At a time when the water crisis in Guanacaste has escalated into interventions by law enforcement officers, neighborhood vigils and scrutiny by politicians, a small coastal community is enjoying the benefit of two new water wells complete with their corresponding pumps, distribution pipes and a storage tank. What is surprising about these two new water sources is they were unusually donated by a r...

Leaders and residents of Guanacaste’s coastal areas, Photo by Daniel PerazaLeaders and residents of Guanacaste’s coastal areas will take to the streets on Monday, February 24 to pressure congressmen to approve the Coastal Community Territories bill (TECOCOS – Ley de Territorios Costeros Comunitarios). A protest march has been scheduled for Monday on the Interamerican North highway, in the area...

Municipal Office in Nicoya Costa Rica, Photo by Adam DietrichThose interested in the effort to create a new Municipal District Council (MDC) that includes Nosara and Samara are now able to realize their goal, due to the approval of the Municipal District Council Autonomy Law on Tuesday, February 11th. The law, which regulates the creation, organization and functions of the MDCs, declares them ...

Guanacaste is the province with the most water difficulties in Costa Rica, and the beach community of Playa Potrero is currently one of the most affected. As recently reported by the Costa Rica Star, police officers took the local water utility office in Playa Potrero by force in accordance to a court order, an act that scared neighbors of this once peaceful beach town. Politicians have been quick...

Photo by Wilbert VillalobosThe early morning of Tuesday, February 18 brought commotion to the coastal community of Playa Potrero in Santa Cruz, with the intervention of officials from the Public Force and the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA - Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados). The officials invaded the ASADA’s (water management committee) communal aqueduc...

Agents from the Organization of Judicial Investigations of Costa Rica (Spanish initials: OIJ) have taken two persons into custody for their alleged participation in a narcotics distribution and retail scheme that catered to foreign visitors and expatriate residents in Guanacaste and Puntarenas. When the suspects were arrested in Liberia, they were found in possession of cocaine byproducts as well ...

A few beach communities are named Playa Hermosa in Costa Rica, and two of them often get mixed up by tourists and expats. There's Playa Hermosa near Jaco Beach -this one is in the province of Puntarenas, and there's also the Playa Hermosa of Costa Rica's Gold Coast in Guanacaste. These two tourist and expat havens have one thing in common: They are gorgeous beach towns besieged by crime that often...

A state-controlled news media organization from Venezuela recently apologized for reporting that the United States military industrial complex that the late President Eisenhower warned the world about had reached Costa Rica. The report specifically mentioned a U.S. base in sunny Guanacaste, with 46 warships, an aircraft carrier, 200 gunships, 6 fighter jets, and 13,000 combat troops. While it is a...

Asociación Nacional de Educadores in Costa Rica during a previous demonstration The labour movement said Wednesday that they are evaluating a nationwide strike call next month, in protest of the government’s decree of the 0.43% wage increase for the public sector. The leaders of the Asociación Nacional de Educadores (ANDE) – the largest of the public sector unions – met Wednesday, and accor...

Playa Potrero in Guanacaste is a quiet beach community that many real estate analysts believe could turn into the one of the most lucrative luxury resort and housing markets in Costa Rica. It was in this community where members of Fuerza Publica, Costa Rica's national police force, stormed the offices of the local water utility and environmental development office (Spanish acronym: ASADA) on Frida...

Tempisque River Inspectors from the Ministry of the Environment (Spanish acronym: MINAE) recently inspected an improvised dam erected by a sugar cane processor in Guanacaste. Municipal council members from Carrillo accompanied the MINAE inspectors in the latest dispute over water in the driest, yet most lucrative, region of Costa Rica. Complaints about the dam and its alleged impact on the ...

Luis Guillermo Solis, presidential candidate in Costa Rica. As the runoff presidential election nears in Costa Rica, candidates Johnny Araya of the National Liberation Party (Spanish initials: PLN) and Luis Guillermo Solis of the Citizens' Action Party (Spanish initials: PAC) are formulating their strategies to capture the vote that will determine the successor to President Laura Chinchilla. A...

Roadways of Rural Costa RicaThe roads in Costa Rica are one of the most important public services that the government provides us. We all use them, daily. They connect us to the municipality, to the commercial central, to the beaches, to the schools and the hospitals, and to each other. So what kind of public service is the local and national government entities providing us in this regard? I...

