With more than six thousand kilos of cocaine and 692 kilos of marijuana confiscated from export shipments over the past five years, according to the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security, exporters are concerned about the impact on Costa Rica's competitiveness. Infiltration of merchandise with illegal drugs and other substances not only affects the export sector, but is a national security co...

The Costa Rican Government has been talking about the need of a tax reform for some time now, the OECD has even warned that without fiscal reforms there is a high possibility that the country will face a serious fiscal crisis. This situation will not apparently pose a problem as the country faces huge loses after the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Nate this last week. Sergio Alfaro, Minis...

A stretch of highway north of the turnoff for Puntarenas along Costa Rica's Northern Inter-American Highway will be completely closed to traffic from 9 a.m. and until 12 noon Monday, October 9, said transportation officials. The closure at the Seco River is necessary to make repairs to the bridge over this river along this highway linking Central America which suffered damages from Tropical Sto...

All Cen-Cinai programs except for seven will resume services tomorrow, Monday, October 9, said the Ministry of Health this evening, Sunday, October 8, 2017. And one will re-open Tuesday. The women, infant and children centers will return to their provision of nutritional assistance for pregnant and nursing women, and infants; and child development programs - both daytime, and evening services -...

Public school students along most of Costa Rica's Pacific coast have classes suspended until further notice in the aftermath of the destructive tropical storm that dumped massive amounts of rain late last week, announced the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education late Sunday afternoon. The storm, called Nate, which touched ground in Nicaragua Thursday, October 5, and now is a category 1 hurri...

Luxury resorts and boutique hotels in Costa Rica have made a point in the recent years of building incredible pools, there are many in the country, but only one was recognized and included in the CNN list of "17 jaw-dropping pools around the world". The pool at the adults-only resort Casa Chameleon at Playa Danta, Guanacaste was included as the 8th most impressive pool: “The adults-only reso...

Having left 11 confirmed deaths in Costa Rica, many still disappeared and cut off from aid, thousands in shelters, and dozens of roads and schools destroyed, Nate, now a Category 1 Hurricane, touched down last night on the Mississippi-Louisiana border in the southern U.S. At least 32 are reported dead throughout Central America in what is now the 9th hurricane of the relentless 2017 Atlantic hu...

Costa Rica Coastguard officers came across between 800-1000 kilograms of cocaine floating about 60 kilometers from Golfo Dulce in the South Pacific, confirmed the Ministry of Public Security (MSP). The National Coastguard Service was patrolling the area on Thursday afternoon when they found the cargo tied to a radio buoy. The cargo included 44 packs which the police estimate could weigh betw...

Many people have shown their interest in helping those affected by tropical storm Nate in Costa Rica; it is very important that your donation is received by the appropriate entities to ensure that it gets to the communities in need. The Costa Rica Red Cross has 121 auxiliary committees and 9 regional centers throughout the country that can receive donations, the National Emergency Commission is...

Yesterday the report by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation in Costa Rica (MOPT) showed 18 roads closed while 13 others had regulated transit after damages caused by Tropical Storm Nate. Landslides, damaged bridges, fallen trees or collapsed sewerage systems were the main problems reported. The MOPT has been working since Tuesday evening in reestablishing the transit through the diff...

Photo Credit: Interamericana Sur /Jessica Webb Castillo As The Costa Rica Star has reported, many communities in Costa Rica have been affected by Tropical Storm Nate, with the provinces of Guanacaste and Puntarenas reporting the largest number of incidents. In Miramar, Puntarenas, according to a report by daily paper La Nación, the Aranjuez River devastated the town of Bajo Caliente, where t...

Tropical Storm Nate caused a lot of damage in Costa Rica, here we recount in number and images some of the situations currently affecting the country: • 10 People Dead (According to the last report received by authorities Oct 6th 2 p.m.) • 30 People Reported Missing and several more trapped • 7200 People In 94 Shelters Around the country • 27 Elderly People in Shelter after Elderly Home Floo...

The Costa Rican Government declared three days of National Mourning starting this Friday at noon due to the emergency caused by Tropical Storm Nate in the country and that took the life of eight people. According to the official decree, October 6, 7 and 8 will be of National Mourning, during these days the National Flag in all government offices will be lowered to half-mast from sunrise to suns...

