Vintage

With the food crisis in Latin America worsening, India Tuesday agreed to set up a panel with eight central American countries to enhance collaboration in agriculture and thus boost its diplomatic and economic ties with the region.

India signed pacts with Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua for the abolition of visa requirements for the holders of official and diplomatic passports, external affairs ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna told reporters here.

India also signed memoranda of understanding with Honduras and Costa Rica on holding foreign office consultations.

President George W. Bush said Tuesday he would do his best to get Congress to approve a pending free trade agreement with Panama, after meeting with its President Martin Torrijos in the White House.

"The Panamanian free trade vote is a priority of this government. It should be a priority of the United States Congress," Bush told reporters after the meeting.

Bush said he and his administration would "do everything in our capacity to move the trade bills" not only with Panama, but with Colombia and North Korea as well.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 3/6/2008

A Florida developer is making hay while the Sunshine State wilts in cloudy weather.

Todd Gates has headed from Naples, Fla., to Panama, where real estate market conditions are presently much sunnier.

This sliver of a nation south of Costa Rica links Central America to South America. It has coastlines on the Atlantic and Pacific and lush mountains in between. Here, Gates has found his idyll: a revenue base not tied to boom-and-bust Florida.

Of all the nations of Central America, Nicaragua generally is regarded as the safest for tourism, with less street crime and violence than even Costa Rica. And yet, though its tourism is growing rapidly in a percentage sense, Nicaragua still receives the fewest tourists of any Central American nation.

The civil war that ended 20 years ago and a devastating earthquake that leveled the capital Managua are cited as reasons tourism lags.

Sixteen months after Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez drew bipartisan hurrahs in Nicaragua with his promise to solve the country's "oil problem," the cheers have turned to jeers as Nicaragua's fuel crisis has become more crippling than ever.

Mr. Chavez last year promised to supply Nicaragua - which is now ruled by his ideological comrade President Daniel Ortega - with 10 million barrels of oil, sold at market price through a secretive Nicaraguan-Venezuelan oil company known as ALBANISA. The Venezuelan leader has also provided funding for Nicaragua to buy several new oil-burning power plants to increase production by 20 percent by 2009.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The government billboards and graffiti in this sultry city tell a visitor a lot about the ideological battle racking Nicaragua.

President Daniel Ortega Saavedra beams from the billboards, promising “Citizens Power” as a solution to Nicaragua’s endemic poverty. “The world’s poor arise!” the signs say. But beneath the billboards, on walls and benches all over town, others have scrawled “No to CPC. No to dictatorship.”

The graffiti alludes to Citizens Power Councils — or C.P.C.’s. In December, Mr. Ortega established the neighborhood committees, which are controlled by his left-wing Sandinista party and administer antipoverty programs, despite a vote against the plan by the National Assembly.

TEGUCIGALPA, May 6 (IPS) - Prosecutors in Honduras are on hunger strike to demand the dismissal of the attorney general and his deputy, for failure to investigate cases of corruption. Tension mounted when the president of Congress warned of possible intentions to break with the "constitutional order."

The 30-day fast on a liquid diet undertaken by 25 prosecutors has not yet been lifted in spite of 10 days of negotiations.

The president of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, accused the demonstrators Sunday of "attempting to ride roughshod over the constitutional order," and said "we shall defend the rule of law."

Source: Prensa Latina

Tegucigalpa, Feb 8 (Prensa Latina) Health authorities in Honduras are on the alert due to a yellow fever threat in South American countries like Paraguay and Brazil.

Authorities noted that travellers from and to high-risk areas would be vaccinated against the disease.

Source: topix

San Salvador, Jan 4 (Prensa Latina) Strong winds, low temperatures and persistent rain, triggered by the first cold front of 2008 in Central America, caused at least three deaths and heavy damages so far.

Guatemala, June 26 (Prensa Latina) Tenths of thousands of workers, farmers, indigenous people and members of political associations marched in protest today in the capital and other departments of Guatemala against the high cost of living.

Demonstrators walked about five kilometers to the presidential building to claim for higher salaries, measures to lower the cost of the family shopping basket, the end of neoliberal policies and of farmer’s eviction.