A ruling in mid-July by Costa Rica's Supreme Court (Sala IV) ordered the country's telecommunications superintendent (Sutel)  to establish minimum connection speeds for their "fair use" policy that has recently caused mobile users to have their Internet speed. The court responded to an injunction filed against Sutel's implementation of the policy by giving the superintendent four months to set ...

The Municipality of Escazú will be fumigating and collecting non-traditional waste to prevent the spread of dengue and zika. The campaign started Friday, July 28 and will tun until August 18, said the Ministry of Health in a statement. The neighborhoods of Los Anonos, El Carmen, San Francisco, Corazón de Jesús, and Bello Horizonte were chosen for the campaign based on Ministry of Health recomme...

On Monday, August 21, 2017 many will be able to witness a wonderful phenomenon, people in the United States will get to see a Total Eclipse of the Sun, while in Costa Rica it will be seen as a Partial Eclipse. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly between the sun and the Earth and blocks the sun totally or partially; in a total eclipse the sun’s outer atmosphere (the corona) beco...

Costa Ricans and Panamanians marched Friday along their shared border to bring awareness to the problem of human trafficking, reported the Spanish news agency EFE. The event came on the heels of the arrest of a Dominican man in Paso Canoas for alleged drug and human trafficking. He is accused of trafficking three Ecuadorian migrants who appear to have paid him to take them to the U.S. The fi...

The La Cruz Health Area in Costa Rica's northern Guanacaste province has begun providing contraceptive implants to women under a program supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), reported the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) last week. More than 400 women have opted for the new offering, which has been included among the public healthcare area's other birth control metho...

Employers in Costa Rica have always been obligated to pay social security for their workers including domestic help, housekeepers or maids; however, in the past “Caja” (Costa Rica Public Health and Social Security Administration, CCSS) didn’t offer a possibility for those maids that only worked part time or by the hour, or had several employers; the only option was to report the worker with a mini...

Photo: ICE offices Sabana The Costa Rica Electricity Institute (ICE) will be auctioning 17 of its properties next August 14 in order to cut expenses and generate additional income. “These are properties that belong to ICE (13) and the National Power and Light Company (CNFL) (4), selling them will generate income for the companies and savings in operational and maintenance costs”, explained F...

In the recent months several cases of fraud with promotional tour packages have been reported, and this has raised the alert of the consumer protection authorities in Costa Rica that will be performing stricter controls of companies that offer tourism services. In the past two years the National Consumer Commission has received at least 641 legal complaints, including breach of contract and fra...

Nat Geo announced the second season of its digital series Untamed with Filipe DeAndrade; the filmmaker and his colleagues and friends McKenzie Barney and Brian Moghari explore the wildlife of Costa Rica and will bring the audience closer to the many wonders the country has to offer. The filming of Untamed in Costa Rica began the first week of July and will extend for six months, the second seas...

This past July 25 the changes to the Labor Procedural Law of Costa Rica (Reforma Procesal Laboral) entered into force; this is the biggest change this law has seen since the Labor Code was published in 1943. The modification of this law involved the derogation of 16 articles, the incorporation of 89 new ones and changes to almost half the original code. If you have business in Costa Rica or...

The fourth season of the dance competition Dancing With The Stars Costa Rica announced tonight the names of the ten celebrities that will be part of the television show, among them, Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, former ambassador of the United States in Costa Rica. Fitzgerald concluded his term in July 14th and confirmed then that his family and him were happy in the country and would stay in Cost...

The National Chamber of Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism (CANAECO), organizer of the VI International Conference on Sustainable Tourism: Planet, People, Peace-P3, together with the Costa Rican Tourism Institute ICT), invite children from 8 to 10 years of age from throughout Costa Rica to participate in the children's drawing competition with the theme of "Planet, People, Peace". The contest s...

A growing demand for pet health services in Costa Rica is driving the growth in private veterinary hospitals. Many are open round the clock, 365 days a year. The Veterinary Practitioners Professional Association has five such complexes registered. Those include the San Rafael Hospital and Veterinary Clinic in Heredia; the San Antonio Veterinary Hospital, also in Heredia, and the Intensivet Vete...

