REUTERS - A year after Guatemala passed a law banning child marriage, poor families who regard girls as a financial burden are still marrying them off as prolonged drought plunges many into deeper poverty, campaigners say. Guatemala has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Latin America, long driven by poverty and cultural acceptance especially among the country's Maya indigenous commu...

Image Credit: Facebook Grammy Awards (EFE).- Deceased Mexican singer Juan Gabriel had never won a Latin Grammy before Thursday night, when his album "The Duo 2" was named not only Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, but also Album of the Year - the two biggest categories of the Latin Grammy Awards. The Mexican icon's presence first emerged when he was announced as the winner of Best Tradition...

Mexico City, Nov. 16 — Monarch butterfly hibernation sanctuaries, located in the states of Mexico and Michoacán, will open their doors for tourism from Nov. 23, 2016 until March 31, 2017, the Mexican Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) announced yesterday. The monarch butterfly, characterized by its large distinctive orange, black and white patterned wings, migrates every fall up to ...

(Reuters) - Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have agreed to join forces and seek support from Mexico to forge a joint strategy in response to Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidency, El Salvador's foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday. Trump's election upset has sent shockwaves through Mexico and Central America, which rely heavily on U.S. remittances and bilateral trade.President-elec...

Press Release / The Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy, Edgar Gutierrez Espeleta, and his counterpart of the Principality of Andorra, Silvia Calvo Armengol, signed this Monday in Marrakech, Morocco, the memorandum of understanding on Environment and Protection of Biodiversity. With this agreement both countries will exchange experiences in areas like the implementation of a carbon ...

By Wendy Anders Hurricane Matthew Surface pressures are slowly falling over the southwestern Caribbean Sea, and a broad low pressure system is expected to form in this area during the next day or two. According to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for the slow development of this disturbance. This could lead to the formation ...

By Wendy Anders African migrants in Costa Rica; OAS The Government of Costa Rica yesterday resumed deportations of Haitian citizens who are in the country without legal documents, reported the Spanish news service EFE. The deportations had been suspended a month and a half ago due to the emergency situation in Haiti in the aftermath of Hurricane Mathew, said government officials. A gr...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. By Britt Nelson A Trump fan posted this on Facebook. There is much speculation going around about how the new President–elect Trump administration and his evolving foreign policy might affect Costa Rica along with the rest of Central America. Immediat...

Columbus, Ohio, Nov 12 — Mexico ended a humiliating string of 2-0 losses to the United States in this Midwestern city, getting a 2-1 victory over its arch-rival at the start of the fifth and final round of World Cup qualifying in the Concacaf region. Costa Rica beats Cuba Gold Cup Soccer. Friday night's match at Mapfre Stadium seemed destined to end in a 1-1 draw, but 37-year-old defender R...

By Wendy Anders File photo Costa Rica’s Ombudsman’s office considers the proposal presented by the telecommunications superintendency, Sutel, to eliminate set prices for postpaid mobile telephone services is unjustified. The proposed changes will not guarantee that charges for current Internet speed are maintained, and open the possibility that consumers will be charged on a per-download...

Beijing, Nov. 10 — China hopes to take its economic relations with Latin America to a new level as its president is set to begin an official tour of Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Chinese President Xi Jinping, source Facebook. During his tour, between Nov. 17 and 23, Xi Jinping will meet with presidents of the three countries and sign two separate sets of cooperation agreements, including econo...

By Wendy Anders Indigenous peoples have disadvantages vis-a-vis governments and companies in consultations on projects that affect their communities, reported TeleSur TV this week. The United Nation Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli, on Wednesday recommended the Mexican government regulate and supervise the activities of mining companies that affect unprote...

The Costa Rican police dismantled a gang of drug traffickers with links in Mexico and Guatemala, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security (MSP) said yesterday. 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) "At the moment there have been 14 detained, after making 24 raids, and it ...

By Wendy Anders Gardasil, the controversial human papilloma virus vaccine that was tested in Costa Rica. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG’s Central America and Caribbean subsidiary (Roche CAC) reported US$116 million in exports from January to October 2015, reported El Financiero (EF), Costa Rica’s business daily. As part of this growth, the company invested US$5.5 million last year in its distri...

