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Costa Rica has presented Panama with a two-part proposal aimed at ending a seven-year agricultural trade dispute that has blocked meat, dairy products, fruit and other Costa Rican goods from entering the neighboring country. Foreign Trade Minister Indiana Trejos sent the proposal Wednesday to Panama’s minister of commerce and industries, Julio Moltó. The plan combines practical steps to address Panama’s export concerns with international arbitration to resolve the legal case stalled at the World Trade Organization. The first part would establish a memorandum of understanding covering products Panama wants to export to Costa Rica. Under the proposed agreement, Costa Rica would process Panama’s export applications with the assistance of an international organization. The outside participation is intended to make the process more transparent and give Panama greater confidence that its requests will receive fair treatment. The second part would send Panama’s appeal in the agricult...

Costa Rica ended July with two sharply different weather realities: unusually dry conditions across much of the Pacific and Central Valley, and exceptionally heavy rainfall along the Caribbean coast. Rainfall in parts of the Pacific and Central Valley fell as much as 58% below normal during July, according to figures from the National Meteorological Institute. Meanwhile, parts of the Caribbean and eastern Northern Zone received up to 70% more rain than expected. The imbalance is a characteristic effect of El Niño, which often reduces rainfall on Costa Rica’s Pacific side while increasing precipitation in the Caribbean. The most striking dry reading came from Pavas in San José, where only 4.8 millimeters, or 0.19 inches, of rain were recorded during the entire month. El Carmen, also in San José, received 56.4 millimeters, or 2.2 inches. For comparison, a single typical heavy downpour can produce about 25 millimeters, or nearly one inch, of rain. At the other extreme, Cariari d...

The Banco Central de Costa Rica set its reference exchange rate on Wednesday at ₡449.80 for the purchase of United States dollars and ₡455.01 for their sale, holding the colon at a level of strength that has persisted through much of the year and that continues to shape the purchasing power of every household whose income arrives in a foreign currency. The reference rate is not the rate most people encounter at a bank counter. The Central Bank calculates it from transactions carried out on Monex, the wholesale foreign exchange market where financial institutions trade currency among themselves, and publishes it each business day as the country’s official benchmark. Commercial banks set their own window rates independently, and those figures routinely sit several colones on either side of the reference. A traveler exchanging cash at an airport counter or a resident converting a pension deposit will almost always receive less favorable terms than the published benchmark s...

Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from the 2026 Cincinnati Open as he continues to recover from the wrist injury that has kept him away from competition since April. The ATP Tour confirmed the decision Tuesday, ending hopes that the defending champion would make his long-awaited return at the Masters 1000 tournament in Ohio. Alcaraz had entered Cincinnati as part of a planned comeback ahead of the US Open. Tournament organizers initially included him among a field led by Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton. However, the 23-year-old Spaniard has not recovered sufficiently to compete in the Cincinnati main draw, which begins August 13. “We know Carlos is doing everything he can to get back to playing tournaments as soon as possible,” tournament director Bob Moran said in a statement. The withdrawal extends an absence that began at the Barcelona Open in April. Alcaraz has since missed several of the biggest tournaments on the calendar, inclu...

A powerful eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano has forced authorities to evacuate at least 1,700 residents from areas near the crater and declare the highest alert level Tuesday in zones exposed to falling ash. Fuego, considered the most active volcano in Central America and located near the capital, entered an eruptive phase Monday morning. Its activity intensified overnight into Tuesday, with streams of lava flowing down its slopes and enormous columns of gas and ash rising into the sky. “The volcano is going through one of its most critical explosive phases,” producing mudflows, incandescent rocks, gases and ash, said Edwin Rojas, director of the Institute of Volcanology, known as Insivumeh. Guatemala’s National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction, Conred, began evacuating communities near the volcano Monday evening and declared an orange danger alert nationwide. On Tuesday, the agency raised the alert to red in the departments of Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango and Escuintla,...

One longtime foreign resident of Costa Rica could buy a house or a condominium outright tomorrow. He has the cash, he has been here for decades, and he still rents the same apartment he has rented for years and he has no plans to change that. His reasoning is worth hearing before you sign anything, because the instinct most newcomers arrive with — buy early, buy fast, get it settled — is the expensive instinct if you turn out to be wrong about where you want to live. He gives three reasons. The first is that Costa Rica is not one place. The dry heat of Guanacaste, the green wall of the South Pacific around Uvita and Ojochal, the Caribbean side, the Central Valley — these are different countries as far as your daily life is concerned, and the region that suits you in year one may not suit you in year five. He spends the low season at the beach, when the crowds are gone and prices drop, and returns to the Central Valley for the high season, when the weather is better and the air...