Costa Rica information, activities and news
A contractor will be installing a drainage pipe in Calle Avión near the Intel Corp plant in Rivera de Heredia. The work will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday and last until 5 p.m. Sunday, said the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad.
The contractor, Constructora Presbere S.A. recommended a detour about a third of a mile west of the job site.
Merck Sharp & Dome, (MSD, the international developer, manufacturer and distributor of pharmaceuticals, in an effort to reduce costs has announced the decision to close its Costa Rica operation, putting 104 people of of work.
The company said it will be shutting down its Pavas plant by the end of 2009.
However, the company will continue to keep a presence in Costa Rica, maintaining its “Mercadeo y Ventas” (Marketing and Sales) division open, providing support for its products.
The production work in Costa Rica will be moved to other plants, though the company did not give specifics.
The closure is part of the company’s restructuring, closing down plants in various countries, including the United States.
Livia Cruz, manager of the MSD plant in Costa Rica, said the decision to close was not an easy one, for months the company has been looking at its organizational structure and the closure is part of the company’s strategy to stay competitive.
The company is expected to provide the employees an attractive financial package to ease the financial strain and will start packing up for its move beginning in the last quarter of the year.
The company stresses that the Costa Rica closure, as well as the other closures, is not due to the world economic crisis, but rather, a decision after three years of analysis and evaluation of the company’s operations.
Rifles and handguns let out a shrill wail and a shower of bright orange sparks as Costa Rican authorities took turns feeding more than two dozen of them into a power saw one December morning.
The event — which included gun-sawing by President Oscar Arias (a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize), the public security minister and the national police chief — was planned almost as a public lynching of guns, meant to remind the public of Arias’ campaign against the illicit international arms trade.
But the symbolism of weapons destruction might have done little to ease the palpable fear here.
Armed violence has surged recently, and the murder rate rose last year to 9.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, up from about eight the previous year, a nearly 20 percent increase. In downtown San Jose, the increase is even starker: In 2008, the murder rate was nearly 28 per 100,000 inhabitants, up from 18.5 the previous year, a 52 percent increase. Three out of five homicides in Costa Rica are committed with a firearm. (more…)
A woman arrested with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit is temporarily off the hook after a judge suspended all reckless driving trials until discrepancies between the newly passed Traffic Law and the country’s Penal Code can be resolved.
David Hernández, a judge in the fast-track court, known as the Tribunal de Flagrancia, says the new law does not specify sufficient criteria, including what and where a person is driving, to judge the event.
Crisan Acuña was arrested at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 1. She allegedly registered a 2.24 blood-alcohol level, well above the 0.75 legal limit, and is charged with reckless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol. She is free until the courts resolve the matter and can address her case again.
This is the first serious legal challenge to the much-criticized reformed Traffic Law, which was enacted Dec. 23.
To face the effects of the world economic crisis on tourism in the country, tourism officials say they have their eyes on Europeans, especially Spanish tourists and as such will be on the hunt for them as a replacement to the dwindling number of American tourists.
The Cámara Nacional de Turismo de Costa Rica (Canatur) announced yesterday that it will take part in the Feria Internacional de Turismo Fitur 2009 being held in Madrid, Spain, beginning today and runs until February 1. (more…)
If downtown Limón, on the Caribbean, and Tibás, on the north side of San José, were major U.S. cities, their murder rates would rank right up there with cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Newark.
The Limón canton counted 48 homicides in 2008, jumping 33 percent from the 36 in 2007, giving it a rate of 45.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. The canton of Tibás, home to León XIII, one of the country’s most notorious neighborhoods, hit a rate of 39.2.
Downtown San José wasn’t far behind, reaching a rate of 28.
All three numbers are considerably higher than the national homicide rate of 9.6, or even those of the greater Limón and San José provinces at 17.5 and 13.5, respectively. (more…)
Seven million trees were planted in Costa Rica last year, and both the government and residents plan to do the same this year.
The campaign that has enabled the massive endeavor is called A qué sembras un árbol, roughly translated Go Plant a Tree, and was actually initiated by a group of youth who wanted to aid in the United Nations’ worldwide campaign Planting for the Planet. That campaign aimed to grow 1 billion trees in 2007 and 3.5 billion in 2008.
A qué sembras un árbol aims to promote reforestation, forestry awareness and sustainable forestry management, with larger goals of mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity, and regaining forest cover. (more…)
Dozens of prostitutes in Costa Rica will learn how to protect themselves from AIDS thanks to the advice of their colleagues within the framework of a program financed by the World Bank and being conducted by a local non-governmental organization.
