Wikimedia Commons The USAID/OFDA Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Regional Office in Costa Rica is seeking one individual for a Secretary position. Please see the posting for this job at the website of the United States Embassy in Costa Rica. VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT NUMBER: 2016-001 OPEN TO: All Interested Candidates POSITION: Secretary, FSN-6; FP-08* OPENING DATE: January 22, 201...

Baltimore, MD (PRWEB) February 01, 2016 / Many factors come into play when considering a retirement abroad. Cost of living, prices of rents and real estate, and healthcare options are main concerns. But quality of life for retirees moving abroad also depends in large part on being able to fit in quickly, learn the ropes, and mix well with the locals in their adapted communities. Language, culture,...

Wikimedia Commons In recent years, the idea of Costa Rica being a very expensive country has been widely reported in news headlines. Many North American expats who moved to Costa Rica believe that this is possibly the most expensive country in the world; nonetheless, this is not an assertion held by MoveHub, an online information exchange website for professionals and families who relocate int...

Wikimedia Commons An attempt to plant transgenic cotton for research purposes in Costa Rica is being challenged in court. According to a news report recently filed by Carlos Arrieta Perez of online news daily El Pais, a legislator from Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and a few non-profit groups dedicated to environmental protection claim that the transgenic cotton seeds contain traces of Agent Ora...

TORONTO, ON and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - February 01, 2016) - Scotiabank announced today that it has acquired Citigroup's consumer and commercial banking operations in Costa Rica and Panama. The signing of these acquisitions was announced in July 2015 and the transactions are valued at approximately USD$360 million. "These acquisitions align with our strategy to deepen relationships and inc...

Miravalles geothermal power plant WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With demand for clean electricity on the rise, international attention has turned to geothermal energy with a highlight being the declaration of 38 countries forming the Global Geothermal Alliance at the Paris Climate Conference. Building on this momentum, the Geothermal Energy Association's (GEA) U.S. and International Geothermal ...

Founder and Senior Partner Marcela Gurdian Earlier this year, the pretty Caribbean nation of St. Lucia in the Windward Isles officially started accepting applications for its “citizenship by investment” program. Located to the south of Martinique and more than 2,500 kilometers from Costa Rica, St. Lucia is part of the Commonwealth of Nations, and is now the latest country to offer economic cit...

Flickr Commons U.S. Dept of Justice Press Release - Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, announced today that ARTHUR BUDOVSKY pled guilty to running a massive money laundering enterprise in connection with his operation of Liberty Reserve, a virtual cur...

PuntaBocana.com (PRWEB) January 28, 2016 - Architect Abraham Valenzuela of Costa Rica talks about his latest project: To properly describe the grandeur of the landscape and the extraordinary potential of the Bocana site, we needed to find a name that would describe both its beauty and nobility. We felt that we needed to honor the first indigenous civilizations that inhabited the area and di...

H1N1 vaccine will be available in Costa Rica in March 2016. Source: Wikimedia Commons A 56-year old man from the Kingdom of the Netherlands has been listed as the 31st death caused by the H1N1 virus in Costa Rica since December. According to a news report filed by Angela Avalos of daily newspaper La Nacion, the announcement of the death was made by Minister of Public Health Fernando Llorca on ...

"Map of the Corn Islands (Nicaragua)" by Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons The mortal remains of Sandra Mayela Chacón, born in Costa Rica but a longtime resident of the United States, laid in repose at Base Two of the Air Surveillance Service in the province of Alajuela, located next to the Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO). The lat...

FIle photo BALTIMORE, MD (PRWEB) JANUARY 20, 2016 - As healthcare costs and complexity in the U.S. continue to spiral upward, more and more retirees are asking, “Can I get high-quality healthcare for less if I move overseas?” The simple answer is yes. The Healthcare category of the 2016 International Living Global Retirement Index ranks the healthcare systems of the 23 most popular retirement l...

Church in Grecia. Wikimedia Commons Smart Parking Press Release - World-leading provider of car parking technology and parking management services Smart Parking is partnering with Madrid based Viarium Technologies to deploy its SmartPark space finding solution in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is rapidly developing and increasingly recognized for its commitment to sustainability by ranking third in...

File photo EIU Press Release According to The Economist Intelligence Unit's latest Democracy Index one of the biggest threats to democracy is the anxious mood of our times The fearful era in which we live is not conducive to defending democratic standards or extending democracy's reach across the globe. The latest edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index reflects the sit...

