Source: CONCACAF As widely expected, the National Men's Football Team of Costa Rica, affectionately known as La Sele, shutout their Nicaraguan counterparts by a score of 3-0 at the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Stadium in the District of Columbia. This was the first match for both teams in the Tigo Central American Cup (UNCAF), a regional tournament that is being played as a warm-up to the upcoming ...

Source: Pixabay CC When it comes to creative espionage, nobody does it better than the United States. Amidst press reports and allegations about U.S. spooks (undercover intelligence operatives) underhandedly using Costa Rica as a launching platform to secretly snoop on Cuba, our Directorate of Intelligence and Security (Spanish initials: DIS) is not willing to simply let its North American all...

Source: Fuerza Publica A citizen from the United States was arrested on September 1st, 2014 by police officers assigned to the canton of Carrillo, in the province of Guanacaste. According to press release CP-1171-2014 issued by Fuerza Publica (Costa Rica's national police force) the North American man, whose last name was reported as Riley, was approached and searched by officers patrolling Pl...

Source: Bing commercial reuse For all its bad reputation as a sensationalist newspaper dedicated to yellow journalism and pictorials of scantily-clad and seductive Ticas, Diario Extra features columns by legal experts on an almost daily basis. Many of the topics covered by these columns originate from questions posed by readers. Here's a recent topic that will resonate with readers of The Cost...

If you would like to become an organ donor and extend the gift of life with parts of your body that you no longer will need in the afterlife, you may now officially express your intention to La Caja (Costa Rica's public health system) over the Internet. As part of the “Atrévete a Donar” (Dare to Donate) campaign, more than 7,500 people in Costa Rica have registered as organ donors using La Caj...

A project is tested in competition. Source: MICITT On August 17th, the Fifth National Robotics Olympiad of Costa Rica culminated with an awards ceremony and the announcement of the young robotic scientists who will represent our country at the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in Russia later this year. The theme of this year's robotics competition was Space Exploration, and the winning projects feat...

Source: PerroCross.com Just three hours after an early morning earthquake disrupted the sleep of many people in Costa Rica, more than 300 dogs and their masters gathered at Campamento (Campgrounds) Oikoumene in Ochomogo, province of Cartago, for a special athletic competition. In the end, the experienced canine-human pair of Alexander Alvarado, a 33-year old Tico, and Togo, an adult Rhodesian ...

4-inch solar cell. Source: Wikimedia Commons Businesspeople from across major industries in Costa Rica met on Tuesday, September 2nd to outline a plan to promote the use of electricity generated by solar energy. The rising costs of electricity in Costa Rica are being cited as the main cause of an ongoing loss of competitive edge in the modern concept of trade and global business.   ...

  Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Seven years ago, Costa Rica hosted the regional meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions for Latin America and the Caribbean. These days, Costa Rica is the leading member state in this noble effort. Speaking before representatives from 115 nations, President Luis Guillermo Solis called on Central American leaders to comply with the directives...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Although it took some time for the iPhone 5 to reach Costa Rica after it was launched in September 2012, many Ticos rushed to get their hands on the latest model of the iconic Apple mobile device that redefined smartphones as we know them. If you purchased your iPhone 5 before January 2013, there is a chance that you may be experiencing issues related to battery life ...

  Source: Wikimedia Commons During a visit to the Caribbean region of Costa Rica in August, President Luis Guillermo Solis stopped in Puerto Viejo and explained his position on the lionfish (scorpaenid, from the genus Pterois): “This is a very aggressive species that goes after native marine life, which affects the local fishing economy.” According to Fabio Mena from online news daily...

Source: OPI Costa Rica Curridabat, a municipality located in the eastern suburbs of San Jose, is home to many bars, but only one of them serves dry spa manicures, semi-permanent gel colors, express pedicures, skin treatments, and Coca Cola products that are not meant to be consumed but rather applied to fingernails. Fashionable Ticas who already familiar with Spanish brand OPI and its Nail Bar i...

Houses that used to be airplanes and tree dwellings that seem to have come straight from an Ewok village of the Star Wars universe are among the top offbeat Costa Rica rentals featured by HomeAway.com andVRBO.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner). Both HomeAway and VRBO are website marketplaces similar to Airbnb, whereby travelers can evaluate and review potential residences for short-time rentals in li...

