Economic Update: Capitalism’s Uneven Development
Partner Content Provided By:Economic Update with Richard Wolff
February 13, 2020
This week’s episode of Economic Update features an introductory discussion by Professor Wolff on the heavy social costs which flow capitalism's systematically uneven economic development.
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Sunday, March 01, 2020
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE VIDEO'S
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture on the Julian Assange Case
Partner Content Provided By:AcTVism
February 12, 2020
In this speech, Nils Melzer, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Professor of international law at the University of Glasgow, talks about the case of Julian Assange. This speech was recorded on the 4th of February, 2020 at the Royal National Hotel in London in a public rally organized by the Don't Extradite Assange Campaign.
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Tariq Ali Speaks Out on Assange’s Case and US Wars
Partner Content Provided By:AcTVism
February 18, 2020In this Feb. 4 speech at a public event for Julian Assange at the Royal National Hotel in London, author, writer, filmmaker, and public intellectual Tariq Ali speaks about Julian Assange's extradition case.
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Human Rights Lawyer Jennifer Robinson on the Dangers of Extraditing Julian Assange
Partner Content Provided By:AcTVism
February 20, 2020
Human rights lawyer and barrister for Assange's legal team Jennifer Robinson highlights the dangers that Julian Assange's extradition poses to press freedom worldwide.
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Advent-led consortium to spend 'billions' on expanding Thyssenkrupp Elevator
BERLIN (Reuters) - The consortium that won the bid to acquire Thyssenkrupp’s elevators division wants to spend billions of euros on expanding the business, a manager at one of three partners said in remarks published on Sunday.
“The is no shortage of money for a global expansion,” Ranjan Sen, managing partner with private equity firm Advent told the Handelsblatt business daily. “This could by all means amount to single-digit billions.”
Thyssenkrupp said on Thursday it had agreed to sell its elevators division to a consortium of Advent, Cinven and Germany’s RAG foundation for 17.2 billion euros ($18.96 billion).
Thyssenkrupp said it would reinvest about 1.25 billion euros to take a stake in the unit.
By far the German conglomerate’s most profitable business, Thyssenkrupp Elevator is the world’s fourth-largest lift manufacturer behind United Technologies Corp’s Otis, Switzerland’s Schindler and Finnish rival Kone.
BERLIN (Reuters) - The consortium that won the bid to acquire Thyssenkrupp’s elevators division wants to spend billions of euros on expanding the business, a manager at one of three partners said in remarks published on Sunday.
“The is no shortage of money for a global expansion,” Ranjan Sen, managing partner with private equity firm Advent told the Handelsblatt business daily. “This could by all means amount to single-digit billions.”
Thyssenkrupp said on Thursday it had agreed to sell its elevators division to a consortium of Advent, Cinven and Germany’s RAG foundation for 17.2 billion euros ($18.96 billion).
Thyssenkrupp said it would reinvest about 1.25 billion euros to take a stake in the unit.
By far the German conglomerate’s most profitable business, Thyssenkrupp Elevator is the world’s fourth-largest lift manufacturer behind United Technologies Corp’s Otis, Switzerland’s Schindler and Finnish rival Kone.
Paris' Louvre Museum closed as staff walk out over coronavirus
People line up at the Louvre Museum as the staff closed the museum during a staff meeting about the coronavirus outbreak, in Paris, France, March 1, 2020. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
PARIS (Reuters) - Tourists and art lovers were unable to visit the Louvre in Paris on Sunday as workers staged a walkout at the world’s most-visited museum after a staff meeting about the coronavirus outbreak.
Long lines of disgruntled tourists snaked outside the museum on Sunday morning as management held a staff meeting about the outbreak to reassure workers that the risk was contained.
But the home of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo sculpture remained closed afterward. Workers refused to return to work after the meeting failed to reassure them, BFM TV said.
“Despite talks with management and the staff doctor, the Louvre Museum was unable to open in the absence of sufficient personnel,” a spokeswoman for the museum said after the meeting.
She added that there would be another meeting on Monday, but it was unclear when the Louvre would reopen.
