Earlier today in Germany, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and star of Animal Planet's reality TV show Whale Wars posted bond and walked out of the detention center he was held in since his arrest at the Frankfurt International Airport on Sunday, May 13th, 2012. After depositing 250,000 euros (about $312,000), Mr. Watson will now have more time and freedom to conc...

Joel Nathaniel Campbell Samuels will turn 20 years old in about a month, and he'll have to wait only a few weeks before getting his well-deserved and most wished-for birthday present: to become a permanent gunner with the legendary Arsenal Football Club of the English Premier League. Joel Campbell signed with Arsenal back in August of last year. He started playing in his native Costa Rica w...

Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake and Anthony Mackie are some of the actors thus far confirmed in the production of "Runner, Runner", a film about the online poker industry in Costa Rica. The movie is scheduled for release in 2013, but so far there is no indication that filming will take place in our country. A previous article in The Costa Rica Star, Haciendas of the Rich and Famous, mentioned th...

An official press release by the United States Embassy in Costa Rica indicates that shrimp caught in our country may once again be imported by the North American nation, following a certification that was reissued under Public Law 101-162, Section 609, 16 U.S.C. 1537, entitled Shrimp Import Prohibition Legislation for Marine Turtle Conservation. The import ban does not apply to nations that...

In early May, neighbors of Barrio Goban near downtown Limon in the Caribbean Zone of Costa Rica complained to the municipality about an unsightly garbage problem in the Chocolate River. Roberto Portuguez of La Prensa Libre described the situation: "Food, dead animals, garbage bags, discarded appliances, and even construction debris are turning the river into a dump where the stench is permanent."...

Earlier this month, the Humane Society International announced its support of the following restaurants in Costa Rica for their use of cage-free eggs: Alquimia Healthy Buena Tierra Jardin del Parque Oasis Veggie House The restaurants above are located in the the Greater Metropolitan Area of San Jose. Regarding Oasis' choice of cage-free eggs, Cynthia Dent, Regional Manager for Lati...

SAN JOSE – Members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SPCS) are following President Laura Chinchilla's agenda in Europe to plan their efforts to release Paul Watson from custody and avoid his extradition to Costa Rica. On Saturday, May 19th, the SPCS issued an official press release announcing "S.O.S. Day – Save Our Skipper – Wednesday May 23rd." On the official release, the SPCS cla...

Is there a relation between a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the obesity rates of a country? Are prosperous countries with high GDP rates doomed to have an overweight population and all the health problems it entails? Such are the questions posited in an article by Haley Sweetland Edwards, published last year in The Atlantic. That article, entitled "The Richest, Fattest Nation on Earth (...

Club Sport Herediano is the new champion of First Division Football in Costa Rica. This is the 22nd championship title earned by the historic team, known to Tico football fans as the first team to win a First Division tournament. Earlier tonight at the Ebal Rodriguez Stadium in Guapiles, province of Limon, the Asociacion Deportiva Santos was hoping to earn their first-ever First Division Football...

What does Laura Chinchilla Miranda have in common with Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev? The obvious answer is that they are all, or have been, democratic and political leaders of their respective nations, but there is something else they share in common: they have all used Apple MacBook Pro portable computers in the course of their duties. Earlier this week the President of Costa Rica gran...

Riding for the Movistar Team during adverse weather conditions in Italy, Andrey Amador scored the first major win of his career at the Giro d'Italia international cycling competition. According to Eurosport, Mr. Amador took off on sprints against French and Italian riders on the 14th stage of the race at Cervinia. The Giro d'Italia is known as a very challenging and mountainous course. Cond...

Perseverance and innovation were the keys to success for two bright young Ticos who elevated Costa Rica's standing in the international stage earlier this week at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Pittsburgh. As reported in The Costa Rica Star yesterday, Luis Gerardo Leon and Jose Miguel Gonzalez each took second place awards at the international technology...

SAN JOSE – The Vice Chancellor of the Republic of Costa Rica Carlos Roverssi met with a handful of protesters assembled outside of his office in San Jose yesterday. About 60 supporters of Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who is currently in the custody of German authorities, gathered in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Vice Chanc...