Playa Barrigona, Costa RicaThe Municipality of Nicoya is currently conducting studies to open a roadway to connect the beaches of Barrigona and Barco Quebrado, as well as a road to connect the smaller beaches of Pavones and Bajo Escondido, between Barco Quebrado and Garza, according to Mayor Marco Antonio Jimenez Muñoz. Citing article 23 of Law 6043 regarding the Maritime Land Zone, the mayor ...

Legislator Marta Arauz. Source: Facebook. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Costa Rica has tallied and certified the votes that determined the legislators who will represent the province of Guanacaste at the Legislative Assembly during the next administration. The constituency will have to wait until April 6th to elect the new President of Costa Rica in a runoff election, but the legislators b...

Finished in July, 1908, the historic prison in Heredia has long fallen into disuse and deterioration. But today it is undergoing a 450 million colon facelift that will turn back the clock from its decline through weathering and neglect. The project began last September, a project of the Ministry of Culture's efforts to preserve historic landmarks. The architecture is typical of the massive (and...

Voting for the 2014 presidential elections in Costa Rica Democracy is very much alive in Costa Rica. Such was the impression perceived by the Costa Rica Star as well as international observers of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Sunday, February 2nd, 2014. Although candidate Johnny Araya of the powerful National Liberation (Spanish initials: PLN) initially captured the majority of ...

Roadways in the Nicoya Municipality of Guanacaste are in desperate need of repair and maintenance The lack of agreement between officials from Nicoya’s Municipality and the personnel of the regional office of the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT – Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes) has caused repeated tension and friction between the employees of both institutions. Th...

Bribri schoolchildren in Costa Rica Earlier this month, a trailing presidential candidate in Costa Rica received a very special honor. Rodolfo Piza, leader of the battered Social Christian Union political party (Spanish initials: PUSC), welcomed representatives of three indigenous communities from the Southern Zone, who traveled to San Jose to meet the candidate they consider is the only one lo...

OIJ agents on a 2012 raid. A few days ago, the Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica agreed to review a petition by a news media organization claiming that the Organization of Judicial Investigations (Spanish acronym: OIJ) has been deliberately monitoring telephone conversations and intimidating its journalists. Now it's the OIJ's turn to be monitored and investigated, at least until the Consti...

Fernando Zumbado in court in Costa RicaA former Minister of Housing in Costa Rica was recently sentenced to three years in prison for misusing donated funds and perpetrating fraud against the government. Fernando Zumbado served during former President Oscar Arias' second administration; and, despite his criminal conviction and sentence, he will not spend a single day behind bars. Mr. Zumbado w...

No plans to marry: Costa Rica Presidential candidate, Otto Guevara The image of a presidential candidate dutifully accompanied by his or her spouse has virtually disappeared in Costa Rica. Prior to the 21st century, voters in Costa Rica paid close attention to the potential First Ladies, who were implicit as part of the presidential candidacy package. Given the current spectrum of presidential...

PLN presidential candidate Johnny Araya Presidential candidate Johnny Araya recently announced a detailed plan to tackle poverty in Costa Rica. The details amount to a bare-bones “three squares and a cot” plan, which aims to deploy practical welfare measures such as giving poor families cash for groceries and a generous subsidy to help them achieve their dreams of homeownership. Sounds like a ...

On February 2nd, at least thirteen municipalities in Costa Rica will be dry – prohibiting the sale of alcohol on election day, reports the Unión Nacional de Gobiernos Locales (Spanish acronym: UNGL). On the list of the thirteen municipalities is the city of San José, which also bans the sale of alcohol the day before, the day of and the day after the election. The remaining 12 municipalities...

Liberia Guanacaste, located on the Northwest Pacific coast of Costa RicaNearly three million people either live, work, study, or do business in Costa Rica's Greater Metropolitan Area (Spanish initials: GAM), which extends from the capital city of San Jose out to 34 cantons and 164 districts. This creates an overcrowded Central Valley, where more than half of the country's human, economic and poli...

Sagamat Home. Source: BANHVI It was a modest, yet emotional, ceremony in Santa Cruz, province of Guanacaste. At the Sagamat II residential complex, President Laura Chinchilla welcomed 21 families to their brand-new homes. Until this past Friday, many of these families were squatters or homeless. Today, they are homeowners in Costa Rica thanks to a government initiative that managed to benefit ...

Avon Ladies in Costa Rica may have been unwittingly recruited to conduct a smear campaign against a presidential candidate. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (Spanish initials: TSE), one of the most venerable democratic institutions in Costa Rica, recently issued an order against Avon for allegedly distributing propaganda pamphlets urging makeup shoppers to “Say No To Communism.” According to jour...

