The President of Costa Rica's Criminal Cassation Chamber Judge Doris Arias Madrigal, inaugurated Tuesday June 27  the first biregional meeting on innovations in addressing drug related offenses in which Caribbean, European and Latin American countries exchanged information and experiences. Judge Arias Madrigal stressed the importance of working on strategies for a comprehensive approach to drug...

Last week, Costa Rica hosted a meeting of the Central American Council of Tourism at which ideas were discussed to promote tourism investment in the region, said the Costa Rican tourism Institute (ICT). Central America's Tourism Ministers, businessmen and representatives of the region's tourism chambers participated in this first "Forum of Exchange of Experiences for the Promotion of Tourism In...

National Geographic Kids and LEGO City are collaborating on a special partnership to inspire children to explore, discover and learn about jungles and the importance of their preservation. As part of the initiative, LEGO City & National Geographic Kids will launch an exciting new competition on July 1 to win a National Geographic Family Expedition to the jungles of Costa Rica in Central Ame...

This week, Costa Rica hosted the XLIX Meeting of Heads of State and Government of the Central American Integration System (SICA, its initials in Spanish) during which a concrete step forward on border control cooperation with Panama was taken, announced the Costa Rican President's office. Presidents Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica and Juan Carlos Varela of Panama signed an agreement to creat...

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Judith Garber is in San Jose, Costa Rica this week. Her 3-day visit will focus on environmental issues and sustainable trade, said the U.S. Department of State's office of the spokesperson in a statement Tuesday. On June 20, Garber met with Costa Rican Minister of Environment ...

A joint Eurojust-Europol press release on Tuesday, June 13, 2017 said a network of payment card fraudsters was dismantled through a cross-border action that led to numerous arrests. The credit and debit card skimming affected some 3,000 people in the EU whose information was then used to make illegal purchases in Costa Rica, Europe and other parts of the world. The victims lost at least EUR 500,0...

Researchers from Costa Rica's Tropical Agronomic Research and Teaching Center and the non-profit Conservation International published findings on the impact of climate change in Latin America. Climatic Change magazine's special edition in March, Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystems, Agriculture and Smallholder Farmers in Central America, detailed the negative impacts of climate change in Centra...

The reputational risks associated with last year's financial scandals such as the Panama Papers, and the arrests and imprisonment of several high ranking Guatemalan politicians on banking-related corruption charges, are the greatest current threats to Costa Rica's and Central America's banking sector, said analysts at Central America's business strategy magazine, Estrategias y Negocios. The 180...

The Costa Rican Public Security Ministry ordered the deportation of an alleged Salvadoran gang member this week. The effort is part of a national increased policy of expediting deportations of violent or dangerous foreigners, said Gustavo Mata Vega, minister of public security. The El Salvador national, Alfaro Muñoz, 26, was identified as hailing from the La Vega neighborhood of San Salvador...

The Central American Security Commission approved this week a plan against organized crime and for the prevention of violence against women. Representatives of the Central American Integration System (SICA, its initials in Spanish) member countries met to discuss security and foreign affairs this week in San José. The SICA's Central American Security Commission (CSC) approved a technical...

An American citizen wanted by authorities in Texas on charges of pedophilia was arrested Friday in the northern Chiriquí region of Panama near the Costa Rica border, according to Panama national media. The American has been identified as Carl Anthony Barroso, 68. After his arrest by the Panamanian national police he was sent to immigration authorities for his deportation to the U.S., said the S...

The Government of Panama announced Friday it will reduce the stay in the country for Nicaraguan, Colombian and Venezuelan tourists from 180 to 90 days as part of a policy of tightening controls over foreigner visitors. This, and other controls by Panama, may lessen some of the flow of undocumented migrants into Costa Rica over its southern border. The Panamanian migration service has detected f...

The consular section at U.S. Embassy in San José announces a consular outreach event in San Ramón on Wednesday, May 31. "Embassy staff will be available to accept adult passport renewals, perform notarial services, and take your inquiries on federal benefits and voting," said the consular section in a statement. "Got questions? ACS Chief Ben Peracchio and representatives of the con...