Museums are not covered by a ban on large public gatherings announced by the government on Saturday as it tries to contain the coronavirus spread in France.
Authorities said that until further notice public gatherings in confined spaces with more than 5,000 people should be canceled.
As of Saturday evening, France had 100 confirmed cases of the illness.
Because of the ban, the annual Paris farm show closed a day early on Saturday. A half-marathon that was expected to draw more than 40,000 runners on Sunday in the capital was called off although several hundred determined athletes did run anyway.
Exclusive: Norway wealth fund could blacklist four major climate culprits
Gwladys Fouche
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund will exclude four companies for their vast emissions of greenhouse gases, or at least put them on probation to force them to change, the chairman of its ethics watchdog told Reuters.
FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Norwegian central bank in Oslo, Norway March 6, 2018. REUTERS/Gwladys Fouche/File Photo
The fund’s ethics body is, separately, opening a new front, said Johan H. Andresen: investigating whether technology companies’ tools are being used for “improper surveillance”, with their makers held to account regardless of their intent.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth, which has massive market influence because it owns 1.5% of the world’s listed shares, operates under ethical guidelines set by parliament.
Andresen, chairman of the fund’s Council on Ethics, said it had recommended the fund divest shares in the four polluters, after probing the oil, steel and concrete industries. The four companies were “worst in class” compared with peers in the same sectors but also compared with other sectors, he said.
The Norwegian central bank, which manages the fund, should make announcements about the firms imminently, the 58-year-old added. Companies to be excluded are not named until the fund has sold the shares, to avoid the stock falling in value beforehand.
“All of them were recommendations to exclude because we felt it was needed: they were cases that stood out,” Andresen said in an interview ahead of the publication of the council’s annual report on Sunday.
The central bank typically follows the council’s recommendations to censure companies but sometimes, rather than immediately excluding them, it puts them on a watch list to give them a set period of time to come up with a plan to significantly change their behavior, or face exclusion.
CARBON, NUKES, TOBACCO
The fund is forbidden by parliament from investing in companies that produce nuclear weapons, landmines, or tobacco, or violate human rights, among other criteria.
Emissions became a criterion for exclusion in 2016. In 2017 the Council on Ethics recommended a handful of companies be excluded but, since then, work had been suspended while the central bank asked for clarification from the finance ministry about the interpretation of the criterion. This has now happened, enabling the council to proceed.
To avoid blacklisting, companies should have a plan showing how they intend to adapt to climate change, with specifics crucial, Andresen said.
“We will look at speed, time, capital spend dedicated,” he added. “We want to see if they are walking the walk.”
A fifth company will now be assessed by the central bank for possible exclusion for using too much coal in its activities, Andresen said.
1984: BIG BROTHER’S WATCHING YOU
The council is also investigating a new area for possible human rights violations - whether tech products are used for “improper surveillance”.
“We are not looking at intent but whether the products of companies are being used improperly,” he said. “Artificial intelligence can be used to find cancer but it can be used for other things ... We are looking for documentation as to whether companies know what their products are used for.”
Andresen, who also owns private investment vehicle Ferd, said he expected the fund to announce possible exclusion decisions in this area this year as the council had already concluded investigations in “several cases”.
“We are looking at the sharper end, where the norm violations are the most visible and where it is easier to establish the facts,” he added. “George Orwell’s 1984 is, to some extent, here. These are scary developments.”
Andresen said he also expected a decision to be published this year about a company that causes severe environmental damage, as well as several companies in the textile industry for labor condition violations that breached human rights.
Some 65 companies have been excluded by the fund, on various grounds, on recommendations from the Council on Ethics. Another 68 companies have been excluded directly by the central bank based on their dependence on coal.
The fund, created from the proceeds of Norway’s oil industry, gradually sells shares in any company it wishes to drop. The main aim is to remove the ethical risk.
Gwladys Fouche
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund will exclude four companies for their vast emissions of greenhouse gases, or at least put them on probation to force them to change, the chairman of its ethics watchdog told Reuters.
