As informed by local news site, CRHoy.com, the Costa Rican government has plans to open an embassy in Stockholm, Sweden by end of this year or beginning of 2019. Epsy Campell, Vice-President of Costa Rica and Minister of Foreign Affairs, confirmed the information to CRHoy and also talked about the possibility of opening an embassy in Finland, however this will not happen in the near future sin...

Classes were cancelled in the public education system, the services in the public health centers were also affected and some roads were blocked, these were the results of the general strike organized by the labor unions this Monday to stand against the fiscal plan proposed by the Government. The Government, following legal, procedures has requested to the Attorney General of the Republic prese...

An amazing new beetle was discovered in Costa Rica at the La Selva Biological Station in the lowland Atlantic rainforest of Northeastern Costa Rica. This beetle rides around on the backs of army ants as though it was horseback riding. To its predators or to the human eye, it looks like a second ant abdomen, given its hard, hairy shell. Scientists who discovered the beetle named it Nymphister Krona...

Three modern simulators are now being used by the Costa Rican Firefighters’ Academy to train their personnel. “The firefighter department has recently acquired three last generation simulators, one that simulates the driving of an emergency vehicle, another that simulates the pumping panel of an extinguishing unit, and a simulator of control and emergency strategy”, explains Ronny La Touche, ...

The Fiscal Control Police of the Ministry of Treasury conducted a search this Saturday in a storage in San Ramon, Alajuela where they found a large quantity of smuggled products. According to Irving Malespin, director of the Fiscal Control Police, explained that the operation was executed successfully thanks to the actions in conjunction with the Customs office of Peñas Blancas, location throug...

Migration Police in Costa Rica intercepted a bus aboard which were 80 Nicaraguans with irregular migratory status. The bus was detained close to the Juan Santamaria Airport in Alajuela and apparently it departed from La Cruz in Guanacaste. Migration Police checked the identities of each of the Nicaraguan natives; their situation will be clarified on Monday by the General Directorate of Migra...

The Abangares Eco-Museum usually doesn’t appear in the lists of “places you must visit” in tourism sites, many people, in fact, don’t even know it exists, but it is a wonderful place full of history and that offers visitors an insight to what the Tico “Gold Fever” was like back in the late XIX century and beginning of the XX century. The museum was founded in 1991 and it stands in the same pla...

The President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, the Minister of Environment and Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, international guests, personnel of the Cocos Marine Conservation Area (ACMC) of the National System of Areas of Conservation (SINAC), celebrated the 40th anniversary of the declaration of Isla del Coco as a National Park. Alvarado reconfirmed the commitment of the government “to contin...

The six-year old Costa Rican child that was found Tuesday afternoon abandoned and alone in Luckerville, Arizona near the border, will remain in the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the information was released by the Ministry of Public Affairs in Costa Rica. Mabel Segura, General Consul to Costa Rica in Los Angeles and Carmen Bermudez, Honorary Consul in Arizona, agr...

The Minister of Presidency, Rodolfo Piza, asked labor union leaders to reconsider their decision of going on strike this coming Monday, June 25 and asked them to continue the dialogue to reach a resolution regarding their opposition to the fiscal plan. The statements were made by Piza in the third meeting held with labor union leaders and which also included the participation of the Vice-Presid...

The Consulate of Costa Rica in Los Angeles is handling in coordination with the United States authorities, the case of a Costa Rican minor who was found on Tuesday afternoon at the Arizona desert. "The six year old child, was rescued by migratory agents of the United States in Luckeville, Arizona, just north of the frontier", stated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release. Accordi...

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Epsy Campbell, announced that Eduardo Trejos, Costa Rica’s ambassador to Nicaragua will remain in his position in the Nicaraguan Embassy through July 31st. Trejos was supposed to leave the embassy on July 1st to take on his new position as head of the Security and Intelligence Directorate (DIS). The decision obeys to the current crisis that Nicaragua is goin...

An analysis carried out by the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR in Spanish), “Challenges for the modernization of the remuneration scheme in the ministries” which was published today, revealed huge differences in the salaries from one Ministry to the other. The analysis was done for the Legislative Assembly, with the purpose of offering technical data and information that will serve as ...

President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado and the Minister of Treasury, Rocio Aguilar, announced today the plan to battle tax evasion, through which they expect to collect taxes by end of this year for an estimated amount of $88 million that have gone uncollected. The information was shared in a press conference held this Wednesday, June 20, at the Presidential House. The plan includes 10 strate...

