WASHINGTON, D.C. – Opponents of Nicaragua’s dubious plans to build a $50 billion interoceanic canal are trying to rally U.S. help in fighting the controversial project. But it’s not clear if official Washington is listening.
HKND plans to dredge 715 million cubic meters of material from the bottom of Lake Cocibolca, possibly the biggest dredging job ever. In comparison, all dredging and excavating in the 100-year history of the Panama Canal has removed a total of 550 million cubic meters of material.
Planet Earth set an ominous record last year as global temperatures rose to the highest level since modern measurements began, scientists said Friday in a report that heightened concerns about humanity's growing toll on the natural systems that sustain life.
After years of lawsuits, court cases and a strike in October that paralyzed the ports in Limón, APM Terminals is finally set to start construction on its new $1 billion terminal in Moín in 2015, according to a statement issued Wednesday afternoon by the Environment Ministry.
After 13 years, Costa Rica finally has a regulation guaranteeing payment of physical and psychological damages for nearly 14,000 banana workers who were exposed to the banned pesticide Nemagon.
BRASÍLIA – Deforestation in Brazil's storied Amazon basin region skyrocketed more than 450 percent in October from a year earlier, a nongovernmental group warned Monday.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaraguan writer and Catholic priest Ernesto Cardenal this weekend blasted plans for the construction of a massive interoceanic canal, calling it a "monstrosity" that would split the country in two and irreversibly damage Lake Cocibolca, the biggest freshwater lake in Central America.
Small-scale farmers from communities in Nicaragua's southern Caribbean zone protested Tuesday against planed land expropriations orchestrated by the government of Daniel Ortega and the Chinese company HKND in order to build a massive interoceanic canal.
Edgardo Araya, a legislator for the Broad Front Party from Alajuela, and a number of community representatives from pineapple-producing zones, on Monday urged the executive branch to pass a decree that would place a moratorium on pineapple production for five years. They argued that pineapple producers have not been held accountable for the environmental impact of their activities.
Costa Rica has agreed to pay the medical bills and other compensation for some 12,000 banana workers and their relatives suffering lingering effects of exposure to pesticides in the 1960s and '70s.
