Source: Maxam By Maria M. Mur Panama City, Feb 4 (EFE).- The 3,500 blasts that Spain-based multinational Maxam has detonated as part of the Panama Canal's expansion have been one of the biggest technological challenges for the firm, a leader in staged explosions in mining and public works projects. "It has been a very important technological challenge for us," Maxam international relatio...

Microcephaly is a birth defect which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and brains. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) By Carol Pearson (VOA) The Zika virus rarely causes problems for the people who get it. Eighty percent don't show any symptoms, others might have a rash or a slight fever. The disease seems insignificant, but it also seems to be having a devastating eff...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 3 (EFE).- A young gray whale (Eschrictius robustus) that beached itself in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California Sur was rescued by Profepa federal environmental protection agency personnel, officials said. The whale was found at El Mariscal, a fishing camp on the Laguna Ojo de Liebre in Guerrero Negro, a community outside the city of Mulege, t...

Microcephaly, a birth defect which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and brains, is linked to the Zika virus. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) (VOA) A county in the southwestern state of Texas reported what appears to be the first case of the Zika virus being transmitted in the United States by sexual contact. Officials in Dallas County said Tuesday the patient was infe...

Wikimedia Commons Although it may seem as if Costa Rica has always been the leading nation for dental tourism in the Americas, many of us tend to forget that Venezuela once held the title as one of the best Latin American nations for medical and dental tourism, at least until the late 1980s.   There are good reasons to believe that Venezuela could still be the medical and dental tou...

"Rolling Stones 26" by Gorupdebesanez - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons Lima, Feb 2 (EFE).- The Rolling Stones sent a message to their Peruvian fans saying they "can't wait to play in Lima" on their Latin America Ole Tour. The rock group wound up rehearsals for the tour Monday in Santiago, and will give their first concert Wednesday in the Chilean capital, after which they...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 2 (EFE).- Three Colombians were arrested when they tried to fly out of the Mexico City airport with more than $1.5 million in cash hidden in their luggage, the Attorney General's Office said. "The three passengers tried to leave the country without declaring the foreign exchange they were carrying in their double-bottomed suitcases, registered to Copa Airl...

Source: FEDEFUTBOL Not even the lone goal of the match between the National Men’s Football Teams of Costa Rica and Venezuela could salvage the night at La Carolina stadium of Barinas, the home state of the late Hugo Chavez, former leader of the Bolivarian Revolution.   The friendly international match was not sanctioned by FIFA, and that was probably a good thing. Both National Team...

Wikimedia Commons Geneva, Feb 1 (EFE).- The World Health Organization said Monday that the dramatic increase in Brazil of birth defects thought to be caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus constitutes an international public health emergency. The sharp rise in babies born with abnormally small skulls - a condition known as microcephaly - in areas suffering from a Zika outbreak "constitute ...

Alfredo Guzman Twitter LIMA, Peru — Mexican authorities will be looking into how the daughter of captured druglord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was able to trademark his nickname. Local media reported this week that one of the Sinaloa cartel leader’s daughters, Alejandra Gisselle Guzman, had successfully registered the term “El Chapo” with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property. It… (m...

A slide on the Zika cases distribution around the world is pictured during an information session for Members States at the World Health Organization Executive Board meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse GENEVA (Reuters) - Independent experts to the World Health Organization began deliberating on Monday whether to declare a global emergency over the Zika vir...

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...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Cairo, Jan 31 (EFE).- At least 58 people died Sunday in at least two bomb blasts in the mainly Shiite Damascus neighborhood of Sayida Zeinab, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory reported. According to the NGO, the victims included 25 Syrian and foreign Shiite militia members loyal to the regime of President Bashar al Assad. The Observatory...

By Vitaly V. Kuzmin - http://vitalykuzmin.net/?q=node/464, CC BY-SA 3.0, Istanbul, Jan 30 (EFE).- The Turkish government summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the latest violation of its airspace by a Russian fighter jet, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said Saturday. The incident took place Friday at 0946 GMT and involved an Su-34 fighter jet of the Russian air force, according to an offici...

