Nicaragua

Crime and joblessness have long been part of the tough Leon XIII neighborhood of Costa Rica's capital, where residents such as Alexandra Martinez do their best to steer clear of broken pavement and street-corner drug dealers. But the 37-year-old homemaker says that things have gotten worse in the last few years. Her explanation: "There are a lot of Nicas here," she says, using a slang term for Nicaraguans.

A former elementary school teacher who had been on the run for nearly five years was arrested in Nicaragua over the weekend on suspicion of producing pornography of young boys, the FBI said Tuesday. Eric Justin Toth, now 31, was once a third-grade teacher at Beauvoir, an exclusive elementary school attached to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. When Beauvoir officials confronted him about pornography of a student on a school camera, he fled. "That media card contained many images that you expect to see on the camera of a teacher: pictures of kids smiling, playing in the classroom," U.S. Atty.

Survivor: Nicaragua infobox 9/15/10 'Survivor: Nicaragua' Where: CBS When: 8 p.m. Wednesday Rating: Not rated

BOGOTA, Colombia - In a ruling that gave each side some of what it wanted, the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Monday upheld Colombia's sovereignty over seven Caribbean islands but ordered that Nicaragua's maritime boundary be redrawn to give it more offshore territory. Ending a case that first came before the court in 1999, the ruling gives Nicaragua additional access to fishing grounds and potentially huge reserves of natural gas that Colombian government studies say reside below the ocean floor in the disputed area.

Congress should evaluate the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in its world context. It is part of an historical process advanced in 1968 when Czech leader Alexander Dubcek attempted to implement "socialism with a human face." Dubcek's and three other similar experiments have been ended with help from the superpowers: Poland's Solidarity, Grenada's New Jewel Movement, and Salvador Allende's Chile. "Human face" socialism seems to make superpowers nervous. (Though it may be too early to judge the post-Mikhail Gorbachev U.S.S.

Luis Miguel Noriega scored his first international goal on a penalty kick in the 45th minute of his national team debut, and Mexico defeated Nicaragua, 2-0, on Sunday at Oakland in the first round of Gold Cup play in Group C. Pablo Barrera, a second-half substitute, added a goal for El Tri in the 86th minute. He one-touched the ball into the net from seven yards after a perfect cross from Alberto Medina on the right flank.

Could someone please explain to me the difference between the Cubans funding and fighting with the Sandinistas and the United States funding and fighting with the contras of Nicaragua? You say, "To ask that question is not the American way?" Then, whose way is it?! GAYLE BOSTWICK Palm Desert

John Hopkins' letter of Oct. 10 challenged CSUN students' moral stand against a Carl's Jr. restaurant on campus. The students protested Carl Karcher's anti-abortion stand and rightly so. But Hopkins should know this: It was Karcher's dollars that also helped finance the illegal Contra army in Nicaragua. Many men, women and children died. Carl's really got a bang for his buck, you might say. Double talk! Double standards! You name it, Mr. Hopkins. SYLVIA FLISS, Panorama City

I am writing to let you know how much I appreciated the review of "Turning the Tide, U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace" by Noam Chomsky. My folks were missionaries in Nicaragua where I grew up. U.S. interventions there started many years ago. As a child, I saw fighting and U.S. Marines in Nicaragua. The U.S. general, I think his name was Phelan, used to say in interviews that Sandino and his men were bandits. Later on when Carleton Beals, an anthropologist (Harvard)

MEXICO CITY — Adolfo Calero, a former Coca-Cola executive who led the largest anti-Sandinista Contra rebel force in 1980s Nicaragua and served as one of its most articulate lobbyists in Washington, has died. He was 80. Calero died Saturday night in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, of complications from lung disease, an aide told local media. Calero's career mirrored the tumultuous history of Nicaragua as it emerged from a sleepy Central American backwater to the center of the Cold War struggle.

Mercedes Adilia Rodriguez's wishes were precise and meaningful: Her casket would be closed during her funeral, and she refused to be buried in the chilly earth of a Southern California cemetery. Instead, following tradition, she would be interred above ground in her hometown in Nicaragua. But in the days after her death, family members say they were summoned to Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuaries in Whittier and told the funeral home had made a mistake. She had been confused with someone else.

After years of living in the mountains of northern Nicaragua as an agricultural aid worker trying to make life better for the country's poor farmers, Paul Rice woke up and smelled the coffee - specifically, fair-trade coffee. That was 12 years ago. Today, Rice heads Fair Trade USA, an Oakland nonprofit that is the country's leading certifier of fair-trade products. Such certification helps farmers living in countries with emerging economies receive a fair price for coffee, tea, chocolate, rice and other products they produce instead of selling at the lower market price to a middleman.

Presidential election results seemed to indicate clear winners Sunday in Guatemala and Nicaragua, two Central American countries where democracy has been dramatically weakened by violence and political abuse. In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega, a one-time Sandinista revolutionary who now professes to be a born-again Christian, looked set to be reelected, based on preliminary results, after eviscerating the constitution to become eligible for a third term. In Guatemala, retired army Gen. Otto Perez Molina, who had the edge going into Sunday's vote, was well on the way to victory, according to partial results.

The State Bar of California has declined to discipline a Los Angeles attorney who was accused of orchestrating a massive fraud in representing Nicaraguan banana workers in lawsuits against U.S. corporations, according to a document reviewed by The Times. Then-Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria G. Chaney had referred attorney Juan Dominguez, a personal injury lawyer whose ads are ubiquitous on Los Angeles buses, to the state bar after she made findings that he was central in a scheme to recruit fake plaintiffs, coach them to lie about working on Dole-affiliated banana farms, and fabricate medical evidence.

Constitutional bans and felony convictions would be career killers for many politicians. But in Nicaragua such inconveniences don't seem to be an obstacle to running for president. The race to rule Nicaragua is shaping up as a choice between two modern-day caudillos — strongmen — who are very familiar, for good and for bad, to this troubled country's voters. Daniel Ortega, the autocratic president and former revolutionary comandante , has announced his intention to seek reelection next year, even though the constitution forbids it. Arnoldo Aleman, a former president who made a top 10 list of the world's most corrupt leaders and served time after his term for money-laundering and fraud, declared his candidacy in July.

Survivor: Nicaragua infobox 9/15/10 'Survivor: Nicaragua' Where: CBS When: 8 p.m. Wednesday Rating: Not rated

There are many things you can call Fox NFL sports analyst and coaching legend Jimmy Johnson but "wimp" is not one of them. When two blocked arteries prevented him from competing on his favorite TV show, CBS' "Survivor," three years ago, Johnson underwent heart surgery, lost 30 pounds, cut his cholesterol level in half and applied again. The network couldn't resist and offered him a slot on "Survivor: Nicaragua," which premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. (Yes, that's a new night for the granddaddy of reality TV shows)