A Russian T-72 battle tank, similar to those heading to Nicaragua. (CC) Russia will deliver 50 new T-72B1 battle tanks to Nicaragua this year, in a deal worth some US $80 million, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency and Nicaraguan media. The first batch of 20 tanks is ready for shipment, and the remaining 30 are to be delivered by the end of the year or early 2017, according to th...

File photo from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Senator Loren Legarda of the Philippines called on nations to immediately ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change and stressed on the need to target the more ambitious but safer 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit. Legarda, Global Champion for Resilience of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), made the statement during the pr...

ARCHIVE/FILE: Some 1,700 tons of cocaine is expected to pass through Costa Rican territory in 2016. (Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security) Eight members of a gang that smuggled up to two tons of cocaine per month through Central America and into the United States were arrested by police in an operation targeting four cities in Colombia, officials said Sunday. The gang's unident...

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff speaks during a meeting with jurists at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, March 22, 2016. REUTERS/Gregg Newton With reporting by EFE and Reuters The Government of Costa Rica expressed its concerns this week about the deepening political crisis in Brazil, as Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said she will not resign in Brazil's worst political crisis in ...

The tents of Cuban migrant refugees are seen at a border post with Panama in Paso Canoas, Costa Rica, earlier in December Photo: Reuters OMX Just days since Panama and Costa Rica declared that the airlift of thousands of Cuban migrants that had been stranded in both countries en route to the United States had been completed, ostensibly putting an end to the Cuban migrant crisis that saw some 8...

Source: MSP Officers from the Costa Rica Drug Control Police (Spanish initials: PCD) dismantled various indoor marijuana growing operations this week, and two expats from the United States were arrested during the law enforcement operation.   According to a press release from the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP), the PCD officers had enough information from confid...

San Jose, Feb 11 (Prensa Latina; additional context by The Costa Rica Star) Journalists, diplomats and representatives of alternative media and social movements in Costa Rica stressed here today the importance of the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina (PL) for covering the international situation, especially in Latin America. The role of this agency was the focus of a meeting held at the ...

(Photo courtesy of Casa Presidencial) Chinese loans to Latin American and Caribbean governments and the region's state-owned firms climbed sharply in 2015 despite the slowing Chinese economy, rising to US $29 billion and focused once again on Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador, the Inter-American Dialogue public policy think tank said in its annual report issued this month. From nuclear power pl...

San Jose, Feb 9 (EFE).- The government of Costa Rica on Tuesday warned the thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in this country that they must fill the flights established to Mexico and El Salvador so they can be on their way to the United States, or otherwise the transit visas they have been issued will be revoked. That was the message from President Luis Guillermo Solis and Foreign Minister M...

Thousands of Cuban migrants remain in shelters across Costa Rica. (For illustrative purposes. CIDH/Twitter) A group of some 100 Cuban migrants being housed in a shelter in San Ramon de Alajuela were threatening to begin a hunger strike and take over the city’s central park on Friday, CRHoy.com reports. The migrants are apparently upset at the slow pace and high cost – US $555 each - of sche...

Wikimedia Commons Geneva, Feb 1 (EFE).- The World Health Organization said Monday that the dramatic increase in Brazil of birth defects thought to be caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus constitutes an international public health emergency. The sharp rise in babies born with abnormally small skulls - a condition known as microcephaly - in areas suffering from a Zika outbreak "constitute ...

Alan Gross with his wife Judy, attorney Scott Gilbert, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. watch television on board a U.S. government plane headed back to the U.S. as the news breaks of his release, Dec. 17, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson) By Lucia Leal Washington, Jan 23 (EFE).- U.S. citizen Alan Gross believes the C...

Source: America TeVe MIAMI, Jan. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- América TeVé once again makes television history in the United Stateswith its unique coverage of its' caravan – Path To Freedom Route. For the first time, a professional news team accompanies step by step and day by day, the first group of Cuban refugees stranded for months in Costa Rica, through its pilgrimage through Central Americ...

By Ivonne Malaver Miami, Jan 18 (EFE).- The first Cuban migrants - who had been stranded in Costa Rica - began arriving in Miami on the weekend distressed over their ordeal, but also grateful to the Central American country for its "incredible humanitarian consciousness" after Nicaragua closed its border to them, temporarily halting their trek to the United States. Odalanier Diaz, 27, was re...

