Costa Rica’s Most Wanted Fugitive Has Escaped From the OIJ

Jose Efrain Lopez Mendoza, aka “Dante” or M1, is wanted for drug smuggling by the FBI, DEA, and Costa Rica’s OIJ. He is the head of a highly sophisticated gang of drug smugglers known as Movimiento Revolucionario de Crimen Organizado (Moreco), who pattern their gang style after the violent and lethal Mexican gang known as the Zetas. They operate throughout Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and even in the United States. They traffic mostly in cocaine, but smuggle other drugs as well. Authorities have been tracking M1 and his gang since 2016, and finally thought they had him cornered in a...

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The Mueller Report: CNN vs FOX News

Simultaneously watching U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s press conference Thursday on CNN and FOX News viewers saw CNN’s news anchors and commentators saying just the opposite of what FOX News’ anchors and commentators were saying about the public release of FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia/Trump collusion report. On CNN it was all about Mueller’s report saying President Donald Trump is a criminal while Fox News claimed it was “game over” due to “no collusion, no obstruction” of justice involving Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey. For the Trump hating Democrats Mueller’s report was a God send which...

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Costa Rica Ranks #10 Worldwide for Freedom of the Press

Among Costa Rica’s fun accomplishments such as Inventors of the Zipline Tour, Discoverers of a lizard who breathes underwater, Creators of the catchy salutation “Pura Vida”, Owners of the title of “Happiest Country on the Planet” – comes a truly serious and remarkable achievement. Costa Rica ranks tenth in Press Freedom, as ranked by the prestigious Reporters Without Borders, a French nonprofit organization which evaluates countries by how they treat journalists. Costa Rica placed ahead of France, Germany, England, Canada – and WAY ahead of USA who came in at 48th place. Uruguay placed 18th, and Costa Rica and Uruguay...

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American Fugitive Captured in Costa Rica After 11 Years on the run

Costa Rican authorities, with the help of Interpol, turned Henry de la Hoz over to U.S. Marshals last week to be returned to Miami to serve out a 12-year prison sentence. De la Hoz had been sentenced in absentia for killing retirees Victor and Olga Lisabet on Easter of 2003, as they headed to celebrate Easter mass with fellow worshipers. De la Hoz had spent the night before the tragedy in a sports bar, drinking for many hours before crashing into the Lisabets on south Miami-Dade’s South Dixie Highway. The drunken De la Hoz was taken into custody at the...

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How movies and TV shows can help you travel further, better and weirder

Some travel the world in search of our natural wonders. Others, for food and culture. And then you have the movie buffs, who travel for the spots made famous by Hollywood heroes. Jo Stewart is one of those (and damn proud of it).

“Which hotel are you staying at while you’re in Los Angeles?”

For a split-second, I consider telling a white lie and namedropping one of LA’s cool hotels. You know the ones—hip places dripping with street cred like The Roosevelt or Chateau Marmont. Instead, I give the more complicated (and truthful) answer: I’m staying at a hotel in Burbank called the Safari Inn.

A throwback to the golden age of motor travel, the low-rise Safari Inn has been a Burbank landmark since 1955. Its kitsch neon sign stands out in a sea of nondescript office buildings and generic strip malls. Ever since irreverent crime flick True Romance was filmed here in the early ‘90s, I’ve always wanted to bed down at the Safari Inn. A trip 20-plus years in the making, it’s a miracle the small hotel was still in business.

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An Event to Celebrate 4/20 is Taking Place in Costa Rica

April 20 is by tradition “weed day” and for the consumers of marijuana it is almost an obligation to celebrate this day, smoking of course! But this year, an event was being announced in social media that called the attention of many, even though, it also took place last year. LaCopaCR (Costa Rica Cannabis Cup) is the name of the activity that was being advertised through different social media channels, banners and video posts gave details on the prices of tickets, which ranged from $25.00 for general access to $100.00 for a VIP experience which included merchandise and coupons. “Hi...

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Costa Rican Bryan Vasquez Loses by Unanimous Decision to Puerto Rican Felix Verdejo

Costa Rican boxer Bryan “Tiquito” Vásquez loss via Unanimous decisión against Puerto Rican Felix Verdejo the evening of Saturday, April 20 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Vasquez vs. Verdejo match was part of the preliminary bouts to the event headlined by WBO world champion Terence Crawford and challenger Amir Kahn. 25-years-old Verdejo, took the win with scorecards 97-93 X 2 and 98-92, even though the Puerto Rican did not shine and took more punishment than needed, he dominated the majority of the rounds against a Bryan Vasquez that threw very little punches in the first half of...

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The Central American Triangle: Trumps Biggest Problem

By John McPhaul President Donald Trump has declared that the United States has an emergency on its southern border. In response to the emergency, one of the president’s tactics has been to cut off humanitarian and development assistance to the so-called northern triangle — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — alleging that the counties have done nothing to with the assistance to stem the tide of migrants braving the treacherous journey to the southern U.S. border. I did a little research (https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PAN) and found that the total U.S. aid to these countries for 2017 (the last year where complete data...

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Sanctuary Cities in the United States: NIMBY

Newspaper, TV and radio reporters in cities large and small have used the term NIMBY for as long as anyone in the business can remember. It stands for Not In My Back Yard. It often comes up when local, state or federal governments attempt to locate a new garbage landfill, water/sewer treatment plant, airport runway extensions, new highways and other public works projects. We are all for that much needed county or regional landfill but not in my back yard. People scream out at public meetings, “You’re not building that damn landfill next to my property, lower my property values...

