Thirty girls died and 32 others were injured in a fire that broke out on Wednesday in a Guatemalan children's shelter, when female residents attempted to protest over alleged sexual and physical abuse they were suffering. Secretary general of the Public Ministry, Mayra Véliz, said that of the first 19 deaths, 17 of them were caused by severe burns, while the other two were still being investiga...

Surgeons have performed an operation to remove a brain tumor from former Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, his daughter, Sandra, said on Tuesday without providing details on her father's condition. "It's over, but we don't know anything yet about his condition," Sandra Noriega Sieiro said. The 83-year-old Noriega is in "stable condition" after the nearly four-hour operation a...

Brussels, Mar 6 — Agriculture ministers from European Union member states on Monday approved a new organic produce deal with Chile, announced the European Council. In a press release, the EC said the deal — the first of this kind with a Latin American country — would allow the two parties to recognize their rules and control systems as equivalent, meaning organic produce from the EU could be so...

With a 154.6 percent increase in asylum petitions in 2016, Mexico has gone from being a transit country to a possible destination for refugees, a trend that figures to continue and even accelerate under the policies of the current president of the United States. After receiving just 3,424 asylum requests in 2015, that number jumped to 8,781 in 2016, according to figures from the Mexican Commissio...

The luxury US cruise liner Star Pride, a Windstar Cruises vessel, for the first time this year visited Panama's Cebaco Island off the country's Pacific coast with about 150 tourists on board, a spokesperson with the Panama Tourism Authority (ATP) reported Thursday. The Star Pride, which set sail from Puerto Golfito in Costa Rica, "docked last Thursday at Cebaco Island," which lies just a short ...

Moscow, Mar 3 — Bilateral relations between Russia and the Central American nation of El Salvador continue to develop well, said the Russian foreign minister upon meeting his Salvadoran counterpart on Friday. Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with Hugo Martinez Bonilla in the Russian capital, Moscow. "Within three months we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of (Russian-Salvad...

A regional proposal by the Costa Rican Judiciary’s Restorative Justice Program was chosen from more than eighty projects submitted to an international competition organized by the European Union. The program proposes a regional approach to restorative justice, and will receive support from the European Union for its implementation, said European Union Ambassador Pelayo Castro Zuzuarregui. Costa...

At Panama's principal zoo the exotic colors of tropical birds are lost in the dark of old, improvised cages, while lush vegetation adorns paths with no wildlife in sight. Summit Municipal Park is a 250-hectare (617-acre) oasis that has largely been neglected by Panama City, which, absorbed in its financial economy, for years seemed to have forgotten the lush tropical forest surrounding it and t...

Yesterday, Costa Rica’s legislature voted 23-16 in favor of requesting international action on recent restrictions of press freedom in the United States, reported the local Costa Rican digital news source AmeliaRueda.com. The motion, drafted by National Liberation Party Legislator Rolando Gonzalez, condemns recent moves by the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump to restrict some major U.S...

Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, has announced the completion of its combination with Costa Rica-based Muñoz Global, making it the first global law firm to have a footprint across Central America. The combined firm will be known as Dentons Muñoz. The combination follows the launch of Dentons López Velarde in Mexico and Dentons Cardenas & Cardenas in Colombia last year. It marks the next...

Tegucigalpa, Feb. 25 — Honduras, Central America's leading coffee producer, is transforming the scenic farms where that crop is grown into a domestic and international tourist attraction. The Coffee Tourist Route, an initiative centered on several farms in the western provinces of La Paz, Intibuca, Lempira, Santa Barbara, Ocotepeque and Copan, is offering prospective tourists coffee tasting, ad...

A boat used by a Dutch non-government organization to provide abortion pills to women in countries where that practice is illegal has been ordered to leave Guatemala, an army colonel told EFE Friday. The colonel, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the dock where the so-called "abortion ship" is anchored was private and that the owner had only accepted payment for Thursday night, meaning ...

An unexpected tragedy was in store last weekend for Canada’s Manitoba Rugby team who was in Costa Rica competing in the Rainforest 7s competition. On a trip to Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, player Peter Scouras, 33, drowned Monday around noon in the rough surf at Playa Hermosa beach, and Red Cross officials who responded to the accident were unable to resuscitate him, according to local Red Cross...

