A little-known Salvador Dali portrait of his sister, a work out of the public eye for nearly a century, was sold at auction Thursday in London for 1.8 million pounds ($2.2 million). "Figure in Profile," sold at the Bonhams auction house's Impressionist and Modern Art Sale, is among a diverse range of portraits the prominent 20th-century Surrealist artist painted in the 1920s with Anna Maria Dal...

The recently appointed Attorney General of the United States met the Russian ambassador to the U.S. twice in Washington during the 2016 presidential campaign - something he did not disclose during his appointment confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate. The meetings between Jeff Sessions and Russia's Sergey Kislyak took place in July and September, barely a few months before the presidentia...

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...

By Wendy Anders Late Sunday afternoon, police observed suspicious activity at an automated teller machine (ATM) near the National University campus in downtown Heredia, Costa Rica which led to the detention of two men, said Pablo Calvo, Public Security Ministry spokesman, yesterday in a press conference. After observing the men leave the ATM and then head to another nearby ATM, police interv...

Today, Reps. Elijah E. Cummings, John Conyers, Jr., Eliot L. Engel, Bennie G. Thompson, Adam Smith, and Adam Schiff, Ranking Members of the House Committees on Oversight and Government Reform, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Armed Services, and Intelligence, sent a letter to White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn, II raising grave concerns and requesting information about reports that...

-- With over 2.9 million visitors in 2016, tourism in Costa Rica grew 10 percent over 2015. By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT, its Spanish acronym) just released its data on last year’s tourist arrivals to the Central American country, and things are looking good. Costa Rica registered nearly 270 thousand more visitors in 2016 than in 2015, for a notable 10 percent in...

The French high-fashion company Chanel has drawn on ingredients from the world’s “blue zones,” areas of greatest human longevity, to create a new anti-aging serum, reported the company. “Inspired by the regions where people live longer: the Blue Zones, Chanel Research sourced three longevity ingredients from the diet of the Blue Zone populations for the first time in a breakthrough skincare,” s...

"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...

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...

Washington, Feb. 1 — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed oil executive Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Tillerson, 64, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, will take over the U.S. diplomatic corps at a delicate time for the country after the open breach with Mexico following Trump's executive order to start building a wall along the U.S. southern border, the mistrust aroused by Tru...

Costa Rica was selected as a guest country by the organizers of the International Fair FESPO, the most important touristic fair in Switzerland. This is the first time that Costa Rica participates in this international event that is taking place January 26th -29th in Zürich, Switzerland. “The participation in this fair will allow us to position the country in the European market, which repres...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica is working to attract more European tourists to their verdant country, said the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), as the agency winds up their participation in the International Tourism Fair (FITUR) in Spain. Mauricio Ventura, Costa Rican Minister of Tourism, held meetings with airlines while at FITUR, including with the President of Iberia airlines, to analyze ...

January 16, 2017: Forty of the world's biggest companies agreed Monday find sustainable ways to make and consume plastic as the waste threatens the globe’s eco-systems, especially oceans, said international media reporting on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The planet's dangerously polluted oceans will contain more plastic waste than fish by 2050 if urgent action isn't taken, th...

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...

Madrid, Jan. 16 — Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC said Monday it will pay a total of around 671 million pounds sterling ($810 million) to law enforcement authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil to settle bribery and corruption charges, according to a report from Dow Jones Newswires. The company, which manufactures jet engines and marine diesel engines, said it had reached deferred ...

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...

By Wendy Anders The Guardian’s recently announced 2017 travel photography competition gives readers the chance to win a fantastic 16-night wildlife holiday for two to Costa Rica with Exodus Travels – and see the photos from the trip published in Guardian Travel, reported the U.K. paper Friday. Guardian Travel’s monthly readers’ photography competition is an opportunity for amateurs and profe...

Executives from Honeywell’s global distributor for solar technology, Global Solar Trading BV (GST), visited El Salvador recently to meet with Solanda, a local company providing renewable energy technology. The two companies clinched a deal to distribute and expand solar technology in Central America. "El Salvador's energy potential is high, as there are an average of six hours of intensive s...

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...

By Wendy Anders A Danish citizen was arrested in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica last week on suspicion of committing massive fraud in the country, said police in a press statement. The Lebanese-born Dane, who goes by the name of YK (last name of Khater) is suspected of conning a woman in Quepos, Puntarenas in Costa Rica's Central Pacific region out of 10 million colones (over US$18,000), according...

By Wendy Anders Hidro Santa Cruz, a subsidiary of the Spanish transnational Ecoener-Hidralia, announced it will not continue in Guatemala after eight years of indigenous resistance to the hydroelectric company's plans, reported Spain’s daily El Diario. In an official statement, the company announced its waiver of the rights associated with the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Camba...

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...

By Wendy Anders Paris, France-based JCDecaux, the world’s number one outdoor advertizing company, and Top Media, leader in the outdoor advertizing sector in Central America, signed an agreement last week to merge their activities, said the companies in a press statement In the new venture, JCDecaux-Top Media, 71 percent of the capital is owned by JCDecaux and 29 percent controled by Top Medi...