Pixabay Commons SplashData, a password management company headquartered in Los Gatos, CA, has released their top 25 most-hacked passwords from 2015 – do you use any of these? If you do, you should change them immediately, according to Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. You should change them to avoid major damage to your personal records. Says Slain, “As always, we hope that with more publici...

File photo DAVOS-KLOSTERS, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Germany is viewed as the best country in the world, according to the inaugural Best Countries report, a joint rankings and analysis project of U.S. News & World Report, WPP's BAV Consulting and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Created to capture how nations are perceived on a global scale,...

Source: Blue Osa PUERTO JIMÉNEZ, OSA PENINSULA, Costa Rica (PRWEB) January 20, 2016 - Clean eating has grown significantly in popularity over the last year or so, encouraging people to ditch chemically enhanced and processed foods from their diet. Self-taught chef, Marie makes eating clean simple with her new cooking guide, “Eating Clean in Costa Rica.” Readers will be able to enjoy her int...

By Alfonso Fernandez Washington, Jan 19 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- One of every five people in Latin America between the ages of 15 and 24 is neither in school nor working and two-thirds of them are women, according to a World Bank study released Tuesday. The figure represents more than 20 million people in the region and the problem is especially acute in Central Ame...

Pixabay Commons The passports of two German citizens awaiting trial in Costa Rica cannot be held by judicial officials and must be immediately turned over to the Embassy. Such was the demand sent by the German Consulate to the Honorable Judge Yorleny Campos of the criminal court division, Second Circuit of San Jose, earlier this week. According to a news report filed by Daniel Chinchilla Sa...

CIMA Hospital in San Jose is often visited by medical tourists A slippery United States citizen of Persian ancestry claims that his health is rapidly deteriorating as he awaits trial in Costa Rica, and he is planning international demonstrations to call attention to his plight. Cyrus Anoushirvan Sepher, a Southern California resident in his early 50s, has been remanded to the San Sebastian ...

Although no Zika virus infections have been reported in Costa Rica as of mid-January, officials from the Ministry of Public Health (Spanish initials: MSP) are not taking any chances. According to a news report published yesterday by El Nuevo Diario, a national newspaper in Nicaragua, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) will hold a workshop on this dangerous virus on February 2nd and 4th...

3nderapp.com For some open-minded users of mobile technology, three is not a crowd. A new mobile dating app geared towards the polyamorous recently completed a venture funding round and is gaining popularity. Similar to Tinder and Grindr, 3ndr is a mobile app that enables sexual encounters and dating based on factors related to proximity, gender identity, and sexual preference; it also make...

A Walmart store in Escazu, Costa Rica. File photo Washington, Jan 15 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on Friday announced plans to close 269 stores and lay off 16,000 employees, 6,000 of them outside the United States. In a news release, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said it would close 154 stores in the United States and...

Sunrise Tamarindo by Valenzuela Architecture Herredura, Costa Rica (PRWEB) January 12, 2016 - World renowned architect Abraham Valenzuela brings 35 years of architectural experience to Punta Bocana, with a reputation for fashioning exceptional homes and amazing commercial environments in the most exclusive areas of San Jose, Tamarindo, Nosara and Guanacaste, to name a few. Valenzuela’s primary...

Source: Hills of Portalon Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica – January 11, 2016 /MarketersMedia/ — The Ridges of Portalon, a micro-community of the master planned development the Hills of Portalon, announced today the upcoming sale to the public of their recently opened whitewater ocean-view lots. The Ridges of Portalon is located in Costa Rica between Dominical and Quepos/Manuel Antonio and is antici...

FacePhi Alicante, 5th January 2016.- FacePhi, a biometrics tech firm based in Spain, has been awarded a tender for the use of face recognition to authenticate the clients of Banco Nacional of Costa Rica. This contract will make the clients of the biggest financial entity of Costa Rica to access to their accounts and check their balances quickly and in a secure way using the advanced technology...

Lifeguard Seco Herrera. Source: Facebook A pilot program undertaken by the Tourism Board of Costa Rica (Spanish initials: ICT) and the Red Cross aims to post lifeguard crews at Manuel Antonio and six other beaches during the high tourist season and other periods that feature high numbers of visitors. Aside from Manuel Antonio, five other popular beaches on the Gold Coast (the Pacific) will ...

