Wikimedia Commons Havana, Feb 22 (EFE).- Cuba announced Monday a plan of action to deal with the Zika virus, dengue and Chikungunya, which includes mobilizing 9,000 members of the armed forces and 200 police officers to combat the mosquito that transmits these diseases. In a statement published in official media, President Raul Castro urged Cubans to make the fight against the Aedes aegypti...

David, Panama, Feb 21 (EFE).- More than 100 Cuban migrants from among the 1,300 stranded in Panama on Sunday received immigration permits that early next week will allow them to travel legally to Mexico, where they will be able to continue their land journey to the United States. The deputy commissioner of the Panamanian Immigration Service, David Rios Duran, told EFE that 145 people are being ...

Source: Flickr Commons Washington, Feb 21 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- Michigan police on Sunday arrested the prime suspect in a series of shootings in the city of Kalamazoo that killed at least six people and wounded two others. Kalamazoo resident Jason Dalton, 45, was arrested in a search and capture operation on Sunday morning, Lt. Dale Hinz told the daily Kalamaz...

Caracas, Feb 20 (EFE).- The majority of the approximately 3 million inhabitants of Caracas are without drinking water this weekend, after several weeks of partial suspensions due to the maintenance work currently underway, state-run Hidrocapital said Saturday. "The maintenance work being done on the principal pipelines of the Tuy II drinking water production system" is part of "the action being...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Miami, Feb 19 (EFE).- The wife of imprisoned Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman has broken her silence and spoken out in defense of her husband in an exclusive interview with Telemundo, saying she fears for his life and that he is being denied his basic human rights. The U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster uploaded some clips...

Guatemala City, Feb 18 (EFE).- Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis announced Thursday that some 4,100 Cuban migrants remain in his country awaiting transportation to the United States. In response to reporters' questions after meeting in this capital with his Guatemalan counterpart, Jimmy Morales, Solis expressed his wish that "in a few weeks" all the Cubans will have been able to travel...

File photo Caracas, Feb 18 (EFE).- The former presidents of Costa Rica and Poland - Oscar Arias and Lech Walesa, respectively, both of whom are Nobel Peace Prize winners - are in Venezuela to support political prisoners and on Thursday participated in a special session of parliament at which they criticized the country's economic model and urged lawmakers to work together to get out of the cur...

"Rolling Stones 26" by Gorupdebesanez - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons Rio de Janeiro, Feb 18 (EFE).- The front man for the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, said Thursday that he is happy to return to Rio de Janeiro, where the iconic British rock band will offer its fourth concert on the weekend, 10 years after giving a free performance here that attracted 1.2 million fans. "...

Wikimedia Commons Aboard the papal aircraft, Feb 18 (EFE).- Pope Francis said Thursday that he did not meet with relatives of 43 trainee teachers kidnapped 18 months ago in southern Mexico because he had received multiple requests from different groups, "including ones at odds with one another." The Argentine pontiff made the remarks to international media, including EFE, while flying back ...

FILE - Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are seen in the House of Representatives Chamber of the US Capitol after Pope Francis' address Sept. 24, 2015. (Reuters OMX) //TRW// (VOA) Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz slammed U.S. President Barack Obama for his reported plans to visit Cuba next month. Speaking at a town hall Thursday in South Carolina, th...

Washington, Feb 18 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- U.S. President Barack Obama announced Thursday that he planned to visit Cuba in March, making him the first sitting U.S. head of state to visit the island in 88 years. EFE On Thursday morning, the White House Press Office confirmed President Obama's intention to make the historic visit. The visit to Cuba will be part of an of...

Wikimedia Commons United Nations, Feb 16 (EFE).- The Syrian government has approved the access of humanitarian aid to seven besieged parts of the country, the United Nations announced Tuesday as it prepared the convoys that will bring assistance to the more distressed areas. Their specific destinations are Deir al-Zor in the east; Foua and Kafraya in Idlib; and Madaya, Zabadani, Kafr Batna ...

Rio de Janeiro Sao Paulo, Feb 16 (EFE).- Real estate prices fell between 15 percent and 20 percent in Brazil last year and the sector will remain "under pressure" until mid-2017, credit rating agency Moody's said Tuesday. Brazil's real estate industry has been in a cyclical downturn since 2012, with the slump coming after a period of rapid growth, Moody's said. The downturn has intensifi...

Santiago, Feb 16 (EFE).- Chile's judiciary issued a warrant Tuesday for police to search the Queen Mary II, set to dock this week in the Andean nation, in order to discover the circumstances surrounding the death of a Chilean man who worked on the cruise ship as a chef. Favio Oñate, 26, leaped overboard before dawn on Aug. 15 as the vessel was sailing off the Canadian coastline. The procedur...

