Wikimedia Commons Business magnate Donald Trump is pretty busy these days. Not only is he trying to claim the Republican party ticket for the upcoming presidential elections in the United States; he is also involved in litigation against some of his former business partners who chose to terminate their relationships with Mr. Trump after his offensive and xenophobic comments against Mexican peo...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mosul, Iraq, Aug 2 (EFE).- The Islamic State jihadist group on Sunday executed 15 Iraqi police officers and arrested four journalism students accused of collaborating with the foreign press in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. In remarks to EFE, Mohammed al-Bayati, the head of security in the Iraqi province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the c...

Former President Mujica, right, shakes hands with former President Lula of Brazil Sao Paulo, Jul 31 (EFE).- The think-tank led by former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reported Friday that its headquarters was the target of "a political attack with an explosive device," adding that "fortunately no one was hurt." "The bomb was thrown at the building from a car," said the note ...

Washington, Jul 27 (EFE).- The United States removed Cuba from the list of countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards for combating human trafficking and "do not make significant efforts to do so." The U.S. State Department published Monday its annual report on human trafficking around the world in 2014, in which it identified the countries not taking the necessa...

UNESCO Event Announcement -- Remarking that “only a third part of the countries of the world reached the overall objectives of Education for All (EFA)” and with the coordinated effort with the Ministries of Education of Central America, the Education Sector of the Office of UNESCO for Central America and Mexico will publish the results of 15 years of investment of the Central American countries to...

Asuncion. Wikimedia Commons Asuncion, Jul 22 (EFE).- The protest in which bus drivers have been "crucifying" themselves in Greater Asuncion was brought to the doors of the Labor Ministry in this capital on Wednesday, where four workers were nailed to crossed boards to demand respect for their labor rights. The four men, bringing to 18 the number of workers who have opted to take the extreme...

Wikimedia Commons Austin, Texas, Jul 23 (EFE).- The controversial Republican presidential hopeful, real estate magnate Donald Trump, in a short visit to the South Texas border city of Laredo on Thursday insisted on the need for a wall, albeit only along "certain sections" of the lengthy U.S.-Mexican frontier. Prior to his visit, there had been much anticipation over what the outspoken tycoo...

Dominican Republic Port-au-Prince/Santo Domingo, Jul 22 (EFE).- The Haitian government fired its ambassador to Santo Domingo, Daniel Supplice, for not "appropriately" defending the country amid the current immigration crisis with the Dominican Republic, officials with the Haitian Foreign Ministry told EFE. The officials said that Supplice had been dismissed for "not having defended the coun...

Studies by the International Organization on Migration (IOM) typically document high migration rates from “Third World” countries, such as Costa Rica, to developed nations such as member nations of the European Union. A recent presentation of a research study by the IOM, however, indicates that the trend has reversed in recent years. Part of the migration can be attributed to recent economic tu...

Source: Fuerza Publica Earlier this month, the Ministry of the Environment (Spanish acronym: MINAE) in Costa Rica held the first in a series of workshops destined towards defining the next strategy for sea turtle conservation in our coastal regions. The Vice Ministry of Coastlines and Wetlands will be in charge of these workshops, which call upon various stakeholders to determine the current s...

Washington, Jul 18 (EFE).- More than 35,000 Cubans for whom deportation orders have been issued could be repatriated to the Caribbean island as a result of the renewal of relations between the two countries, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, told EFE. According to ICE data, deportation orders have been issued for 35,106 Cuban nationals in the United States, of whom 162 are curre...

Wikimedia Commons New York, Jul 18 (EFE).- Mexico is a corrupt country that should be subject to a U.S. "boycott," Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday by a New York radio station. Trump, whose remarks were published on Saturday by several media outlets, cited Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman's escape from the Altipl...

Wikimedia Commons La Paz, Jul 16 (EFE).- The southwestern Bolivian city of Potosi has now been paralyzed and isolated from the rest of the country for 11 days, with at least 69 foreign tourists trapped there amid a protest by political and social organizations demanding regional development projects be undertaken to benefit the local populace. Activities at schools, businesses, industries a...

