Mexico's Lower House of Congress passed a bill on Friday to legalize the use of marijuana and cannabis for medical and scientific needs, a step closer to outright legalization in a country long scarred by warring drug cartels. The bill sailed through the Senate in December and will now be sent to President Enrique Pena Nieto, who is expected to sign it. "The ruling eliminates the prohibition...

The Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA) has moved on from awarding the country’s cleanest beaches to granting their eco-diplomatic awards this week. The AyA awarded four embassies in Costa Rica, and three Costa Rican embassies abroad for their notable efforts in energy and water saving such as reducing paper use, recycling and solid waste management, and minimizing fossil fuel c...

Less than a month after starting operations, budget airline Volaris is considering adding a route to Nicaragua, said José Adán Aguerri, president of Nicaragua’s Superior Private Business Council (Cosep). The airline has expressed an interest in starting a flights between San José, Costa Rica and the colonial lake-side city of Granada, Nicaragua located in the southern part of the country. "V...

Glyphosphate is an herbicide used on coffee plantations in Costa Rica and other Central American countries. The chemical is included in the international Pesticide Action Network’s "List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides" and is targeted for global phaseout. Endosulfan is also used in Central American coffee production. It is “an off-patent organochlorine insecticide and acaricide that is being...

“Sí vos no pisas majé, sos marica! Así pensamos nosotros,” said a friend of Ben Anson's during his stay on Honduras' northern Caribbean coast. Which translates to, “If you don’t f*** man, you’re a faggot. That’s how we think.” This, and many other incidents experienced by the young and girlfriend-less Brit, drove Anson to write up his thoughts on masculinity, and publish them this week in Hondu...

The University of Costa Rica (UCR) will launch a project that seeks to revolutionize the transportation sector in Central America through a new computer application and a web page, announced the institution yesterday. The official launch will take place Friday, April 28, 2017 at the Wyndham Hotel at 8 a.m. At the event, the Caravana application will be officially presented to the Secretariat of...

Copa Airlines announced they will offer the only nonstop direct airline service between Denver, Colorado and Panama, with convenient connections to more than 55 destinations in Central America, South America and the Caribbean through the airline’s Panama hub. The service will consist of four weekly flights between Denver and Panama beginning Dec. 11, 2017. Denver will be Copa's 13th U.S. de...

Doctors from the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) are joining a medical mission from Texas this week to provide a variety of health services to residents of several indigenous villages in the Chirripó de Turrialba region, said Heylin Quesada Alvarado, medical director of the Turrialba-Jiménez Health Area The medical team with visit the Cabecar indigenous communities of Boyei, Grano de ...

The Offshore World Championship in Quepos, Costa Rica is the largest and most prestigious sport-fishing tournament in the world. The world-class event, held for the fifth consecutive year in Quepos, Puntarenas near Manuel Antonio National Park includes 55 of the world's best sport fishing teams. From April 24 - 28, at Marina Pez Vela, in Quepos, more than 300 people will compete to see who has ...

Updated: The concert begins at 8 p.m., not 8:30; and discounts with ID are available for students and seniors at the box office. Inti-Illimani, the famed instrumental and vocal Latin American folk music ensemble from Chile, will fill Costa Rica’s National theater with their rich and colorful Latin American rhythms and distinctive fusion of modern world music Friday, May 12 at 8 p.m. As part ...

Spanish national police dismantled the largest international child pornography distribution network to date though pioneering research examining instant messaging groups and WhatsApp messages. The operation monitored 135 users in 18 countries in Europe, Central America and South America who participated in some 96 online pedophile groups. A total of 39 people have been arrested: 17 of them i...

The Royal Dutch Airlines, KLM, annoucend today they will start flying directly to Costa Rica later this year. Two weekly direct flights connecting Amsterdam and San José, Costa Rica will be served by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, the most modern aircraft in the KLM fleet, said the airline. The flights will operate from October 31, 2017 until March, for the duration of Europe’s winter season. ...

After Colorado native Cody Oser was found dead in a creek earlier this month near his Peace Corps site in northern Panama, local residents and Peace Corps members have rallied to pay tribute to the young idealist. His death has been determined accidental. Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela said at a memorial service held at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Wednesday, April 12...

