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Data Center Summit
Conference on data center infrastructure and standards, Aug. 30-31, International Conference Center, Ramada Plaza Herradura Hotel, www.datacentersummit.com.

11th Siquirres Festival for Moral Values
Dance shows, food sales, Aug. 30, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Santa María Episcopal Church, Siquirres, Limón.

2010 Limón Roots Black Culture Festival
Percussion workshop and presentation by Kali Bamba N'diaye from Senegal, Aug. 30, 3 p.m., Colegio Universitario de Limón, www.limonroots.net.

Young Ticos will soon have the opportunity to work on Canada's famous ski slopes, study in the best Canadian universities or travel through the northern nation's national parks, thanks to an agreement signed by the two countries' foreign ministers on Friday.

The agreement overrides immigration requirements for a one-year period so that Ticos and Canadians between 18 and 35 years of age can participate in an exchange program.

Canada has similar programs with Chile, France, Poland, Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom, among other nations.

“This is an opportunity to build people-to-people ties,” said Peter Van Loan, Canada's minister of international trade, who was in San José for the signing of the agreement. “It allows young people the chance to work, to play, to travel in a foreign country.”

Costa Rican Foreign Minister René Castro praised the program for creating a platform for cultural exchange and said it has the potential to bring Costa Rica closer to its goal of joining the nations of the developed world.

“It's a pleasure to work to open doors for youth,” he said. “We hope that hundreds – maybe thousands – will benefit from a program that opens borders and opportunities for young people through a cultural exchange and mutual learning.”

The two countries still have to agree on a quota for how many people from each country can take advantage of the opportunity.

According to Castro, both governments are in the process of gauging their citizens' interest in participating in the program.

An international workers' rights group that had filed a complaint earlier this year with the U.S. Department of Labor in defense of the Atlantic Port Authority Workers' Union (Sintrajap) is celebrating a ruling issued Wednesday by Costa Rica's Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV).

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Coast Longshore Division had condemned the Costa Rican government for disrupting democratic processes relating to leadership of Sintrajap, accusing the government of former President Oscar Arias of breaking down windows and doors of areas in which workers were “assembling in peace” and of putting the social welfare of workers “behind the gains of transnational companies.”

The ILWU's charges were made in regard to a process earlier this year whereby Sintrajap's leadership was replaced by a vote of the union's assembly. The union's new leadership accepted a payment of $137 million for union members in return for accepting transition of the port to private management.

The Sala IV determined last week that the vote violated the union's regular procedures and due process, and effectively restored the former leaders of Sintrajap, who are staunch opponents of privatization. The court nullified any action taken in their six-month absence.

“The return of the legitimate union leadership is a victory for hardworking people everywhere, who count on having the democratic right to join a union and improve their standard of living, ensure their safety and strengthen their communities,” said ILWU International President Robert McEllrath, who has been campaigning on behalf of the Limón dockworkers' union since January.

The controversy arose under Arias' initiative to privatize the port. Arias argued that placing port operations in the hands of private companies would make port management much more efficient and reliable, and pushed hard for the agreement with the new union leadership earlier this year.

But the Sala IV nullified the pact on Wednesday.

“It's an important step forward in the never-ending battle to protect workers from forces that would like to return to the days before union rights, when poverty and unsafe working conditions in the workplace were considered an acceptable cost of doing business,” McEllrath said.

President Laura Chinchilla, who shares Arias' free-trade philosophy, said she saw the decision as a setback, but pledged to continue to move forward toward the goal of privatizing the port.

“My government will not go backward in its quest of modernizing the ports of Limón,” Chinchilla said at a press conference on Thursday. “There are other ways and alternatives to continue with this modernization.”

Political leaders from opposition parties urged greater openness to dialogue on the part of the Executive Branch. In a joint press release, they said the former administration under Arias acted “arrogantly” and advised the current administration not to commit the same error.

Twenty-nine lithographs of works by iconic Spanish artist Pablo Picasso are now on display in a free exhibit at Avenida Escazú shopping mall, west of San José.

Unable to resist the blank surfaces on the sheets of corrugated cardboard piled up in his studio on the French Riviera, Picasso, at age 88, used them as canvases for his “Retratos Imaginarios” (“Imaginary Portraits”), and then personally supervised the process of transforming them into lithographs.

The works display all the whimsical humor and cubist vision of the famed master. The Avenida Escazú exhibit opened Aug. 27 and will be on display through Oct. 25.