Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

June 27, 2017 By Fausta

Good news for the US natural gas industry

In the midst of bad news from all over the hemisphere (the usual crime–corruption–drugs-and-deaths), one good news story:

US Nat-Gas Surge Proves a Boon to Expanded Panama Canal

The burgeoning US natural-gas industry is largely responsible for the high volume of shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the expanded Panama Canal, the waterway’s manager said Monday.

Nine percent of the more than 1,500 vessels – nearly six per day – that have transited the canal in the one year since the expansion was completed were carrying LNG, administrator Jorge Quijano said.

That number far exceeds the forecast made a decade ago at the start of the project to expand the inter-oceanic channel, when the United States “was not an exporter, but rather an importer of gas,” he said.

Prior to the expansion, the canal could not accommodate the tankers used to transport LNG.

Even with a decline in global trade, the Canal’s revenues have increased by 12% since last October.

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Filed Under: Fausta's blog, Panama Tagged With: LNG, Panama Canal

June 27, 2016 By Fausta

Panama: The expanded Canal opens

Good news:

Panama Inaugurates Expanded Canal. Project took nine years to double the capacity of the waterway

In the U.S., the country with the most goods going through the canal, the expansion is expected to lead to increased shipments to East Coast ports at the expense of West Coast ports.

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Filed Under: Panama Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Panama Canal

September 9, 2015 By Fausta

Panama: New leaks

Calling this a leak is an understatement:

Panama Awaiting Detailed Report on Canal Crack, Fixes http://t.co/wbI1CB57HY

— gCaptain (@gCaptain) September 8, 2015

Panama Canal leaks could push back expansion opening

United Groups for the Canal (GUPC), the construction consortium building the Panama Canal expansion project, is in deep water over cracks in the locks. After severe leakage problems became visible, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) issued a warning that it would not accept the current works until all flaws are fixed.

And (emphasis added),

The ACP posted the message on August 21, after pictures were posted on social media showing water leaks in one of the new lockheads on the Pacific shore.

GUPC is expected to meet all the costs involved in fixing the crack.

Today in history:
This day in history, Carter agreed to transfer the Panama Canal to Panama



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Filed Under: Panama Tagged With: ACP, Fausta's blog, GUPC, Panama Canal

August 3, 2015 By Fausta

The dog days of summer Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Yes. It’s summer in the northern hemisphere. Deal with it.

ARGENTINA
Audio slideshow: The Welsh in Patagonia, 150 years on

‘Judicial officials sought to delay AMIA cover-up trial’Luciano Hazan is the Justice Ministry’s under-secretary for Criminal Policy and will be representing the Executive in the AMIA cover-up trial. In conversation with the Herald, Hazan pointed fingers at the judges for their reluctance to investigate their colleague’s alleged implication in crimes.

Los presos ahora ganan 46% más que un jubilado

BOLIVIA
Bolivia Ready to Renew Ties with Chile to Resolve Maritime Claim, at least until the next time.

BRAZIL
Good luck with that: Rio’s favelas to accommodate visitors to 2016 Olympics

CHILE
Chile’s Pinochet covered up report on death of U.S. student, documents say

COLOMBIA
Colombia’s Ecopetrol to Export 1st-Ever Cargo of Crude to Japan in August

El Monótono Dialogo De Paz En Colombia, ¿Qué Intenciones Tiene?

Colombia’s biggest ever exhumation begins at Medellin rubbish dumpOfficials believe the remains of 300 people could be unearted from La Escombrera (The Dump) as the city begins the long-awaited exhumation

CUBA
Senators probe political motivations for trafficking report
Corker, Cardin question whether the State Department was motivated by politics to upgrade Cuba and Malaysia in annual report on human trafficking.

Cuba Emerges as Paradise for Gay Tourism

The U.S. now has an embassy in Cuba. But relations are hardly normal.With U.S. Embassy open in Havana, American diplomats face a changing mission.

Secretive White House meeting reveals Obama’s plan to visit Cuba in 2016

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Cabarete: Dominican Resort Is a Refuge Twice AbandonedHaitians, who had brought new life to an abandoned seaside hotel, face ejection under new laws and conflict with their island neighbors.