By Wendy Anders Viogaz bio-digester in the Barra Honda National Park in Nicoya, Costa Rica. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s ‘Technology Review’, awarded Joaquín Víquez, manager of the Heredia, Costa Rica-based Viogaz company its young innovators in Central America award. The contest, which is held in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, recognized six o...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — Eight Caribbean territories will receive financial assistance totaling US$8 million to combat exposure to toxic chemicals found in common household cleaning products, processed foods, and even clothing that can severely damage a person’s health. Examples of toxic household products, photo from Facebook. Dr. Ahmad Khan, director of the Basel Convention Regional Cent...

(EFE).- Nicaraguans are heading to the polls Sunday for general elections, with six candidates, including incumbent Daniel Ortega, vying to be the Central American nation's president. Some 4.34 million people are eligible to cast ballots in the general elections, choosing a new president, vice president, 90 National Assembly members and 20 Central American Parliament, or Parlacen, members. T...

(EFE).- Reporters crowd behind yellow ribbons to record with their devices the brazen way that organized crime and street gangs spill blood on the streets of Central America's Northern Triangle, but the indifference of the government and of the media leave these journalists in the line of fire as well. The region made up of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is considered one of the deadliest ...

San Juan, Nov. 2 — U.S. authorities in Puerto Rico announced Wednesday the largest onshore seizure of illegal drugs in the history of the island: 1,786 kilos (3,933 lbs.) of cocaine. An at-sea capture of over 1 tons of cocaine near Puerto Rico in May 2014, Facebook. "We have made large seizures at sea, but never on land," Ricardo Mayoral, acting special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration a...

By Wendy Anders Photo for illustrative purposes. U.S. police in New Jersey deported a Costa Rican man who fled the country in 2003 presumably to escape after allegedly raping his daughter, reported El Diario Extra, a Costa Rican newspaper. According to local Costa Rica news, Jose Alberto Orozco Ramirez, 48, was accused of raping his under age daughter who then became pregnant. New Jer...

Cienfuegos, Cuba, Nov. 1 — Cuba is about to become the country with the oldest population in Latin America and the ninth-oldest in the world by 2050. It faces the double challenge of boosting the birth rate and caring for senior citizens, who account for more than 20 percent of the island's 11.1 million people. Elder care center in Cuba, from Facebook. Cienfuegos, one of the provinces most ...

By Wendy Anders Over $180,000 in cash a Honduran man tried to smuggle into Costa Rica in a jalapeño-filled truck. This weekend at Costa Rica’s northern Peñas Blancas border with Nicaragua, anti-drug police seized some serious cash hidden in a jalapeño-filled truck arriving from Honduras, reported the Public Security Ministry press office. All told, a Honduran man had US$182,680 in bills ...

Talamanca, Limón. By Wendy Anders Yesterday morning, Costa Rica’s Minister of Public Security Gustavo Mata Vega together with Costa Rican police officials welcomed a humanitarian mission at the Limón International Airport on the country’s Atlantic coast. Helicopters from the US Southern Command based in Panama arrived with a 16-person medical team comprised of doctors, nurses, dentists, ...

Scientists in Brazil are preparing to release millions of factory-bred mosquitoes in an attempt to wipe out their distant cousins that carry tropical diseases. The insects' method: have sex and then die. British firm Oxitec says its genetically modified mosquitoes will swarm in among ordinary species such as Aedes aegypti, the insect that carries feared diseases such as Zika, dengue, yellow fev...

Montevideo, Oct 25 — Uruguay is a "stable and legally safe" country that constitutes a gateway to Mercosur for Chinese investments, an official who was on this month's Uruguayan government mission to the Asian country said on Tuesday. Antonio Carambula, executive director of the institute of investment and exports Uruguay XXI, told Radio Uruguay that his country "is an open door" for China to t...

Brasilia, Oct 25 — About 3,000 cowboys and cowgirls on horseback rode Tuesday into Brasilia's Esplanade of the Ministries, which connects all of the government buildings in the Brazilian capital, to protest a Supreme Court ruling banning traditional bullfighting festivals. Vaquejada in Brazil, Facebook. The protest tied up traffic for an hour in downtown Brasilia, where demonstrators create...

By Wendy Anders 2016 Wider Caribbean Region Rule of Law Index rankings, World Justice Project. The Washington, D.C.-based World Justice Project (WJP) just published its ranking of countries throughout the world on a Rule of Law Index that measures how people view justice in their everyday life. Of the 22 countries in the Central America and wider Caribbean region included in this year’s ...