H1N1 vaccine will be available in Costa Rica in March 2016. Source: Wikimedia Commons San Jose, Jan 7 (EFE).- At least 14 people, including an expat woman from India, have died from the H1N1 flu virus since December in Costa Rica and 22 others remain hospitalized in serious condition, the Health Ministry said. Northern Costa Rica's San Carlos hospital had the highest number of fatalities, w...

Source: Cool Mountain Cool Mountain Beverages is a true craft soda maker and offers consumers a wide range of interesting flavors, They currently market; Green Apple, Strawberry, Black Cherry, Root Beer, Cream Soda, Orange Cream, Blue Razzberry. And now …California Peach, Royal Grape and Chicago Draft Style Ginger Ale. From California, Cool Mountain president Bill Drake explained: “We have...

Source: Flickr Commons A group of activists plans to stage a protest against animal abuse at the Zapote holiday fairgrounds, located in the eastern suburbs of San Jose, on Sunday afternoon. The protesters specifically want to call attention to the holiday events known as “Toros a la Tica,” which are sometimes characterized as bullfights, but they are more of a cross between the running of the ...

Jack Donnelly By Jack Donnelly Article 75 of the Constitution states that Costa Rica is a Catholic country. That sounds more theocratic than the reality. The majority of Ticos will readily affirm they are Catholics, but many are rather laid back in their approach to observance and dogma. This is especially true in the areas of relationships, marriage, divorce, birth control, etc. There is a...

Wikimedia Commons By Carol Blair Vaughn Costa Rica is called by many “The Happiest Place on Earth”, including the Happy Planet Index which rated us #1 in 2015, and the U.N.’s World Happiness Report, which rated us #12. We came in behind Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, and The Netherlands – such cold places!! But is this ranking scientific, or just a tourist label from those wanting...

Source; Flickr Commons Since its launch in December 2014, The "Know Your Customer" (KYC) Registry has been adopted by more than 100 financial institutions in Latin America to complement existing compliance programs. In several jurisdictions across the region, the Registry has been endorsed by either a Central Bank or financial communities, including the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica a...

Gamesa will bring wind energy production to Guanacaste Gamesa Press Release - Gamesa and Iberdrola Ingeniería have signed EPC contracts with subsidiaries of Globeleq Mesoamerica Energy (GME) to build 80 MW in Costa Rica. The two companies will handle all the construction and commissioning phases required for this project, named Alisios, which comprises four 20-MW wind farms: Vientos de la P...

Source: Telefonica Madrid, December 2015. Telefónica will launch video services in seven new Latin American markets in 2016, which will mainly be VoD (video on demand) services and linear television channels. These markets are Ecuador, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The launch will be staggered throughout next year, and the service mode available in each cou...

Source: Presidential Office of Costa Rica A joint effort between government officials and a non-profit organization resulted in the rush construction of homes for 38 families who had been judicially evicted from a farm in southern Costa Rica. The families benefited by this action were evicted after a lengthy, Kafkaesque round of agrarian court hearings, whereby the plaintiffs were two banan...

Wikimedia Commons One of the joys of purchasing property in Costa Rica is the potential for landowners to plant and care for trees that will bear fruit. According to the real estate professionals at RE/MAX Ocean Surf in Tamarindo Beach, fruit trees are attractive features within listings of farms and single-family homes built on generous plots of land. Listings in the province of Guanacaste...

A RE/MAX listing in Costa Rica What makes Costa Rica such an attractive real market for North American and European buyers? One of the main reasons behind this attraction is that real estate ownership in our country is mostly egalitarian and dynamic. For the most part, prospective foreign house hunters enjoy the same benefits as citizens of Costa Rica. According to the staff of RE/MAX Ocean...

In 2014,  the School of Statistics at the University of Costa Rica published a report (PDF) that focused on topics beyond the traditional demographics. The 2014 Current Events Survey investigated sentiment and facts related to Pope Francis, Ebola, football, mosquito-borne diseases, extraterrestrial life, and even Christmas traditions. With regard to Christmas and the end-of-year holidays, the S...

Beach house in Costa Rica North American house hunters who come to Costa Rica in search of real estate bargains often find out that the financing process is not like what they are used to, at least not in terms of mortgage lending. Although there is a mortgage lending industry in Costa Rica, it is not as sophisticated or accessible as in the United States or Canada. To this end, cash is often ...