Venezuela cuts ties with Panama

Panama Does Not Notice

By Mery Mogollon andChris Kraul

March 5, 2014, 6:10 p.m.

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday that  he is breaking diplomatic relations with Panama, a decision he announced amid commemorations of the first anniversary of predecessor Hugo Chavez's death and continuing protests against Maduro's administration.

Maduro said he was taking action because Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli criticized police actions against Venezuelan protesters and because the Central American leader has urged that the Organization of American States debate Maduro’s alleged repression of the demonstrators.

Referring to protests that have roiled the country for three weeks, Maduro said he rejected any OAS debate of them as interference.

Martinelli has also called for the release of Leopoldo Lopez,  former mayor of a Caracas borough and a Maduro critic who was arrested Feb. 18 on charges of incitement to violence.

“A right-wing government is planning to convoke a meeting of the OAS to justify intervention by foreign forces in Venezuela,” Maduro said after a military parade in Chavez’s honor that was attended by thousands of red-shirted supporters. He called Martinelli a “lackey” conspiring with the United States.

On Thursday, the OAS is scheduled to discuss the Venezuelan situation in a meeting in Washington.

Maduro and presidents Raul Castro  of Cuba, Evo Morales of Ecuador and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua attended ceremonies that included an observance at Chavez’s tomb in a military museum in western Caracas. Fireworks were set off and cannons fired at 4:15 p.m., the time that   Chavez, Venezuela's fiery leftist leader, died last year at age 58.

Protest marches were reported in Caracas and several other cities. Authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds in the Altamira and Chacao sections of Caracas, the capital.

At least 18 people have been killed and hundreds injured in protests that began in western Tachira state and swept across many Venezuelan cities in recent weeks. Demonstrators have railed against high inflation, food shortages and a high violent crime rate.

Maduro reiterated his willingness to talk to opposition leaders. But his opponents have conditioned such talks on the release of Lopez and others, who they say are political prisoners.

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A Dream Time in a Dream Hotel

This hotel is just a dream. My girlfriend and I stayed in "Trump Ocean Club" from 23 February to 25 February 2014. A short stay, but we wanted to try how the hotel is. To make it short, it was a dream time in a dream hotel.

The staff is very friendly and helpful, from the bell-boy, the reception to the maid, that was the first impression I had, so I thought, lets have a nice time.

The reception is not on the ground floor, the reception is one on the upper levels. I can't remember, but it was floor 13 I guess. The pools and the restaurants are just one floor under the level were you check in, that's great.

We arrived very tired, the check in took a while, so we went straight to the pool-deck. What a dream, the pools are infinity-pools with the view on the canal, just beautiful. We relaxed in one of the relaxing-zones, and we had not to wait too long till someone came so we could order some drinks. The drinks came fast and made us happy.

Well, then we checked in, in our room. What a beauty, a big king-size bed, the most comfordable king size bed I ever slept. Oversized Flat-Screen TV, balcony with a gorgeous view, but the hit was the cool bath-tub in the middle of the room, what a beauty. I loved this room, and I felt at home.

There was a very cool coffee-maker, so you could make you caffee latte, cappucino or expresso or whatever you liked, that was something for my girlfriend. The minibar I have to criticize, it was too expensive, sorry.

Well, what a dream hotel, 
that was the thought of me and my girlfriend.

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Panama Canal Program Description 

The program consists in the construction of two new sets of locks - one on the Pacific and one on the Atlantic side of the Canal. Each lock will have three chambers and each chamber will have three water reutilization basins.

 

The program also entails the widening and deepening of existing navigational channels in Gatun Lake and the deepening of Culebra Cut.

In order to open a new 6.1 km-long access channel to connect the Pacific locks and the Culebra Cut, four dry excavation projects will be executed.

Panama Canal, Consortium Reach Deal to Complete Work

Agreement Ends Two-Month Dispute 

Over Who Will Pay for $1.6 Billion in Cost Overruns

Panama and a consortium of European builders agreed to end a two-month-long dispute over $1.6 billion in cost overruns for a project to widen the Panama Canal, raising hopes the work can be completed in about two years.

 

The preliminary deal, reached Thursday night, calls for independent arbitrators to rule on who should carry the extra costs. Both parties also agreed to provide for more than $1 billion in funds needed to complete the expansion project, which the shipping industry views as a boon to global trade.

The work on the 100-year-old waterway, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, began in 2007 with the overall cost pegged at $5.2 billion. The purpose is to widen and deepen the canal, given that many of today's vessels, including oil tankers and many container ships, are too big to fit through the canal's narrowest, 110-foot-wide stretches.

Jorge Quijano, head of the Panama Canal Authority, a government agency that operates the 50-mile waterway, said Friday that the project won't be finished until early 2016. The previous target was late 2015.

With the project's completion, Panama stands to greatly increase its more than $1 billion in annual revenue from toll fees. The U.S., which built the canal in 1914 and is the passageway's biggest customer, also is expected to benefit, as a wider canal could allow it to start exporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Asia from ports in the eastern U.S.

"LNG is not currently traded through the Panama Canal as most LNG vessels are too wide to fit through the locks," consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said in a recent report, noting the importance of the canal to U.S. efforts in exporting LNG from its Gulf Coast. "The expansion project will allow all but the very largest LNG ships to use the Panama Canal."

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China's plan to build £25bn rival to the Panama Canal across Nicaragua

13 December 2013 

• In June, Nicaragua allowed Chinese businessman Wang Jing to build canal

• Construction could begin next year and take five to six years to complete
• Critics say it's economically unrealistic, ecologically risky, bad for Nicaragua
• Wang also gets string of tax-free side projects, from port, airport to pipeline

• Deal pays Nicaragua $10m a year for 10 years, slowly transferring ownership

Construction delayed on Nicaragua waterway set to dwarf Panama canal

  Monday, 06 January, 2014,

Nicaragua's government says the construction of an inter-ocean canal will start a year later than planned because the waterway's path has yet to be defined.

The president of the canal authority, Manuel Coronel Kautz, says the project will not begin until next year because the canal's route approval comes in the third quarter of this year. President Daniel Ortega had said Nicaragua planned to begin construction in May.

Kautz told La Prensa newspaper on Saturday authorities wanted to wait for feasibility studies to be well advanced.

Nicaraguan legislators in June approved granting Beijing-based telecommunications CEO Wang Jing a concession to build and operate a canal more than three times the length of Panama's.

The China Railway Construction Corporation is carrying out a feasibility study on the canal project, which, if built, would rival the Panama canal and be the world's largest civil engineering project.

Nicaragua's announcement comes after a European-led consortium expanding the Panama Canal threatened to halt work unless the Panama Canal Authority met more than US$1.6 billion in cost overruns.

It is estimated that the canal, which is expected to be significantly longer than the 77-kilometre Panama Canal, will cost US$40 billion to build.