Free Republic

Pope Francis said Sunday he is “saddened” and worried that Roman Catholic Bishop Roland Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison for speaking out against the Nicaraguan government. Álvarez, 56, learned his fate from a Managua appeals court Friday after refusing to board a plane to the US with 222 other opponents of President Daniel Ortega. The bishop of Matagalpa was also stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.

The San Francisco Public Defender’s office has accused a Latino police officer of racially discriminating against Latino drug dealers in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood. According to public defense attorneys for one of the neighborhood’s alleged drug dealers, Sgt. Daniel Solorzano arrested 53 people for drug sales over a roughly two-year period, all of whom were Latino. Meanwhile, they claim he declined to arrest 43 other people who the police had detained or surveilled, all but two of whom were non-Latino. Solorzano is of Mexican and Nicaraguan heritage and his first language is Spanish.

The presence at the European Parliament this week of a Palestinian who hijacked planes in Europe last century — and whose organization is on the E.U.’s terrorist list — continues to make waves, with some lawmakers and others calling for an investigation. Leila Khaled, a leading figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was a guest speaker at an event at the parliament complex in Brussels on Tuesday night. In 1969 and 1970, Khaled hijacked two aircraft — one Israeli, one American — in European airspace. She was arrested during the second attempt, but was soon...

A Nicaraguan diplomat was found dead in his Bronx apartment with his throat slashed yesterday when his driver came to pick him up for the UN General Assembly meeting, police sources said. The body of Cesar Mercado, 34, was found shortly after 10:30 a.m. when his driver opened the door of his Grand Concourse apartment and saw him on the floor in a pool of blood, cops said. Investigators are probing the possibility that the killing was caused by a gay relationship gone wrong, police sources said. The sound of men arguing was heard in the apartment before the murder,...

UNITED NATIONS - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused the U.S. of imposing a worldwide dictatorship and defended the right of Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear technology in a speech Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly meeting. Ortega also angrily denounced President Bush for criticizing Cuban leader Fidel Castro during his speech earlier in the day. Ortega, who took office in January, said little had changed since he last addressed the world body as the Marxist leader of Nicaragua's Sandinista-run government two decades ago. "The presidents of the U.S. change. And they may come to office with the greatest...

FORT STEWART, Ga. - A soldier who said he refused to return to duty because he opposes the war in Iraq left his unit as its job became more dangerous, his commanding officer testified Thursday. Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, an infantryman with the Florida National Guard, is charged with desertion after failing to return to his unit in Iraq after a two-week furlough in October. He said his experiences in Iraq turned him against the war, and he claims he deserted his unit partly to avoid orders to abuse Iraqi prisoners. Capt. A.J. Balbo, the lead prosecutor, said in his...

Nicaraguan dream to rival Panama's trade route Price of Central American ambition: $25bn and 10 years' construction over 175 miles Rupert Widdicombe in Managua Monday October 20, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Multi-billion dollar plans to create a rival to the 90-year-old Panama canal by linking a network of rivers and cutting through the jungle of central America are being backed by the goverment of Nicaragua. The new waterway - being proposed by a public private partnership called the Grand Canal Foundation - will cost an estimated $25bn (£15bn) and take 10 years to build. Its proponents say it would turn...