Photo Credit: AccuWeather Hurricane Irma Yesterday it was just a tropical storm, but Irma has rapidly strengthened and is now a category 2 hurricane, still located far in the Atlantic west of Cabo Verde and at the time it poses NO threat to land according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The update provided by the NHC reads: 1100 AM AST (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Irma was ...

U.S. Embassy officials traveled to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica this week with a delivery of equipment and resources to bolster opportunities for students in Limón to learn about robotics and computer skills, said the U.S. Embassy press office. The American Corner at Limón's Thomas Lynch Public Library was the recipient this week of US$12,000 in new equipment for students to develop their ...

The Costa Rican government is distributing a final draft of a document that sets out a "dialogue mechanism" to the country's 24 indigenous territories for their input, said the vice minister of the presidency earlier this month. "This stage will allow us to refine details of the mechanism that we have built together with indigenous peoples, so that the result is a document that responds to the re...

Hurricane Harvey has caused a lot of damage in Texas and some areas of Lousiana, the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2005, Harvey has now been downgraded to a tropical depression; but the 2017 hurricane season that began on June will not come to an end until November 30, and therefore countries in the Caribbean coast remain on alert. The National Hurrican Cente...

The heavy rains that soaked much of Costa Rica Tuesday night, August 29, caused 58 people to be evacuated to shelters due to flooding in their homes. In total, the National Emergency Commission (CNE) handled 50 different incidents in 22 cantons in eight regions of the country. Meteorologists have warned that tropical systems off of the country's coasts will be bringing heavy rains in the upcomi...

Farmers in Costa Rica are clamoring for changes in immigration policies in order to facilitate contracting field hands from Nicaragua and Panama, said a report in Costa Rica's agricultural industry's magazine, ProAgro. The Costa Rican National Chamber of Agriculture and Agroindustry (CNAA) says that current legislation does not coincide with the reality of the agricultural, aquaculture, and agr...

Roche, a branch of Hoffman-La Roche, selected Escazú Village as the new headquarters of its Costa Rican Global Shared Information Technology Services Center. The center will serve the company's operations in Canada and the United States, said a report in Costa Rica's Summa business magazine. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two di...

The British Ambassador organized a special send off for eight Costa Rican scholars, announced the British Embassy. Chevening is the UK government's global leadership program, offering fully-funded scholarships for future leaders and influencers to study in the UK. On August 21, 2017, British Ambassador to Costa Rica, Ross Denny, hosted a farewell event for the eight Costa Rican scholars who ...

The United States' diplomatic seat in Costa Rica announced that Monday, September 4 its installations will be closed. The U.S. Embassy and Consulate will be closed in commemoration of the celebration of Labor Day, observed each year in the U.S. on the first Monday of September. The diplomatic press office said the date is "dedicated to celebrating the social and economic achievements of Amer...

Ninety low-income women in Costa Rica will benefit from a donation of mammograms by the country's most widely read tabloid, Diario Extra, said that paper in a recent report. The women will be selected by the Lazos or "ties" program at the San José Bíblica Hospital, which is a support program for breast cancer victims sponsored by Grupo Mutual and Banca Kristal. "We are working hand in hand wit...

Costa Rica's recently completed National Police School, which will open in October, has the capacity for housing 810 police officers, said the Ministry of Public Security. The campus consists of 29 buildings that make up the police training complex in La Rita de Pococí in the province of Limón. The infrastructure is estimated to have cost 12 billion colones, of which 9 billion were donated b...

Q: What do snorkeling in a national park and having a drink after class have in common? A: You might find a plastic straw in both places. Trash that is improperly discarded and treated in San José, Costa Rica's populous Central Valley floats down to beaches on the country's omnipresent rivers and streams, where it then becomes an often permanent, and deadly, part of marine ecosystems, with plas...

For the fifth year, the RIU Hotel chain reaffirms its fight against sexual exploitation of children in the tourism industry.The Hotel Riu Palace Costa Rica (All Inclusive 24h), is located in Guanacaste, Costa Rica on the edge of the beach of Matapalo. This hotel has four swimming pools (one with a wet bar), jacuzzi, gym, sauna and a wellness center "Renova Spa" with different treatments and massag...