Hospira Costa Rica Ltd., a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., announced last week they are shifting their production in the Dominican Republic to Costa Rica this year. The multinational, which manufactures medical infusion and transfusion equipment, said it will gradually close its manufacturing plant in the Dominican Republic over the course of this year, and transfer most of those operations to its B...

Southwest Airlines says Volaris Costa Rica’s application for permits to start U.S. flights should be discounted as they claim Volaris doesn't fulfill ownership requirements under the existing U.S.-Costa Rica air transport agreement, as reported in airline industry news recently. The Dallas-based airline file an objection with the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT), arguing that the bilateral ...

A Utah man and his fiancée say they got the booted from a United flight Saturday out of Houston en route to their Costa Rica wedding after changing seats, reported local Utah media, the New York Daily News, and other national media outlets. The company has been spotlighted for a series of recent customer service disasters in recent weeks, including an incident where a 69-year-old doctor was dra...

With over 41 million international arrivals in 2015 and an average growth of 5 percent, Latin America’s travel and tourism industry has incredible potential to help generate growth, create jobs and enable regional development, said a recent report by the World Economic Forum. Costa Rica ranked fourth in the forum's 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report. Researchers said wh...

El Salvador was badly shaken by a 5.1 earthquake just before 6 p.m. yesterday, Monday, April 10. The quake was the strongest in a series of hundreds tremors that began Sunday and lasted until this morning, reported the Salvadoran Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MARN). Due to the proximity of the “seismic swarm” to the San Salvador metropolitan area, authorities decided to moni...

On April 3, a delegation from the Russian Federation's aerial landing troops arrived in Managua, Nicaragua to plan future joint military exercises with the country's government, said the digital Russia Beyond the Headlines (RBTH). The end date for the maneuvers is unknown, as the military says they need to study the situation. Experts say that the decision to hold military exercises in Nicaragu...

The body of U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama, Cody Oser, was found in a creek in the Comarca Ngäbe Bugle district in Northern Panama and identified on Sunday, April 9. The 24-year-old left his home town of Broomfield, Colorado for his Peace Corps tenure on July 5, 2016, according to posts on his Facebook page. He and 46 other volunteers in Panama were sworn in September 20, 2016 by U.S. Amb...

Experts say 2017 will bring a below-normal hurricane season, as a potential El Niño may limit the development of storms. Last season spawned 15 named storms, seven of which were hurricanes. The 2017 season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, follows the deadliest in over 10 years for the Atlantic basin. Last year's was also the costliest Atlantic hurricane season since 2012, and Costa Rica saw ...

Costa Rican and Nicaraguan business leaders met yesterday to hammer out a cooperation agreement to further trade between the two countries, said the Costa Rican Private Sector Business Union (UCCAEP, its initials in Spanish) Members of Nicaragua’s Superior Private Business Council (COSEP, its initials in Spanish) traveled to San José for the 1-day session aimed at strengthening relations and co...

A heat wave is scorching a good portion of Central America, raising temperatures above 40 C (104 F) in some areas and spurring authorities to issue warnings of even higher readings. In Costa Rica, people are complaining about the heat on the social networks, despite the fact that high temperatures are normal at this time of year and the current temperatures are similar to in other years. In ...

In the early morning house of  Saturday, April 1, a couple signed into a hotel in downtown San José. Only one of them left alive. Some people in the hotel noted that the man left the hotel about a half an hour after the couple had gone up to the room, but the woman failed to come out of the room for many hours. Hotel staff were alerted to the suspicious scenario. Hotel staff entered the room...

An 5.6 magnitude earthquake registered at 5:54 p.m. in Panama today, Sunday, April 2, was felt strongly in many parts of Costa Rica, according to hundreds of local reports posted on the Ovsicori-UNA Facebook page. The National University's Seismology and Volcanology Observatory (Ovsicori) reported the event as having an epicenter 6.1 km northeast of Cerro Punta in Panama (the exact coordinates ...

— Costa Rica’s exports grew 1.4 percent in 2016. The Statistics and Census Institute (INEC) reported this week on Costa Rica’s economic activity. Data from 2016 show an annual growth in exports of about 1.4 percent over 2015; rising from US$9.4 to US$9.5 billion. The country’s “non-traditional” exports, like medical devices and technology-related exports, are second only to fresh pineapple ...

