In 2007, respected and influential Canadian sci-fi author William Gibson published Spook Country, a novel that underscores the byproducts of living in a highly-networked and globalized post-9/11 world of surveillance, fear and high-level horse trading exemplified by stranger-than-fiction occurrences such as the WikiLeaks affair and the Anonymous collective. Costa Rica is an important geograph...

In the United States, as President Barack Obama and his family celebrated the birthday of civil rights activist and champion of social justice Martin Luther King, Jr. at his new memorial in Washington D.C., thousands of protesters associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement planned demonstrations in cities across the country. The Occupy movement, which came to the world's attention in Septemb...

The twenty-fifth iteration of the annual festivities at Palmares has not disappointed anyone thus far; in fact this year's celebration of what has become the de facto end-of-vacation carnival for Ticos has been mostly characterized by being more orderly and less raucous than in previous years. Two of the three major events that make Palmares a massive celebration have already taken place: the tr...

In San Isidro de Penas Blancas, not far from where the Palmares festivities recently took place, a local farm located on acres of pristine rainforest land, is involved in some ancient practices that are currently and rightfully enjoying newfound interest around the world. Finca Luna Nueva Lodge is an organic and biodynamic farm involved in several activities that are essentially retooled from phi...

SAN JOSE - Costa Rica is far from being considered a Paraiso Fiscal (offshore financial heaven), unlike other countries in the Central American and Caribbean regions have been labeled. While some revenue collection and levy practices in the country are decidedly lax, that could soon change if the National Assembly and the current administration find some common ground. One of the taxes that ...

SAN JOSE: When President Laura Chinchilla met with Legislative Assembly Leader Juan Carlos Mendoza earlier this week, she made something very clear: of all the legislative projects that must be discussed and voted on, the Fiscal Reform plan is one that she would really like to see passed. Fiscal Reform isn't the only item on the President's mind. She also instructed Mendoza to get his peopl...

It's hard to think of radio as a significant player in these brave new days of Internet-connected humans who are tuned in to real-time social media updates on their smartphones. Ticos have learned to embrace online social networking and digital publications -as this one- with abundant glee. Still, terrestrial radio plays a vital role in the lives of people in Costa Rica thanks to a few factors t...

Ticos often wonder why nice people like Barry and Nanci Stevens come to Costa Rica and devote so much of their time, energy and passion into helping our country become an even nicer place than it already is. Barry and Nanci are the founders of El Puente (The Bridge), a non-profit organization that is dedicated to making the lives of the people of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca in Limon a little better...

For Tico skaters the first decade of the 21st century has been a great period of revival for their favorite activity. Skateboarding in Costa Rica is no longer just an extreme sport, it has become part of the global skater culture, complete with distinguished riders, talented photographers chronicling the happenings in the culture, fashion, professional organizations, promoters, and more. The...

Personal computing hardware has come a long way since the days of mainframes that used to take up entire rooms and bulky desktop PCs that required ugly pieces of workstation furniture that never seemed to match the home decor. The new personal computing paradigm is centered on mobility, portability and affordability. Smartphones and tablet computers are quickly replacing desktop PCs, and low-end...

Lovers of comic book lore, underground comix, computer animation, graffiti, and all the other media attached to the subculture (such as film, video games, anime, cosplay, and music) should mark their calendars for next Saturday and Sunday, 21 and 22 in January, 2012. Over those two days, the old Costa Rican customs warehouse (La Aduana) will be transformed into Boom Con, the first ever celebratio...

CURRIDABAT – Carlos Alberto Valerín lives in a modest home in the heart of a bustling suburb located east of San José, not far from the Juan Santamaría Elementary school, where decades ago his musical inclination would first become apparent. It's the first Monday of the New Year, and Valerín (as he is known in the musical world) is busy messing around with the settings of a wireless router. “I jus...

This article is sponsored by SurgeryCR.com Medical Tourism Facilitators. The Intercontinental Hotel in (Escazu) San Jose Costa Rica has been chosen as the site where the PROMED Council and the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) will host this year’s annual International Medical Tourism Travel Summit Conference. The summit/conference will take place from April 23rd through the 25th in the l...

