Nicaraguan bishop who refused exile gets 26 years in prison
Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando รlvarez, an outspoken critic of Nicaraguaโs government, has been sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship, the latest move by President Daniel Ortega against the Catholic church and his opponents.
Biden targets Nicaragua's gold in new move against Ortega
The Biden administration is ratcheting up pressure on President Daniel Ortegaโs authoritarian rule in Nicaragua, banning Americans from doing business in the nationโs gold industry, threatening trade restrictions and stripping the U.S. visas of some 500 government insiders.
Nicaragua government laying waste to civil society
Nicaraguaโs Sandinista-controlled congress has cancelled nearly 200 nongovernmental organizations this week, ranging from a local equestrian group to the 94-year-old Nicaraguan Academy of Letters, in what critics say is President Daniel Ortegaโs attempt to eliminate the countryโs civil society.
Nicaragua tightens grip on universities to stifle dissent
Four years after university students led protests against Nicaragua President Daniel Ortegaโs government, his administration is minimizing the chance of a reoccurrence by seizing a dozen private universities and closing them or shifting control to the state.
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Nicaragua creates Ministry of Extraterrestrial Space Affairs
FILE - In this Sept. 5, 2018 file photo, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, lead a rally in Managua, Nicaragua. The Central American country has created a National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File)MANAGUA โ Nicaragua has created a new National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, which is drawing amused reactions on social media in a nation that has been struggling since anti-government protests three years ago. The agency was approved by 76 legislators Wednesday in the countryโs congress, which is dominated by President Daniel Ortegaโs Sandinista Party. Critics said the country does not have the money to spare for dreams of space exploration.
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Nicaragua essentially bans opposition from 2021 elections
FILE - In this May 26, 2018 file photo, the Spanish word for "Murderer" covers a mural of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, as part of anti-government protests demanding his resignation in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File)MANAGUA โ Nicaraguaโs ruling party-dominated Congress passed a law Monday that would essentially ban opposition candidates from running in the 2021 presidential elections. The elections are scheduled for Nov. 7, 2021, and despite term limits โ which Ortega has already exceeded โ the 75-year-old leader is expected to run again. Nicaraguaโs two main opposition groups had announced earlier this year that they will form a coalition to compete in the 2021 race. The U.S. government says it is pressing Ortega to hold free and fair elections and respect basic rights.
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Iota's devastation comes into focus in storm-weary Nicaragua
Men wade through a street flooded after the passing of Hurricane Iota in La Lima, Honduras, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020. Rescuers searched at the site of a landslide in northern Nicaragua, where the local government confirmed four deaths and neighbors spoke of at least 16. Iota arrived Monday evening with winds of 155 mph (250 kph), hitting nearly the same location as Hurricane Eta two weeks earlier. The hurricane season officially ends Nov. 30. ___Associated Press writers Christopher Sherman in Mexico City, Marlon Gonzรกlez in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Manuel Rueda in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
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Hurricane Iota roars onto Nicaragua as 2nd blow in 2 weeks
A fallen tree lies on the road after the passage of Hurricane Iota in Siuna, Nicaragua, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. Hurricane Iota tore across Nicaragua on Tuesday, hours after roaring ashore as a Category 4 storm along almost exactly the same stretch of the Caribbean coast that was recently devastated by an equally powerful hurricane. By Tuesday night, Iota had diminished to a tropical storm and was moving inland over northern Nicaragua and southern Honduras. Even before Iota hit Nicaragua, it scraped over the tiny Colombian island of Providencia, more than 155 miles (250 kilometers) off Nicaragua's coast. Iota developed later in the season than any other Category 5 storm on record, beating a Nov. 8, 1932, Cuba hurricane, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.
Iota becomes Cat 5 hurricane as it nears Central America
MANAGUA โ Powerful Hurricane Iota made landfall on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast late Monday, threatening catastrophic damage to the same part of Central America already battered by equally strong Hurricane Eta less than two weeks ago. Iota already had been hitting the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras with torrential rains and strong winds. Iota came ashore just 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall Nov. 3, also as a Category 4 storm. It also sets the record for the latest Category 5 hurricane on record, beating the record set by the Nov. 8, 1932, Cuba Hurricane. Eta had hit Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane, killing more than 130 people as torrential rains caused flash floods and mudslides in parts of Central America and Mexico.
