Nicaragua
Nicaragua set to outlaw abortion
Nicaragua is expected to approve a law that outlaws all forms of abortion today.
Leaders from the Roman Catholic church have helped to draft legislation outlawing abortion in all cases, including cases of rape and abortion to save the pregnant woman's life.
Nicaragua to ban abortion
The Nicaraguan government is threatening a complete ban on abortion, including in the case of rape and if the mother's life is threatened.
Nicaragua's parliament is moving toward a complete ban on abortions, with a proposed reform bill currently being discussed by the judicial commission. The proposed change to the law stems from a controversial case in 2003, when the Public Prosecutor ruled than an abortion carried out on a 9 year old girl was legal, as it was carried out to save the mother's life.
1986: The Iran-Contra Affair
Chomsky's brief account of the US selling arms to Iran via Israel in order to fund far-right paramilitary contras in Nicaragua.
The major elements of the Iran/contra story were well known long before the 1986 exposures, apart from one fact: that the sale of arms to Iran via Israel and the illegal contra war run out of Colonel Oliver North's White House office were connected.
1970-1987: The contra war in Nicaragua
Noam Chomsky's account of the US-backed “contra” counter-insurgency in Nicaragua against the left-wing government brought to power on the back of a popular mass movement from below.
It wasn't just the events in El Salvador that were ignored by the mainstream US media during the 1970s. In the ten years prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television - all networks - devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972.