Havana, Jul 15 (EFE).- Cuba's Raul Castro insisted Wednesday that "it's not possible to conceive of" normal relations with the United States as long as the "blockade" of the island remains in place and said he hopes that President Barack Obama uses "his executive authority" to dismantle aspects of the 53-year-old economic embargo. "We hope that (Obama) continues using his executive authority to...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Jul 14 (EFE).- Mexico did not receive any warnings from the U.S. government that Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman was planning to escape from prison, Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio said. U.S. television network CBS reported Monday that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration told the Mexican gove...

ICC Meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica ICC Media Release -- Government representatives from various Central American countries expressed their commitment to support and cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) during the High-level Regional Seminar held on 9 and 10 July in San José, Costa Rica. The event was organized by the International Criminal Court, in cooperation with the Gover...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jul 11 (EFE).- Real-estate magnate and TV personality Donald Trump promises he will win the Hispanic vote to become the Republican candidate and then the elected president of the United States, despite his controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants. Trump made that prediction at a press conference in Los Angeles, where he again defended his opinion about th...

Haitian orphans with charity workers Santo Domingo, Jul 10 (EFE).- The Dominican Republic said Friday amid a bilateral spat over the thorny issue of immigration that Haiti's government is to blame for the large numbers of people who cross the border in search of employment, saying Port-au-Prince "has been unable to carry out policies that boost its people's living standards." The Dominican ...

Toyota Mirai. Wikimedia Commons Japan International Cooperation Agency Press Release -- Costa Rica's environment minister visited Japan April 25 to May 3 to see Japanese environmental initiatives and technologies firsthand. Minister of the Environment and Energy Edgar Gutiérrez visited Japanese geothermal plants, the management site of active volcano Mount Aso and the city of Toyota, Aic...

US NSA Headquarters. Source: Wikimedia Commons Sao Paulo, Jul 4 (EFE).- Whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks on Saturday published the names of more than 29 members of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's administration who were spied on by the U.S. National Security Agency at the start of her first term in office, which began in January 2011. The release of the list of phone numbers linked to...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Two former legislators and the previous Secretary of the Legislative Assembly in Costa Rica are currently subjects of embarrassing complaints, investigations and even criminal charges for alleged sex scandals.   As recently reported by The Costa Rica Star, former legislator Ronal Vargas from Guanacaste may face criminal theft charges for his dogged insisten...

U.S. Ambassador Haney To commemorate the 239th anniversary of Independence as well as his recent arrival to Costa Rica,  held a formal function at his residence on Thursday afternoon. More than 600 attendants from various sectors of civil society and private enterprise attended the event, which took place in the capital city of Costa Rica. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Amba...

Wikimedia Commons Two broadcast networks and a craft brewery in Chicago are the latest businesses no longer interested in doing business with real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump.   Last week, The Costa Rica Star reported on Trump's dismissal by Univision, and now The Chicago Tribune reports that:   5 Rabbit Cerveceria, a craft brewery in Chicago, has pulled i...

For illustrative purposes. Pixabay Commons. By Douglas Marin San Jose, Jun 29 (EFE).- Costa Rican heads of state tend to receive gifts of all kinds from citizens, but rarely are they given animals, much less a pig, as happened to President Luis Guillermo Solis last week, who now has a rather peculiar pet. Hundreds of farmers including pig and fowl breeders from around the country went to...

Confederate flag flies in Columbia, South Carolina. Flickr Commons Washington, Jun 27 (EFE).- A female African American activist was arrested Saturday after taking down the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol in South Carolina as part of the protests against the massacre last weekend of nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston by a young white supremacist. The young woman...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A former legislator from Guanacaste may face criminal charges for allegedly misappropriating an iPhone.   Ronal Vargas was a controversial legislator from the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) political party, a progressive and slightly leftist faction that gained a significant number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica in the last general election...

Washington, Jun 26 (EFE).- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of legalizing gay marriage across the country, a historic decision that annuls the power of states to ban same-sex unions. The high court's decision makes same-sex marriage a constitutional right in the United States, and consequently requires the 13 states still prohibiting it to allow people of the same sex to marry legal...

