Concert
By Parque en el Espacio, May 18, 9:30 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú. Info: 2288-4740.

Theater at Noon
Features “Uno + Uno,” show by Danzay and Escuela Ballet Clásico Ruso, May 18, at 12:10 p.m., National Theater, Av. 2, Ca. 3/5. Info: 2221-5341

Longtime environmental activist and climate change expert Christiana Figueres will assume duties as the United Nations' new climate chief, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced Monday.

She was nominated by former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, who said that her appointment would be “an honor for our country and an intelligent and visionary decision for the UN.”

The daughter of three-time president and Costa Rican legend Jose “Pepe” Figueres, 53-year-old Christiana Figueres made a name for herself in the environmental realm as lead negotiator for Costa Rica at international climate change forums.

She was the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable Development in the Americas (CSDA), a non-profit think thank for climate change policy and capacity building. 

Figueres also served as vice president for Latin America and Caribbean countries on the director's council of the U.N. climate change treaty from 2008 through 2009. In addition, she represented Central America on the executive board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a funding organization established pursuant to the climate change treaty.

She assumes the position at a pivotal time in climate change history, as an increasing number of countries are adopting the issue as a priority but have been unable to come to an agreement over a shared commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

“Ms. Figueres is an international leader on strategies to address global climate change and brings to this position a passion for the issue, deep knowledge of the stakeholders and valuable hands-on experience with the public sector, the nonprofit sector and the private sector,” said the UN president's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, in a press release.

She will replace current climate chief Yvo de Boer of the Netherlands, who steps down July 1, to pursue private endeavors. 

The free-trade agreement between Central America and the European Union (EU) is yet to be finalized, but both sides remain optimistic for a Wednesday close.

In a videoconference on Monday from Madrid, Spain, Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minister Anabel González said that negotiations continue to be complicated but have indeed entered their “final phase.” González and other members of the Costa Rican contingent, which includes Chief Negotiator Roberto Echandi and Agriculture Minister Gloria Abrahams, arrived in Madrid last Thursday with hopes of completing the talks by Monday. After negotiations that lasted long into the night on Saturday and Sunday, González said she's hopeful negotiations can be concluded by Wednesday morning.

“We have worked very hard these four days in defense of Costa Rican and Central American interests,” she said. “We are finally beginning to glimpse of some alternatives that will grant us the necessary balance to conclude the process.”

On Monday morning, both sides agreed on the issue of geographic origin of specific products, ensuring that all products traded are attributed to their country or origin. In this area, agreed-upon products included Gorgonzola, feta, Roquefort and Manchego cheese, as well as Irish crème cognac, Scotch whiskey and champagne.

The final days of trade negotiations are expected to address the contentious issues of cheese, powdered milk, bananas and textiles. In the last round of negotiations held in Guatemala during the first week of May, neither side was able to agree on the tariffs and quantities of powdered milk to be included in the pact (TT May 14, 2010).

Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla, who arrived in Madrid on Sunday, also sat in on the trade talks. On Monday, Chinchilla stepped out of the negotiation room to participate in the opening of the EU and Latin America summit being held in Madrid, where she spoke to the assembly. The signing of the association agreement between the two regions was targeted to coincide with the two-day summit.

The offices at Morpho Animation Studio, in Guadeloupe, east of San José, are lined with figurines of superheroes like Batman and the Transformers. Posters referencing the Japanese animation style “anime” are plastered on the walls. During lunch breaks, the crew watches animated movies.

But these are not the typical comic book nerds. Morpho is made up of animators, programmers and writers leading the way for Costa Rica's budding animation industry.

Procomer, the foreign trade promotion agency, realized the industry's potential for growth in Costa Rica, and decided to help animation studios in Costa Rica with their finances, logistics and in producing materials for promoting their businesses.

“It's hard to go to a bank and say, ‘hey, I need money to do cartoons,'” said Gustavo Madrigal, Morpho CEO. “It's not normal or usual in Costa Rica.”

Now Procomer will emphasize Costa Rica's bright future with animation both here and abroad. But it'll be Morpho and the several other animation studios around Costa Rica that will make that future a reality. Morpho is currently working on children's animated television shows to pitch to American distributors.

The animation company is the first to receive assistance from Procomer, and in July, Morpho will have a booth at an annual animation exposition in Los Angeles, due to the help of the agency. Madrigal said the greatest benefit of Procomer's assistance is it permits Morpho to focus on production instead of dedicating large quantities of time to business matters.

In addition to the television series, the company has done animations advertising companies such as Subway, Rayovac and Sony in Costa Rica. Meanwhile, all the major animation studios in Costa Rica are working together on the country's first feature-length animated film. Morpho has already received praised for its animation from renowned studios like Nickelodeon and Pixar.

When there's any down time, the animators spend it mixing business with pleasure – by studying cartooning from all over the world.

“We like to take a look at animation from any country,” Madrigal said. “And try to mix it with our own ways of seeing things.”