Anglophiles and English language learners in Costa Rica who are accustomed to getting their linguistic fix from the local cable operators have been noticing drastic changes in popular channels like Cinecanal and Cinemax. As reported on the popular consumer protection blog "Quien Paga, Manda" (an adage similar to "the customer is always right"), those two movie channels on Cabletica recently swi...

This weekend in Punta Leona, the community celebrates the arrival of the green season with live music, handcrafts, culture, sports, and fun activities for the whole family. Rain Fest is an annual event that greets the rainy season in the Central Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. This is the second year of the event, which seeks to bring together visitors and the community of one the country's premier t...

Given the ecological track record of Costa Rica in the international stage, and her goal of becoming a carbon-neutral nation by 2021, you would think that the average Tico would be interested in hybrid cars, or plug-in electrical vehicles, or even a more efficient mass transport system that uses clean energy. The reality points to something different. When you ask drivers in Costa Rica to re...

The third annual installment of the Art City Tour, sponsored by Banco Nacional, will kick off at 5:00 pm this evening in San Jose. The Art City Tour this year will be celebrated in tandem with the International Museum Day, which has been observed since 1977. This is a great introduction to a portion of the culture and arts scene in Costa Rica, and it is free for all who wish to participate. ...

Jose Miguel Gonzalez Arias, a young high school student at the Don Bosco Technical and Professional Institute, received the second-place award from the United States Patent and Trademark Office Society at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Pittsburgh last night. According to an official communication in Costa Rica by the Ministry of Science and Technology (M...

Ever since news of the controversial arrest of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson by German authorities on an extradition request by Costa Rica, the social media sphere and news outlets have been quite busy commenting on the events. Mr. Watson's arrest has been nothing short of a cause celebre for the Sea Shepherd Society, and the headline on a recent press release by th...

The French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs announced yesterday that a high-level government official returned six pre-Columbian artifacts to Ambassador Carlos Bonilla Sandoval for repatriation to Costa Rica. According to an official release by France Diplomatie,  Jean-Paul Balzamo made the return of six ceramic and pottery objects, some made into human and animal shapes. The Agence Fra...

SAN JOSE – President Laura Chinchilla was present at the launch of My Babilon, a new online social networking platform developed entirely in Costa Rica. My Babilon aims to connect users in their native language, regardless of the languages the rest of the social network members choose to communicate in. At the inaugural event, the President stated that the new social network is a product of the...

Costa Rica has one of the highest rates of childhood asthma in Latin America. According to online news daily Costa Rica On, 32 percent of Tico children between the ages of 6 and 7 suffer from asthma, and two of the major factors exacerbating the respiratory disease are vitamin D deficiency and not enough time spent playing out in the sunshine. A genetic research study conducted by Dr. Manuel So...

Warner Rojas is getting closer to his dream of being the first Tico to plant the flag of Costa Rica at the top of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. According to an article by Manuel Herrera in the national news daily La Nacion, improved weather conditions in the mountainous Nepal region are expected in the next few days. Mr. Rojas sent a message from the slopes of Mount Everest ...

SAN JOSE – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Costa Rica has issued an official communication to the Embassy of Nicaragua complaining of an invasion by security forces to Isla Calero, a continental isle located in the northeastern border region. Such military incursions were prohibited by a March 2011 resolution of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The provisions in the...

Should Canadian-born environmentalist and marine species activist Paul Watson be extradited to Costa Rica, he is likely to be represented in court by criminal attorney Federico Morales Herrera from the Quiros Abogados Central Law firm. According to national newspaper La Nacion, Mr. Watson, who is in custody in Germany and getting ready to fight extradition, asked his attorney Oliver Wallasch t...

Pension and retirement fund managers in Costa Rica are hungry for public sector government debt. As reported by Evelyn Granados Diaz of digital news daily Costa Rica Hoy, 80 percent of holdings in the investment portfolios of pension funds are spread among bonds issued by the Ministry of the Treasury and Taxation (Hacienda in Spanish), the Central Bank, and the public electric and communicatio...

A previous article in The Costa Rica Star discussed the Tayni (pronounced "thai-knee") red bean, the seedpod of a leguminous plant that was created by the Investigative Project on Beans (PIF) of Zamorano University. Tayni has been around since 2001. The commercial application of Tayni was approved on Thursday, February 23rd, and the Ministry of Agriculture published an official press release that ...