A Lynx unit on patrol in Panama. Source: Wikimedia Commons A practitioner of the black arts and a drug smuggler were prevented from entering Costa Rica this past weekend by officers from the Lince (Lynx) motorcycle law enforcement section of Panama's National Police. According to a news release from the EFE Spanish news bureau published by Primera Hora of Puerto Rico, the duo were attempting t...

Mobile customers of ICE, Costa Rica's largest wireless carrier and former telecommunications monopoly, will experience extended periods of service outages during the week starting September 1st, 2014. The affected services include Kolbi wireless voice and data plans as well as the ability to add funds to prepaid accounts. In some cases, subscribers of landline telephone service will also experienc...

The National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica has been proudly protecting life, property and coastal ecosystems for nearly 15 years. The Costa Rica Star often publishes news reports about how the men and women of the Coast Guard in Costa Rica rescue marine species from poachers, capture drug smugglers, save people in the ocean, and prevent illegal fishing. This time, however, we bring you a repor...

  Afro-Costa Rican Fashion. Source: Corredor Cultural del Caribe The history of Costa Rica cannot be told without recognizing the important sociocultural contribution of the Afro-Caribbean community. In 1980, the Union of Educators in Costa Rica realized that a truly multicultural and ethnically diverse society needs to take time to celebrate its roots, and thus El Día del Negro (Afro-...

Source: Bing commercial reuse The ongoing love affair between Ticos and junk food is becoming more steadfast each day. The fast food and casual dining sectors in Costa Rica have become extremely competitive over the last two years thanks to a flurry of brands eager to capture palates, bellies and wallets. According to the 2014 Costa Rica Consumer Profile recently published by business weekly E...

Source: RSN On the final day of August, just hours before people in Costa Rica began preparing for Sunday Mass, brunch, football games, community activities, and family outings, a 5.1 moment magnitude (Mw) earthquake jolted communities from the southern Pacific region down to the border with Panama and up to the Central Valley. The seismic event was detected by the National Seismology Network ...

Source: Revista Paquidermo Creative Commons On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal, a special situation was being scrutinized by intelligence and special operations analysts at the secretive United States Combined Air and Space Operations Center located within Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Master Sergeant Kelly Ogden wrote the following account for the U.S. Defense ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons After more than 20 formal complaints filed by mobile phone consumers in Costa Rica during 2014, the Superintendency of Communications (Spanish acronym: SUTEL) has made a new ruling that will push service providers to continuously inform their customers about every single detail of their international roaming activity. According to a recent article by Rebeca Madriga...

Part of the Roulin family portraits by Van Gogh. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Despite recent national initiatives to curb the incidence of single motherhood in Costa Rica, this socioeconomic trend continues to be a significant issue. According to a recent report by CB24, a regional cable television news network that focuses on Central American matters, single mothers make up 3...

Source: Pixabay Creative Commons Imagine riding a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train during one of those harshly cold and glacial days that descend upon the communities surrounding Lake Michigan just in time for the holidays. You think about making Costa Rica a winter home for you and your family, so you pull up the website of your local real estate broker on your smartphone and browse avai...

Source: Official Film Site Two years after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the excellent movie Paradise: Love finally made it to movie theaters in Costa Rica. Lovingly directed by Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl, Paradise: Love tells the story of Theresa, a middle-aged European woman who travels to Kenya in search of hunky young Africans who are more than willing to indulge her sexual d...

Ten members of two organized crime outfits operating in the United Kingdom have been sentenced by the crown court to serve more than 100 years in prison for their participation in a scheme that involved smuggling cocaine from Costa Rica to the Portsmouth Docks in the southern coast of England. Due to the logistics of the thwarted operation, this smuggling group was often referred to as the “pineap...

Source: Wikimedia Commons The most dangerous organism in Costa Rica is probably not the one you are thinking of. Although in the past few years there have been regional warnings issued to eco-tourists about potential dangers related to sharks, caimans and jaguars, attacks by these species are infrequent, and they are not even close to being the most lethal. The most dangerous organism in Costa...

Source: Ministry of Public Safety Oceangoing poachers and illegal fishing crews take note: The vigilant officers of the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica are actively looking for your nefarious traps and wicked gear, and they know about those hiding spots on the beach. According to a recent Facebook update posted by the Ministry of Public Safety, two recent Coast Guard patrols resulte...

