Mexico & Central America News and Discussions

[caltrek]

The Dying Villages of Mexico’s Lake Cuitzeo
By Arnaud De Decker and Jules Emile
July 25, 2021

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021 ... ke-cuitzeo

Introduction:

(Al Jazeera) Fifty-two-year-old Augustin Rodriguez stands on the withered grass of his front yard and opens the tap. Water slowly drips from the garden hose the fisherman’s family uses for their daily needs. There is just enough to fill the cooking pot; the rest of the water is for the three goats that are cooped up nearby, next to the makeshift open-air kitchen.

The colourful buildings of San Nicolás Cuiritzeo in Mexico have seen better days. Like the water that has disappeared from the lake that neighbours the village, many of its inhabitants have left to seek a more prosperous life elsewhere. Once a healthy mix of farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, today only about 350 remain.

Augustin shrugs. “We have to be thrifty. The lake has been empty for months. We have to make do with some groundwater that we get from a well a little further away, but that too is almost empty. If it doesn’t rain in the next few days or weeks, we’re in for a big problem,” he says.

His family sits outside, in the shade provided by a skinny tree. Defeated, he steps towards them and wearily sits down on a dusty angular stone, taking a sip from his lukewarm beer. “My brothers and I have been out of work for months. We can’t hold out much longer,” he says.

He wants to show us the seriousness of the situation and takes us to the lake in question, about a kilometre south of his house. Lake Cuitzeo is a natural freshwater lake and the second-largest water reservoir in Mexico. Located 300km to the west of Mexico City, in the state of Michoacan, it is irregularly shaped, with its northern, western and eastern parts interconnected by marshland.

Horses graze while a fire has been set to burn the remaining withered aquatic plants on the lakebed to free up more potential grazing area.
Jules Emile/Al Jazeera

[caltrek]

The following article is a little bit more conservative in its orientation that the two previous articles on Cuba that I have cited. Still, I think it makes some valid points helpful in understanding a complex situation.

Five Ways Americans Misunderstand Cuba
by Caroline McCullough
(Does not appear to be dated, but recently posted at The Conversation.

https://theconversation.com/5-ways-amer ... ote-164996

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Cuba recently erupted in the largest protests seen there in six decades, reflecting popular anger over a crippling economic crisis, scarce food and medicines and a half-century of repression.

Cuba remains largely an enigma to outsiders, and especially to Americans. Myths prevail because of Cuban government censorship and the United States’ historic tendency – born of the Cold War – to stereotype and simplify the communist island.

“The truth is that Cuba is often more talked about, idealized or vilified than known,” wrote Martín Mosquera, editor of the Latin American edition of Jacobin, a leftist publication, recently.

This article examines five common areas of confusion about Cuba, Cuban Americans and the U.S.-Cuba relationship.

• #1. The Cuban Revolution…

• #2. The US embargo…

• #3. US interference in Cuba…

• #4. Cuban Americans…

• #5. Race and equality in Cuba…

(See the article linked above the quote box for more discussion of each of these five areas)

caltrek's comments: Notwithstanding observations made in this article, I still think that the issue of sanctions needs to be re-thought. Even if the goal is further Western-style democracy, it is clear that sanctions have done nothing to help reach that goal. As one individual interviewed on television commented, all the sanctions do is give the Cuban government an excuse for the country's economic problems. Opening up trade and cultural contacts would remove that excuse and promote more of an interchange of ideas. Moreover, it is probably not a bad idea to allow that to happen on terms demanded by the Cuban government. That would allow that government to hold in check the possible negative consequences of foreign corporate influences.

[Yuli Ban]

Cuba's communist government has legalised small and medium-sized private businesses in the wake of mass anti-government protests last month

Cuba's communist government has legalised small and medium-sized private businesses in the wake of mass anti-government protests last month.

Under the new rules, enterprises with up to 100 employees will be allowed.

President President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Cuba was taking firm steps to update its economic model.

Critics say the government's plans have been accelerated because of July's protests, when thousands turned out to complain of economic ruin.

Demonstrators condemned the handling of the coronavirus pandemic and demanded political change.

