By Wendy Anders During 2016, the Costa Rican economy benefited from a favorable macroeconomic environment, allowing the country's economy to maintain stable behavior; however, according to economists at Costa Rica’a ACOBO Financial Group this could change in 2017, causing some indicators such as the exchange rate, interest rates, and inflation to rise. According to Luis Diego Herrera, econom...

By Wendy Anders Universities in the U.S. are stepping in the fill needs of foreign companies with branches, plants and offices in Costa Rica to train their workers in specialized technologies and digital innovations, reported Costa Rica’s business daily El Financierio. From 2015-2016, for example, at least 40 Costa Ricans attended the University of Wisconsin Stout’s specialization program in...

Taipei, Jan. 7 — The president of Taiwan on Saturday embarked on a trip to Central America, with controversial stopovers in the United States, in a bid to strengthen the island nation's ties with Latin America after the re-emergence of its diplomatic war with China. Tsai Ing-wen, accompanied by businessmen and officials, will travel to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador - four of Ta...

By Wendy Anders Hidro Santa Cruz, a subsidiary of the Spanish transnational Ecoener-Hidralia, announced it will not continue in Guatemala after eight years of indigenous resistance to the hydroelectric company's plans, reported Spain’s daily El Diario. In an official statement, the company announced its waiver of the rights associated with the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Camba...

Food and nutrition security are not improving in Latin American - some 34 million people continue to suffer from malnutrition, 47.7 percent of children under age 5 suffer from anemia and 49.8 percent, approximately 1.3 million, have chronic malnutrition. The figures "have not varied ostensibly in the region, they remain the same and are very worrying," the World Food Program (WFP) regional dire...

By Wendy Anders By January 20, Donald Trump said all U.S. ambassadors appointed under outgoing Democratic President Obama must leave their posts, something no other president has ever done, reported several U.S. media last week. Normally though changes are always made to some appointments, these are done gradually so that transitions are smooth, projects can be completed, and out of respect ...

Havana, Jan. 6 — The U.S. airline Alaska Air began flying commercially to Cuba Thursday with daily flights linking Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles, California with the Cuban capital of La Havana, following the resumption of regular flights between the two countries in August 2016 after half a century. The new route makes Alaska Air the eighth airline authorized to operate regular flights to...

By Wendy Anders Media around the world are taken by an exceptional nine-minute Chilean Navy video of a UFO displaying highly unusual behavior, studied by Chilean authorities for the last two years, and now released to the public. The CEFAA - the Chilean government agency which investigates UFOs, or UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena), has been in charge of the investigation. Located within t...

La Habana, Jan. 5 — The Cuban Coabana Trading Company LLC, a subsidiary of Reneo Consulting, will export charcoal produced in Cuba from an invasive plant to the United States in a historic step as part of the countries’ improving relations. An agreement was signed Thursday with the state-owned Cuba Export company. The charcoal is produced by private cooperatives from marabou, an invasive pla...

By Wendy Anders Panamanian National Police announced Thursday they are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recapture of an escaped prisoner awaiting trial for the alleged killing of five Chinese students in Chorrera, reported the digital English media Newsroom Panama. Gilberto Ventura Ceballos, a Dominican national, escaped Dec. 28 from the La Joyita penitentiary. Pol...

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose a "big border tax" on General Motors Co <GM.N> for making some of its Chevrolet Cruze compact cars in Mexico, an arrangement the largest U.S. automaker defended as part of its strategy to serve global customers, not sell them in the United States. Trump's comments marked his latest broadside aimed at an American company over job...

By Wendy Anders Two police officers were detained Tuesday as part of an investigation into the escape of 10 suspected Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) gang members from a Salvadoran police delegation, said the director of the National Civil Police (PNC), Howard Cotto, to EFE. Costa Rican police reported yesterday they have tightened security along the country’s northern border which could prove to be...

Mexico City, Jan. 3 — The Mexican government expressed disappointment following Tuesday's announcement by the Ford Motor Co. that it was abandoning plans for a $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico. Mexico will see to it that Ford reimburses the San Luis Potosi state government for any expenditures of public money made in furtherance of the project, the Economy Secretariat said in a statement. ...

Mexicans overwhelmingly say they oppose the wall U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to build along their northern border. But in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, where extensive fencing was erected by the United States to secure the border between 2007 and 2010, residents have a more nuanced view of what a wall can mean. They say the Juarez fence has both caused and relieved problems in the ...

