The president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, has denounced the policies of a certain Middle Eastern nation. They are “so similar to the apartheid of an earlier era,” he said, “that the world must unite against them, demanding an “end to this massive abuse of human rights” and isolating the offending nation as it once isolated South Africa: with a punishing “campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions.”

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HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 4 (acn) Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said on Wednesday that the Rio Group has entered a new stage of maturity and strengthening with the recent admission of Cuba as a full member of this regional bloc.

“For the first time the Rio Group will be complete with the integration of Cuba, the only country that was missing,” Ortega said.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, the Nicaraguan leader added that the incorporation of Cuba will allow the group to work on the creation of its own security and defense doctrine that, for the first time, will not be dictated from the United States.

“They are no longer the owners of the world and they have to accept this reality,” Ortega stressed and added that the Rio Group represents the sovereign power of Latin America and the Caribbean today.

Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan President criticized the Organization of American States (OAS) and accused it of being an instrument of the United States Government.

Ortega announced that prior of the Summit of the Rio Group scheduled for Brazil later this month, the members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) – Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivian, Nicaragua, Honduras and Dominica – will meet in Caracas.

Ortega says his leftist ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made the offer last week “without blackmail, without conditions of any sort.”

The U.S. said last week it would freeze $64 million in anti-poverty aid to Nicaragua amid accusations that local elections were fraudulent. The EU has withheld $54 million in budget support.

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MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, angry because the United States is rethinking an aid program, pressed Washington on Monday for billions of dollars in war reparations dating back to a 1980s civil war.

The International Court of Justice, based in the Hague, ordered the United States in 1986 to pay reparations to Nicaragua for training, arming and financing Contra rebels and mining Nicaraguan ports during a conflict that killed tens of thousands of people.

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UNITED NATIONS — The Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, a revolutionary Nicaraguan priest, sounded like the old-school, 1980s-style Latin American leftist he is when he began his presidency of the 192-member Full Story">U.N. General Assembly in September.

But as the world’s financial turmoil deepens and the pillars of modern capitalism appear increasingly shaky, his tirades against what he considers the evils of an American-led economic order are gaining a more sympathetic audience here with each passing day.

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Tbilisi - Georgia has broken off ties with Nicaragua after the latter recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgia regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, media reports said Saturday. The government in Tbilisi delivered a note to the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations notifying him of the formal break in diplomatic relations, the Interfax news agency reported.

On September 2, Nicaragua became second country in the world after Russia to recognize the independence of the two regions following Georgia’s August war with Russia. Georgia had already broken off relations with Moscow after the five-day war over South Ossetia.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Nov. 25, 2008 (IPS/GIN) — The government
of Nicaragua is seeking Russia’s support in a strategy that some
analysts view as risky for the future diplomatic relations between
this Central American nation with the United States and with the
European Union.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has reestablished friendly
relations and economic ties with the Kremlin, after over 16 years
of a virtual freeze.

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With the Nicaraguan Supreme Court’s recent decision to retry Eric Volz for the murder of his former Nicaraguan girlfriend, Doris Ivania Jimenez, the young American’s case once again makes international news. New York publisher Morgan James announces the release of a new book which examines this haunting and powerful story — a story first seen on “Anderson Cooper 360,” “Today” and “Dateline” and as reported on in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

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