Central America
Nicaragua opposition leader Chamorro sentenced to 8 years in prison: NGO
AFP
Nicaragua’s main opposition figure and would-be presidential challenger to Daniel Ortega was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison after being found guilty of financial crimes, a human rights group said.
Cristiana Chamorro, 68, will remain under house arrest, as she has been since she was detained in June, according to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH).
The charges brought by President Ortega’s government had prevented her from running in the November presidential election in which she was regarded as the favorite.
Chamorro was accused by the state of laundering money, property and assets through her media foundation as well as promoting “ideological falsehood” and destabilizing the government.
Chamorro’s brother Pedro Joaquin Chamorro and two former employees of her free speech foundation, as well as her driver, were also convicted by a court last week.
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro was sentenced to nine years in prison and is being held at the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) of the police.
The three others also received sentences of up to 13 years.
CENIDH said Cristiana Chamorro and the others were also slapped with “million-dollar fines” that are “impossible to pay, and if they are commuted, it would be the equivalent to life imprisonment.”
Chamorro has denied the charges against her and said they were only brought to block her from running against Ortega, the 76-year-old former guerrilla who has governed since 2007 and who won a fourth consecutive term in November.
“They want to stain my name, but they will not succeed,” she told the court at the end of the trial, according to 100% News, an online media outlet critical of the government. “They will never succeed in staining the name of my father or my mother, because I am innocent.”
A journalist not aligned with any political party, Chamorro is one of seven former presidential candidates and nearly 40 opposition figures arrested last year in the run-up to the November 7 election.
She is the daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who defeated Ortega at the polls in 1990, and of journalist Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was shot dead in Managua in 1978 for opposing the Somoza dictatorship, which ruled Nicaragua for nearly half a century until the victory of Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1979.
During Chamorro’s seven-day, closed-door trial, the government alleged financial crimes were committed through the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, a press freedom training and defense center that Chamorro directed for 20 years and which has since been shuttered.
The state said the foundation was used to receive money from abroad to go towards destabilizing the government of Ortega and his vice-president and wife Rosario Murillo.
Central America
Panamanian farms take action to reduce jaguar attacks and promote coexistence
A growing number of farms in Panama are taking steps to reduce jaguar attacks on livestock, showing that coexistence between humans and these American felines is possible, a UN agency said on Friday.
The jaguar (Panthera onca) holds a prominent place in Mayan and Aztec mythology, but many farmers kill them after livestock attacks.
Ninety-six percent of jaguar deaths in Panama from 1989 to 2019 occurred following attacks on livestock, according to the NGO Fundación Yaguará. Additionally, the prized jaguar hide made them targets for poachers, causing the population to decline by 20 to 25% since 2000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Conserving the jaguar is not just about protecting an iconic species; it also involves safeguarding and restoring critical ecosystems, and improving water management and biodiversity,” Juan Bello, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told AFP.
Fundación Yaguará, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and UNEP are running a program to “reduce conflicts between communities and wildlife” in Panama.
Through this innovative project, many farms have adopted measures to reduce livestock attacks and avoid retaliatory killings of jaguars, demonstrating that coexistence is indeed possible.
Central America
Police confirm multiple victims and fire after church shooting in Grand Blanc, Michigan
A new mass shooting shook the United States this Sunday, this time at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintslocated on McCandlish Rd. in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
The Grand Blanc Township Police Department confirmed that there were multiple victims, though their identities and the extent of their injuries have not yet been disclosed. Authorities have not specified whether there are fatalities.
According to the official report, the attacker “is down” and the threat has been neutralized.
“There are multiple victims, and the shooter is down. There is NO threat to the public at this time. The church is actively on fire,” the department said in a statement.
In addition to the shooting, a fire is consuming the temple, prompting police to urge residents to avoid the area as emergency operations continue.
Central America
Bukele and Trump highlight joint fight against gangs and terrorism
U.S. President Donald Trump thanked the Government of El Salvador for its collaboration in imprisoning criminals who had entered U.S. territory irregularly. The Republican leader acknowledged the work of his ally during his address at the 80th United Nations General Assembly taking place this week in New York.
“I want to thank El Salvador for the successful and professional work it has done in receiving and imprisoning so many criminals who entered our country. Under the previous administration [of Joe Biden], the numbers reached record levels, and now we are expelling them all,” Trump stated.
For his part, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele expressed his gratitude to the U.S. leader for his remarks and for officially designating the 18th Street gang as a terrorist group.
“In El Salvador, we had already taken that step by formally labeling them terrorists, and although some organizations have criticized us, the majority of their members are currently imprisoned at Cecot, the Terrorism Confinement Center, designed specifically to confront these threats,” Bukele said.
He added that both countries share a common vision in the fight against terrorism. “We are convinced that cooperation between our nations is key to eradicating these criminal structures and ensuring a future of peace and security for our people,” Bukele emphasized.
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