The first Crate & Barrel in the Central American region opens today, Friday, July 28, at Avenida Escazú, a trendy, upscale commercial and residential complex just west of San José, Costa Rica. The store involved an investment of US$4 million, has an extension of 2,200m2, and will employ an estimated 40 people for ​​sales, cashier, exhibition, and other work. Crate & Barrel offers its...

August 2 is a holiday in Costa Rica, it’s a day reserved to honor the country’s patron saint, the Vírgen de los Angeles or “La Negrita” as Costa Ricans refer to her. The tradition in the country for catholic faithful involves a pilgrimage, “La Romería”, to the church in Cartago that was built in honor of La Negrita, “La Basílica de Los Angeles”. Hundreds of thousands, some say more than a...

A week-long visit to Costa Rica by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) is focussing on investment possibilities, said the Ministry of Foreign Relations in s statement this week. Fund officials from the United Arab Emirates will analyze possibilities and issue a report on Costa Rica's viability as a recipient of investments in areas such as infrastructure and services that have an impact o...

Costa Rica is working to rehabilitate and protect mangroves, a coastal ecosystem that is highly threatened throughout the world, said Deputy Minister of Water, Seas, Coasts and Wetlands, Fernando Mora in an interview with the Spanish News Agency (EFE). Costa Rican environmental authorities stressed the importance of conserving mangroves in harmony with the well-being of communities bordering th...

Three 2018 world-class sport fishing tournaments at Quepos' Marina Pez Vela - near Costa Rica's Manuel Antonio National Park - have just been announced. Sport fishing enthusiasts who like to plan ahead can start off the new year with a January 11 - 13 tournament: "The Rockstar! Offshore Tournament presented by PELAGIC is a team event with cash, prizes, and awards estimated to over $100,000. La...

In just the first half of 2017, Costa Rica has reached a new record in clean energy production and received their latest Biosphere Reserve declaration by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)—solidifying their unshakable commitment to sustainability. During the first six months of the year, 99 percent of Costa Rica's electricity came from renewable sources, a...

The Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica, the country's highest court, has given the Ministry of Education four months to establish an "inclusive education system" for people with autism and other disabilities, according to a sentence issued June 17 and published today. The court accepted an appeal presented by a 14-year-old child with autism spectrum disorder against Monterrey High School (Col...

The Wisconsin-based Natural Resources Foundation announced a new offering for adventurous travelers. In March 2018 the non-profit educational group will run a "Bird Conservation Boot Camp" in Monteverde, Costa Rica. The week-long educational course will be led by conservation biologist, Craig Thompson, and will be held at University of Georgia at Athens field station in the San Luis Valley a...

According to a special report by Reuters yesterday, Australia will be going ahead with a proposal they put forth last year about receiving Central American refugees in exchange for some help from the United States. The transfer of the refugees down under will occur over the next few months, starting with an estimated 30 El Salvadoran refugees currently being held in Costa Rica. The Australian go...

Did you know that Costa Rica is one of three Latin America country to have a piece of the infamous Berlin Wall on exhibit, along with Mexico and Argentina? The 3-meter tall slab is on display inside the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry on Street 13 in downtown San José's Otoya neighborhood. The beautiful historic building is commonly known as the "Casa Amarilla." After the wall fell on November ...

If your travel plans in and out of Costa Rica include any of these South American countries, be advised that to get back into Costa Rica you will need to have an official document attesting to having received a yellow fever vaccine. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela have yellow fever risk areas in many parts of their territories, and you will be required to present proof of yo...

In February, the community of Ostional, Costa Rica on the Nicoya Peninsula in the northern Guanacaste province carried out a tsunami evacuation drill. This was the first time such a drill has been carried out in Costa Rica. Ostional is home to the Ostional Wildlife Refuge, which the World Wildlife Fund considers “one of the two most important nesting areas in the world for Olive Ridley turtl...

An international study on pediatric cardiac surgery found outstanding results at the Costa Rican National Children's Hospital, said the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) which runs the country's public healthcare system. The study looked at in 55 hospitals worldwide and was carried out by the Boston Children's Hospital in partnership with Harvard University. The findings showed that ...

The concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of Costa Rica by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) were released yesterday. The Committee considered the seventh periodic report of Costa Rica at its 1508th and 1509th meetings held July 7, 2017 in Geneva. The Committee commended Costa Rica's high-level delegation headed by the Minister of th...

