Americas-MOAS

Share The International Press Institute (IPI) is deeply alarmed to hear that the editors of the Antiguan investigative news site Caribarena have left Antigua and Barbuda reportedly due to fear for their family's safety.

they and their children had been threatened and harassed and their home vandalised following the publication of articles alleging corruption among high-ranking Antiguan politicians and public figures.

Moreover, a series of alleged cyberattacks that began on July 19th have shut down Caribarena's website indefinitely.

After a half century of war, and after four years of grinding negotiations, the Colombian government and leaders of the country's insurgency reached an accord in August to end a conflict in which more than 220,000 people were killed and six million displaced

Polls had the yes vote comfortably ahead by a 2-to-1 ratio.

culture of Antigua and Barbuda (local creole pronunciation, Antiga and Barbueda) is a classic example of a creole culture. It emerged from the mixing of Amerindian (Carib and Arawak), West African, and European (primarily British) cultural traditions.

Before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493, Antigua and Barbuda had the Carib names of Wadadli and Wa'omoni, respectively.

. The population census of 1991 estimated the population of Antigua and Barbuda to be 64,252. Approximately 93 percent of this total are Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans, 0.2 percent are Portuguese, 0.6 percent are Middle Eastern, 1.7 percent are whites from Europe and North America, and 3.4 percent are mixed.

As both the largest country in Central America and the least populated, Nicaragua has the opportunity to enforce environmental protection laws and conserve a relatively large amount of natural resources

In response to a variety of environmental issues, interns, volunteers, and donors work with FSD partner organizations to:

As both the largest country in Central America and the least populated, Nicaragua has the opportunity to enforce environmental protection laws and conserve a relatively large amount of natural resources. However, a variety of forces are driving deforestation and rapidly increasing pollution.

Known as the "Land of Lakes and Volcanoes," and reveling in its status in Central America as the country with the most fresh water, Nicaragua has very little safe drinking water. Those who cannot afford to purchase water are extremely vulnerable to a variety of health issues.

Export agriculture in Central America has long been a booming business for U.S. corporations. Yet pesticides employed at fruit and cotton plantations and other export crops throughout the last 40 years contributed to health problems for entire generations.

“A hectare of forestland has twenty times more value than one of forage,” Incer Barquero insisted.

They’re deaf, dumb and blind,” emphasizes this respected scientist, one of those most familiar with issues involving the Nicaraguan environment.

A hectare of forestland has twenty times more value than one of forage,

Imagine a canal designed for vessels the size of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers: 276km long, 230 to 520 metres wide and 26.9 to 30.2 metres deep. This canal will be three times longer and two times deeper than the Panama Canal, which started operating back in 1914. It will include two ports, an airport, two artificial lakes, two locks, several roads, a free trade zone and tourist resorts.

As the sun sinks just below the horizon, Jorge Sandoval strolls across a dusty street. He's a small man in his 50s, who runs volunteer patrols. The neighborhood is poor. The houses are cobbled together out of leftover wood and pieces of metal. Two years ago, Sandoval says, these streets used to be desolate and controlled by gangs. Parallels Nicaragua Follows Its Own Path In Dealing With Drug Traffickers "They would shoot at each other at all hours," Sandoval says. "Suddenly you'd find someone injured, someone innocent, because they just didn't care."

The Dimitrov neighborhood in the capital of Nicaragua used to be one of the most dangerous in the country.

It was so dangerous that its 10 or so square blocks accounted for 20 percent of all the crime of Managua, a city of 1.2 million people.

A Nicaraguan government crackdown on free speech, opposition parties and foreign diplomats has been condemned as an attack on civil liberties to bolster one-party rule.

“any attempt to create conditions for the implementation of a single-party regime in which ideological diversity and political parties disappeared is harmful to the country”.

social programmes such as improved access to schools have helped maintain his popularity, but human rights groups have condemned the gradual concentration of power, and weakening of institutions.

Nicaragua has low overall reported crime

In 2014, the most frequent violent crime reported by U.S. citizens was robbery (accounting for 75 percent of all violent crime reports).

For a large number of incidents, victims reported that the perpetrator possessed a weapon, but acts of gratuitous violence either with or without a weapon were only reported 33 percent of the time.

Both countries expressed their desire to resolve the dispute swiftly and pacifically and invited the Secretary General to lead a Mission to the disputed area and report back to the Permanent Council on November 9, 2010 with its findings.

Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega,

On November 12, a Special Meeting of the Permanent Council was convened to discuss the adoption of a Resolution based on the four recommendations made by the Secretary General to the Permanent Council. Following an extended debate, CP/RES. 978 (1777/10) was put to vote, and passed with 21 votes for the Resolution, 1 against and 3 abstentions.

Antigua and Barbuda,

A former government minister in St Kitts and Nevis says the huge sums of money in politics is undermining democracy in Antigua and Barbuda and other small island states.

7,225,300 hectares (17. 85 million acres) of forest in 1980. By 1990, the measure had shrunk to 6,314,300 hectares (15.6 million acres)

By 1995 there were only 5,566,900 hectares (13.75 million acres) left, and in 2000 the measure diminished to 2,395,523.64 hectares (5.9 million acres) of forestland

over 50% of the forestland has been lost in full view and tolerance of the governmental institutions and this presupposes a problem for the national water reserves

Climate change is already impacting coffee crops around the world, according to the report

Extreme temperatures and unusual high-altitude rains have also sparked costly waves of pests and disease through coffee farms. In 2012, coffee leaf rust affected half of the coffee across Central America – some producers in Guatemala lost up to 85% of their crop.

In 2012-13 the damage in Central America amounted to about US$500m and put 350,000 people out of work.

o what do you do if you are the president of the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and you’re facing the worst drought since 1976? Why, you buy Russian fighter jets at $30 million a pop, and work out a secretive deal to trade private land and the patrimony of your citizens to a Chinese canal-building company, of course.

When I worked for the Bush administration, I met the newly-elected Ortega in Granada, Nicaragua, at an event he surely had mixed feelings about. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had helped the government of Nicaragua design and implement a land reform program that put property titles into the hands of Nicaraguan citizens. Nicaraguans loved it,

Ortega is now serving his second term.

5,966,798 (July 2016 est.)

mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white) 69%, white 17%, black 9%, Amerindian 5%

Despite being one of the poorest countries in Latin America, Nicaragua has improved its access to potable water and sanitation and has ameliorated its life expectancy, infant and child mortality, and immunization rates. However, income distribution is very uneven, and the poor, agriculturalists, and indigenous people continue to have less access to healthcare services. Nicaragua's total fertility rate has fallen from around 6 children per woman in 1980 to just above replacement level today, but the high birth rate among adolescents perpetuates a cycle of poverty and low educational attainment. Nicaraguans emigrate primarily to Costa Rica and to a lesser extent the United States. Nicaraguan men have been migrating seasonally to Costa Rica to harvest bananas and coffee since the early 20th century. Political turmoil, civil war, and natural disasters from the 1970s through the 1990s dramatically increased the flow of refugees and permanent migrants seeking jobs, higher wages, and better social and healthcare benefits. Since 2000, Nicaraguan emigration to Costa Rica has slowed and stabilized. Today roughly 300,000 Nicaraguans are permanent residents of Costa Rica - about 75% of the foreign population - and thousands more migrate seasonally for work, many illegally.