The fund’s ethics body is, separately, opening a new front, said Johan H. Andresen: investigating whether technology companies’ tools are being used for “improper surveillance”, with their makers held to account regardless of their intent.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth, which has massive market influence because it owns 1.5% of the world’s listed shares, operates under ethical guidelines set by parliament.
Andresen, chairman of the fund’s Council on Ethics, said it had recommended the fund divest shares in the four polluters, after probing the oil, steel and concrete industries. The four companies were “worst in class” compared with peers in the same sectors but also compared with other sectors, he said.
The Norwegian central bank, which manages the fund, should make announcements about the firms imminently, the 58-year-old added. Companies to be excluded are not named until the fund has sold the shares, to avoid the stock falling in value beforehand.
“All of them were recommendations to exclude because we felt it was needed: they were cases that stood out,” Andresen said in an interview ahead of the publication of the council’s annual report on Sunday.
The central bank typically follows the council’s recommendations to censure companies but sometimes, rather than immediately excluding them, it puts them on a watch list to give them a set period of time to come up with a plan to significantly change their behavior, or face exclusion.
CARBON, NUKES, TOBACCO
The fund is forbidden by parliament from investing in companies that produce nuclear weapons, landmines, or tobacco, or violate human rights, among other criteria.
Emissions became a criterion for exclusion in 2016. In 2017 the Council on Ethics recommended a handful of companies be excluded but, since then, work had been suspended while the central bank asked for clarification from the finance ministry about the interpretation of the criterion. This has now happened, enabling the council to proceed.
To avoid blacklisting, companies should have a plan showing how they intend to adapt to climate change, with specifics crucial, Andresen said.
“We will look at speed, time, capital spend dedicated,” he added. “We want to see if they are walking the walk.”
A fifth company will now be assessed by the central bank for possible exclusion for using too much coal in its activities, Andresen said.
1984: BIG BROTHER’S WATCHING YOU
The council is also investigating a new area for possible human rights violations - whether tech products are used for “improper surveillance”.
“We are not looking at intent but whether the products of companies are being used improperly,” he said. “Artificial intelligence can be used to find cancer but it can be used for other things ... We are looking for documentation as to whether companies know what their products are used for.”
Andresen, who also owns private investment vehicle Ferd, said he expected the fund to announce possible exclusion decisions in this area this year as the council had already concluded investigations in “several cases”.
“We are looking at the sharper end, where the norm violations are the most visible and where it is easier to establish the facts,” he added. “George Orwell’s 1984 is, to some extent, here. These are scary developments.”
Andresen said he also expected a decision to be published this year about a company that causes severe environmental damage, as well as several companies in the textile industry for labor condition violations that breached human rights.
Some 65 companies have been excluded by the fund, on various grounds, on recommendations from the Council on Ethics. Another 68 companies have been excluded directly by the central bank based on their dependence on coal.
The fund, created from the proceeds of Norway’s oil industry, gradually sells shares in any company it wishes to drop. The main aim is to remove the ethical risk.
Sailor dies aboard oil tanker moored off Venezuela: sources
(Reuters) - A sailor aboard an oil tanker anchored off Venezuela’s coast died on Saturday, three people with knowledge of the incident said, marking the second death in less than a week involving personnel aboard ships serving the crisis-stricken OPEC nation.
Juan Carlos Navarrete, a 58-year-old Cuban national serving as a helmsman aboard the Petion Panamax tanker, died after falling overboard while the tanker was anchored in Amuay Bay in western Venezuela, one of the sources, union leader Ivan Freites, said on Sunday.
Neither Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, nor its oil or information ministries, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Both the Petion and its operator, Cyprus-registered Caroil Transport Marine Ltd, were hit with sanctions by the United States last September for transporting Venezuelan oil to Cuba. Washington has imposed sanctions on PDVSA as part of its bid to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who Cuba supports.
Freites said that since the sanctions, tankers transporting oil between Venezuela and Cuba frequently turn off their lights at night and switch off their location transmission systems to avoid detection, putting the safety of the crew at risk.
“They do these maneuvers without the necessary security conditions,” Freites said. “They are not complying with anything.”
Despite the sanctions, the Petion has taken several trips between Cuba and Venezuela in the past three months, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. It was scheduled to depart for Cuba in late February, according to Venezuelan port documents seen by Reuters, but the data show it has remained near Amuay.
