Confidencial

At the temporary office of Radio Darío in the Nicaraguan city of León, reporters have set up two emergency escape routes: a trap door that opens into the dining room of the house next door and a ladder leading to the roof.

It’s been nearly 3,000 days since Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega last held a news conference, according to the opposition newspaper La Prensa. But when journalists complain about the lack of access to Ortega they often direct their ire not at the president but at the first lady, Rosario Murillo.

When Nicaragua began preliminary work on an interoceanic waterway designed to handle ships too big for the Panama Canal, some of the foreign correspondents who had flown in to cover the December groundbreaking were left high and dry.