Source: Flickr Commons By Martha Delgado Managua, Sep 21 (EFE).- The killing of a high school student by a classmate has focused attention in Nicaragua on the bullying many children experience in schools. President Daniel Ortega's administration announced workshops, outreach programs and other measures to prevent bullying after a 19-year-old student was stabbed to death. In Nicaragua,...

Pro Surfer Emily Gussoni from Costa Rica The National Surfing Team of Costa Rica made history earlier this year by bringing back the most gold medals from the World Surfing Games (WSG) in Nicaragua. Now the Surfing Federation of Costa Rica (Spanish acronym: FEDESURF) has an opportunity to host the next WSG in 2016, but there is no money to do so. According to a recent news report filed by J...

Source: WBC Fight Network Press Release -- Roman “Chocolatito” González, who’s the WBC flyweight champion, says HELLO to San Jose, Costa Rica establishing his training camp, determined to defend his crown against former champion Brian Viloria. This fight will be on October 17th at Madison Square Garden in New York. It will be one of the most important of Roman’s career, because Viloria i...

Cerveceria Costa Rica, maker of iconic beer brands such as Imperial and Pilsen, recently released a new alcoholic beverage aimed at young adults. Bliss, an eight percent proof drink with flavors based on tropical fruits, hit the market in on May 18th, but lukewarm marketing efforts have not succeeded in making the brand known in Costa Rica.According to a report filed by Cristina Fallas Villalobos ...

File image Pointe-Claire, Quebec (marketpressrelease) September 4, 2015 - 1010 103, a Montreal, Canada, US and international long distance calling service provider, recently announced lower international phone rates being offered to call various Central American countries observing their Independence Days. The President of 10 10 103, Alejandro Bitar, said, "Our lower international phone calli...

Source: OIJ Agents from the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) raided two bars and arrested two male suspects under suspicion of operating underground brothels. The arrests and raids took place earlier this week in Guapiles, province of Limon, and Cartago, the former capital city of Costa Rica. The two men arrested are brothers aged 56 and 65. According to an official...

When President Luis Guillermo Solis was on the campaign trail against former candidate Johnny Araya from the majority National Liberation Party (Spanish initials: PLN), he presented a single pronouncement on the topic of immigration: He strongly believed that employers should be responsible for handling the required paperwork to assist foreign workers get the proper visa in Costa Rica. More tha...

A long period of inactivity, as well as a conspicuous lack of rhetoric from the administration of longtime President Daniel Ortega, is prompting speculation about whether the quixotic Grand Canal of Nicaragua is an actual civil engineering project or just a smokescreen for some sort of iniquity. As has been reported by The Costa Rica Star over the last couple of years, the Grand Canal of Nicara...

Managua, Aug 22 (EFE). - Nicaragua will be the meeting place for the 7th Space Conference of the Americas 2015, or CEA, which is expected to attract more than 200 participants to exchange information and experiences about satellites and other technologies, the authorities said. During the CEA, to be held Nov. 17-19 in Managua, there will be four great areas of discussion: education, science &am...

Immigration officers stationed at the Peñas Blancas border crossing checkpoint between Costa Rica and Nicaragua detained a male traveler from the United States on Thursday. According to a news report broadcast by national television network Teletica Channel 7, the 30-year old man was coming from Nicaragua in what seemed to be a “visa run” to extend his status as a perpetual tourist. The U.S. ma...

Wikimedia Commons MIAMI, Aug. 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Norwegian Cruise Line today announced exciting and exotic new itineraries for the brand's Fall/Winter 2016/2017 deployment, bringing the world to guests who want to explore new sights while experiencing the freedom and flexibility that only Norwegian Cruise Line can offer. Norwegian offers guests new destinations and new ports to choose fro...

Story by Lt.j.g. Victoria Einbinder, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command & U.S. Fourth Fleet MAYPORT, Fla. - More than 75 military personnel, including 54 members of partner-nation navies, assembled July 27 on Naval Station Mayport for PANAMAX 2015, an exercise aimed at developing strong working relationships between multinational forces to ensure the defense of the Panama Canal. The exer...

Jackson, Miss. (June 23, 2015) – Representatives from Mississippi Development Authority will lead a delegation of Mississippi companies on a business development mission to Central America Sept.19-25, 2015. The trip is designed to connect Mississippi businesses that want to expand trade and create new business relationships with qualified buyers in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. With the ...

