Germany

Costa Rica Drug Traffic Costa Rican Authorities Take Down Drug Trafficking Organization in Coordination with FBI and DEA

The Costa Rican Drug Control Police (PCD) in coordination with National Direction of Intelligence and Security (DIS), as well as the US agencies FBI and DEA and the German agency BKA , carried out eight raids the morning of this Wednesday in relation to a drug trafficking operation. As explained by the Minister of Security, Michael Soto, during a press conference carried out at 9 a.m. today, t...

German Tourist Missing Costa RIca Costa Rican Police Search for German Tourist who Went Missing in Montezuma

The Judiciary Investigative Police in Costa Rica (OIJ) require the help of the public in finding German tourist Gerlinde Hahne, a 75-year-old woman that went missing the afternoon of May 3. According to information released by the family, Hahne came to Costa Rica on April 30 from Munich, Germany, with the purpose of attending her son Tobes Hahne’s, wedding that was scheduled for Saturday, May 5...

Acclaimed Piano Soloist Takes Stage With Costa Rican Natl Orchestra

International acclaimed concert pianist, Markus Groh, will perform this weekend at the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra's seventh seasonal concert to be held at San José's National Theater. The concert will include music by Strauss, Haydn and Brahms for two performances - Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 10:30 a.m. - under the direction of the orchestra's lead conductor, Carl St. Clair. ...

The Berlin Wall in San José, Costa Rica? Where to See the Fragment

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 ...

Lufthansa Adds 7th European Connection to Costa Rica With Frankfurt Flight

German carrier, Lufthansa, announced today that it will include a direct Frankfurt - San Jose connection on its summer flight schedule for 2018. Starting March 29, 2018, a non-stop Lufthansa flight will take off every Thursday and Saturday from Frankfurt to Costa Rica. This is the seventh European airline to announce a direct connection to Costa Rica in the last three years. Lufthansa, one o...

Germany Pledges 15M Euros to Aid Costa Rica Deal With Climate Change

During a visit to Costa Rica, Minister Barbara Hendricks of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Construction and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) of the Federal Republic of Germany, announced support in the amount of 15 million Euros to aid Costa Rica work on mitigation and adaptation to climate change, reported the Costa Rican government. During a visit that began on Friday 16 ...

Costa Rica Tourism Sector Sustainable Costa Rican Tourist Companies Can Get International Certification

Sustainable Costa Rican tourist enterprises will now be eligible for a European certification, issued by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, reported the agency last week. The international certification, called TourCert, was developed in Germany, and is based on international standards of quality and environmental management including EMAS and ISO, specifically the ISO 26000 guide for soci...

Spanish Police Arrest 39, Including 2 Costa Ricans, in Intl Child Porn Sharing Network

Spanish national police dismantled the largest international child pornography distribution network to date though pioneering research examining instant messaging groups and WhatsApp messages. The operation monitored 135 users in 18 countries in Europe, Central America and South America who participated in some 96 online pedophile groups. A total of 39 people have been arrested: 17 of them i...

Could Costa Rica’s ICT end up Stuck in Berlin, 659 Flights Canceled While 2 Airports go on Strike

The Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) is taking part in the ITB Berlin, the world’s leading travel show located at the Messe Convention Center in Berlin, Germany. Ground staff strikes at two Berlin airports on Friday forced airline operations to cancel 659 flights, according to official statements. Some 2,000 employees have been convoked to follow a 25-hour strike from 4:00 am local time (3.00 ...

Costa Rican Ombud Receives International Human Rights Award

The Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law will be presented to Montserrat Solano at a ceremony on February 21 in San José. By Wendy Anders Montserrat Solano Carboni, Defender of the Inhabitants of the Republic of Costa Rica, will receive the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights at a ceremony to be held this Tuesday, February 21, at the Residence of French Ambassador Thierr...

Is the Ikea Börder Wåll self-assembly kit a good option for President Trump?

"Mexico will pay for the wall" "No we won't" "It will cost 8 billion"  "No it will cost 20 billion"  "Make it out of concrete" "No make it out of precast plank"  "It's all too much we need to get the cost down", HURRY! The Pastillon, a German comedy/spoof site that tapped into IKEA’s design methods to help President Trump hit the ground running on his executive order of the border wall. The pe...

Costa Rica and Germany Sign Scientific Cooperation Agreement

By Wendy Anders The Max Planck Society of Germany (MPG), the National Council of Rectors (CONARE), and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT) signed an agreement in January to strengthen scientific collaboration on joint research projects and research-based training. The agreement is result of the visit of a high-level delegation headed by the German Federal Mini...

Expat Drowns, Another Hurt in Waterfall Near Liberia, Costa Rica

By Wendy Anders A 53-year-old German man, preliminarily identified with the last name of Schiloknecot, died yesterday in an accident at the El Tobogán waterfalls 30 kilometers from the northern Costa Rica city of Liberia, in the province of Guanacaste, reported the Spanish daily El Diario Extra. Apparently he and some other foreigner visitors went hiking in the forest near their hotel, which...

Trump: NATO Is Obsolete, Nuclear Weapons Should Decrease

Berlin, Jan. 15 — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview with the German daily Bild that NATO is "obsolete" and accused Chancellor Angela Merkel of committing a "catastrophic mistake" with her refugee policy to allow some 890,000 refugees, many of them from Syria, into the country in 2015. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, y...

