Nicaraguan authorities on Thursday ordered the capture of a former Nicaraguan government official and a businessman as the government’s crackdown continued to expand beyond leaders of the political opposition.
The office of the Nicaraguan attorney general said in a statement that arrest orders were issued for Humberto Belli, who served as Nicaraguan minister of education in the administration of former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, and Gerardo Baltodano, owner of coffee distributor Cafe Soluble, for not appearing to provide statements as scheduled.
Baltodano is the brother of Alvaro Baltodano, who formerly served in Nicarguan President Daniel Ortega’s administration as director for the state-run Free Trade Zone Corp.
Belli and Gerardo Baltodano had served on the board of the non-governmental Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development, which is also under investigation.
Former foundation executive director Juan Sebastian Chamorro was arrested earlier this month on charges of crimes against the state.
Earlier on Thursday, prosecutors announced that a judge had ordered the freezing of the bank accounts of Belli and Gerardo Baltodano, among others with links to the foundation, and prohibited them from leaving the country.
They are being investigated for alleged “financial operations derived from illicit activities.”
Gioconda Belli wrote on Twitter that police had searched her brother’s home on that day.
In the past few weeks, authorities have arrested 16 people, including 13 leading members of the political opposition, two former employees of the Violeta Chamorro Foundation and Production Bank president Luis Rivas Anduray.
Among them were also four people who had announced that they were considering running in the upcoming Nicaraguan presidential election scheduled for Nov. 7.
Ortega has announced that he would run for a fourth consecutive term.
The US government has stepped up sanctions against Ortega’s inner circle, and on Wednesday, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States approved a resolution condemning the arrests and calling for the prisoners’ immediate release.
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
RSS