While Costa Rica is quick to tout its lack of military and "culture of peace," the country's growing gap between rich and poor points to gaps that breed injustice, exclusion and poverty. The breaches are often hard to see, but erode poor people's quality of life and often deprive them of basic needs in a country increasingly divided. Costa Rica recently ranked second in Latin America on the wor...

Three tour operators have been ordered to stop offering walks and tours in areas of the Arenal Volcano National Park that are off limits, said the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) this week. Improvised trails that lead to the crater of Cerro Chato, the twin peak of Arenal Volcano, were closed with barbed wire by park rangers, due to informal tour operators using them for touris...

Residents of the southern Caribbean communities of Puerto Viejo, Cocles, Manzanillo, and others are drumming up support for the creation of a safe, non-motorized trail for use by bicyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians to travel around the region. The online petition can be found at ipetitions.org, and local petition drives have been held in the region. "Bicycles in the South Caribbean of Co...

The Association of Tour Operators (ASOTU) welcomes visitors to the Marino Ballena National Park all year, but especially in September for the height of whale watching season on Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast. Humpback whales can be seen along many parts of Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast from July - October each year when they give birth to their calves in the area's warm waters. Th...

In the small town of Madison, New Jersey, a 50-year-old Costa Rican man last week was turned over to U.S. federal authorities after he was found to be on the run from justice in Costa Rica for the rape of a minor, according to reports on July 28 in the Daily Record of Rockaway, NJ Eugenio Castillo Muñoz, a resident of Waverly Place in Madison - a borough of some 16,000 inhabitants in Morris Cou...

The Central American Electricity Interconnection System (SIEPAC) contracted the Costa Rican Electric Institute (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, better known as ICE) to conduct a feasibility study for the connection of a second circuit in 13 substations located in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, thus improving the region's interconnectivity. SIEPAC co...

Chatwoods S.A. announced the opening of Hooters of Alajuela in Costa Rica's City Mall - Central America's largest mall which opened just two years ago. The 400-square meter location, adjacent to Alajuela's Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), seats 130 guests inside, and accommodates up to 18 guests on its outdoor patio. "City Mall is an exceptional venue for attracting locals and tour...

Courts will be back to normal functioning today, August 1, after an estimated 13 - 16,000 workers from the country's judicial branch were on strike to protest proposed changes to their retirement plans. The historic 12-day-strike organized by the different unions that represent judiciary workers throughout the country was triggered by a legislative move to make changes to the judiciary pension ...

Nonstop flights from London's Gatwick airport to Costa Rica's Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Liberia are available from £299 round-trip. Hurry before they are gone! These dirt cheap fares are for travel from August 29 – September 5, 2017. The flights can be found on SKYSCANNER According to the airline website, "Thomson Airways was set up in 1962 (formally Britannia) and has...

A ruling in mid-July by Costa Rica's Supreme Court (Sala IV) ordered the country's telecommunications superintendent (Sutel)  to establish minimum connection speeds for their "fair use" policy that has recently caused mobile users to have their Internet speed. The court responded to an injunction filed against Sutel's implementation of the policy by giving the superintendent four months to set ...

The Municipality of Escazú will be fumigating and collecting non-traditional waste to prevent the spread of dengue and zika. The campaign started Friday, July 28 and will tun until August 18, said the Ministry of Health in a statement. The neighborhoods of Los Anonos, El Carmen, San Francisco, Corazón de Jesús, and Bello Horizonte were chosen for the campaign based on Ministry of Health recomme...

Costa Ricans and Panamanians marched Friday along their shared border to bring awareness to the problem of human trafficking, reported the Spanish news agency EFE. The event came on the heels of the arrest of a Dominican man in Paso Canoas for alleged drug and human trafficking. He is accused of trafficking three Ecuadorian migrants who appear to have paid him to take them to the U.S. The fi...

The La Cruz Health Area in Costa Rica's northern Guanacaste province has begun providing contraceptive implants to women under a program supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), reported the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) last week. More than 400 women have opted for the new offering, which has been included among the public healthcare area's other birth control metho...