Sunset on Nicoya Gulf Locals Take European Tourists Fishing in Costa Rica’s Protected Areas

By Wendy Anders Recent incursions of European tourists into protected marine areas off northern Costa Rica’s Pacific coast has officials concerned about the impact of promoting illegal fishing among visitors, said the Costa Rican National Coast Guard Service recently. Fishermen have been documented aiding tourists from Spain, Italy and Germany mainly in the waters off Guanacaste province’s S...

Germans Evacuated on Christmas While WWII Bomb Defused

AUGSBURG, Germany, Dec. 25 -- Authorities took four hours to successfully defuse a 2-ton bomb from World War II after more than 54,000 people from Augsburg were evacuated on Christmas day. Hundreds of police and firefighters were involved in the nation's biggest evacuation since the Second World War, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Bomb specialists from the Bavarian city of Würz...

Sleep Problems Lack of Sleep Costs US 1.2 Million Working Days

Lack of sleep among the U.S. working population is costing the economy up to $411 billion a year, which is 2.28 percent of the country's GDP, a new report finds. Map showing economic costs of insufficient sleep across five OECD countries. Credit: RAND Corporation According to researchers at the not-for-profit research organisation RAND Europe, part of the RAND Corporation, sleep deprivation...

German Woman in Tilarán, Costa Rica Bound and Robbed by 4 Armed Men

By Wendy Anders Photo for illustrative purposes. A 65-year-old German woman had her home in Quebrada Azul, Tilarán broken into by four masked, armed men on Tuesday evening, said Michael Soto, press spokesperson for the Judicial Investigative Agency (OIJ). The woman, Cristina Caglass, a legal resident of Costa Rica, was alone in her house at the time. The house is situated on a farm on a ...

17-year-old Costa Rican Studying in Germany Wanted for Child Porn

By Wendy Anders Man watching porn. Photo for illustrative purposes, Flickr. Yesterday morning the Minors Section of the Judicial Investigative Agency (OIJ) conducted two simultaneous raids in Escazú and Cartago, both in Costa Rica’s Central Valley, to gather evidence for an investigation on a 17-year-old male teen who is suspected of production, possession and distribution of child pornogra...

Oxfam Blames Costa Rica’s Pineapple Woes on German Supermarkets

By Wendy Anders Oxfam Germany’s recently published report detailing working and living conditions for Costa Rica’s pineapple and Ecuador's banana workers, “Sweet Fruit, Bitter Truth,” does not mince words. “This investigation reveals (too) many violations of human and labour rights in the production of bananas and pineapples,” said the report based on numerous interviews conducted with worke...

volcano brewing company hotel view Foreign Direct Investment in Costa Rica Rose by 1 Percent Last Year

ICR-CRS Archive/FILE (Pictured: Workers at a multinational medical device manufacturing company's facility in Heredia, Costa Rica) By Wendy Anders The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in its most recent edition of an annual series on Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America (June 2016) reported that FDI flows to Central America were up by 6 pe...

Costa Rica and Germany Sign Agreement to End Double Taxation

By Wendy Anders Last Wednesday August 10 at Germany’s Federal Foreign Ministry Office, Costa Rica and Germany celebrated the ratification of the establishment of legal instruments as part of an agreement to eliminate double taxation of income and assets, stated Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Relations in a press release Friday. The agreement aims to provide clear guidelines for both co...

Israel Buys Gas Masks from WWII Nazi Supplier

Wikimedia Commons The State of Israel has been buying gas masks for decades from suppliers who also sold them to the Nazi regime, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported Wednesday. The country obtains its gas masks from two companies: the German firm Drager and the American MSA, which used to be German and whose previous name was Auer. Based on recent findings, both companies manufactu...

Terrorism Feared After Explosion and Machete Attack in Germany

Photo: JayPLee Flickr CommonsGerman police is investigating the possibility that the Sunday night explosion in the city of Ansbach in Bavaria, southern Germany, which killed the perpetrator of the attack and injured at least ten people, is an Islamic attack. Bavarian Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann, said at a press conference that the fact the attacker attempted to kill several people near...

German Police on High Alert After Terror Attack Kills 9

Today's print cover of Tageszeitung -tz- tabloid from MunichFriday's assault at a Munich shopping mall was "probably" the work of a lone assailant who took his own life after fatally shooting nine people, German police said. "We found a man, who killed himself. We assume, that he was the only shooter," the Munich police said on Twitter shortly after authorizing the resumption of transit servic...

Don’t Look Back in Anger, But Hurry Up With That Brexit

Cartoon by Clay Jones The European Union leaders have agreed that Brexit is irreversible in a summit where accusations were exchanged on both sides about who bore responsibility for the decision, and pressure was exerted on London to activate the divorce process as soon as possible. British Prime Minister David Cameron said after attending his last European Council summit that he would have...

Turkey to request Syria border missiles Monday: Germany

BRUSSELS | Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:14am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Turkey is expected to request on Monday that NATO missiles be placed on its border with Syria to defend against mortar rounds fired from its neighbor, Germany's defense minister said. Only the United States, the Netherlands and Germany have the appropriate Patriot missile system available. Germa...

Turkey to ask NATO for missiles on Syria border: German daily

BERLIN | Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:14am EST BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkey will formally ask NATO on Monday to set up missiles on its border with Syria due to growing concern about spillover from a 20-month-old civil war in its neighbor, a German newspaper reported on Saturday. The Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which did not cite its sources, also said that up ...