More than 100 million text messages were exchanged by Ticos celebrating the New Year. According to a report appearing on the online news daily Costa Rica Hoy. Ticos also made a record number of wireless telephone calls on New Year's eve, about 15 million. The figures were provided by ICE, the former communications monopoly that remains the largest wireless carrier despite the divestiture enact...

Costa Rica experienced her first heartbreak of the new year with the sad passing of Carmen Naranjo, one of the country's most important literary figures and a highly respected citizen whose work to advance the interest and welfare of the citizenry will never be forgotten. Ms. Naranjo passed away from complications related to cancer. A national vigil has been scheduled for Wednesday evening at the ...

Starting on April 1st of 2012, most corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies and other business entities -both foreign and domestic- that are registered in Costa Rica will be obligated to pay a new tax based on a new law published on December 27th, 2011 in the judicial news daily La Gaceta. The new law, number 9024, is entitled Taxation on Business Entities. The only business ent...

The underlying mechanism of a promising study into cancer treatment was dissected in a scientific paper by Tico biomedical researchers years before it made headlines. Ever since Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta announced their progress on the effects of dichloroacetate on human cells in 2007, there has been quite a bit of scientific controversy over the future of cancer resea...

A dear reader named Camille recently sent The Costa Rica Star the following questions via email. If you have any questions about Costa Rica that you would like answered in a news article, contact us as time permits and we will do our best to find the answers you are seeking. Here are the questions that she sent to us. 1. What's up with the high cost of traffic tickets? 2. Should you bribe a...

Costa Rica's interest in space exploration has been growing over the last few years, and in 2011 three separate enterprises made significant strides in this field. Here's a look at those industrious organizations and the advances they made in 2011. For these three enterprises and their aspirational leaders, space is not Costa Rica's last frontier: it is the beginning of a bright future for Ticos ...

Ticos may have gone crazy over the iPhone in 2011, camping out outside of ICE offices and methodically signing up for innovative Kölbi plans which, while considered a good deal in Costa Rica, surprised people familiar with iPhone data plans offered in other countries. Ticos may have also gone crazy over the new Android smartphones, particularly when the new wireless reality kicked in, allowing ne...

Ticos consumed heaping amounts of social media content in 2011, and blogs featured very prominently in their delectation. Smart journalists like Amelia Rueda make sure they cover all facets of social media, and to that extent she keeps a number of blogs that empower her audience by keeping them informed about significant current issues and social commentary. Then there's the oft-recognized El Infi...

It's hard to think of Costa Rica, a Latin American developing nation, as a country with a falling birthrate and an aging population. That's exactly what the National Institute of Statistics and Census (known as INEC by its Spanish acronym) has indicated according to its preliminary census numbers released just days before Christmas 2011. From 1984 to 2000, the population growth of Costa Rica av...

Horror stories are an important part of Tico folklore. Tormented ghosts like La Llorona and fearsome creatures of the night such as El Cadejo serve as cautionary tales for a traditionally Catholic and God-fearing culture. Ticos enjoy being spooked by a well-told story about the supernatural. The resurgence of classic horror characters such as vampires and werewolves in the popular literature ...

More than one third of the population in Costa Rica went online and made use of various social media platforms during 2011, according to figures compiled by Social Bakers, a site dedicated to the statistical study of Internet social media usage. Facebook was the social network of choice among Ticos, followed by the short messaging and microblogging network Twitter. Other networks which had attract...

National de facto news daily La Nación has published its annual list of the most newsworthy personalities and entities which consistently graced its pages with either positive or controversial developments in 2011. The following is a quick rundown of the people and entities mentioned and the category they made news in: National Affairs The global financial crisis left its most serious mark i...

While most industries in Costa Rica come to a virtual halt during the holidays, Christmas is the busiest time of the year for inter-province bus operators. According to a report published on daily newspaper La Prensa Libre and broadcast by its sister Radio America AM station, bus lines are stepping up their operational pace in an effort to meet the demands of hundreds of thousands of holiday trave...

Christmas Day may be over, but for most Ticos the holiday celebrations will continue until the New Year. For residents of the greater San José metro area, December 25th is the day when the greatly anticipated Feria del Zapote, located just a few kilometers east of downtown San José, happens. The Health Ministry gave the green light to the annual festivities which include bull runs, fireworks, live...