A year after Costa Rica and China signed a Joint Action Plan for Cooperation - 2016-2020, Costa Rican exporters are still waiting to sell their products across the Pacific. The Costa Rican Chamber of Exporters (CADEXCO) decided to push for action so that producers in Costa Rica can take advantage of the favorable conditions offered under this special agreement before more time elapses. C...

  Results of a technical analysis of the country's fiscal situation were presented by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) at the request of Costa Rican Finance Minister Helio Fallas. The OECD's director of  economics, Álvaro Santos Pereira, summarized the agency's conclusions last week to the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly's finance committee. Also in att...

There's more than turtles, whales and sharks lingering off the shores of Costa Rica these days. While Costa Rica has been steadily chipping away at the never-ending flow of drugs from South America passing near and through its borders, Colombia has meanwhile been boosting coca production. An over 1-ton capture of cocaine packets floating out at sea off the southern Pacific coastal town of Pu...

When the judiciary in Costa Rica declared national strike last Wednesday, July 19, the Supreme Court issued a very clear statement to all judicial agencies saying that they must continue to prove certain basic services, saying that "access to justice is a human right," according to a Supreme Court statement Unfortunately, this has not been the case at the country's morgue in San José. With 19 b...

When American Brian Lynn Hogue decided to retire in Costa Rica, he probably never imagined he'd disappear into the blue one night after discovering people he had held in confidence had tried to cheat him out of his properties. On March 8, 2016, four people were arrested in connection with his 2015 disappearance in Limón, Costa Rica. And a trial this week found two sisters guilty of his disappea...

The consular section at U.S. Embassy San Jose announces a consular outreach event in Santa Teresa at the end of July. Consular staff will be available to accept adult passport renewals, perform notarial services, and handle inquiries on federal benefits and voting. The event will take place Thursday, July 27, 9 - 11 a.m.  at the Auditorio de la Clinica del Seguro Social en Cobano (150 meters we...

-- 10,000 hammerhead sharks were sacrificed to amass the 8-ton stockpile The Costa Rican Endangered Marine Species Rescue Center (CREMA) and the U.S.-based organizations Fins Attached Marine Research and Conservation and Wild Over Wildlife have begun an on-line campaign and petition requesting Costa Rica's President Luis Guillermo Solís to stop the export of 8-tons hammerhead shark fins a...

The Costa Rican Government and the European Union (EU) signed a joint declaration Tuesday affirming their commitment to gender equality, and empowerment of women and girls. The support is part of a regional program to promote the economic empowerment of working women through responsible business conduct, and consists of 9.5 million euros in funding for Costa Rica and five other beneficiary coun...

SENASA, the National Animal Health Service in Costa Rica and the Health Ministry, in response to citizen complaints received, visited the famous dog shelter “Territorio de Zaguates” (Land of the Strays) today. Territorio de Zaguates is a non-profit organization a “no-kill” dog shelter located in a large property in the mountains between Heredia and Alajuela. According to Senasa’s director Be...

A Costa Rican field hand by the last names of López Rojas was intercepted yesterday at 5 a.m. by police while traveling to work in a rice field by motorcycle near Loma de Parrita in the Central Pacific region of Parrita, near Jacó. The man, a resident of Loma de Parrita, is suspected of having murdered two women this year in the Parrita area, one on February 14, Valentine's Day, and the other o...

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera, will be in Hojancha, Guanacaste on July 25 to celebrate the creation of the new district of Matambu. The district encompasses the Matambú Indigenous Reserve, and its designation as Hojancha county's 5th district is thanks to the initiative of Liberation Party Legislator Juan Rafael Marín Quirós. His petition presented to the Legislative Asse...

The Costa Rican Treasury yesterday sent out a nationwide alert. The agency has discovered in-person and email scams happening in their name. One method used by scammers is to visit businesses in person and pose as Fiscal Control Police (Police de Control Fiscal) agents claiming to be collecting taxes for the treasury department. The treasury (Hacienda) said that they do not send their age...

Nature guides and environmental educators at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve welcomed an atypical group last week to their outdoor classroom. Ten young men from the Ofelia Vincenzi Specialized Center, a rehabilitation center run by the Ministry of Justice and Peace, visited for the first time the world renowned forest as part of their educational experience. Those chosen have ...