By late yesterday afternoon, Costa Rica’s Drug Control Police (known as the PCD, in Spanish) had finished counting the cash hidden in a truck attempting to enter into Costa Rica over the northern Peñas Blancas border with Nicaragua. A whopping US$310,380 was found stacked in 12 neatly wrapped packages, and meticulously placed under the front passenger’s seat in part of the air conditioning syst...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced the creation of a commission to seek solutions to the increase in deaths from addiction to heroin and opiates, a situation he called a "total epidemic" and one of the "biggest problems" that the US has at present. "This is a total epidemic and I think it's probably, almost un-talked about compared to the severity that we're witnessing," said Trump a...

Costa Rica is hosting the XVI Tuxtla Mechanism Summit with the participation of Presidents and high ranked delegations of Colombia, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic and of course Costa Rica; these countries are part of the the Mesoamerican group since 1996, when it was known as Puebla-Panama Plan. Mexico’s President, Enrique Peña Nieto wi...

The recent trial of a Lebanese man by the last name of Anis led to him receiving a 12-year prison sentence for smuggling migrants, reported the judiciary press office today. His trial was held earlier this month in the Criminal Court of Corredores, Puntarenas province,in the southern border region with Panama. He was sentenced to “aggravated illicit trafficking of persons” for his activities...

Global technology experts met this week in Guatemala to call for a collaborative, multisectoral approach to the continued development of a more open, stable and secure Internet in Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Costa Rica has found itself lagging behind on Internet speed. “For Internet users in many Central American societies, the Internet affects many aspects of our quality of l...

Companies and individuals engaged in legal, real estate, agricultural, commercial and advisory services and consultancies are among the first 120 to be investigated by the Costa Rican tax administration, said the treasury department today. The names were identified in a publicly searchable database released last April during the Panama Papers scandal by the International Consortium of Investiga...

Emergency management chief Rogelio Flores said Tuesday that "thousands of people took part" in the first national multiple-threat drill of the year in Nicaragua. The evacuation and reaction of citizens faced with extreme natural phenomena that could turn into disasters, such as an earthquake, a tsunami, the eruption of a volcano or the blast of a hurricane, were the focus of the simulation, acc...

Costa Rica’s Short Film Festival invites local producers to submit their works from now until Saturday, March 25. Costa Rican nationals and residents alike are invited to submit their short films to the event which is quickly growing in popularity. The festival’s second edition will hold screenings from June 23-25 at the Costa Rican Journalists Association office across from Parque La Sabana an...

WASHINGTON, DC — Yesterday the White House issued the following statement following a meeting between Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence: "The Vice President met today with President Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica at the White House. The Vice President praised Costa Rica's role as a key partner of the United States in promoting regional economic pr...

The Panamanian Tourism Authority (ATP, its initials in Spanish) announced this week they are considering reactivating a medical insurance option offered for free to visitors to the Central American country, said the government entity. The consideration to reopen the program comes in the wake of the killing of a taxi driver Tuesday, March 14 in the early morning hours in which two Canadians were...

  Costa Rican pineapples obtained the green light to be sold in the Chinese market, announced Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Trade (COMEX) yesterday. There are currently at least 20 companies interested in exporting pineapples to China. Dialogue with China on the possibility of exporting pineapple from Costa Rican began in 2010 when the pineapple sector expressed an interest in export...

A total of six Salvadorans have been arrested for their involvement in a shootout that left six people dead in downtown San Salvador, the head of the National Civil Police (PNC), Howard Cotto, confirmed at a press conference on Thursday. Cotto said that private security guard Hector Antonio Morales, 52, was murdered by three members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) gang, one of whom was captured ...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) stated today that Mexico had requested consultations with Costa Rica as, allegedly, this country unlawfully imposed a restriction on Mexican avocado imports. The measures that Mexico considers restrictive are the checks, inspections, and approval procedures for the importation of the fruit. Mexico also stated that Costa Rica had failed to apply or recognize...

Mexico City, Mar 7 — "Damaris," with lush black hair and inquisitive dark eyes, is a single mom who for the past four years has been a sex worker in Mexico City, fighting day by day against discrimination and police harassment. "We ask people not to judge us," she said. "Police persecution is horrible. They say you're a whore and almost treat you like an animal. They tell you 'If you want to n...