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BULLETIN TROPICAL DEPRESSION ONE-E ADVISORY NUMBER 1 NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL EP012008 800 PM PDT WED MAY 28 2008 ...TROPICAL DEPRESSION FORMS NEAR COSTA RICA...EXPECTED TO BRING HEAVY RAINS TO PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA... AT 8 PM PDT...0300 UTC...THE GOVERNMENT OF COSTA RICA HAS ISSUED A TROPICAL STORM WARNING FOR THE PACIFIC COAST OF COSTA RICA. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE ALSO EXPECTED TO SPREAD ACROSS THE PACIFIC COAST OF NICARAGUA DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. FOR STORM...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The government billboards and graffiti in this sultry city tell a visitor a lot about the ideological battle racking Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega Saavedra beams from the billboards, promising “Citizens Power” as a solution to Nicaragua’s endemic poverty. “The world’s poor arise!” the signs say. But beneath the billboards, on walls and benches all over town, others have scrawled “No to CPC. No to dictatorship.” The graffiti alludes to Citizens Power Councils — or C.P.C.’s. In December, Mr. Ortega established the neighborhood committees, which are controlled by his left-wing Sandinista party and administer antipoverty programs, despite a...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced Thursday that he is breaking off relations with Colombia because of his country's opposition to the Colombian raid on a guerrilla base in Ecuador. Ortega announced his decision publicly after meeting with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, who is on a multination tour in the region to rally opposition to Colombia's action, which killed the No. 2 commander of the Colombian FARC guerrilla group and 23 other Colombian guerrillas. "We are breaking off relations because of the political terrorism being carried out by the governnent of Alvaro Uribe, not because of the Colombian...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) -- The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl and ended the season with a perfect 19-0 record -- at least it looks that way in Nicaragua. The NFL donated 290 Patriots hats and an equal number of team jerseys trumpeting the slogans "Super Bowl Champions, 19-0" to impoverished children from two small communities in southern Nicaragua. Thursday's gifts could not change history -- the Patriots lost the Feb. 3 game to the New York Giants 17-14 -- but they made a lot of youngsters in the communities of San Gregorio and Buena Vista very happy, said...

Election 2008: It always helps to know how America's enemies size up presidential candidates. South of our border, for example, Barack Obama draws praise from Nicaragua's dictator as John McCain enrages Cuba's.Daniel Ortega, the Marxist whom President Reagan once called "the little dictator," is feeling the love these days. Perpetually at odds with Reagan, who funded the Contra resistance in a war against his bid to turn Nicaragua into a Soviet beachhead, Ortega is pleased with what he sees in Barack Obama. He has called Obama a spokesman for Nicaragua's illegal immigrants in the U.S. and has said Obama's campaign...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States. "It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university. Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States. "It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university. Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

MIAMI - At the end of Nicaragua's civil war, Juan Gregorio Rodriguez traded his life as a Contra rebel for that of auto mechanic in Florida. He kept in touch with other rebels and supported their political efforts, but mostly from afar. That changed in 2006, when the Contras' nemesis, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, was elected president, 16 years after his Soviet-backed government lost power in a vote that ended the guerrilla conflict in which some 30,000 people died.

MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — If the ruling mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran were chafing enough about U.S. Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to send speedboats after them last month, they must take some comfort in having projected an equivalent threat in America's own backyard, in this unlikeliest of locales.

Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega is reverting to radicalism, writes JAIME DAREMBLUM. But the opposition is fighting back. When Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega returned to power as president of Nicaragua last year, there were encouraging signs that this time would be different. Ortega’s first term as president in the 1980s was marred by failed socialist economic policies, his support of Communist revolutions in the region, and a military conflict with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels. Even so, at the time of Ortega’s election in late 2006, Latin American democrats hoped this onetime revolutionary had abandoned his radical past in favor of a...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega may appear too insignificant to create U.S. security risks from his tiny, impoverished nation. But the leftist's growing alliance with Tehran tells another story. Ortega is the same Marxist Sandinista leader that Ronald Reagan in 1989 dubbed "the unwanted animal at the garden party... Ortega had shot his way to power, forged an alliance with Cuba and ignited a long civil war. He was surprised when Nicaraguan voters unceremoniously threw him out in 1990. Since then, Ortega has changed his tune...He now calls himself a social democrat, and he lowered his anti-American rhetoric to win a...

Iran making push into Nicaragua Web Posted: 12/18/2007 10:25 PM CST Todd Bensman Express-News MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — The second military helicopter in as many days hovered over the jungle and then landed to a most unwelcome reception from several dozen angry Rama Indian and Creole villagers. Rupert Allen Clear Duncan, a leader of some 400 Creole who live along the shoreline, confronted the foreigners dressed in suits and military uniforms that day in March and demanded to know the purpose of their aerial trespasses. "This is our land; we have always lived here, and you don't have our permission...