LDA celebrates a recent victory. Source: CONCACAF It has been a great week for First Division football clubs from Costa Rica during the current CONCACAF Champions League. The top three clubs as determined by the most recently completed national tournaments are leading their respective groups in a series of matches that could lead them to the 2014 FIFA Club World Cup, which will be hosted by Mo...

Source: Casa Presidencial It took a little less than an hour for President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera to deliver a summary of his first 100 days in office, but the collective time spent by legislators and political analysts commenting on his speech could soon add up to more than 100 hours. As expected by many, President Solis did not have much to say; however, critics pointed out that he coul...

Source: Andiamo La Facebook Timeline The list of celebrities who visit Costa Rica is growing, but they mostly seem intent on spending their time on the beach or in secluded locations far away from the telescopic lenses of the pesky paparazzi. Reports of celebrities spending time in the Central Valley are rare, which is why unexpected visits by Chris Hemsworth to restaurants in Escazu and Santa...

Light traffic at a shopping center in San Carlos. Source: Wikimedia Commons Despite public opinion polls showing an acceptable level of approval for President Luis Guillermo Solis during his first trimester in office, most people in Costa Rica are feeling the inflationary blues and do not think that the economic situation on a national and personal level will improve soon. According to a recen...

  Source: Virgin Galactic It was only a matter of time before the burgeoning aerospace industry in Costa Rica expanded to include the tourism sector. Terranova Diseño de Viajes (Terranova Travel Planning) recently became Central America's first Accredited Space Agent (ASA), a designation bestowed upon by Virgin Galactic, which belongs to British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin...

Source: Bing commercial reuse Although it is estimated that less than two percent of all visitors who arrive in Costa Rica do so for the purpose of engaging in sexual tourism, this particular travel segment happens to be the most controversial. Thousands of men (and hundreds of women) come to our country each year to get to know some of the locals really well, but what about those couples who ...

Drug and alcohol abuse rehabilitation can be rewarding in Guanacaste The Pura Vida philosophy and the proclivity of Ticos to enjoy their lives by letting others enjoy theirs is often misconstrued as a hedonistic pursuit. Many tourists arrive in Costa Rica in search of what they define as a good time, which is often a euphemism for getting lost in the throes of liquor and controlled substances ...

North American investors in Costa Rica are usually surprised at the higher yields they can realize with plain-vanilla securities such as certificates of deposit (CDs). Once they get to learn a bit about how banking and financial systems work in this country, they understand how CDs can make them money with almost no risk. The following rundown of the banking system in Costa Rica is cordially p...

Modern medicine focuses on planning, management and efficiency just as much as it focuses on science and research. Preoperative (pre-op) procedures are an important part of the surgical spectrum as they allow physicians to efficiently manage the treatment process. How are these pre-op procedures handled prior to the arrival of medical tourists in Costa Rica? In most cases, pre-op procedures are...

Paul Watson with actress Daryl Hannah. Creative Commons. The ice bucket challenge to raise awareness and funds towards research and treatment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) has reached the Presidential Office of Costa Rica. Challenged by a radio personality from 104.3 FM (Los 40 Principales or Top 40), President Luis Guillermo Solis respectfully decl...

Source: MOGA From a small office in San Jose, three video game developers are working on a project that involves an oddly-shaped character named Fenix (Phoenix, as in the bird from Arabian lore that self-ignites only to rise from the ashes anew) who will go endure many trials and tribulations to earn a cookie. At a larger studio across town, a development team is basking in the glow of seeing ...

Source: PokerStars Imagine you are a tournament poker player about to sit at a table when you learn that you will be facing a smiling man in his sixties, who is nicknamed “The Shark,” who is known as the Godfather of Poker in Costa Rica, and who was sponsored by none other than PokerStars for nearly a decade; would you still take your chances and sit at that table?   Many players pr...

Mortgage applicants line up in Costa Rica. Source: Expocasa Just in time for Expocasa 2014, Costa Rica's most prominent housing trade show, the top two state-sponsored banks in terms of deposits announced that they will be promoting a new financial product aimed at middle-class house hunters: A 40-year mortgage that would allow qualified Tico borrowers to borrow up to 100 percent of the proper...