Six Nicaraguan women, including a minor, who were sexually exploited in a bar in Upala, Costa Rica, were rescued in mid-September by the Costa Rican Immigration Police in a sting operation in coordination with the public prosecutor's office and the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration (DGME). During the operation, five suspects were arrested at the Pino Bar in Santa Clara de Upala f...

Having left 11 confirmed deaths in Costa Rica, many still disappeared and cut off from aid, thousands in shelters, and dozens of roads and schools destroyed, Nate, now a Category 1 Hurricane, touched down last night on the Mississippi-Louisiana border in the southern U.S. At least 32 are reported dead throughout Central America in what is now the 9th hurricane of the relentless 2017 Atlantic hu...

On average, companies in the Central American region pay 45.8 percent of their profits in taxes, while companies in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries on average pay 41 percent. A study on the evolution of the fiscal situation in Central America by the Federation of Central American Chambers of Commerce (FECAMCO, in Spanish) revealed the fact that in Costa Ri...

The second beach volleyball open tournament will take place in Tamarindo, Guanacaste on Saturday, September 16. The Costa Rican national team will face off against competitors from the United States, Colombia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The format is two-on-two, and promises to be a thrilling event with very strong athletes competing, according to Ivannia Ramirez, event organizer. Also on S...

Farmers in Costa Rica are clamoring for changes in immigration policies in order to facilitate contracting field hands from Nicaragua and Panama, said a report in Costa Rica's agricultural industry's magazine, ProAgro. The Costa Rican National Chamber of Agriculture and Agroindustry (CNAA) says that current legislation does not coincide with the reality of the agricultural, aquaculture, and agr...

The Costa Rican Frontier Police located this Saturday a truck used for the transportation of pineapple carrying 50 Nicaraguan citizens with irregular migratory status. The driver of the truck was a Costa Rican with last name Pérez, he has apprehended and presented to the district attorney’s office in San Carlos charged with presumed human smuggling. The truck entered the country from Nicarag...

The Central American Electricity Interconnection System (SIEPAC) contracted the Costa Rican Electric Institute (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, better known as ICE) to conduct a feasibility study for the connection of a second circuit in 13 substations located in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, thus improving the region's interconnectivity. SIEPAC co...

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 United Nations' International Court of Justice on Monday began hearings over a maritime and land boundary dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Costa Rica presented its case to the court in The Hague on Monday, while Nicaragua is set to present its case on Thursday. There are two cases -- Costa Rica vs. Nicaragua: Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, as w...

Last week, Costa Rica hosted a meeting of the Central American Council of Tourism at which ideas were discussed to promote tourism investment in the region, said the Costa Rican tourism Institute (ICT). Central America's Tourism Ministers, businessmen and representatives of the region's tourism chambers participated in this first "Forum of Exchange of Experiences for the Promotion of Tourism In...

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Judith Garber is in San Jose, Costa Rica this week. Her 3-day visit will focus on environmental issues and sustainable trade, said the U.S. Department of State's office of the spokesperson in a statement Tuesday. On June 20, Garber met with Costa Rican Minister of Environment ...

Researchers from Costa Rica's Tropical Agronomic Research and Teaching Center and the non-profit Conservation International published findings on the impact of climate change in Latin America. Climatic Change magazine's special edition in March, Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystems, Agriculture and Smallholder Farmers in Central America, detailed the negative impacts of climate change in Centra...

The reputational risks associated with last year's financial scandals such as the Panama Papers, and the arrests and imprisonment of several high ranking Guatemalan politicians on banking-related corruption charges, are the greatest current threats to Costa Rica's and Central America's banking sector, said analysts at Central America's business strategy magazine, Estrategias y Negocios. The 180...

The Central American Security Commission approved this week a plan against organized crime and for the prevention of violence against women. Representatives of the Central American Integration System (SICA, its initials in Spanish) member countries met to discuss security and foreign affairs this week in San José. The SICA's Central American Security Commission (CSC) approved a technical...

The Government of Panama announced Friday it will reduce the stay in the country for Nicaraguan, Colombian and Venezuelan tourists from 180 to 90 days as part of a policy of tightening controls over foreigner visitors. This, and other controls by Panama, may lessen some of the flow of undocumented migrants into Costa Rica over its southern border. The Panamanian migration service has detected f...

Countries in the Central American region are the favored recipients of direct foreign investment by Costa Rican firms. According to figures from the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR), over the last 10 years the flow of investments abroad reached US$1.96 billion, and 56 percent of these investments were in Central America. Panama is the top destination, with US$541.1 million over the last dec...

Biologists wanted to find out whether drug trafficking, in addition to drug cultivation, might also affect deforestation. Noting that Central America as a region has had a net loss of forest cover over the past decade, while other parts of Latin America have slowed their forest loss, researchers wondered if the growing presence of illicit drugs had any role to play. Central American countrie...

After midnight Saturday, a "Breaking Chains" police operation took place in Tamarindo, Guanacaste, a popular surf town on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. The plan - called ROCA in Spanish - is a targeted attempt to rescue victims of human trafficking and is led by Costa Rica's Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ). ROCA is an inter-institutional effort which also involves Interpol police, and a ho...

La Santa Maria is an innovative and exclusive residential and tourist concept being built on the expansive 20,000-square-meter site of the former, posh Barlovento Hotel. This is the first major luxury tourism real estate development project to be undertaken in San Juan del Sur since the 1970s, said the Nicaraguan developers. Perched on a plateau overlooking the coast, La Santa María's design is...

The 2017 hurricane season is already here with the arrival of Tropical Depression One-E which has been forming off Costa Rica's Pacific coast for the last couple of days, and is now gathering momentum as it heads in a northwesterly direction away from Costa Rica. If it becomes a tropical storm over the next day or two, as predicted, it will be named Adrian. The system is now moving north - n...

