Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega says he is breaking off relations with Colombia over the country’s raid on a guerrilla base in Ecuador.

Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary who fought US-backed insurgents in the 1980s, has won presidential elections in Nicaragua.

Leftist Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega had a strong lead over four other candidates after a Nicaragua election that could return the leftist to power 16 years after a US-backed rebellion helped force him from office.

Daniel Ortega has told Nicaraguans he is not the same revolutionary the US once tried to overthrow.

Nicaragua’s Congress has voted to approve a bill banning all abortions, including those that could save a mother’s life.

Alfredo Stroessner, the canny anti-communist general who ruled Paraguay with a blend of force, guile and patronage for 35 years before his ousting in 1989, died in exile today. He was 93.

The United States suspended all assistance to Nicaragua’s judiciary yesterday, a day after the Supreme Court warned America to stay out of its business, the US Embassy in Managua announced in a written statement.

The first official results of yesterday’s presidential election in Nicaragua showed the governing Liberal party’s candidate Enrique Bolanos headed for a victory over Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

Eleven years after he lost power in an election, former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega ran a strong chance to regain the presidency in elections in Nicaragua today despite US efforts to dent his campaign.