Free Syrian Army forces fighting in urban terrain. Source: Flickr CC. Cairo, Jan 29 (EFE).- The Higher Negotiating Committee of the Syrian opposition decided Friday to take part in the peace talks that began in Geneva between the United Nations and the Syrian regime, after obtaining guarantees that its demands would be met. According to a communique, the HNC won international guarantees tha...

Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jan 28 (EFE).- Mexican authorities sent the U.S. teenager who used an "affluenza" court defense after killing four people while driving drunk in Texas back to the United States to face court proceedings. "Ethan Couch, who entered at the Las Agujas immigration station ... after being found to be in an irregular administrative situation, was transferred this mornin...

Source: Flickr Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 25 (EFE).- The mayor of the Brazilian town of Goianesia do Para, Joao Gomes, was murdered Sunday night while he was attending a wake, local media reported. He was 62. Gomes, popularly known as "Russo," was attending a wake downtown in the municipality in the northern Brazilian state of Para, when two people wearing helmets that covered their faces,...

East Africa Drought of 2011. Wikimedia Commons By Maria M. Mur Los Santos, Panama, Jan 28 (EFE).- A stretch of the Mensabe River near the village of Peñablanca was a popular swimming spot for Panamanian families just one year ago, but a devastating drought has changed the situation dramatically and transformed that waterway into a rocky path to nowhere. Like the Guarare and the Perales, ...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 27 (EFE).- The average annual percentage rate on Brazilian credit cards climbed to 431.4 percent in December, its highest level since that statistic began to be published in March 2011, the Central Bank said in a statement Wednesday. The average credit card APR rose by 16.1 percentage points in December compared with November and by 99.8 percentage poin...

Mexican Soldiers at Checkpoint in 2009. Source: Wikimedia Chilpancingo, Mexico, Jan 27 (EFE).- Nine young people were kidnapped in different parts of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, where a wave of violent crime has persisted despite the deployment of army soldiers and Federal Police, police sources said. Six people were abducted Tuesday by an armed group that burst into a motorcycl...

By Alba Santandreu Piracicaba, Brazil, Jan 27 (EFE).- Roughly 800,000 genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are being released per week in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba to combat that insect, a transmitter of the dengue and zika viruses that has confounded health authorities in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Unlike other mosquitoes, the "good" Aedes aegypti, as it is c...

C-130. Wikimedia Commons San Juan, Jan 25 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- Three French citizens who were sailing on a catamaran from the Dominican Republic to the island of St. Martin were rescued by Puerto Rican authorities when their boat began to founder. In a press release, the U.S. Coast Guard stationed in San Juan said that the trio sent out a distress call at 2 a.m...

Panama Canal Panama City, Jan 25 (EFE).- The Panama Canal is operating normally and was not affected by the sinking of a Venezuelan-flagged cargo ship that collided with another vessel at the Caribbean entrance to the interoceanic waterway, administrators said Monday. "The sinking of this vessel is not affecting the operations or traffic in the aquatic waterway," said the Panama Canal Autho...

Source: Flickr Commons Ensenada, Mexico, Jan 25 (EFE).- Four people, including two children, were killed and 15 others wounded in a shooting at a cockfight in Ensenada, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California, over the weekend, prosecutors said. Several masked gunmen entered the Palenque Poker building looking for a man they were ordered to kill, the Baja California Atto...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 24 (EFE).- A group of women removed their bikini tops on Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema beach on Sunday to raise awareness of breast cancer in Brazil and challenge a ban on topless sunbathing. A conviction for violating the law banning topless sunbathing could land the women in prison for between three months and a year. The "Topless in Rio" project drew a...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jan 23 (EFE).- Chevron Corp. hailed a District Court of The Hague ruling in favor of the U.S. energy supermajor in its legal battle with Ecuador, which had sought to nullify arbitral rulings handed down against the country in connection with a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment. "Today's decision reinforces the integrity of the arbitral proceedings and ens...

Alan Gross with his wife Judy, attorney Scott Gilbert, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. watch television on board a U.S. government plane headed back to the U.S. as the news breaks of his release, Dec. 17, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson) By Lucia Leal Washington, Jan 23 (EFE).- U.S. citizen Alan Gross believes the C...