Dozens were arrested nationwide and that least one man died in the unrest.

[caltrek]

Tensions Escalate in Guatemala as National Strike Continues
August 6, 2021

https://ghrcusa.wordpress.com/2021/08/0 ... continues/

Introduction:

(Guatemala Human Rights Commission) In response to Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ dismissal of top anti-corruption prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval, the Biden administration has taken steps intended as a rebuke. On July 27 the administration announced it had “temporarily paused programmatic cooperation” with the Guatemalan Public Ministry. “Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ July 23rd decision to remove Special Prosecutor Against Impunity, or FECI, Chief Juan Francisco Sandoval fits a pattern of behavior that indicates a lack of commitment to the rule of law and independent judicial and prosecutorial processes,” according to the State Department’s spokesperson. “As a result, we have lost confidence in the attorney general and their decision and intention to cooperate with the US government and fight corruption in good faith.”

Attorney General Porras, rather than backing down in the face of the aid cut, argued in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Juan Francisco Sandoval’s dismissal was legal, a claim former Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz and other experts point out is false; Sandoval’s firing, in fact, was arbitrary and illegal. The Guatemala Human Rights Commission, along with eleven other international organizations, denounced the dismissal of Juan Fransisco Sandoval and called for his immediate reinstatement.

The embassies of Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States in a joint statement as members of the G-13 Donor Group lamented the attorney general’s firing of Sandoval. “This incident is seen as part of a pattern of instability and institutional weakening that affects the rule of law in Guatemala,” the statement said.

Indigenous-Led National Strike Continues

In response to Sandoval’s ouster, indigenous authorities on a national level convoked a national strike on July 29. Thousands protested Sandoval’s dismissal, demanding his reinstatement and calling for President Alejandro Giamatttei and Attorney General Porras to resign. According to Maya K’iche’ leader, journalist, and human rights defender Andrea Ixchíu, the indigenous-led movement for the national strike stemmed from frustration with a government administered by economic elites, the military, and drug traffickers who have blocked the possibility of a life with dignity for the indigenous peoples. “In the midst of the pandemic, the Guatemalan government is stealing the money from the vaccines and militarizing the country,” she told Democracy Now.

[caltrek]

What’s Causing Cuba’s Economic Crisis?
from an interview with Jorge Salazar-Carrillo
August 12, 2021

https://theconversation.com/why-cubans- ... red-164472

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Cuba’s economy relies largely on tourism and raw exports such as rum, tobacco, sugar and minerals. Before the pandemic, tourism made up the biggest share of the country’s gross domestic product, or about 40% to 50%, and contributed significantly to the Cuban government’s foreign exchange reserves.

In addition, Cuba imports more than half of the fuel, food, medicine and other goods people consume.

All of that is now in crisis. Tourism had already collapsed because of pandemic-related domestic restrictions on travel, as well as Trump-era efforts to curtail American visits to the island. Both exports and imports have plunged, in part due to other recent U.S. sanctions, resulting in food and power shortages and long lines for fuel. The Trump administration’s November 2020 ban on using Western Union to send remittances from the U.S. to Cuba – a policy so far kept in place by President Joe Biden – resulted in a large drop in the amount of money being sent home by Cuban Americans. I estimate remittances fell about a tenth from levels they were at a few years ago.

To top it off, however, the Cuban government launched a calamitous monetary reform in January 2021 that led to high inflation and a plunge in the black market value of the peso.
…
In January, the government eliminated the covertible peso, forcing Cubans to exchange them for regular pesos by the end of June 2021. The long-planned reform – adopted by the government a decade ago to tighten links with the international economy – had the effect of devaluing the Cuban peso.

[caltrek]

Haitians Pleading for Help as Storm Makes Landfall Days After Earthquake
by Jessica Corbett
August 16, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... earthquake

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Pleas for international aid poured out of Haiti on Monday in the wake of a weekend earthquake that killed at least 1,419 people amid growing concerns that Tropical Depression Grace will hamper search and rescue efforts as well as the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

"We're pleading for help," Marie-Helen L'Esperance, mayor of the town of Pestel, told Haiti's Pacific Radio. "Every house was destroyed, there's nowhere to live, we need shelters, medical help, and especially water. We've had nothing for three days and injured victims are starting to die."

