By Wendy Anders Did you know that at least 28 percent of human trafficking involves children? And the U.S. Department of State estimates that more than a million children are exploited each year in the global commercial sex trade. An update on an international effort in Costa Rica to diminish this tragic form of modern slavery was recently provided by the Quebec-based International Bureau...

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...

By Wendy Anders A search for a missing young woman from the U.S. in Panama ended Sunday when police found her body on a hiking trail near Bocas del Toro, an archipelago along Panama’s northern Caribbean coast. No information has been forthcoming regarding the possible cause of her death, said local media. Friends and family posted messages on social media late Thursday, February 2 after C...

By Wendy Anders Accenture PLC is one of over 40 companies that will seek to fill 2,700 positions at Costa Rica’s biggest multilingual fair this month. But they are the only employer in the lot that offers a day for employers to work accompanied by their pets. These days, global competition is not just about employees taking stock of their language and other skills - companies too are strivin...

Hardly a day passes in Costa Rica without a road fatality. Bicyclists are taking up the banner for road safety in the wake of recent tragic accidents. Yesterday, downtown San José’s streets were flooded with helmeted cyclists who pedaled from La Sabana Park to Curridabat via downtown to demand respect for their safety on the country’s streets. The turnout almost doubled the organizers’ expec...

By Wendy Anders Police found enough clues to arrest a man suspected of stabbing five students to death in mid-January in their apartment on a quiet residential street in Liberia, capital of Costa Rica’s northern Guanacaste province, said Wálter Espinoza, director of the judicial investigative police agency (OIJ). A careful review of evidence in and around the crime scene led police to invest...

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...

By Wendy Anders Even in a crowded San José, Costa Rica shanty, a police patrol can become an unexpected wildlife adventure. Yesterday afternoon, public safety officials found themselves rescuing a colorful keel-billed toucan from the southern Costa Rican district of Alajuelita, reported police, who said the event is the result of a bolstered wildlife protection initiative by police. Last ...

By Wendy Anders Along with gallo pinto and bad traffic, ash from the Turrialba Volcano has become a mainstay of life in many parts of San José's metropolitan area. This morning, the colossus was at it again, spewing moderate columns of ash that were immediately whisked off my the strong winds passing over most of the country this week, said the National University's Volcanology and Seismolog...

By Wendy Anders An alliance between the CNFL electric company and BMW has allowed Costa Rica to offer recharging stations for electric cars in the county. Two such privately stations already exist, one in Escazú and another in Pinares (Curridabat). The third, which will offer public access, was just inaugurated in La Uruca near downtown San José, reported the CNFL this week. The BMWi Proj...

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...

By Wendy Anders In an interview on January 16 by Costa Rica’s Spanish daily Diario Extra, Martin Arias Araya, director of the Costa Rican Coast Guard Service, expressed concern over a lack of water navigation laws in the country that he said makes Costa Rica the only country in the Americas to lack such regulations. Arias Araya has led the Coast Guard since 2007, and has a total of 33 years ...

By Wendy Anders When your community is 80-90 percent based on tourism, every detail matters. That’s why business leaders in the surf haven of Tamarindo, Guanacaste stay on top of a whole host of local issues. From promoting tourism to educating citizens on limiting water use, Hernán Imhoff, newly re-elected president of the Tamarindo Chamber of Commerce and Tourism (CCTT) can’t neatly summar...

By Wendy Anders Looking for a light, fruity, and easy mixed-drink option? Two new Smirnoff flavored alcoholic drinks were introduced this month in Costa Rica by Florida Beverages and Diageo, said the companies. Smirnoff Ice Electric Spicy Grapefruit (exclusive to Costa Rica) and Smirnoff Ice Electric Maracuyá can be found in supermarkets, convenience stores, and liquor stores and bars thr...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican government announced this month plans to build a tourist reception area for travelers arriving on cruise ships at the southern Pacific port of Golfito on the Golfo Dulce, or Sweet Bay. The building project will begin February 1 and should be completed June 15, 2017, said government officials. The 40 million colón dockside investment (over US$73,000) will in...

—ICE, the state electric company, has a comprehensive environmental protection program which offsets carbon emissions while at the same time aiding their energy production. By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE, in Spanish) is using satellite imagery to identify priority areas for reforestation, said Rodolfo Quirós, ICE’s forest management coordinator. Over the past d...

By Wendy Anders The National Meteorological Institute (IMN, in Spanish) said gusts of up to 85 kmh (more than 50 mph) would be affecting several areas of the country including San José this week. Mountainous areas are likely to experience the brunt of the gales, said scientists, who said that Monday’s highest winds were registered in Escazú, Ciudad Colón, and mountainous areas of the norther...

Despite a ban on the export of fins from the endangered hammerhead shark in effect in Costa Rican since March 2015, a large shipment has been readied for export to Asia, said Randall Arauz, spokesperson for the international marine conservation organization, Fins Attached. Smalley Development S.A. has been working to fill an order for 690 kilos of hammerhead shark fins, the international trade ...

By Wendy Anders An estimated 123,000 people throughout the country benefited from Costa Rica’s National Bank (Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, BNCR) growing social responsibility program in 2016, said the financial entity last week. The bank’s vision of a sustainable management model includes outreach throughout the country to provide volunteers in poor communities, holding financial education ...

By Wendy Anders Just as residents of the San José metropolitan region were starting to get used to life without fresh ashfall, the Turrialba Volcano in Cartago rumbled back to life this morning at about 8:15, reported the National University's Volcanology and Seismology Research Institute (Ovsicori-UNA). Luckily this eruption, coming after about a two-week lull in ash emissions, is not as bi...