Whereas last month, meteorologists saw a possible El Niño effect slowing down the formation of storms in the Atlantic-Caribbean region, they now say the probable lack of development of the phenomenon may bring on a heavier than usual hurricane season. Last year brought the unusual late season hurricane - Otto - the first to touch land in Costa Rica in recorded history. For the Atlantic, 2016...

The Costa Rican Tourism Institute announced the opening of a direct air connection between Costa Rica and Peru, the first direct connection to South America. The LATAM flight between San José, Costa Rica and Lima, Peru will facilitate connections to other South American countries. LATAM Airlines Group S.A. is a South American airline holding company incorporated under Chilean law and headqua...

The University of Costa Rica's School of Pharmacy has invited an internationally renowned export on market regulation of cannabis, Julio Calzada, to lead a free conference on the topic. Calzada is a Uruguayan sociologist and politician with over 30 years experience in health promotion projects notably those designed to reduce harm in the use of illicit drugs. Such programs, known as "harm reduc...

Countries in the Central American region are the favored recipients of direct foreign investment by Costa Rican firms. According to figures from the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR), over the last 10 years the flow of investments abroad reached US$1.96 billion, and 56 percent of these investments were in Central America. Panama is the top destination, with US$541.1 million over the last dec...

Costa Rican authorities announced they would reinforce security, including streamlining procedures to expel foreigners linked to criminal activities, following a series of recent crimes that have shocked the country. "Acts of violence in recent days have raised a justified alarm in the population and motivated new calls for attention to all authorities to intensify the fight against drug traffi...

Ariana Grande, the Italian-descent singer from Florida, U.S. is scheduled to perform at Parque Viva in La Guácima, Costa Rica on July 9. The concert's official Facebook page hinted at the possibility of a cancellation, but had no specific information in the wake of the violent UK incident that took the lives of at least 19 people, and injured at least 50, according to international press reports. ...

Biologists wanted to find out whether drug trafficking, in addition to drug cultivation, might also affect deforestation. Noting that Central America as a region has had a net loss of forest cover over the past decade, while other parts of Latin America have slowed their forest loss, researchers wondered if the growing presence of illicit drugs had any role to play. Central American countrie...

Following is a statement by the Costa Rican women's advocacy organization, Cefemina, in response to the kidnapping this week of a Costa Rican university student who was in Guatemala to join in a memorial of the 41 girls whose lives were lost in a fire in March. "On Monday, May 15, 2017, the 23-year-old Costa Rican woman, Shanon Moreno Castro, was kidnapped in Guatemala City by four heavily arme...

After midnight Saturday, a "Breaking Chains" police operation took place in Tamarindo, Guanacaste, a popular surf town on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. The plan - called ROCA in Spanish - is a targeted attempt to rescue victims of human trafficking and is led by Costa Rica's Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ). ROCA is an inter-institutional effort which also involves Interpol police, and a ho...

A report presented last week by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said their teams in Mexico treating migrants show a “pattern of violent displacement, persecution, sexual violence, and forced repatriation akin to the conditions found in the deadliest armed conflicts in the world today,” in people fleeing El Salvador, Hondura...

La Santa Maria is an innovative and exclusive residential and tourist concept being built on the expansive 20,000-square-meter site of the former, posh Barlovento Hotel. This is the first major luxury tourism real estate development project to be undertaken in San Juan del Sur since the 1970s, said the Nicaraguan developers. Perched on a plateau overlooking the coast, La Santa María's design is...

According to a report yesterday in The San Pedro Sun, a daily publication of San Pedro Town on Ambergris Caye, Belize, Canadian national, John DeShaines, remains under police investigation as the main person of interest in a double murder in Corozal in the north of the country. The bodies of 52-year-old Canadian Francesca Matus and 36-year-old American Drew DeVoursney were found Monday, May 1 n...

The 2017 hurricane season is already here with the arrival of Tropical Depression One-E which has been forming off Costa Rica's Pacific coast for the last couple of days, and is now gathering momentum as it heads in a northwesterly direction away from Costa Rica. If it becomes a tropical storm over the next day or two, as predicted, it will be named Adrian. The system is now moving north - n...

Nobody has heard much these days about the once highly touted interoceanic canal that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proposed to build. Thousands of jobs, and millions in investments were gloriously promised to Nicaragua, without apparently any secure plans for carrying out the mammoth project. Four years after an agreement was signed between the Nicaragua government and a Chinese investor,...

