Free Republic

As a conscripted soldier during the Contra War of the 1980s, Esteban Ruiz used to flee from battles because he didn't want to have to kill anyone. But now, as the 47-year-old farmer prepares to fight for his land, Ruiz insists, "I'm not going to run." Ruiz's property on the banks of Nicaragua's Rio Grande sits in the path of a $50 billion transoceanic waterway set to break ground on Monday. Nicaraguan officials will start building access roads on state-owned land as the first step in creating a canal expected to rival that of Panama - a project supporters say...

More than four years ago, when Panama awarded the lucrative contract to expand its inter-oceanic canal to a mostly European consortium, the United States was not pleased. An American company whose bid was unsuccessful, Bechtel, thought the winning tender would barely pay for pouring the concrete and that the consortium would probably try to renegotiate the price at some stage during the construction process. Some might argue that those American doubts have been justified, especially in view of the ongoing economic row between the European consortium and the Panamanian government agency that runs the waterway. The spat has threatened to...

Colombia has announced it is negotiating with China to build an alternative to the Panama Canal. The proposed transport route is intended to promote the flow of goods between Asia and Latin America. The plan is to create a "dry canal" where the Pacific port of Buenaventura would be linked by rail, across Colombia, to the Atlantic Coast. Trade between Colombia and China has increased from $10m in 1980 to more than $5bn last year. The announcement came from the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, who told the Financial Times that the project was "a real proposal... and it is...

The recent border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is a sign of an ambitious plan by Venezuela, Iran and Nicaragua to create a "Nicaragua Canal" linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that would rival the existing Panama Canal. Costa Rica says that last week Nicaraguan troops entered its territory along the San Juan River – the border between the two nations. Nicaragua had been conducting channel deepening work on the river when the incident occurred. Sources in Latin America have told Haaretz that the border incident and the military pressure on Costa Rica, a country without an army, are...

Nicaragua's parliament is due to vote on Thursday on one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Latin America's history – a trans-oceanic canal that is to be built and run by a Chinese company. If it goes ahead, the $40bn (£26bn) scheme, which is twice as expensive as Brazil's Belo Monte dam and likely to be three times longer than the Panama canal, looks set to transform global shipping and jump start the economy of this Central American nation. As well as the waterway, the draft agreement between Nicaragua and a Hong Kong registered firm — Nicaraguan Canal Development Investment...

Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications. The president of the country's national assembly, Rene Nuñez, announced the $40bn (£26bn) project, which will reinforce Beijing's growing influence on global trade and weaken US dominance over the key shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The name of the company and other details have yet to be released, but the opposition congressman Luis Callejas said the government planned to grant a 100-year lease to the Chinese operator. The national...

Nicaragua has approved plans for a mysterious Hong Kong-based company to build an estimated $40 billion canal across the middle of the country, Luis Manuel Galeano and Michael Weissenstein of The Associated Press report. The waterway, which would have to be roughly three times as long as the 50-mile Panama Canal, would be one of the largest infrastructure projects ever. The plan has some serious detractors: Environmentalists say it would devastate Lake Nicaragua, the country's primary source of fresh water, while shipping experts say that it may be an economically unfeasible power play by China. The company, HK Nicaragua Canal...

If this isn't the perfect PSA for the dangers of texting and walking, we don't know what is. British radio personality Laura Safe was typing messages to her boyfriend when she walked straight into the icy water of a canal in Birmingham--and it was all caught on CCTV. "I thought the canal was pavement because it looked dark out of the corner of my eye," Safe told the Sun.

Egyptian security forces were able to foil a terror attack on Israeli vessels in the Suez Canal, Cairo's Al-Ahram weekly reported Saturday. According to the report, the Egyptian investigation into the matter concluded that the potential attacks were orchestrated by Iran. Egyptian authorities have two suspects in custody – Saliman Rizek abdel Razek and Salame Ahmed Salame. The two deny any involvement, but according to the report authorities have evidence linking them, via the offer of a 50 million Egyptian pounds payment, to a third suspect – Muhammad Zakri – who they allegedly tried to hire to execute the attack....

A Central Florida man believes he has discovered what's left of a highly advanced ancient civilization by using some new technology, and says some of the evidence is right here on the Suncoast. "Looking further, I begin to find the real beauty in Cortez."  John Jensen is no archaeologist. He says he's just an amatuer researcher of what's under the water. Well, what he says he's observed from the sky could rewrite the history of the world.  "I recognize some patterns that appear to be man-made, or at least not natural." He's identified more than 60 sites in places like...

