Liisa Vexler. Source: AirTransat AirTransat Media Release - Montreal — There is more to the South than just sunny weather and nice beaches, which is why increasing numbers of Canadians now want to experience the culture, history and attractions of their destination when travelling. To help vacationers learn more about the tour operator’s popular Sun destinations, Transat is back with the secon...

By Petter Lindgren - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons Alarmed tourists evacuated the beach at Playa Herradura this weekend after a shark suddenly broke through the surf and landed right on the waterline at high tide.   According to a news report published by online news daily CRHoy.com on Sunday, the shark was identified as a thresher shark, a member of the pelagic Alopiidae...

Source: Iron Maiden One of the most elaborate musical stages in the history of the Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in Tibas has been prepared for legendary heavy metal band Iron Maiden, whose members will rock Costa Rica with the help of thrash metal pioneers Anthrax tonight.   Heavy metal fans have been camping outside the stadium for two weeks to catch Iron Maiden perform a Central Ameri...

BALTIMORE, MD (PRWEB) MARCH 07, 2016 - Many factors come into play when considering a retirement abroad. Cost of living, prices of rents and real estate, and healthcare options are main concerns. But as more and more expats consider moving abroad for a healthier lifestyle, InternationalLiving.com added an important Healthy Lifestyle category to its 2016 Global Retirement Index. In these countries...

Beach house in Costa Rica United States cable network Home & Garden Television, better known for HGTV, chose Costa Rica for an episode of its acclaimed Beachfront Bargain Hunt reality show. Episode 3 of Season 10 takes place in Playa Nosara, a coastal community in the province of Guanacaste that is part of the Gold Coast beaches of Costa Rica.   The title of the episode is No Sh...

The United States Department of State submitted the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) to Congress earlier this week, and it included an unflattering report of Costa Rica as a haven for laundering illicit proceeds from drug trafficking and terrorism.   According to the U.S. Department of State:   The two-volume report offers a comprehensive assessment of th...

Wikimedia Commons GMB UK Press Release - GMB is calling for Fyffes, the Irish multinational fruit company, to improve working conditions for Honduran and Costa Rican plantation and farm workers and to pay them a living wage. At an advisory meeting to the EU-Central America Association Agreement on March 1st, Bert Schouwenburg, one of 3 European trade union representatives, condemned Fyffes ...

Source: MGP Costa Rica According to statistics reported by the Civil Registry of Costa Rica, less than 69,000 naturalized citizens were properly registered in 2014. When considering the number of foreigners living in Costa Rica under various legal statuses such as temporary residents, permanent residents and perpetual tourists, those who chose the naturalization path are the minority.  ...

Source: Palms Real Estate Costa Rica San Jose, Costa Rica, February 25, 2016 --(PR.com)-- With the announcement of a new strategic partnership, two of the top luxury real estate firms in Costa Rica have joined forces to offer their clients a broader portfolio of quality properties and services in Costa Rica. Palms International Realty, based near Los Suenos Resort and in Guanacaste, and LX Cos...

The majestic Antigua. Source: Fernando Reyes Palencia - Wikimedia Commons BALTIMORE, MD (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 26, 2016 - Thousands of retirees (and younger folks, too) are benefiting from a higher quality of life and a lower cost of living in places overseas where even a little goes a long, long way—whether it be filling a tank of gas, getting the week’s groceries, paying for health insurance, or mak...

An Uber driver in Bogota. Wikimedia Common6 Uber, the personal transportation solution centered on the use of a mobile app, recently announced a new service in Costa Rica. Despite its controversial illegal status, and despite being the recipient of a Presidential warning, Uber continues to operate and expand across Costa Rica. The new Uber feature is called uberXL, and it aims to attract pa...

Source: Wikimedia Commons One of the most common questions asked by foreign house hunters interested in the Costa Rica real estate market is: Can I bring my dogs/cats? According to the real estate professionals at RE/MAX Ocean Surf and Sun in Tamarindo Beach, the process of bringing cats and dogs to Costa Rica is not overly bureaucratic. To this effect, the United States Embassy has a Web p...

U.S. DOJ Press Release - SAN DIEGO - Over four years after the disappearance and death of Yvonne Baldelli, Brian Karl Brimager pleaded guilty in federal court today to her murder, admitting that he fatally stabbed Baldelli in the back with a knife, dismembered her body with a machete and disposed of her remains in a remote jungle on the Panamanian island where they lived as a couple for two months...

