Brazil, the economic colossus of Latin America, is having a hard time getting ready to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The construction and improvement of infrastructure needed to accommodate thousands of visitors to the world's premier sporting events is constantly running into problems. The country with the largest Portuguese-speaking population in the world has...

How would Ticos react if the University of Costa Rica one day decides to teach all of its courses in English? The Politecnico di Milano, the oldest university in Milan, counts several notable alumni like architect Gio Ponti and chemist Giulio Natta, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1963 for his work on polymers. It is a state-supported, quintessential Italian institution, an important aca...

Finding a message in a bottle is a very neat experience, especially if it comes from a faraway land and the sender wants you to correspond with them. In the last 20 years, Sue and John Eyre have launched more than 50 bottles with messages within them in different parts of the world. Each message includes the couple's name and address in Brown Deer near Milwaukee in the state of Wisconsin. They ...

Should child soldiers be held accountable for their actions after they have been brutally conscripted? Should they be prosecuted if their rehabilitation is not successful? A new classified diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, a notorious whistleblowing and secret-divulging service, indicates that a former child soldier conscripted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda was given u...

Don Herman Davis, better known as Daddy Banton, is one of the Tico hip-hop recording artists scheduled to visit the United States in August for a series of live performances. Joining Banton will be DJ P, Masta and Toledo, all from the "Top a Top" hip-hop crew, a music collective that is responsible for most of the rap and dancehall hits in Costa Rica. The Top a Top crew will perform in the ...

The Hollywood film industry in the United States may be the most influential around the world, but in terms of output and economic relevance it was surpassed by Hindi films (Bollywood) years ago, and now it is falling behind the prolific work of filmmakers in Nigeria. Nollywood, as Nigeria's booming movie machine is endearingly known, is developing at a dizzying pace. The ethos of Nigerian film...

With an official communique issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Costa Rica joined the international community in the collective disappointment of North Korea. "Costa Rica vehemently decries the rocket launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and joins the clamor of the international community to once again take up, this time with greater urgency than before, high-level dialog ...

There is no doubt that the love for peace and democracy that Ticos share makes Costa Rica a special place. Unfortunately, the arcane body of laws, codes, statutes, and regulations in our country sometimes contradicts the will and sentiment of the citizenry. Given our political and civic history, Costa Rica should be a shelter for press freedom and whistleblowers, but according to a recent news ...

A tsunami warning is currently in effect (11:58 GMT) for the western coast of Indonesia and the islands of Sumatra and Mentawai after a strong earthquake and equally strong aftershock were felt in the populous Aceh province. The magnitude of the first earthquake was 8.6 on the Richter scale, and its epicenter was more than 400 kilometers away from the city of Banda Aceh. Residents still sca...

Costa Rica is blessed with some of the most benevolent weather in the world. Our abundant microclimates allow residents of the Central Valley to walk around in shirt sleeves during most days of the year, travel southeast towards the Orosi Valley and Cartago to put a sweater on, and enjoy a perfect day in our beaches along the Pacific coast most of the year. Over the last decade, the Nationa...

English language learning in Costa Rica has become a priority for many Ticos who want to broaden their financial and cultural horizons. Foreigners visiting and relocating to Costa Rica find out that although about 10 percent of the population speaks English (mostly in the Central Valley, Limon and tourist areas), learning Spanish is key in terms of assimilation. For many of us raised in a mostl...

Economically speaking, the People's Republic of China is the most imposing of the BRIC nations. In the last two decades, the rate of growth of China on the world's economic stage has been dizzying, and the list of Chinese billionaires is now the second longest in the world, right after the United States. Many of these billionaires from China are in their forties, and they are helping their coun...

The Office of the Chancellor has confirmed that a member of our diplomatic corps has been kidnapped in the Republic of Venezuela. The victim in question is Guillermo Cholele, who is an attaché and counsel to Nazareth Avendano, Ambassador of Costa Rica in the Republic of Venezuela. According to an official communication from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Avendano explained that Mr....

The comments of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at the 2012 Forum in Paris were somber: “The reports from Costa Rica will not move to the next phase of review due to the grave deficiencies in their legislative frameworks.” The other Latin American countries mentioned were Guatemala, Panama and Uruguay.  In the Caribbean, Barbados had failed back in 2010, but...

Earlier this week, President Laura Chinchilla was at the United Nations General Assembly promoting our country's image of happiness. Our President also supports the initiative presented by the Kingdom of Bhutan to give preference to developing Gross National Happiness (GNP) over Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Our President's remarks on GNP got a lot of attention from the international commun...

Costa Rica is known as one of the happiest countries in the world, a fact that has been widely publicized and even adopted by the national tourism board (ICT)  in an effort to attract even more visitors to our nation. This happiness has been attributed to our commitment to environmental protection, and it is inferred from self-reporting among Ticos; but when it comes to more personal matters of op...

