Managua, Nov 3 (EFE).- More than 50 divers removed 1.6 tons of solid waste, including tractor tires, from the bottom of San Juan del Sur Bay, one of the main attractions for tourists on Nicaragua's Pacific coast, clean-up organizers said. A total of 785 items were removed from the bay during the two-day clean-up operation, Dive Nicaragua, which organized the event for the second time, said. ...

LAS VEGAS, Nov. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Pure Hospitality Solutions, Inc., (Pink Sheets: PNOW), parent company of the Central American-Caribbean online travel Agency, Oveedia (www.Oveedia.com), announced today, that those Nicaraguan hotel properties not listed on major OTAs', will now see an influx of business opportunities, with this month's opening of the Costa Esmeralda Airport. This positively ...

Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, Oct 28 (EFE).- A new attraction for fans of extreme tourism has been inaugurated at the foot of San Cristobal Volcano, Nicaragua's tallest, in the northwestern region of the Central American country. The site, with its inn, dining hall, visitors center, tourist service facility and trails for climbing the 1,745-meter (5,721-foot) high volcano, was constructed with a budg...

Source: Wikimedia Commons If you were to wager on the likelihood of the Nicaragua Canal project being completed, what sort of betting odds would you expect? The controversial project, which aims to compete against the Panama Canal, has attracted considerable media attention in 2015. Most of the news reports surrounding the Nicaragua Canal, which will ostensibly be located more than a hundre...

Flickr Commons Managua, Sep 29 (EFE).- The Managua city government has approved W2E Eco Energy Investment Nicaragua S.A.'s proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant at the La Chureca landfill, on the shores of Lake Xolotlan, that will turn plastic bags into synthetic fuel. The city council granted a 30-year operating permit to the company, which plans to invest $17 million in the plant, Man...

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,...

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 ...

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...

PRBuzz - For a golf getaway with beautiful beaches and an international flavor, Unlimited Vacation Club (UVC) members can now book the Dreams Las Mareas Golf Package during their stay at Dreams® Las Mareas Costa Rica. Dreams Las Mareas, part of the elite Unlimited Vacation Club (UVC) by AMResorts portfolio, welcomes members with this package that includes a round of golf at Guacalito Golf Cours...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

One of Ishiguro's robots. Source: Wikimedia Commons Managua, Mar 21 (EFE).- Japanese scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro presented in Nicaragua two robots he calls "humanoids," which he developed with systems of cognitive intelligence, and which are capable of walking, talking and interacting with people. Ishiguro is director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory of the Upper School of Engineering ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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?...

Part of the San Juan River Strong warnings by scientists, a sobering maritime navigation analysis and the sudden death of a Chinese engineer are among the latest news coming from the controversial and quixotic Nicaragua Canal project, which appears to moving away from the San Juan River and Costa Rica's northern border. However, some analysts believe that the move may be temporary. The Nica...

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...

Source: Bing Creative Commons The administration of President Daniel Ortega has granted oil exploration and drilling permits to a couple of European firms. According to a report by Radio Columbia in Costa Rica, Nicaragua's official news media outlet 19 Digital made the announcement during a meeting between Francisco Lopez, president of state-owned energy giant Petronic and representatives from...

Source: CONCACAF As widely expected, the National Men's Football Team of Costa Rica, affectionately known as La Sele, shutout their Nicaraguan counterparts by a score of 3-0 at the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Stadium in the District of Columbia. This was the first match for both teams in the Tigo Central American Cup (UNCAF), a regional tournament that is being played as a warm-up to the upcoming ...

A petition by Costa Rica before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine clear maritime boundaries on the issue of international borders with Nicaragua goes beyond the intentions of President Daniel Ortega to build a transoceanic canal. It is the possibility of oceanic exploration for sources of oil and methane by Nicaragua that has Costa Rica worried. A recent article by Pablo Roj...

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...

President of Nicaragua Daniel OrtegaA few years after the turn of the century, Costa Rica stopped being the darling destination for long-term visitors, expats and retirees. Around the time the housing bubble in the United States was about to burst, jaded (and broke) expats started looking for a Shangri-la known as “the next Costa Rica,” a place many believed could be found in the ultra-cheap neig...

Source; ACG Costa Rica As marine biologists and members of the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica scramble to investigate the mysterious massive death of dozens of green tropical sea turtles off the Pacific coast of Guanacaste, disheartening news reports are arriving: 23 marine turtle carcasses have washed in Playa La Flor in Nicaragua, and many of them are showing inscrutable signs of...

Nicaragua cannot catch a break. After bringing a conflict with Colombia to the United Nations and having a tiff with Costa Rica over a border town, Panama announced on Thursday it had a bone to pick with its northern neighbor: President Ricardo Martinelli said Panama would be joining Colombia in its dispute with Nicaragua over territorial waters. Martinelli accused his Nicaraguan counterpart, D...

My identity is somewhere in that stack.The Costa Rica Star has recently published information about receiving your permanent residency in Costa Rica to avoid border runs, wasting time, and money. Over the weekend, I took a trip up to Nicaragua to get a new stamp in my passport. Costa Rica issues ninety-day tourist visas so if you are an expat trying to carve out a life here and you don't have...

Managua September 4- President Daniel Ortega warned Costa Rica that Nicaragua may ask the International Court of Justice to restore to Managua a province he said it lost to “occupation” in 1824. Ortega was referring to Guanacaste province, which is about 20 percent of neighboring Costa Rica’s territory and a popular tourism hub. “Costa Rica did not win that territory in an international ...

While they protest, we have to keep the Consulate closed: Foreign Minister Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister, Enrique Castillo, said late Sunday that the planned move for the Costa Rican Consulate in Managua was prevented due to “xenophobia fueled by President Daniel Ortega against Costa Rica”. Due to the protests outside the Consulate, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was forced to shut down sin...

Good fences make good neighbors. It is easier to be friendly with your neighbor if neither of you trespasses upon the others property or privacy. For decades that hasn’t been the case between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, who at one time or another have been in a squabble over territory. The latest is a claim by Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister, Enrique Castillo, who on Monday accused Nicaragua of off...

MANAGUA | Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:41pm EST MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaragua has begun talks with the International Monetary Fund over a financial aid package that aims to bolster efforts to reform taxes and pensions, the country's central bank president said on Monday. Alberto Guevara, president of the central bank of...

Few political leaders have benefited more from Hugo Chavez’s largesse than Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Consequently, few foreign leaders will be watching the Venezuelan polls on Sunday closer than the Sandinista strongman. Ortega and his party’s politburo, recipients of more than $2.2 billion in Venezuelan petrodollars since 2007, insist they are confident their Venezuelan benefacto...

The proposed project seeks to enhance the climate resilience of investments in Nicaragua's rural water supply sector. The project is closely aligned with relevant national policies, strategies, plans and legislation. In particular, the project would support the implementation of the National Environment and Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan for 2010-15. The SCCF grant ($6 million, ex...

Retiring to Nicaragua does not have to mean that people’s healthcare will suffer, especially if they are going to be moving close to the capital city Managua and other major cities. Healthcare is very good in Nicaragua and it is also less expensive than it is in the United States. Therefore, people have the opportunities to maintain their health even if they move out of the States and retire i...