COSTA RICA-NICARAGUA | ICJ rules against Managua. On 13 December the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague rejected a claim by Nicaragua (filed in December 2011) that Costa Rica was causing environmental damages by building a road parallel to the San Juan River. This is the second ruling by the ICJ against Nicaragua in less than a month, following a 22 November ruling ordering Managua to remove all personnel from the San Juan River area and to refrain from any dredging. It was also ordered to halt work on two new canals. The ruling may give the deeply…

Costa Ricans became aware in early December that a group of about 100 citizens had begun to undergo military training, ostensibly to prepare for the eventuality of war with Nicaragua. The government has condemned the initiative, which is headed by a former police chief, and warned that it could become a threat to the country’s institutions. It was Telenoticias that broadcast on 2 December the news that a group of men wearing military fatigues had been training somewhere close to the Caribbean coast in infantry tactics. Their leader, retired commissar José Fabio Pizarro Espinoza, proclaimed, ‘We must prepare for the…

The latest statistics released by the Salvadorean police show a distinct upward trend in the homicide rate since the middle of the year. The authorities have attributed this increase to a breach in the ‘truce’ agreed in March 2012 by the country’s two largest street gangs, but the mediators of the truce argue that it has not failed. President Mauricio Funes has been blowing hot and cold. In early December the national police (PNC) reported that homicides in November had totalled 248, or 51% more than in the same month of 2012. The daily average, which had been running at…