Drug-related violence is as much a fact of life in Central America’s Northern Triangle as it is in some parts of the urban U.S. But its impact in these small Central American countries is huge, with up to 10 percent of the population of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador having fled violence and its associated poverty and insecurity according to the Washington-based Atlantic Council. This viol...

Multiple reports in U.S. and Canadian media have revealed the details currently known about the gruesome murder of a Canadian woman and her U.S. boyfriend near the northern Belize town of Corozal. Belize police determined that theft was not the motive of the murder as no money or jewelry were stolen from the couple. Of two people detained this week as suspects in the murder, one Canadian man...

Panama’s Public Prosecutor’s Office this week charged the police officer responsible for accidentally shooting a 22 -year-old American tourist in the capital's historic district April 28, reported local Panamanian media. In the incident, an agent from the Institutional Protection Service (SPI), a special police unit assigned to protecting the president and the presidential palace area, fired at...

Today Costa Rican Security Minister Gustavo Mata Vega gave highlights of one of the biggest break ups of a drug ring to date in Costa Rica. With today’s 12 arrests - 10 in Costa Rica and two in Colombia - a total of 38 people have been caught in connection with a Costa Rican-Colombian drug trafficking ring after a 2-year investigation, said the ministry press office. Costa Rica’s Drug Contro...

As it is tradition now in the United States, the Cinco de Mayo celebrations usually include a big boxing event involving of course, a Mexican fighter. This year it includes not one but two Mexican warriors, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Julio César Chávez Jr., the fight will take place on Saturday, May 6 at the T-Mobile Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Canelo Alvarez is one of boxing’s biggest stars to...

When the La Cruz elementary school director decided to allow Nicaragua students to join her Costa Rican classes, things started to change. La Cruz, Upala, at Alajuela province's northernmost point, is on the border with Nicaragua. Under the guidance of creative designers and communicators from J. Walter Thompson and with the commitment of Costa Rica's leading TV station, Teletica, the children ...

In the first four months of the year the price of the dollar on the Monex wholesale market has increased almost 2 percent, according to financial reports. At the beginning of the year, the price of the U.S. currency was 556.06 colones to the dollar, but on Tuesday, May 2 the day closed at 566.97 colones to the dollar, a gain of 10 colones in only four months. "In the banks' windows, the refe...

The Manuel Mora Valverde Hospital in the southern Costa Rican city of Golfito near the Panama border recently received an investment of approximately US$1.8 million to renovate and upgrade their outpatient care, operating rooms, neonatal care, and hospitalization area, said the Costa Rican Social Security Agency which runs the country's public health care facilities. In February surgeons at the...

On April 5, 2017, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen introduced legislation into the U.S. House of Representatives to "oppose loans at international financial institutions for the Government of Nicaragua unless the Ortega administration takes effective steps to hold free, fair, and transparent elections," according to information on the U.S. Congress website. The bill, termed the Nicaraguan Investment ...

British and UK media reported over the weekend about a group of Australian and other tourists who left their hotel in Antigua, Guatemala for an excursion on a private bus, only to be shot at by a passing car and subsequently assaulted, tied up, and robbed at gunpoint. An Australian couple who was part of the kidnapped group decided to try to recuperate their thwarted vacation plans by coming to...

A 22-year-old American woman tourist is in stable condition in Panama City's Santo Tomás  hospital after a shooting incident in the downtown historic center, called Casco Viejo. In the early morning hours of Friday, April 28, the woman was unintentionally shot by an Institutional Protection Service (SPI) agent, reported the local media El Siglo. SPI director Eric Estrada was quoted as saying...

The Westin Conchal Golf Resort & Spa, on Costa Rica’s north central Pacific coast, is the first all-inclusive beach hotel in Latin America and the first Starwood chain member to qualify as carbon positive. Florida Inmobiliaria, a subsidiary of Florida Ice & Farm Co. (FIFCO), owner of the Conchal resort, set aside 40 hectares of dry forest and mangrove of the resort's some 930 hectares a...

PayPal has extended its consumer protection coverage to include customers in 12 Latin American countries including Costa Rica, reported the region’s Summa business magazine. The service, which went into effect last week, aims to put customers more at ease when buying online, and is already available in several Latin American countries including Mexico and Brazil. PayPal said they will now re...