Two Worlds – Page 26 – A blog about Latin America, from a writer in Nicaragua

Energy and the environment

Earth overshoot day: 20 August
John Perry August 20, 2013August 21, 2013

Today we overshoot ourselves. We’ve used up in less than eight months the resources that the earth provides in a year. In 2012 it took us until 22 August. Only ten years ago we were able to make do for an extra month. We already treat the earth as if it were 50 per cent…

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Honduras | Energy and the environment

Enjoy your Nutella
John Perry August 13, 2013July 18, 2025

Earlier this year the WWF announced that Nutella, the chocolate spread, would soon be produced only from sustainable palm oil. This sounds like good news. Millions of hectares of rainforest have been cleared to make way for palm plantations. In Borneo and Sumatra, this could soon mean the extinction of the orangutan. The smog that…

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Nicaragua | Central America wildlife

Animal rescue
John Perry August 6, 2013July 18, 2025

On a visit to the hilly area to the east of the Maribios chain of volcanoes, north of the capital and north of Lake Managua, we were able to make a tour of the Lost Canyon nature reserve. The owner, Richard Leonardi, had just taken delivery of an example of a rare breed of reptile,…

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Nicaragua | Book reviews

Death of a dictator
John Perry August 5, 2013July 18, 2025

A review of Death of Somoza by Claribel Alegria and Darwin Flakoll, Curbstone Press, 1996. When the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua finally succeeded on 19 July 1979, and tens of thousands celebrated in the square in front of Managua’s ruined cathedral, there were nagging…

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Nicaragua

Tornado hits Masaya, damages 18 homes
John Perry July 2, 2013July 18, 2025

Tornadoes may not hit Nicaragua with the same ferocity as in Oklahoma, but they can still have a devastating—if usually short-lived—effect.

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Latin America

What’s in it for Ecuador?
John Perry June 28, 2013

If Ecuador grants asylum to Edward Snowden, no doubt we’ll hear Rafael Correa being described once more as a ‘tinpot president’, ready to welcome dissidents to Ecuador’s ‘jungly bosom’. If instead Snowden ends up in Venezuela or Cuba, his would-be jailers will move even further onto their moral high ground.

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Latin America | Energy and the environment

Extracting the truth about mining
John Perry June 25, 2013

Plans by the G8 to make international mining operations more transparent are to be welcomed. But the agreement is limited in scope and the extractive industries still have a long way to go to clean up their act.

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Latin America

‘Don’t let them take it’
John Perry June 13, 2013June 14, 2013

On 28 May six men, some of them armed, arrived at a farm in the Bolívar province of Colombia, called Finca Alemania, asking for Julia Torres. A few days before, men dressed in black had been seen crossing the farm. In rural Colombia, such warning signs are taken very seriously. Julia’s husband, Rogelio Martinez, was…

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Nicaragua | Central America wildlife

El Pocoyo
John Perry June 12, 2013July 18, 2025

The “pocoyo,” or Common Pauraque, is a kind of nightjar familiar to anyone who has driven along Nicaragua’s dirt roads in the dark and seen the reflection of reddish-orange eyes in their car’s headlights as the bird squats on the roadside waiting to catch insect prey.

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Obituaries

Joss Perry
John Perry May 15, 2013May 16, 2013

My son, Joss Perry, who has died suddenly aged 35, was a socialist and Labour party member, and his last job was an administrative one in the NHS. However, his real talent, evident from the number of people who attended his memorial event, was to make friends.

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