On a very thorough article by Vicki Berrong in the December 19th edition of the Wall Street Journal, she mentioned a few key points about retirement planning which prompted her to take the plunge and move to a place near Playa Naranjo on the beautiful Gulf of Nicoya. Ms. Berrong describes herself as a 60 year old American who at one point laid out a 10-year plan to pay off debt and pick a con...

As Ticos awake to another tranquil Christmas in one of the world's most peaceful democracies, it bears importance to remember Christmas Day almost a quarter of a century ago, when Costa Rica assumed a crucial role as a mediator for peace in the region. On December 25th, 1987, world leaders were closely monitoring hostilities in Nicaragua, a country which, along with Afghanistan, had become th...

When it comes to conducting democratic elections, Costa Rica does not like to cut corners. After President Laura Chinchilla was elected in 2010, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (known as TSE for its acronym in Spanish) decided to completely modernize its ballot collection and counting processes. In November of 2010, the TSE adopted Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to improve the mon...

It seems that no matter how hard you try to become organized during the holidays, there's always something you forget to accomplish on time. Getting all shopping done well before Christmas is a lofty goal that's not so easy to accomplish. Many shoppers wait until the very last minute to rush to the malls, multiplazas and Wal-Mart stores, thereby creating the infamous presas navideñas. Others draw ...

It's that time of the year when radio stations and entertainment journalists in Costa Rica begin releasing their “Best Of” music lists. Judging by the lists compiled thus far, the discerning musical tastes of Ticos are as diverse as the many animal species roaming around the country. British female contralto singers dominated business news daily La República's top ten albums of the year. The...

The Minister of the Exterior has presented a formal diplomatic complaint against its counterpart in Managua regarding an alleged invasion by Nicaraguan soldiers this past Monday. According to the Europa Press news bureau, the diplomatic dispatch explained that members of Nicaragua's security forces were conducting a patrol and advanced about a kilometer into Tico territory, voicing taunts directed...

Apple may have finally decided to open up iTunes in Costa Rica and the rest of Latin America on December 13th, but it only took one day for a Tico-owned digital content store to follow suit. Central de Radios (CDR), a powerful media conglomerate which owns the venerable Radio Reloj and 29 other radio stations, launched Tití Online, the first store in Costa Rica to offer e-books, magazines, rington...

Making payments and transferring money will soon be as easy as sending a text message. According to a report recently published in Diario Extra, the Central Bank (BCCR) and ICE are working together to develop a simple solution that will enable Ticos to transfer funds via SMS. Carlos Melegatti, BBCR's Director of Financial Services, explained that the Central Bank is studying SMS payment methods al...

As we get closer to the Christmas and New Year's holidays, here's a look at some of the banks and public institutions which will be observing the holidays with closures and modified schedules. Hospitals and Clinics None of the major public or private hospitals and clinics have reported modified holiday schedules. Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) The offices of the INS will be close...

The beautiful Miss Costa Rica 2011, Johanna Solano, is currently one of the top contenders to take the title of the beauty queen with the best physique in the planet in 2011. The 21-year old stunner, who is a former Señorita San José pageant competitor, currently ranks at number six in the Reinas Universal Awards Best Body of 2011 list published by the online version of 20 Minutos, a leading news ...

A beach community in Guanacaste will be getting a special Christmas gift in January. Nine brilliant young minds from the New York Institute of Technology are coming to Costa Rica in January to share their knowledge and environmental moxie with the people of Playa Nosara in an effort to promote sustainability. One of the most difficult lessons being learned by people in Costa Rica is that their...

The Costa Rican Tourism Institute, known as ICT by it acronym in Spanish, recently released figures which indicate that approximately 2,183,000 tourists will have visited the country by the end of the year. Should this statistic be confirmed in January 2011 by the ICT, it would indicate a growth of 4 percent over last year. This is an encouraging outlook for both ICT and the tourism industry,...

American troops stepped up the pace of their withdrawal from Iraq over the weekend, turning over garrisons and combat positions to Iraqi security forces. Armored vehicles lined up in long columns traveling towards Kuwait for shipment to other American bases around the world. Soldiers' families rejoiced in the United States, while some Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal by burning American flags. ...