By Wendy Anders Official (red) taxi representatives cancelled a meeting last Tuesday that they had requested with the Public Services Regulatory Agency (Aresep) during the national taxi protest they held Tuesday,  August 9. When Roberto Jiménez Gómez, Costa Rica’s general regulator, called the cancellation “unfortunate,” Rubén Vargas, president of the Costa Rican Taxi Union (UTC) responded w...

By Wendy Anders The U.S. Pickleball Association (USAPA), based in Surprise, AZ, describes pickleball as “the fastest growing sport in the U.S.” Created in 1965 in Washington State there are currently pickleball play opportunities offered throughout the U.S., and even abroad. Tony Horpel, a California native who settled a few years ago with his wife in San Ramón, Costa Rica, a small mounta...

By Wendy Anders Source: Wikimedia Commons Wednesday police responded to an alert received on their free anonymous report line, 1176, regarding suspicious activity in a house in San Antonio de Escazú, a mountainous suburb west of San José, according to official sources. The Security Ministry’s anti-drug police reported discovering hydroponic marijuana being cultivated by a 60-year-old U.S...

By Wendy Anders Last year, many in Costa Rica were surprised by a governmental decision to ban imports of Mexican avocados. The government alleged the ban was due to a blight that might spread to local crops, according to reports in various local media sources, but inside sources said the allegation was unfounded. For the last two decades, Mexico has provided Costa Rica with the vast majo...

By Wendy Anders AT&T Inc., the Dallas, Texas-based multinational telecommunications conglomerate, was granted a 10-year data transfer and leased line license last week by Costa Rica's telecom regulator Sutel, reported Costa Rica’s Spanish daily La Nación today. This newest operator in Costa Rica’s telecom market will not offer services to individual consumers, rather will “Focus on offer...

By Wendy Anders The country’s Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría de los Habitantes, in Spanish) felt the need to intervene in a troubling situation in which 12 ocelots have been killed on Costa Rica’s roads since January, pointing out that there are also human risks involved with wild animals crossing roads. Although the need for special passageways for wild animals to cross highways has been cl...

By Wendy Anders La Carpio, an impoverished neighborhood in the San Jose metro area. (ICR-CRS Archive) The Ministry of Public Security and the Costa Rican Nutrition and Health Research and Teaching Institute (Inciensa) signed an agreement today to work together on projects in vulnerable areas of the country. The primary goal of the initiative, said ministry officials today at a press conf...

ICR-CRS Archive/FILE (Pictured: Workers at a multinational medical device manufacturing company's facility in Heredia, Costa Rica) By Wendy Anders The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in its most recent edition of an annual series on Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America (June 2016) reported that FDI flows to Central America were up by 6 pe...

By Wendy Anders Source: Flickr PLEASE SEE SALES FOR OCTOBER 4TH HERE Airfarewatchdog.com announced today a one-day 99 percent discount on Spirit Airway round trip flights from several U.S. cities including Atlanta, Boston, and Minneapolis for Tuesday and Wednesday travel between Aug. 23 - Oct. 5, 2016 (Sept. 6 is a blackout date). Book this fare on Spirit.com using promo code 99PCT. ...

By Wendy Anders Construction workers on the build site of Croc's Casino Resort in Jaco Beach Business leaders expressed their concerns over stagnant unemployment after 2nd quarter data was made public by the National Census and Statistics Institute (INEC, in Spanish). The INEC announced last week that 9.4 percent of the work force, or over 200,000 people, are unemployed, a figure that ha...

By Wendy Anders Last Wednesday August 10 at Germany’s Federal Foreign Ministry Office, Costa Rica and Germany celebrated the ratification of the establishment of legal instruments as part of an agreement to eliminate double taxation of income and assets, stated Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Relations in a press release Friday. The agreement aims to provide clear guidelines for both co...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s anti-drug police took to the verdant Talamanca mountains this week with their machetes in hand and destroyed an estimated half a million marijuana plants camuflauged in dense vegetation. The 3.6-square kilometer area held 48 different marijuana plantations in the indigenous villages of Manzanillo, Alto y Bajo Bley, Cerro Papayo, Arco Iris, Bajo Piedra Meza, Tortu...

By Wendy Anders http://www.canneslionsarchive.com/winners/entry/781606/the-second-scoreboard The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (formerly the International Advertising Festival) held annually in Cannes, France recently shortlisted J. Walter Thompson Costa Rica’s social issues communications project “Second Scoreboard.” Developed in conjunction with the Costa Rican Minis...

