By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Legislative Assembly voted in favor of legislation to protect animal welfare yesterday. The President’s press office reported that the law, Ley #18,298 (Bienestar Animal), has received unconditional support from the executive branch, which has already started to implement actions along these lines The law stipulates sanctions against anyone who physically h...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís signed into effect a citizen monitoring project to aid in protecting the country’s natural resources, stated the executive branch press office today. The volunteers will support the country’s national conservation area system (SINAC) in their work overseeing the country’s 160 protected areas of which 28 are national parks. Residen...

By Wendy Anders Crocodile Man Tour at the Tarcoles River near Jaco, Costa Rica In the wake of Friday’s crocodile attack of a Colorado surfer at Tamarindo beach in Costa Rioca’s northern Guanacaste province, legislators and tourist businesses are again clamoring for the government to manage the animals. The reptiles thrive in the warm, shallow waters of river mouths and mangrove swamps that d...

By Wendy Anders Within two months a new mechanism for insuring domestic workers will be ready to be implemented, stated Gustavo Picado, finance manager of the Costa Rican Social Security Bureau (CCSS), the country’s public health service agency. Speaking to Monumental Radio last week, bureau officials said they aimed to increase coverage of this vulnerable group. Only 14 percent of Costa Ric...

By Wendy Anders What might possibly be the largest of the recent Turrialba volcano eruptions started at 7:22 this morning, according to the National University's Volcanology and Seismology Observatory (Ovsicori-UNA). A photo on their site shows a cloud of ash reaching nearly 3,000m. The blast caused tremors that were felt by nearby residents. A Facebook follower in Alto de las Palomas, Es...

By Wendy Andershttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn91WdKhUmE Eyewitness accounts in and around Peñas Blancas on Costa Rica’s northern border with Nicaragua show growing desperation and also health concerns among hundreds of Haitian and African immigrants trying to journey to the U.S. Costa Rica’s national TV Repretel documented a thwarted attempt last Wednesday by a boisterous group of immigra...

By Wendy Anders The Central American business magazine, Revista Mercados y Tendencias, reported July 19 on a commercial ferry service between Costa Rica and El Salvador that will open at the end of this month. The ferry will operate three weekly trips in both directions between the Costa Rican Pacific port of Caldera and El Salvador’s La Unión port, with a capacity of up to 85 trailers per t...

By Wendy Anders Alajuela’s public hospital announced a series of changes for women giving birth including allowing them to choose from three different positions and receive better hydration while in labor, reported the Costa Rican Social Security Bureau (CCSS). The public health care system is aiming to improve women’s and their partner’s experiences during birth under a new policy called th...

By Wendy Anders Neighbors in downtown San José’s Otoya neighborhood had their effort to halt construction of a condominium upheld yesterday by Costa Rica’s highest court, reported the Costa Rican digital elmundocr.com. In a unanimous resolution, #2016-009494, the constitutional court found that Condominio City Plaza II does not have certain permits in place and that the building site is loc...

By Wendy Anders Last night around 10:30 a 2.9 magnitud quake was felt and also heard throughout some southern and most western San José districts. People in Ciudad Colón, Santa Ana, and Pavas, Guácima de Alajuela, Escazú, San Juan de Dios in Desamparados, Palmichal de Acosta, Belén, and as far as downtown Alajuela reported feeling the quake, stated the Volconology and Seismology Observatory ...

By Wendy Anders Yesterday Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minster Alexander Mora announced the start of $2.5 million construction on the Invenio University campus in Guanacaste that will house the Illinois, U.S.-based Continuum Data Center, LLC. Continuum Data offers purpose built data centers and colocation solutions to businesses. Starting with a staff of 20 they plan to eventually grow to 300 a...

By Wendy Anders Multiple institutions worked together to build a coastal monitoring station, Estación Cipancí, to strengthen protection, sustainable use, and monitoring of the waters, communities, and beaches in the Gulf of Nicoya, officials announced yesterday. The station will support joint environmental and socio-economic projects to be carried out by the National Conservation Areas Syste...

By Wendy Anders Source: U.S. Embassy   During a routine round along the Caribbean coast this morning at 2:00 am, Costa Rica coast guard officials found a giant leatherback sea turtle tied up, ostensibly to later be killed. They released the animal, which had been tied up at Barra de Pacuare, a coastal village in between Tortuguero National Park and Limón port town. Police and coast guard a...

