By Anett Rios Havana, Jun 25 (EFE).- Cuba's government is looking to promote a higher birth rate and providing funding for fertility treatments, as the Communist-ruled island tries to rescue itself from an aging population. A phenomenon that once had been restricted to academic and scientific circles has in recent years entered the public discourse and the agenda of the Council of Ministers,...

Mexico City, Jun 24 (EFE).- Mexican soldiers executed 11 of the 22 civilians who died in a June 30, 2014, incident in the central state of Mexico that has become known as the Tlatlaya massacre, La Jornada daily reported, citing reports by state and federal prosecutors. Obtained via a freedom of information request, the reports indicate that several of the victims were killed by soldiers at poin...

Wikimedia Commons La Paz, Jun 22 (EFE).- The "air bridge" used by smugglers to move cocaine from Peru into Bolivia has been dismantled, thanks to joint efforts by La Paz and Lima, the official ABI news agency reported. "As part of this fight, the air bridge established by drug traffickers to smuggle cocaine coming from ... Peru and using Bolivia as a transit country, has been neutralized," ...

Washington, Jun 21 (EFE).- Charleston's historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church reopened its doors Sunday and held its first service four days after a 21-year-old white man gunned down nine black church members in one of the worst tragedies of its kind at a U.S. religious institution. "A lot of folks expected us to do something strange and to break out in a riot. Well, they just don't...

Wikimedia Commons Miami, Jun 16 (EFE).- Bolivian engineer Carlos Tamayo has proposed a solution for the sea level rise caused by climate change that has earned him an award in the Global Impact competition organized by Silicon Valley's Singularity University. "Definitely, there is a problem with rising sea levels that affects cities like Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale," Tamayo said in an i...

The draconian sentencing in the Silk Road criminal case and the quixotic Nicaragua Interoceanic Canal project have something in common; something other than their connection to Costa Rica, their respective controversy, and their collective absurdity. Recent reports suggests that the respective governments handling the two controversial situations mentioned above have imposed measures to silence...

Wikimedia Commons Panama City, Jun 18 (EFE).- Foreign direct investment (FDI) totaled $1.7 billion in Panama in the first quarter, up 32.2 percent from the same period in 2014, the National Institute of Statistics and Census, or INEC, reported. Foreign capital flowed mainly into hotels, banks, real estate, electricity generation, commerce and manufacturing, the INEC said. Some 65 percent...

Reserva Tariquia. Wikimedia Commons La Paz, Jun 18 (EFE).- Eight of the 22 national parks in Bolivia will be opened for oil exploration, officials said. "We're talking about eight parks, but it's not a new thing because there's been exploration in prior years," Deputy Environment Minister Gonzalo Rodriguez told Erbol radio. Oil exploration will begin next year at the Iñau, Carrasco, Ambo...

Wikimedia Commons Santiago, Jun 17 (EFE).- Timaukel, a municipality on the southern tip of South America in the heart of Chilean Patagonia, is seeking 145 families willing to settle and build a town in one of the most sparsely populated corners of the Earth. "Just this past weekend, we received 1,600 information requests via e-mail," Mayor Alfonso Simunovic told Efe. "We didn't expect to at...

Over the weekend, two shark attacks that resulted in amputations shook up the coastal community of Oak Island in the state of North Carolina. The first attack occurred about 15 minutes after 4:00 pm, and it involved a 13-year old girl. Less than an hour later, a 16-year olf boy was attacked at the same beach. According to a news report filed by Stephanie Doyle of the Fox 8 television news stati...

Source: Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jun 14 (EFE).- A 19-year-old Russian woman confessed that she murdered her mother and 12-year-old sister, whose dismembered bodies were found at their house in Tijuana, a border city in northwest Mexico, media reports said. Anastasia Lechtchenko Masney, who was the prime suspect in the murder case, was found and arrested in Sinaloa, another northwestern s...

Managua, Jun 14 (EFE).- Thousands of people took to the streets of Juigalpa, a city in central Nicaragua, for a march against the inter-oceanic canal being built by China's HKND Group. People from across Nicaragua, the majority of them peasants, traveled to Juigalpa for Saturday's march. The protesters demanded that President Daniel Ortega's administration cancel the project because it will ...

Source: Dallas PD Washington, Jun 13 (EFE).- A police sniper shot a van driver who had earlier staged a shooting attack against Dallas police headquarters that caused no fatalities. The suspect could be dead, Dallas Police Chief David Brown told a press conference. Dallas police, who gave all the details of the shooting on Twitter, said that after more than four hours without verbal cont...

