Panama Canal Panama City, Feb 13 (EFE).- The Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, said a successful test was conducted on a section of the new third set of locks where cracks were discovered last year. The test by the GUPC consortium responsible for the new locks, led by Spanish construction group Sacyr Vallehermoso, consisted of gradually raising the water behind Gate No. 6 of the Cocoli locks ...

Washington, Feb 12 (EFE).- The U.S. government announced Friday the upcoming signing of a memorandum of understanding with Cuba in the field of civil aviation that will pave the way for direct commercial flights by fall of this year. Up to 20 direct flights daily will be permitted from the U.S. to Havana, and 10 more to another nine international airports in Cuba, including those at Santiago de...

Microcephaly is a birth defect which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and brains. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) WASHINGTON DC and SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA - The Pan American Health Organization says Latin America will have between 2 million and 3 million Zika cases, warning that the 100,000 cases reported thus far do not reflect the magnitude of the situation because many ...

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (L) talks during the opening ceremony of a plant of PVC tubes in the state of Carabobo, in this handout picture provided by Miraflores Palace on February 11, 2016. REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout via Reuters CARACAS - Venezuela's Supreme Court approved President Nicolas Maduro's "economic emergency" decree on Thursday, setting up a showdown after the Vene...

Wikimedia Commons Dover – The Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) announced today the state’s first Zika case in an adult female. The illness was travel-related and pregnancy is not an issue. Zika is primarily spread by mosquito bite and the individual is not considered infectious. The illness was mild, as expected, and was confirmed by a CDC blood test. To protect privacy, DPH will not b...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 11 (EFE).- More than 50 people died Thursday in a prison fire and riot in the northern Mexican industrial city of Monterrey, local media reported. Authorities in Nuevo Leon state have not yet provided accurate information about the number of people who died - possibly including both inmates and prison officials - or were injured in the incident. Meanwhi...

LIMA (EFE) The Pacific Ocean washes plastic waste, wood, pipes and other construction materials every day onto Peru's Carpayo beach, considered Latin America's dirtiest stretch of coast with tons of refuse and waste from the capital, Lima. No other beach in Latin America gets the 2.8 kilos (6.2 pounds) of trash per square meter (10.8 sq. feet) collected from Carpayo during the most recent c...

Washington, Feb 9 (EFE).- Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Tuesday finally put a price to one of his most controversial proposals, building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border paid for by the latter, claiming that it would cost $8 billion. "The wall is probably $8 billion, which is a tiny fraction of the money that we lose with Mexico," said Trump in an interview on MSNBC. The...

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...

Zika is spread by the Aedes aegyptie mosquito (Wikimedia Commons) TEGUCIGALPA (EFE) Honduran health authorities reported Tuesday that they have registered 35 cases of the nerve disorder known as Guillain-Barre syndrome linked to the Zika virus. "At this time, we have 35 cases of Guillain-Barre, of which one adult and one little boy are on artificial respirators," Deputy Health Minister Fran...

Olympic mascots are seen at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, Feb. 7, 2016. (Reuters OMX) NEW YORK (Reuters OMX) The United States Olympic Committee told U.S. sports federations that athletes and staff concerned for their health over the Zika virus should consider not going to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August. The message was delivered in a conference call involving USOC of...

Thousands of Cuban migrants remain in shelters across Costa Rica. (CIDH/Twitter) MIAMI (EFE) Some 600 Cubans entered the U.S. at Laredo, Texas, in the last five days, and the rate of arrivals will remain constant for the next three months, the founder of the "Cubanos en Libertad" group told EFE. In a telephone conversation from Laredo, Alejandro Ruiz, who lends his compatriots a helping han...

Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario (1867-1916). Photo: Public Domain MANAGUA (EFE) Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario (1867-1916) was declared Saturday a "national hero" of Nicaragua, in a special session of the National Assembly marking the centennial of his death. The plenary session of the National Assembly named Dario a "national hero" because "with his pen and intellect as well as arms, he defended ...

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...