Marcelin Lorejoie, a volunteer, told CNN on Sunday that "we really need help, yesterday I was helping at the hospital and things were out of control."

"Not enough doctors, not enough medicines, and we have people with serious injuries," Lorejoie said. "We need urgent help before things [get] more complicated."

Grace, which could dump up to 15 inches of rain on some areas, made landfall in Haiti Monday afternoon…

[weatheriscool]

Haiti: Blacks attack relief trucks and steal everything
Quote:
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1536x1025.
https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/haitians- ... arthquake/

Haitians overran trucks filled with supplies, stealing food and other necessities Friday as the country’s leaders scrambled to provide relief a week after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the impoverished country.
Haitians attack relief trucks, steal food after earthquake

[caltrek]

Neobroker Flink Raises $57 Million to Boost Financial Services to Mexicans
by Mary Ann Azevedo
August 25, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/25/mexic ... -in-latam/

Introduction

(TechCrunch) Flink, a Mexico City-based neobroker, has raised $57 million in a Series B round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The financing comes just over six months after Flink raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Accel. Existing backers Accel, ALLVP, Clocktower and new investor Mantis Venture Capital (founded by The Chainsmokers) also put money in the Series B. Since its 2017 inception, the startup has raised nearly $70 million.

Neobrokers are defined as startups that are disrupting the investment industry by providing a platform for a wider range of consumers to partake in the stock market by offering them more incremental investment options and modern and easy mobile-based interfaces to manage their money. There is a growing number of them globally, including Scalable Capital, Bitpanda and Trade Republic in Europe.

For Mexico City-born Sergio Jiménez Amozurrutia, the fact that in his country of more than 120 million people, only a tiny fraction of the population has the ability to invest in the capital markets felt unfair. To him, the lack of widespread participation in investing is an example of the rich getting richer as part of an infrastructure “that is built for the wealthy.” The result of the imbalance is that a lot of people have historically been locked out of making potentially wealth-building investments.

So after selling Easy Credit, a consumer lending platform he’d built with Rick Rafael Bueno (whom he met in 2015 at a hackathon at Tech de Monterrey), Amozurrutia set out to give Mexicans access to something he believed they’d never had access to: an app-based consumer trading platform.

[caltrek]

U.S. Airlifts Aid to Haiti to Reach Areas Hardest Hit by Quake
by Ben Fox
August 29, 2021

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us ... uxbndlbing

Introduction:

JEREMIE, Haiti (AP) — U.S. military aircraft are now ferrying food, tarps and other material into southern Haiti amid a shift in the international relief effort to focus on helping people in the areas hardest hit by the recent earthquake to make it through the hurricane season.

Aircraft flying out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, arrived throughout the day Saturday in the mostly rural, mountainous southern peninsula that was the epicenter of the Aug. 14 earthquake. In Jeremie, people waved and cheered as a Marine Corps unit from North Carolina descended in a tilt-rotor Osprey with pallets of rice, tarps and other supplies.

Most of the supplies, however, were not destined for Jeremie. They were for distribution to remote mountain communities where landslides destroyed homes and the small plots of the many subsistence farmers in the area, said Patrick Tiné of Haiti Bible Mission, one of several groups coordinating the delivery of aid.

“They lost their gardens, they lost their animals,” Tiné said as he took a break from helping unload boxes of rice. “The mountains slid down and they lost everything.”

At the request of the Haitian government, getting as much help to such people as fast as possible is now the focus of the $32 million U.S. relief effort, said Tim Callaghan, a disaster response team leader for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

[wjfox]

Mexico's top court decriminalizes abortion in 'watershed moment'

September 8, 2021

Mexico's Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, a major victory for advocates of women's health and human rights, just as parts of the United States enact tougher laws against the practice.

The decision in the world's second-biggest Roman Catholic country means that courts can no longer prosecute abortion cases, and follows the historic legalization of the right in Argentina, which took effect earlier this year.