Monday, October 9, the Embassy and Consular Section of the United States will be closed in honor of Columbus Day which is celebrated in the United States that day. In 1937 the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, proclaimed October 12 as a day of homage to the first European explorer in the Americas, Christopher Columbus. It was President Richard Nixon who declared the day a n...

The estimated 65 Costa Ricans who will be repatriated from Puerto Rico Saturday, Oct. 7 will be leaving behind destruction caused by Hurricane Maria, and entering into a Costa Rica battling the aftermath of Tropical Storm Nate. Such is life in the hurricane-hounded Caribbean basin. This is the Costa Rican government's first ever humanitarian repatriation flight held for its citizens, said th...

As of yesterday, management regulations went into effect for four species of sharks (silky sharks and three species of thresher sharks) included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) during the XVII Conference of the parties (CoP) in Johannesburg, South Africa last year. The measures require that any future export of th...

The new U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica Sharon Day presented her credentials to President Solis this week on Wednesday, October 4, 2017, and thus began her official duties as the highest ranking representative of the U.S. Government in Costa Rica. In her meeting with President Solis, Ambassador Day reiterated the United States’ commitment to a strong and enduring partnership with Costa Rica. A...

Costa Rica's National Meteorological Institute (IMN, in Spanish) said rains were abating in much of the country in their 7 p.m. report on Thursday, Oct. 5, with Tropical Storm Nate drifting northwards. The storm is located 75km west of Puerto Lempira in Honduras and continues to move at a speed of 17km/h north-northwest towards the Gulf of Honduras. The storm is expected to traverse the Gulf of...

Photo Archive illustration purposes only. The National Emergency Committee, the National System of Conservation Areas and the Ministry of Environment are raising the alert for communities close to marine lands and estuaries to stay alert for the possible presence of crocodiles and alligators in unusual areas. The heavy rains that have caused several rivers to overflow in different communitie...

For some communities in Costa Rica rain hasn’t stopped in almost 48 hours, this situation has caused the saturation of the floors, several landslides and many flooded areas. At this hour (2p.m.) local time, Tropical Storm Nate has left a toll of six dead, over 5,000 people in around 80 shelters, 18 closed roads and 13 others with regulated transit and hundreds of thousands of people without water....

At a meeting this morning, Thursday, October 5, of emergency officials to discuss the heavy rains from Tropical Storm Nate, the President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solís, declared that all public employees, except emergency and essential workers, will have off today and tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 6. The decision was based on predictions by the Costa Rican National Meteorological Institute (IMN, ...

Photo Credit: Facebook KaMy Sánchez - Cañas Guanacaste The Costa Rican government declared national emergency as a result of the heavy rains that have affected the country as an indirect effect of tropical storm Nate. All public offices will be closed today and tomorrow (Thursday and Friday) this includes public schools, day care centers, banks, etc. The only exceptions are essential services ...

A total of 2,430 gas cylinders were destroyed recently by the Costa Rican Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep), because they presented some problem and were considered dangerous. This is done as part of the Gas Quality Assessment Program of Aresep, which reviews the condition of the cylinders. Among the considerations used to determine if cylinders should be discarded include: Havin...

Police made eight arrests this weekend thus breaking up two alleged groups of delinquents operating in the Jacó Beach area of Garabito, Puntarenas on Costa Rica's central Pacific coast. One group targeted focused on stealing cell phones, mainly in tourist areas and also apparently targeted tourists, and the other apparently was dedicated to breaking into vehicles. Both groups had Costa Rican an...

With an eye to receiving more and larger ships in the near future, the pacific port of Caldera, in the province of Puntarenas, is getting a much-needed boost to its facilities. The US$20 million improvements aim to decrease wait time for ships to load and unload, thus making the port an attractive option by saving ships money. President of the Republic, Luis Guillermo Solís and the First Lad...

Several areas of Guanacaste have suffered the consequences of the heavy rains caused by the tropical depression that formed in the western Caribbean Sea and that is having an indirect effect over the country, keeping most of the territory under red alert. So far it has been the province of Guanacaste which has reported the most problems, with floods, mudslides and several overflowing rivers. ...