The Donald Trump administration on Tuesday established new directives to strengthen U.S. immigration control, unveiling an aggressive plan that includes accelerating deportation procedures for undocumented migrants and hiring 15,000 new agents. "The surge of illegal immigration at the southern border has overwhelmed federal agencies and resources and has created a significant national security vu...

The Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law will be presented to Montserrat Solano at a ceremony on February 21 in San José. By Wendy Anders Montserrat Solano Carboni, Defender of the Inhabitants of the Republic of Costa Rica, will receive the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights at a ceremony to be held this Tuesday, February 21, at the Residence of French Ambassador Thierr...

By Wendy Anders Exports from Panama fell for the third consecutive year in 2016, according to a recent report by Panama’s Comptroller General. Overall losses associated with the decline are estimated at 25 percent over the past three years, said officials, although a few exports did experience gains According to figures from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MICI, in Spanish), the econ...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican border police have had their hands full trying to stop the flow of sickly equines near the northern border with Nicaragua. Apparently the animals were being smuggled into Costa Rica for sale under the guise of beef, said the Public Security Ministry. So far in February, officials report having confiscated 41 animals in three different captures. The horses, plus...

Far away from their nerve-wracking days as a spectacle for the public, some 50 chimpanzees live together in Sorocaba, a small Brazilian town repurposed as a refuge for big primates recovering from a traumatic life in zoos and circuses. High up a cement tower, a 20-year-old chimpanzee named Dolores jumps compulsively, claps her hands and screams incessantly, even as her fellow chimps regard her wi...

Rio de Janeiro, Feb. 9 — A protest Thursday against a proposal to privatize the Rio de Janeiro state water company shut down the center of Brazil's tourist mecca, leading to injuries, arrests, and damage to property. Demonstrators clashed with police in streets near the seat of the state legislature, where lawmakers were scheduled to debate the bill authorizing the sale of the Cedae utility. ...

By Wendy Anders South Korea will hold meetings this week with six Central American countries for a legal review of their pending free trade agreement, said South Korean media sources. A team from Seoul's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy will meet its counterparts from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras for three days of negotiations starting Monday, Feb....

By Wendy Anders The Minister of Communication Mauricio Herrera recently reported that Costa Rica returned 1,200 Cubans who were found in the country without legal documentation to Panama last year. He added that in January this year 120 additional undocumented Cubans were returned to Panama, and said he wished to make clear to all Cubans that Costa Rica was not open to receiving undocumented...

The two founders of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were arrested on Saturday, the attorney general's office said, after both were indicted on charges of money-laundering in a case allegedly tied to a wide-ranging corruption scandal in Brazil. Firm founders Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca were detained because of the risk they might try to flee the country. Attorney General Kenia Porcel...

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados; Feb. 8 -- The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the region's tourism development agency, and Airbnb, whose community marketplace provides access to millions of unique accommodations, today signed a landmark agreement to develop a set of policy principles and recommendations on the sharing economy for Caribbean governments and other stakeholders. Under the agreement, si...

Experts from seven Mesoamerican countries who work with unaccompanied migrant children transiting the region have taken part in a regional training organized by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Costa Rica. Central America and Mexico see large numbers of migrants moving from rural areas to cities, as well as large numbers of people migrating to other countries looking for ne...

The French high-fashion company Chanel has drawn on ingredients from the world’s “blue zones,” areas of greatest human longevity, to create a new anti-aging serum, reported the company. “Inspired by the regions where people live longer: the Blue Zones, Chanel Research sourced three longevity ingredients from the diet of the Blue Zone populations for the first time in a breakthrough skincare,” s...

Hate to pack? A nude cruise might be for you. The Bare Necessities 2017 Big Nude Boat, equipped to hold up to 3,000 passengers set sail from Tampa Harbor February 5 with four gorgeous stops in the Caribbean. Director of Bare Necessities, Nancy Tiemann, says that on average cruises, “Over 70 per cent of the passengers have been on a Bare Necessities cruise before, which is extremely competiti...