Arturo Zaldivar, president of the Mexican Supreme Court, hailed the decision as "a watershed moment" for all women, especially the most vulnerable.

The vote by the 10 judges present stemmed from a 2018 case challenging a criminal law on abortion in Coahuila, a northern Mexican state which borders Texas, which has just tightened its laws.

It also comes as a growing feminist movement has taken to the streets in Mexico to press for change, including calls to end anti-abortion laws on the books in much of the country.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ ... 021-09-07/



Credit: REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

[caltrek]

Thousands Protest Against Bukele Government in El Salvador
by Marcos Aleman
September 16, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/09/16/bukeleprotests/

Introduction:

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Thousands of people gathered in El Salvador’s capital Wednesday for the first mass march against President Nayib Bukele, who protesters say has concentrated too much power, weakened the independence of the courts and may seek re-election.

Some marchers are also protesting the controversial decision by Bukele’s government to make the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador, the first country to do so. Officials rolled out a digital wallet known as the “Chivo” one week ago, but the system has been down frequently for maintenance.

Some marchers wore T-shirts that read “NO To Bitcoin.” A few demonstrators vandalized the special ATM machines set up to handle Bitcoin transactions, but which have been inoperable anyway for much of the week. The cubicle housing one ATM machine was destroyed.

“They say the ‘vandalism’ was the work of ‘infiltrators,’ but there has been vandalism in ALL their demonstrations,” Bukele wrote in his Twitter account. “And why weren’t there any shouts of ‘stop,’ or ‘Don’t do that?’”

The populist president elected in 2019 has maintained high popularity with his vows to stamp out corruption that was rampant among the country’s traditional parties. But some Salvadorans say he is becoming “a dictator” and Wednesday’s march was the first large protest against his government.

[caltrek]

Honduras Struggles On
by W. T. Whitney
October 13, 2021

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/13 ... -honduras/

Extract:

(Counterpunch) For most Hondurans, who are treated as if they were disposable, capitalism has its downside.

Honduras’s poverty rate is 70%, up from 59.3% in 2019. Of formally employed workers, 70% work intermittently; 82.6% of Honduran workers participate in the informal sector. The Covid-19 pandemic led to more than 50,000 businesses closing and almost half a million Hondurans losing their jobs. Some 30,000 small businesses disappeared in 2020 owing to floods caused by hurricanes.

Violence at the hands of criminal gangs, narcotraffickers, and the police is pervasive and usually goes unpunished. Victims are rival gang members, political activists, journalists, members of the LGBT community, and miscellaneous young people. According to insightcrime.org, Honduras was Latin America’s third most violent country in 2019 and a year later it registered the region’s third highest murder rate. Says Reuters: “Honduras has become a sophisticated state-sponsored narco-empire servicing Colombian cartels.”

…according to Reuters, severe drought over five years has decimated staple crops [and] … Nearly half a million Hondurans, many of them small farmers, are struggling to put food on the table.” The UN humanitarian affairs agency OCHA reports that as of February 2021, “The severity of acute food insecurity in Honduras has reached unprecedented levels.”

[caltrek]

U.S. and Mexico to Take a More ‘Holistic’ Approach to Public Safety
by Cody Copeland
October 26, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/us-and-m ... ic-safety/

Introduction:

MEXICO CITY (Courthouse News) — High-ranking U.S. and Mexican officials met for the first time in years this month to discuss a fresh, “holistic” approach to dealing with the public security issues that affect both countries.

Announced in a joint statement issued by the White House and the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the proposed “United States-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities” aims to tackle problems both old and new.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said in his remarks on the High-Level Security Dialogue (HLSD) he conducted with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other high-ranking U.S. officials that the two countries are officially “leaving the Mérida Initiative behind” and looking forward to new solutions.

Signed in 2008, the Mérida Initiative aimed to combat drug trafficking and violence in Mexico under a philosophy of “shared responsibility” for the problems. But while the Mérida Initiative made great strides in collaboration between the two countries — especially with respect to information sharing — the fact remains that the problems of drug addiction in the United States and drug violence in Mexico have only grown worse since its inception.

