When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Nicaragua

Daniel Ortega: Latin America’s Ho Chi Minh?

EL DIARIO NUEVO (Nicaragua)

MANAGUA - Is Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega the "Ho Chi Minh of Latin America?"

That's apparently what Surinam's new ambassador in Nicaragua believes. During a televised swearing in ceremony in Managua this week, the ambassador, Subhas Chandra Mungra, said that Ortega, like the deceased Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, stands out for his commitment to defending the poor, El Diario Nuevo reported.

"We in Suriname have heard and are following with close attention and are learning from the great transformation that is happening here in Nicaragua, where the people of Nicaragua no longer stick out their hands for begging for help, but instead put their hands to the earth to work the land with their own resources," said Chandra Mungra.

Ortega, the veteran leader of Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista party, has been in power on and off for more than three decades. He led the country's post-revolutionary junta government before being elected president in 1984. He was voted out of office in 1990, but returned to power in 2007. Last November Ortega was reelected in a landslide – despite the fact that his candidacy openly violated the country's term limit laws.

Read the full story in Spanish

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Economy

Lithium Mines In Europe? A New World Of Supply-Chain Sovereignty

The European Union has a new plan that challenges the long-established dogmas of globalization, with its just-in-time supply chains and outsourcing the "dirty" work to the developing world.

Photo of an open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — It is one of the great paradoxes of our time: in order to overcome some of our dependencies and vulnerabilities — revealed in crises like COVID and the war in Ukraine — we risk falling into other dependencies that are no less toxic. The ecological transition, the digitalization of our economy, or increased defense needs, all pose risks to our supply of strategic minerals.

The European Commission published a plan this week to escape this fate by setting realistic objectives within a relatively short time frame, by the end of this decade.

This plan goes against the dogmas of globalization of the past 30 or 40 years, which relied on just-in-time supply chains from one end of the planet to the other — and, if we're being honest, outsourced the least "clean" tasks, such as mining or refining minerals, to countries in the developing world.

But the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction, if possible under better environmental and social conditions. Will Europe be able to achieve these objectives while remaining within the bounds of both the ecological and digital transitions? That is the challenge.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

The latest