ECUADOR
Scraping the barrel
Will Ecuador turn into Latin America’s Greece?

Ecuador’s “Liberation Front” Attacks Newspapers with Homemade BombsSelf-Proclaimed Revolutionaries Debut with Guerrilla Marketing in Guayaquil

EL SALVADOR
Salvadoran Government Deploys Armored Cars to Support Police against Gangs

GUATEMALA
We need to talk about GuatemalaGuatemala has been described as the worst place in the world to be a child.

JAMAICA
Was the PetroCaribe buyback a good deal for Jamaica?

LATIN AMERICA
Latinoamérica, ¿Para Qué Utilizan Los Gobiernos Socialistas La Ley?

‘Progress’ but no deal at TPP talks
Negotiators from 12 Pacific nations have finished a week of talks without agreement on a regional trade deal.

MEXICO
Annals of ExcavationUnderworldHow the Sinaloa drug cartel digs its tunnels.

‘FEMINICIDE,’ MEXICO ISSUES ALERT FOR SPIKE IN VIOLENT CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN

A Transformation in Mexican Migration to the United States, Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire – 27 July 2015 (H/T Mexidata)

PANAMA
Supreme Court ruling allows work to resume on Panama’s 29-MW Barro Blanco hydropower project

Watch: Panama Canal July Update (h/t JC),

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico to miss debt payment, signalling default

URUGUAY
Here’s why a historic meat packing plant in Uruguay was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site

VENEZUELA
Ciudad Guayana: Venezuela supermarket looting leaves one dead, dozens detained

Caracazo en Gotas: San Felix Edition

Mega-Gangs the New Plague in VenezuelaOrganized Crime Takes Root in Neglected Slums

Meanwhile, back in Caracastan: Maduro steals foreign-owned property

Venezuela Runs Out of Birth Control

Maduro takes over brewers complex as Venezuela runs out of beer because of lack of barley

The week’s posts and podcast:
Chile: Eat your rock before it gets cold

Brazil: How to make coxinhas

Argentina: Cristina tweets Iran

Answers: Where can women go, instead of Planned Parenthood?

Peru: Shining Path’s shameful prisoner camps

En español: @OLPL visita Bayly

New Jersey: It’s the taxes, stupid.

Why dress up?

Blogging shall resume shortly

Argentina: Tokyo Rose does the Falklands?

Venezuela: Leopoldo Lopez still in jail, FP fails

As expected: WH finishing up latest plan for closing Guantánamo

PODCAST
A word about Che merchandise plus US-Latin America this week



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Filed Under: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Carnival of Latin America, Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Latin America, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela Tagged With: AMIA, Cabarete, Fausta's blog, Panama Canal

August 18, 2014 By Fausta

The Panama Canal Centennial roundup

August 15th marked the Centennial of the inauguration of the Panama Canal.

U. of FL in Gainsville: Panama and the Canal

WSJ: The Panama Canal Celebrates 100 Years
Panamanian ownership has transformed a staid, state-owned utility into a modern business.

Under Panamanian leadership, the canal has not merely been maintained as one of the world’s premier shipping routes. It has been transformed from a staid state-owned public utility, with its quasi-socialist “zone” for employees, to a modern business that aims to maximize revenues and compete internationally. The privatization of the ports on both coasts and the railroad that runs alongside the waterway, as well as the construction of a third set of locks, are testaments to the visionary and entrepreneurial thinking that Panamanian ownership has brought.


Of course, no roundup would be complete without The Tailor of Panama, in book and film.

France24:Florida celebrates US engineering as Panama Canal turns 100

The 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal, hailed at the time as one of the world’s great wonders, has inspired a celebration in central Florida to showcase the experience of the US canal workers behind the engineering feat.

Fresno Bee:At age 100, Panama Canal looks to the future

To fuel that growth, the canal is in the midst of an expansion that includes new channels on both ends and state-of-the-art locks that will allow bigger, wider and heavier ships to transit the waterway.