Hollywood legend Robert De Niro is fighting to restore the once luxurious K Club on the island of Barbuda in the Eastern Caribbean, reports U.K.’s The Telegraph. The small island of under 2,000 inhabitants was a favorite spot for Diana, Princess of Wales, where vacationed with young Princes William and Harry in the winter. The K Club, Diana’s home base on the island suffered a reversal of fo...

Panama City, Jan. 2 — President Juan Carlos Varela highlighted on Monday a decline in Panama's murder rate since he took office 2 1/2 years ago, while acknowledging that his government needs to do more in the area of public safety. "Our public safety plan is yielding good results," Varela said in the annual state of the nation address to the National Assembly. "In 30 months of this administrati...

By Wendy Anders Time to act if you want to nab some low fares on Southwest air which flies daily from several U.S. cities into the northern Liberia, Costa Rica airport or the San José capital airport. A 21-day advance purchase is necessary, says the airline on their site, and these low fares are available for purchase only until January 26, 2017, 11:59 p.m. in the respective time zone of the...

Santiago, Dec. 29 — Seamen and non-commissioned officers serving aboard a navy frigate are facing court martial for planting hidden cameras in the quarters of their female shipmates and sharing the images online, the Chilean military said Thursday. Five men are accused of installing the cameras and sharing the images via WhatsApp and other social networks, while the other three are charged with...

January 2: Colombian rebels may be preparing to lay down their guns, but the nation faces a deeper challenge to heal itself: treating mental illnesses stemming from the trauma of a half-century war. The 260,000 people killed and 60,000 missing in the civil conflict are quantified in official statistics—but uncounted millions still suffer the psychological scars. Maria—a pseudonym which the w...

Lima, Dec. 30 — This capital's La Pampilla beach has become the first in Peru and in Latin America with night-time lighting, an improvement the municipal government says aims to encourage the country's world-class surfers to extend their activity past sunset. Starting this week, 1,000-watt LED lights atop four posts 18 meters (59 ft) high will illuminate the shoreline in the Lima district of Mira...

The Itaipu dam, which is operated by Paraguay and Brazil, finished 2016 with record electricity production of 103.09 million MW hours, eclipsing China's Three Gorges Dam as the world's top generator of hydroelectric power, officials said Sunday. Itaipu's hydroelectric turbines achieved an operational efficiency level of 96 percent last year, a figure that exceeded the 94 percent goal set by the...

By Wendy Anders Dec. 28: A full American Airlines flight destined from Sao Paolo, Brazil to New York made an unexpected landing when a couple having an argument in first class refused to follow crew instructions, said EFE. The resumption of the flight was delayed for almost 15 hours due to airline crew guidelines, the airline said. The plane left Tuesday night from Sao Paulo and landed at...

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 The Mexican-American border wall remains a high priority for President-elect Donald Trump. He continues to talk about it, but without specifics, and he still maintains that Mexico will pay for it in one way or another. What would it...

By Wendy Anders Tourism to Guatemala for medical, health and wellbeing services brought in over US$66 million last year, and the sector is growing quickly. This year income from these specialized health services is expected to register 12.4 percent higher than last year’s sales, said the Guatemalan Export Associaction (Agexport) to Central America’s Summa business magazine. Experts estima...

Bangkok Desk, Dec. 29 — Fifteen people have been detained in Australia in connection with the seizure of 1.1 tons of cocaine in an international operation against a drug smuggling ring, police officials said Thursday. A total of 500 kilograms were seized on Dec. 25 in the southern Australian state of New South Wales, and over 600 kilograms bound for Australia were intercepted in March in Tahiti, ...

Caracas, Dec 28 (EFE).- Venezuela will end 2016 with a homicide rate of 91.8 for every 100,000 people, second only to El Salvador, the independent human rights group, Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), said Wednesday. The projected total number of violent deaths is 28,479, compared with 27,875 in 2015, OVV director Roberto Briceño Leon said. Though the year-on-year increase is relatively...

Buenos Aires, Dec. 27 — Argentina's air transport unions, from flight attendants and pilots to cargo personnel, gathered Tuesday in this capital to protest against the government, which has organized hearings to study the entry of new airlines into the market, including budget carriers. Carrying flags and signs and beating drums, about 1,000 people from various unions demonstrated starting earl...