By Wendy Anders Quepos Plateau - Source: UC Santa Cruz A man from the United States who was apparently vacationing in the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area in Costa Rica’s Central Pacific region was rushed to the hospital in delicate condition this afternoon after the taxi he was traveling in spun out of control after ramming into a tractor, reported El Diario Extra, Costa Rica’s Spanish daily tab...

By Wendy Anders Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769, Wikipedia. Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders, called on Harvard University “to demonstrate its remorse and its debt to unnamed slaves from Antigua and Barbuda” whose lives were abused to establish the Harvard Law School (HLS), reported Caribb...

Avianca airlines announced today the cancellation of all flights to and from Venezuela, after a Venezuelan military plane harassed one of their planes. (EFE).- Colombia's Foreign Ministry on Saturday was asked to demand an explanation from Venezuela for an incident in which a military plane allegedly harassed an Avianca passenger jet while it was in the neighboring country's airspace. Colom...

A seizure of over 9 million contraband cigarettes is made in Petén, Guatemala in March, photo courtesy of Belize's Corozal Daily, Facebook. Guatemala City, Oct. 20 — An Asian man has been arrested along with two Guatemalans in the capital of the Central American country after being accused of coordinating the entry of a container filled with cigarettes smuggled from China, judicial sources sai...

By Wendy Anders The Cessna that crashed into the sea off the coast of Tambor, Puntarenas on Wednesday, Oct. 19 around 6:00 p.m. due to bad weather. Photo courtesy of Teletica. England’s Daily Mail reported today that yesterday’s plane crash near Tambor Beach involved four crew members of the British reality TV show “Made in Chelsea.” The crew was on their way to prepare things in advance...

Guatemala City, Oct 19 — A group of Guatemalan women on Wednesday joined a global initiative against gender-based violence, taking part in a sit-in here to demand respect for their rights and an end to femicides. Reyna Sofia Lantan, the artist who participated in the protest in Guatemala City, from Facebook. Feminist Silvia Trujillo, who took part with around 30 other women in the brief sit...

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica, Oct. 19 — A recent study paints a panoramic picture of a surging global trade in illicit cigarettes that is funding groups from Hezbollah and Hamas to the Central American Los Zetas cartel. Contraband cigarettes in Singapore, Facebook, photo for illustrative purposes. The study, "From Ant Smuggling to an Elephant in the Market,” was conducted by CID Gallup for the Cost...

Press Release/ The tourism activity continues to grow and remains as the most dynamic sector in Costa Rica's economy. This was highlighted by the First Vice-president of the Republic, Helio Fallas, during the inauguration of the Alajuela Touristic Expo: “Something more than a Volcano”, that took place at the City Mall. According to data by the Central Bank the inbound tourism grew by 12.3% in ...

Washington, Oct. 14 — El Salvador came out on top last Friday in its long-running arbitration dispute with OceanaGold Corporation, a Canadian-Australian gold and copper mining company. A gold mine in Myanmar, to give an idea of what even the beginning of such an operation looks like. Photo for illustrative purposes, source - Facebook. The company had sought $250 million in compensation for ...

LONDON, Oct. 18 — Today marks the 7th anniversary of Michael Dixon’s disappearance in the seaside holiday town of Tamarindo, Costa Rica, on the country’s northern Pacific coast. Michael Dixon's parents pictured at press conference in London. (PRNewsFoto/David Dixon) His family is still seeking answers on what happened to their loved one, a British journalist. Evidence indicates he was th...

OCTOBER 17, 2016: The Austrailian immigration department devised a proposal for Australia to take refugees from Central America as part of a U.S.-led program. Honduras peasant lawyer killing, file photo. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made the announcement during a speech to President Barack Obama's invitation-only, high-level summit on refugees and migration in New York in September durin...

Cancun, Mexico, Oct 15 — Mexico has signed a memorandum of understanding with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that lays the groundwork for a joint plan to support migrant workers, Mexico's Labor and Social Welfare Secretariat said. Suger cane workers. Under the Temporary Migrant Labor Program, workers from the three Central American countries will be authorized to work in Mexico for a p...

Buttons made from tagua, and then dyed, Facebook. Shanghai, China, Oct. 12 – Tagua, the nut from a subtropical tree, also known as vegetable ivory because of its white color and hardness, is being promoted by trade body Pro Ecuador in collaboration with Hong Kong firm Yee Fung Hong in Shanghai this week. Tagua, also known as corozo, is increasingly used in the fashion world to substitute pl...