‘Section 106’ is the power in the planning acts that allows councils to specify how much affordable housing should be included in new, private developments, and what kinds of houses they should be. Otherwise known as developer contributions or planning gain, a system that was put in place by a Conservative government in 1990 is – 30 years later – about to be dismantled in England by a very different Conservative government. Why does this matter?
by Kevin Zeese and John Perry
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government is – like every other government – engaged in a struggle to limit the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on its people. But Nicaragua suffers two additional handicaps. One is that it is subject to US and European sanctions, which severely limit the aid it gets from abroad or from multilateral bodies. The other is its internal opposition, which aims to use the pandemic in its latest attempt to destabilize the government and turn opinion against it. To do so it employs a wide range of propaganda methods, at home and abroad. These were very evident in a recent article in the progressive platform Toward Freedom by Rafael Camacho, whose very title shows it is going to repeat the opposition’s messages: Coronavirus met with denial and silence in Nicaragua.
Continue reading “Coronavirus is being tackled by Nicaragua’s community-based health system”
An extraordinary leaked document gives a glimpse of the breadth and complexity of the US government’s plan to interfere in Nicaragua’s internal affairs up to and after its presidential election in 2021.
Continue reading “The US contracts out its regime change operation in Nicaragua”
The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was an inspiration to many on the left in the 1980s. Forty-one years later, it still urgently needs and deserves our support. The case for doing so is a very strong one.
After the US-inspired “Contra war” led to electoral defeat for the Sandinistas in 1990, the country endured 16 years of neoliberal government. On regaining power in 2007, Daniel Ortega’s government restarted the social investment and anti-poverty programmes which the revolution promised. Then two years ago, it faced a new threat: protests orchestrated by US-funded organisations quickly turned into a violent attempt at regime change. Nicaragua’s government survived once more, only to confront the Covid-19 pandemic with an economy still not fully recovered and access to vital medical and other aid severely limited by US sanctions. It will survive again, but only because the majority of Nicaraguans still back it. Opinion polls forecast that the Sandinista Front (FSLN) will earn by far the biggest share of the vote in next year’s elections.
Continue reading “Why the Labour movement should support Nicaragua’s Sandinista government”
A new book, The Revolution Won’t Be Stopped: Nicaragua Advances Despite US Unconventional Warfare, is published this month to celebrate the 41st anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. An extract below deals with how the media have treated Nicaragua in 2019 and the first part of 2020.
Look at the media in 2019 and the first part of 2020 and – depending where you look – Nicaragua seems to have become two completely different countries. In one, the economy is slowly recovering from the events of 2018, peace has returned, people are relieved that the violence and roadblocks are behind them, and support for the government has steadily grown since its 2018 low point. In the other, a country with a devastated economy suffers from a repressive and unpopular dictatorship: people either knuckle under or flee to Costa Rica. I hasten to add that I live in the first of these versions of Nicaragua, but I’m constantly astonished at the picture painted by those – often outside the country – who think that the real Nicaragua is the second one.
Continue reading “Nicaragua and the media in 2019: A polarised picture”
Armed opposition activists at Managua’s Baseball Stadium, May 30 2018
A briefing prepared for the Alliance for Global Justice and The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group by Stephen Sefton, John Perry and Jorge Capélan
Continue reading “Nicaragua and the OAS Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts”
In his summer statement Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced over £3 billion of funding to create green jobs, most of it focussing on the private sector where a Green Homes Grant will pay £2 for every £1 spent by owners or landlords on energy efficiency, up to a limit of £5,000. For those on low incomes, the scheme will pay up to £10,000. The scheme aims to upgrade over 600,000 homes across England, “saving households hundreds of pounds per year on their energy bills.”
Continue reading “The Budget was a kick-start, but we need to accelerate on home energy upgrades”
Few people have a detailed grasp of how housing finance works in the UK, across the private market and social housing. My friend David Garnett, who has died aged 77, was not only one of these but had the skill to make a complex subject accessible to students.
Pro-government marchers at Mother’s Day March, May 30, 2018. Photo: El 19 Digital
A report issued at the end of May repeats allegations of government repression in Nicaragua during violent protests in 2018. It was commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a body of the Organization of American States (OAS), and revives arguments that the Sandinista government is violating human rights. It purports to provide new evidence, but in reality the facts are more complicated than the report suggests. They warrant careful examination to ensure that the international community is getting the full, unadulterated story.
Continue reading “Revisiting 2018 Mother’s March in Nicaragua: New report repeats old bias”
“They build dams and kill people.” These words, spoken by a witness when the murderers of environmental defender Berta Cáceres were brought to trial in Honduras, describe Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA), the company whose dam project Berta opposed. DESA was created in May 2009 solely to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric scheme, using the waters of the Gualcarque River, regarded as sacred by the Lenca communities who live on its banks. As Nina Lakhani makes clear in her book Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, DESA was one of many companies to benefit from the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, when the left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya was deposed and replaced by a sequence of corrupt administrations. The president of DESA and its head of security were both US-trained former Honduran military officers, schooled in counterinsurgency. By 2010, despite having no track record of building dams, DESA had already obtained the permits it needed to produce and sell electricity, and by 2011, with no local consultation, it had received its environmental licence.
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on