Rage against congress: Nicaraguan university students shoot homemade mortar explosives Tuesday at Managua's National Assembly, shattering several windows and skylights.

Mario López | EFE

Nicaragua's increasingly explosive civil unrest was unleashed on the government Tuesday, as a group of public university students attacked the National Assembly – the only branch of government not controlled by President Daniel Ortega – shattering several windows with homemade mortar explosives fired from the street.

Lawmakers from the various political parties appeared visibly rattled as a mortar explosion shattered several skylights overhead in the main chamber of parliament, showering shards of glass upon their heads.

“Luckily the big pieces of glass fell where there weren't any people, because it could have killed someone,” opposition lawmaker and National Assembly Secretary Wilfredo Navarro told The Nica Times. “Each day these mortars are getting stronger and stronger with a longer range – and we all know it's the Sandinistas who are sponsoring this.”

Despite being classified as a weapon in Nicaragua's Law of Arms, the Sandinistas have repeatedly defended the use of mortars as a “popular form of expression.” The National Police, whose questionable role appears increasingly ornamental, have yet to confiscate any weapons or arrest anyone for firing the mortars in more than a year of nearly continuous Sandinista protests.

The student protest was against a recently passed law creating a new National Council of Evaluation and Accreditation (CNEA), which students fear will divert part of their constitutionally mandated 6 percent of budget spending for 10 public universities.

Lawmakers have admitted that the law was “a mistake” and have committed to support a presidential veto of the law expected this week.

Meanwhile, other masked “students” blocked streets in downtown Managua Tuesday, firing mortars and stopping cars to demand drivers show them identification, according to reports on Chanel 10 TV. Police were nowhere to be seen.

The Sandinistas are calling on their supporters from across the country to march on Managua on Saturday to celebrate their contentious “victory” in the 2008 municipal elections. In clear defiance of a police permit that allows the opposition to march on the same day, the Sandinistas have called for 100,000 Ortega supporters to march along the opposition's previously established protest route, setting the stage for violent clashes between the two groups.

Human rights activists are calling the Sandinistas counter-march an “irresponsible” provocation that some fear could lead to a major bout of political violence on par or worse than the riots following last year's allegedly fraudulent municipal elections.

Government critics say Tuesday's student attack against the National Assembly and another Sandinista Youth demonstration planned for Friday are part of a greater  Orteguista terror campaign to deter any form of protest by the opposition majority.

“The Sandinistas are trying to create chaos and crisis,” said lawmaker Navarro. “This is all part of their strategy to scare people so they won't take to the streets during the protest march on Nov. 21.”

See the Nov. 20 print or digital edition of The Nica Times for more on this story.

Amway Global, a multilevel marketing and direct sales company, announced plans to transfer 93 positions from its corporate office in Ada, Michigan to Costa Rica within the next 12 to 15 months. The majority of the positions will be in the finance division of the company, which is undergoing a restructuring process that aims to increase its presence in Latin America.

“Costa Rica is a primary hub for servicing the Latin American region,” said Stephen Duthie, a spokesman at Amway Corporations. “We are looking at growing in the Latin America market and Costa Rica is a good location with proximity to our manufacturing facilities in the U.S.”

Amway sells a multitude of products, including vitamin, mineral and dietary supplements, skin care and cosmetics, XS brand energy drinks and L.O.C. cleansing products. Customers buy Amway products from such sites as Shop.com and Barnes & Noble.com, as well as in stores such as Office Depot, Bass Pro Shops and Dick's Sporting Goods. According to Duthie, Amway had over $8.2 billion in sales last year, which was a 15 percent leap from the previous year.

“The move to Costa Rica is a long-term decision,” Duthie said. “It is not a decision made in duress.”

The company has not yet chosen a specific location for its Costa Rica branch.

He's back: Craig Kelly, left, a senior U.S. State Department official, speaks with Honduras' interim President Roberto Micheletti during Tuesday, during Kelly's third visit in recent weeks to the country in crisis.

Photo courtesy of Honduran Casa Presidencial

Honduras' Congress announced Tuesday it will wait to vote on whether ousted President Manuel Zelaya can return to power until Dec. 2 – three days after Hondurans are set to elect their new president.

The decision on Zelaya's reinstatement was expected this month – ahead of the Nov. 29 elections – as one of the primary points toward forming a unity government under the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord. Many governments had pinned their support and recognition of the upcoming elections on whether that accord goes through.

But the agreement is only alive depending on whom you ask. Zelaya has said the pact is off and he will not recognize the winner of the elections.

Following the congressional announcement, de facto President Roberto Micheletti issued a statement in which he “reiterates his commitment to complying with the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord letter by letter, point by point.”

Zelaya was less conciliatory. “This is an outrage,” he told the newswire EFE upon learning of the post-electoral scheduling.

He added, “It's a shame that the de facto regime is being supported by the United States.”

The remark came just before Craig Kelly, a senior official in Washington's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, made another “surprise” arrival, in the Micheletti administration's words. This was Kelly's third visit in three weeks.

Critics say the U.S. made a marked shift in its stance on the issue of the Honduran elections after the top diplomat's last visit.

“We recognize that the only path out of this is through an electoral process where the people of Honduras get to speak,” State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in a daily press briefing last week.

Neither Zelaya or Micheletti is running in the election.

Broader swaths of Costa Rica's offshore area must be protected if the country wants to meet the standards of the global Convention on Biological Diversity, conservation area officials said Tuesday.

The National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) released the final installment Tuesday of its three volume “ Grúas II ” series, a program that attempts to identify gaps in Costa Rican conservation efforts.

Grúas Marino identifies 35 sites of ecological importance in the country's oceans; at present, only 9.5 percent of the area of these sites receives some level of protection.

Among the more important of these areas are the Domo térmico – an upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water in the Pacific, the Golfo Dulce in the southwestern part of the country, the Golfo de Papagayo on the northern Pacific coast, and Barra de Colorado, a river mouth near the border with Nicaragua on the Caribbean Sea.

The report came as lawmakers debate a bill that could ease restrictions on the construction of new boating marinas, a plan that worries conservationists.

While more than 25 percent of the small nation's landmass receives some measure of legal protection, only 0.9 percent of its national waters are included in protected areas. Grúas Marino proposes to increase the coverage of protected marine areas to 4.14 percent of Costa Rica's seas.

Officials noted that SINAC does not wish to restrict all activity within the identified areas, but acknowledged that they have not completed the necessary studies to determine which zones should be completely off limits to tourism, fishing and resource extraction, and where these activities should be allowed under controlled conditions.

“When we talk about marine protected areas people think we are talking about areas that will be totally restricted, but we are talking about different categories,” said Guisselle Méndez, director of SINAC. “Each area will have a different level of protection according to its needs and the needs of the communities that depend on it.”

She indicated, though, that SINAC is not yet fully prepared to determine what those needs are.

“We have to analyze the internal capacity of our institution and the amount of marine experience we have. Marine protection is new to us and we have to prepare, but we are not yet prepared for this part,” she said.

Méndez said SINAC is working with academic institutions to assess the various options that exist in order to establish marine protected areas.