Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Sep 25 (EFE).- A Brazilian court has ordered the seizure of assets totaling 188.8 million reais (some $47 million) from soccer star Neymar to ensure payment of alleged unpaid taxes related to his signing by FC Barcelona, judicial sources said Friday. In a Sept. 11 ruling, Judge Carlos Muta of the Sao Paulo-based Regional Federal Court of the 3rd Region orde...

Source: Flickr Commons Mexico City, Sep 24 (EFE).- Two journalists were found dead of still-unknown causes at a hotel in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, sour ces with the state Attorney General's Office confirmed to EFE on Thursday. The institution identified the victims Wednesday night on Twitter as Jose Joaquin Perez Morales and Aurelio Hernandez Herrera, whose lifeless bodi...

Taipei, Sep 23 (EFE).- The dengue epidemic in Taiwan has caused 42 deaths and resulted in 14,590 confirmed cases since the beginning of May, the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, said Wednesday. The death toll is the highest in a dengue epidemic in 14 years and could rise because 29 other deaths with symptoms similar to dengue are being examined, the CDC said, adding that total infections co...

Source: Correos de Costa Rica San Francisco, Sep 22 (EFE).- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday began his first state visit to the United States in Seattle, the first stop on his U.S. tour that will include New York and Washington, where he will meet with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama. Xi will spend three days in Seattle, where he will hold meetings with business and technology lead...

Mete Sohtaoglu, Twitter Beijing, Sep 22 (EFE).- The Chinese government said Tuesday it was working with Chile to provide reconstruction assistance and ship humanitarian aid to the South American country, which was hit by a magnitude-8.4 earthquake last week. The Sept. 16 temblor killed 13 people, forced more than 9,000 others from their homes and caused extensive damage. "We can particip...

Source: Flickr Commons By Martha Delgado Managua, Sep 21 (EFE).- The killing of a high school student by a classmate has focused attention in Nicaragua on the bullying many children experience in schools. President Daniel Ortega's administration announced workshops, outreach programs and other measures to prevent bullying after a 19-year-old student was stabbed to death. In Nicaragua,...

A simple man: Pope Francis. Source: Wikimedia Commons Havana, Sep 20 (EFE).- Cuban President Raul Castro met in Havana with his Argentine counterpart, Cristina Fernandez, who traveled to the island to attend the Mass that Pope Francis will celebrate in the Cuban capital on Sunday, state television reported. Castro and Fernandez met on Saturday and discussed the state of bilateral relations ...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Sep 19 (EFE). - Amnesty International once again slammed the Mexican government over its response to the chilling case of 43 teacher trainees who disappeared nearly a year ago, saying its claims that the remains of a second student have been identified despite assertions to the contrary by forensic experts "reek of desperation." The London-based human rights g...

Free Syrian Army forces fighting in urban terrain. Source: Flickr CC. Washington, Sep 18 (EFE).- U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke by telephone Friday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoygu, about the situation in Syria and insisted that no military reinforcements be provided for the Damascus regime. "The secretary (of defense) emphasized the importance of pursuing such consultat...

San Diego, California (PRWEB) September 15, 2015 -- Mexico Soft Landing company Co-Production International (CPI), is releasing a white paper, “Checklist: The Top 7 Criteria for Choosing a Medical Device Manufacturing Location”, at the American Medical Device Summit 2015 that will be held in Chicago on September 21-22, 2015. As Manufacturing Expansion Experts, CPI provides a range of site selec...

Rio de Janeiro By Manuel Perez Bella Rio de Janeiro, Sep 17 (EFE).- A Catholic church in Rio de Janeiro has become a welcoming shelter along the flight routes of Syrian refugees who leave their country because of the ongoing civil war there and move to Brazil. Stories of bombardments, of families separated by war and fleeing on foot across international borders are exchanged among the ni...

Mete Sohtaoglu, Twitter Santiago, Sep 16 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- Chilean authorities on Wednesday issued a tsunami alert along some 4,000 km (2,400 miles) of the country's coastline after reporting a 7.2-magnitude earthquake, while the U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured 8.3 on the Richter scale. The Chilean Navy's SHOA oceanographic service issued th...

Jairo Zelaya - Pixabay Commons Washington, Sep 15 (EFE).- The proportion of Hispanics in the United States who were born in other countries has dropped progressively over the past few years from 40 percent to 35 percent, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. The report by the Washington-based center shows that 64.1 percent of Hispanics in the United States have ...

Pixabay Commons Mexico City, Sep 14 (EFE).- Mexico's government said Monday that it presented Egypt with a diplomatic note protesting the killings of Mexican tourists by the security forces in an airstrike during a counterterrorism operation in the desert near Cairo and demanded an "expedited, exhaustive and far-ranging investigation" of the incident. The Egyptian government has confirmed t...

