The Costa Rican Drug Institute (ICD) carried out its first inventory of seized assets since its creation in 2001. The entity cleaned, classified, appraised and stored each of the objects seized from drug traffickers. “When I took over the direction of the ICD what existed at the time was an approximate count of the assets seized which came to more or less 26 thousand objects without any or...

According to information provided by the Ministries’ of Labor the Central American countries, Costa Rica pays the highest minimum wages in the region, while Nicaragua the lowest. Minimum wage is defined as the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their workers; equivalently it is the price floor below which workers may not sell their labor. This amount should allow workers to cov...

Costa Rica’s Treasury Department (Ministerio de Hacienda) will auction 10 properties located in the provinces of San José, Guanacaste and Limón as part of the measures taken by the Central Government to face deficit. The properties being auctioned were given to Treasury as payment for debts and others were transferred from other institutions. One of these properties is a 1,092 square meter (...

A Joke? Yes, a joke shared by Costa Rican Judge Hugo Porter two years ago on his Facebook page will be used by the attorneys of Juan Carlos Bolaños and Mario Barrenechea to challenge the resolution that ratified the preventive detention measure. Attorneys are arguing that the judge that dictated the resolution is prejudiced against bankers. Attorney Jose Miguel Villalobos, secondary lawyer to J...

The Ministry of Security confirmed the arrest of a man in Quepos who was driving a van with 18 illegal immigrants aboard. The arrest took place when officers were in the middle of routine controls in the roads of Quepos, Puntarenas, the officers stopped a van that was exceeding its passenger capacity, and requested the documents for all of them, however, only the driver had an identification do...

The Costa Rican Police detained on Sunday night three Mexican men in Guanacaste with 785 kilos of cocaine. Police officers were in a routine control operation in front of the Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia, when they saw two cars turn around, they immediately began the chase, after several minutes one of the cars was abandoned in the entrance to Playa Hermosa, the officers were...

Costa Rica’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal released data regarding the 2018 presidential election. In total there are 3,322,329 citizens registered to vote, representing 7.93% more than in 2014; half of these voters, 1.6 million, are between the ages of 18 and 39 years of age, as a matter of fact, 40% are under 34 years-old; 12.34% are senior citizens and 633 voters are over 100 years old. The ...

The Scuba Diving Community Center Ambassadors of the Sea, is an non-profit organization that offers free diving classes to the South Caribbean youth with the purpose of teaching them about the importance of protecting the ocean from an environmental and historical point of view. The project began in 2014 with the intention of offering a work opportunity to the young men and women from the area,...

The date was Sunday, April 6, 1986, the location, La Cruz de Alajuelita in San José, Costa Rica. For a catholic country like Costa Rica, this Sunday held a special significance since it marked the beginning of another Holy Week; but this day would go on to be part of the country’s history for something very far from this. Early that Sunday morning a woman named Rosario Zamora, 26 years-old at t...

The Court of Appeals reconfirmed on Friday the three month preventive detention for businessman Juan Carlos Bolaños and the six BCR executives, established on November 4  and in relation with the "Cementazo" corruption scandal. The attorneys of each of the seven defendants had presented their appeals and allegations and tried to convince Judge Hugo Porter to set their clients free or change the...

In 2013 Costa Rica’s Sala Cuarta or Sala Constitucional (Constitutional Hall) made clear its position (and the country’s position), by forbidding the renovation or emission of new trawling permits due to the environmental damages this practice causes, the sentence also established that the only way they could reconsider allowing this practice would be if enough changes were met to make it a sust...

The Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, became as of Friday the first air terminal in Central America to be certified as carbon-neutral. In order to earn the certification the Airport had to first quantify the greenhouse gases that were being generated and then had to elaborate a plan to reduce this number considerably and also recover refrigerant gases. T...

Costa Rica already reached 300 days this year producing its energy from renewable sources, according to data by the National Energy Control Center. 99.62% of the national electricity production comes from its five clean energy sources, water, wind, sun, geothermal and biomass, with the hydroelectric energy making up the bulk of energy production, 78.26%; wind 10.29%; geothermal 10.23%, and 0.84...

In Costa Rica there are approximately 440,799 senior citizens, and so far in 2017 there have been 854 cases of violence and 3,877 aggression reports against this population and over 700 elderly have been abandoned according to data by the Social Management Unit of the National Council for the Senior Citizens (Conapam). In response to these situation Costa Rica's Ombudsman's Office (Defensoria d...

