Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  President Donald Trump arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas Tuesday morning to see firsthand the devastation inflicted upon southeast Texas when Hurricane Harvey slammed the Gulf Coast Friday night – leveling the popular beach town of Rockport and leaving ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Whens all eyes focused on Category 4 Hurricane Harvey slamming the Texas Gulf Coast late Friday, wham, President Donald Trump issues his first full presidential pardon. It went to former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to absolve him of his misdemeanor contem...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  If you loved President Donald Trump before Phoenix, after Phoenix you love him even more. The president’s last campaign-style rally held at the Phoenix Convention Center Tuesday night before 15,000 adoring fans produced a vintage Trump rally complete ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Monday’s total-solar eclipse has taken over the media’s airwaves. The hearts and minds of Americans weary of toxic politics welcomed the chance to concentrate on the Moon and Sun instead of terrorism, President Donald Trump, North Korea and racial divisi...

An as yet unidentified substance was used by an unidentified individual to color water in a large downtown San José, Costa Rica decorative fountain as a means of protest against environmental contamination, reported the Costa Rican digital news service Amelia Rueda this week. The act was described on social media as a protest against pollution caused by pineapple production in Costa Rica. Th...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  The impromptu take down of a Confederate monument Monday night in downtown Durham, North Carolina, without any police stepping in to stop the destruction shows just how scared local law enforcement is of racial confrontations. What happened Saturday i...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  North Korea! For 70-plus years the situation involving Korea – North and South – has been festering along with plenty of ‘saber-rattling’ as tensions rise and fall like the winds of time. All the past presidents from Truman to Obama had their dealing...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  The establishment republicans, democrats and mainstream media sure seem to be involved in a conspiracy against President Donald Trump and his agenda for America. There is a lot of good going on in the United States these days, but you won’t hear much about it ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship has taken the necessary measure to ensure the participation of Costa Ricans living abroad in the 2018 elections. Minister Manuel González explained that all Costa Ricans have to register before October 3rd, 2017 and update their residence information in order to cast their vote next February 2, 2018. The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE in Spanish) the e...

Costa Rican leaders met last week to analyze the country's progress on the situation of refugees in the country, said the Foreign Relations Ministry press office. As of June 30, 2017, there are a total of 4,414 persons recognized and living as refugees in Costa Rica; however, in recent years there has been a marked increase in the number of refugee applications. In 2015, 2,203 applications were...

Costa Rica's ambassador to the newly inaugurated embassy in Azerbaijan, Jairo López Bolaños, stepped into his new role this week, reported the Azerbaijan State New Agency, Azertac. Ambassador Jairo López Bolaños met with Parvin Mirzazade, head of the State Protocol Department of Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the development of the newly kindled diplomatic relations betwee...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  In a suspense-filled announcement, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared war Friday against the leaking of classified government information to the mainstream media. “These leaks hurt our government … We are taking a stand. This culture of leak...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  There’s a new JFK in the White House. President Trump has appointed retired U.S. Marine General John F. Kelly to be his new White House chief-of-staff replacing Reince Priebus, who resigned after six months. Previously Kelly had been in the president’s c...

Costa Rica established a committee tasked with monitoring governmental commitments on responsible   pineapple production and trade Monday, July 31 at a forum supported by the United Nations Development Program.   The initiative - led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG)- also involves the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, and th...

Courts will be back to normal functioning today, August 1, after an estimated 13 - 16,000 workers from the country's judicial branch were on strike to protest proposed changes to their retirement plans. The historic 12-day-strike organized by the different unions that represent judiciary workers throughout the country was triggered by a legislative move to make changes to the judiciary pension ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Another tweeted bombshell came last week when President Donald Trump advised everyone at the same time – his press staff, the public, the media and the military -- that he is banning transgender individuals from serving in any capacity in all branches of...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Finally the Democrats are talking about something that will get a lot of attention besides Russia Fever – single-payer universal healthcare – just like most of the civilized world already has. “Single-payer is on the table,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Schum...

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...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  At six months plus one day into the Trump administration, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called it quits July 21. Spicer has said he will leave at the end of August to allow for a smooth transition for new Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and n...

-- 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...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Traditional politics in the U.S. is all but being chucked out the window. What will the political landscape of America look like in 15 months? If you think the forces that put the controversial, billionaire Donald Trump into the presidency were just 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...

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...

