About Subscribe Contact Prosperity and Security in Central America By John Kotula and Chuck Kaufman “Countries like Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama… have the lowest homicide rates in Central America, light-years from their neighbors in the so-called Northern Triangle.” New York Times, July 16, 2017 On June 15 and 16, 2017,…
About Subscribe Contact I’ve noticed a few Nicaphiles on social media have published on their timelines an article from The Times entitled China puts Nicaraguan Canal plan on hold. While the status of the Grand Canal is by no means clear, I would caution against putting too much faith in this short article that appears to…
About Subscribe Contact Economic sector leaders recently spoke out unanimously that Trump’s proposed budget cuts in foreign aid will not affect Nicaragua. The threat of the NICA Act, though, does continue to look malignantly over the horizon, so let’s explore this week where economic relations stand between Washington and Managua. In the US system, presidents…
This week I want to draw your attention to a report on the delegation I led in February to Honduras and Nicaragua. The delegation compared and contrasted the two counties in the areas of rural development, citizen security, and women’s empowerment. In Nicaragua we were hosted by the ATC farmworkers union. You can read or download the 27-page…
The Irish human rights organization, Front Line Defenders, has named Nicaraguan indigenous anti-canal activist Francisca Ramirez Torres as one of its five finalists for the 2017 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. She joins four other finalists from Ukraine, Vietnam, South Africa and Kuwait as a finalist for the award from…
AFGJ’s Report on our February Delegation to Honduras and Nicaragua is now available. Please note, the report is posted in 2 parts; for the full report please view/download both. Delegation Report Part 1: Honduras Delegation Report Part 2: Nicaragua
I want to revisit the issue of the NICA Act this week because I may have been too complacent in dismissing it since it is so irrational. As we in the United States are going through a period of greater than normal irrationality, it behooves us to prepare not just for rational events, but for irrational ones as well. Likely…
This week’s guest blog is by a correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous due to their job in Nicaragua. On March 27, 2017, the headline in La Prensa, one of the major newspapers in Nicaragua, read, “The United States urges Nicaragua to address ‘institutional corruption’ A report on drug trafficking released this month by the US State Department…
Act Now! On April 5, 2017 right-wing members of Congress led by Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, reintroduced an even worse version of the NICA Act (Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act) than the one they introduced last September during both countries’ presidential election season. If the NICA Act were to pass both chambers of the US Congress…
What is significant about the minimum wage? I returned last week from a delegation to Honduras and Nicaragua. Unfortunately, I spent the whole Nicaragua segment of the delegation sick. As a result I missed many of the meetings and activities planned for us by the Association of Rural Workers (ATC) and the Union of Agricultural…