A total of 73 films, (50 feature films, 20 short films, 1 web series documentary, 1 virtual reality movie and a medium-length film), in 18 different languages from 35 countries and 70 national and 50 international guests will be part of Costa Rica’s International Film Festival 2017 (CRFIC) an event organized as usual by the Film Center (Centro de Cine) and the Ministry of Culture. This is the s...

The General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) saw many weaknesses in the way the Tobias Bolaños Airport is being managed that gave cause to irregularities and many times suspicious activities. So far this year the authorities discovered 27 unauthorized small airplanes in the hangars of the Pavas national airport; also, several cases of airplane owners trying to take fuel from the planes, ...

Walmart in Costa Rica will have once again great discounts this weekend with the “Pre-Black Weekend”. Over 300 products are included in the promotion which will have discounts of up to 50%. Some of the articles included are: Nintendo Switch Consoles, cell phones, flat screens, household items, home appliances as well as clothing and some groceries, even motorcycles. The discounts will apply ...

The Costa Rica National Symphony Orchestra was awarded the Latin Grammy in the category of “Best Classical Music Album¨ in the 18th edition of the Latin music award ceremony that was celebrated Thursday evening in Las Vegas, Nevada. The recognition was awarded for the album ¨Música de Compositores Costarricenses, volumen 2¨ (Music by Costa Rican Songwriters, Volume 2) a production directed by ...

Costa Rica was chosen as the first country in Latin America to implement the new concept of Subway restaurants. This new model will be inaugurated on Wednesday, November 15, with the assistance of senior officials of the corporation at a regional level, who will expand the details of the restaurant of the future, the evolution in the business model, from the visual, technological, experience for ...

The developer company, of Ecuadorian origin, chose Costa Rica thanks to its good economic reputation in Central America and because it is home to important multinational companies worldwide, which generates greater market confidence. With an investment of US $ 45 million and the direct and indirect contracting of 200 people, the Furoinani Obras y Proyectos (FOP) real estate group starts operati...

Problems of coordination and differences in the modalities of care of the National Child Care and Development Network affect the management and quality of the services provided, according to the latest State of the Nation Report 2017. During 2016, the Care Network benefited 52,190 children, with wide cantonal  dispersion. The national average of the population from 0 to 6 years that serves t...

Costa Rican congressman part of the National Liberation Party for the province of Guanacaste, Juan Marin, passed away this Thursday after his car crashed against a protection wall in the Rio Segundo, Alajuela tollbooth (General Cañas highway). The congressman was driving his Hyundai Tucson 2013 when the accident occurred, for reasons still unknown, at around 2:51 a.m., according to the hour reg...

Costa Rican airport authorities seized a weapon and ammunition from a U.S citizen as he attempted to board an international flight, said the Public Security Ministry. The incident took place at the Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) outside of the capital city of San José, Costa Rica. The man had failed to report he was carrying a firearm and ammunition, which are not permitted on f...

Costa Rican Police seized 213 kilos of cocaine on Wednesday morning, concealed in a van. A Hyundai van was detained during a routine road check in the area of Turrúcares in Alajuela, the car was checked by the officers and a Yanko from the K-9 unit; it was the dog that alerted the officials of the presence of the drugs. The car was taken to the Alajuela police station where they proceeded to ch...

The National Emergency Commission (CNE) declared the afternoon of this Wednesday green alert for the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, due to the heavy rains that have affected the area in the past 24 hours and that are expected to continue through this Thursday. The alert applies for the South, Central, and North Pacific. The south zone, or Zona Sur, has been the most affected so far by floods, fal...

Is the Costa Rican educational system ready to respond to technological evolution, automation, artificial intelligence and other disruptive megatrends that are changing the world and the jobs of the future? More than 250 representatives of the Costa Rican government authorities, academy, private sector, chambers, pro-development organizations, education experts, presidential candidates and other r...

This holiday season, globetrotting families should consider exploring the cultural wonders that are waiting to be discovered in sunny Costa Rica. Celebrating the season with an unforgettable immersive experience is one way to ensure lasting memories that will be treasured long after the tan lines are gone. Experiential travel, which continues to rise in popularity for its transformative results...