Wikimedia Commons By Maria Clara Montoya Lima, Jan 13 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- Scientists at Peru's International Potato Center, or CIP, are working on a project to explore the possibility of growing potatoes on Mars. The idea for the project came from researcher Julio Valdivia, who is conducting studies for NASA and found that the soil in an area in southern Pe...

IOM Media Release - A pilot group of 180 Cuban economic migrants stranded in Costa Rica since 14 November, 2015, left shelters provided by the Government of Costa Rica and departed the country as regular migrants. They have each paid USD 555 for a commercial plane and bus tickets in a package trip to reach Mexico via El Salvador and Guatemala. “The departure of the pilot group of Cubans should ...

By Riley Brands Press Release from the Office of U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) and Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX-12), as well as U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica S. Fitzgerald Haney and Costa Rican Ambassador to the United States Román Macaya, traveled last week to the Costa Rican border with Nicaragua to see firsthand how Central America is dealing wit...

A Republican Member of the United States Congress visited Costa Rica and toured the shelters provided to stranded Cuban migrants during the holidays. Representative Kay Granger attended a meeting with President Luis Guillermo Solis, Chancellor Manuel Gonzalez, and U.S. Ambassador Fitzgerald Haney before touring the shelters located in the Guanacaste province. At the meeting, which was part of a...

Guatemala/San Jose, Dec 28 (EFE).- The Central American Integration System agreed on Monday to carry out an initial "pilot humanitarian transfer" of thousands of Cuban migrants from Costa Rica to El Salvador, and later to Mexico, in January, after they were stranded in the region during their attempts to travel to the United States. The move was agreed to after a working group was set up that w...

San Jose, Dec 26 (EFE).- Costa Rica's Immigration Department said Saturday that a total of 56 Cubans who entered the country illegally will be deported in the coming days. The Immigration Department's press office told the media that those immigrants failed to obtain a Costa Rican visa legally and are being held in San Jose's Hatillo district. Since Nov. 14, Costa Rica has issued almost 8,00...

Source: Red Cross of Costa Rica Paso Canoas, Panama, Dec 25 (EFE).- Some 800 Cubans spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on the streets or in shelters at the Panamanian-Costa Rican border, not at their final destination as they had hoped. "I thought I'd spend Christmas in the United States with my family," said Sarai Santos, who spent the night of Dec. 24 with friends from her hometown of ...

San Jose, Dec 19 (EFE).- Costa Rica's government said it would stop issuing transit visas to Cubans after failing to reach an agreement with its neighbors to allow these migrants to continue on through Central America toward the United States. "We can't keep receiving migrants indefinitely ... Please don't come to Costa Rica. We don't want to deport you. Don't come because you can't go through,...

Media Release by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba - The President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera, arrived in Havana yesterday, December 13, leading a delegation of government officials and business leaders with the goal of strengthening relations with Cuba. Solís indicated that during the official visit, he hoped to conclude the process of normalization of bilate...

As officials in Costa Rica work on a “Plan C” to allow stranded Cuban migrants to reach their desired destination in the United States, desperation is being felt across the various shelters in the northern region of the country. Nearly 5,000 stranded Cubans are currently sheltered in Costa Rica; their situation has been exacerbated by the actions of the government of Nicaragua against them. Whe...

By Emilio J. Lopez Miami, Dec 8 (EFE).- Cuban immigration to the United States grew by almost 80 percent in 2015 out of fear that the thaw in relations between Washington and Havana might at any time put an end to the advantages Cubans currently enjoy the minute they set foot on U.S. territory. Since Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced to the world on Dec. 17, 2014, their determination to...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--After a decade-long commodity super cycle, the 2016 growth outlook for Latin America remains subdued as external and domestic risks persist, says Fitch Ratings in a new special report. Against this backdrop, Fitch expects little upward sovereign rating movement in the region in 2016. To the contrary, negative rating pressures could increase if countries are unable to adj...

Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Release - A new round of migration talks was held between the delegations of Cuba and the United States, which were headed by Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, Director General of the United States Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Edward Alex Lee, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. During the meeting, both Parties r...

