A health worker measures a woman’s temperature at the entrance of Managua Cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua. Photograph: Inti Ocón/AFP/Getty Images
A letter published in the Guardian, arguing that the UK should take the lead from Nicaragua, where early strict measures have kept the coronavirus death rate one of the lowest in the world.
In October Two Worlds reported on news stories appearing in the US, calling for a boycott of meat imports from Nicaragua. Attempts were made to persuade Reveal News and PBS Newshour to correct their stories or provide a right of reply. They refused, hence the following article published by the website FAIR, which aims to correct false news coverage. On December 9, Reveal News published a new article, in which journalist Nate Halverson claims that the Nicaraguan government is now enforcing its controls on cattle movements: see the Afterword at the end of the article below for more details.
Reports by Reveal (10/21/20) and PBS NewsHour (10/20/21) called for a boycott of “conflict beef” from Nicaragua. The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal claims to be “fair and comprehensive” and PBS to be “trusted,” but their misleading and inaccurate reports could have drastic consequences for Nicaragua, at a time when the country is already struggling to deal with US sanctions, the pandemic and the aftermath of two damaging hurricanes. Their argument is that cattle farmers who produce the beef that is exported have in many cases illegally settled territory in the rainforest that belongs to Indigenous communities, and that the government does little to resolve the violent conflict that results.
Continue reading “Progressive Media Promoted a False Story of ‘Conflict Beef’ From Nicaragua”
The government wants to phase out installations of gas boilers (picture: Getty)
The prime minister’s ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution is aimed at achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2050. In the housing sector alone the challenge is enormous: just to reach the government’s interim target for housing by 2035 means retrofitting 1.2 million UK homes every year to high standards. Will the government’s plan be up to the task?
Continue reading “Is this housing’s path to net-zero carbon emissions?”
“Almost every American overthrow of a foreign government has left in its wake a bitter residue of pain and anger.”
A review of Overthrow by Stephen Kinser, published in 2006.
Central America’s ‘Mosquito Coast’, the home of the Miskito people, stretches between Honduras and Nicaragua. The border is at a point that juts out into the Caribbean: Columbus called it Cabo Gracias a Dios for the shelter it provided on his last voyage. As the storm that became Hurricane Eta formed above the seas of Venezuela on 30 October, it headed west towards the cape 2000 kilometres away, following the track of Hurricane Edith in 1971, Mitch in 1998 (which killed seven thousand people in Honduras and three thousand in Nicaragua), Felix in 2007, Ida in 2009 and many other lesser cyclones.
Export beef cattle are properly tagged and identified and cannot come from reserves. Photo: El19Digital.com
Earlier this year Nicaragua’s opposition and its supporters in the international media were promoting stories about the Sandinista government’s “failure” to address the Covid-19 pandemic. This backfired when Nicaragua became the first country in Central America to get the virus under control. Next they claimed that Sandinista supporters were attacking Catholic churches, but then it emerged that an opposition politician had paid for one of the robberies that took place. The latest effort to malign Daniel Ortega’s government tries to link Nicaragua’s beef exports to the United States with land conflicts in its remote Caribbean forests.
Nicaraguan cattle ranchers, spurred by a surge in beef exports to the United States, are alleged to be attacking indigenous communities in eastern Nicaragua, destroying “pristine jungle,” forcing people to flee and killing those who resist, according to Reveal News. In a related report on PBS Newshour, beef imported from Nicaragua during the pandemic is said to “come at a high human cost,” while the Center for Investigative Reporting calls the imports “conflict beef.” These claims are based on allegations by the Oakland Institute in California, whose director Anuradha Mittal says that “the supply chain of beef from Nicaragua is anything but clean.”
Continue reading “Branding Nicaraguan meat as ‘conflict beef’ is the latest US political attack”
What are the real prospects for a surge of investment in affordable housing? The prime minister has just told us that he will not fix the “broken housing market” by “endlessly expanding the state.” At the same time, as the chart from the latest UK Housing Review Briefing Paper shows, the new Affordable Homes Programme starting next April will be the biggest in cash terms in England for a decade, signalling a growth in investment and the prospect of providers being able to plan ahead for at least five years.
Continue reading “What are the real prospects for a surge of investment in affordable housing?”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched another attack on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government last month, accusing President Daniel Ortega of being a “dictator” who is “doubling down on repression and refusing to honor the democratic aspirations of the Nicaraguan people.” The State Department openly supports what it calls “a return to democracy in Nicaragua”, saying that “the people of Nicaragua rose up peacefully to call for change.”
Continue reading “Nicaragua, attacked for following the same US policies against foreign meddling”
Rhys Evans, who died on August 29 aged 80 of motor neurone disease, was a genuine polymath. Formally a schoolteacher, he was also an adult education tutor, youth worker, linguist, musician, internationalist, hillwalker, cyclist and gifted writer of poems and stories (which he only shared with very few). He was fluent in German and Spanish, managed French and Portuguese, and was at home in either English or Welsh. In 1985 he and I established a city link group between Leicester and Masaya, Nicaragua, which still exists, and in 1999 he set up Strides!, a mental health peer support group.
No country can yet claim to have defeated Covid-19, but clearly some are having more success than others. Nicaragua is one of these, and could yet be recognized as a world leader. With under 5,000 Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, according to official figures, its infection level is far below that of Panama (105,000), Guatemala (85,000), Honduras (71,000), Costa Rica (63,000) or El Salvador (27,000). Of course, it is certain that Nicaragua’s figure, like those of the other countries, undercounts the real incidence of the virus. But even the so-called ‘independent’ Citizens Observatory, which is closely linked to Nicaraguan opposition political groups, only reports around 10,000 cases – still well below the incidence in adjoining countries. And the observatory’s figures – as its website makes clear – are not based on testing but on unverifiable sources, including ‘rumours’ (which it defines as ‘spontaneous public opinions’).
Continue reading “Covid-19: On the Decline in Nicaragua as its Critics Fall Silent”
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on