The Juan Santamaría International Airport will have a new terminal for domestic flights by March of 2018. According to Rafael Mencía, executive director of Aeris Costa Rica, company that administers the airport, the construction work already began and also includes the construction of a new firefighter station to the south of the main building. The domestic terminal is being constructed as a...

A few weeks ago, a Red Cross ambulance driver was threatened at knife-point and asked to hand over his cell phone when driving to the scene of an emergency in the agricultural town of Santa Rosa de Pocosol in the north-central region of San Carlos, Alajuela, Costa Rica. This and other potentially life-threatening incidents involving aid workers in different parts of Costa Rica have the agency c...

In the northern region of Guanacaste, forested lands increased from 51 percent in 2005 to 60 percent in 2015, transforming the landscape that in the 1970s was nominated by livestock ranches, and now encourages eco-tourism, according to information released by the 2017 "Estado de la Nación," or State of the Nation report in Costa Rica. Today an estimated 75.5 percent of Costa Rica's territory is...

The annual report on Costa Rica's "State of the Nation" shows some disheartening realities with 20 percent of households stuck in a cycle of poverty and exclusion. While some families in extreme poverty, notably in rural areas, got a foothold out of their dire situation over the past year, this appears mainly due to government aid programs, and not due to permanent economic solutions or changes...

With different sources simultaneously publishing magnitudes of varying degrees, headlines clashed throughout the Internet on Sunday evening, November 12, when an earthquake rattled much of Costa Rica. The tremor was also felt in Panama. The Jacó earthquake, which occurred off the coast of the the central Pacific tourist town, was eventually pegged as a 6.5 magnitude quake by scientists at the V...

A self proclaimed 5-star ocean front hotel on Costa Rica's northern Pacific was the scene of an unusual death in October, and the details are only getting stranger. Shortly after 42-year-old Shawn Edmonds was handcuffed by security guards at the Riu Guanacaste hotel after an apparent argument with hotel staff, the Kitchener, Ontario, Canada father fainted while sitting in a chair and was pronou...

Longer commutes, busier parents, lack of safe and accessible recreation, combined with ready access to junk food and fast foods has made life for Costa Rican school kids more sedentary and filled with greater risks for obesity, and later development of diabetes and other consequences. The 2017 School Weight and Height Survey, conducted by the Costa Rican Ministry of Health in conjunction with t...

Over 33,500 new jobs were created at multinational corporations based in Costa Rica between 2014 and 2016. These jobs were created by companies that newly set up operation or expanded their existing projects in the country, said Luis Gamboa Arguedas, president of the Costa Rican Development Initiatives Coalition (CINDE). During this period, the country racked up at least 118 such foreign inv...

Women killed by their current spouse or partner, or as a result of their female gender such as in a sexual assault, now number 24 so far in 2017 in Costa Rica. These "femicides," the legal term for this type of homicide, have left 18 children orphaned, 15 of whom are under the age of 18, said Costa Rica's Interinstitutional Subcommittee on Femicide, which is led by the Observatory on Gender Vio...

Despite a recent lessening in the intensity of its eruptions, scientists and emergency officials will keep restrictions in place on entry into the Poás Volcano National Park, much to the dismay of local tourist businesses who depend on the park to draw visitors. The park was the most frequently visited in the country, being within an hour's drive from San José and about a half-hour from the int...

Last week, it was potassium dichromate, and yesterday, it was bleach. Two toddlers in the past two weeks in Costa Rica nearly lost their lives due to mishandling of toxic chemicals in the home. Potassium dichromate is bright orange and it main victims of poisoning are young children who confuse it with soda pop or juice due to its bright orange color when diluted in water. It doesn't help th...

A family-owned business near Arenal Volcano on Costa Rica's North Atlantic plains has plans to build a mineral spring treatment center drawing on the region's famed volcanic waters. Ganadera Manoa de La Fortuna, S.A., owners of Hotel Manoa Arenal, a Trip Advisor traveller's choice hotel, submitted an application for an environmental feasibility study for the healing treatment center in August o...

Tourist businesses affiliated with the Chamber of Tourism of Osa (CATUOSA) last week signed a pledge to eliminate the use of plastic containers, bags and other plastic disposable items in shops, bars and restaurants in the Osa Peninsula region in southern Costa Rica. Companies plan to substitute single-use plastics and styrofoam packages like utensils, cups, plates, straws and bags for biodegra...