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A weakened Eta moves on to Honduras with drenching rains
(AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)TEGUCIGALPA โ Eta is moving over Honduras as a weakened tropical depression but still bringing the heavy rains that have caused deadly landslides while drenching the country's east and the north of neighboring Nicaragua. Heavy rain was forecast to continue across Honduras through at least Thursday as Eta moved northward toward the capital of Tegucigalpa and the northern city of San Pedro Sula. Before the center of Eta even reached Honduras, hundreds of people had been forced from their homes by floodwaters. Eta left a path of destruction across northern Nicaragua, starting with the coastal city of Bilwi. In the country's northern province of Jinotega, communities were already flooded.
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Eta brings heavy rains, deadly mudslides to Honduras
(AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)MANAGUA โ Eta moved into Honduras on Wednesday as a weakened tropical depression but still bringing the heavy rains that have drenched and caused deadly landslides in the country's east and in northern Nicaragua. Before the center of Eta had even reached Honduras, hundreds of people had been forced from their homes by floodwaters. Eta left a path of destruction across northern Nicaragua starting with the coastal city of Bilwi. Northern Nicaragua is home to most of the countryโs production of coffee, a critical export. In the Pacific, Tropical Storm Odalys continued to move across the open ocean and posed no threat to land.
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Hurricane Eta grinds inland into Nicaragua; at least 3 dead
A man fixes the roof of a home surrounded by floodwaters brought on by Hurricane Eta in Wawa, Nicaragua, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Carlos Herrera)MANAGUA โ Hurricane Eta churned inland through northeast Nicaragua Tuesday night with devastating winds and rains that destroyed rooftops, caused rivers to overflow and left at least three people dead in the region. The hurricane had sustained winds of 105 mph (165 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, down from an overnight peak of 150 mph (240 kph). Even before it made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Honduras reported the first death after a mudslide trapped a 12-year-old girl in San Pedro Sula and two miners were killed in a mudslide in Bonanza, Nicaragua. Hurricane season still has a month to go, ending Nov. 30.
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During pandemic, Nicaraguan doctors face political pressure
MANAGUA Inside Nicaragua's public hospitals, the walls are plastered with political propaganda, ruling-party activists ensure no information leaks out, and doctors were once forbidden from wearing masks. The government did not respond to a request for comment on the doctors' dismissals and the allegations of repression. Doctors have confirmed the relatives' suspicions, saying hospital administrators order virus deaths be categorized otherwise to keep official numbers low. The result has been dozens of sickened medical workers and more than 70 deaths, according to a count kept by the Medical Associations of Nicaragua. He had been voluntarily treating COVID-19 patients who were turned away from hospitals in Len and Chinandega, in western Nicaragua.
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Edรฉn Pastora, Nicaraguan revolutionary, dead at 83
Pastora, one of the most mercurial, charismatic figures of Central Americas revolutionary upheavals, has died. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)MANAGUA โ One of the most mercurial, charismatic figures of Central America's revolutionary upheavals, Edรฉn Pastora, died early Tuesday. Pastora dropped out of a Mexican medical school in 1962 and joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front that battled the Somozas. Ortega returned the gesture by appointing him to oversee Nicaragua's part of the San Juan River region bordering Costa Rica. After the protests, as rumors swirled about Ortegaโs health, Pastora told the press that he had recommended that the Sandinista National Liberation Front choose a successor.
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'Express burials' cast doubt on Nicaragua's virus figures
The nongovernmental organization Citizen Observatory made up of health workers and activists, said it had identified 1,033 suspected COVID-19 infections in the country through Saturday. Plainclothes police and government supporters have detained journalists outside a hospital in Managua and in a cemetery in Chinandega in the past week. A Chinandega doctor, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, said she knew four people who had died, including one of her patients, who was buried within two hours of dying. They didnโt take isolation measures, they havenโt protected health workers, there arenโt sufficient beds in any Managua hospital, nor any regional hospital." โThe doctor told me (the virus) was dangerous,โ while also insisting the elder Ordoรฑez didnโt have it, he said.