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Pope responds to an attack by Sandinista troops against the nuncio and bishops in Nicaragua - Edit: the Church is no stranger to hostility from the Communist Sandanista regime. And none of the news stories I see are covering the Communism angle and the apparent end of the romance. Managua (kath.net) On Monday, in Nicaragua, in an attack by pro-government thugs on the Cardinal of Managua, the apostolic nuncio and several bishops, including Managua suffragan bishop Silvio Baez, were injured. Demonstrators against dictator Ortega and his wife's government, who were attacked by Sandinista paramilitary groups, retreated to the Basilica of...

The wave of violence unleashed during harshly repressed anti-government protests has left some 220 people dead. What had been a vibrant tourism industry has been devastated, with ripple effects on the broader economy in a country that was already one of the poorest in the Americas. Business closings have left 200,000 people jobless, and unless the crisis ends soon, some 1.3 million of Nicaragua's 6.2 million people "risk falling into poverty," according to a study by the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (Funides).

Managua (AFP) – One evening as she watched some local kids play outside in her Managua neighborhood, Nicaraguan Mireya Alegria was shocked to see police, motorcycles and a white van carrying hooded men speed past. “They started firing,” she says. It was the moment she decided enough was enough. Now Alegria is one of the thousands of Nicaraguans desperately seeking to process migration documents and flee to neighboring Central American countries, as two months of anti-government dissent has triggered increasingly violent state repression. “Thousands of people come daily to do paperwork,” said Nubia Manzanares, a migration agent, adding that many...

MANAGUA: At least 121 people have been killed in a wave of protests since Apr 18 against President Daniel Ortega's government, Nicaragua's main human rights group said Tuesday (Jun 5), calling it a "human tragedy." The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) said another 1,300 people have been wounded in the protests, which have met with a violent crackdown from the government. "This is now a massacre, a human tragedy where the goal is to exterminate all those young people who think differently than or are critical of the government," the group's executive secretary, Marlin Sierra, told AFP. "It amounts...

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA Nearly seven weeks after a violent crackdown on student protesters ignited a movement to oust the president of Nicaragua, daily life has become difficult and dangerous for a population increasingly in open rebellion against the government. At least 113 people have been killed, more than 1,000 injured and hundreds arrested since the political uprising began in mid-April, according to human rights groups. Dozens of others have disappeared. In what was until recently one of the safest countries in Latin America, families are now afraid to leave their homes after dark. Barricades set up by protesters block highways, public...

Police in Nicaragua have ended the siege of a church where opposition supporters had sought refuge after being attacked by riot police and pro-government militias. Doctors have been allowed to treat the injured inside the church in the city of Masaya. Two people have died. Some 30 people who were inside the church were released after the local Catholic Church intervened. More than 100 people have been killed in Nicaragua in six weeks of violence. … Ortega, the former Sandinista rebel leader, is in his third consecutive term in power. He was re-elected in 2016, after the constitution was changed...

In this April 24, 2018 photo, demonstrators protest in honor of those who have died during anti-government protests in Managua, Nicaragua. Since protests directed at the Sandinista government in Nicaragua began in April, the Jesuit-run University of Central America has been a hub of student activism and, as a result, a target of violence. On Sunday, Father Jose Alberto Idiaquez, S.J., the rector of U.C.A., condemned the latest attack on his university as government-sponsored. In a statement addressed to the Nicaraguan people, Father Idiaquez announced that U.C.A.’s campus in Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua was attacked on May 27 at...

The U.S. Embassy in Managua removed all nonessential personnel and family members from Nicaragua on Monday after days of violent clashes between antigovernment protestors and dictator Daniel Ortega’s enforcers. The trouble may not be over. Mr. Ortega is the Sandinista revolutionary who first came to power in 1979 with Soviet and Cuban backing. During more than a decade of rule, he and his comrades grabbed millions of dollars in private property and homes. This cleanup—known as “the piñata”—by self-described champions of the poor is a great lesson in socialism. Mr. Ortega agreed to an election in 1990, believing he could...

Daniel Ortega, the rabid, "freely elected" dictator of Nicaragua, and a guy who's been at it for so long that even the great Ronald Reagan knew about him and loathed him, has been having some problems in the Cuba-style hellhole he created in the name of "social justice." The socialist thug has been siccing his goons to shoot protesters dead in the streets after a few of the youthful ones got the ball rolling with protests against his long, corrupt rule.  Get a load of how bad it was, according to the BBC: Some students said they had been beaten and...