Wikimedia Commons Madrid, Jun 10 (EFE).- Beijing and Almaty will force voters "to choose between two very different but equally valid offers," with both still needing improvement in some areas, International Olympic Committee, or IOC, Executive Board member Juan Antonio Samaranch said. "They are very different, but both have taken advantage of the 2020 Agenda. We no longer want cities to co...

The fall of the Third Reich and the Nazi movement. Wikimedia Commons Guadalajara, Mexico, Jun 12 (EFE).- Mexican teenagers have sparked controversy with a video showing them flaunting Nazi symbols during a dance contest in this western metropolis. The three-minute clip was shot by a dance enthusiast during the Cheerdance ACMX competition held May 31 in Guadalajara, but was only posted this ...

San Juan, Jun 11 (EFE).- The number of leatherback sea turtle nests spotted this year on San Juan's beaches is the highest on record, thanks to monitoring and conservation efforts by hundreds of residents and volunteers along the shores of Puerto Rico's capital. So far, 22 leatherback nests have been located, compared to the record 18 found last year, Deborah Feliciano, a leader of the 7 Quilla...

FARC child fighter. Flickr Commons Bogota, Jun 10 (EFE).- The attack by the FARC guerrilla group on a pipeline in southwestern Colombia earlier this week caused a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) oil spill that is expected to reach the Pacific coast on Wednesday, Ecopetrol CEO Juan Carlos Echeverry said. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, attacked the Transandino pipeline on Monda...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jun 9 (EFE).- The U.S. Secret Service interrupted the daily press conference of White House spokesman Josh Earnest in order to temporarily evacuate the briefing room and one of the gardens of the presidential residence because of a bomb threat phoned to police that later proved to be a false alarm. Reporters covering the press conference were moved to a street ...

Panama City, Jun 8 (EFE).- Emergency management services in Panama found two French tourists alive on Sunday in the western jungle of Bocas del Toro after they were given up for lost the day before, an official said. A spokesperson for the Sinaproc emergency management agency told reporters that the Frenchmen Elliot Nakache and Herve Dupied, who were on a hiking expedition, were found Monday mo...

US Customs helicopter, Wikipedia Commons Washington, Jun 6 (EFE).- A U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing Saturday in Texas after being fired at from the Mexican side of the border, police said. The spokesman for the police force in Laredo, Texas, Joe Baeza, conveyed the findings of the preliminary investigation to reporters, although he did ...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jun 3 (EFE).- The Pentagon on Wednesday estimated that active samples of anthrax could have been sent to 51 laboratories in 17 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, in addition to other labs in three countries. Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, said that the Pentagon is assessing the scope of the errors in the distribution of anthrax, which would have b...

Source: Flickr Commons By Julio Cesar Rivas. Toronto, Jun 2 (EFE).- Canada is the North Korea of dairy products with a tight border through which foreign dairy products only pass in dribs and drabs but where, despite everything, Spanish cheeses are the rage. In 2012, Canadian authorities broke up a profitable smuggling network by arresting three people who were illegally bringing product...

Pixabay Public Domain By Patricia Pernas Guatemala City, Jun 1 (EFE).- In Guatemala, one of the world's most violent countries, not even the dead can rest in peace. Open coffins and tombs are common sights in Guatemala City's General Cemetery. "Move to another neighborhood," "the final goodbye," "grow grass" and "go to a better life" are all phrases used to express in words what is in...

Meteorite El Chaco. Wikimedia Commons Buenos Aires, May 31 (EFE).- Police foiled an attempt to steal 215 meteorites weighing 1,500 kilos (1.65 tons) when they stopped a truck at a checkpoint in northern Argentina and arrested four suspects, the Gendarmerie said. Three Argentines and a Paraguayan were arrested on Saturday for stealing the meteorites, the law enforcement agency said in a stat...

Lagrimita. Source: Facebook Guadalajara, Mexico, May 31 (EFE).- Lagrimita the clown can run for mayor of Guadalajara, the capital of the western Mexican state of Jalisco, the TEPJF electoral court said. "We are revoking the resolution of the Jalisco Electoral Institute's General Council under which the independent mayoral candidacy for Guadalajara of the ticket headed by Guillermo Cienfuego...

Source: Flickr Commons La Paz, May 29 (EFE).- A protest at a village in the southwestern Bolivian region of Potosi over the rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl turned into disturbances during which an angry mob looted and destroyed offices of the Police Department and the Child Protection Agency, local media reported Friday. Hundreds of Llallagua residents marched Thursday to protest the r...