By Wendy Anders Pedestrian deaths are the second largest type of traffic-related deaths registered in Costa Rica this year, reported the Transportation Ministry today. Of the 42 pedestrian deaths reported so far this year, the ministry claims 37, or 88 percent, could have been prevented by people using pedestrian aerial bridges or crosswalks within close walking distance from where they deci...

By Wendy Anders Indigenous community leaders in Nicaragua’s Atlantic coastal region filed this week for an injunction with the Nicaraguan Supreme Court regarding the country's proposed canal project reported Nicaragua’s daily La Prensa. Community leaders are allegedly in disagreement with Hector Thomas, president of the Rama Kriol Territorial Government (GTR-K), who signed a consentment agre...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría de los Habitantes) exhorted the government yesterday to continue strengthening indigenous education in order to reduce the gap between them and other students. The country’s current over 14,000 students enrolled in indigenous educational programs. Indigenous groups continue to face a gap in the quality and access to education in Cos...

By Wendy Anders At ten this morning, the country’s public service regulator, Roberto Jiménez, received taxi sector leaders as they demanded to be heard one more time on the issue of Uber’s legality in the country. Jiménez reiterated that his agency, the Aresep, has done everything in its power to regulate public transportation services, and that any further decisions are pending court decisi...

By Wendy Anders The bridge over the Virilla River along the main highway leading from San José to Alajuela’s international airport was partially closed last night from 10:00 until 5:00 this morning for repairs. All traffic from Alajuela to San José was completely closed during that time. Thursday night-Friday morning, all traffic from San José-Alajuela on the main highway’s Virilla bridge wi...

By Wendy Anders Real Intercontinental Hotel San Jose, Costa Rica International Living announced it will hold its 2016 Fast–Track Costa Rica; Lifestyle and Opportunity Conference September 22-24 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Escazú, San José. This once-a-year opportunity will provide plenty of information about relocating to Costa Rica, and promises to “deliver everything you need to f...

By Wendy Anders Publications on social media of a major protest by official taxi drivers throughout the country starting at 5:00am today have public authorities and local residents preparing for the worst. Many parents will keep children home from school, embassies are suggesting people schedule appointments on other days, and police are planning a major counter-operation. The official ta...

By Wendy Anders Last week Citi inaugurated two new buildings in Costa Rica, and announced 400 new positions to be filled by the end of this year, stated the company in a press release. New York City-based Citigroup, Inc., or Citi, is a multinational investment banking and financial services corporation suffered huge losses during the global financial crisis of 2008 and received a massive sti...

By Wendy Anders Border police of Panama In recent days, an estimated 400 irregular migrants slipped over from Panama to Costa Rica in the Paso Canoas border area. They are being registered and receiving lodging at the border, said Mauricio Herrera, communication minister, in a statement to Monumental Radio Saturday. Public Security Minister Gustavo Mata spoke to Monumental Radio this wee...

By Wendy Anders Many suspects awaiting trial are housed alongside convicted criminal in Costa Rica's La Reforma Prison, pictured. (ICR/CRS Archive) La Reforma Prison in La Guácima, Alajuela was ordered this week by the Costa Rican Constitutional Court to ensure clothing requested by and sent to an inmate be provided. The inmate submitted an appeal to the court alleging guards at La Refor...

By Wendy Anders Wikimedia Commons Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega ousted 28 opposition lawmakers in July in advance of the country’s November elections, and the rocky road towards his probable reelection continues with no opposition candidates in the field. The former Independent Liberal Party (PLI) legislators are expected to appeal to the OAS for support for their removal which occu...

By Wendy Anders Source: NOAA Recent stormy conditions will start to clear today as Hurricane Earl touches land in Belize and heads into the Yucatán Peninsula, reported the Costa Rican Meteorological Institute (IMN) today. The storm began weeks ago as a wave off the coast of Western Africa. The hurricane’s effects in Costa Rica were like those of a tropical storm, due to the storm’s indir...

By Wendy Anders Mexican soldiers fighting the Drug War. Wikimedia Commons A recent political analysis of the region raises questions about the continuation of a militarized approach to illegal drug trafficking in an era where the decades long US sponsored “war on drugs” has been repeatedly called a failure. From 2004-2014 the United States provided $768 million in police and military aid...