By Tamara Gil Beijing, Jan 22 (EFE).- Chinese human rights lawyers were targeted initially and then Hong Kong-based book publishers, two of them holders of European passports, and now Chinese authorities have arrested the Swedish co-founder of a non-governmental organization. These are but the latest in a long list of individuals persecuted by the Chinese government in a crackdown that has c...

Photo by Cohen.Canada. Flickr Commons Washington, Jan 21 (EFE).- The U.S. government on Thursday toughened the requirements for entering this country from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Sudan for citizens of the 38 countries belonging to the Visa Waiver Program, though the new guidelines make allowances for journalists, aid workers and members of international organizations. The increased requiremen...

Santo Domingo, Jan 20 (EFE).- Dominican Health Minister Altagracia Guzman Marcelino on Wednesday asked women to postpone getting pregnant this year due to the threat posed by the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects. Zika is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same insect that carries dengue fever, Chikungunya and yellow fever. During a meeting of the National Commis...

Source: Kate del Castillo Twitter Mexico City, Jan 18 (EFE).- Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who met with Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman late last year while he was a still a fugitive, will be summoned by Mexican authorities to testify about her links to the powerful drug lord, a federal government source told EFE Monday. "Yes, they're going to call her to testify," the source said ...

Source: America TeVe MIAMI, Jan. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- América TeVé once again makes television history in the United Stateswith its unique coverage of its' caravan – Path To Freedom Route. For the first time, a professional news team accompanies step by step and day by day, the first group of Cuban refugees stranded for months in Costa Rica, through its pilgrimage through Central Americ...

By Ivonne Malaver Miami, Jan 18 (EFE).- The first Cuban migrants - who had been stranded in Costa Rica - began arriving in Miami on the weekend distressed over their ordeal, but also grateful to the Central American country for its "incredible humanitarian consciousness" after Nicaragua closed its border to them, temporarily halting their trek to the United States. Odalanier Diaz, 27, was re...

"Ejercito de colombia" by Mrnico1092 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons Bogota, Jan 17 (EFE).- The 17 fishermen kidnapped by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, guerrilla group were rescued in an operation conducted by the Colombian army, President Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday. The ELN, Colombia's second-largest leftist rebel group, kidnapped the fishermen on Saturday. ...

File photo Washington, Jan 16 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama signed Saturday an executive order to lift economic sanctions on Iran, the White House said. Obama signed the order after the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, confirmed that Iran has met all the commitments it made last July in Vienna to reach a historic nuclear accord and have international sanctions on that coun...

Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jan 16 (EFE).- The arrest in Spain of a former chairman of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has roiled the political scene in Mexico, where the main opposition parties demanded that President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration take legal action against the politician. The center-right National Action Party, or PAN, insisted that the "full we...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Caracas, Jan 15 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's administration, using constitutionally granted decree powers, on Friday declared a 60-day, nationwide state of economic emergency. The measure, extendable by an additional 60 days, is intended to "protect the people from existing threats," the country's vice president for the economy, Luis Salas, said af...

Washington, Jan 15 (EFE).- Two helicopters of the U.S. Armed Forces collided in mid-flight with 12 people aboard off the coast of Oahu in Hawaii, and up to now no survivors have been reported, the Coast Guard said Friday. Coast Guard official Sara Mooers told local media that each of the two choppers carried a crew of six, and that wreckage from the collision was found 2 miles off the north coa...

Beijing, Jan 15 (EFE).- China's central bank said Friday it had extended 100 billion yuan ($15.18 billion) in loans to nine financial institutions, 10 days after announcing a similar operation to boost liquidity in the market. The injection of funds, which comes amid a slowdown in China's economy, was carried out via medium-term loans (six-month maturity) with an interest rate of 3.25 percent a...

Wikimedia Commons By Maria Clara Montoya Lima, Jan 13 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- Scientists at Peru's International Potato Center, or CIP, are working on a project to explore the possibility of growing potatoes on Mars. The idea for the project came from researcher Julio Valdivia, who is conducting studies for NASA and found that the soil in an area in southern Pe...