Crossing into Nicaragua from Costa Rica at the border The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $100 million loan to the Costa Rican government to finance its Border Integration Program. The goal of the program is to increase the country's competitiveness in foreign trade by modernizing its infrastructure and equipment, establishing processes and tools for effective controls ...

The draconian sentencing in the Silk Road criminal case and the quixotic Nicaragua Interoceanic Canal project have something in common; something other than their connection to Costa Rica, their respective controversy, and their collective absurdity. Recent reports suggests that the respective governments handling the two controversial situations mentioned above have imposed measures to silence...

Managua, Jun 14 (EFE).- Thousands of people took to the streets of Juigalpa, a city in central Nicaragua, for a march against the inter-oceanic canal being built by China's HKND Group. People from across Nicaragua, the majority of them peasants, traveled to Juigalpa for Saturday's march. The protesters demanded that President Daniel Ortega's administration cancel the project because it will ...

Washington, May 12 (EFE).- The volume of remittances received in Latin America last year topped the previous high of $65 billion reached in 2008, the Inter-American Development Bank said Tuesday, crediting the increase to an improving U.S. economy. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2014 totaled $65.38 billion, according to figures compiled by the IDB. The economic crisis cont...

Managua, May 12 (EFE).- Nicaragua hopes to lure European tourists with tours of active and inactive volcanoes, nature preserves, pristine forests, archaeological sites and colonial cities, as well as the chance to see wild birds or whales. Sustainable tourism, deemed the best fit for a country with unexplored regions and the lowest crime rate in Central America, has given Nicaraguan officials a...

THE HAGUE (ICJ Press Release) -- During the public hearings due to open on Tuesday 14 April 2015 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, experts have been called by the Parties in the joined cases concerning Certain Activities carried out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) and the Construction of a Road in Costa Rica a...

By Alfonso Fernandez. Washington, Apr 15 (EFE).- The World Bank said Wednesday that the economic slowdown in Latin America could become "permanent" if structural reforms are not made to adapt the growth model to an international scenario in which China will also slow down economically and the prices of raw materials will remain at low levels. "In the absence of growth-friendly structural ref...

Jinotega (in red). Wikimedia Commons They call him the “Butcher of Jinotega.” Basil Edsel Givner is an expat from the United States who was convicted of the gruesome murder of Harley Silva Soza, a 34-year old man who was found decapitated and cut into eight parts in Jinotega, a coffee-producing region of Nicaragua. According to a news report by S. Ruiz of La Prensa, a major daily newspaper ...

Flickr Commons A 30-year suspect allegedly tried to rape a Canadian woman who was walking down the beach of Los Brasiles Island in Poneloya, a coastal community in the Pacific seaboard of Nicaragua. Poneloya is in the district of Leon. According to a news story published by national newspaper La Prensa, the Canadian woman was all alone when Gerson Uziel Cuadra Vargas, a known felon, jumped ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Centroamerica TV, the official channel of the Central American community in the U.S., recently launched on Cox Communications cable systems in San Diego, Arizona, Las Vegas, Omaha, Orange County, Kansas, Northwest Arkansas, the Central Coast, and Sun Valley, significantly expanding Centroamerica TV’s distribution throughout the national Cox Com...

David Rivera Tenuous security controls at the Peñas Blancas border crossing checkpoint between Costa Rica and Nicaragua helped a controversial former Member of the United States Congress and a close associate hide from the law. David Rivera represented South Florida's 25th District from 2011 to 2013; his controversial background includes allegations of setting up a shadow reelection campaign w...

Preferred weapon of guerrilla fighters. A daily tabloid from Costa Rica and an online publication run by journalists from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have recently published troubling reports of guerrillas operating in northern Nicaragua. Although both reports present some discrepancies, they both stress the issue of obfuscation by the Nicaraguan government, thereby leavin...

Source: Focus Features A penetrating film that deals with a very delicate, yet factual and historic, Cold War narrative, is now available on DVD. Kill the Messenger was modestly released to regional audiences in the United States last year; it has received positive reviews thanks to actor Jeremy Renner's powerful performance as the late journalist Gary Webb. Kill the Messenger is based on t...