Source: Pixabay Commons Administrators of the largest brothel in Europe are upset at what they consider to be unjust taxation by the Austrian government; to that effect, they have resolved to stage a protest by means of “direct action.” Over the next few weeks, the Pascha brothel is not charging clients for sessions with prostitutes. According to a news report filed by Oliver Papacek and Ma...

The view from abaft: USS Rentz. Source: Wikimedia Commons. A legislative kerfuffle may result in the indefinite suspension of a legislative permit that allows the United States Navy and Coast Guard to patrol the waters off Costa Rica. According to a news report filed by Janier Pichardo of daily tabloid Diario Extra, lawmakers from the majority National Liberation Party (Spanish initials: PL...

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...

President Putin hunting tigers in 2008 By Jose Antonio Vera St. Petersburg, Jun 20 (EFE).- Many say, perhaps rightly, that Vladimir Putin is as cold as ice, but it's also certain that on occasions the president of Russia can be much less frigid than he appears. He can put on an almost permanent smile and actually laughs at times. He also gesticulates non-stop and raises the index finger ...

Source: US CBP JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (CBP Press Release) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine agents and interagency partners thwarted a dozen illicit smuggling attempts over a two week period in the western Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean preventing the distribution of more than $824 million in illegal drugs. The multi-agency operations targeted maritime drug acti...

Waterboarding device. Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jun 16 (EFE).- The U.S. Senate passed Tuesday by an overwhelming majority an amendment banning torture with interrogation techniques like rectal feeding and waterboarding. The bilateral vote was 78-21. "We must continue to insist that the methods we employ in this fight for peace and freedom must always, always, be as right and honorabl...

Wikimedia Commons New York, Jun 16 (EFE).- Real estate mogul Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is seeking the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination. "So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again," he said during an event at New York's Trump Tower. Five years ago Trump analyzed the possibilit...

Wikimedia Commons Drug Policy Alliance Press Release -- Earlier this month, the Costa Rican Ministry of Health outlined the details for the implementation of a pending bill to research and regulate marijuana for medical and industrial purposes. The bill was introduced by ruling Citizen Action Party legislator Marvin Atencio last year to tax marijuana products and regulate the use of medica...

President Perez Molina of Guatemala. Wikimedia Commons Guatemala City, Jun 13 (EFE).- Hundreds of Guatemalans protested in the streets Saturday to demand once again the resignation of President Otto Perez Molina, who is under investigation by a congressional commission after being accused of corruption before the Supreme Court of Justice, or CSJ. Meanwhile, dozens of the faithful gathered d...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jun 13 (EFE).- The Pentagon considers sending up to 5,000 soldiers, heavy artillery and tanks to Eastern Europe in response to Russian support for Ukrainian separatists, the New York Times said Saturday. If carried out, this will be the first time since the Cold War that the United States sends mechanized infantry to NATO's extended borders in Eastern Europe as...

#MochilaViajante São Paulo ANBA - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched last week a campaign in the Americas that will collect toys for Syrian children refugees who live in Jordan. Brazil will take part and will promote actions in the months of June and August, according to UNHCR’s spokesperson in the country, Luiz Fernando Godinho. The motto of the campaign is ...

The fall of the Third Reich and the Nazi movement. Wikimedia Commons Guadalajara, Mexico, Jun 12 (EFE).- Mexican teenagers have sparked controversy with a video showing them flaunting Nazi symbols during a dance contest in this western metropolis. The three-minute clip was shot by a dance enthusiast during the Cheerdance ACMX competition held May 31 in Guadalajara, but was only posted this ...

Washington, Jun 9 (EFE).- U.S. Judge James Brady has ordered the release of Albert Woodfox, a member of the Black Panthers who has been held in solitary confinement for the past 43 years, accused of killing a prison guard. Woodfox, 68, who always said he was innocent, could be freed immediately, since the judge decided that, given his age, his poor state of health and doubts that the state woul...