Daniel Ortega Slams Ethanol Campaign
media highlighted President Daniel Ortega's criticism of the "fantasy campaign" unleashed by his US counterpart, George W. Bush, to produce ethanol as fuel.

During a meeting with members of his cabinet on Tuesday, the Sandinista leader slammed Bush's plan, which he described as a mermaid's song.

The truth is that with this mermaid's song on ethanol, Bush is causing the price of the lands where sugarcane and corn is cropped to increase, noted Ortega.

The Nicaraguan statesman added that the price of urea has increased by more than 200 percent, as well as the prices of agricultural inputs and tractors.

He pointed out that using land to produce ethanol from intensive crops of corn and sugarcane might bring monoculture to the region.

Ortega said that he fully agrees with Cuban President Fidel Castro that large-scale production of ethanol as fuel would affect food production for humankind.

He added that the cost to produce that alternative fuel is higher than that of oil, whose price is set by geopolitical reasons.

Oil prices skyrocket whenever the United States and Great Britain talk about waging a war in the Middle East, he stressed.