Yes, you read right...pathetic, you'd think, my rationale would be that on the net, I can choose which news or type of news I would like to read.
Having said that, AGAIN, I will break one of my sacred rules in maintaining this blog...and that is not to write anything that would put my host country in a negative light or at least write about what's going on here - on an economic or political level, anyway.
No internet connection means reading the local newspaper. There are 2 known local newspapers here and I subscribed to the one we have now mainly because not only do they have a promo for a year's advance subscription, we also get a discount card in some restaurants and that is just so.....typical me. Later in the year, I found out, well, I heard that the one we are subscribing to is critical of the incumbent government more than the other one and therefore either exaggerates or reports on every single thing that the current government might be doing to put it in a bad or worse light than it already is. It really depends on who you talk to...those who voted for the incumbent say that yes. they are overly critical while opposition supporters call it fearless journalism. I have linked both newspapers, you be the judge. I am a third party observer and therefore have no opinion on the matter (read: my lips are sealed).
Although I DO read the newspaper every now and then (believe it or not), these couple of days' news have finally alarmed me (okay, a bit), coupled with some other (official) security reports that I have been personally receiving.
Monday started with a nationwide transport strike, where those who chose to still service the public have been forcefully restrained (from plying their trade) by the striking group. The reason for the strike is that they have been requesting a dialogue to negotiate with the Ministry of Transport to freeze the price of Petrol (economic reports say that Nicaragua's petrol, per gallon, is the highest in Central America by $0.50). From today, there have been reports that the police have detained some strikers outside Managua, specifically in Leon. It doesn't look good as the government denies funds for subsidy exists to enable the price control. I feel the striker's pain as when we put on petrol last Saturday, I realized that my cost for petrol is in fact now close to double. For the Prado, I now spend a bit more than $C 1,700 (roughly $ 85.00) every 2 weeks, depending if we go out of town or not...and that's diesel even, as opposed to $C 900 (roughly $ 45.00) when we first got the car in January of 2007. It's not the price but the jump that scares me.
We too are affected with the strike, of course, I now give Adolfo extra to take a cab from home but that cannot last long as if this goes on and the way 'taxistas' are threatened to stop running and customers are forced to get off the cabs, soon there won't be any cabs to take. I suggested to Adolfo to take T's bike for now, instead of having to be forced to walk for miles and miles to get to work but he declined. He'd rather walk he says as the area where he lives is not the safest in Managua. Therefore, him on an imported titanium bike would just be begging for a robbery attack.
Signs of desperate times indeed. Also in the news is the closure of a big Taiwanese textile firm at the Zona Franca, their economic Zone here like PEZA in the Philippines, leaving 14,000 unemployed of which 70% are women, who by the way also took to the streets or plan to to protest unemployment (there are at least 3 more Asian companies planning to close down at the zone) and to remind the government of its election promise of job creation. The companies are leaving for various reasons but one of them is the increasing cost of production coupled with the effect (sales loss) of the economic down-turn in the US considered to be the biggest market of companies that have relocated here from Asia. Business is business after all.
Relative to this of course is the issue of the increasing price of the 'cañasta basica', the security situation where more people get robbed and more houses (even with security guards) get broken into even in areas that were considered safe only a couple of months ago. I learned yesterday that quite a few security personnel were not able to report to work, well, because of the transport strike. We're lucky with ours, they go to work on their bicycles. Desperate times call for desperate measures indeed. So much for the safest country in Central America...the least violent, maybe, but 'the safest' is no longer safe enough.
Headache...can't read anymore. Double headache to write about it. If interested, follow the (newspaper) links to read more as there's so much more to read about. None of them are good (right now, anyway)...well, there's actually one company that announced it's investment in Nicaragua by opening a factory that will employ 800 people...but really, what does that mean to the other 13, 200.
Now you see what I mean by the title of this post.
Having said that, AGAIN, I will break one of my sacred rules in maintaining this blog...and that is not to write anything that would put my host country in a negative light or at least write about what's going on here - on an economic or political level, anyway.
No internet connection means reading the local newspaper. There are 2 known local newspapers here and I subscribed to the one we have now mainly because not only do they have a promo for a year's advance subscription, we also get a discount card in some restaurants and that is just so.....typical me. Later in the year, I found out, well, I heard that the one we are subscribing to is critical of the incumbent government more than the other one and therefore either exaggerates or reports on every single thing that the current government might be doing to put it in a bad or worse light than it already is. It really depends on who you talk to...those who voted for the incumbent say that yes. they are overly critical while opposition supporters call it fearless journalism. I have linked both newspapers, you be the judge. I am a third party observer and therefore have no opinion on the matter (read: my lips are sealed).
Although I DO read the newspaper every now and then (believe it or not), these couple of days' news have finally alarmed me (okay, a bit), coupled with some other (official) security reports that I have been personally receiving.
Monday started with a nationwide transport strike, where those who chose to still service the public have been forcefully restrained (from plying their trade) by the striking group. The reason for the strike is that they have been requesting a dialogue to negotiate with the Ministry of Transport to freeze the price of Petrol (economic reports say that Nicaragua's petrol, per gallon, is the highest in Central America by $0.50). From today, there have been reports that the police have detained some strikers outside Managua, specifically in Leon. It doesn't look good as the government denies funds for subsidy exists to enable the price control. I feel the striker's pain as when we put on petrol last Saturday, I realized that my cost for petrol is in fact now close to double. For the Prado, I now spend a bit more than $C 1,700 (roughly $ 85.00) every 2 weeks, depending if we go out of town or not...and that's diesel even, as opposed to $C 900 (roughly $ 45.00) when we first got the car in January of 2007. It's not the price but the jump that scares me.
We too are affected with the strike, of course, I now give Adolfo extra to take a cab from home but that cannot last long as if this goes on and the way 'taxistas' are threatened to stop running and customers are forced to get off the cabs, soon there won't be any cabs to take. I suggested to Adolfo to take T's bike for now, instead of having to be forced to walk for miles and miles to get to work but he declined. He'd rather walk he says as the area where he lives is not the safest in Managua. Therefore, him on an imported titanium bike would just be begging for a robbery attack.
Signs of desperate times indeed. Also in the news is the closure of a big Taiwanese textile firm at the Zona Franca, their economic Zone here like PEZA in the Philippines, leaving 14,000 unemployed of which 70% are women, who by the way also took to the streets or plan to to protest unemployment (there are at least 3 more Asian companies planning to close down at the zone) and to remind the government of its election promise of job creation. The companies are leaving for various reasons but one of them is the increasing cost of production coupled with the effect (sales loss) of the economic down-turn in the US considered to be the biggest market of companies that have relocated here from Asia. Business is business after all.
Relative to this of course is the issue of the increasing price of the 'cañasta basica', the security situation where more people get robbed and more houses (even with security guards) get broken into even in areas that were considered safe only a couple of months ago. I learned yesterday that quite a few security personnel were not able to report to work, well, because of the transport strike. We're lucky with ours, they go to work on their bicycles. Desperate times call for desperate measures indeed. So much for the safest country in Central America...the least violent, maybe, but 'the safest' is no longer safe enough.
Headache...can't read anymore. Double headache to write about it. If interested, follow the (newspaper) links to read more as there's so much more to read about. None of them are good (right now, anyway)...well, there's actually one company that announced it's investment in Nicaragua by opening a factory that will employ 800 people...but really, what does that mean to the other 13, 200.
Now you see what I mean by the title of this post.
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