In Costa Rica, eco-friendly and sustainable construction is a 21st century concept that has undergone formalization over the last few years. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, the Green Building Council of Costa Rica (GBC-CR) adopted the EDGE green building certification system for both residential and commercial structures in May 2015. Costa Rica was the first Latin American nation t...

Wikimedia Commons Foreign house hunters looking at real estate options in Costa Rica often inquire about local schools that offer international and bilingual curricula. According to the real estate professionals of RE/MAX Ocean Surf and Sun in Guanacaste, the Tamarindo Beach housing market is ideal for families looking to enroll their school-age children in programs that focus on bilingual educa...

Source: Sloth Institute Nature’s Miracle Orphans, a special program produced for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has twice visited Costa Rica to tell the story of Monster, a female sloth rescued by primatologist Sam Trull of the Sloth Institute, located in Manuel Antonio. The BBC program is an observational documentary series following orphaned baby animals and the dedicated peo...

Wikimedia Commons OAS Media Release - Washington, D.C. - The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) filed an application with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Case 12.798, Gómez Murillo and others, with regard to Costa Rica. The case has to do with the violations of the rights to humane treatment, personal liberty, private and family life, to raise a family and to equa...

Gallito de arracache in Costa Rica. Jack Donnelly By Jack Donnelly   Eat like an Inca! You can enjoy one of the culinary delights of the ancient Incas of Peru right here in modern Costa Rica. It’s a dish that still thrills my palate.   It is called arracacha in English and arracache in Costa Rican Spanish. In fact, in Quechua (the Inca language, still widely spoken in Per...

Wikimedia Commons The United States Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica, informs U.S. citizens that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a travel notice for Costa Rica regarding the Zika virus.  There is evidence that Zika is linked to birth defects in the fetuses of infected pregnant women and Guillain-Barré syndrome in infected individuals of any age or gender.  Zika i...

United States Dept. of Justice Press Release - An Ohio man was sentenced to 108 months in prison for his role in laundering money for a Costa Rica-based “sweepstakes fraud” scheme that victimized U.S. residents, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina. ...

Guatemala City, Feb 18 (EFE).- Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis announced Thursday that some 4,100 Cuban migrants remain in his country awaiting transportation to the United States. In response to reporters' questions after meeting in this capital with his Guatemalan counterpart, Jimmy Morales, Solis expressed his wish that "in a few weeks" all the Cubans will have been able to travel...

Source: US Embassy United States Ambassador S. Fitzgerald Haney awarded an AFS Scholarship to Jesús Vallejos, a student at the Science High School in Limón, during the opening ceremony of the National System of Science and Technology High Schools class of 2016. This brilliant student will travel to the United States for a year of studies. Author’s Note: The use of the noun and adjective “Am...

OECD News Release - 15/02/16 - Costa Rica has made impressive economic, social and environmental progress, but further institutional and policy reforms will be necessary to ensure stronger and more inclusive growth, according to the first-ever OECD Economic Assessment of Costa Rica. ‌ The Assessment, presented in San José today by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría and Costa Rican President L...

Flickr Commons Although Costa Rica has adopted a very proactive stance in terms of promoting wireless data networks as a means to bridge the digital divide, the current Long Term Evolution (LTE) strategy is one of the most deficient in the world. According to the State of LTE report published by the developers of the crowdsourced OpenSignal mobile app in February, the LTE spectrum in Costa ...

Source: Dourone A talented muralist from Spain whose work can be enjoyed from Madrid to Paris and from Miami to Amsterdam has chosen Jaco Beach in Costa Rica as his latest canvas. Residents and tourists in Jaco Beach can appreciate the mural painted by Dourone and his partner  Elodieloll on Pastor Diaz Street, across from the KFC restaurant. Dourone is a visual artist who started with gr...

Wikimedia Commons Fresh breath is a popular concern among most people in Costa Rica; this much is evident by the retail displays of mint candy and chewing gum that can be seen next to cash registers at supermarkets, pulperias (convenience stores), sodas (cafeterias), restaurants, bookstores, drugstores, and even cell phone repair shops. Normally, an obsession over fresh breath could be deem...

Flickr Commons The next time you access your Netflix account in Costa Rica, you may be surprised to find out that you are streaming a movie or a television series you've never heard of. Unless you share your Netflix login credentials with someone else, someone may have illegally purchased your password for as low as $0.25. A recent article by Jacob Brogan of online news magazine Slate.com d...