The National Chamber of Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism (CANAECO), organizer of the VI International Conference on Sustainable Tourism: Planet, People, Peace-P3, together with the Costa Rican Tourism Institute ICT), invite children from 8 to 10 years of age from throughout Costa Rica to participate in the children's drawing competition with the theme of "Planet, People, Peace". The contest s...

A growing demand for pet health services in Costa Rica is driving the growth in private veterinary hospitals. Many are open round the clock, 365 days a year. The Veterinary Practitioners Professional Association has five such complexes registered. Those include the San Rafael Hospital and Veterinary Clinic in Heredia; the San Antonio Veterinary Hospital, also in Heredia, and the Intensivet Vete...

The first Crate & Barrel in the Central American region opens today, Friday, July 28, at Avenida Escazú, a trendy, upscale commercial and residential complex just west of San José, Costa Rica. The store involved an investment of US$4 million, has an extension of 2,200m2, and will employ an estimated 40 people for ​​sales, cashier, exhibition, and other work. Crate & Barrel offers its...

A week-long visit to Costa Rica by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) is focussing on investment possibilities, said the Ministry of Foreign Relations in s statement this week. Fund officials from the United Arab Emirates will analyze possibilities and issue a report on Costa Rica's viability as a recipient of investments in areas such as infrastructure and services that have an impact o...

Costa Rica is working to rehabilitate and protect mangroves, a coastal ecosystem that is highly threatened throughout the world, said Deputy Minister of Water, Seas, Coasts and Wetlands, Fernando Mora in an interview with the Spanish News Agency (EFE). Costa Rican environmental authorities stressed the importance of conserving mangroves in harmony with the well-being of communities bordering th...

Three 2018 world-class sport fishing tournaments at Quepos' Marina Pez Vela - near Costa Rica's Manuel Antonio National Park - have just been announced. Sport fishing enthusiasts who like to plan ahead can start off the new year with a January 11 - 13 tournament: "The Rockstar! Offshore Tournament presented by PELAGIC is a team event with cash, prizes, and awards estimated to over $100,000. La...

The Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica, the country's highest court, has given the Ministry of Education four months to establish an "inclusive education system" for people with autism and other disabilities, according to a sentence issued June 17 and published today. The court accepted an appeal presented by a 14-year-old child with autism spectrum disorder against Monterrey High School (Col...

The Wisconsin-based Natural Resources Foundation announced a new offering for adventurous travelers. In March 2018 the non-profit educational group will run a "Bird Conservation Boot Camp" in Monteverde, Costa Rica. The week-long educational course will be led by conservation biologist, Craig Thompson, and will be held at University of Georgia at Athens field station in the San Luis Valley a...

According to a special report by Reuters yesterday, Australia will be going ahead with a proposal they put forth last year about receiving Central American refugees in exchange for some help from the United States. The transfer of the refugees down under will occur over the next few months, starting with an estimated 30 El Salvadoran refugees currently being held in Costa Rica. The Australian go...

Did you know that Costa Rica is one of three Latin America country to have a piece of the infamous Berlin Wall on exhibit, along with Mexico and Argentina? The 3-meter tall slab is on display inside the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry on Street 13 in downtown San José's Otoya neighborhood. The beautiful historic building is commonly known as the "Casa Amarilla." After the wall fell on November ...

If your travel plans in and out of Costa Rica include any of these South American countries, be advised that to get back into Costa Rica you will need to have an official document attesting to having received a yellow fever vaccine. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela have yellow fever risk areas in many parts of their territories, and you will be required to present proof of yo...

In February, the community of Ostional, Costa Rica on the Nicoya Peninsula in the northern Guanacaste province carried out a tsunami evacuation drill. This was the first time such a drill has been carried out in Costa Rica. Ostional is home to the Ostional Wildlife Refuge, which the World Wildlife Fund considers “one of the two most important nesting areas in the world for Olive Ridley turtl...

An international study on pediatric cardiac surgery found outstanding results at the Costa Rican National Children's Hospital, said the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) which runs the country's public healthcare system. The study looked at in 55 hospitals worldwide and was carried out by the Boston Children's Hospital in partnership with Harvard University. The findings showed that ...

The concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of Costa Rica by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) were released yesterday. The Committee considered the seventh periodic report of Costa Rica at its 1508th and 1509th meetings held July 7, 2017 in Geneva. The Committee commended Costa Rica's high-level delegation headed by the Minister of th...