Nobody has heard much these days about the once highly touted interoceanic canal that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proposed to build. Thousands of jobs, and millions in investments were gloriously promised to Nicaragua, without apparently any secure plans for carrying out the mammoth project. Four years after an agreement was signed between the Nicaragua government and a Chinese investor,...

Drug-related violence is as much a fact of life in Central America’s Northern Triangle as it is in some parts of the urban U.S. But its impact in these small Central American countries is huge, with up to 10 percent of the population of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador having fled violence and its associated poverty and insecurity according to the Washington-based Atlantic Council. This viol...

When the La Cruz elementary school director decided to allow Nicaragua students to join her Costa Rican classes, things started to change. La Cruz, Upala, at Alajuela province's northernmost point, is on the border with Nicaragua. Under the guidance of creative designers and communicators from J. Walter Thompson and with the commitment of Costa Rica's leading TV station, Teletica, the children ...

On April 5, 2017, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen introduced legislation into the U.S. House of Representatives to "oppose loans at international financial institutions for the Government of Nicaragua unless the Ortega administration takes effective steps to hold free, fair, and transparent elections," according to information on the U.S. Congress website. The bill, termed the Nicaraguan Investment ...

Less than a month after starting operations, budget airline Volaris is considering adding a route to Nicaragua, said José Adán Aguerri, president of Nicaragua’s Superior Private Business Council (Cosep). The airline has expressed an interest in starting a flights between San José, Costa Rica and the colonial lake-side city of Granada, Nicaragua located in the southern part of the country. "V...

Glyphosphate is an herbicide used on coffee plantations in Costa Rica and other Central American countries. The chemical is included in the international Pesticide Action Network’s "List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides" and is targeted for global phaseout. Endosulfan is also used in Central American coffee production. It is “an off-patent organochlorine insecticide and acaricide that is being...

The University of Costa Rica (UCR) will launch a project that seeks to revolutionize the transportation sector in Central America through a new computer application and a web page, announced the institution yesterday. The official launch will take place Friday, April 28, 2017 at the Wyndham Hotel at 8 a.m. At the event, the Caravana application will be officially presented to the Secretariat of...

On April 3, a delegation from the Russian Federation's aerial landing troops arrived in Managua, Nicaragua to plan future joint military exercises with the country's government, said the digital Russia Beyond the Headlines (RBTH). The end date for the maneuvers is unknown, as the military says they need to study the situation. Experts say that the decision to hold military exercises in Nicaragu...

Experts say 2017 will bring a below-normal hurricane season, as a potential El Niño may limit the development of storms. Last season spawned 15 named storms, seven of which were hurricanes. The 2017 season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, follows the deadliest in over 10 years for the Atlantic basin. Last year's was also the costliest Atlantic hurricane season since 2012, and Costa Rica saw ...

Costa Rican and Nicaraguan business leaders met yesterday to hammer out a cooperation agreement to further trade between the two countries, said the Costa Rican Private Sector Business Union (UCCAEP, its initials in Spanish) Members of Nicaragua’s Superior Private Business Council (COSEP, its initials in Spanish) traveled to San José for the 1-day session aimed at strengthening relations and co...

The recent trial of a Lebanese man by the last name of Anis led to him receiving a 12-year prison sentence for smuggling migrants, reported the judiciary press office today. His trial was held earlier this month in the Criminal Court of Corredores, Puntarenas province,in the southern border region with Panama. He was sentenced to “aggravated illicit trafficking of persons” for his activities...

Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, has announced the completion of its combination with Costa Rica-based Muñoz Global, making it the first global law firm to have a footprint across Central America. The combined firm will be known as Dentons Muñoz. The combination follows the launch of Dentons López Velarde in Mexico and Dentons Cardenas & Cardenas in Colombia last year. It marks the next...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican border police have had their hands full trying to stop the flow of sickly equines near the northern border with Nicaragua. Apparently the animals were being smuggled into Costa Rica for sale under the guise of beef, said the Public Security Ministry. So far in February, officials report having confiscated 41 animals in three different captures. The horses, plus...

By Wendy Anders South Korea will hold meetings this week with six Central American countries for a legal review of their pending free trade agreement, said South Korean media sources. A team from Seoul's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy will meet its counterparts from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras for three days of negotiations starting Monday, Feb....

The users of TripAdvisor voted to pick the best Central America beaches of 2016, and Costa Rica managed to get 5 of its beautiful beaches listed among the Top 10, and actually four of them made it among the Top 5, however, none of them earned first place. The first place went to West Bay Beach in Honduras, located in Roatan, this white sand beach with light blue clear waters is known as a great...

By Wendy Anders The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene at the Holiday Inn–Convention Center in Managua, Nicaragua this weekend, said the United Nations General Assembly. The theme of the event is, "Building Bridges with the Palestinian Diaspora in Central America" and comes near the fiftieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Pale...

By Wendy Anders Representatives from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico met for the second conference of the commission that administers the Central America-Mexico free trade agreement. The Costa Rica delegation was led by Jhon Fonseca, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade. During the event, the leaders analyzed the evolution of the region’s trade, and stressed the ...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica has filed a new case before the International Court of Justice after the discovery of a Nicaraguan military camp allegedly set up in Costa Rican territory, said the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry on Monday. This is the latest in a series of a longstanding dispute between the countries on the location of the border and territorial violations. The international cour...

Taipei, Jan. 7 — The president of Taiwan on Saturday embarked on a trip to Central America, with controversial stopovers in the United States, in a bid to strengthen the island nation's ties with Latin America after the re-emergence of its diplomatic war with China. Tsai Ing-wen, accompanied by businessmen and officials, will travel to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador - four of Ta...

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...