As a region, the Americas has the second-highest number of most women parliamentarians in the world, with an average of 28.1 percent of those elected to parliaments, according to a study by the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) and International IDEA. This achievement is attributed to policies aimed at increasing the number of women in nationa...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Mainstream media’s obsession with the continuing soap-opera-like saga of Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a lawyer from Russia June 9, 2016 at Trump Tower in New York City – President Donald Trump’s home – shows how desperate they are in attempting to fin...

US ambassador in Costa Rica Stafford Fitzgerald Haney said goodbye through the Embassy’s Facebook page in his last day in this position. “Representing my nation in this beautiful country has been one of the greatest honors of my life, since my arrival in June of 2015 and to date. I am still amazed by the strong relationship between both countries and the warmth and hospitality that Costa Rica h...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  The U.S. Senate’s long-awaited Judiciary Committee hearings into President Donald Trump’s FBI nominee Christopher Wray began Wednesday morning. Wray’s nomination is perhaps the single most important non-U.S. Supreme Court appointment President Trump w...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Protests during the annual meeting of world leaders is nothing new, but this year it was an all-out war attempting to disrupt the proceedings. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made a fool of himself by flying to Hamburg and joining the G20 Summit pr...

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, was approved by 122 countries this Friday in the United Nations conference taking place in New York; however, the opposition of the nuclear-armed countries has given the treaty a “symbolic” character. The text presented by Elayne G. Whyte, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland and chairwoman of the conference stated that “this...

Former two time president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar Arias Sánchez, was a guest this Thursday evening in the anniversary of TV show Camilo, a space directed by Cuban journalist Camilo Egaña and which airs on Spanish CNN; the ex-president made strong statements regarding President Trump. “I believe he is since the time of Washington (George), the most uncultured, the leas...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.    Waiting the wings of Congress are the upcoming U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of FBI Director nominee Christopher Wray for a 10-year term as leader of America’s top law enforcement agency -- the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This subject...

Mr. President, it’s time you learned how to be president of the United States of America. All we have to go on are the histories of 44 past presidents dating back more than 200 years that were stewards of this experiment in democracy. Some were great but most were political duds. But sir, you take the cake. A new-type president with a smart phone connected directly to the American peo...

One of the main complaints of Costa Ricans and foreigners alike is how slow the Costa Rica government is when it comes to the execution of public works; hopefully this will improve soon as Congress has taken steps that will allow the State to build more efficiently and faster. The Executive Branch has presented a proposal to modify Articles 18,25,30,32 and 57 of the Expropriation Law, which wo...

This week, Costa Rica hosted the XLIX Meeting of Heads of State and Government of the Central American Integration System (SICA, its initials in Spanish) during which a concrete step forward on border control cooperation with Panama was taken, announced the Costa Rican President's office. Presidents Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica and Juan Carlos Varela of Panama signed an agreement to creat...

Community-minded citizens in Heredia, Costa Rica are concerned about continued attempts by a coalition of business owners, local governments, and others to roll back protections of Costa Rica's water resources, said Conceverde (which translates to the Environmental Association of North San Rafael de Heredia). Rulings over the past years by the country's high court, the Sala IV, have upheld what...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Is this news story real or fake? For CNN the past week has been a nightmare for the once-great Cable News Network started in 1980 by media-trail-blazer Ted Turner. News icons Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite would be ashamed of today’s mainstream med...

The Costa Rican government announced a new nationwide multi-institutional approach to preventing and combating violence against women, said the presidency this week. The focus is on prevention, redefining masculinity, and changing cultural gender norms. The policy envisions involving 22 state entities over the next 15 years to reduce violence against women in a country where over 13o women p...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  As the healthcare debate rages in Washington over repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act and its replacement the American Healthcare Act it’s obvious the new plan proposed by President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate Republicans needs more work – the details...

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, entered the following statement into the Congressional Record earlier this year to recognize Costa Rica’s strategic role as a democratic partner in the Western Hemisphere: “Mr. President: I rise today to recognize the productive partnership between the United States and Costa Rica. I recently had the cha...

Last week, first vice-president and minister of finance, Helio Fallas, was called to make a statement before the Legislative Assembly's Commission of Income and Public Expenditure as they work to settle the country's 2016 extraordinary budget, said the Finance Ministry in a statement. At his appearance before the commission, the minister said, "you are well aware ... that this extraordinary bud...