Dental Park at Flikier Institute in Costa Rica The healthiest sets of teeth that dentists in Costa Rica can ever hope to examine are usually hidden deep in the gum tissue of newborn babies. These tiny pearls are not visible until they start to break through the tissue, which is something that starts to happen at the sixth month of life. Primary teeth are visible by the age of three, which i...

U.S. Department of Justice Press Release - James L. Porter, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today, that Ann Marie Sheppard, 55, of O’Fallon, Illinois, was sentenced on February 10, 2016, in the U.S. District Court in East Saint Louis, Illinois, on the charges that she engaged in a scheme to steal from a health care program and that she committed two r...

Ana Helena Chacon Echeverria, Vice President of the Republic of Costa Rica witnessed the signing of the document. Source: Cisco Cisco Press Release - SAN JOSE, Costa Rica 11 February 2016 – In order to exchange information and share best practices to support the digital agenda for Costa Rica, the Telecommunications Vice Ministry, a specialized unit from MICITT (Ministerio de Ciencia Tecnología...

NTT Data Plano, TX – February 11, 2016 – NTT DATA, Inc., a leading IT services provider, announced today that it has opened a new service delivery center located in San Jose Costa Rica, to support its growing business in North America. The addition of the Costa Rica center strengthens the company’s ability to respond quickly and efficiently to client needs with accelerated solutions that lever...

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fest300, the most comprehensive guide to the world's best festivals, announced today its annual list of the 300 most highly regarded festivals from around the globe. Making this year's list were returning favorites Glastonbury (Pilton, UK), Diwali (India), and Envision (Costa Rica), as well as list newcomers Electric Zoo (New York, USA) and Cape Town In...

By Mar Centenera Buenos Aires, Feb 8 (EFE).- The Aedes aegypti mosquito is considered "a perfect virus-spreading machine" by scientists at Argentina's Center for Plagues and Insecticides Research, or Cipein, which studies the insect's preferences and phobias to fight it and contain dengue, Zika and Chikunguña epidemics. Females of the species, able to lay an average of 100 to 300 eggs, bite ...

The New York Times in Spanish New York, Feb 8 (EFE).- The New York Times launched Monday a Spanish-language Web site, a new platform for expanding its presence in the Spanish-speaking market with articles translated from English and others originally written in Spanish. The project comes in addition to a weekly print edition that has been distributed for several years in the Hispanic world....

Indeed.com AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Indeed announced today it started 2016 with record unique visitors, with more than 200 million over the past 31 days. Indeed also announced it added eight additional markets where job seekers will have access to the most jobs on the web. The announcement builds upon a strong 2015, which solidified Indeed’s position as the number one job site in the ...

Source: Johnny Araya Monge Facebook Who needs a strong political platform when you have a shining personality to support the agenda you feel is best for your constituency? According to early counts from cantonal polling centers, the powerhouse National Liberation Party (Spanish initials: PLN) dominated municipal elections in Costa Rica; however, former Mayor of San Jose Johnny Araya proved ...

Areli Arevalo Facebook On Saturday afternoon, geologists at the Observatory on Volcanology and Seismology at the National University of Costa Rica (Spanish acronym: OVSICORI) reported a new eruption at the Turrialba Volcano, the most active colossus in our country. The volcanic event took place about ten minutes before 2:00 pm during a warm, yet extremely windy, afternoon. The seismographic...

OAS and TSE reps sign accord before elections OAS Media Release - The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS/EOM) headed by the former Uruguayan Deputy Minister Edgardo Ortuño, began its activities earlier this week in preparation for municipal elections to be held on Sunday, February 7th in Costa Rica. Today, the Chief of Mission and the President of the Su...

Source: Wikimedia Commons SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mobile operators today announced a series of new initiatives as part of the WeCare Costa Rica campaign run by the GSMA to provide a safer and more reliable environment for all mobile users. Operators Claro, ICE and Telefónica will work together to fight mobile phone theft as well as facilitate greater accessibility for consumers ...

Enoc and Dr. Rosemary SylvesterBradley of ChocoPrisma. Photo: Bryan Fabio Herrera By Carol Blair Vaughn This interview was conducted on January 29th, 2016, at Bazookas Restaurant in Perez Zeledon, after a meeting of a club for English speakers (CCRC), at which Enoc Jimenez was the guest speaker.  The Ngobe Indigenous straddle the Costa Rica – Panama border, and trace their lineage back to a...