Source: CELAC The Third Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a burgeoning and powerful bloc of nations from the Americas that excludes Canada, the United States, and the European territories in the Caribbean, has been -for the most part- flowing smoothly in Costa Rica. The CELAC 2015 Summit is being held at the Pedregal Convention Center, located in the mu...

Source: MSP Earlier this month, the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP) held a special ceremony in Isla Calero that served two purposes: The commemoration of fallen Fuerza Publica officers who died in the line of duty, plus the announcement of a significant donation made by the United States government to augment border security. Through a security cooperation agreement, the...

Tactical police units and soldiers from the Nicaraguan Army clashed against farmers who amassed in protest against one of the most controversial, convoluted and quixotic civil engineering projects of the 21st century, the Grand Interoceanic Canal of Nicaragua. According to Mexican newspaper AM Queretaro, the violent demonstrations have left dozens wounded and two or three in critical condition. ...

On Thursday, November 25th, the Ambassador of Costa Rica to Nicaragua, Don Javier Sancho, officially inaugurated a library located in a public school serving the community of Ciudad Sandino. According to institutional communique 4099 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the new library is about 15 minutes away from the populous capital city of Managua, and it holds many volumes of literature relate...

The future border crossing checkpoint at the Tablillas community of Los Chiles, in the northern region of the Alajuela province, will not be operational until April 2015. Nonetheless, this formality does not seem to stop illegal immigrants from taking advantage of the new bridge on the Nicaraguan side of the border to illegally cross into Costa Rica. According to a recent news article reported ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Dozens of environmental activist organizations in Managua met on Saturday and lodged a strong peremptory request to the government and to the Chinese company HKND Group to postpone their plans to begin construction of the quixotic and highly controversial Nicaragua Canal project. As published by online news daily El Pais and reported by Spanish news agency EFE, the...

Source: WikiMedia Commons The Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS), a shadowy agency in Costa Rica that operates with barely any oversight, may or may not have known that the infamous “Google Maps Invasion” of Isla Calero by a Nicaraguan Army infantry squad since 2008. Such was a recent report filed by journalist Manuel Sancho of online news daily CRHoy.com. While testifying before th...

President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega Members of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) have issued a resolution that calls for the immediate cessation of all activity related to the construction of the controversial Nicaragua Canal, a quixotic project to build an interoceanic waterway to rival the Panama Canal. The ATBC resolution is based on what the organization estimat...

Although Costa Rica is considered by many cash-strapped expats to be the most expensive country in Latin America, data compiled by popular online travel site TripAdvisor indicates that the lovable city of San Jose is a bargain for tourists. Even when compared to Managua, the populous capital city of Nicaragua, San Jose still comes up cheaper. How did TripAdvisor arrive to this peculiar conclusion?...

Many tourists and expatriate residents in Costa Rica have come to the conclusion that the “Switzerland of the Americas” is called that way not only because of her politically neutral stance or the quiet pastoral scenes in mountain landscapes. Switzerland is known as one of the most expensive places in the world, and Costa Rica can now boast to have that in common with the Swiss Confederation. Than...

  A young writer from the United States recently found herself besieged in Peñas Blancas, the border crossing point between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as her lack of a travel document nearly prompted an anxiety attack. Emilia Azar, a senior at Elon University in North Carolina traveled to our country with a few noble intentions, one of them being learning to surf; alas, her joyful sojourn h...

Source: Flickr Life's a beach in Costa Rica; unfortunately, so is death sometimes. The number of tourists who come to enjoy Costa Rica continues to grow each year; alas, the number of those whose beach vacations turn fatal is also on the rise. Since 2009, researchers from the National University of Costa Rica (Spanish initials: UNA) have been working on a comprehensive risk assessment study to...

Source: Flickr Commons Security is a major concern for the million-plus international visitors who arrive in Costa Rica every year as well as for the hundreds of thousands of expatriates who have chosen this country as their new home. This being the case, tourists and expats will probably be surprised to learn that the 2013 Gallup Law and Order Index puts Nicaragua and Panama as the safest nat...

Crater Dome at Poas Volcano. Source: RSN Volcano tourists rejoice: The Central American portion of the Ring of Fire is currently on fire, and volcanoes in Costa Rica and Nicaragua are showing off their natural beauty and power with sulfur emissions, red-hot glowing walls, phreatic (ground water eruptions), and even seismic events from deep within. The colossi in question are the Poas and Turri...