The border crossing at Peñas Blancas will be working overtime for the arrival of the Independence torch. According to the border officials, the border post with Nicaragua, will be working “special” hours Thursday and Friday. On Thursday the border will be open until midnight and on Friday from 6am and then normal hours after the formal “torch” ceremonies are over. The Independence Torch was...

College Week wrapped up on Friday September 6, after five days of recreational and cultural activities involving the Nicoyan public and students of the National University (UNA). For Daniela Alvarez, from the Student Association and member of the event’s organizing committee, the activity was a success because it had the support of students as well as a large number of Nicoyans. "The purpos...

Costa Rican officials want to close down public zoos and set the animals free. But releasing zoo animals into the wild is not quite so simple as it may seem. Costa Rica has long been known for the rich biodiversity its natural environments offer - and it is continuing to new steps to protect wildlife. The Central American country had previously banned the use of animals in circuses and sport h...

Ticos Air, the new Costa Rican airline on Monday presented the relevant documentation to the Dirección General de Aviación Civil (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) for the certificate of operation of several international destinations. The company says its goal is to fly first from Costa Rica to Mexico and then incorporate other routes. Last May Avianca announced the elimination of five...

It took some 8,000 use plastic bottles to create the work that aims to raise the awareness about the amount of discarded plastic material in the country. Artist Francesco Bracci used the thousands of discarded plastic bottles to form a missile that hangs overhead on Avenida Central (the Boulevard or Bulevar in Spanish). Bracci’s idea is to catch the attention of passerby and create an awaren...

Geneva / San José (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is today inaugurating the second conference of national committees for the implementation of international humanitarian law of the Americas, in San José, Costa Rica. “The conference is a unique forum for regular dialogue between States, government experts and academics about international humanitarian law,” said Patr...

Back in June of 2010 and also in September of 2011, The Voice of Guanacaste published two articles that described the situation of the EBAIS clinic in Nosara and also the lack of funds to fix those problems. The most critical issue was the growth in the population of Nosara and the surrounding areas, but having the same amount of doctors, supplies and space at the clinic to provide the needed serv...

This is a guest article by Bill Grinstead of CostaRecon.com. The views and opinions shared herein are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star. You must be 18 years or older in Costa Rica to drink alcohol in a bar, please observe and follow the law. You can definitely get by in Costa Rica without learning Spanish, but I’m not sure why you’d want to. I’ve had plenty of English-speaking frien...

My identity is somewhere in that stack.The Costa Rica Star has recently published information about receiving your permanent residency in Costa Rica to avoid border runs, wasting time, and money. Over the weekend, I took a trip up to Nicaragua to get a new stamp in my passport. Costa Rica issues ninety-day tourist visas so if you are an expat trying to carve out a life here and you don't have...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your business press release, please contact us. Costa Rica has 801 miles of coastline along with scenic rainforests, and the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort wants visitors to take in as much as they can while visiting. So, for bookings through Sept. 28, 2013, the resort in Costa Rica is offering one of the premier Costa Rica vacation p...

Costa Rica can take another step towards the World Cup finals when they face a Jamaica side on the brink of elimination on Tuesday. Jorge Luis Pinto's team moved into first place in the final stage of Concacaf qualifying group for Brazil 2014 thanks to a 3-1 win over the United States on Friday. Goals from Jhonny Acosta, Celso Borges and Joel Campbell in San Jose put Costa Rica one point cl...

A survey of youth conducted by the Young People's Council of the Ministry of Culture shows that young people generally agree on the need for sex education classes in high school but are deeply critical of the courses offered early this school year. The Education Ministry was tardy in implementing such a course, under Minister Leonardo Fournier, and against a push back by Evangelicals and other ...

According to El Financiero, the first two stores will be strictly ice cream parlors, while a third location planned for Curridabat, on the east side of San José, will be the fast casual style of Dairy Queen (DQ) stores in the United States. The Costa Rica franchise is being developed by Honduran businessman Miguel Hernández, who immigrated to Costa Rica a decade ago and with his brothers Frank ...