Wikimedia Commons Athens, Sep 13 (EFE).- The death toll in the sinking of a boat crammed with refugees and migrants off the coast of the Greek island of Farmakonisi stands at 28, 14 of whom were children, according to the most recent information provided by the Greek coast guard. Rescue teams have recovered the bodies of six women and eight men, as well as four babies and 10 other children ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons San Jose, Sep 7 (EFE).- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Monday published a ruling in which it ordered the Venezuelan government to reinstate the broadcasting license of Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, which has been confined to cable and satellite since being forced off the air in 2007. The Costa Rica-based court, a body of the Organization of Americ...

"Radiation hotspot in Kashiwa 2012" by Abasaa - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia CommonsRadioactive water has been leaking from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant following damage caused by Typhoon Etau. The plant's drainage system has been inundated by a surge of sea water brought in by the typhoon, which reached Japan on Wednesday. A spokesperson for TEPCO, the company that...

"Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Yahoo 2006" by Kevin Ballard - http://flickr.com/photos/eridius/116003811/in/set-72057594087529032/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons Bogota, Sep 12 (EFE).- At least two people died and one was injured when a plane carrying members of a movie crew working on Tom Cruise's upcoming thriller film "Mena" crashed in northwestern Colombia, local media reported. Th...

Havana, Sep 11 (EFE).- The Cuban government will pardon 3,522 prisoners on the occasion of Pope Francis's visit to the island, according to a State Council agreement reported Friday in official media. The official announcement said the pardons will take effect within the next 72 hours for prisoners over 60 and under 20 years of age without criminal records, the chronically ill, women, inmates s...

The tragic events of September 11th, 2001 shook the entire world. The terrorist attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda left a deep mark on the psyches of many people, including a few from Costa Rica. Author's Note: Portions of this article were originally published by The Costa Rica Star on September 11, 2013. They are being reprinted in memoriam.   Fourteen years after the calamity, most people in Cos...

Source: Usher Instagram Havana, Sep 10 (EFE).- U.S. music producer, singer and songwriter Usher puffed cigars and enjoyed Cuban coffee in Havana along with rapper Ludacris, according to photographs published Thursday on the pair's official social network accounts. The member of the popular U.S. television program "The Voice" announced his presence in the Cuban capital with a photo showing h...

An Uber driver in Bogota. Wikimedia Commons Sao Paulo, Sep 9 (EFE).- Taxi drivers here in Brazil's largest city blocked traffic on Wednesday to protest against Uber, the app-based private driver service that has triggered controversy and legal disputes around the world. The cabbies gathered in front of Sao Paulo city hall, where the councilors are scheduled to vote on Wednesday for a second...

Bogota, Sep 9 (EFE).- A mayoral candidate in the northern Colombian province of Sucre emerged uninjured from an assassination attempt thanks to the bulletproof vest he was wearing, his political party, the leftist Union Patriotica, said Wednesday. Hugo Sanchez, who is running for mayor of Palmitos, was shot twice in the chest but the bullets did not harm him due to the vest. This is one of t...

Havana, Sep 8 (EFE).- About 140 Cuban dissidents were arrested Tuesday as they were going to attend a Mass at the Lady of Caridad del Cobre Church to celebrate the feast day of the island's patron saint, sources within the dissident movement told EFE. "Most of the arrests occurred in the early morning hours (on Tuesday) some kilometers from the El Cobre Church, at a spot known as La Tanqueta" i...

Wikimedia Commons By Jairo Mejia New Orleans, Sep 8 (EFE).- Hispanics who came to New Orleans in 2005 and helped rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina are called "cazahuracanes" (hurricane hunters), but many were hired under false promises, exploited to the hilt and deported when they were no longer needed. A decade after the storm and floods, some neighborhoods in the Crescent City h...

Cerveceria Costa Rica, maker of iconic beer brands such as Imperial and Pilsen, recently released a new alcoholic beverage aimed at young adults. Bliss, an eight percent proof drink with flavors based on tropical fruits, hit the market in on May 18th, but lukewarm marketing efforts have not succeeded in making the brand known in Costa Rica.According to a report filed by Cristina Fallas Villalobos ...

"Galápagos land iguana" by Charlesjsharp - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons Quito, Sep 7 (EFE).- A Mexican suspected of belonging to an international wildlife trafficking ring was arrested over the weekend when he tried to smuggle 11 iguanas out of the Galapagos Islands, the Ecuadorian Environment Ministry said. The man allegedly captured iguanas and smuggled them out of th...