These are some of the comments made earlier today by our President while in New York. Prior to her arrival to the United Nations General Assembly, it was widely speculated that President Laura Chinchilla would focus on issues related to drug trafficking, but in her interview with Spanish news agency EFE, she talked about happiness: "We think that adding other factors such as welfare, qualit...

Online digital newspaper La Fragua reports that former President Jose Maria Figueres has been named the Chief Executive Officer of the Carbon War Room, an entity founded by Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin business empire. According to the website of Virgin Unite, a corporate social responsibility foundation, the Carbon War Room was created by Sir Richard Branson and a group of po...

Eduardo Ulibarri, Ambassador of our country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, attended a high-level briefing in Minneapolis, MN earlier this week related to discuss the concept of peacekeeping forces that involve the contribution of civil society to the unarmed protection of civilians during periods of conflict. Costa Rica fully supports Nonviolent Peaceforces and is committed to t...

"Innovative, forward-looking approaches and ideas" are needed, said Minister of Foreign Trade Anabel Gonzalez at the pre-conference event of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. Our Minister was invited to address the conference by the Secretary General of the UNCTAD, Supachai Panitchpakdi. Fresh from her visit to the INDIASOFT 2012 IT and B2B expo in H...

Chancelor of Foreign Affairs Enrique Castillo spent a day with his Israeli counterpart discussing the challenges and common interests between the two nations, according to digital news daily El Pais and Spanish news agency EFE. According to official sources, the meeting between Castillo and Avigdor Lieberman was "very open and satisfactory, in which a summary of international affairs and re...

Costa Rica is part of a bloc of 18 countries led by Mexico that sent an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) regarding SB 1070, a controversial law in the State of Arizona that aims to curb illegal immigration. The brief supports the administration of President Barack Obama, who has voiced his opposition to the measure in Arizona. An amicus curiae brief is ...

Back in February of 2010, the former Vice President of Costa Rica Rebeca Grynspan was appointed to the post of Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Ever since she took over the post, she has been working hard on advancing the agenda of the UNDP, which lately has been focused on sustainable development. Speaking to the Sunday Zaman English-language news publi...

Otto Perez Molina, current President of Guatemala, has launched a proposal to create a Central American court to decriminalize drug use, and demanded that nations of high drug consumption should reimburse Central American nations for the capture and confiscation of illicit drugs. Several publications reporting on the issue are alluding that the United States and member nations of the European ...

Several news agencies are reporting that a special military unit consisting of 5,000 troops has been assembled and will begin the hunt for Joseph Kony this weekend. The Ugandan leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is wanted for multiple war crimes, particularly the conscription of child soldiers into his rebel movement. The soldiers who will be looking for Kony are part of a multinational...

As part of an extensive itinerary of visits to foreign sovereign states, President Laura Chinchilla will arrive at the Vatican to meet with Pope Benedict XVI, who is currently visiting Mexico. According to digital news daily El Pais, our President's next visits include Guatemala, where she will meet with Central American leaders looking for a solution to reduce consumption of controlled substan...

The Kingdom of Bhutan is located high in the Himalayas, surrounded by the two giants of economic development in Asia: China and India. This tiny nation has come to the attention of the international community in the last few years due to its bucolic way of life and its predominantly Buddhist ideology. Bhutan does not have a particularly high Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the Kingdom is prob...

A top UN official has suggested to his own South American nation to look to Costa Rica as an example to follow in terms of biodiversity conservation and environmental protection. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias recently joined the United Nations after accepting an appointment to the position as Chief of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Immediately upon taking charge, Dias made strong s...

According to a report from Radio Free Europe, a recent ruling by an appellate court in Moscow has effectively labeled Scientology literature -namely the books written by L. Ron Hubbard as extremist. The court's ruling upholds a decision by a lower court that also recommended the banning of Scientology literature on the basis that it could be considered extremist. That decision took place in Ju...

Should Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army be captured alive and brought to justice, his actions may be reviewed and his fate decided by a judge from Costa Rica. Elizabeth Odio Benito, our former Vice-President, is currently sitting in the International Criminal Court (ICC), and her wisdom in the sentencing against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo has established a precedent tha...

Online digital newspaper Costa Rica Hoy recently reported on the efforts of Ticos to support the Kony 2012 movement, an Internet social media effort that has captured international headlines in recent days. Mario Murillo is one of the main supporters and coordinators of the Kony 2012 movement in Costa Rica. His wish is to not only raise awareness to the atrocities committed by the Ugandan rebel le...

SAN JOSE - The acquisition of HSBC retail banking operations in Costa Rica earlier this week was reported in several news media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and La Nacion. The latter newspaper approached the corporate offices of HSBC on January 23rd regarding the impending sale, which at that time the bank chose to label as a rumor that would later be confirmed by Efrain Forero Fonse...