Christopher Farmer and Peta Frampton left the coast of Belize on June 26, 1978, aboard a boat named the Justin B. Photo for illustrative purposes. The young British couple in their mid-20s had decided to spend a year traveling abroad. They traveled to Australia and then went to the Americas. They toured Guadalajara, Mexico, and later wound up in Belize City, where they met an American named...

UNITED NATIONS, New York, Dec. 12 — Former Portuguese leader Antonio Guterres was sworn in Monday as the ninth secretary general of the United Nations, officially succeeding Ban Ki-moon after a decade of the South Korean's leadership. United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a special #UNGA meeting to pay tribute to him and to swear in incoming Secretary-General António Guterres (picture...

By Wendy Anders Cahuita, Limón, Costa Rica. Yesterday, police captured a 21-year old Costa Rican man at his home in Hone Creek, Limón in connection with the murder of a hotel owner in late October this year, reported the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ). A 50-year-old French woman by the last name of Claire was found lying dead and bound on the ground at her boutique hotel south of Pu...

Madrid, Dec. 1 — Spanish authorities arrested 34 people, including seven tennis players, for allegedly fixing tennis matches to obtain favorable gambling outcomes, police said last Thursday. Maria Jimenez, spokeswoman for the Civil Guard — Spain's national, militarized police force — said in a press conference that the detained players were all male and occupied spots between 30-360 in Spain's ...

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...

Copenhagen, Nov. 29 — One in seven people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, in Europe are unaware they are infected with the virus, according to a report released on Tuesday. The report was published by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in advance of World AIDS Day held on December 1 each year to promote ...

By Wendy Anders Moín, Limón port. The French container company, CMA CGM S.A., the third largest container company in the world, alerted that a closure of a pier at the Moín dock in Limón on Costa Rica’s Atlantic coast has led to delays. The delays will translate into an emergency surcharge for ships docking at the Moín port as of December 1, and will apply until the pier is reopened, sai...

By Wendy Anders Spain is now Costa Rica’s entryway to Europe’s markets with the opening of new commercial headquarters inside the Costa Rican Embassy in Madrid, announced Procomer, Costa Rica’s foreign trade promotion agency, last week. Over the past five years, exports from Costa Rica to Spain have grown 120 percent, with 144 Costa Rican companies exporting 340 products to Spain last year, ...

By Wendy Anders Wikimedia Commons In contrast to most European Union members who are tightening entry requirements for visitors, the United Kingdom just announced they are expanding their list of countries eligible for fast-track entry to include 12 Latin American countries, reported BBC Mundo. Rolando Drago, Chile’s Ambassador to the UK, was one of the main protagonists of the recent mo...

By Wendy Anders Jaguar, image by Wikipedia. Tomorrow the British Broadcasting Corporation will show the first episode of a new documentary, “The Dark: Nature’s Nighttime World,” highlighting Costa Rica’s diverse nocturnal wildlife. Scheduled for 4:15 p.m. (which would be 10:15 a.m. in Costa Rica) on BBC Two, the "Central America Jungle" episode brings viewers up close to Costa Rica's rar...

Facebook has agreed to suspend sharing personal data from WhatsApp in the UK for ads and product development, following an investigation by the UK privacy regulator. Facebook Britain’s Information Commissioner said already in August, shortly after Facebook announced the change in WhastApp's privacy policy, that it would investigate the matter. ICO Elizabeth Denham said she had concerns "tha...

Press Release// With the objective of intensifying the promotion in Europe and to take advantage of the potential of the English market, Costa Rica’s Tourism Board (ICT) along with 47 tourism companies are taking part in the World Travel Market (WTM) that is taking place in the Excel Convention Center in London from November 7 through November 9. Mauricio Ventura, Minister of Tourism, explaine...

By Wendy Anders Gardasil, the controversial human papilloma virus vaccine that was tested in Costa Rica. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG’s Central America and Caribbean subsidiary (Roche CAC) reported US$116 million in exports from January to October 2015, reported El Financiero (EF), Costa Rica’s business daily. As part of this growth, the company invested US$5.5 million last year in its distri...

Warsaw, Nov. 2 — Cristiano Ronaldo took advantage of his recent visit to Warsaw, Poland to visit a Polish boy who woke up from a coma when he heard a goal by the soccer player during a televised match. Ronaldo, from Portugal, is a forward for the Real Madrid team, and is often ranked as the world's best soccer player. He has long been a role model for Dawid Pawlaczyc. Cristiano Ronaldo and ...

(EFE).- A new earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale struck central Italy on Sunday morning, reported the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. The quake, which was originally reported to measure 7.1 and hit at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in the regions of Umbria and Le Marche, demolished several houses. Fabrizio Curcio, director of the Department of Civil Protect...

Bangkok, Oct 27 — Thai firms are preparing to export insects for human consumption to the European Union, which organized a conference in Bangkok this week to explain new regulations covering this category of food products. Fried silkworm salad, Facebook. Thailand is one the world's largest consumers of insects and has some 20,000 insect farms. Products made from these invertebrates are als...

OSLO, Norway, Oct. 25 – At least 330 U.S. Marines will be stationed at Norway's Vaernes military base beginning in 2017, the Norwegian Defense Ministry announced. U.S. military DASH-8 aircraft. Wikimedia Commons Norway, like the United States, is an original NATO member and has expressed concern over Russian military maneuvers since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Norway shares a short borde...