Nicaragua Network

1. Four active volcanoes cause concern
2. National Assembly to elect new members to Supreme Electoral Council
3. Anti-Zika efforts continue; cases reach 65
4. UN reports improvements in water and sewer access
5. Clean energy exported but threatened
6. Departing Russian envoy marks new initiatives; remembers past aid
7. Important cultural activities held throughout country
8. La Prensa hints it wants more US interference
9. MINSA seeks earlier child cancer diagnoses

1. Four active volcanoes cause concern

With activity at four Nicaraguan volcanoes in the last week, Nicaraguan authorities welcomed a visit from experts from the United States Geological Service who arrived on Feb. 14 and were received by Wilfried Strauch, scientific advisor to the Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (INETER). Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said that the scientists came specifically to study the Momotombo volcano but that circumstances similar to the current simultaneous activity in the Masaya, Momotombo, Telica, and Cerro Negro volcanoes had not occurred before and needed to be studied by experts “so that they can share their recommendations with Nicaraguan families.” USGS volcanologist Christopher Harpel said, “We are here to converse, discuss, and collaborate with the Nicaraguan experts.”

The week’s activity began on Feb. 9 with four earth tremblers originating at the Masaya volcano, the strongest registering 4.1 on the Richter scale, motivating the government to close the Masaya Volcano National Park and cancel classes that day for schoolchildren in Masaya, Nindirí, and Ticuantepe. INETER said the next day that seismicity (which measures the total activity of the volcano, including movement of magma, emission of gasses, rock falls, and tremblers) was at double its normal levels. Geologist Eduardo Jose Mayorga of the National Engineering University said that the increased activity was produced by the injection of more magma into the crater of the volcano. Murillo noted that “The last eruption of the Masaya volcano lasted several years, so we see this is something we are going to be living with for a while.” Representatives of the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation, and Attention to Disasters (SINAPRED) visited communities near the volcano to advise them on what to do in case of an eruption or earthquake. Park rangers, who had already closed the park to vehicles, were stationed on trails to prevent people from approaching the volcano on foot.

On Feb. 12, the Momotombo volcano registered an explosion and low intensity earth tremblers. On Feb. 14, Telica emitted a column of ash 1,000 meters into the air followed by 20 explosions with emissions of gas and ash. The same day there was another emission of volcanic material from Momotombo. Then, on Feb. 15, there was an earth tremor at Cerro Negro, the country’s youngest volcano which appeared in 1860. Mayorga said, “It is not a concern when the volcanoes become active; what is concerning is when they all become active at the same time.” (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 9, 10, 12, 14, 15; Informe Pastran, Feb. 9, 15)

2. National Assembly to elect new members to Supreme Electoral Council

The National Assembly is preparing to elect two new members of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) following the resignation of magistrates Johnny Torres and Jose Luis Villavicencio. President Daniel Ortega presented the names of two women, former ambassador Norma Moreno and former minister of Tourism Mayra Salinas. The Independent Liberal Party (PLI) Alliance bench in the Assembly proposed six names, Verona Gurdian, Kitty Monterrey, Maria Jose Zamora, Claudia Pineda, Dionisio Palacios, and Felix Maradiaga. Women’s names predominate as the Sandinista Party has indicated that it wants to see more women on the CSE [currently only two out of the ten magistrates are women]. At her hearing before the special committee on Feb. 15, Salinas said that she wanted to do her part “to strengthen democracy, to continue to work for peace, prosperity and the welfare of the people of Nicaragua.” She said that more women on the CSE would bring to its work “our vision, knowledge, experience and sensibility as Nicaraguan women.” A vote is expected on Thursday, Feb. 18. (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 15; Informe Pastran, Feb. 15)

3. Anti-Zika efforts continue; cases reach 65

Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said on Feb. 15 that there were 65 confirmed cases of Zika in Nicaragua including 12 positive test results from the weekend. Referring to the national campaign against the mosquito that carries the disease, she said, “We have to study how to do more to promote not just massive participation on the weekend, which we have, but daily activity in homes, in yards, in communities, in streets—keeping things clean and free of breeding places, taking out garbage—everything that is needed for the health of all the families in the community.”

Thousands of workers from the Health Ministry, the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation, and Attention to Disasters (SINAPRED), and Sandinista Party volunteers mobilized over the weekend to inspect homes for mosquito breeding sites and to fumigate. Santos Rizo, FSLN political secretary for the Rene Cisneros neighborhood in Managua, said that people were receptive to the recommendations of the health brigade members. He noted that they did not find as many homes with standing water as they had expected which he said was an indicator that families were following the advice from health authorities. One Health Ministry worker told El Nuevo Diario that the powder put in receptacles of laundry water prevents the eggs of the mosquitoes from developing into larva. He added that it is not added to drinking water.