YouTube/Google under Creative Commons 2.0 Bogota, Feb 16 (EFE).- Deputy Interior Minister Carlos Ferro resigned on Tuesday a few hours after he was linked with an alleged male prostitution network extending into Colombia's National Police, official sources told EFE. Ferro's resignation was seen as part of an internal restructuring of the Interior Ministry, the sources said. Earlier Tuesd...

San Jose, Feb 11 (Prensa Latina; additional context by The Costa Rica Star) Journalists, diplomats and representatives of alternative media and social movements in Costa Rica stressed here today the importance of the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina (PL) for covering the international situation, especially in Latin America. The role of this agency was the focus of a meeting held at the ...

(Photo courtesy of Casa Presidencial) Chinese loans to Latin American and Caribbean governments and the region's state-owned firms climbed sharply in 2015 despite the slowing Chinese economy, rising to US $29 billion and focused once again on Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador, the Inter-American Dialogue public policy think tank said in its annual report issued this month. From nuclear power pl...

Quito, Feb 14 (EFE).- A Mexican man who tried to smuggle 11 iguanas out of Ecuador's Galapagos Islands has been sentenced by a judge to serve two years in prison and pay a fine of $20,000, Galapagos National Park said in a Twitter post Sunday. Gustavo Eduardo Toledo Albarran was arrested last year when he tried to smuggle the marine and land iguanas out of Santa Cruz Island. "The judge from ...

By Ministério da Defesa - Solenidade de passagem de cargo dos Comandantes da 2ª Região Militar e da 2ª Divisão de Exército no QG do Comando Militar do Sudeste (CMSE), CC BY 2.0 Rio de Janeiro, Feb 13 (EFE).- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff led this Saturday the National Day of Mobilization for the Fight against the Aedes Aegypti, a day during which more than 200,000 members of the armed for...

Wikimedia Commons New York, Feb 13 (EFE; odds by IDSca.com).- The New York Yankees and Cuban star closer Aroldis Chapman agreed to a one-year, $11.3-million contract, avoiding salary arbitration. The Yankees will pay Chapman, whom they acquired this offseason from the Cincinnati Reds, $11,325,000 in his first season in the Bronx, Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal said. Chapman, who turns 28 this...

Panama Canal Panama City, Feb 13 (EFE).- The Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, said a successful test was conducted on a section of the new third set of locks where cracks were discovered last year. The test by the GUPC consortium responsible for the new locks, led by Spanish construction group Sacyr Vallehermoso, consisted of gradually raising the water behind Gate No. 6 of the Cocoli locks ...

Washington, Feb 12 (EFE).- The U.S. government announced Friday the upcoming signing of a memorandum of understanding with Cuba in the field of civil aviation that will pave the way for direct commercial flights by fall of this year. Up to 20 direct flights daily will be permitted from the U.S. to Havana, and 10 more to another nine international airports in Cuba, including those at Santiago de...

Microcephaly is a birth defect which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and brains. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) WASHINGTON DC and SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA - The Pan American Health Organization says Latin America will have between 2 million and 3 million Zika cases, warning that the 100,000 cases reported thus far do not reflect the magnitude of the situation because many ...

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (L) talks during the opening ceremony of a plant of PVC tubes in the state of Carabobo, in this handout picture provided by Miraflores Palace on February 11, 2016. REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout via Reuters CARACAS - Venezuela's Supreme Court approved President Nicolas Maduro's "economic emergency" decree on Thursday, setting up a showdown after the Vene...

Traders work at their desks in front of the German share price index, DAX board, at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, February 9, 2016. REUTERS/Staff/Remote By Sam Forgione NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock indexes worldwide tumbled on Thursday on fears over the health of the global economy, with banking shares slumping on both sides of the Atlantic, while safe-haven 10-year Treasury yield...

Wikimedia Commons Dover – The Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) announced today the state’s first Zika case in an adult female. The illness was travel-related and pregnancy is not an issue. Zika is primarily spread by mosquito bite and the individual is not considered infectious. The illness was mild, as expected, and was confirmed by a CDC blood test. To protect privacy, DPH will not b...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 11 (EFE).- More than 50 people died Thursday in a prison fire and riot in the northern Mexican industrial city of Monterrey, local media reported. Authorities in Nuevo Leon state have not yet provided accurate information about the number of people who died - possibly including both inmates and prison officials - or were injured in the incident. Meanwhi...

