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Collective Meditation and Talk
With yoga and meditation master Dada Mukteshananda, May 19, 6 p.m., Himalaya Product Distributor, Guadalupe, Urbanización Montelimar, 500 m north, 100 m east of court building. Info: 2241-3736, 8880-8087.

Reggae Concert
By Moonlight Dub, reggae, May 19, 9:30 p.m., El Observatorio, Barrio La California, across from Cine Magaly.

Planetarium Activities
“The Traveling Astronomer,” Mon. and Wed., 8:30 a.m.; “Ghosts of the Solar System,” Mon. and Wed., 10:30 a.m.; “Zodiac Constellations,” Tues. and Fri., 8:30 a.m.; “The Sun and the Planets,” Tues. and Fri., 10:30 a.m.; “Celestial Jewels,” Tues. and Thurs., 7:30 p.m.; “The Celestial Zoo,” Thurs., 8:30 and 9:30 a.m., and Sat., 10 a.m.; “Stars: Myths and Legends,” Thurs., 10:30 a.m., all at Planetarium, UCR, San Pedro. Reserve at 2511-6302.

Central America and the European Union (EU) signed a free-trade and cooperation agreement in Madrid, Spain, that slashed tariffs on key exports between the six countries of this region and the 27-member EU bloc.

If the agreement is ratified by Costa Rica's Legislative Assembly, this will be the country's eighth free-trade deal, with number nine – the agreement with China – also awaiting the legislature's approval.

“This is one of the first achievements of this government,” said Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla via video conference from Madrid Tuesday. “ Costa Rica now has access to the biggest markets in the world, including Europe, the U.S. and China.”

The final round of negotiations in Madrid centered on setting satisfactory trading quantities for sugar, cheese, powdered milk, textiles, beef, and bananas, as well as assuring the geographic origin of specific products. During the previous round of talks in Guatemala during the first week of May, disagreements over quotas for these products stalled negotiations. Talks had been in the works since mid-2007.

On Tuesday, Foreign Trade Minister Anabel González said that agreement offers a “very positive balance” for Costa Rica and Central America.

“We were able to strengthen and improve access offered for many products, including bananas, sugar, meat, textiles, tuna and rice, which will bring growth to those markets under secure and foreseeable conditions,” González said. “National products will have preferential access to a market of 500 million consumers with strong purchasing power.”

On the top of Costa Rica's priority list were bananas. The current tariff of €176/metric ton applied to bananas will be reduced in increments to a base tariff of €75/ton over the next 10 years. Costa Rica is a leading global banana exporter.

In terms of the agreements on milk, powdered milk and cheese, which were the most debated products in the previous round of talks, Costa Rica agreed to accept 200 tons of powdered milk annually, while the Central American region will receive 1,900. In terms of cheese, Costa Rica will receive 317 tons a year, with an annual increase of 5 percent. Central America will receive an annual supply of 3,000 tons of European cheese.

“The amounts given to Costa Rica only represent around 10 percent of the total cheese given to Central America,” said Fernando Ocampo, the vice trade minister and one of the deal's chief trade negotiators. “As far as dairy products, the Costa Rican share is significantly less than what is being sent to the other Central American countries.”

See the May 21 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

The Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), located near the Costa Rican Caribbean slope town of Turrialba, was awarded an $800,000 grant on May 4 from the Chicago-based John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The funds are part of a worldwide program to establish Global Masters in Development Practice programs in universities around the world.

One of ten universities that received funding this year to develop such a program, CATIE joins the Global Master's in Development Practice Programs Network, comprised of 20 universities worldwide. In a press release, CATIE said that the research and graduate studies institution was considered favorably due to its "vast experience in tropical agriculture, natural resource management, and sustainable development." According to CATIE, other strong points were having a student body representing the Central American region; its exceptional academic quality; and the infrastructure and planning to ensure the financial sustainability of the program beyond this three-year start-up grant.

The new master's programs go beyond typical development studies programs to focus on multi-dimensional problems such as malnutrition, extreme poverty, climate change, infectious disease control, conservation, and agricultural productivity through an integrated approach that draws on the core disciplines of natural sciences, social sciences, health sciences, and management. Students will develop analytical as well as practical skills through extensive field training, according to the MacArthur Foundation's website.

"Today's global development challenges—from human rights to extreme poverty and climate change—are interconnected," said Barry Lowenkron, MacArthur's Vice President for Global Security and Sustainability. "So the next generation of sustainable development leaders must be able to draw on our best knowledge across multiple fields such as agronomy, health, and the environment."

The establishment of the Global Master's in Development Practice programs was a recommendation of Columbia University's EARTH Institute's study on education for the practice of sustainable development. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has committed over $15 million to establish the master's programs worldwide over the next three years.

According to Joselyne Hoffman of CATIE's public relations office, the institute was awarded a grant from the MacArthur foundation in 2009 to establish a specialization in development practices. CATIE's mission is to reduce rural poverty by promoting competitive yet sustainable agriculture and resource management through higher education, scientific research, and technical extension, according to the regional institute's website.

In total, the program hopes to generate 400 graduates worldwide by 2013, with an average annual enrollment of 800 across the globe.

A recent study by the University of Costa Rica revealed that 43.5 percent of Costa Ricans are eating less healthily than a year ago.

According to the study, Costa Ricans are buying food of a lower quality, at a cheaper price and in lesser quantities.

Experts suspect the poor eating habits have something to do with the economic crisis that seeped into Costa Rica at the beginning of 2009.

“A good percentage of the population of the country makes adjustments in its eating habits in order to adapt to the high cost of living,” said Irma Sandoval, who helped manage the study. “If families make other adaptations in other areas, food occupies the third place in the scale of things that change.”

To respond to the changing food habits, surveyors recommended that the government take action to ensure good nutrition, stimulate local food production and improve price controls on basic foods.

“When we talk about food safety, we are referring to production, availability, and accessibility to ingredients used to produce food,” said Luis Fernando Fernández, who collaborated on the project. “Food safety development is fundamental for the implications it has for the stability of democracy in a nation.”

The study, which was called “Implications of the Crisis on Food Security and Nutrition,” was administered via telephone to more than 800 people over the age of 18.

Also included in the questions was the perception of body weight, to which sixty two percent of interviewees believe they have a good body weight, 30 percent say they feel obese and 37 percent say there is a problem of obesity in their family. Participants in the survey were also asked their perception of food handling in commercial establishments; 76 percent said food is not handled well due to lack of hygienic practices and limited nutritional awareness.