Caroil Transport could not immediately be reached for comment.
Armed assailants killed the captain of the San Ramon oil tanker last Monday after boarding the ship while it was anchored off the Jose terminal in eastern Venezuela.
(Reuters) - A sailor aboard an oil tanker anchored off Venezuela’s coast died on Saturday, three people with knowledge of the incident said, marking the second death in less than a week involving personnel aboard ships serving the crisis-stricken OPEC nation.
Juan Carlos Navarrete, a 58-year-old Cuban national serving as a helmsman aboard the Petion Panamax tanker, died after falling overboard while the tanker was anchored in Amuay Bay in western Venezuela, one of the sources, union leader Ivan Freites, said on Sunday.
Neither Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, nor its oil or information ministries, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Both the Petion and its operator, Cyprus-registered Caroil Transport Marine Ltd, were hit with sanctions by the United States last September for transporting Venezuelan oil to Cuba. Washington has imposed sanctions on PDVSA as part of its bid to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who Cuba supports.
Freites said that since the sanctions, tankers transporting oil between Venezuela and Cuba frequently turn off their lights at night and switch off their location transmission systems to avoid detection, putting the safety of the crew at risk.
“They do these maneuvers without the necessary security conditions,” Freites said. “They are not complying with anything.”
Despite the sanctions, the Petion has taken several trips between Cuba and Venezuela in the past three months, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. It was scheduled to depart for Cuba in late February, according to Venezuelan port documents seen by Reuters, but the data show it has remained near Amuay.
Caroil Transport could not immediately be reached for comment.
Armed assailants killed the captain of the San Ramon oil tanker last Monday after boarding the ship while it was anchored off the Jose terminal in eastern Venezuela.
Argentine president to send abortion legalization law to Congress
Nicolás Misculin
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced on Sunday that he will send to Congress a bill to legalize abortion, an initiative that has broad social support but is also strongly opposed by religious groups in Pope Francis’ home nation.
FILE PHOTO: The image of a green ribbon is projected on the side of the National Congress as activists hold green handkerchiefs, symbolizing the abortion rights movement, during a rally to legalize abortion, in Buenos Aires, Argentina February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian
The center-left Peronist president, who took office in December, will also capitalize on his strong electoral mandate to reform the judiciary and Argentina’s intelligence services, he told Congress in a speech to open the body’s ordinary sessions.
Fernandez was accompanied by a crowd waving the flags of his “Frente de Todos” coalition and presented to the house by his vice president and the senate head, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
The president said the legislative measures would help him keep his promise to fight poverty, which in Argentina blights almost 40% of the population following years of recession and high inflation.
“Within the next 10 days I will present a bill for voluntary termination of pregnancy that legalizes abortion at the start of pregnancy and allows women to access the health system when they make the decision to abort,” Fernandez said to loud applause.
The initiative, promoted for years by an increasingly powerful feminist movement in Argentina, will be accompanied by a sexual education and pregnancy prevention drive, according to the Fernandez government.
Current Argentine law only permits abortions in cases of rape, or if the mother’s health is at risk. A previous bill to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks was passed by the lower house but rejected by the senate after a campaign by the country’s powerful Roman Catholic Church.
Fernandez has also pledged to bolster investment in hydrocarbons production and kick start economic growth.
Successfully renegotiating the repayment terms of some $100 billion of public debt, which the government has said is unpayable in its present condition, will be key to achieving the latter goal.
Fernández hopes to close an agreement with private creditors brokered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of this month.
“The most important thing is that the agreement we reach with the creditors is sustainable,” he told Argentine legislators.
On Monday, a new round of dialogues will begin with IMF officials and private creditors.
Nicolás Misculin
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced on Sunday that he will send to Congress a bill to legalize abortion, an initiative that has broad social support but is also strongly opposed by religious groups in Pope Francis’ home nation.