Source: Red Cross of Costa Rica United Nations Country Team Costa Rica News Release - The National Commission for Risk Prevention and Emergency Care Costa Rica (CNE in its Spanish acronym) reported 400 Cuban migrants in Peñas Blancas border facility and 1,320 migrants in 7 shelters. Highlights follow: As of 19 November at 12pm, the government reported that the situation was under control a...

Havana, Nov 23 (EFE).- Cuban authorities are providing "effective cooperation" to provide a "quick, adequate solution" to the plight of more than 2,000 Cuban emigrants who have been stranded for over a week in Costa Rica on the Nicaraguan border, Cuba's official media said Monday. The migrants ended up in Costa Rica after setting out from Cuba "with the intention of emigrating to the U.S., enco...

Freedom House Press Release. Washington, November 20, 2015 - In response a growing number of Cuban migrants passing from through Ecuador and Central America, which has strained diplomatic relations between Costa Rica and Nicaragua and led to Nicaraguan authorities using force against more than 1,500 Cuban migrants, Freedom House issued the followed statement: “Nicaragua’s government should stop i...

Marti Noticias Twitter United States Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a veteran Florida Republican who is Chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is not happy about the treatment received by hundreds of Cuban immigrants at the hands of Nicaraguan Army soldiers yesterday at the northern border of Costa Rica. Ros-Lehtinen went on Marti Noticias, an independent news outlet tha...

Source: Wikimedia Commons San Jose, Sep 7 (EFE).- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Monday published a ruling in which it ordered the Venezuelan government to reinstate the broadcasting license of Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, which has been confined to cable and satellite since being forced off the air in 2007. The Costa Rica-based court, a body of the Organization of Americ...

Young Facebook users in Costa Rica enjoy certain protections with regard to keeping their social media activity hidden from parents. That much is granted by Article 25 of the Childhood and Adolescence Code. Such is not the case in Colombia, where the Supreme Court recently issued an opinion that gives parents the right to monitor the Facebook accounts of their children. In Costa Rica, a legisla...

PRFree.Org (Press Release) Jun 24, 2015 -- With the economy driving towards globalization, many organizations are hard bound to gain a competitive benefit by bringing down their costs and optimizing their efficiency and a great customer service. So, how to achieve it with the limited time available? If you are looking for a single-word answer, then the best idea is to opt for offshore software out...

Source: Wikimedia Commons In a video statement broadcast by Noticias 24 in Venezuela, one of many state-owned media outlets in the troubled South American nation, President Nicolás Maduro affirmed that a group of terrorists have traveled to Costa Rica with the intention of threatening him. Such was the report published by online news daily CRHoy.com earlier today. President Maduro is one of...

The booming voice of play-by-play broadcaster Mario McGregor is well-known by football fans in Costa Rica who enjoy listening to live matches on the radio. When Mr. McGregor, who is an Afro Costa Rican from the Caribbean province of Limon, takes the microphone of Radio Columbia 98.7 FM, he gives it to you with as much love and emotion as he can muster.   While broadcasting from Brazil d...

Source: Flickr CC If you find traffic jams in Costa Rica exasperating, you may not want to drive in Rio de Janeiro, ever. This magnificent and populous Brazilian megacity is among the most beautiful in the world, but gridlock has been tarnishing Rio's facade; particularly after news media reported on the horrible traffic conditions during the FIFA World Cup earlier this year as well as during ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons The National Men's Football Teams of Costa Rica and Mexico have chosen their respective training facilities ahead of the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Although both teams will be hosted by Santos FC, Mexico chose the magnificent Rei Pele (Pele the King) training center, which features a state-of-the-art gym and two modern pitches. Costa Rica, on the other hand, will ...

This article is a press release from the US Embassy in Costa Rica, if you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your announcements, please contact us. The Embassy of the United States in Costa Rica welcomes last night’s strong statement of support from the Government of Costa Rica regarding the Framework Agreement for the Elimination of Syria’s Chemical Weapons. Costa Rica, recognized ...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on how Costa Rica views the conflict in Syria. Not surprisingly, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias has a somewhat different view of U.S. President Barack Obama's acceptance of a Russian proposal to act as negotiator in the poison gas elimination in Syria. Arias gave the Spanish press an earful Friday. Arias claims it was not just Russia and China ...