The Congressional Research Service notes the initiative’s “kingpin strategy” of taking out cartel leaders only served to fracture criminal organizations, resulting in the Hydra effect of lower-level drug capos vying for the power vacuums at the top.

[caltrek]

Bukele’s Party Cloned in Guatemala
October 26, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/10/26 ... guatemala/

Extract:

(Latino Rebels) Central America, in Brief: Regional expansion of the Salvadoran president’s political project seems to have started. Relatives of a Guatemalan publicist and partner with Nayib Bukele in launching multiple businesses began enrolling the political party Nuevas Ideas in Guatemala last July.

Morazán’s Dream

José Luis Araneda Cintrón, a 27-year-old Guatemalan lawyer, began the process before Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal on July 2 to found a political party called “Nuevas Ideas,” the same name as that of President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. The new party’s cyan logo is identical to that of the Salvadoran party.

Araneda is the nephew of Pedro Andrés García Manzo Méndez, a Guatemalan publicist who founded two companies in 2005 and 2006 with Bukele and Ernesto Castro, Bukele’s former private secretary and current president of the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, and a third only with Castro. García Manzo’s sister —Araneda’s mother— is also a member of the executive board of Nuevas Ideas Guatemala.

García Manzo is a businessman with a long track record in Guatemala and El Salvador. In Guatemala, he has for years managed businesses in digital marketing, event production, and restaurant purveyance. In El Salvador, he founded an event production company with Bukele and Castro in 2005. The next year, the three founded a business to operate restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, while García Manzo and Castro also opened a general merchandising company.
…
The Bukele administration wrote in September 2020 that it would look to “convert Central America into a common homeland.” The executive branch wrote in a press release that Vice President Félix Ulloa will present the draft of an agreement in 2024 to “create the Central American Union,” and that the Salvadoran government would begin studying unification projects including the creation of a common Central American passport.

[caltrek]

At Odds With Cuba’s ‘Myth’
by Patricia Sulbarán
October 26, 2021

https://www.latinousa.org/2021/10/26/cubasmyth/

Introduction:

(Latino USA) Carolina Barrero didn’t know that returning to Cuba after living abroad for years to join a protest movement would mean that she would witness the largest demonstrations the island had seen in decades.

“When we went to sleep on the 10th of July, no one could imagine what would happen the next day,” the young art historian remembered.

The morning of July 11th, dozens of videos started to circulate on social media, showing Cubans shouting “Abajo el comunismo” (“down communism”), protesting in front of the Communist Party affiliate offices all across the island and expressing their frustrations about a “collapsed” healthcare system, power outages and food shortages amid a global pandemic. Overall, protesters demanded change from a one-party government that has ruled for over 60 years.

The government rapidly deployed its security forces to disperse the crowds. A protester named Diubis Tejeda died in Havana after getting shot by a police officer, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH, in Spanish).

[caltrek]

Daniel Ortega Set to Secure Re-Election in Nicaragua
November 8, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/11/08 ... elections/

Introduction:

(Latino Rebels) NICARAGUA: Daniel Ortega sought his fourth presidential term in Sunday’s Nicaraguan elections. With more well-known challengers sitting in jail, Ortega stood a greater chance of winning. Polls closed at 6 p.m. local time with historically low turnouts as expected.

Since May, Ortega has ordered police to arrest dozens of opposition leaders including business leaders, seven presidential candidates, journalists, and old colleagues.

The Biden administration responded recently by calling the election a sham —and will prepare further sanctions against Nicaragua after the election results determine Ortega the winner. President Joe Biden has made requests to the Nicaraguan president to restore democracy and release detained opposition figures.

U.S. State Department officials said they would be cautious in their efforts to place sanctions and said that they’ll consider not harming sectors of the economy that “might impact the population.”

Sunday’s election will decide who takes the Nicaraguan presidency for the next five years. Forty-four million Nicaraguan citizens aged 16 and above were eligible to vote.

[caltrek]

Planned Opposition Protests in Cuba Flop
November 22, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/11/22 ... otestflop/

Introduction:

(Latino Rebels) CUBA: Anti-government protests planned for last Monday by online group Archipiélago failed to materialize. The group cited the heavy police presence in the streets as their reason for remaining at home.