FILE PHOTO: The image of a green ribbon is projected on the side of the National Congress as activists hold green handkerchiefs, symbolizing the abortion rights movement, during a rally to legalize abortion, in Buenos Aires, Argentina February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian
The center-left Peronist president, who took office in December, will also capitalize on his strong electoral mandate to reform the judiciary and Argentina’s intelligence services, he told Congress in a speech to open the body’s ordinary sessions.
Fernandez was accompanied by a crowd waving the flags of his “Frente de Todos” coalition and presented to the house by his vice president and the senate head, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
The president said the legislative measures would help him keep his promise to fight poverty, which in Argentina blights almost 40% of the population following years of recession and high inflation.
“Within the next 10 days I will present a bill for voluntary termination of pregnancy that legalizes abortion at the start of pregnancy and allows women to access the health system when they make the decision to abort,” Fernandez said to loud applause.
The initiative, promoted for years by an increasingly powerful feminist movement in Argentina, will be accompanied by a sexual education and pregnancy prevention drive, according to the Fernandez government.
Current Argentine law only permits abortions in cases of rape, or if the mother’s health is at risk. A previous bill to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks was passed by the lower house but rejected by the senate after a campaign by the country’s powerful Roman Catholic Church.
Fernandez has also pledged to bolster investment in hydrocarbons production and kick start economic growth.
Successfully renegotiating the repayment terms of some $100 billion of public debt, which the government has said is unpayable in its present condition, will be key to achieving the latter goal.
Fernández hopes to close an agreement with private creditors brokered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of this month.
“The most important thing is that the agreement we reach with the creditors is sustainable,” he told Argentine legislators.
On Monday, a new round of dialogues will begin with IMF officials and private creditors.
Study casting doubt on Bolivian election fraud triggers controversy
Aislinn Laing
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology experts that called into question the alleged election fraud that drove Bolivian President Evo Morales to resign has triggered sniping between left and right-leaning governments in Latin America.
The analysis by two researchers in MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab, made public last week, stated that an Organization of American States (OAS) finding that fraud helped Morales win was flawed and concluded that it was “very likely” the socialist president won the October vote by the 10 percentage points needed to avoid a runoff.
The OAS in a statement on Friday dismissed the MIT study as “unscientific.”
Bolivia will run a fresh election in May. The MIT study prompted Morales, who fled Bolivia first to Mexico and then to Argentina, to call on Sunday for the “democratic” international community to steward the upcoming election carefully.
“The coup-mongerers intend to disqualify our candidates,” Morales wrote on Twitter.
The OAS report cited several violations in the October election including a hidden computer server designed to tilt the vote toward Morales, who served as Bolivia’s president for 14 years. Morales resigned amid violence in Bolivia in the aftermath of the election fraud allegations, declaring he was the victim of a “coup.”
Morales has said he will return to Bolivia, but has been charged by the caretaker government with sedition and blocked from running as a candidate for senator.
Leaders of a number of left-leaning Latin American countries supportive of Morales have weighed in since the release of the MIT report, with Mexico asking the OAS to clarify its findings.
Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro reiterated his claim that the OAS is a tool of the United States, posting on Twitter on Sunday that the MIT study was “more proof that the Ministry of the Colonies (OAS) threatens the will of the free peoples of the continent.”
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said the report’s findings justified his continued support for Morales.
“We demand the prompt democratization of Bolivia, with the full participation of the Bolivian people and without prescriptions of any kind,” Fernandez wrote on Twitter.
Conservative leaders in Latin America backed the OAS.
Ernesto Araujo, Brazil’s foreign minister, said fraud in Bolivia’s election had been “crystal clear”.
Tuto Quiroga, a former Bolivian president who is running in the upcoming election, called the MIT study a “rehash of old lies.” Quiroga pointed out that Morales had himself asked the OAS to review the October election, called a fresh vote after the OAS report on the matter and dismissed members of the country’s electoral board.
MIT did not respond to a request for comment.
Recession, record violence hit support for Mexico president: poll
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Record levels of violence and an economic slump are taking an increasing toll on support for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an opinion poll showed on Sunday.
The Feb. 20-26 survey of 1,000 Mexican adults by pollster Buendia & Laredo showed the president’s approval rating had slipped to 62% from 67% in late November. In February 2019, backing for the veteran leftist stood at 85%, the poll said.