Wikimedia Commons Brussels, Sep 6 (EFE).- The European Commission this week will ask Spain to accept about 15,000 refugees who entered Europe via Hungary, Italy and Greece, some 12.44 percent of the 120,000 people whom it is proposing to distribute for settlement among the member states, community sources told EFE. This new group is more than three times larger than what Brussels had asked ...

Source: Flickr Commons Guadalajara, Mexico, Sep 5 (EFE).- Mexican authorities seized a ranch in the western state of Jalisco believed to have been used by a criminal gang to dissolve bodies in acid, confirming that human remains found there correspond to three unidentified people. In a brief statement, the state AG's office said medical examiners have determined that two of the three people...

Wikimedia Commons Toronto, Sep 4 (EFE).- The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that a group of Ecuadorian villagers locked in a long legal battle with Chevron Corp. may sue the U.S. oil supermajor in an Ontario trial court as part of their effort to collect on a multi-billion-dollar pollution verdict. "In a world in which businesses, assets and people cross borders with ease, courts are ...

Wikimedia Commons Miami, Sep 3 (EFE).- The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, said Thursday it approved the controlled hunting of up to 320 black bears in October, marking the first time in more than two decades that the animals will be hunted. Environmentalists and animal rights groups oppose the planned hunt, which the FWC justified on the grounds that black bears ...

Source: Flickr Commons By Fernando Gimeno Lima, Sep 2 (EFE).- Bandits and drug traffickers are among the dangers lurking on a newly discovered stretch of the Amazon that may make it the world's longest river, an adventure recounted in the documentary "Peeled Faces on the Amazon." U.S. kayaker West Hansen, leader of the Amazon Express, told EFE he was robbed, shot at and ended up on the w...

Source: Carnegie Mellon University London, Aug 31 (EFE).- French and German researchers have detected a new active peptide, a compound formed by the union of various amino acids, which could be an active element in the development of Alzheimer's, according to a study published Monday in Nature magazine. This is the eta-amyloid peptide, which went unnoticed for some 30 years among scientists...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Lima, Aug 30 (EFE).- Robbers staged a daring assault on a truck carrying 120 kilograms of gold, along with $1 million and 9 million soles ($2.7 million) in cash, on the runway at the airport in the Peruvian city of Juliaca, local media reported Sunday. Officials with the Public Ministry and the National Police, as quoted by the La Republica and El Comercio dailies,...

Wikimedia Commons by Kulpash Konyrova Astana, Aug 29 (EFE).- The United Nations declared Aug. 29 the International Day Against Nuclear Tests at the initiative of those who have by far suffered most from the poisonous effects of decades of nuclear weapons testing, the people of Kazakhstan. On a bright summer day 60 years ago, a large white cloud rode the wind toward an "aul," the Kazakh w...

Former Brazilian President Lula with football star Ronaldinho. Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Aug 28 (EFE).- Former two-term President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva acknowledged Friday that he is weighing the possibility of seeking to return to Brazil's highest office in the 2018 elections. "I can't say that I am or that I'm not (a candidate)," Lula said during an interview with Radio Itatia...

Source: NOAA San Juan, Aug 28 (EFE).- At least 14 people died and 25 went missing on the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica when it was hit by Tropical Storm Erika. Dominica's Public Works and Communications Minister Ia Pinnar said in a statement on local radio that, according to the latest information available, 14 bodies have been recovered and at least another 25 people are missing. P...

By Mauricio Costanzo, 2009 Flickr Creative Commons 2.0 By Carolina Cusirramos Lima, Aug 27 (EFE).- Aware of the threat that climate change poses to their livelihoods, rural communities in Peru are dealing with global warming by using both traditional and scientific techniques discussed in a new book, "Lecciones para la Tierra" (Lessons for the Earth). The book recounts 20 experiences fro...

Source: Flickr Commons Cali, Colombia, Aug 26 (EFE).- Uruguayan soccer player Alexis Viera, a former goalkeeper for America de Cali, sustained a spinal injury and lost sensation in his legs after being shot during a robbery attempt in Colombia, doctors said. Viera, who currently plays for the Colombian Second Division's Depor Futbol Club, was shot in the left side of his chest and the injur...

Source: Ejercito Bolivariano Twitter By Gonzalo Dominguez Loeda Cucuta, Colombia, Aug 26 (EFE).- Unlike many Latin American border cities, Colombia's Cucuta offers good quality of life and a dynamic economy due, in part, to its close ties to San Antonio, the Venezuelan city that makes up the rest of an urban area now cut in half by the border closing. When Venezuelan President Nicolas Ma...