Craig supervised Alex van der Zwaan, who has pleaded guilty to lying about communications regarding his work for Ukrainian politicians. Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig has left his law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the firm told NBC News. His departure comes after he and his law firm became caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Alex van der Zwaan, who had been a lawyer in Skadden's London office, pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and the FBI about communications involving work the firm had been...

April 21 (UPI) -- At least 10 people have died in Nicaragua since protests over proposed social security pension cuts started Wednesday, officials said Saturday. The violence began Wednesday in the capital of Managua when protesters took to the streets setting fires and throwing rocks as police responded with tear gas, according to the CNN report. The demonstrators were protesting planned changes to the social security, which would result in workers paying more to contribute to the social security system, but receiving cuts in pension when they retire. Thousands of students and workers had joined the protest by Thursday, the...

You've heard of skunks at the garden party? Such as still-ruling Nicaraguan socialist strongman, Daniel Ortega, who got his famous nickname from none other than the great Ronald Reagan? Well, now we have pigs at the garden party of democracy, the Organization of American States' Summit of the Americas, and this time, quite literally. At the globally watched summit, locals released a bunch of pigs through the streets of the Peruvian capital of Lima, around the Plaza San Martin, which is one of its main public spaces, spray-painted with the names of Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Maduro, and Cuba's dictator, Raul...

Venezuela’s Vice President Tareck El Aissami, an official of Syrian-Lebanese origin sanctioned by the United States for his connections to drug trafficking, is a “huge” monetary contributor to Iran’s narco-terrorist proxy Hezbollah. Citing sources on the ground in Lebanon during an event late last week hosted on Capitol Hill by the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), Dr. Vanessa Neumann, a leading expert on drug cartels and terrorist groups in Latin America, told Breitbart News, “Tareck El Aissami is one of Hezbollah’s great bagmen, a sort of huge funder, and the money goes through the networks, and then, as...

Can we prepare for everything? We never could have imagined…or prepped for…what happened in Venezuela. In this article, I wanted to analyze my preps, and the nature of the apocalypse we have been forced to face. I don’t know about you, but anything that kicks you out of your place, of your warm bed, your pets, kids, wife, and the rest of your family, for me does not have another better word to describe it. My comfort bubble was destroyed, my work of an entire life was thrown out by the window, my family insurance full coverage policy is gone...

Cables Portray Expanded Reach of Drug Agency By GINGER THOMPSON and SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables. In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be...

Forty-five years ago today, baseball fans woke up to the news that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ star outfielder Roberto Clemente had been killed in an airplane crash on December 31 on his way to Nicaragua to deliver disaster relief after an earthquake. A few months earlier, on September 30, 1972, Clemente had pulled a curveball from New York Met and Rookie of the Year Jon Matlack into the gap for a double. It was his 3,000th hit, and he had become only the 11th player in nearly a century of Major League Baseball to reach that milestone. It was also the...

Blair re-elected to Socialist International post amid protests SAO PAULO (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) was re-elected vice president of the Socialist International, drawing protests from delegates who said his support of the US-led war in Iraq (news - web sites) made him ineligible. Socialist parties in Argentina, Chile, Panama, Mexico and Nicaragua sought to derail the re-election of Britain's Labour Party leader. "It is necessary to make a distinction between the Labour party and its place in history and the leadership of Tony Blair, which has been so horrible for world peace," said Hernan...

MIAMI — For nearly 20 years the Nicaraguan man worked long hours cleaning homes and buildings in South Florida. He started his own cleaning business 11 years ago and now employs half a dozen workers. He thought he could soon begin to enjoy the fruits of his labor. But now all of that is at risk. Like many Americans approaching retirement age, the 62-year-old planned to retire next year and start collecting his benefits. But the Trump administration announced bad news a week ago: It's ending an immigration protection for him and 2,500 other Nicaraguans. "I worked so many years...

5,300 people who have been living in the U.S. since the 1998 hurricane will have to return home by January of 2019 The Department of Homeland Security indicated Monday that it would end a quasi-amnesty program for 5,300 people in the U.S. from Nicaragua, but extend it for 86,000 from Honduras. The U.S. had originally granted Temporary Protected Status to people from both countries after they were ravaged by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters late Monday that acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke had determined that additional time is needed to consider the...

In a 1,500-word article about the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, The Washington Post waited until the 25th paragraph to note that the self-declared socialist faces an “obstacle” to winning the presidency. The paper said that “…Sanders has not faced the kind of media scrutiny, let alone attacks from opponents, that leading candidates eventually experience.” The authors, Philip Rucker and James Wagner, added, “Sure to follow his summer surge is an autumn of investigations that could reveal new details about his personal background and record.” One of the more interesting members of the DSA is Kurt Stand, a communist spy for...