“Bit by bit, the economy and security are starting to cut through more,” said Jorge Buendia, head of the polling firm.
Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018 promising to bring down record levels of gang-fueled violence and to ramp up economic growth. Instead, he presided over a mild recession last year, and was unable to stop homicides rising to new heights.
Holding daily news conferences at 7 a.m., the 66-year-old has been adept at shaping the political agenda, blaming Mexico’s problems on the legacy of corruption and “neo-liberal” privatizations he says he inherited from previous governments.
But his response to a slew of brutal murders in recent weeks, including one of a 7-year-old girl and another of a young woman mutilated by her partner, has been less surefooted, sparking protests and helping galvanize opposition to him.
The survey suggested that confidence in the government was lower than in the president. Some 40% of respondents said the country was on the wrong track, up from 29% in November, while 49% took the opposite view, down from 57% in the previous poll.
That net positive balance of opinion of 9 percentage points represented a sharp decrease from the survey’s positive balance of 56 points one year earlier.
Launching attack after attack on what he describes as his “conservative” opponents, Lopez Obrador has admitted to polarizing Mexico. The latest survey suggested that divisions in society have widened as his popularity frays.
Support for the president among Mexicans with lower levels of education has held up far better, the poll showed.
In August 2019, Lopez Obrador had a 70% approval rating among respondents with only primary education, a 73% rating among those attaining only secondary levels of education, and 68% among Mexicans who had university degrees or better.
By February, the approval rating among the first two groups was only slightly lower, standing at 69% and 67% respectively. But support among the university-educated had plunged to 43%.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Record levels of violence and an economic slump are taking an increasing toll on support for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an opinion poll showed on Sunday.
The Feb. 20-26 survey of 1,000 Mexican adults by pollster Buendia & Laredo showed the president’s approval rating had slipped to 62% from 67% in late November. In February 2019, backing for the veteran leftist stood at 85%, the poll said.
“Bit by bit, the economy and security are starting to cut through more,” said Jorge Buendia, head of the polling firm.
Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018 promising to bring down record levels of gang-fueled violence and to ramp up economic growth. Instead, he presided over a mild recession last year, and was unable to stop homicides rising to new heights.
Holding daily news conferences at 7 a.m., the 66-year-old has been adept at shaping the political agenda, blaming Mexico’s problems on the legacy of corruption and “neo-liberal” privatizations he says he inherited from previous governments.
But his response to a slew of brutal murders in recent weeks, including one of a 7-year-old girl and another of a young woman mutilated by her partner, has been less surefooted, sparking protests and helping galvanize opposition to him.
The survey suggested that confidence in the government was lower than in the president. Some 40% of respondents said the country was on the wrong track, up from 29% in November, while 49% took the opposite view, down from 57% in the previous poll.
That net positive balance of opinion of 9 percentage points represented a sharp decrease from the survey’s positive balance of 56 points one year earlier.
Launching attack after attack on what he describes as his “conservative” opponents, Lopez Obrador has admitted to polarizing Mexico. The latest survey suggested that divisions in society have widened as his popularity frays.
Support for the president among Mexicans with lower levels of education has held up far better, the poll showed.
In August 2019, Lopez Obrador had a 70% approval rating among respondents with only primary education, a 73% rating among those attaining only secondary levels of education, and 68% among Mexicans who had university degrees or better.
By February, the approval rating among the first two groups was only slightly lower, standing at 69% and 67% respectively. But support among the university-educated had plunged to 43%.
Nicaraguan poet and priest who criticized president dies at 95
FILE PHOTO: Nicaraguan poet and priest and Reina Sofia Prize winner, Ernesto Cardenal, speaks during a celebration for his 90th birthday at the National Theatre Ruben Dario in Managua, Nicaragua January 27, 2015. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas/File Photo
MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaraguan poet and priest Ernesto Cardenal died on Sunday at the age of 95 in Managua due to heart and kidney problems, a close relative said.
Cardenal, a strong critic of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, was suspended by the Catholic Church for more than three decades due to his political activism.
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