Biologists wanted to find out whether drug trafficking, in addition to drug cultivation, might also affect deforestation. Noting that Central America as a region has had a net loss of forest cover over the past decade, while other parts of Latin America have slowed their forest loss, researchers wondered if the growing presence of illicit drugs had any role to play. Central American countrie...

Costa Rica and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have agreed to develop a joint groundwater exploration and evaluation project to improve resource management and minimize the impact of climate change, reported the Spanish news agency EFE last week. The Costa Rican Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) said in a press release that the Geological Survey expert, Saud Amer, who carried o...

The pharmaceutical transnational, Allergan, recently awarded its Costa Rica manufacturing plant for its excellent performance. Allergan was founded in 2015 through the acquisition of Allergan, Inc by Actavis, Plc, according to corporate information. The company manufactures branded and generic pharmaceuticals, and conducts pharmaceutical research and development. After an evaluation of its p...

A deadly shooting this Monday at the entrance to a private school in the densely populated district of Guachipelin, Escazú to the west of San José, Costa Rica, has safety officials scrambling to increase security measures at schools throughout the country. Thursday, May 18, Minister of Public Security Gustavo Mata, said such an incident should never happen again in Costa Rica, and to this end i...

Costa Rica's tourist minister, Mauricio Ventura, announced today a new direct route on Southwest between Florida and Costa Rica. Starting November 5, just in time for winter travel from the U.S., the airline will operate a daily connection between the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the Juan Santamaria International Airport in San José, Costa Rica. To celebrate this new r...

The classic American diner-style eatery, Johnny Rockets, opened the doors to its fifth locale in Costa Rica. Located in the newly opened commercial and residential complex, Escazú Village, the new 300 square meter restaurant has a capacity for 134 diners and involved an investment of US$800,000. Its opening generated 30 new jobs in areas of administration, customer service, cashiers, cooks a...

Following is a statement by the Costa Rican women's advocacy organization, Cefemina, in response to the kidnapping this week of a Costa Rican university student who was in Guatemala to join in a memorial of the 41 girls whose lives were lost in a fire in March. "On Monday, May 15, 2017, the 23-year-old Costa Rican woman, Shanon Moreno Castro, was kidnapped in Guatemala City by four heavily arme...

This year’s doses of flu vaccines are on there way to Costa Rica, and the public health system announced they will launch a US$5.3 million seasonal immunization campaign in June. The Costa Rica Social Security Agency (CCSS) which runs the national public health system of clinics and hospitals, said they aim to vaccinate 1.3 million people this year. Because influenza viruses change from year to...

The southernmost end of Tortuguero beach, in the sector known as Jalova, is closed as of this week, by orders of Tortuguero Conservation Area officials due to the presence of a jaguar, something which has happened in the past. The Tortuguero Conservation Area provides habitat for jaguars (Panthera onca). Officials said they see no threat to tourists by the presence of the feline, but want to do...

The Poás Volcano near Alajuela has been sending up columns of water vapor over the past several days after becoming more active on May 13, making for some great photography, and not causing any problems for neighboring areas, reported the Volcanology and Seismology Observatory at the Costa Rican National University (Ovsicori-UNA). Meanwhile, further south along the Central Volcanic mountain cha...

To celebrate the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (May 17th), the Costa Rican National University (UNA, in Spanish) Student Federation organized a special event. Starting May 15 at the UNA Sarapiquí campus, and conclude on May 26 in Nicoya and Liberia, the sexual diversity caravan (CaravanaDeLaDiversidadSexual) emphasizes love and respect, and will highlight demons...

  The National Consultative Council on Social Responsibility was established in July 2008, and is considered an organization of national public interest. The council has 60 members hailing from the business sector, public sector, civil society, and international development agencies. Its mission is, “To be an effective, multi-sectoral platform that promotes the culture and practice o...

Even a place called Pocosol (literally, “little sun”) is sunny enough in Costa Rica to support a solar energy project. Thus the Costa Rican consortium of electricity producing cooperatives, Conelectricas R.L., is investing in two solar energy generation plants in Costa Rica's central-western region that will benefit 7,000 homes. The first is a project with Coopelesca R.L., in Santa Rosa de P...