By Wendy Anders Every year public school administrators in Costa Rica face a troubling school drop-out reality, both at the start of the school year and mid-year. This year has been no different, reported Radio Monumental yesterday, with close to 20,000 kindergarten - university public education students failing to return after the two-week mid-year break that just ended. According to Son...

By Wendy Anders Concentrix is a high value business services company operating in 25 different countries and a subsidiary of the Fortune 500 Synnex corporation based in Fremont, California. The company, which is celebrating 10 years of operations in Costa Rica, is currently looking for recruitment specialists, account supervisors, quality and finance analysts, customer service representative...

from caribbeannewsnow.com By Kenneth Rijock MIAMI, USA -- José Ayú Prado, the chief justice of the Panama Supreme Court of Justice, has publicly refused to take any action against an allegedly corrupt auxiliary member of the judiciary, Yoideth Chirú Manrique, who is under investigation after she ordered the immediate release of 25 defendants charged with narcotics trafficking. Observers ...

By Wendy Anders The hugely-liked online animal lovers’ The Dodo recently published a report by two veterinarians on the “nightmares” they witnessed while working at the Cahuita, Limón-based Sloth Sanctuary. Overgrown nails from the lack of trees to climb, overgrown canines from an improper diet, miscarriages by stressed females sloths, fighting among crowded animals, and severe medical negle...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s constitutional court recently upheld the regulation of the cultural content of advertisements for alcoholic beverages, according to a judicial press statement released Friday. Stating that “prohibiting the use of national symbols and folkloric music in publicity campaigns for alcoholic beverages is meant to avoid associating alcohol consumption with the culture,...

By Wendy Anders Thursday night a 23-year-old woman from the United States was found dead inside her car after it crashed head-on into a pick-up truck near the Tarcoles River along the main Central Pacific highway, stated the Judicial Investigative Agency (OIJ) in a press statement this afternoon. The regional Garabito OIJ unit was called to the scene of the crash around 9:00 pm. Trave...

By Wendy Anders The judicial branch in a press statement summarizing this week’s activity noted that the Alajuela Criminal Court found two men guilty of illegal drug dealing, and a woman guilty of money laundering. The court sentenced a Hungarian man by the last name of Halasz to 10 years in jail, and another man named Otárola to eight years. This same court sentenced a Mexican woman by ...

By Wendy Anders Tax inspection police discovered two spotted, wriggling banana lizards this morning in a review of courier packages arriving from outside Costa Rica at the Juan Santamaría Airport in Alajuela. “This is the first time live animals have been found entering the country via a courier service. We are concerned not only about the fact that animals are being shipped between countrie...

By Wendy Anders Source: UN Women Citizen Action Party (PAC) Legislator Epsy Campbell recently introduced legislation that seeks to further expand the participation of women in governance by establishing quotas. The law comes after a recent constitutional court ruling that requires political parties to include women in equal numbers on ballots, a measure also supported by Campbell. The new...

(Wikimedia Commons) By Wendy Anders The Massachusetts-based global digital, social, and mobile content company, Lionbridge, is opening 100 new positions in Costa Rica, a 200 percent increase in their staff here. Their new positions are in the areas of translation and localization due to a recent increase in the volume of their telephone interpretation services. Lionbridge has operatio...

By Wendy Anders A 500-strong special police operations force set up by Public Security Minister Gustavo Mata last October has been working hard to make a dent in local illegal drug-related activities. The Costa Rican police has made over 25,000 illegal drug-related arrests throughout the country since then. These crimes, which include everything from drug possession and drug dealing to mo...

By Wendy Anders The trial of a woman by the last name of Amaya accused of attempting to kill a woman named Barrantes begins tomorrow, Wednesday, July 13, at 8:00am at the Limón Criminal Court. Amaya and Barrantes apparently shared a residence in Batáan, Limón, according to the judicial press office. On August 29, 2009 when both women were at home, it appears that Amaya grabbed a bottle of...

By Wendy Anders Yesterday, the Costa Rican Spanish-language digital news media, AM Prensa, reported that a boy of 14 has allegedly been having sexual relations with his 11-year-old sister who is now pregnant. Although the alleged relations occurred several months ago, it wasn’t until three weeks ago that the girl sought care at the Liberia Hospital, who then reported the case to local child pr...

By Wendy Anders By late 2018 Costa Rica plans to offer athletes two sports complexes – an aquatics center in La Sabana Park and a sports complex in La Paz Park – announced Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís last week at the National Sports Games (Juegos Nacionales). Plans for the new centers presented to the public indicated the projects will be completed in November 2018. The two ce...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican public health officials renewed a health alert put in place July 2 in response to a severe respiratory virus that is especially virulent in young children. The temporary extension of hours in peripheral clinics will remain in effect until August 8, or until the respiratory emergency wanes sufficiently, stated officials in a press statement today. The following ...