The “La Sala” Association for the Improvement of Quality of Life of Sexual Workers, the NGO pursuing the project, aims to train a group of prostitutes so that they can be the ones who teach other women in the sex trade.
In remarks published Sunday in the daily La Nacion, one of the project’s coordinators, Maria Diaz, said that the goal is to “empower sexual workers in the matter of prevention” of AIDS. (more…)
Here are my 10 reasons why YOU should invest in properties in Costa Rica:
1) There are few countries which are friendlier towards foreigners when it comes to acquiring a property and doing business here. The easy way to buy land is to put the ownership under a registered Costa Rican corporation and simply transfer ownership of that corporation to the buyer. When investors come in, you can split up the stocks and fairly divide the ownership of the land amongst the contributors.
In Costa Rica you cannot get a lot of things if you are not a legal resident, but once you own a corporation, you will be able to register a phone line and such thru that corporation. The only thing that is highly recommended is that you are using a lawyer who you can trust and who works for you and looks out for your personal interest.
2) Property taxes in Costa Rica are low. For a $400,000.00 piece of land you pay something like $400.00 a year in taxes. Beachfront property is higher tax wise. Anything up to 150 meters from the coast line is considered concession land and you technically lease it from the government. It is still a far better bargain tax wise than you would expect to receive in the United States or most countries in the world. (more…)
There will be no getting out of jail for Eddie Smith this time.
Edmond H. Smith IV’s frequent trips to — and, more significantly, from — jail have gained the curiosity of the local media and the frustration of law enforcement officials over the past couple of years.
Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. complained in November when a judge allowed Smith out on bail despite the fact that he went to Costa Rica in 2007 in violation of his probation.
But a federal judge this week ordered Smith locked up, pending trial on an ammunition charge. (more…)
At 6 p. m., on Wednesday, January 21, the fairground where the Palmares civic celebrations are held was brightened.
After being postponed one week because of the earthquake on January 8, the festivities began. This time, the activity will last a total of 12 days. It will have particular additions.
To promote order and security, the Palmares Civic Association, together with the Costa Rican Brewery, are implementing strict control measures.
The consumption of alcohol, which this fair cannot do without, will be regulated by actions such as liquor promotions in the tents by volume. (more…)
About 1 million Nicaraguans have emigrated to neighboring Costa Rica seeking a better life due to the dire poverty and lack of jobs in their own country, according to the International Organization for Migration.
With a population of 5.6 million inhabitants - more than half of them under 18 - with an annual growth of 2.7 percent, Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Americas, “is facing a tremendous challenge to overcome its poverty,” IOM spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy said Friday in Geneva.
That challenge, he said, particularly affects women, since a quarter of Nicaraguan households are headed by women. (more…)
Costa Rica’s economy is expected to grow 2.2 percent this year, slower than in 2008, but inflation is likely to ease, the central bank said on Thursday.
Costa Rica’s economy expanded by 2.9 percent in 2008.
“Beginning in the second quarter of 2008, the Costa Rican economy again met external pressures: international prices of prime materials (basic grains and oil) increased sharply, pressuring domestic inflation,” the agency said in a statement.
The bank said it sees 2009 inflation at 9 percent, compared with last year’s overall consumer price increase of 14 percent.
The Central American nation’s economy is suffering from declining exports, mainly due to the slowdown in the United States, a key trade partner.
Dozens of dogs, cats and other pets are still without their owners two weeks after a magnitude-6.1 earthquake that triggered deadly landslides.
The president of the San Francisco de Asis Animal Protection Association says about 150 pets were rescued from the street and ruined homes after the quake. Gina Malavassi says about half are now reunited with their owners.
Volunteers left notes at homes, talked to neighbors and used the Internet, television and radio to get the word out.
Many of the remaining animals are being held at shelters. Some have refused to leave their abandoned homes, and volunteers are feeding and caring for them.
The number of civil marriages that took place in 2008 in
According to a report unveiled by the Civil Registry, of the 25,302 marriages registered last year, a total of 19,588 (77.41%) were formalized with a lawyer. Meanwhile, only 5318 weddings (21.08%) were officiated by Catholic priests, and the remaining 396 (1.51%) were weddings of nationals celebrated abroad. Moreover, the number of divorces during 2008 in the country was 10,351. That is 600 fewer than in 2007. Catholic marriages have been declining since 1995 and reached their lowest number last year. In 1980, 77 out of every 100 marriages took place before a Catholic priest, while in 1995 it was only 52 out of 100. (more…)