I'm not an Egypt watcher, but it appears the Muslim Brotherhood is continuing plans to isolate the Arabian Peninsula. Iran's move to seal the western approaches didn't pan out thanks to both Bush '41 (Somalia operation) and Bush '43 (US, France, and initially Germany in Djibouti). The MB's real objective, in my opinion, is closing the Suez Canal. This, with Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, will effectively put our economy in bottom of the tank thanks to Obama's prior spending sprees. Our capability to militarily act is extremely limited, even if the administration had the will to do...

Mubarak orders army to back police against unrestShaimaa Fayed and Yasmine Saleh, Reuters January 29, 2011, 3:16 am CAIRO (Reuters) - President Hosni Mubarak imposed a curfew and ordered troops to back up police as they struggled to control crowds who flooded the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities on Friday to demand that he step down. In unrest never before seen during Mubarak's 30 year-rule, police and demonstrators fought running street battles. Dozens of people were wounded as security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon at the crowds and baton charged them. The protesters hurled...

The deaths in Auburn’s Wise Canal started in January 2009. Last month, 50-year-old homeless man Richard Hill became the sixth man to turn up dead in the canal in less than two years. Now an Auburn woman has come forward with information that she said points to her son barely surviving becoming a seventh victim. Until this month, she said that neither she nor her son had shared the information with authorities. Betty Starr said her son told her he was pushed into the Wise Canal in November 2008, while walking in the darkness at water’s edge on a path...

<p>In a statement Thursday, Costa Rica's foreign ministry said the country had filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, to end a situation that "threatens imminent and irreparable harm" to Costa Rica.</p> <p>The suit asks the court to stop "the construction of a canal on Costa Rican soil," according to the statement.</p>

Archeologists have discovereed an ancient Roman canal, theme of the Romans, connecting the town of Portus, on the mouth of the Tiber River, to the river town of Ostia. According to the Telegraph: "Scholars discovered the 100-yard-wide (90-metre-wide) canal at Portus, the ancient maritime port through which goods from all over the Empire were shipped to Rome for more than 400 years.

Scholars discovered the 100-yard-wide (90-metre-wide) canal at Portus, the ancient maritime port through which goods from all over the Empire were shipped to Rome for more than 400 years. The archaeologists... believe the canal connected Portus, on the coast at the mouth of the Tiber, with the nearby river port of Ostia, two miles away. It would have enabled cargo to be transferred from big ocean-going ships to smaller river vessels and taken up the River Tiber to the docks and warehouses of the imperial capital. Until now, it was thought that goods took a more circuitous overland route along...

Egypt opposition angered at government for allowing the fleet of more than 12 ships to cross Egyptian manned waterway, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports. By Jack Khoury More than twelve United States Naval warships and at least one Israeli ship crossed the Suez Canal towards the Red Sea on Friday, British Arabic Language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday. According to the report, thousands of Egyptian soldiers were deployed along the Suez Canal guarding the ships' passage, which included a U.S. aircraft carrier. The Suez Canal is a strategic Egyptian waterway which connects between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. According to...

Egypt allowed at least one Israeli and 11 American warships to pass through the Suez Canal as an Iranian flotilla approaches Gaza. Egypt closed the canal to protect the ships with thousands of soldiers, according to the British-based Arabic language newspaper Al Quds al-Arabi. One day prior to the report on Saturday, Voice of Israel government radio reported that the Egyptian government denied an Israeli request not to allow the Iranian flotilla to use the Suez Canal to reach Gaza, in violation of the Israeli sea embargo on the Hamas-controlled area. International agreements require Egypt to keep the Suez open...

Note: The following text is a quote: 09 July 2009 EGYPT ARRESTS TERRORIST CELL OF 25 MEMBERS CAIRO, July 9 (Xinhua) The Egyptian authorities have arrested a terrorist cell of 25 members, 24 Egyptians and one Palestinian, for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in Suez Canal, Egyptian Interior Ministry said in statement issued on Thursday. According to the statement, the members of the cell who believe in Jihad (Holy War) were located in Cairo, Alexandria and Daqahlia governorates and communicated through internet with other terrorist groups outside Egypt. The cell's members, mostly engineers, were developing high-tech and electronic devices...

While the Erie Canal in New York may be more famous, the Illinois and Michigan Canal (I&M Canal) was just as significant argued Vickie Speek in her presentation "Mormons and the I&M Canal" last Saturday at the Mormon History Conference. And for some 19th century Mormons, this canal was triply significant as it provided economic, transportation and missionary opportunities. How did the I&M help the Mormons economically? One does not often consider the interim time between leaving Independence/Far West and the settling of Nauvoo. As converts streamed out of Ohio traveling to Missouri in 1838 they encountered those leaving...