Streets were deserted in cities and towns on Thursday as banks and supermarkets, service stations and corner stores were closed.

Few people ventured out during the 24-hour stoppage.

Police officers with assault rifles lined the largely empty main streets of the capital, Managua.

The strike, organised by university students, farmers and business owners, was the latest tactic by a loose national alliance formed to dislodge the president.

Ortega's attempt to push through welfare cuts in April kicked off the bloodiest confrontations since a civil war ended in 1990.

The government of the former Marxist guerilla and leader of the Sandinista rebel movement quickly dropped the planned welfare cuts.

But the crackdown on protesters has sparked his biggest crisis since his second stint as president began in 2007.

Nearly 150 have been killed and hundreds injured in eight weeks of clashes between pro-Ortega forces and protesters armed with rocks, slings and homemade mortars.

In a statement on Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected as "biased" the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' condemnation a day earlier of ongoing state-sanctioned repression.

The commission released a scathing preliminary report in late May criticising "grave violations of human rights" during a government crackdown.

Ortega's administration has said protesters are vandals trying to destabilise his government and undermine democracy.

A new round of talks between the government and civil society representatives were scheduled for Friday.

Australian Associated Press