By Wendy Anders The recent birth of four Bengal tigers in El Salvador’s Fundación Refugio Salvaje (Wild animal refugee foundation, FURESA) made headlines in Asia, but wild-animal-loving readers in Costa Rica might take interest in the cubs from a different angle. The Asian tiger is endangered with only an estimated 2,500 living in the wild, mainly in India, according to the World Wildlife Fu...

The users of TripAdvisor voted to pick the best Central America beaches of 2016, and Costa Rica managed to get 5 of its beautiful beaches listed among the Top 10, and actually four of them made it among the Top 5, however, none of them earned first place. The first place went to West Bay Beach in Honduras, located in Roatan, this white sand beach with light blue clear waters is known as a great...

By Wendy Anders Panama, one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the past decade, is raising eyebrows among development economists at Harvard University for its dramatic inequality. Researchers Ricardo Hausmann, Luis Espinoza and Miguel Angel Santos at Harvard’s Center for International Development say sharp income equality, coupled with growth based primarily around constructi...

By Wendy Anders The Max Planck Society of Germany (MPG), the National Council of Rectors (CONARE), and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT) signed an agreement in January to strengthen scientific collaboration on joint research projects and research-based training. The agreement is result of the visit of a high-level delegation headed by the German Federal Mini...

Specially trained dolphins and a marine sanctuary are to be used in a bid to save the critically endangered vaquita, a rare porpoise endemic to Mexican waters whose numbers are believed to have fallen to less than three dozen. The goal is to capture some vaquitas and place them in a temporary sanctuary until it is safe for them to return to the northern part of the Gulf of California, said Lore...

By Wendy Anders The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene at the Holiday Inn–Convention Center in Managua, Nicaragua this weekend, said the United Nations General Assembly. The theme of the event is, "Building Bridges with the Palestinian Diaspora in Central America" and comes near the fiftieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Pale...

By Wendy Anders A global alliance of civil society organizations and trade unions is calling on Fyffes to establish and implement a global, company-wide policy to ensure the respect of workers’ rights throughout its supply chains, including the freedom of workers to join independent trade unions, and for Fyffes to recognise and engage in collective bargaining with unions. "Fyffes is the numb...

Just like "El Cid," Hugo Chavez may be deceased but now he rules Venezuela again, this time on television as the leading character of the series "El Comandante" (The Commander), created by one of his harshest critics, journalist Moises Naim. The show debuts on the small screen this Monday. "To those who wish me dead, I wish them long life, so they can see how the Bolivarian Revolution will prog...

US President Donald Trump said Friday that he had a "very good" telephone conversation with Mexican counterpart Enrique Peña Nieto amid a diplomatic spat over Washington's plans for a border wall. During a joint press conference with visiting UK Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump confirmed that he and the Mexican president spoke for nearly an hour. "It was a very, very friendly call," Trump s...

By Wendy Anders Representatives from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico met for the second conference of the commission that administers the Central America-Mexico free trade agreement. The Costa Rica delegation was led by Jhon Fonseca, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade. During the event, the leaders analyzed the evolution of the region’s trade, and stressed the ...

The president of the United States intends to impose a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico to cover the cost of a wall spanning the nations' border, the White House spokesman told reporters on board Air Force One, Donald Trump has already made up his mind about the tax, Sean Spicer said. The tax, however, cannot be immediately levied because of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed several executive orders affecting immigration, including one that assigns federal funds for the construction of a wall on the border separating the United States and Mexico. "We've been talking about this from the beginning," Trump said during the signing ceremony, which took place at the Department of Homeland Security. The border wall was one of the ...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- Child marriage will likely soon be illegal in Trinidad and Tobago. The Miscellaneous Provisions Marriage Bill, which Trinidad and Tobago's attorney general presented in the country's senate nearly ten days ago, has passed -- even with four opposition senators (including a woman) and one independent choosing to abstain. All that remains, as the bill proceeds to the House ...

Washington D.C., January 24, 2017, — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) commends the December 23 release of Dutch journalist and blogger Okke Ornstein from custody in Panama, and urges the State to take the necessary measures to bring its criminal laws into line with the Inter-American standards on freedom of expression. According to the information available, on December 23 ...