Murillo said that so far this year, along with the 65 cases of Zika, the government has registered 652 cases of dengue fever, 191 cases of chikungunya, 21 cases of leptospirosis, 18 cases of influenza, and 13,317 cases of pneumonia. (Informe Pastran, Feb. 15; El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 14)

4. UN reports improvements in water and sewer access

The UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) 2015 Statistical Yearbook reports that 87% of the population of Nicaragua had access to improved potable water sources and 68% to improved sanitation systems, up from 79% and 54% respectively in 2000. In 2016 the Nicaragua Water and Sewer Company (ENACAL) will invest US$64 million in improving water and sewer systems to benefit 247,177 Nicaraguans. The Statistical Yearbook did note that Nicaragua still has the lowest percentage access to potable water and sewer in Central America and that the gap between urban and rural is dramatic. All but 1% of urban dwellers have access to improved water sources while only 69% of the rural population has such access. ENACAL has consistently invested in expanded water and sewer system infrastructure including treatment plants and pipes since the return of the Sandinista government in 2007.  Spain, Germany, and the European Union have financially supported ENACAL’s projects. (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 11, 15)

5. Clean energy exported but threatened

At the first meeting of the year of the Central American Electricity Interconnection System (SIEPAC), in Managua, Nicaraguan Energy Minister Salvador Mansell reported that last year Nicaragua exported surplus clean energy to the Central American electricity grid. Mansell said that the exportation of energy occurred at night or early in the morning when Nicaragua’s demand for electricity is low. Nicaragua is the country in Central America that generates the most energy from renewable sources, including wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass, and solar. The Central American grid is composed of a 1,796 kilometer network of lines and substations between Guatemala and Panama. Cesar Zamora, country manager for the energy company IC Power, said that Nicaragua now produces 180 megawatts of energy from wind, 70 megawatts from geothermal sources at the San Jacinto-Tizate complex, 50 megawatts from the Larreynaga, Hidropantasma, and El Diamante hydroelectric dams and 110 megawatts of seasonal biomass energy from sugar cane waste. Depending on supply and demand, that ranges from 47% to 65% of Nicaragua’s total energy needs.

In related news, on Feb. 14 the Forbes.com website published an article by Jeff McMahon on Nicaragua’s climate and clean energy efforts which highlighted both the country’s participation in the Paris climate summit and the problems being caused for interested investors in the further expansion of renewable energy projects by the dramatic drop in the price of oil. McMahon said that Nicaragua’s “ornery opposition in Paris” earned a compliment from US Secretary of State John Kerry who noted that there was one country which opposed the climate agreement “but has already moved to a very significant percentage of its economy into alternative renewable energy.” Kerry added, “So some people resist because not enough is being done fast enough.” McMahon quotes Nicaragua’s representative Paul Oquist as insisting, “We want to make some suggestions on cutting matters which need to be corrected if we are to move forward for the good of mother earth and humanity” and cites Germanwatch which ranks Nicaragua fourth among countries for the highest long-term risk from extreme climate events.

But McMahon quotes Rafael Bermudez, plant manager of the Eolo Wind Farm in the Department of Rivas, as saying that, “At this moment it’s cheaper producing energy with bunker [oil] than renewable energy.” McMahon notes that Nicaragua insisted in its Country Investment Plan presented to the World Bank Climate Investment Fund that, “The current context of a significant and potentially lasting fall in oil prices in international markets…must not compromise Nicaragua’s strategic goal of reaching 90 percent of power generation from renewable sources by 2027.” However, the price of oil has dropped from US$58 per barrel in 2015 when that plan was written to as low as US$30 in recent weeks. (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 15; Informe Pastran, Feb. 15; Forbes.com, Feb. 14)

6. Departing Russian envoy marks new initiatives; remembers past aid

Nicaragua will construct four satellite ground stations for Russia’s equivalent of the US global positioning system (GPS). The stations in Nicaragua will control four of the 25 satellites making up the system. Construction, which will be completed in May and June, was approved last year by the National Assembly allowing satellite tracking stations that are for civilian use. The facilities will be located near kilometer 7 on the South Highway. 