The Costa Rica Star previously published about Mara Street gangs and why they have not spread to Costa Rica in volume. A study of gender roles in Central America's "maras" sheds light on the dual role of women, who are simultaneously violently exploited and heavily relied on by male gang members. The study "Violent and Abused", a joint initiative between several non-governmental organization...

New York — A powerful cohort of women leaders from +35 countries including Christiana Figueres the Executive Secretary at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Lorena Aguilar the Global Senior Advisor for International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) both from Costa Rica, will come together in New York later this month to take bold action on climate change ...

This is a list of photos that we at The Costa Rica Star feel should be retired and never again used by any Costa Rican tourism company. These photos below have been used over and over again, online and in print advertising for many years, often without the approval or consent of the copyright holder to the photo. It's time that tourism operators and businesses spend some money to get new photos...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your business press release, please contact us. Costa Rica´s ecotourism industry, which is committed to sustainability and responsible tourism, is preparing the fourth edition of the Planet, People, and Peace International Conference, to be held from November 3rd to 6th at the National Auditorium of the Children´s Museum. The conference will a...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your business press release, please contact us. The International Pineapple Organization (IPO) is pleased to announce the IPO Global Pineapple Conference which will be held in San Jose, Costa Rica on Friday November 01, 2013 at the San Jose Marriott Hotel. Join Major Stakeholders from the Global Pineapple Industry as we discuss critical issue...

We had the privilege to spend the day with the team at Croc's Casino Resort preparing content for an upcoming article, however there are a few photos below of the updated construction process as of September 7th 2013. The construction has come a very long way since the opening media event and ground breaking party that we attended a few months ago. It looks as though they are on track for a Decemb...

During a recent trip to Jaco, I learned about a free community newspaper called The Jaco Journal, photo herein. Print media is not doing very well as an industry globally, as everyone moves online and uses smart phones, however hyper local print newspapers will always have a marketplace and locals will read them in volume. Especially a great service like this in English for expats and English ...

The United States didn't just lose a World Cup qualifier at Costa Rica. The Americans likely will be missing four players for Tuesday night's match against Mexico in Columbus, Ohio. Johnny Acosta and Celso Borges scored as Costa Rica burst ahead in the first nine minutes, Joel Campbell added a goal on a late counterattack and the Ticos beat the visiting United States 3-1 Friday night at San Jos...

The second meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) on Migration began in San Jose yesterday, with interesting proposals that opened the discussion among delegations. Among the initiatives is the creation of regional consulates in certain parts of the world that deal with the problems of emigrants from CELAC countries, as well as the establishment of mobile consul...

The story of the Tico Times appealing to the Constitutional Court after the Fedefut (Costa Rica’s soccer Gods) denied them passes to tonight's soccer game between the US and Costa Rica, reminds us of an old joke with the punchline, “buy a ticket!” Every media outlet in the country wants passes to the big game. And why not? A freebie for the countless hours of grind to bring the news to the p...

Washington, D.C., 6 September 2013 (PAHO/WHO) — Motorcycle deaths in the Americas more than tripled during the last two decades, according to a study by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) published in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. The study, Trends in fatal motorcycle injuries in the Americas, 1998-2010, shows that motor...

Washington, DC – The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) today launches the first ever global survey of security concerns for women journalists. The survey, created in conjunction with the International News Safety Institute (INSI), will produce much-needed data on the challenges faced by women in news media around the world. The survey is part of a wider program of work initiated by ...

The members of the Human Rights Commission of the Legislative Assembly rejected a motion to start an investigation into the increase in cases of kidney failure in Guanacaste. The motion was made by the fraction of the Citizen Action Party (PAC) but did not have the support of the National Liberation legislators. The motion was intended to investigate the causes responsible for the increase i...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your business press release, please contact us. Pineapple prices, which have been marked by variability over the past two years, are finally recovering some stability and remaining at good levels. This is due, in part, to the fact that the number of pineapple producers has dropped, opening up some space in the market. One of the companies bene...

Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl wrote a story about all the ways Costa Rica is trying to mess with the U.S. men's national team before today's big World Cup qualifier. The craziest nugget: There's a rumor in Costa Rica that taxi drivers are planning to band together and create a traffic jam along the U.S. team's route to the stadium before the game. It sounds far-fetched, but the U.S. has al...

Every driver in Costa Rica knows well that the autopista General Cañas, the major route between the international airport in Alajuela and the La Sabana park in San José, is the busiest and most congested road in the country. And now there are numbers to back it up. According to the Laboratorio Nacional de Materiales y Modelos Estructurales (Lanamme), of the University of Costa Rica, 98,616 v...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your business press release, please contact us. The adventure with Costa Rica surf camp starts as soon as you get off the airplane. The drive to the coast is quite an experience itself, the road is surrounded with green valleys, cloud forests and dense jungle, which are signs you arrived to the tropics! Home to all kinds of amazing species of ani...

The yellow warbler may not pull a perfect latte, but it turns out it's a friend to coffee drinkers all the same. Research in Costa Rica shows that hungry warblers and other birds significantly reduce damage by a devastating coffee pest, the coffee berry borer beetle. A study found that insectivorous birds cut infestations by the beetle Hypothenemus hampei by about half, saving a medium-sized co...

The British Government is making important changes to the passport service for British nationals living overseas. From September 9, 2013, the application process will be centralized and British nationals in Costa Rica should submit their passport application to Her Majesty’s Passport Office in the UK. This important change follows reviews by the National Audit Office and is designed to ach...

In Costa Rica, there are 116 active cellular phones for 100 people, according to the latest report by the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel). The study, whose results were released Wednesday reveals that there are now 5,378,082 active (postpaid and prepaid) cellular telephone lines for a population of 4.6 million. The largest number of active lines are “prepaid”, showing a growth...

The Laboratorio de Igeniería Sísmica de la Universidad de Costa Rica reported a 5.8 magnitude earthquake at 6:29am, with its epicenter some 68.3 kilometers off cabos Velas de Santa Cruz. The USGS reports the magnitude at 6.0. According to the National Volcanological and Seismological Observatory (Ovsicori), at 6:35am there was another earthquake with a magnitude of 3.8, 39 km to the southwes...

An interview with native Costa Rican Tica & AGU Academic Consultant Ania Chaves about university life in Costa Rica, courtesy of ISA Association of Global Universities. Filled with exotic wildlife and damp rainforests perfectly preserved by a government who has sectioned off over a fourth of the country’s land mass to nature preserves and national parks, Costa Rica is truly a unique study desti...

Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula is considered one of the world’s most beautiful places — a 120-kilometre sliver of land where tropical rainforest meets the Pacific Ocean. Now it has another claim to fame: its residents, despite living in poverty, seem to be aging more slowly than wealthier people elsewhere. Costa Ricans in general are known to enjoy particularly long lives. Costa Rican men have a...

There is a plethora of possible excursions to jump in to once you’ve arrived in the lush and tropical Central American country of Costa Rica. Things that tourists venture to do include zip lining, crocodile feeding, volcano trekking, and beach lounging–to name just a few. Well, for all you dog-lovers out there, Territorio de Zaguates (Territory of the Street Dogs) is a place you don’t want to miss...

United Parcel Service Inc will expand in Costa Rica by buying small package delivery company Union Pak de Costa Rica and brokerage company SEISA Brokerage. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deals are expected to close in the fourth quarter. Both companies have long worked with Atlanta-based UPS (NYSE: UPS) as authorized service contractors. “With the ownership of these operation...

On Tuesday evening, September 3, local fishermen in Nosara found thousands of dead fish and shrimp in the Nosara River, and the suspected cause is agrochemicals. Juan Carlos Cordero, chief of the Tourist Police delegation in Guiones, reported that the size of the dead fish, mostly bass, snook and gualajes, are around 15 inches and most were found in the river mouth. One of the first to see t...

My North American friends often ask me “What can I do in Central America?” in terms of business start up. I tell them Central America is an under developed group of countries, so everything needs development, there is opportunity everywhere for the entrepreneur at every level especially, in Costa Rica. At a population of 589,018,000+, Latin America as a whole is called the largest emerging econ...