The Soviet Union fought the Cold War in Nicaragua. Now Putin’s Russia is back.

A view from the outside of the new Russian satellite station above a volcanic crater in Managua. Built alongside Laguna de Nejapa, on a hillside facing the U.S. Embassy, the base is intended to be a tracking site for GLONASS, Russia’s version of a GPS satellite navigation system. Some suspect the site could also be used for spying activities. (Joshua Partlow/The Washington Post)

 

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA — On the rim of a volcano with a clear view of the U.S. Embassy, landscapers are applying the final touches to a mysterious new Russian compound.

Behind the concrete walls and barbed wire, a visitor can see red-and-blue buildings, manicured lawns, antennas and globe-shaped devices. The Nicaraguan government says it’s simply a tracking site of the Russian version of a GPS satellite system. But is it also an intelligence base intended to surveil the Americans?

“I have no idea,” said a woman who works for the Nicaraguan telecom agency stationed at the site. “They are Russian, and they speak Russian, and they carry around Russian apparatuses.”

Pope Rehabilitates Marxist Priest

See also: Pope Reinstates Suspended Pro-Sandinista Priest (ABC)

 

An advocate of Marxist-oriented “liberation theology” and recipient of a Lenin Peace Prize has returned to his duties as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, after a 29-year suspension.

Miguel D’Escoto, who served as President of the U.N. General Assembly from September 2008 until September 2009, had been suspended from his priestly functions by the anti-communist Pope John Paul II in 1985. D’Escoto had joined the communist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua as foreign minister, after which the Soviets recognized his service by giving him the International Lenin Peace Prize.

His reinstatement is another sign of the leftward drift of the papacy of Pope Francis, a worldwide media favorite, who recently said, “I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag,” because the Marxists claim to be concerned about the poor.

Russia and China dig a channel vying with the Panama Canal

China and Russia arе embarking on a big geopolitical and economic venture of laying in Nicaragua a rival to the USA brainchild, the Panama Canal.

This was disclosed to the “Voice of Russia” by Petr Yakovlev, the head of the Center for Iberian Studies, Institute of Latin America, Russian Academy of Sciences. The expert said that Russian companies are holding talks with Chinese partners on how to participate in this strategic project in Latin America.

The start of the construction is planned for December 2014. Longer time slots had been proposed earlier. It is possible that adjustments have been made ​​following the probable participation of Russian companies in the project. Given the confidentiality of negotiations, Peter Yakovlev did not reveal the names of the Russian companies participating in them.

Nicaragua’s Revolution Heads Toward Dictatorship

Nicaragua’s National Assembly just approved changes to the constitution allowing President Daniel Ortega to run for a third successive term in 2016. Somewhere, Ortega’s former arch-enemy, the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza DeBayle, is having a good laugh.

Nicaragua leader moves closer to indefinite power

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega moved closer to indefinite re-election Tuesday after his allies in the National Assembly approved constitutional changes that opponents say are designed to keep the Sandinista leader in power for life.

The legislation eliminates presidential term limits and lowers the bar for re-election by naming the candidate with the most votes as the winner, eliminating the current requirement for the winner to garner at least 35 percent. Ortega is serving his third term under a supreme court decision that overrode the constitutional ban.

US and China: The Fight for Latin America

According to Robert Valencia, China is vying for greater economic influence in Latin America, to include possibly constructing and operating an alternative ‘Panama Canal’ through Nicaragua. One unanticipated consequence of this burgeoning US-China rivalry, Valencia observes, is that it might push Latin American countries closer together.

During the first weekend of June, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California to discuss cyber espionage and territorial claims in the Pacific Rim. While tension on these topics has hogged the headlines, the fight for influence in another area could be even more important—Latin America. Other emerging markets in Africa, where China has an overwhelming influence due to foreign direct investment in mining and oil, also offer economic opportunities, but Latin America has an abundance of natural resources, greater purchasing power, and geographic proximity to the United States, which has long considered Latin America as its “backyard.”

Nicaragua gives Chinese firm contract to build alternative to Panama Canal

Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications.

The Unholy Union of ALBA and Hezbollah

ALBA professes commitment to regional economic integration. It promises easy money to beleaguered nations, and is viewed as an easy alternative to the bureaucracy encumbering the World Bank.

A closer look, however, reveals it to be a bloc devoted above all to anti-Americanism, and comprised of members who have rigged elections to avoid losing power.

Moreover, membership in alba brings countries into common cause with the world’s most destabilizing nations and most malicious terrorist groups. The organization has forged ties with Middle Eastern terrorists that could pose a serious threat not only to Latin American countries, but also to the U.S. and Canada.

The man most responsible for alba’s spread is Hugo Chávez. His checkbook has wide ideological and cultural appeal in Latin America and the Caribbean. Chávez gave nearly $200 million to Manuel Zelaya’s government in Honduras to help his illegal attempt at re-election. Every year, he gives Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega around $500 million in “free” money to prop up his dictatorship.

…

Under alba’s umbrella, leading politicians have become the Caribbean’s and Latin America’s new breeders of crime. And since politicians at the highest levels are in on the action, reporting on alba-Hezbollah ties is rare. But some reports fight their way through the conspiratorial haze.

In August of 2008, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that an unnamed Western official had said Venezuela was providing Iran-backed Hezbollah with a base of operations. The official warned that Hezbollah is able to move “people and things” into Latin America thanks to the warm Iran-Venezuela relationship. He said this link “preserves the capability of Hezbollah and the [Islamic] Revolutionary Guard [Corps] to mount attacks inside Latin America,” and added “It’s becoming a strategic partnership.”

…

“There is a Chávez terror network on America’s doorstep,” says Rebecca Theodore, senior editor of Caribbean News Now.

…

Theodore said the danger of terrorists entering the U.S. via Latin America and the Caribbean is imminent. “It won’t be long before Iranian terrorists with Venezuelan and Dominican passports stand in line and show their documents to U.S. border agents as well,” she said.

The thickening alliance between anti-U.S. alba nations and West-hating terrorist groups like Hezbollah casts dark shadows across both Americas. It reveals that the Middle Eastern extremists who oppose the U.S. are becoming better connected, more powerful, and closer to America’s borders. It also reveals that U.S. influence is rapidly waning in a region it relies on heavily for industrial cooperation.

Full article: The Unholy Union of ALBA and Hezbollah (The Trumpet)