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Speaker's Forum
Presentation of award-winning film “Fuel,” Aug. 10, 5:30 p.m., Escazú. Reserve at 2289-6333, samjcr@pobox.com.

2nd Conference on Guanacaste Culture
Aug. 26-28, EARTH University, La Flor campus, Liberia, Guanacaste; register by Aug. 10. Info: 2665-2996 congresoculturaguanacaste@gmail.com.

Baden-Wuërttemberg Youth Band in Concert
From Germany, Aug. 10, 7 p.m., cathedral, Alajuela. Info: 2283-5027.

Credomatic Music Festival
Features free concert by Kirill Gliadkovsky ( Russia ), organ, Aug. 10, 8 p.m., Don Bosco Church, San José. 

The Billfish Foundation sent a formal letter on Sunday to Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, urging her to investigate recent attacks on sportfishing vessels in Costa Rican waters.

The letter comes one week after crew members aboard the Silver Rod O – a U.S.-based sportfishing boat owned by Gary Carter, a member of the nonprofit The Billfish Foundation – reported being assaulted with incendiary devices by a Venezuelan tuna purse seiner named La Rosa Mística.

The alleged attack occurred off the coast of the Nicoya Peninsula, in northwestern Costa Rica.

“We are respectfully asking that your administration immediately initiate an investigation into this incident and take appropriate action against the captain and owners of La Rosa Mística, ” the letter stated. “We fear that … continued such actions will ultimately lead to injury or death at sea.”

On Aug. 1, guests aboard the Silver Rod O were angling for billfish near a school of spinner dolphins and yellowfin tuna when a helicopter from La Rosa Mística allegedly began to circle the boat and dropped several explosives into the water. Some of the explosives landed within 50 meters of the Silver Rod O while La Rosa Mística charged toward the sportfishermen, the letter said.

“It was threatening,” Carter said. “They were trying to either encircle us into their net or to plow us into the sea unless we abandoned the school of dolphin.”

Luis Dobles, executive president of the Costa Rican Fisheries Institute (Incopesca), told The Tico Times the organization is considering filing a formal complaint against the Venezuelan ship for harassment and use of explosives devices.

Costa Rica's Fishing and Aquaculture Law prohibits the use of any type of explosive in the country's waters. Nevertheless, reports of commercial fishing vessels using explosives to stun fish are not uncommon.

Since 2008, Incopesca has filed three formal complaints for similar attacks.

As of Monday afternoon, The Billfish Foundation had not received a response from the Chinchilla administration.

In a country where the cost of living is increasingly outpacing salaries, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla is undertaking an effort to ensure that everyone receives the minimum wage.

Currently, the minimum wage is ₡ 7,200 ($14) per day for an unskilled worker and $921 per month (or about $30 a day) for a worker with a bachelor's degree.

However, benefits, including mandatory contributions to the Caja, can double workers' base salaries, often putting a strain on small businesses.

The minimum wage was raised on July 27 by 3.41 percent, affecting some 1.5 million workers.

According to the University of Costa Rica's Economic Science Research Institute, 30 percent of Costa Rica's private-sector employees currently do not receive minimum wage (TT, Aug. 6), a statistic Chinchilla would like to change.

“The (campaign) we launch today – a universal call for compliance with the minimum wage – is a jumping-off point for a nationwide policy that also addresses … the educational, social and economic components of this complex problem,” Chinchilla said during a Monday morning press conference.

Calling underpayment of wages “one of the most distressing social problems facing Costa Rican families,” she said she will pursue a series of actions to ensure that every worker receives a salary above their respective minimum wage.

For a full list of minimum wages, click here.

The second round of negotiations for a single Mexico-Central America Free Trade Agreement – as opposed to the series of agreements now in force – began Monday in El Salvador and will end on Wednesday, the Mexican Economy Secretariat announced.

“One of the benefits expected from signing this treaty is supporting small and medium businesses in the region, because it will reduce transaction costs,” the secretariat said in a statement.

The purpose of the single free-trade agreement is to meld into a single instrument the three separate free-trade agreements Mexico has signed with Central America: one with the nations of the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), one with Nicaragua and another with Costa Rica.

Negotiations are expected to end in 2012, the statement added.

The new treaty “will expand the free-trade area and will allow economic players to have a single set of trade rules,” which will “facilitate and encourage the flow of trade and investment between the six participating countries,” the secretariat said.

Currently, “many provisions” must be adhered to for those who wish to benefit from the three existing treaties, the secretariat acknowledged.

Central America represents a market of 38 million people and “ Mexico is the source of only 8 percent” of the region's total imports, which indicates “there is room to increase exports of Mexican products and services” to the region, detailed the secretariat.

Total Mexican investment in the five Central American countries is about $5 billion.