Real Latin American News?

I recently found a news blog called Inca Kola News that seems to offer some useful information. While it claims an Latin American focus, everything I have read so far is related to South America. Rather than political, a lot of information seems to be financial. The particular article that got me there is titled Why They Fear Evo Morales. The article points out that economically, Bolivia is doing very well and maybe that is the real problem. Referencing a chart, here is but a bit of what is there.

Since Evo took office, Bolivia as a country has finally felt the benefit of being sat upon the second largest reserves of natgas in Latin America. Each bar represents one month's worth of revenue to the state, and to put it in perspective, that means Bolivia earned over twice as much in the month of February 2008 than it did in the 24 months 2004 and 2005 combined. And before you start talking prices, we're talking natural gas in Bolivia and not crude oil. Although natgas has also spiked recently, it did the same back in 2005.

One could argue that Morales has nationalized that which was private but the reality is that he has only undone illegal privatizations. This, of course, is the old "who should control natural resources" issue. In Bolivia, however, it is very clear the privatizations were illegal.

How can we apply this to Nicaragua? For much of Nicaragua's resources, we are too late. Somoza took care of them long ago. But, most of Bolivia's revenue comes from energy. It happens to be natural gas which Nicaragua doesn't have but it does have geothermal. With rising energy prices, it would seem proper development (that is, private investment but with the government maintaining a revenue stream from production) of this natural resource is the best way for Nicaragua to move up the economic food chain.