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Nicaragua's Ortega takes office | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Daniel Ortega has been inaugurated as Nicaraguan president, two months after his convincing election victory. | |
The one-time revolutionary, who fought for almost two decades to return to power, was sworn in during a ceremony in the capital, Managua. | |
The Sandinista leader won November's presidential election pledging to fight hunger, poverty and corruption. | |
He has said he wants friendly relations with the US but he also has warm ties with some of its fiercest foes. | |
Stability pledge | |
Many of the leftist Latin American leaders who have swept to power in recent years attended the ceremony, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa. | |
Cuba's Fidel Castro, too ill to personally attend the swearing in, sent a message of "utmost support" to Mr Ortega. | |
More than three-quarters of the population live on two dollars a day | |
Mr Chavez arrived in Nicaragua shortly after being sworn in for his third term in office, pledging "socialism or death" in his inauguration speech. | |
Bolivia's Mr Morales said: "Daniel Ortega's win gives strength and hope not only to Nicaragua but to all of Latin America." | |
Mr Ortega, 61, wore his trademark white shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows during the ceremony in a square that he built when he was president of the country in the 1980s. | |
He was given the blue-and-white presidential sash from the speaker of Congress. | |
The BBC's America's editor Will Grant says Mr Ortega has changed considerably since he fought a civil war against the US-backed Contra rebels in the 1980s. | |
He is now a committed Christian and when Mr Chavez nationalised sectors of the Venezuelan economy earlier this week, Managua was quick to distance itself from such decisions for fear of upsetting foreign investors. | |
Mr Ortega, who ruled Nicaragua for 11 years after the 1979 Sandinista revolution, has promised to maintain economic stability and not to radically change economic policy. | |
He has also pledged to spend more on education and healthcare to improve the conditions of 80% of country's population who live on around $2 (£1.03, 1.54 euros) a day. |