Latin America in Short: Nicaragua in Political Crisis | Wall Street Crash

This week the opponent of Daniel Ortega, Yubrank Suazo, has been arrested in Nicaragua. In economic news, there was a Wall Street crash that alarms experts. Finally, in terms of health, North Korea is once again in a health crisis due to the Coronavirus pandemic, while a report by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health has alarmed this week about the deaths from pollution that occur each year. Everything is summarized and explained here.

Daniel Ortega continues the persecution of opponents

The Nicaraguan dictator, Daniel Ortega, continues his campaign of political persecution of opponents. The new victim is Yubrank Suazo, one of the leaders of the 2018 protests. Suazo was arrested on Wednesday of this week in the city of Masaya. The 31-year-old opponent had recently denounced the irregular monitoring by the police of him and his parents.
The imprisoned leader is a member of the opposition group Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy and had participated in the 2018 opposition marches that left more than 350 people dead.

Now, Suazo joins the list of 182 political prisoners that the government of Daniel Ortega has persecuted since the previous presidential campaign. Among these, there are 7 presidential candidates in the jousts that Ortega won in November 2021, in which many NGOs described as irregular.

Wall Street suffers its worst drop in years

The New York Stock Exchange suffers its worst day in almost 2 years. This "black" Wednesday, Wall Street closed in the red, with the Dow Jones index down 3.6% and the Nasdaq down 4.7%.
Experts blame retailer Target's shrinking revenue, which is down 20%. Likewise, Amazon, Apple and Netflix closed on Wednesday with 5.21%, 3.77% and 4.84% respectively.

Target, one of the largest retail companies in the country, registered revenues of one billion dollars between January and March 2022, about half of the benefits of the same period in 2021. The company assured that its poor results are due to the high inflation at the beginning of the year and the crisis in the supply chain. This has affected US consumption.

Read also: It's Not Just Your Pocket. Inflation in Latin America Worries the World

North Korea is in crisis due to the Coronavirus

At this time, the Asian country has more than one and a half million cases of Covid-19, according to the Kim Jong-un government. In fact, the army has been mobilized and massive quarantines have been decreed throughout the country. In this regard, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed its concern for the human rights of the population due to the measures adopted. Apparently, the virus has entered through China, after opening the borders, as the country had remained hermetically sealed.

One in six deaths is caused by pollution.

According to a report by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, pollution caused nine million deaths in the world in 2019. In this way, pollution, with pollution in the lead, continues to be the main cause of the appearance of illnesses and premature deaths, related to the environment. Since 2015 this report had not been published again and the update is not encouraging at all. In addition, it is evident that pollution is accelerating the aging of the population.