Topic: Nicaragua | VivirLatino

Felix Killed At Least 40

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:56:09 -0500

Hurricane Felix has taken as least 40 lives in Central America and many more people are still unaccounted for. Especially hard hit is the Nicaraguan indigenous community, the Miskitos, many who had to be rescued.

Story and Image Via / Yahoo! News

Felix Does Central America

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:59:54 -0500

Mother nature has not been gentle with Latin America lately. The latest of her wraths to fall on Latin American soil is Hurricane Felix. Already the storm, which moved from a catagory 5 hurricane to a tropical depression, has claimed at least four lives. Hardest hit was Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, a city of about 40,000. Many houses in the area were left roofless, without power, and without drinking water.

Via / Yahoo! News

Nicaragua : Remembering a Revolution

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:20:53 -0500

It was a Latino lefty party yesterday in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua as the Central American nation celebrated the 28th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution. President Daniel Ortega, presided over the celebrations along with the presidents of Panama, Honduras, and what leftist Latino celebration would be complete without Venezuela's Hugo Chavez?

Canada Threatening to Deport Nicaraguan Because They Don't Believe He's Gay

Wed, 16 May 2007 08:39:30 -0500

There is a really interesting story up on the Advocate site that takes the issue of immigration from a different perspective. It's the story of a young gay man named Alvaro Orozco who ran away from Nicaragua at the tender age of 12 to escape the abuse he dealt with at home from his homophobic father.

Without his own remarkable energy, Orozco might not be in Canada—or anywhere. Raised by an alcoholic father who beat him daily for being gay, Orozco ran away from his home and family in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, in 1998, just before he turned 13. He hitchhiked up the Pan-American Highway through four countries and swam the Rio Grande river into Texas. Once in the United States, Orozco was held in detention centers in Texas and then bounced from Dallas to Miami to Buffalo until he reached Toronto in January 2005. There he filed for asylum on the grounds that he would be persecuted for being gay if he had to return to Nicaragua.

Daniel Ortega is President Again

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 08:55:58 -0500

If anyone has doubts about the direction Latin America is headed, then one needs to check out the latest elections results coming out of Nicaragua. 16 years ago, Sandinista Daniel Ortega was forced out of office thanks to the United States, as of this morning Ortega is ahead in early poll counts of the presidential elections held yesterday in the Central American nation.

With 15 percent of polling stations counted, Ortega had 40 percent of Sunday's vote, compared with 33 percent for his closest challenger, the wealthy banker Eduardo Montealegre.
Three others rivals were well behind: Sandinista dissident Edmundo Jarquin, ruling-party candidate Jose Rizo and former Contra rebel Eden Pastora.
To win outright and avoid a runoff, the leftist Sandinista leader needs just 35 percent of the vote and a five-point advantage over his closest opponent.

"Therapeutic Abortion" now illegal in Nicaragua

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:31:41 -0500

A follow-up to Mala's post from a couple of weeks ago.

In a giant leap backwards, the Nicaraguan parliament has yielded to the pressures of religious groups and the Nicaraguan president himself and moved to make therapeutic abortion (abortion to save a mother's life) illegal and punishable by law in the coutry.

The parliament has left the current sentence for those who practice the abortions in place -- six years in prison -- in spite of the fact that President Enrique Bolaños was pushing for a much harsher sentence of 20 to 30 years.

Meanwhile, according to Spain's 20 Minutos, the United Nations and the European Union are "worried". You see, it's no coincidence that this is being debated now...election day is just over a week away.

The measure was approved with the help from the left in an attempt to bolster favor for their candidate Daniel Ortega.

According to 20 Minutos, in a joint statement the United Nations and the European Union said:

"given that this is a highly sensitive issue that affects the life, health, and judicial safety of Nicaraguan women," this issue should not be discussed so close to the November 5th elections.

Reuters reports that hundreds of women protested the passing of the measure outside of the National Assembly Wednesday night, many calling the decision a "death sentence" for pregnant women and a "violation of human rights".

Via / 20 Minutos and Reuters

Nicaragua Looking to Ban Abortion

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 11:13:07 -0500

According to the Feminist Daily Newswire there is currently legislation under consideration in Nicaragua to ban all abortions, even to save the life of the woman/girl.

Current law permits “therapeutic abortions” for situations in which a woman or girl’s life is endangered by a pregnancy, but remains vague, Spero News reports. Despite the restrictive law, a 1996 study found that about 36,000 abortions are performed every year, and that unsafe, illegal abortions were a leading cause of death for women in the 1980s, according to CBS.

The predominately conservative country engaged in an explosive debate about abortion rights in March 2003 when a 9-year-old rape victim became pregnant and underwent an abortion. Despite medical opinions that the pregnancy was a risk to her health, government officials, Catholic church representatives, and anti-abortion activists opposed the abortion.

Via / Feminist Daily News
Image Via / Fecca