By Wendy Anders The second case of a zika-infected microcephaly baby was confirmed in the Central America nation of El Salvador on Friday, stated Salvadorean health officials at a live press conference. This makes El Salvador the seventh country in the Americas to confirm a zika-linked microcephaly case. “More than 91 percent of zika will not lead to micrcephaly,” stated Violeta Menjívar,...

By Wendy Anders At 11:25 Friday night, police checking vehicles on the San Jose-Caribbean Route 32 found a surprise tucked in the trunk of one car. A newborn three-toed sloth was discovered in a cardboard box during a routine stop-and-search operation near the Zurqui Tunnel. The vehicle’s owner, of the last name Chávez and resident of Atenas, Alajuela, was heading towards San José from Si...

By Wendy Anders Cine Magaly, in downtown San Jose’s California neighborhood, is hosting Costa Rica’s 6th Annual European Film Festival with pictures from 10 different countries. Here’s the schedule for the remainder of the festival: Sunday, July 10: El Olivo, 3:40pm, (Spanish) Terapia para Un Vampiro, 6:15pm, (Austrian) La French, 8:25pm, (French)   Monday, July 11: ...

Wikimedia Commons  EFE BOQUETE, PANAMA –  A fine coffee grown and processed in the mountains of western Panama, a new product that was a hit in a recent Panamanian international auction, has a secret ingredient: the tropical aroma and taste of mango. The Gallardo family's Nuguo Signature was ranked the most innovative coffee in its debut at The Best of Panama international tasting event,...

By Wendy Anders Massachusetts, U.S.-based life sciences company Precision Coating Co., Inc. (PCCI), in its first move to a manufacturing site outside of the U.S., announced in a press statement today they will open a plant in Coyol, Alajuela at the end of the month. The plant will employ sophisticated automated technology in the production of fluoropolymer and derivative coatings used in...

The subject wanted in the Villarreal, Guanacaste stabbing. By Wendy Anders This article has been updated to include new information from police sources: Yesterday, two separate murders of women in Guanacaste have kept police and investigators very busy, and the local community very concerned. The first, apparently a lover's quarrel between two Nicaraguans, occurred in the presence of ...

from Costa Rican Firefighters' Facebook page. By Wendy Anders Early this morning firefighters reported putting out a fire caused by a candle in San Rafael, Alajuela that ravaged 11 poor homes and displaced 45 people. The Benemérito Cuerpo de Bomberos de Costa Rica on their Facebook site responded to comments throughout the morning in response to the news. One woman inquiring about any pets t...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Ministry of Agriculture decided to make July 4th National Cocoa Day. The Día Nacional de Cacao was inaugurated this year to increase attention and channel support to this recovering agricultural sector that was decimated in the early 1980s by a rapidly spreading fungus called Moniliophthora roreri. In response to the destructive pod-rot fungus that spread to C...

By Wendy Anders In June GrupoQ Corporation opened a state-of-the-art digital showroom for its new Hyundai models on the first floor of Alajuela’s City Mall, adjacent to the Juan Santamaría International Airport. This novel showroom, the first of its kind in Latin America, allows potential buyers to experience different car models on digital screens in addition to viewing the cars themselves,...

File photo By Wendy Anders Located along the sumptuous Gulf of Papagayo in Costa Rica’s northern Guanacaste province, Hotel El Mangroove recently stunned ABC’s Good Morning America producers with their swimming pool. Ranking second after a hotel in the Seychelles, El Mangroove’s 130-foot-long fresh-water, black-tiled pool directly faces the Pacific Ocean. “Flanked by private cabanas and l...

By Wendy Anders In a historic victory for the environmental movement in Costa Rica, a broad coalition of local residents, politicians, environmentalists and others hailed today’s decision by the Los Chiles Municipality to halt expansion of pineapple production for five years. The Northern Region where Los Chiles is located is home to 47 per cent of Costa Rica’s pineapple production with 17,8...

Wikimedia Commons. By Wendy Anders This afternoon, Public Security Minister Gustavo Mata, addressed Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly to push for the need to regulate the sale of violent toys in the country. The meeting came on the heels of an assault this morning in Limón in which a man used a toy gun to rob a woman while she was walking with her young son, said the ministry in a press ...