Ortega Says Nicaragua’s New State Bank Won’t Forgive Debts

You think that this might be a good way to help stimulate the jobs and resources in the country if he did forgive the debt insteead of burden them with high interest..

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said the country’s new state development bank won’t forgive debts to poor farmers as the Sandinista government did in the 1980s.

“We can’t repeat debt forgiveness,” Ortega said today while swearing in the board of directors of Banco Produzcamos, according to a statement on the presidential Web site. “We can’t have debtors not paying again.”

Ortega congratulated indebted farmers, whose protests against high interest rates have often turned violent, for pressuring congress to create the bank. Its deposits will come from international aid funds.

Ortega said his Sandinista party has pushed for the bank, which will have $57 million to provide low-interest loans to poor farmers, since the last state bank was closed in the 1990s by the government of President Violeta Chamorro.

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Nicaragua denies Micheletti airspace for travel

Nicaragua has refused to grant the Honduran coup leader, Roberto Micheletti, permission to fly over its territories into Costa Rica.

65-year-old Micheletti, Honduras’ former congressional leader who swept into power in a military-sponsored overthrow of the government, is due to meet Manuel Zelaya, the banished leader of the Central American state on Thursday, for talks on the power struggle between the two rivals.

According to AFP news agency, Nicaragua declared on Wednesday it would not allow the Honduran Air Force to carry the interim president to Costa Rica via its airspace.

However, the move does not appear to have undermined Micheletti’s trip to the San Jose summit as media cited his alacrity to engage in the discussions meant ‘to restore peace and maintain democracy in Honduras’.

The two-day Costa Rica-brokered peace talks will take place without a tête-à-tête meeting between Micheletti and the exiled Zelaya.

Honduran coup leaders accuse the deposed president of far-left policies that ‘threatened’ the interests of the country – - a charge Zelaya denies.

Zelaya’s ouster came about two weeks ago after he proposed new constitutional amendments that would allow for his second re-run in the presidential election.

The international community has condemned the coup in the capital Tegucigalpa which has also prompted the Organization of American States (OAS) to suspend the country’s membership.

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Guadalupe Church

It was founded 1624-26 by Benito de Baltodano. The church is situated in the eastern part of Granada on Calle la Calzada near Nicaragua lake.

The church was very important during the colonial time because of its strategic position, situated at the entrance of the town from the lake. For this reason it was sacked and destroyed by pirates and later rebuilt.

In November 1856 the troops of William Walker were shut in the church for 18 days by the troops of the Nicaragua Government. During this time the troops gravely damaged the church in Walker’s last Bastion.

In 1890 the walls still kept the marks of the battle. It was rebuilt in 1945.

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Isolated Nicaragua senses opportunity in Honduras crisis

For Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, whose government has been on the defensive since last year’s alleged electoral fraud, the military coup in Honduras has presented a golden opportunity to go on the offensive.

“We are launching a battle for democracy,” announced Mr. Ortega at a June 29 meeting of Latin American leaders, flanked by leftist presidents Raul Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
In the hours following last Sunday’s ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Ortega quickly jockeyed himself into a leadership role in the region’s condemnation of the coup.

Taking advantage of the fact that Nicaragua was already scheduled to host a June 29 summit of Central American presidents, Ortega also invited the leftist members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and other Latin American leaders to attend.

Within less than 24 hours, presidents and representatives from 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries had descended upon Managua, converting the city into what the Sandinista government glowingly called “the capital of democracy.”

Ortega, seated in the center chair at the banquet table, conducted the meeting as the master of ceremony.
The Sandinista administration, which has been accused of trampling on democracy and isolating Nicaragua from the concert of nations, referred to the meeting as “one of the greatest democratic moments” for their government. Ortega’s leadership role was hailed as a “cause of pride for Nicaragua.”

“It was a clear manifestation of the international leadership of Nicaragua under President Daniel Ortega,” said Vice Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke. “This is a moment of national pride.”

For others, listening to Ortega, Chávez, and Castro defend democracy, free elections, and freedom of the press smacked more of irony.

“Leaders of governments who are snubbing basic freedoms and human rights [in their own countries] come here and declare themselves the leaders of free expression, when we know by their actions they are doing the exact opposite,” says Carlos Lauria, Americas program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Mr. Lauria was in Managua this week to present a report titled “Daniel Ortega’s war on the media.”
The opposition sees it differently

Nicaraguan opposition leaders took equal offense to this week’s political theatrics.
“Obviously, some of the governments of ALBA, notoriously Chávez and Ortega, have a double standard,” says opposition leader Edmundo Jarquín, of the leftist Sandinista Renovation Movement. “While they stifle democracy in Venezuela and Nicaragua, they say they are defending it in Honduras.”
Despite the apparent irony of the event, some see a silver lining.