A year after Costa Rica and China signed a Joint Action Plan for Cooperation - 2016-2020, Costa Rican exporters are still waiting to sell their products across the Pacific. The Costa Rican Chamber of Exporters (CADEXCO) decided to push for action so that producers in Costa Rica can take advantage of the favorable conditions offered under this special agreement before more time elapses. C...

  Results of a technical analysis of the country's fiscal situation were presented by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) at the request of Costa Rican Finance Minister Helio Fallas. The OECD's director of  economics, Álvaro Santos Pereira, summarized the agency's conclusions last week to the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly's finance committee. Also in att...

There's more than turtles, whales and sharks lingering off the shores of Costa Rica these days. While Costa Rica has been steadily chipping away at the never-ending flow of drugs from South America passing near and through its borders, Colombia has meanwhile been boosting coca production. An over 1-ton capture of cocaine packets floating out at sea off the southern Pacific coastal town of Pu...

When the judiciary in Costa Rica declared national strike last Wednesday, July 19, the Supreme Court issued a very clear statement to all judicial agencies saying that they must continue to prove certain basic services, saying that "access to justice is a human right," according to a Supreme Court statement Unfortunately, this has not been the case at the country's morgue in San José. With 19 b...

When American Brian Lynn Hogue decided to retire in Costa Rica, he probably never imagined he'd disappear into the blue one night after discovering people he had held in confidence had tried to cheat him out of his properties. On March 8, 2016, four people were arrested in connection with his 2015 disappearance in Limón, Costa Rica. And a trial this week found two sisters guilty of his disappea...

The consular section at U.S. Embassy San Jose announces a consular outreach event in Santa Teresa at the end of July. Consular staff will be available to accept adult passport renewals, perform notarial services, and handle inquiries on federal benefits and voting. The event will take place Thursday, July 27, 9 - 11 a.m.  at the Auditorio de la Clinica del Seguro Social en Cobano (150 meters we...

The Costa Rican Government and the European Union (EU) signed a joint declaration Tuesday affirming their commitment to gender equality, and empowerment of women and girls. The support is part of a regional program to promote the economic empowerment of working women through responsible business conduct, and consists of 9.5 million euros in funding for Costa Rica and five other beneficiary coun...

A Costa Rican field hand by the last names of López Rojas was intercepted yesterday at 5 a.m. by police while traveling to work in a rice field by motorcycle near Loma de Parrita in the Central Pacific region of Parrita, near Jacó. The man, a resident of Loma de Parrita, is suspected of having murdered two women this year in the Parrita area, one on February 14, Valentine's Day, and the other o...

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera, will be in Hojancha, Guanacaste on July 25 to celebrate the creation of the new district of Matambu. The district encompasses the Matambú Indigenous Reserve, and its designation as Hojancha county's 5th district is thanks to the initiative of Liberation Party Legislator Juan Rafael Marín Quirós. His petition presented to the Legislative Asse...

The Costa Rican Treasury yesterday sent out a nationwide alert. The agency has discovered in-person and email scams happening in their name. One method used by scammers is to visit businesses in person and pose as Fiscal Control Police (Police de Control Fiscal) agents claiming to be collecting taxes for the treasury department. The treasury (Hacienda) said that they do not send their age...

Nature guides and environmental educators at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve welcomed an atypical group last week to their outdoor classroom. Ten young men from the Ofelia Vincenzi Specialized Center, a rehabilitation center run by the Ministry of Justice and Peace, visited for the first time the world renowned forest as part of their educational experience. Those chosen have ...

The Government of Japan delivered a several devices that will strengthen the diagnostic and treatment capacity of urology services at Costa Rica's National Rehabilitation Center (CENARE), said the Costa Rican government in a statement. "This donation from the Government of Japan allows us to carry out high technology procedures, thereby reducing risks and optimizing care. At the same time, they...

The Ministry of Public Security has carried out national aerial surveillance over the past year to identify, and eradicate, clandestine airstrips throughout the country, said the ministry in a statement. The finding yesterday of the charred remains of a light aircraft that apparently caught fire upon landing on an airstrip on a private property in the jungle in the Pacific area of Savegre, Quep...