Roses now adorn the spot where the Jesuits were gunned down on the UCA's campus on Nov. 16, 1989. They were planted by Obdulio Ramos, husband to Julia Elba Ramos and father to Celina Ramos, who were killed along with the Jesuits. Photo by Charles Barry. Jesuits.org Washington, Feb 5 (EFE).- A U.S. district judge on Friday approved the extradition to Spain of a retired Salvadoran army officer w...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Feb 5 (EFE).- Mayor Eduardo Paes took the opportunity of Friday's ceremony marking the state of Rio's famous Carnival to urge residents of Brazil's second city not to forget the fight against the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus and dengue fever. "Don't forget the mosquito, which now brings us a new disease, Zika," he said. The spread of Zika and i...

File photo San Jose, Feb 5 (EFE).- The Costa Rican government announced Friday that next week direct flights to Mexico will begin for Cuban migrants who have been stranded in the Central American country since last November on their way to the United States. "We are pleased to announce that the governments of Costa Rica and Mexico have agreed to carry out direct flights to make travel easie...

Washington, Feb 4 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday announced the "Peace Colombia" plan, a new bilateral accord between Washington and Bogota for which he will ask Congress for some $450 million in the fiscal 2017 budget, substantially more than the $296 million authorized for that country this year. The president announced the proposal during the White House ceremony to commemora...

Source: Maxam By Maria M. Mur Panama City, Feb 4 (EFE).- The 3,500 blasts that Spain-based multinational Maxam has detonated as part of the Panama Canal's expansion have been one of the biggest technological challenges for the firm, a leader in staged explosions in mining and public works projects. "It has been a very important technological challenge for us," Maxam international relatio...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 3 (EFE).- A young gray whale (Eschrictius robustus) that beached itself in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California Sur was rescued by Profepa federal environmental protection agency personnel, officials said. The whale was found at El Mariscal, a fishing camp on the Laguna Ojo de Liebre in Guerrero Negro, a community outside the city of Mulege, t...

Microcephaly, a birth defect which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and brains, is linked to the Zika virus. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) (VOA) A county in the southwestern state of Texas reported what appears to be the first case of the Zika virus being transmitted in the United States by sexual contact. Officials in Dallas County said Tuesday the patient was infe...

Wikimedia Commons Although it may seem as if Costa Rica has always been the leading nation for dental tourism in the Americas, many of us tend to forget that Venezuela once held the title as one of the best Latin American nations for medical and dental tourism, at least until the late 1980s.   There are good reasons to believe that Venezuela could still be the medical and dental tou...

"Rolling Stones 26" by Gorupdebesanez - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons Lima, Feb 2 (EFE).- The Rolling Stones sent a message to their Peruvian fans saying they "can't wait to play in Lima" on their Latin America Ole Tour. The rock group wound up rehearsals for the tour Monday in Santiago, and will give their first concert Wednesday in the Chilean capital, after which they...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 2 (EFE).- Three Colombians were arrested when they tried to fly out of the Mexico City airport with more than $1.5 million in cash hidden in their luggage, the Attorney General's Office said. "The three passengers tried to leave the country without declaring the foreign exchange they were carrying in their double-bottomed suitcases, registered to Copa Airl...

Source: FEDEFUTBOL Not even the lone goal of the match between the National Men’s Football Teams of Costa Rica and Venezuela could salvage the night at La Carolina stadium of Barinas, the home state of the late Hugo Chavez, former leader of the Bolivarian Revolution.   The friendly international match was not sanctioned by FIFA, and that was probably a good thing. Both National Team...

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 ...

Alfredo Guzman Twitter LIMA, Peru — Mexican authorities will be looking into how the daughter of captured druglord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was able to trademark his nickname. Local media reported this week that one of the Sinaloa cartel leader’s daughters, Alejandra Gisselle Guzman, had successfully registered the term “El Chapo” with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property. It… (m...

