Biophysical Society Bulletin | October 2023

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Around the World Nicaragua Assumes Control of Private University

subjecting them to possible criminal prosecution for failing to report foreign funding of their work. As a result, many researchers stopped publishing and the university stopped hosting international meetings. It is unclear how many faculty will return to the university under its new structure and leadership and how many will choose to pursue research elsewhere. Uruguay’s Water Crisis Affects Biomedical Research The scientific community in Uruguay is dealing with an unexpected crisis in its laboratories: highly salinized water causing essential equipment to fail. In an effort to deal with a three-year-long drought, the government-run water utility has added brackish water from the La Plata River estuary into a regional water system supplying more than 2 million people. At Udelar’s Center for Biomedical Research, researchers have compiled a long list of broken devices and ruined experiments that have been in process for many years. The scientific com munity was unprepared for the severity and rapidity of the water-quality decline and has criticized the government for a lack of communication over the water crisis. Researchers are now working on preparedness plans to avoid a similar crisis in the future.

On August 15, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega seized the assets of the private Central American University (UCA) and closed its campuses, before reopening the newly renamed Casimiro Sotelo Montenegro National University under new leadership. The move deals a serious blow to academic free dom and scientific autonomy and is the latest in a years-long effort by Ortega to consolidate power and crack down on perceived political opponents, including academics. In recent years, he has closed two dozen other, mostly smaller, private universities and the nation’s National Academy of Sciences. Once considered one of Central America’s top private uni versities, UCA maintained a faculty of approximately 500 and a student enrollment of about 6,000 primarily under graduate students. It was known for housing a wide array of research efforts, including a center for molecular biology and an institute of natural sciences. Over the past decade, the university has faced increasing scrutiny from Ortega’s party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The government also tightly regulated faculty research efforts, barring researchers from accessing public records such as national statistics and

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October 2023

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