Videos circulating on social media show that counter-protesters also gathered outside the homes of lead organizers chanting revolutionary slogans in support of the government.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez called the protests an “absolute failure” in an interview on Tuesday. He also criticized U.S. President Joe Biden for not yet addressing the embargo and continuing with Trump-era policies that have exacerbated the country’s shortage of basic goods.

The administration has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of helping to organize the protest in order to destabilize the island.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan released a statement on Monday condemning what he described as the Cuban government’s “attempt to silence the voice of Cuban people as they clamor for change.”

[wjfox]

Queen congratulates Barbados as it becomes a republic

Tue 30 Nov 2021 00.01 GMT

As Barbados removes the Queen as its head of state and becomes a republic, the monarch has sent her congratulations on the nation’s “momentous” day.

Prince Charles arrived on the Caribbean island on Sunday to join the inauguration ceremony of the president-elect, Sandra Mason, who replaces the Queen as head of state overnight as Barbados sheds the vestiges of a colonial system stretching back 400 years.

In a message to Mason, the Queen wished all Barbadians happiness, peace and prosperity in the future.

She said: “On this significant occasion and your assumption of office as the first president of Barbados, I extend my congratulations to you and all Barbadians.

“I first visited your beautiful country on the eve of independence in early 1966, and I am very pleased that my son is with you today. Since then, the people of Barbados have held a special place in my heart; it is a country rightly proud of its vibrant culture, its sporting prowess, and its natural beauty, that attracts visitors from all over the world, including many people from the United Kingdom.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... a-republic

[caltrek]

U.S. Progressive Caucus Hails Honduran Election as Chance for 'New Chapter' in Relations
by Brett Wilkins
December 3, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... -relations

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Calling the victory of Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro "an opportunity for a new chapter in U.S.-Honduras relations," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal on Friday congratulated the first woman and socialist to be elected leader of the Central American nation long plagued by American subversion of democracy.

Castro, a political activist and the wife of former Honduran President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, won last week's presidential election by more than 15 points over right-wing Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura.

Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement that she hopes this new phase of bilateral relations is "one based on mutual respect, support for democracy, and equitable development."

"We encourage the Biden administration to use this opportunity to make a clean break with previous presidential administrations, which worked to ensure that the 2009 coup d'état succeeded, legitimized the deeply flawed elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017, and pushed policies that have resulted in surges in Honduran insecurity, poverty, mass migration, and organized crime," the congresswoman added.

Democratically elected in 2005, Zelaya challenged Honduras' status as a U.S. client state while spurning the neoliberal economic policies of his oligarchic predecessors. In just three years in office, he implemented policies including an 80% minimum wage hike, universal free education, free school lunches for 1.6 million children, free electricity for low-income households, and land reforms including government subsidies for poor farmers.

Honduras

[caltrek]

Nicaragua Ends Relations with Taiwan in Diplomatic Victory for China
by Karol Suarez, Isa Soares and Ben Westcott
December 10, 2021

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/09/americas ... index.html

Introduction:

(CNN) Nicaragua's government has broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and embraced Beijing, declaring "there is only one China in the world."

The Nicaraguan announcement now leaves a little more than a dozen countries that maintain official diplomatic relations with self-ruled Taiwan, including fellow Central American nations Honduras and Guatemala.

"The People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing all of China and Taiwan is an undoubted part of the Chinese territory," Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said in a televised announcement from capital city Managua on Thursday.

"The government of the Republic of Nicaragua breaks diplomatic relations with Taiwan as of today and stopped having any contact or official relationship," he said.

Further Extract:

Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro has publicly floated the idea of ditching her country's diplomatic ties with Taipei, leading to a concerted effort by President Tsai Ing-wen and her government to solidify ties with the Central American nation.

caltrek's comment: I fear that the devotion to capitalism that the U.S. has shown in the past, even at the expense of democracy, has thrown the door wide open to China. The end result may very well be that, in the end, we will have neither capitalism or democracy.


Nicaragua