Heavy rains this afternoon and evening due to a tropical storm in the Caribbean ocean caused two planes so far to be rerouted from the main Juan Santamaria Airport (SJO) near San José, Costa Rica. Stormy weather today, Wednesday, October 4, caused such low visibility at the Alajuela airport, civil aviation authorities have temporarily closed the airport. The flights were re-routed to the northe...

The National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) of the Minister of Environment and Energy and the Guanacaste Conservation Area have closed the access to several national parks as a preventive measure due to the bad weather conditions the country is currently experimenting. The Santa Rosa National Park, the Rincón de la Vieja National Park, the Barra Honda National Park and Bahia Junquillal ...

Photo Credit: Mundo Guanacaste Facebook At least 100 neighbors of the community of Playas del Coco in Guanacaste are currently being affected by heavy floods due to the overflow of rivers. Apparently some people are trapped in their homes, businesses and even some in their cars since the streets are now under at least one meter of water. The heavy rain that has been falling in the area si...

The Costa Rican Ministry of Finance sent a reminder to all business owners that Monday, October 2 was the deadline for paying this year's portion of the annual corporation tax that went into effect Sept. 1, 2017. Anyone with an active and inactive registered business. also known as an "S.A.", in Costa Rica should have paid by Monday, Oct. 2 the tax amount corresponding to the months of Septembe...

For those that have companies or workers here in Costa Rica, this information is important, October 12th is a holiday in Costa Rica when the country celebrates “El Día de las Culturas”, Cultures Day also known as Columbus Day in the United States. This holiday, however, has certain particularities, for instance, when the 12th falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, as is the case thi...

Eight months of night-time and early morning patrols along Costa Rica's Caribbean beaches paid off for turtles and their eggs, thousands of which were rescued from poachers, said Commander Alexis Umaña, officer of the Barra del Pacuare Coast Guard Station. From February to September 2017, Coast Guard officials and volunteers with the environmental non-profit organization, Widecast, saved an est...

Costa Rican emergency officials have placed the entire country on alert for heavy rains predicted for later this week and possibly into the weekend. The central and Pacific regions of Costa Rica are expected to take the brunt of the effects of a storm expected to form later today in the western Caribbean Sea. Hurricane experts in the U.S. said the system, currently called Invest 90L, "will bring ...

The Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS, in Spanish) said they will publish later this year a tender in order to select the company that will design, build and equip a 70,000 square meter hospital in Puntarenas, on Costa Rica's central Pacific coast. The new hospital will be located in Barranca, and will open in 2021 with a substantially larger and improved infrastructure, and more service...

The Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements (MIVAH) recently approved changes to regulations that increased the income cap for housing assistance in Costa Rica. Now, households with a total combined income of up to ₡776 thousand colones (about $1,000) can qualify for a "bono familiar de vivienda" or a family housing grant. This expands the number of household eligible for such assistance. ...

At 14:45 local time this Tuesday, October 3rd, the Rincón de la Vieja Volcano in Guanacaste, Costa Rica registered an eruption that reached over 1,500 meters above the top of the crater, 3,416 meters above sea level (11,204.48 ft), the eruption was still going strong at 4 p.m. and is considered, according to Geologist Waldo Taylor Castillo from the National Seismology Network the biggest phreatic ...

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) released an update of its annual child labor report, 2016 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, which includes research on child labor in 135 countries, and is accompanied by the release of the updated Sweat & Toil mobile app. Costa Rica is listed in the report as one of 23 countries that made "sign...

On average, companies in the Central American region pay 45.8 percent of their profits in taxes, while companies in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries on average pay 41 percent. A study on the evolution of the fiscal situation in Central America by the Federation of Central American Chambers of Commerce (FECAMCO, in Spanish) revealed the fact that in Costa Ri...

Starting TODAY, Tuesday, October 3, at 10 a.m., the electronic form to participate in the Diversity Visa Lottery program, also known comply as the U.S. Visa Lottery, will be available. The program, organized by the United States Department of State, will be accepting applications from Costa Rica until Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 10 a.m. Those interested should log-on to the website <www....

The United States Embassy in Costa Rica posted the following message yesterday on their Facebook page as the embassy prepares for the new ambassador, Sharon Day, to assume her post: "It is a real pleasure to introduce you to Ambassador Sharon Day "Ambassador Day was sworn in as United States Ambassador to Costa Rica on September 25 at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. "She has worked for more ...