Hotel owners in Costa Rica are leading an effort to draft legislation that would tax vacation rentals such as condominiums and other lodgings that currently fall into a legal gray area. The proposal, which is close to being introduced in the Legislative Assembly, would apply a hotel tax on rentals in Costa Rica booked through online platforms such as Airbnb, FlipKey, Tripping.com, HomeAway and ...

During a recent visit to Beijing, China by Costa Rica's foreign trade authorities, considerations for the creation of a Chinese funded and developed Special Economic Zone in Costa Rica were discussed. China presented results of a technical study undertaken to determine the feasibility of developing such a commercial zone. Moving forward on such a large scale and long-term initiative requires...

Conservationists have lauded the proactive actions by park officials in the Tortugero, Costa Rica Conservation Area (ACTO, its initials in Spanish) to restrict areas where jaguars have been sighted. This meant some of the park's trails were closed to visitors for a period. However, this has not stopped a "small but powerful tourist business" from organizing unauthorized forays into such area...

With tropical storm Harvey now a raging hurricane passing over parts of the southern United States, four United Airlines flights to Costa Rica out of Houston, Texas were canceled this weekend. So far, these are the only flights affected by the hurricane after it struck the Texas coast this weekend, said Aeris, administrator of San José's Juan Santamaría international airport. Aeris advised p...

Today, Sunday, August 26 is the final day of the 3-day ExpoKids event at Mutliplaza Oeste in Escazú, a western district of San José. The free event is focused on moms and babies this year, and has information relevant to caregivers and parents of young ones, said the event's Facebook page. Next weekend, from September 1-3, the event will repeat on the eastern side of San José at the Curridab...

At 4:38 a.m. this Sunday, August 27 a moderate magnitude earthquake woke Costa Ricans. According to the National Seismology Network the movement had a magnitude of 5.3 in the Richter Scale and the epicenter was located 43 kilometers south of Dominical, Puntarenas. It was felt in the San José, Pérez Zeledón, Alajuela, Heredia, and the communities close to the Panama boarder. The National...

Costa Rica has big goals to counter climate change, for several years now the government has talked about its objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2021 and eliminating single use plastic becoming the first country to achieve this. Whether this is realistic or not is a topic that has raised many different opinions and points of view. “We are a small country with big goals. Our pioneer...

Venezuelan company located in Panama, Cryptobuyer, will install the first Bitcoin ATM in Costa Rica. The cryptocurrency or digital currency released in 2009 has been slowly gaining ground as more and more people get familiar with how it works. The only decentralized digital currency it uses person to person technology without the interference of a central authority. Each bitcoin is worth a c...

American physician, comedian and author Hunter Doherty, better known as Patch Adams, will visit Costa Rica once again next August 29th. Doherty along with his team will make a presentation in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Costa Rica starting at 4 p.m., with the purpose of organizing groups of volunteers that work in different countries spreading laugh and humor. The do...

On Wednesday, August 23 a press release proudly announced the opening of the new 27 kilometer road that connects Bajos de Chilamate in Sarapiquí, Heredia to Vuelta Kooper in San Carlos, a road that Costa Rica had been waiting on for at least 10 years. President Luis Guillermo Solís and the Minister of Transportation German Valverde along with other Government authorities and community members a...

On Thursday, officials from the Ministry of Public Security (MSP) and the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) signed a cooperation agreement that will allow for police to operate out of  facilities inside the country's nature conservation areas, such as national park and wildlife refuges. This was confirmed by the Minister of Public Security, María Fullmen Salazar, who explained that pol...

Situated in Quepos, Costa Rica on the outskirts of Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica Fads is one of the top charters for offshore & fad fishing in Quepos, Costa Rica,said the company which organizes customized FAD tours to their special offshore fishing sites. What are the FADs? FADs stand for Fish Aggregating Device and are set up on naturally occurring sea mounts from 100-13...

Costa Rica's first attempt at an unmanned space mission is entering its final phase of development of a space satellite, said a report in the digital Costa Rican Spanish-language news site ElMundo.cr. Scientists working on Project Irazú are programming and verifying the satellite's systems, as well as the terrestrial stations that are the final steps to readying the satellite. The satellite wil...

