news summary

For anyone who is curious about what is going down here in the public sphere...

1. There was an article in today's paper about the continued influence of Walmart in the country, as it now owns the majority of the country's grocery stores and is providing a lot of jobs, as well as new products to consumers. For better or worse, it is reported that Nicaragua is the Central American hub for the global retailer.

2. President Ortega is set to travel to the Middle East, including a trip to visit Lybian leader Gadhafi.

3. There is a lot of coverage of the situation with the refusal of the Venezuelan government to renew the license of a popular but controversial Venezuelan television station, which was involved in the 2002 attempted coup of Hugo Chavez. If you get a chance, I recommend googling "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" to watch the documentary about it. (I think the documentary illustrates that popular opinion was definitely in Chavez' favor at the time, and that it was not in fact the station itself but its ownership and management which was implicated in the coup. Given that, my personal opinion is that the individuals involved should have been prosecuted but the station allowed to continue to broadcast.)

4. There have been several high profile deaths of Americans reported here in the last several weeks in Granada and Esteli, and while there is certainly no need to panic, the U.S. Embassy reports that petty crime and robbery against U.S. citizens is rising. Please pray for the continued safety of all cross-cultural workers and their families who are living here, as well as teams who come to visit and serve.