The Technical Road Management Unit (UTGV -Unidad Técnica de Gestión Vial) of Nicoya’s municipality invested 24% of their 2013 budget in road maintenance and construction projects in the canton, while 76% of the budget was used for administrative and operating expenses. Those numbers were detailed in the regular municipal budget for the 2013 period in the communication routes section, where the ...

Laura Chinchilla posing with recipient of mortgage debt forgiveness in GuanacasteIn a surprise visit by President Laura Chinchilla to communities in the Carrillo and Liberia cantons of Guanacaste, more than $288,000 of mortgage debt was forgiven for 60 low-income families. President Chinchilla had previously announced that Guanacaste was going to be her first stop in Costa Rica after the holiday ...

Screen grab from Our Name is Costa Rica Disillusionment by young voters in Costa Rica may shift the political tide in the coming presidential and legislative elections. The voter demographic from 18 to 29 years old has the power to sway who will be elected to lead Costa Rica at the Executive Branch level. Young voters can also decide the majority rule at the national Legislative Assembly; as e...

UPDATE: The purpose of publishing this article is to prove how misinformation online can cause problems, it's always best to consult with a lawyer in matters of immigration and residency. The content in this article below is not accurate, and should create conversation on the topic. The Costa Rica Star recently published an article about getting your permanent residency in Costa Rica to avoid the...

Asking for betters wages, equal to those of police officials from the Fuerza Publica, some 250 prison guards of the San Sebastián jail in San José will go on strike Monday. The strike is to pressure the Ministerio de Justicia y Paz to equate their salaries to those of colleagues working for the Ministerio de Seguridad Publica. The head of the workers union, the Nacional de Trabajadores y Tra...

One of the few achievements of the Chinchilla administration is the “intersectoriales”, the intersectoral (Interlinea) buses that was put into service last October, in response to the collapse of the Circunvalación. Although the idea of a bus connecting adjoining communities, without requiring travel to and from downtown San José, was not the idea of the current administration, it was put into ...

Photo of prisoners at Guantanamo BayThree Chinese men unlawfully detained by the United States at the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the island of Cuba were recently cleared for release to the Slovak Republic in Central Europe. At one point, however, these Muslims were ready to start a new life in Costa Rica, at least until the People's Republic of China (PRC) got in the way. A...

Vehicle received by the Samara Police from the Ministry of SecurityOn December 10, the Samara police received a 2008 Mazda pickup from the Ministry of Security to use in patrolling the district’s neighborhoods. The patrol unit has new tires, air conditioning and is in “optimal condition,” according to Samara Police Chief Jorge Luis Jimenez Gonzalez. The Public Force in San Jose recently receiv...

Source: Wikimedia Commons On Saturday, January 4th, Costa Rica celebrated the 202nd anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille with little fanfare. It was a quiet day of observation that served as a reminder that every little improvement that is made to improve the lives of the visually-impaired is certainly worth every effort. Louis Braille was a child whose life underwent a major turn when...

One of the most heavily discussed topics in the ongoing debates among presidential candidates in Costa Rica has been corruption. At a debate organized by the National University (Spanish initials: UNA) in October the word “corruption” was mentioned 219 times among six candidates. Corruption was once again mentioned during a nationally-televised debate this past Monday, and many voters feel that ca...

New cars arrive in Costa Rica, courtesy of a Free Trade Agreement with the United StatesThe Costa Rica Star previously reported on and introduced the Presidential candidates in Costa Rica for 2014. Costa Rica currently counts with 14 Free Trade Agreements (FTA) signed, one in renegotiation and two awaiting ratification by Legislators. Are these enough or would it be beneficial to have more? ...

Officials of Nicoya’s Fuerza Publica decided to all contribute money to use for a good cause and help a local family this holiday season. In that way, this past December 24, a group of police officers arrived at the house of Santos Zuñiga, 67 years old, and Nuria Zuñiga, who is 22, in Chinampas de Terciopelo. Both women live in a house made from zinc sheets and pieces of wood, with a dirt floor...

Photo: Gabriel Enrique MonteroThe new bishop of the Diocese of San Isidro de El General, Gabriel Enrique Montero, expressed concern over the apathy that Costa Ricans have with politics. Montero, who was appointed on Tuesday by Pope Francis, replacing Guillermo Loría, asked the presidential candidates to "learn the lesson" and govern for the people instead of "for themselves or their friends." ...