This week the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) pledged US$3 million to upgrade the country's national parks, which will be invested over the next three years, said tourism officials. The first allocation of a million dollars will be for Tenorio Volcano National Park, which was affected by Hurricane Otto last November, and Manuel Antonio National Park, the country's most visited park. The ...

If you are looking to buy a house or property in Costa Rica this might be a great place to start looking. ExpoCasa y Decoración (House and Décor Expo) kicked off today in Costa Rica and this year it has the participation of 88 real estate developers, 15 financial institutions and 15 home decoration companies, among other exhibitors. The fair is being held at Kölbi Center in Parque Viva and it ...

The conditions and particularities of women's work, their additional burdens of reproductive and elder care-taking, as well as the persistent wage gap between men and women, among many other aspects, require the establishment of a lower retirement age for women, said findings presented by the Costa Rican judiciary's Gender Commission. Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System, Alice Sha...

At around 9:20 a.m. this morning the Poás Volcano in Costa Rica presented a new eruption which is still going at this hour. The column reached over 500 meters above the sea level (3,008 meters or 9,866.24 ft above sea level) according to the report by the National Seismology Network. The Turrialba Volcano in Cartago, on the other hand has also had constant small pulses of ash eruptions...

Costa Rica's Minister of Foreign Trade just returned with some good news from a recent visit to Beijing, said the Foreign Trade Ministry in a statement. Foreign Minister Alexander Mora together with the Costa Rica's Ambassador to China, Patricia Rodríguez, celebrated the countries 10 years of diplomatic relations during the recent visit. One of the main outcomes of the visit was a plan to es...

Both male and female condoms as well as lubricants will be handed out on Costa Rica's recently declared condom promotion day, said the Ministry of Health in a press statement. This year, Monday, September 4 marks the first year of what will become an annual event on that date to promote the use of condoms in the country. The country's public healthcare facilities will be handing out condoms ...

Private business sector leaders criticized the Costa Rican government for interfering with individuals' and businesses' right to chose the transportation service they wish to use as police continue to crack down on Uber drivers. Alonso Elizondo, executive director of the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce, is critical of a recent warning by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) to ...

Model Leonora Jimenez in a gown by Costa Rican Designer Rob Chamaeleo 26-year-old Costa Rican designer Rob Chamaeleo received an invitation to participate in the World Fashion Week in Malaysia, an event considered the maximum global platform for fashion professionals. Chamaeleo participated recently in the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week San José, and it was because of his participation in this ...

Behavioral economics is a ¨method of economic analysis that applies psychological insights into human behaviors to explain economic decision-making¨, this was the method used in an experiment ran by the Curridabat Municipality to promote recycling habits among its residents. Curridabat is a county to the east of San José, Costa Rica and which according to the Municipality has close to 20,600 ho...

For the first time, Costa Rica will present a concert of electronic, experimental and synthesizer music, as well as a workshop on creating such sounds, for children, announced the San José-based Alianza Francesa, or French Alliance, the French government's cultural center. The event organizers describe the event as involving "two semi-human and semi-plant characters will give a concert in the f...

The case of four medical doctors and a Greek businessman suspected of running an illegal organ trafficking operation out of Costa Rica is moving forward. The Office of the Prosecutor Against Organized Crime (FACDO, its initials in Spanish) cited 25 witnesses to appear in court to testify in the case. The Costa Rican Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) and Public Security Ministry uncovered t...

The so-called "morning after" pill can be used by women in most of the world as a form of emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy; but so far not legally in Costa Rica. For the third time the topic is under consideration by government medical authorities, reported the pharmaco-epidemiology committee of the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS). The pill can be used by women for up t...

Experts from 15 countries will converge on San José, Costa Rica in October to share ideas and strategies on  sustainable tourism. The International Conference on Sustainable Tourism with its theme of Planet, People and Peace (P3), will feature exhibitors from Iceland, Holland, United States, Chile, Canada, Korea, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala and also from some African nations, said event or...

The Poás Volcano in Alajuela, Costa Rica had gone through several days of relative calm, with just the now common vapor and gas emissions; however, today starting at 3:17p.m. local time it registered an eruption that continued through almost 6 p.m. The eruption had presence of ash and the column elevated around 500 meters above the crater, (3,008 meters or 9,866.24 ft above sea level) according...