Personnel from the Protection and Control Program of the Guanacaste Conservation Area arrested two men of last names Sanchez Mayorga and Sanchez Sanarrusia as they were hunting in the Guanacaste National Park, four other men were with them at the moment of the arrest but were able to escape. According to information provided by the Guanacaste Conservation Area (ACG in Spanish), Sanchez Mayorga ...

Costa Rican police detained this Tuesday a Colombian man as suspect of providing the drugs to a national drug trafficking organization who was moving the product to different parts of Central America via cargo trucks. The Public Ministry and the Organism of Judiciary Investigation (OIJ) conducted 11 searches in Escazu (San Jose), Belen, Sarapiquí, Santo Domingo (Heredia, and Sarchi, Naranjo, At...

Heavy rains have been affecting several communities in the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Costa Rica causing floods and damages to infrastructure. More rain is expected as of this Wednesday which has led the National Emergency Commission to emit a green alert for the Pacific coast and yellow alert for the area of La Cruz in Guanacaste and North Zone. “Atmospheric disturbances over the south of...

For many years, the relations between consumer and merchants in Costa Rica were fundamentally by both the Code of Commerce and the Civil Code by applying generic commercial trade rules. It was that way until 1996 when Constitutional Status was granted to the protection of consumers' rights by introducing an amendment to article 46 of the Constitution, which basically says "All consumers have the r...

Soccer games in Costa Rica always bring out the passion in Ticos, unfortunately this is not always the good kind of passion, but instead, it turns into violence and aggression. Last Sunday, June 17, during the national soccer team’s game against Serbia in the Russia World Cup, 911 registered in average 20 domestic violence incidents per hour, for a total of 482 reports in comparison to the 433 ...

Photo Credit: La Nacion/ Alejandro Gamboa Madrigal. The dream trip of hundreds of Costa Ricans soon became a nightmare last week when they were informed of the cancellation of their flight by travel agency DestinosTV. Close to 300 Ticos were stranded, at this point, sixty of them have been accommodated in commercial flights and are still waiting to get confirmation on their return flights, ...

This Monday, police authorities in Costa Rica were alerted of the apparent murder of a 67-year-old US woman who was found dead by her son in her motor-home which was in a property in San Rafael, San Ramon, Alajuela. The woman, identified as Melida Maria Thomas Gibson, and who was born in the United States but was nationalized Costa Rican, had knife wounds on her chest. Thomas was well known...

President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, and the Minister of Treasury, Rocio Aguilar, signed this Monday Law No.9573 which grants Costa Rica a line of credit for $500 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) –known as Conditional Credit Loan for Investment Projects (CCLIP) - for the development of sustainable electric projects. Individual loan contracts will stem from this CCLIP ...

The Ministry of Public Security in Costa Rica will be reinforcing their preventive work at the frontiers with the help of new equipment and vehicles that were received by the institution. The police delegations located in the areas of Los Chiles, Upala, San Carlos in Alajuela, La Cruz in Guanacaste as well as in Sarapiqui in Heredia, Talamanca in Limon, Corredores and Coto Brus in Puntarenas ar...

It is a known fact that incarcerated criminals in Costa Rica still manage to start new businesses, restart operations closed down by law enforcement, or maintain thriving organizations they bring with them from the outside. How can this happen, right under prison officials’ noses? The answer? Cell phones. Cell phones are, of course, prohibited in Costa Rican prison facilities. According to Costa ...

After four months of having been shut down to repair a leak, the largest hydroelectric plant in Central America, Reventazon in Costa Rica, resumed operations. Initially the works to repair the problem were estimated to take three months, but then the Costa Rican Electric Institute considered it could take up to six months, however, the main works were concluded and the plant resumed operations...

On Monday, June 18, truckers will take some of the main roads such as Route 27 (Caldera-San Jose), the General Cañas highway (Alajuela-San Jose) and Route 32 (Limon-San Jose, to protest against a number of situations they consider affect their jobs. The slow moving protest convoy of trailer trucks will begin at 6 a.m. leaving from several points: one group from the Coyolar-Orotina toll booth t...