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Costa Rica Will Inaugurate Another National Park

Costa Rica will be adding its National Park number 29, announced the Minister of Environment and Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez. The new protected area is located in Miravalles, Guanacaste, and it will be named after Jorge Manuel Dengo Obregón (1918-1922), founder of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), Vice-President of Costa Rica (1986-1990) and minister (1982-1986), expert in Natural Disasters and environmentalist. “Dengo was a great environmentalist, interested in the preservation of natural resources even before the country had the legislation of protected areas. He worked from ICE in the protection of the Grande de Orosi River which is now...

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Costa Rican Authorities Seize Almost Three Tons of Cocaine so Far This Week

In separate police actions, Costa Rican authorities confiscated this week almost three tons of cocaine. Police operations carried out in the South Pacific of Costa Rica concluded with a total 456 kilograms of cocaine seized and four men arrested. Public Police Force located a vessel carrying the load of drugs in the area of Dominical in the South Pacific and immediately proceeded to coordinate with Coast Guard Services, and Air Surveillance. The Drug Control Police verified that the packages found contained cocaine and confirmed the total weight. Three of the men arrested were of Colombian nationality, Rendón Valencia, 26 years...

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Sign of the times: Can Bangladesh’s rickshaw artists survive modernization?

They bring color to the streets of Dhaka, but as populations rise and cities modernize, Bangladesh’s rickshaws, and the traditional art that adorns them, are at risk.

On one of Old Town Dhaka’s narrow lanes, two men toil away in a cycle rickshaw workshop. One at a treadle sewing machine stitching plastic appliqué panels, the other painting metal wheel rims. Beside them is a new rickshaw, decorated with hot-pink illustrations of three film stars, a festooned hood, metal stud detailing and handlebar streamers.

Outside, Yousuf, a rickshaw artist, unfurls a fabric scroll revealing an illustration like the one on the new rickshaw. “This is one of the most popular rickshaw paintings in Dhaka,” he says. The piece isn’t destined for a rickshaw though; it was a tourist commission.

Creating art for visitors has become a new income stream—because these days there isn’t enough rickshaw painting work to sustain Yousuf and his family. “There are still a few other artists working here in Old Dhaka. Probably around 12 of us.”

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Costa Rican Authorities Make Sanitary Improvements in Manuel Antonio

The joint efforts of public institutions, the community and private companies lead to the lifting of the sanitary restriction the Manuel Antonio National Park held, and with this the visitation to this park, the most visited in Costa Rica, was reactivated, for a maximum allowed of 2,700 people a day. “The Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) managed to make improvements to the wastewater systems in Playa 3, which was key to recover the number of visitors” commented Pamela Castillo, vice-minister of Environment. Wit the assistance of the Costa Rican Tourism Board and the National System of Areas of Conservation...

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Could Hydrogen Power the Future of Costa Rica

By John McPhaul All the elements of a development of hydrogen energy in Costa Rica to power public transportation, trucks and even part of the electric energy grid have been invented and are proven technologies, now all that is missing is putting the elements together to sizably reduce Costa Rica’s carbon footprint, said Juan del Valle Gamboa, Director of Operations for Ad Astra, the Costa Rican firm coordinating a Public-Private effort to make Costa Rica carbon-neutral. Ad Astra, the company formed by Costa Rica’s former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang, has taken on partners in the Government Development Bank System and...

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The Welsh mining town transforming itself into an adventure hotspot

Once a mining mecca, then the poorest area in the country, this close-knit Welsh community is now using everything it has—from the mine shafts to the mountains—to breathe life into their town once more. “There,” says Rich, training his torch on a miner’s caban, the typical shelter workers would have gathered in during their 30-minute break on a 12-hour shift. “Highlight of our working day, that was.” We’re in the Llechwydd Slate Caverns’ appropriately-named Deep Mine, in the Welsh town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The rudimentary shelter doesn’t look like much: Slates heaped around a table within the greater gloom of the chambers making up Level A. Miners once looked forward to their half-hour in this dark den, cherishing the chance for a hot drink, gossip, news on sick or injured fellow workers, perhaps for a dig at the management that had them all working down here on a pittance of a salary. If their day’s highlight was anything to go by, the rest of it was pretty abysmal. “I started here when I was 16,” Rich, who now leads tours of the mines, says. “My father was 12; my grandfather eight. Imagine that today.” But Blaenau is no boom-times-to-bleak-times sob story. Against the odds, the town is in the midst of a transformation into one of Wales’ biggest adventure travel destinations.

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Costa Rican Tourism Board Takes Measures to Prevent Drownings

A mobile app to monitor waves and tides, an agreement to hire lifeguards, and a digital advertising campaign are part of the first stage of the strategy announced by the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) to prevent drownings on beaches. The app “MIOCIMAR” (available in Play Store for Android or App Store for iOS) in English and Spanish contains seven-day forecasts of surf currents, wave forecasts and sea conditions. These forecasts are divided into categories with colors (green, yellow and red) that indicate the levels of caution that swimmers should exercise. The forecasts are updated every six hours. ICT partnered...

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Do you Like U.S. Attorney General William Barr

It’s about time to have a strong U.S. Attorney General in William Barr who also served as U.S. Attorney General under former President George W. Bush. This new Republican attorney general has the Democrats scrambling to find ways to obstruct and delay this man who dropped a major bomb on the U.S. Congress, mainstream media and the public. Barr appeared before two congressional oversight committees for the first time last Tuesday and Wednesday to answer questions about the yet-to-be released 400-page report from FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Barr also went over his annual budget request for the U.S. Department...

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