TODAY NICARGUA (Confidencial) The seizure in Russia of a ton of cocaine from Nicaragua exposed the shortcomings of the so-called “retaining wall” strategy by the regime of Daniel Ortega, researchers and experts on national security issues agreed. Members of the Nicaraguan military and police leadership together with Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo (center), in September 2023. Photo: Official government photo This government policy, led by Nicaragua’s National Police and the Army, is one of the assets that the regime uses to demand the end of sanctions against Nicaragua by the United States ..read more

Q24N (Reuters) Nicaraguan police detained four more priests early Saturday, December 30, 2023, bringing the total number to 12 over the past three days, according to local media and a high-ranking member of the Catholic Church with knowledge of the matter. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who has governed the Central American country since 2007, has started a crackdown on the Catholic Church and political opponents. Priests Mikel Monterrey, Gerardo Rodriguez and Raul Zamora, along with Monsignor Miguel Mantica, the son of one of the richest families in Nicaragua, were taken from their resp ..read more

(Reuters) Nicaragua and China on Monday, Januayr 1, 2024, formally started trading under a new free trade agreement, allowing the Central American country to export some 71% of its products into the largest Asian market and free of tariffs. The exports will include meat and seafood, such as fish, shrimp, lobsters and sea cucumber, as well as sugar, peanuts and rum, state media reported. Among non-food items included in the agreement are leather, charcoal, wood, and automobile parts. The agreement excludes Chinese goods that could be problematic for the key Nicaraguan industries, such as meat ..read more

Q24N (Reuters) China and Nicaragua upgraded their bilateral ties on Wednesday, setting the stage for the Asian giant to provide more economic support to the sanctioned Central American state and furthering Beijing’s strategic ambitions in the United States’ backyard. Daniel Ortega (left), speaking on December 20, at the graduation ceremony for police cadets, “China is modeling the behavior of a great power that doesn’t disrespect any country that’s developing”. Beijing and Managua re-established diplomatic ties in 2021 after Nicaragua broke off relations with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, which U.S ..read more

TODAY NICARAGUA (El Pais) The delirious accusations that the authorities of the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime have leveled against the director of the Miss Nicaragua organization, Karen Celebertti, who was banished last week, and her husband, Martín Argüello Leiva, and son, Bernardo Argüello Celebertti, kidnapped and disappeared, have provoked astonishment and resounding condemnation among Nicaraguans and international public opinion. Miss Nicaragua, Sheynnis Palacios The three, who form part of the organization that promoted the coronation of Sheynnis Palacios at the Miss Universe ..read more

Q24N – The Ortega dictatorship expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from Nicaragua. On Monday, December 18, 2023, the ICRC published on its website the closure of its offices in Nicaragua at the “request of the Nicaraguan authorities… thus ending its humanitarian mission in the country”. After five years, the International Committee of the Red Cross was asked to leave the country by the Ortega dictatorship “In 2018, the ICRC received authorization from the Nicaraguan authorities to open a mission in the country, focused on exclusively humanitarian objectives. In January ..read more

(Confidencial) The veiled succession of Daniel Ortega to his son, Laureano Ortega Murillo, is a “challenge” to historical Sandinistas, says political scientist and Sandinista dissident Julio López Campos. Laureano Ortega Murillo (left) greets Li Mingxiang, representative of the Communist Party of China, at an event in Managua on December 2, 2023. | Photo: El 19 Digital On December 2, the son of the dictators Ortega and Murillo made his debut as “special representative of the secretary general of the FSLN” –a position only his father has ever held–, during a meeting with a delegation of the Com ..read more

Q24N — Relatives of Nicaraguan political prisoners and organizations of those released from prison promote for the sixth consecutive year the “Christmas without political prisoners” campaign to demand their freedom. It comes in a year in which despite the release and exile of 222 political prisoners to the United States in February, and twelve priests to the Vatican in October, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo still holds at least 151 persons for political reasons. An analysis by CONFIDENCIAL with data from the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners and the Blue a ..read more

Q24N (Confidencial) The worsening police harassment pushed former student leader Justina Orozco to decide to leave Nicaragua after enduring five years of repression in the country. Former student activist Justina Orozco participating in a civic protest in 2018. Orozco, now 23, put up with the police harassment for the past five years, until in October 2023 she finally decided to go into exile She thought she could leave legally, since she hadn’t participated in any protest activities for several years. However, when she reached El Guasaule on the border with Honduras, two immigration officials ..read more

Q24N (VOA) Nicaragua’s increasingly isolated and repressive government thought it had scored a rare public relations victory last week when Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition. Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios reacts after being crowned Miss Universe at the 72nd Miss Universe Beauty Pageant in San Salvador, El Salvador, November 18, 2023. But the “legitimate joy and pride” President Daniel Ortega’s government expressed in a statement Sunday after the win on Saturday, November 18, quickly turned to angry condemnation, after it emerged that Palacios graduated from ..read more