MANAGUA – The streets of Nicaragua's capital once again became an unruly mob scene Thursday as roving bands of masked Sandinista youth, party fanatics and state workers took to the streets to protest what they claim is “U.S. interventionism” in their country's internal political affairs.

A group of several hundred Sandinistas protested aggressively outside the U.S. Embassy, launching mortars at the embassy building and spray painting anti-U.S. and pro-Sandinista graffiti on embassy property. Vandals, many of whom were bussed in for the protest, broke embassy security cameras, exterior lighting and attempted to destroy the signage for U.S. Consular Services.

Nicaraguan police assigned to protect the embassy stood by watching and didn't intervene, even when protesters spray painted the embassy walls next to where they were leaning.

In other parts of the capital, streets were blocked by similar protesters in several points in the city, prompting the United Nations to issue a warning to its employees to avoid affected areas.

“Death to the yanquis ! Death to the empire!” screamed one Sandinista Youth leader into a microphone outside the U.S. Embassy. Others yelled revolutionary slogans once used against the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s.

Protesters – many of whom were masked and some wielding sticks, bats or rocks – demanded the ouster of U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan in response to a speech he gave Oct. 28 to the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM), in which he reiterated the U.S. government's concerns over the state of democracy in Nicaragua

In his speech to the business chamber Wednesday afternoon, Callahan questioned the controversial ruling by Sandinista magistrates in the Supreme Court to overturn a constitutional ban on consecutive reelection and clear the way for President Daniel Ortega to run again in 2011 (NT, Oct. 30).

“From our point of view, the Supreme Court acted improperly and with unusual speed, in secret, with the participation judges from only one political movement and without any public debate or discussion,” Callahan said. “We think that an issue of such importance and concern for the future of Nicaragua's democracy deserves due deliberation and analysis.”

The Sandinistas responded furiously.

“That gringo can't tell us what to do,” said Andres Castillo, one of the Sandinista protesters outside the embassy Thursday afternoon.

“Let Nicaragua resolve Nicaragua's problems,” said another protester, Silvia Reyes. “This is the restitution of the rights of the people,” she said of Ortega's reelection, repeating the party line verbatim.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman declined to comment on the violence yesterday. But AMCHAM president Roger Arteaga told The Nica Times that the ambassador had called him to tell him what had happened and warn him that AMCHAM might also be targeted for similar vandalism.

AMCHAM responded by sending its staff home for the day and talking with police.

Arteaga, meanwhile, lamented the violence and the increasingly instability of Nicaragua.

“Attacking the U.S. Embassy is not going to resolve the problems of Nicaragua,” he said.

“When ideas run out, the only thing left is force. And this government has run out of ideas.”

Costa Rica's jobless rate has reached its highest level in more than 20 years, jumping to 7.8 percent in 2009, up from 4.9 percent in 2008, according to a study released Thursday morning by the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC).

According to INEC's Multipurpose Household Survey, of the 4,318,115 people in the country, 2,121,451 were employed in July of this year, which is when the study was conducted. In 2009, there were 64,039 more unemployed citizens in the country than in 2008.

Officials recorded the highest unemployment rate in 1982, when an economic crisis made jobless numbers skyrocket to 9.4 percent. The rate proceeded to fall in 1983 and '84, when it hit 7.9.

This year is the first time it has grazed that mark since.

The percentage of households living in poverty this year also increased to 18.5 percent in 2009, up from 17.7 percent last year.

“It's never good news to have this type of growth in the unemployment and poverty rates,” said the Minister of the Presidency Rodrigo Arias. “Above all we should keep in mind that behind the numbers there are people and families.”

Breaking down the total, INEC found that the unemployment rate of women rose from 6.2 percent to 9.9 percent, while the unemployment rate of men rose from 4.2 percent to 6.6 percent.

The Central Valley's unemployment rate is 7.5 percent. The highest unemployment rate, 10.1 percent, was recorded in the Chorotega/Guanacaste region.

The Central Valley also recorded the lowest rate of poverty, at 15.3 percent. The highest poverty rate was in the Brunca/Puntarenas region. Over 30 percent of the population was considered to be living in poverty, with 8.5 percent considered to be experiencing extreme poverty.

“We have to remember that Costa Rica, like the rest of the world, has lived the last few months in the wake of the worst economic crisis of the last decades,” Arias said. “Thanks to the responsibility in the management of the national economy … the figures in our country and much less than in other nations.”

Responding to a bridge collapse in the central Pacific last week, the Municipality of Santo Domingo de Heredia closed one of its suspension bridges along a popular shortcut from San José.

Engineers from the municipality noticed defects in the bridge after a recent survey, leading Mayor Raúl Isidro Bolaños to close it on Wednesday.

“It's a preventive decision, which will give technicians a chance to do a full evaluation to determine the structural condition,” said Bolaños. “If the technicians determine there's no problem, we will open it. But we don't want to incur risks.”

Bolaños said his decision was prompted by an incident in Turrubares last Thursday that killed five people. Long over due for repairs, that bridge over the Tárcoles River snapped under the weight of a bus.

“When situations like this occur, it's a good signal for us to take preventive measures,” he said.

The route connecting San José to Heredia will remain open, but traffic will be directed over a newer one-lane bridge built alongside the suspension bridge.

Already a full year behind schedule, Costa Rica's national biofuels program will not take effect until April of 2010 at the very earliest, the National Oil Refinery (RECOPE) announced Wednesday.

After having been delayed on at least four occasions, RECOPE now must wait for the Public Services Regulatory Authority (ARESEP) to complete a study that will determine how to tax gas stations that have adequately adapted their systems to sell the gasoline mix.

ARESEP expects to complete the study by December.

But with elections immediately following the end of the year – on Feb. 7, 2010 – RECOPE reports that it cannot begin the program until the change of guard takes place and new officials settle into their positions. The government institution said they will reveal on March 31, 2010 which stations will be selling biofuels.

The government created the biofuels program by executive decree in 2008, demanding that gasoline be mixed with 8 percent ethanol and that diesel fuel must contain 5 percent biodiesel by October 2008. The government promised gasoline with 20 percent ethanol and diesel with 10 percent biodiesel by the end of 2009.

But officials did not consider the amount of time it would take sugarcane and African palm farmers to grow and produce the mix, nor the high cost of importing biofuel. For these reasons, they were forced to delay the program.

Critics of the initiative claim that a national biofuels program will harm farmers and prolong an inevitable and necessary switch to electric cars. Farmland, they say, would be best used to grow more profitable crops, such as bananas and pineapples, which will be in higher demand than ethanol in the future.