Just over six months since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, civic freedoms remain under threat across the world. A new brief released by the CIVICUS Monitor documents ongoing and unjustifiable restrictions on the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression. The brief also finds …
Tropical Storm Alma, the first cyclone of the Americas hurricane season, slammed into Nicaragua's Pacific coast on Thursday, its winds toppling trees and ripping roofs off flimsy homes. Torrential rain fell in this colonial western city as Alma whipped up sustained winds near 65 mph (100 kph) and even higher …
Thousands of people who eke out a living by selling recyclable trash scavenged from the municipal dump in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, are staging a protest over control of city's waste. The garbage pickers have blocked 60 garbage trucks from collecting rubbish from the city. The city produces about 1,200 …
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has called on his cabinet to devise a plan for nationalizing oil imports. The move follows a series of clashes between the government and Exxon Mobil subsidiary Esso Standard Oil, which handles most of the crude oil imports and refining in the country. The dispute is …
In 1997, the Government of Mexico introduced a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program called Programa de Education, Salud, Y Alimentacion (Progresa), providing assistance to about 300, 000 extremely poor households. The essential premise of a CCT program is a cash transfer to households, conditioned on their participation in health, nutrition, …
Thousands of campesinos of Nicaragua, who work in farms and have been affected by the use of the pesticide Nemagon, will benefit from a new pact they recently signed with the government. Nemagon is derived from dibromochloropropane (dbcp), a possible carcinogen. The agreement includes provisions for medical care of victims …
This paper examines the main ways in which Payments for Environmental Services (PES) might affect poverty. PES may reduce poverty mainly by making payments to poor natural resource managers in upper watersheds. The extent of the impact depends on how many PES participants are in fact poor, on the poor’s …
The United Nations Food Agency (UNFA) has predicted that 1999 will be a difficult year as far as natural disasters are concerned. "Forecasts for the 1999 show there will be a likely increase in the number of countries suffering emergencies and number of people needing humanitarian assistance,' said a UNFA …
Massive relief operations are underway to rescue tens of thousands of people who became victims of Hurricane Mitch, mostly in Nicaragua and Honduras. The death toll, which is estimated to be over 10,000 is expected to rise due to hunger and disease (Down To Eartk Vol 7, No 14). According …
IT HAD been raining incessantly. On the third day, amid the dankness, everyone heard a roar. Some thought it was the sound of helicopters that had come to evacuate them. Only a few saw a gigantic moving wall of mud rear up into the sky. Before they could react, a …
• Hurricane Mitch dumped as much as 65 cm of rainfall in a single day. • Thousands of landmines, laid during the nations' civil wars, have been scattered all over by floods and mudslides. • Honduras faces the task of rebuilding 94 bridges; 90 per cent of its roads, bridges …
BARELEY have the memories of the deadly Eloba virus which took Zaire by storm Early this year faded from the mind of mme" community that yet opewrious killer. disease has Amd in the backlands of Nicaragua erupted in Achuapa, a farming north-west of Managua about a ago and has since …