Drivers in Costa Rica had no problems filling up on gasoline or diesel this morning, despite a strike and work stoppage in effect by fuel tankers. The Ministry of the Environment refused to give fuel distributors and transporters an extension to certify their tankers. The operators of these vehicles have been requesting more flexibility and leniency by the Ministry when it comes to obtaining ce...

SAN JOSE – The office of legislator Claudio Monge Pereira, a representative of Partido Accion Ciudadana (Civil Action), an opposition political party in Costa Rica, has issued a strong statement of support for Paul Watson -the controversial founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who is currently in custody in Germany awaiting extradition proceedings for an attempted murder charge. ...

On Monday, May 14th of 2012, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Costa Rica issued an official communique on the matter of Paul Watson, who was arrested in Germany on Sunday, May 13th. On that same day, The Costa Rica Star published a news article that offered some background on the actions of Mr. Watson, who remains in custody in Germany. The official communication from the Ministry can be foun...

Canopy tours and zip line adventures have become iconic among visitors to Costa Rica. They are a great way to explore our forests and they boast a great safety record, but a recent zip line-related tragedy in the United States has some tourists wondering about secondary dangers of canopy tours. The case of a young woman in the southern state of Georgia, who is currently being treated for a fles...

Seventeen of the most skilled coffee cupping experts in the world have chosen the best beans in Costa Rica, and many of the wining roasts come from micro coops in the mountainous regions of Los Santos, province of San Jose. As written on the pages of Los Santos Hoy, an online news portal for one of Costa Rica's premier coffee growing and roasting regions, the 2012 Taza de la Excelencia (Cup of...

This weekend in Guanacaste, Fuerza Publica officers from precincts in Liberia joined students from the local Night School in a special operation. About 1,500 members of the community walked with the officers as they set up a perimeter and conducted a sweep along the banks of the Liberia River. Together the neighbors and the officers helped to get rid of an unsightly element in Costa Rica: the accu...

According to a recent report published by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the capital city of Costa Rica is home to the most expensive and inaccessible real estate in the region. The IADB looked at 41 cities in the Latin American and Caribbean region and determined that only 29 percent of Ticos have the means necessary to acquire a home in the metropolitan area and its suburbs. By w...

The misty city of Cartago may have the unluckiest football team in Costa Rica, but two announcements this month are making residents feel fortunate. The former capital of the Republic is bound to become one of the cleanest and greenest in terms of transportation options. According to an official press release from the Executive branch, the new train service between Cartago and San Jose may begi...

People in Costa Rica are getting fatter, and this weight increase is not in character with our country's goal of becoming a carbon-neutral nation by the year 2021. Such is the conclusion of respected agricultural and ecosystems expert Don Alexander Bonilla Duran. A lot has been written about the recent report released by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) in the United States concerning obesity...

Individuals in Costa Rica who actively engage in underground dog fighting rings should face two years in prison, according to a legislative proposal recently introduced by Walter Cespedes, representative of the Social Christian Unity (Spanish acronym: PUSC) party. According to an article by Esteban Mata of national newspaper La Nacion, the legislative proposal contains other provisions whereby ...

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MICIT in Spanish) of Costa Rica opened three more Smart Community Centers (CECIs) this past Friday in the canton of Los Chiles, in the Northern Zone, province of Alajuela. The three new CECIs are located in the communities of La Virgen, Las Nubes and Santa Fe. A total of 18 desktop computer systems were installed among the three Smart Community Centers, e...

Pictured above is Superman renouncing his American Citizenship in the 900th issue of Action Comics. What would move an American expatriate residing in Costa Rica to renounce his or her citizenship? Would it be FATCA, or the proposed passport restriction on owed taxes? What about a Canadian citizen, could he or she do the same? The questions above come to mind as the co-founder of onli...

At any given time in Costa Rica, tens of thousands of Ticos take calls from consumers in other countries who are in need of service and support. These agents work in call centers mostly located in the Central Valley, and the majority of the calls are handled in English -although demand for Portuguese-speaking agents is growing. What would happen to the economy of Costa Rica if an army of unpaid...