Victor Hugo Tinoco, a former member of the Sandinistas’ inner circle and ex-vice minister of foreign affairs during the first Sandinista government in the 1980s, says he thinks the emergency summit here could be viewed as a step toward strengthening democracy in the hemisphere.

“One can look at the situation pessimistically and cynically, but I think it was positive because it was saying that democracy is an obligation in the hemisphere and the hemisphere is obliged to act when one country breaks from democracy,” Mr. Tinoco says.

Tinoco, now an opposition lawmaker with the Sandinista Renovation Movement, said Ortega’s impassioned defense of democracy in Honduras is noteworthy, because it shows he thinks the principles of democracy supersede a government’s claim to sovereignty.

Since Nicaragua’s election scandal last year, Ortega’s government has dismissed all foreign criticism as an offense to Nicaraguan sovereignty. And despite his own record of silencing unfriendly media, Ortega was sharply critical of this week’s harsh media censorship by the de facto government of Honduras. (For more on the election scandal and Ortega’s handling of the media, click here.)

But now that Ortega is raising his voice against the situation in Honduras, it could open a space for dialogue in Nicaragua about last year’s elections, Tinoco says hopefully.

“Our position is that we are against military coups and we are also against electoral fraud,” Tinoco says. “They are both deplorable, because both represent a violation of democracy and citizens’ rights.”
The lawmaker predicts that “sooner or later the contradictions between Ortega’s words and actions has to end, because it’s not sustainable.”

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Explore Nicaragua’s Ecological and Biodiversity

Nicaragua is home to a rich and diverse set of geometrics, biodiversity and a stunning array of plants and animals. Nicaragua is one of the largest of the Latin American countries and is filled with 7 different types of forested lands. Each forested region of the country contains its own bio and ecological diversity.  You can explore the subtropical dry forest, tropical rain forest, mangrove forest, wetlands, grass savanna and tree savanna. Each side of the country differs from another so if you plan on living or visiting there make sure you plan a trip across the entire country so you can see and experience it all. 67guiybwxm

 If you travel down the pacific side of the country you will experience mostly dry forest and savanna lands. Then you can make your way north along the coast and travel up into the mountain regions and breathe in the fresh scent of the pine forests. There you can then see or travel along one of central Americas longest river the Rio Coco It runs alongside the mountains that feed it in the north towards Honduras. As you travel further south you will come to the southern part of the country with the second longest river in Central America the Rio San Juan this are hold magnificent wet rain forest as far as the eye can see.

The country to the central and middle area is supreme volcano watching with many lakes, lagoons, and natural ponds. Within this landscape of formed mountains and volcanoes are a number of dormant mountains where on top you can see the crater lakes the two largest are called Lake Nicaragua and Lake Managua. From atop these mountains you can see out into the pacific were a number of doted islands are located. Ometepe Island was originally built by two volcanoes that now lay dormant but there are still a few in the area that are still active.

The climate throughout the country remains fairly constant and hot. Not so much uncomfortable hot unless your along the coast or westward dry lands. But the weather does take some getting used to if you are not use to having dry or humid conditions change rapidly from one day to the next.

With these types of environments and weather patterns it is perfect for some. Nicaragua boasts some of the most creative and dazzling display of wildlife in Central America. There are 1500 species of animals and 12000. Even more so there are routine trips to Nicaragua because there are still discovers made of new species of plants and animals and still undiscovered worlds yet to be seen.

Some of the larger species you will encounter while hiking or driving or camping in Nicaragua are panthers, jaguars’, pumas, deer’s, eagles, and of course toucans. Of course we cannot forget the different types of monkey and amphibians you will also encounter. So be weary of the animals and remember to take precautions when in the jungles. But most of all remember to leave it as you found it and not add to its still unsettled destruction by local land owners.

Nicaragua’s government has done a tremendous job in trying to protect a lot of it ecological and biodiversity in the country. They have the third largest rain forest preserve on the planet with numerous other protected areas. But, because of overpopulation poverty, and economic necessity these areas are still in danger of vanishing off the planet. The major exports from Honduras continue to burn the rain forest for their coffee and sugar Cain along with many other products. So just remember on your trip through Nicaragua’s to keep its nature the same as you left it. That way others behind you can enjoy this wonderfully diverse rainforest and mountains as well.

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