The peaceful gathering and march of over 500 people yesterday in downtown San José centered around the feared negative environmental and human health effects of increasing pineapple production in the southern Costa Rica wetlands area bordering the Térraba-Sierpe National Wetlands. Their voices were heard by environmental authorities, who today announced a moratorium on any further pineapple exp...

-- Qatar Airways and Katara Hospitality, a hospitality and tourism investment agency, eye Costa Rica's market. Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel A. González Sanz met Monday with representatives of the Qatar Chamber of Commerce, the Investment Authority - also known as the Sovereign Fund of Qatar, and members of the Qatar Development Fund, said the Foreign Ministry's press office. On this se...

The government of Costa Rica will ban the use of the herbicide bromacil throughout the country to avoid groundwater contamination, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) reported in a statement yesterday. The decision was made due to the high risk that the chemical will contaminate groundwater. Bromacil, a possible human carcinogen, is used on many pineapple farms in Costa Rica. In ...

-- A UCR student research project looks at factors that influence the microbiological stability of bottled hot sauce to prevent problems like botulism. Carolina Zúñiga Arrieta's dissertation research at the University of Costa Rica's School of Food Technology was selected as one of six finalists in an annual research competition organized by the U.S.-based Institute of Food Technologists (IFT),...

If you were near Guachipelin, Escazú Monday, May 15 around 7 a.m. and saw motorcycles or men like the ones in these pictures, your testimony could help solve this shocking shootout outside a private school. The photos were published this evening by the Judicial Investigative Police OIJ. The suspects, as can be seen in the photos, were wearing black exercise suits with broad white stripes alo...

Note - Several details have been updated in this article according to new police reports. This story was updated May 19, to include a correct name for the Lebanese homicide victim, whose name is not Akleh, as originally reported, but Akl, according to new police reports. A shootout this morning involving two cars, two dead men, two at-large suspects, and two aids on motorcycles outside a privat...

Seven local aqueducts in the Central Pacific region of Costa Rica are now functioning with solar energy, thanks to support and funding from a number of institutions including the Costa Rica-U.S. Foundation (CRUSA). The panels are expected to allow the rural water supplies save up to 50 percent on their electric costs, thus freeing up much needed funds to invest in repairs and improvements, said...

After midnight Saturday, a "Breaking Chains" police operation took place in Tamarindo, Guanacaste, a popular surf town on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. The plan - called ROCA in Spanish - is a targeted attempt to rescue victims of human trafficking and is led by Costa Rica's Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ). ROCA is an inter-institutional effort which also involves Interpol police, and a ho...

According to preliminary reports by police and in local media, a shootout took place this morning, Monday, May 15, at 7:30 in Guachipelín de Escazú in front of the Mount View Educational Center, a private school. Two people are reported dead. In the incident, a Lexus 4x4 driven by Elias Akl was shot at outside the school in the upscale western district of San José, and then entered the facility...

A report presented last week by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said their teams in Mexico treating migrants show a “pattern of violent displacement, persecution, sexual violence, and forced repatriation akin to the conditions found in the deadliest armed conflicts in the world today,” in people fleeing El Salvador, Hondura...

An average 45 percent of financial flows out of Costa Rica are considered illicit. This and other data compiled for hundreds of developing countries around the world by the nongovernmental research organization Global Financial Integrity (GFI) was detailed in a report released last week. Illicit funds are estimated to comprise about 2.5 percent of incoming funds to Costa Rica. In regional...

Many in Costa Rica are groaning at the specter of the newly approved ‘tax on legal entities,” better known as the corporate tax law, which is soon to go into effect. If you have a car, house or other personal property held in an inactive or “shelf” company, you will be required to pay a yearly tax on the company, though inactive companies pay the lowest rate. However, the government is givin...

La Santa Maria is an innovative and exclusive residential and tourist concept being built on the expansive 20,000-square-meter site of the former, posh Barlovento Hotel. This is the first major luxury tourism real estate development project to be undertaken in San Juan del Sur since the 1970s, said the Nicaraguan developers. Perched on a plateau overlooking the coast, La Santa María's design is...