By Wendy Anders Source: Red Cross of Costa Rica After waves of Cuban migrants cruised over the CR-Panama border late last year and earlier this year, and in recent months as the trickle of irregular migrants from Africa, Asia, Haiti and other countries has turned into a sizeable group now parked on the northern border seeking routes northward, Costa Rica’s governmental agencies are taking m...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican-based business research media, CentralAmericaData.com released today 2015 data on Costa Rica’s vehicle fleet. Automobiles comprise the largest percentage of Costa Rica’s vehicular fleet, comprising 63 percent of the country’s 1.3 million vehicles in circulation, compared to 1.5 percent corresponding to buses, which in 2015 numbered about 20,000. Almost 20 p...

By Wendy Anders Kristin Van Busum set off on a Fulbright Fellowship after leaving a think-tank job in Boston to help small-scale coffee growers in Nicaragua enter the global coffee market and improve their quality of life, reported USA Today’s network media the IndyStar yesterday. After the project failed due to the complicated dynamics surrounding local coffee production and marketing, Van ...

By Wendy Anders Canada’s low-fare leader WestJet announced last week it will add dozens of new flights to its growing domestic and international networks as part of its 2016-2017 winter schedule. New flights will run from Toronto to a number of Canadian and international destinations including Vancouver, Ottawa, Moncton, Myrtle Beach, Aruba, Kingston (Jamaica), San José and Liberia (Costa Ri...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican telecommunications oversight agency, the Superintendency of Telecommunications (Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones, SUTEL), published today the rules for the auction of spectrum in the 1800MHz and 1900MHz/2100MHz bands. In the first half of 2017, SUTEL will sell 70MHz of frequencies left over from the 2011 tender, including 2×20MHz in the 1800MHz range and 2×1...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Social Security Bureau (CCSS) kicks-off breast-feeding awareness week with a series of activities this week to encourage women to breastfeed by educating them and their family members about the benefits of this practice. The week culminates in a walk on Friday through downtown San José to promote breastfeeding, and a quality and safe hospitalized birth. Accord...

By Wendy Anders Merrit Island, Florida resident, Sondra Lynn Payne Elizondo, was found dead in her hotel room in San José, Costa Rica last December. Last week the prime suspect in the case, Alejandro Obando Vega, was ordered three more months in prison by the San José Criminal Court while the case continues to be investigated, reported the judicial branch press office Friday. As previousl...

By Wendy Anders The country’s Hyundai dealer, GrupoQ, announced they will recall over 200 Hyundai Santa Fe vehicles (years 2016-2017) from the market, stated the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) Friday. The country’s Consumer Support Office (Dirección de Apoyo al Consumidor, DAC) made consumers aware of the lack of passenger-seat airbags in 2016 and 2017 Santa Fe Hyundai mod...

By Wendy Anders Whales have started arriving to the waters off the southern Costa Rican Pacific coast for this year’s second whale-watching season Look for special activities such as festivals, whale watching tours, and other local activities on the southern Pacific coast during August and September. The National Ballena Marina Park, Playa Dominical, Dominicalito, Bajo Negro and other bea...

By Wendy Anders With tourism generating $2.8 billion in revenue last year, according to the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT), and employing more than 1/2 a million Costa Ricans either directly or indirectly, crocodile attacks on tourist beaches are an issue of national concern. That’s why the Tamarindo Integral Development Association (ADIT) has been meeting intensively with a host of local a...

By Wendy Anders In today's early morning hours off Cabo Blanco at the southernmost tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, the Costa Rican Coast Guard reported the seizure of nearly 2,300 kilos of cocaine. This latest illegal drug capture makes for nearly 10 tons of cocaine seized by police since January, according to office police sources. Twelve ships transporting illegal drugs from Jamaica and Co...

By Wendy Anders Official taxis have seen better days. A Costa Rica CID Gallup poll published today shows that official “red” taxis are the preferred choice for over half of Costa Ricans, but that Uber is chosen 3-1 over official taxis by those who have used Uber’s services at least once. The 52 percent of those polled who prefer red taxis tend to live outside of the Central Valley metropo...

By Wendy Anders Tomorrow, Thursday July 28 at 6:00pm, CEO Dan Price of Gravity Payments in the U.S. will speak at the Universidad Latina’s auditorium in San Pedro (San José). The talk entitled “The Force of Gravity” will be given in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish; it’s free and open to the public. Price and his brother founded the financial services and credit-card pro...

By Wendy Anders On a more positive note for surfers, Costa Rica will host an international surfing competition at the Central Pacific’s Jacó beach starting next Friday August 6 and lasting until the 14th. Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Hermosa beach was the site of the international event in 2009. The top National Surfing Teams in the world will flock to the north end of Playa Jacó for the ...