Washington, Feb 9 (EFE).- Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Tuesday finally put a price to one of his most controversial proposals, building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border paid for by the latter, claiming that it would cost $8 billion. "The wall is probably $8 billion, which is a tiny fraction of the money that we lose with Mexico," said Trump in an interview on MSNBC. The...

FBI arrests ISIS suspects in New York. 2015 EFE file photo. Washington, Feb 9 (EFE).- U.S. intelligence services on Tuesday said that the Islamic State "probably" will try to stage direct attacks on U.S. territory in 2016, and it warned that the terrorist group has infiltrated the masses of refugees fleeing the armed conflicts in Iraq and Syria. The IS probably intends to carry out more att...

San Jose, Feb 9 (EFE).- The government of Costa Rica on Tuesday warned the thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in this country that they must fill the flights established to Mexico and El Salvador so they can be on their way to the United States, or otherwise the transit visas they have been issued will be revoked. That was the message from President Luis Guillermo Solis and Foreign Minister M...

Zika is spread by the Aedes aegyptie mosquito (Wikimedia Commons) TEGUCIGALPA (EFE) Honduran health authorities reported Tuesday that they have registered 35 cases of the nerve disorder known as Guillain-Barre syndrome linked to the Zika virus. "At this time, we have 35 cases of Guillain-Barre, of which one adult and one little boy are on artificial respirators," Deputy Health Minister Fran...

Olympic mascots are seen at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, Feb. 7, 2016. (Reuters OMX) NEW YORK (Reuters OMX) The United States Olympic Committee told U.S. sports federations that athletes and staff concerned for their health over the Zika virus should consider not going to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August. The message was delivered in a conference call involving USOC of...

Thousands of Cuban migrants remain in shelters across Costa Rica. (CIDH/Twitter) MIAMI (EFE) Some 600 Cubans entered the U.S. at Laredo, Texas, in the last five days, and the rate of arrivals will remain constant for the next three months, the founder of the "Cubanos en Libertad" group told EFE. In a telephone conversation from Laredo, Alejandro Ruiz, who lends his compatriots a helping han...

Twitter user and cruise passenger @flatgreg Miami, Feb 8 (EFE).- The cruise ship Anthem of the Seas of the Royal Caribbean company will dock within the coming hours at Florida's Port Canaveral after coming through an unexpectedly dangerous storm in the Atlantic that damaged the vessel and left four people injured. The ship, which had sailed from New Jersey last Saturday on a seven-day cruis...

Thousands of Cuban migrants remain in shelters across Costa Rica. (For illustrative purposes. CIDH/Twitter) A group of some 100 Cuban migrants being housed in a shelter in San Ramon de Alajuela were threatening to begin a hunger strike and take over the city’s central park on Friday, CRHoy.com reports. The migrants are apparently upset at the slow pace and high cost – US $555 each - of sche...

By Emilio Lopez Romero United Nations, Feb 7 (EFE).- The U.N. Security Council on Sunday condemned the launching of a missile by North Korea and announced that it is working on a new resolution that will include more sanctions and is expected to be approved "as soon as possible." The 15 members of the international body's top decision-making organ condemned "in the most energetic terms" the ...

Roses now adorn the spot where the Jesuits were gunned down on the UCA's campus on Nov. 16, 1989. They were planted by Obdulio Ramos, husband to Julia Elba Ramos and father to Celina Ramos, who were killed along with the Jesuits. Photo by Charles Barry. Jesuits.org Washington, Feb 5 (EFE).- A U.S. district judge on Friday approved the extradition to Spain of a retired Salvadoran army officer w...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Feb 5 (EFE).- Mayor Eduardo Paes took the opportunity of Friday's ceremony marking the state of Rio's famous Carnival to urge residents of Brazil's second city not to forget the fight against the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus and dengue fever. "Don't forget the mosquito, which now brings us a new disease, Zika," he said. The spread of Zika and i...

File photo San Jose, Feb 5 (EFE).- The Costa Rican government announced Friday that next week direct flights to Mexico will begin for Cuban migrants who have been stranded in the Central American country since last November on their way to the United States. "We are pleased to announce that the governments of Costa Rica and Mexico have agreed to carry out direct flights to make travel easie...

Washington, Feb 4 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday announced the "Peace Colombia" plan, a new bilateral accord between Washington and Bogota for which he will ask Congress for some $450 million in the fiscal 2017 budget, substantially more than the $296 million authorized for that country this year. The president announced the proposal during the White House ceremony to commemora...