During a ceremony in which he was awarded the Jose de Marcoleta medal, Great Cross grade, Russian Ambassador Nikolay Vladmir announced that in March Russia would begin delivering civilian airliners for the establishment of a Nicaraguan national airline. Among other benefits, the airline would increase Russian tourism to Nicaragua. The Russian aid, which he did not put a value on, will also include improvements to the Augusto C. Sandino international airport.  The retiring ambassador noted that Nicaragua did not buy fighter jets during his tenure, only civilian aircraft. “There is no job for them (fighters) here,” he said. He also stated that Russia has no plans to request a military base on Nicaraguan soil “at the moment.” He said Russia only needs docking space for resupply of food and other necessities for vessels whose sailors have been at sea “for four months or more.”

Both Ambassador Vladimir and Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos praised the high level of Russian-Nicaraguan relations and cooperation. Vladimir noted, “We are building a laboratory to make vaccines for diseases like dengue, chikungunya and zika.” He also recalled Russia’s donation of 300 tons of wheat in the early years of President Daniel Ortega’s second administration as well as public transportation buses, nearly 50 modern fire trucks, and six tent hospitals. He also mentioned the construction in Managua of a “modern military training facility” for military and police that has already received students from ten countries in the region for training to combat organized crime. Finally, he mentioned the US$28 million Russia has spent on equipment and technical upgrades to improve Nicaragua’s ability to prevent and mitigate natural disasters.  (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 9)

7. Important cultural activities held throughout country

Monday, Feb. 15 marked the closing event of the X Biennial contemporary art and culture festival and the opening events of the annual XII International Poetry Festival. As its name would indicate, the Biennial is organized every other year by the Ortiz Gurdian Foundation in Leon. This year’s festival honored Bluefields artist June Beer (1935-1984) with five days of exhibits and events in Managua, Leon, and Bluefields. Twenty Nicaraguan artists and 20 international artists from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, Canada, the United States, Mexico and Ecuador participated.

The XII International Poetry Festival in Granada, which this year honors poet Ernesto Mejia Sanchez, began pre-inaugural events with remembrances of Ruben Dario who died 100 years ago this month. (The 2014 festival honored Dario.) Juan Bautista Diaz read several of Dario’s poems and the chorus of the Polytechnic University sang musical arrangements of his poems. The annual book fair and handicraft fair were inaugurated on Monday by which time most of the 140 invited poets had arrived in the city.

Ernesto Mejia Sanchez, who is being honored at this year’s festival, was born in Masaya in 1923, and was a member of the important group of Nicaraguan poets known as the Generation of 1940. He studied in Spain and Mexico, lived more than half his life in the latter country and published most of his work there. He received an honorary doctorate from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in 1971 and served as Nicaraguan ambassador to Mexico and Argentina under the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s. He died in Mexico in 1985 leaving, as historian Jorge Eduardo Arellano writes in El Nuevo Diario, “an extensive and disbursed scholarly production that covers almost fifty titles including books, pamphlets, anthologies, editions of and about poetry and about Spanish-language thought.” (Informe Pastran, Feb. 9, 12; El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 11, 12, 13, 15; www.xbienaldenicaragua.org)

8. La Prensa hints it wants more US interference

In a political cartoon in its edition of Sunday, Feb. 14, the opposition daily La Prensa seemed to say that US Ambassador Laura Dogu should not follow the example of her predecessor Phyllis Powers and be indifferent to the needs of the political opposition, meeting and socializing with all sectors including Sandinista government officials. Informe Pastran noted that Powers was criticized by sectors of the opposition because she was not politically active like her predecessors Paul Trivelli and Robert Callahan and, on the contrary, focused on improving relations between Managua and Washington. Informe Pastran said, “It seems that there are sectors interested in her (Dogu) taking political sides in the coming election and assuming political positions with relation to the Sandinista government.” (La Prensa, Feb. 14; Informe Pastran, Feb. 15)

9. MINSA seeks earlier child cancer diagnoses

Luis Fulgencio Baez, director of Hematology–Oncology at the La Mascota Children’s Hospital announced that this year the Ministry of Health (MINSA) will initiate a nation-wide campaign of early detection of childhood cancers. Nicaragua typically diagnoses about 300 cases of cancer in children annually and the victims have about a 60% survival rate. The goal is to increase the survival rate with earlier diagnoses. Currently about 50% of cancer cases are discovered when they are well advanced. La Mascota outpatient clinics see between 60 and 70 children a day for first time or follow-up cancer-related appointments and admit 44 of them to the hospital. (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 15)