PITAL DE SAN CARLOS, Alajuela – A yucca packing company in the northern Costa Rican community of La Tabla de Pital de San Carlos and a pineapple processor in Chilamate de Sarapiquí were fronts for the Italian mafia to traffic cocaine to the United States and Europe, Costa Rican authorities announced Wednesday following several morning raids.
Pope Francis on Wednesday offered a surprise public apology from the Catholic Church for a series of scandals which have shaken the city of Rome and the Vatican, from gay sex to drug use.
Paul Watson is fed up with Costa Rica’s attempts to prosecute him. For 13 years, this tiny Central American country that promotes itself as a model of environmental responsibility has tried to put the bushy-haired marine conservationist in jail over an incident that occurred in 2002 in Guatemalan waters.
A 14-year-old boy was arrested in Tijuana, Mexico for killing a man after he was allegedly contacted on Facebook and offered $1,900 to commit the crime, authorities said.
A highlight of the shnit International Shortfilmfestival was the "Made in Costa Rica" competition on Oct. 9, which generated a huge line outside the Cine Magaly in eastern San José as people eagerly waited to watch Costa Rican entries.
Environmental groups are outraged by new agreements between the Costa Rican government and the fishing industry which they say will roll back protections for endangered and threatened shark species. The government says the new measures will guarantee that local fishermen can make a living.
Gilbert Bell, better known today as "Macho Coca," allegedly used a network of docks, fishermen and bribed public officials to build himself a drug trafficking empire, but until last week no one could prove it.
The latest sinkhole to appear this year was a 6-meter wide, 11-meter deep sinkhole that opened up over the weekend on the street near the Transportes Costarricenses Panameños bus station in Plaza Víquez. City workers started repairing the gaping hole that opened between Avenue 20 and 5th Street on Tuesday.
The number of tourists visiting Bhutan — an isolated mountain kingdom in the Himalayas — jumped by 49.9 percent from 1999 to 2013, while tourism to much more accessible Costa Rica rose by only 6 percent over the same period. What gives?
