Nicaragua’s proposed $50 billion interoceanic canal – the biggest earthmoving project in world history – will cut poverty in half, double the country’s GDP growth and energize Central American integration by servicing a boom in global shipping that will quickly outgrow even the newly enlarged Panama Canal. So claims Paul Oquist, a key adviser to President Daniel Ortega.
A man who shot up an anti-government protest in Nicaragua last week says a government critic put him up to it. Others say the Sandinista party was behind it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Nicaragua’s political opposition, despite its noisy protests against President Daniel Ortega and his ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party, has virtually no chance of winning next year’s elections. That’s because Ortega enjoys a 74 percent popularity rating, according to the latest Gallup poll, and because Nicaragua’s feeble opposition isn’t connecting with average voters or raising issues people really care about – like poverty and rising crime.
Demonstrators from Nicaraguan opposition parties and civic groups marched Wednesday, amid a massive police deployment, to the local election court to demand clean elections in 2016. President Daniel Ortega is expected to run for a third consecutive term after the legislature changed Nicaragua's constitution last year, scrapping term limits.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Thousands of demonstrators gathered Saturday in the central Nicaraguan city of Juigalpa to protest the construction of a $50 billion canal that will run through their land.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Opponents of Nicaragua’s dubious plans to build a $50 billion interoceanic canal are trying to rally U.S. help in fighting the controversial project. But it’s not clear if official Washington is listening.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ticos like to complain about bribery, tax evasion, kickbacks and other dirty deeds, but business executives and foreign investors still perceive Costa Rica as the least tainted country in Central America.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – The number of Nicaraguans living in extreme poverty – defined as less than $1 a day – increased from 7.6 percent to 9.5 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to a survey by the Managua-based Fundación Internacional para el DesafÃo Económico Global. This means that living conditions worsened last year for some 355,000 Nicaraguans following a slight improvement the previous year.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaraguan writer and Catholic priest Ernesto Cardenal this weekend blasted plans for the construction of a massive interoceanic canal, calling it a "monstrosity" that would split the country in two and irreversibly damage Lake Cocibolca, the biggest freshwater lake in Central America.