By Wendy Anders Last week, AOL.com reported that the Cuban government wants to settle a debt with The Czech Republic in a rather alternative, but perhaps attractive way: with liquor. Apparently a bit short on cash as the country emerges out of decades of communist rule, Cuba hopes to pay off this Cold War debt with none other than their famous rum. According to Bloomberg News, the debt is...

Evacuation orders are in effect in coastal areas in four southern regions following a powerful magnitude-7.6 earthquake that hit Quellon, a town on Chile's Chiloe Island, prompting officials to issue a tsunami alert. Officials have not yet released casualty figures or damage estimates. The evacuation order and tsunami alert cover Biobio, La Araucania, Los Lagos and Los Rios regions, nationa...

By Wendy Anders Paris, France-based JCDecaux, the world’s number one outdoor advertizing company, and Top Media, leader in the outdoor advertizing sector in Central America, signed an agreement last week to merge their activities, said the companies in a press statement In the new venture, JCDecaux-Top Media, 71 percent of the capital is owned by JCDecaux and 29 percent controled by Top Medi...

By Wendy Anders Air Canada last Thursday added a new seasonal route to its schedule of flights to and from Costa Rica. The direct Montreal-San José flight will operate during Montreal’s winter with two weekly flights on a Boeing 767-300ER with a capacity of 282 passengers, reported the airline in a press statement. Air Canada also operates Toronto-San José, Toronto-Liberia, and Montreal-L...

Denisse Velasco has been suffering from acute anxiety since spring, when she narrowly escaped being abducted from a busy street in Guadalajara, Mexico. She was waiting at a bus stop one morning when a man jumped out of a taxi and tried to force her inside. Velasco suspects it was a drug trafficker intent on kidnapping her for ransom. "The same thing could happen again in any moment," Velasco...

Faced with a more than 10  percent decline in exports this year, Panamanian authorities traveled to exchange information with Costa Rica's Foreign Trade Promoter (Procomer) to learn from Costa Rica's recent success exporting more than 100 products to different markets. Panama's official delegation included Deputy Minister Nestor Gonzalez, Exports Director Leyda Gonzalez, and directors of the Pa...

Panama City, Dec. 20 — The opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) said Tuesday that Dec. 20 should be a "day of national mourning" to mark the U.S. invasion of Panama, which began on Dec. 20, 1989. U.S. military invasion of Panama on Dec. 20, 1989; source Newsroom Panama. "The death of an undetermined number of Panamanians, the destruction of property representing thousands of mill...

MIAMI, USA -- A New York City resident pleaded guilty on Monday, December 12 in connection with a sophisticated Caribbean cell-phone fraud scheme that involved compromising cell-phone customers’ accounts and “cloning” their phones to make fraudulent international calls. The United States Department of Justice. Farintong Calderon, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire ...

Updated with more details on December 21, 206 By Wendy Anders FILE/ARCHIVE image for illustrative purposes only. (MSP) Yesterday police rescued two women and one man from Ecuador in Quepos near Manuel Antonio National Park on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast. They three  appear to be victims of human trafficking. The three Ecuadorians, who were being driven in a Chevrolet car near L...

Guerima, Colombia, Dec. 17 — The "drug triangle," formed by the Colombian villages of Guerima, Chupave and Puerto Principe, was famous for its coca leaf production under drug lord Carlos Lehder and later under the FARC. A rural peasant, photo for illustrative purposes. Now, as peace becomes a reality, people here are trying to replace that tarnished past with perfectly legal cacao crops. G...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican authorities seized US$480,000 as part of an international effort to local and repatriate assets of the now-disbanded Colombian rebel group, FARC. The Costa Rican Supreme Court of Justice last week turned over the assets of the guerrilla group to the Colombian Attorney General's Office, reported Bogotá, Colombia’s daily El Espectador newspaper. This was the firs...

An unnamed company described in a sweeping probe of corruption in soccer's world governing body FIFA matches the description of a close affiliate of Grupo Televisa, the largest broadcaster in Latin America,according to a Reuters review of U.S. and Swiss government documents. In court papers filed on Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors said an affiliate of a major broadcasting company headquartered in La...

President Barack Obama will leave office in January with US-Latin American relations in "better than ever" shape, his adviser for the region, Mark Feierstein, told EFE, adding that it would "make no sense" for President-elect Donald Trump to change US policy toward those nations too much. "US-Latin America relations are healthier now than they've ever been," said Feierstein, who is Obama's spec...