Well, two days after the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation announced no more closures on the revamped 'platina' bridge north of San José, they will be closing it after all this weekend - from 10 p.m. Saturday until no later than 5 p.m. Sunday, said MOPT officials. The road on both sides of the Virilla River needs to have storm drains installed, said officials, which means large machin...

First quarter employment data for 2017 shows a steady unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. On the other hand, the rate of underemployment dropped by 2.8 points compared to the first quarter of 2016, said the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC), meaning more people moved into jobs with greater hours and/or into different job positions. The Institute’s Continuous Employment Survey (ECE, ...

According to a report yesterday in The San Pedro Sun, a daily publication of San Pedro Town on Ambergris Caye, Belize, Canadian national, John DeShaines, remains under police investigation as the main person of interest in a double murder in Corozal in the north of the country. The bodies of 52-year-old Canadian Francesca Matus and 36-year-old American Drew DeVoursney were found Monday, May 1 n...

Costa Rica’s National Technical Environmental Secretariat (Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental, Setena) recently gave the green light for increased pineapple production in Costa Rica’s southern region, a move that is troubling to environmentalists and indigenous groups whose protected lands in that region would be threatened by the intensive monoculture agriculture, reported Edgardo Araya, Broad...

Marine conservation groups criticized today en executive decree published last week they say paves the way for exports of sharks (and fins from sharks) that are classified as threatened or in danger of extinction. The groups decried the Costa Rican President's decree that grants sole mandate to authorize exports to the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute (Incopesca), saying the agen...

Costa Rica’s Telecommunications Superintendence (Sutel)  announced this week they are moving forward with the Connected Public Spaces program. The program envisions creating 985 wireless access points in 360 districts of the country's 82 counties or “cantones”. They began the bidding process to find a contractor to implement systems for free Wi-Fi in parks, plazas, libraries, train stations and...

The 2017 hurricane season is already here with the arrival of Tropical Depression One-E which has been forming off Costa Rica's Pacific coast for the last couple of days, and is now gathering momentum as it heads in a northwesterly direction away from Costa Rica. If it becomes a tropical storm over the next day or two, as predicted, it will be named Adrian. The system is now moving north - n...

Nobody has heard much these days about the once highly touted interoceanic canal that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proposed to build. Thousands of jobs, and millions in investments were gloriously promised to Nicaragua, without apparently any secure plans for carrying out the mammoth project. Four years after an agreement was signed between the Nicaragua government and a Chinese investor,...

Costa Rican carrier Sansa, which runs mainly domestic flights within Costa Rica, experienced technical problems this morning when landing at the Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela, according to reports in Costa Rica's main Spanish daily La Nación. The craft, which was carrying 13 passengers, went off the runway at around 9 a.m. The fire department and other emergency officials we...

Twenty flights were rerouted over the weekend from San José's International Airport (SJO) due to electrical problems. Civil Aviation Officials concluded that a combination of old wiring and lightening affected the electrical cables along the airport runway, causing them to malfunction Friday. The airport was then closed again Saturday evening as technicians attempted to solve the problem. Fo...

Officials of Costa Rica's National Coast Guard Service, as part of their mission to protect marine biodiversity, this weekend detained a man who had 136 Leatherback sea turtle eggs in his possession, reported the Public Security Ministry. The Coast Guard's environmental unit was on patrol in the Barra de Marina region, where the Parismina beach is one of the few Atlantic beaches worldwide where...

Fatal road accidents have become a daily occurrence in Costa Rica, and it's no wonder many slogans and messages aimed at encouraging safe driving refer to the situation as a "war on our streets." This weekend was especially tragic with five young people dead in three separate accidents in just two days. Two children aged 5 and 8 died in the first accident, in Valle de Estrella, Limón, when t...

With the recent publication of Costa Rica's consumer price index (CPI), the Census and Statistics Institute (INEC) reported an inter-annual increase in inflation of 1.64 percent in April, which is its highest level in two years. Compared to March, inflation increased 0.15 points, with higher gas prices being largely responsible for the increase in inflation. The CPI has increased steadily si...

The National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) is hustling to invest around 600 million colones (about US$1,000,000) to make improvements to the Manuel Antonio National Park before the end of the year. The Ministry of Health ordered some big changes to be made by year's end including creating new access and exit routes in and out of the park. The park, located about an hour-and-a-half south ...