According to a report by the Costa Rican Drug Institute (ICD) on the impact of the consumption of drugs in Costa Rican jails, this business moves between $1.7 and $7 million dollars a year. Just last year, authorities in the country seized close to $2 million in drugs in the penitentiary centers, 79.8% were seized from inmates, while 19.7% from visitors and 0.4% from personnel. 176 kilograms...

This year, Father’s Day in Costa Rica revolves around the World Cup, “Ticos” are known for their love of soccer, and coincidentally “La Sele” will make its debut in Russia at 6 a.m. on Sunday, June 17, a perfect way to start Father’s Day celebration, that is, if they win. Granted, not all dads like soccer, but in Costa Rica that’s a minority, so promotions and many of the activities planned to...

During the commemoration of National Tree Day in Costa Rica, the State of the Nation Report points out the that the country has taken a leading position in the region when it comes to forest cover recovery, however, many challenges still lay ahead. By putting into practice different legal restrictions such as the prohibition to modify the use of land; incentives like the payment for environment...

The afternoon of this Friday a man died after being struck by lightning while doing canopy tour in Monteverde. The victim was identified as Pedro Obando, 31 years old, who apparently worked as a canopy tour guide in the area. No additional information has been offered so far regarding the accident or the details on how the tragedy occurred. This Thursday heavy rainfall affected most of the C...

The crisis in Nicaragua has caused the requests for refugee status to increase, confirmed Director Raquel Vargas from the Directorate of Migration in Costa Rica in a press conference. According to Vargas, “there is no emergency and we are not facing a crisis at this point, there is an increase (in the number of requests), and we are clear on this; for this reason, we are going over the requests...

Vice-President Epsy Campbell, the Minister of Public Works and Transport Rodolfo Mendez Mata, the Minister of Foreign Commerce Dyala Jimenez and the Minister of Coordination and Link with the private sector Andre Garnier, met with close to 20 representatives of different corporations to coordinate efforts to mitigate the direct impact that the Crisis in Nicaragua is having over ground transportati...

Labor unions in Costa Rica have announced this Thursday in a press conference a general strike that will take place since the early hours of Monday, June 25, as a means to manifest their opposition to the fiscal plan proposed by the Government. The labor union leaders, Albino Vargas from Patria Justa and ANEP (National Association of Public Workers); Martha Rodriguez from Bloque Unitario Sindi...

Through an executive decree, Costa Rica will establish safe routes in waters of the Pacific to increase marine security and prevent collisions between vessels and cetaceans. By creating an “Area-to-be-Avoided” and a traffic separation scheme, the country hopes to protect marine environment, particularly the migratory population of humpback whales and other cetaceans that travel the waters of G...

The low-cost airline Spirit, announced today the expansion of its operations in the Orlando International Airport, included in the new routes announced is a direct flight connecting Orlando, Florida with San Jose, Costa Rica. The route will be inaugurated October 5th and it will have a frequency of four times a week during the first month, increasing to daily services by November 8. Spirit h...

In the frame of the World Day Against Child Labor, the Costa Rican Ministry of Work launched a campaign and signed a decree to raise awareness regarding child labor and with the objective of eradicating dangerous child labor by 2020. In Costa Rica it is forbidden for children under the age of 15 to do any kind of work, while teens over 15 are allowed to work under special conditions that guaran...

During his first trip as President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado held a meeting at the National Geographic Society’s headquarters in Washington D.C. with leaders in conservation and environmental sustainability. President Alvarado and the Minister of Environment, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, touched on topics such as the challenge to become carbon neutral, conservation of forests, and ocean health...

The Chamber of Commerce in Costa Rica has expressed its concern as the situation affecting Nicaragua continues to affect the transportation of merchandise through this nation’s territory, affecting both imports and exports. Due to this, companies have been obligated to use other means of transportation such as maritime and aerial which have resulted in an increase in the logistics costs of as much...

The National Seismology Network published the following information regarding the activity at the Rincon de la Vieja Volcano: “The Volcanology and Seismology Observatory of the Arenal and Miravalles (OSIVAM), operated by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) and that forms part of the National Seismology Network (RSN: UCR-ICE), registered changes in the behavior of the seismic activity in...

President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, participated as a speaker at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank headquartered in Washington D.C., that intents to "foster democratic governance, prosperity, and social equity in Latin America and the Caribbean". The Dialogue, as it is commonly known, extended the invitation to Alvarado to discuss Costa Rica’s main challenges, its future and its r...