A slide on the Zika cases distribution around the world is pictured during an information session for Members States at the World Health Organization Executive Board meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse GENEVA (Reuters) - Independent experts to the World Health Organization began deliberating on Monday whether to declare a global emergency over the Zika vir...

TORONTO, ON and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - February 01, 2016) - Scotiabank announced today that it has acquired Citigroup's consumer and commercial banking operations in Costa Rica and Panama. The signing of these acquisitions was announced in July 2015 and the transactions are valued at approximately USD$360 million. "These acquisitions align with our strategy to deepen relationships and inc...

Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jan 28 (EFE).- Mexican authorities sent the U.S. teenager who used an "affluenza" court defense after killing four people while driving drunk in Texas back to the United States to face court proceedings. "Ethan Couch, who entered at the Las Agujas immigration station ... after being found to be in an irregular administrative situation, was transferred this mornin...

Source: Flickr Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 25 (EFE).- The mayor of the Brazilian town of Goianesia do Para, Joao Gomes, was murdered Sunday night while he was attending a wake, local media reported. He was 62. Gomes, popularly known as "Russo," was attending a wake downtown in the municipality in the northern Brazilian state of Para, when two people wearing helmets that covered their faces,...

East Africa Drought of 2011. Wikimedia Commons By Maria M. Mur Los Santos, Panama, Jan 28 (EFE).- A stretch of the Mensabe River near the village of Peñablanca was a popular swimming spot for Panamanian families just one year ago, but a devastating drought has changed the situation dramatically and transformed that waterway into a rocky path to nowhere. Like the Guarare and the Perales, ...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 27 (EFE).- The average annual percentage rate on Brazilian credit cards climbed to 431.4 percent in December, its highest level since that statistic began to be published in March 2011, the Central Bank said in a statement Wednesday. The average credit card APR rose by 16.1 percentage points in December compared with November and by 99.8 percentage poin...

Mexican Soldiers at Checkpoint in 2009. Source: Wikimedia Chilpancingo, Mexico, Jan 27 (EFE).- Nine young people were kidnapped in different parts of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, where a wave of violent crime has persisted despite the deployment of army soldiers and Federal Police, police sources said. Six people were abducted Tuesday by an armed group that burst into a motorcycl...

By Alba Santandreu Piracicaba, Brazil, Jan 27 (EFE).- Roughly 800,000 genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are being released per week in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba to combat that insect, a transmitter of the dengue and zika viruses that has confounded health authorities in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Unlike other mosquitoes, the "good" Aedes aegypti, as it is c...

C-130. Wikimedia Commons San Juan, Jan 25 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- Three French citizens who were sailing on a catamaran from the Dominican Republic to the island of St. Martin were rescued by Puerto Rican authorities when their boat began to founder. In a press release, the U.S. Coast Guard stationed in San Juan said that the trio sent out a distress call at 2 a.m...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 25 (EFE).- The Panama Canal is operating normally and was not affected by the sinking of a Venezuelan-flagged cargo ship that collided with another vessel at the Caribbean entrance to the interoceanic waterway, administrators said Monday. "The sinking of this vessel is not affecting the operations or traffic in the aquatic waterway," said the Panama Canal Autho...

Source: Flickr Commons Ensenada, Mexico, Jan 25 (EFE).- Four people, including two children, were killed and 15 others wounded in a shooting at a cockfight in Ensenada, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California, over the weekend, prosecutors said. Several masked gunmen entered the Palenque Poker building looking for a man they were ordered to kill, the Baja California Atto...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 24 (EFE).- A group of women removed their bikini tops on Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema beach on Sunday to raise awareness of breast cancer in Brazil and challenge a ban on topless sunbathing. A conviction for violating the law banning topless sunbathing could land the women in prison for between three months and a year. The "Topless in Rio" project drew a...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jan 23 (EFE).- Chevron Corp. hailed a District Court of The Hague ruling in favor of the U.S. energy supermajor in its legal battle with Ecuador, which had sought to nullify arbitral rulings handed down against the country in connection with a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment. "Today's decision reinforces the integrity of the arbitral proceedings and ens...