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 ...

By Wendy Anders Private-sector construction in Costa Rica grew in the fourth quarter of 2016 at a year-on-year rate of 10.6 percent, showing a rebound in activity after showing negative rates of growth since the final quarter of 2015 (with the exception of the first quarter of 2016), said Costa Rica’s Central Bank this week. The amount of construction in the fourth quarter of 2016 was 1,163,...

By Wendy Anders If you’re planning to bring more than $10,000 in cash or securities into Costa Rica on your next trip, be sure to declare it on your customs form, said Costa Rican customs officials yesterday. This oversight by a 70-year-old U.S. man, who was heading to the beach in Costa Rica, cost him US$19,900, said the Finance Ministry’s Customs Department. The man, who entered the Dan...

By Wendy Anders The reintroduction of a bill that would allow ocean trawling has environmental groups in Costa Rica up in arms at the government’s support for such practices. “Trawling is the most destructive fishing technique, and there are no studies anywhere in the world that demonstrate its sustainability,” said a coaltion of 15 environmental groups, who noted that the draft of law 19,83...

By Wendy Anders Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories in this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index fall below the midpoint of a scale spanning 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), said Transparency International (TI) upon the release of the non-profit’s 2016 report. No country reached above 90. The global average score is a paltry 43, indicating endemic corruption in a co...

By Wendy Anders By 2021, San José, Costa Rica’s westbound Route 27 should have some major changes in place. Costa Rica’s National Concessions Council (CNC) found that the existing road has reached a saturation point of 70 percent and requires expansion. The highway’s current operators, concessionaire Globalvia, are required under their contract to expand the stretch between La Sabana Metropo...

By Wendy Anders Tigo (Millicom) is preparing to enter the Costa Rican mobile market by bidding for spectrum in the country’s forthcoming tender, reported Costa Rica's business daily El Financiero, citing the company’s director of corporate affairs Norman Chaves. The operator, which provides cable and TV services under the Tigo Star brand in Costa Rica, expressed an interest in the tender for...

By Wendy Anders Nearly 10 years after the passage of Costa Rica’s domestic violence criminalization law, women face rising rates of violence, and epidemic levels of court case dismissals and lack of legal reporting. The judicial branch’s gender commission, which monitors progress on the issue of violence against women, reports that over 76 percent of domestic violence cases are rejected by c...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica is working to attract more European tourists to their verdant country, said the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), as the agency winds up their participation in the International Tourism Fair (FITUR) in Spain. Mauricio Ventura, Costa Rican Minister of Tourism, held meetings with airlines while at FITUR, including with the President of Iberia airlines, to analyze ...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s national beach soccer team faced off against Japan in two friendly matches this weekend, said the Costa Rican soccer federation (Fedefut). During Saturday's match at the beach soccer field at Fedefut’s Alajuela soccer complex, the Japanese played a game of great speed with effective offensive action, reported Fedefut. This duel ended with a score of 4-3 in fav...

By Wendy Anders The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will donate $10 million (more than ₡5.5 billion colones) for the repair and restoration of aqueducts in communities destroyed by the passage of Hurricane Otto, said the Costa Rican government. This was one of the main tangible outcomes of a recent official Costa Rican delegation, the country’s first, to the Middle East. In addition to this vi...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s National Liberation Party Legislator, Ronny Monge, has introduced a measure with the support of 20 of his colleagues to end the use of fuel-consuming vehicles in Costa Rica, said a report on Costa Rica’s Teletica news station. “If we didn’t have to depend on petroleum imports, we would save millions. Also as a country that has sold itself to the world as a destin...

By Wendy Anders In the wake of the murder of five youth in Liberia, capital of Costa Rica’s northern Guanacaste province, early last Thursday morning, police have developed a sketch of the man they believe to be the suspected killer. Police received helpful information from an informal taxi driver who transported a man Thursday morning who he described as, “very nervous and appeared to be fl...

By Wendy Anders Amelia Valverde was recognized this week as the 2016 Female Coach of the Year by the Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) for her work with the Costa Rica national team. Valverde was named head coach of the Costa Rica women's national soccer team on January 12, 2015, said the Costa Rican Soccer Federation, Fedefut. She rep...

By Wendy Anders Five university students were found stabbed to death this morning, and another was still alive but with deep wounds in her neck, in the middle class neighborhood of La Victoria, Liberia in the northern Costa Rican province of Guanacaste. The students apparently were renting a 3-bedroom apartment located behind a house on the densely populated street, according to police. Howe...

By Wendy Anders "Orgasm fundamentally roots our capacity for connection: hormonally, emotionally and spiritually," says organizer of a weeklong retreat with practices for couples to achieve deep connections through "orgasmic consciousness", Nicole Daedone. “It’s that feeling of being so completely absorbed in an experience that there is no psychic chatter, no being “stuck in your head”; a fa...

By Wendy Anders The number of women’s marches planned across the U.S. and around the globe for Saturday, January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the U.S., are growing exponentially. With 616 ‘sister march’ events organized and counting, and almost 1.5 million participants pledged across the planet, the Women’s March on Washington has spurred a global movement to...

By Wendy Anders Late Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in San José, Costa Rica sent out a brief notice that Ambassador Haney will continue in his post. The news flies in the face of a recent announcement by president-elect Donald Trump that every Obama appointee would be immediately replaced as soon as he took office. No further details were forthcoming immediately from the Embassy as to why th...