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By ox cart to Popoyuapa
Dozens of highly decorated ox carts are slowly making their way south from Masaya and two other cities in the central part of Nicaragua’s Pacific coastal regions. They are heading for a small place called Popoyuapa, in Rivas, Nicaragua’s southern-most department, bordering the frontier with Costa Rica. Their route south is along the pan-American highway,…
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The NICA Act – What is it and why should it be opposed?
US Ambassador to Nicaragua, Laura Dagu reportedly has said that the Senate could vote on the NICA Act “any day now”. The US Nicaragua Network is asking members to contact their Senators to tell them they oppose its passage and that the case for it is based on false premises. This article was prepared for…
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US Senate launches attack on Nicaragua poverty programmes
In an extraordinary move on the day before the US Senate’s Christmas recess, two Democrats sided with right-wing Republicans to introduce the so-called NICA Act, which if passed would require the US government to veto loans from international financial institutions to Nicaragua. While it is still a long way from becoming law, the bill suddenly…
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‘Low integrity’ election in Honduras
Twenty-four people have been killed by police in demonstrations since the presidential election in Honduras three weeks ago. The centre-left Alliance, headed by Salvador Nasralla, appeared to be the clear winner after 57 per cent of votes had been counted, but a suspiciously dramatic late swing towards the incumbent, Juan Orlando Hernández, gave him a…
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Fidel and Gabo
A review of Fidel & Gabo: A portrait of a legendary friendship, by Angel Esteban and Stephanie Panichelli Two of the best-known Latin American figures of the twentieth century, Fidel Castro and Gabriel Garcia Márquez (Gabo) were close friends. This book claims to be the story of their relationship, but does it do it justice?…
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Hard times in Honduras
A week after apparently losing an election in which he was constitutionally barred from standing, the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, now seems to have carried out a coup (‘autogolpe’ in Spanish) to keep himself in power. Hernández (known as JOH, pronounced ‘Ho’) went into the election last Sunday (26 November) promising to continue…
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Can a coast-to-coast canal solve Nicaragua’s poverty problem?
Nicaragua is a small country that was praised for eventually signing the Paris climate agreement in October, but has since been criticised for pushing ahead with a planned interoceanic canal, with its uncertain environmental effects. So how does it reconcile these apparently conflicting positions? Nicaragua and Syria were the only two countries not to sign…
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New report sheds light on the murder of Berta Cáceres
Since the murder of Berta Cáceres in March 2016, several more community activists have been killed in Honduras. And little progress has been made in solving Cáceres’s murder. Eight people have been arrested, but court hearings have been postponed several times because of the prosecutors’ failure to produce evidence, ignoring the judge’s deadlines. Data collected from phones and…
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The US is out, Nicaragua’s in
While Donald Trump gives the appearance of wavering over his decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Nicaragua has decided to sign it. It was one of only two countries not to sign in Paris last year; the other was Syria. Nicaragua abstained out of principle: the agreement didn’t go far…