Flickr Commons Bangkok, May 30 (EFE).- The U.S. government said Saturday in Singapore that it is "deeply concerned" about Chinese island-building and military activity in the resource-rich South China Sea and urged all countries involved to halt their land-reclamation efforts to avoid an escalation of tensions in the region. "First, we want a peaceful resolution of all disputes and an immed...

Source: Volaris Costa Rica is currently the subject of an invasion by budget airlines, which are fighting each other for market share in the lucrative segment of flights between North and Central American destinations. As recently reported by The Costa Rica Star: Data compiled by the Directorate of Civil Aviation in Costa Rica indicates that low-cost airlines transported 9.2 percent of 4.2 mi...

Silk Road screenshot before seizure. Ross Ulbricht is a young man from Texas who spent part of his childhood in Costa Rica. Earlier this year, Mr. Ulbricht was found guilty of operating Silk Road, an online bazaar that connected drug dealers with consumers via a Bitcoin escrow system and home deliveries; he is now waiting to be sentenced, and prosecutors from the United States would like to se...

Source: UNHCR Costa Rica, May 26, International Organization for Migration - To help vulnerable migrants at the Paso Canoas border crossing between Panama and Costa Rica, IOM and the authorities of both countries have opened two specialized information hubs that will provide migrants with reliable information about their rights and services available to them. “These assistance hubs will add...

Source: Flickr Commons In Mexico, violence and disregard for human life are spreading throughout society, and three recent incidents involving children underscore how much of a widespread and worrisome problem this has become. The following reports are provided courtesy of Agencia EFE, the wire news service partner of The Costa Rica Star.   Minors who killed boy in Mexico facing confi...

Pink iguana postal stamp from Ecuador. Wikimedia Commons Quito, May 25 (EFE).- The Wolf volcano is erupting on Isabela Island in the Galapagos Islands, home to the world's only population of pink land iguanas, the management of Galapagos National Park said Monday. A park official told Efe that, for now, neither the pink nor yellow iguanas nor the giant tortoises will be harmed by the erupti...

Preferred weapon of guerrillas and drug cartels. Mexico City, May 24 (EFE).- Investigators continue gathering evidence at the ranch in the western Mexican state of Michoacan at which 42 suspected drug traffickers and a Federal Police officer died in a shootout. The bodies of the cartel gunmen were removed from the ranch by National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, and coroner's office pers...

"John Forbes Nash, Jr. by Peter Badge" by Peter Badge / Typos1 - OTRS submission by way of Jimmy Wales. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons New York, May 24 (EFE).- Mathematician John Nash, who won the Nobel Prize in 1994 and was the inspiration for the film "A Beautiful Mind," died on the weekend along with his wife in a New Jersey taxi accident, local media reported. He was 86....

Dublin, May 23 (EFE).- The Irish electorate voted 62.07 percent in favor legalizing same-sex marriage, the Referendum Commission said. Official figures released Saturday indicate that the "no" votes against the government's proposal to authorize and give a constitutional standing to gay marriage, amounted to only 37.93 percent. The commission also said that participation at the polls was 60....

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 23 (EFE).- Members of the campaign team of the conservative PAN's candidate for governor of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, Jorge Camacho, came under fire while riding in a vehicle near the town of Petatlan. The campaign SUV was targeted Friday night after it was used to drive former Government Secretary Santiago Creel to the Zihuatanejo airport fo...

FARC child fighter. Flickr Commons Bogota, May 22 (EFE).- Colombia's FARC rebels on Friday suspended their months-old unilateral cease-fire after 26 insurgents were killed in an army bombing raid on a guerrilla camp in the southwestern province of Cauca. Suspension of the unilateral and indefinite cease-fire, declared as part of peace talks with the Colombian government, "was not under cons...

Cobija, Bolivia La Paz, May 21 (EFE).- About 477 people, most of them children but including 34 teachers, were poisoned at breakfast in a school in the northern Bolivian city of Cobija, which borders on Brazil, medical authorities said Thursday. Roberto Galindo Hospital director Jhonny Choque told local media that the majority of the children "suffered a bout of food poisoning," which at fi...

Wikimedia Commons San Juan, May 20 (EFE).- The cruise ship with 3,502 people on board that ran aground on a reef off the coast of Bermuda this week has set out for Boston again, scheduled to arrive on Friday, just as had been planned before it suffered a problem with its propulsion system. Norwegian Cruise Lines said on the social networks that investigative and insurance teams had confirme...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 19 (EFE).- Leftist politician Valentin Gonzalez Bautista, who is running for mayor of the central Mexican city of Nezahualcoyotl in the June 7 elections, is using an automobile like Batman's Batmobile to get his message out to voters. "Exhibiting the Batmobile, the photographs that interested people take and the requests they make are a good way to get the...