To duck radar, gangs ditch tattoos, go for college look CHIMALTENANGO, Guatemala — Tattoos, baggy pants and tank tops are out. Smart blazers and university recruits are in. It’s an extreme makeover for Central America’s gangs. Facing harsh crackdowns by government security forces and citizen vigilante groups, they are trying to lower their profile. The Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs are known throughout Central America and the United States for their brazen tactics, including beheading their enemies and covering entire buildings and even their bodies with gang symbols. Now, according to anti-gang operatives, these traditionally uneducated and aimless youth...

MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — The second military helicopter in as many days hovered over the jungle and then landed to a most unwelcome reception from several dozen angry Rama Indian and Creole villagers. Rupert Allen Clear Duncan, a leader of some 400 Creole who live along the shoreline, confronted the foreigners dressed in suits and military uniforms that day in March and demanded to know the purpose of their aerial trespasses. "This is our land; we have always lived here, and you don't have our permission to be here," Duncan spat, when refused the courtesy of an explanation. Not until...

Translator - AltaVista/Babelfish: SANGTIAGO DE CHILE. - The United States had to pay 50,000 million dollars to Nicaragua by their support in the decade of 1980 to the "cons", maintained Central American president Daniel Ortega during XVII the Latin American Summit. "the United States must pay to Nicaragua a compensation of 50,000 million dollars by the sanction that applied in 1986 the Court the International to him of Is It", it affirmed Ortega Saturday in an extensive speech in which it reviewed to American interventions in the world. Ortega indicated that There is condemned It to the United States by...

Villagers cash in on endless cocaine on beach By staff writers October 10, 2007 10:49am VILLAGERS living on Nicaragua's remote Mosquito Coast are living like the rich thanks to tonnes of free cocaine washing up on their shores. The bags of cocaine, worth millions of dollars, are coming from Colombian speedboats on "narco-routes" which drop the booty overboard if intercepted by US and Nicaraguan patrols, guardian.co.uk reported. Currents carry the bags towards shore. People living in villages such as Karpwala and Tasbapauni who find it are then offered up to $4000 a kilo for the cocaine - seven times less...

Pope Congratulates Nicaraguan Government for Maintaining Prohibition of Abortion By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman ITALY, September 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a meeting with Nicaragua's new ambassador to the Holy See at Castlegandolfo yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI congratulated the Nicaraguan government for maintaining the country's absolute prohibition of abortions in the face of heavy international pressure. The pontiff expressed his "recognition to Nicaragua for its position in international forums on social topics, especially the respect for life in the face of not insignificant internal and international pressures." The pope was referring to Nicaragua's decision to impose criminal sanctions on all abortions...

Amnesty International Organizes Worldwide Gay Protest Against Nicaragua By Peter J. Smith MANAGUA, Nicaragua, September 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After enshrining abortion as a human right in its humanitarian mission, Amnesty International has now stepped up its campaign to target nations that criminalize sodomy as grave violators of human rights, beginning with Nicaragua. Last week Amnesty International through its affiliates orchestrated international protests outside Nicaraguan embassies and consulates in Germany, Canada, Chile, Iceland, Mexico, Paraguay, Sweden and Taiwan, demanding the repeal of Nicaragua's sodomy ban. "Article 204 contradicts numerous provisions in international human rights law," said an Amnesty press release....

Nicaragua Overwhelmingly Renews Total Abortion Ban in 66-3 Vote By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman MANAGUA, September 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com)--The Nicaraguan congress voted today overwhelmingly  to renew the penal code's punishment of all abortions, striking down an amendment that would have created an exemption for "therapeutic abortion." Although there was concern that the governing Sandinista party might renege on its 2006 campaign promise to support the anti-abortion penal code, the party kept its promise and voted to maintain the law.  The three votes against were from the far-left Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (MRS), a group that split from the original Sandinista party in...

Bishops Denounce Influence of International Abortion Lobby in Nicaragua Warn that they will take to the streets to Prevent Legalization of Abortion By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman NICARAGUA, September 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) -The Catholic bishop's conference of Nicaragua denounced attempts by foreign organizations to promote "therapeutic abortion" in the country on Sunday, and warned that they would take to the streets to protest if it was necessary to prevent the practice from being legalized, something that they have done in the past. "We know that there are international entities who are interested in legalizing therapeutic abortion in Nicaragua," said Abelardo Mata,...