Quijano, who is in charge of the autonomous government agency that oversees canal operations, said the expansion represents “the next 100 years of the canal.”

The $5.25 billion project was initially supposed to be completed to coincide with the canal’s 100th anniversary. But a dispute with the contractor, weather and delay in finding the right concrete mix for the new locks have pushed the completion date to December 2015 with commercial traffic beginning in 2016.

International Business Times: Panama Canal Anniversary 2014: 100 Years Ago Today, Navigation Project Launched “American Century

Mashable photos: The Panama Canal, Then and Now

BBC: My Panama Canal
The Panama Canal has been described as one of the wonders of the modern world. Cutting a swathe through the landscape, the canal connected the Pacific and Atlantic oceans for the first time 100 years ago. Today, the waterway provides employment and inspiration. Four people talk about their Panama Canal.

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Filed Under: Panama Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Panama Canal

April 15, 2014 By Fausta

Panama: Martinelli strikes back

Well, after Mary O’Grady wrote about Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli choosing his wife to run for vice-president, Martinelli tweeted,

“This WSJ journalist once interviewed me because she was a close friend of Jimmy Papadimitriu, who now advises Varela,”

Una vez la misma periodista del WSJ me entrevisto ya que era intima amiga de Jimmy Papadimitriu que ahora asesora a Varela.

— Ricardo Martinelli (@rmartinelli) April 14, 2014

The WSJ didn’t take the tweet sitting down:

He is referring to Juan Carlos Varela, who is Mr. Martinelli’s vice president and former foreign minister. Mr. Varela broke with Mr. Martinelli and is now running to succeed him as the presidential nominee of a competing party. We don’t know if Mr. Papadimitriu advises Mr. Varela, but we can say that Ms. O’Grady is not and has never been a friend of Mr. Papadimitriu. She did interview Mr. Martinelli—in 2010 when Mr. Papadimitriu was his chief of staff.

No doubt Mr. Martinelli was upset that Ms. O’Grady called out his electoral power play. Panamanians remember, and not fondly, military dictator Manuel Noriega, who was removed by U.S. troops in 1989. If Mr. Martinelli has designs on becoming one more caudillo, he ought to man-up and tell the voters rather than hide behind his wife’s illegal candidacy.

Why does this matter to the US?

Because Panama, especially following its canal expansion, remains a key trade partner to the Americas, and especially to the US. A true democracy, engaged in free trade, is best for the hemisphere.


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Filed Under: elections, news, Panama Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Panama Canal

July 19, 2013 By Fausta

Panama Canal: Was the FARC the intended recipient of the Cuban weapons?

Colombian terrorist/crime group FARC (which stands for Colombian revolutionary armed forces in English) is currently in peace talks with the Colombian government. The negotiations are taking place in Cuba, while the FARC insist that they will not surrender their weapons, will not disarm, and will not serve time in prison. They want a similar deal to that of the IRA in Northern Ireland.

At the same time, Colombia’s largest armed rebel groups, the Farc and ELN, have met as recently as last month “to strengthen” their “unification process”:

They are discussing how Farc could enter politics if a deal is reached to end five decades of conflict.

According to the Farc statement, the meeting with the ELN (National Liberation Army) at an undisclosed location discussed the need to “work for the unity of all political and social forces” involved in changing the country.

The two groups have clashed in the past but have recently joined forces in armed operations against government targets in Colombia.

So the FARC holds peace talks, while engaging in negotiations to merge with another, equally deadly Colombian terrorist group.

Presently, the peace negotiations are on recess, and are scheduled to resume on July 28,

After having exchanged proposals about the second point in the agenda (political participation), the parties have worked separately to continue discussing the first sub item on the agenda, which envisages the rights and guarantees to exercise political opposition in general and in particular for the new movements that may emerge after the signing of the Final Agreement, as well as the access to the media.

In the meantime, elsewhere in Latin America, Panama stopped a North Korean freighter suspected of smuggling drugs, and, after a tussle with the crew, a suicide attempt by the captain, and the captain’s heart attack, they find, hidden behind sacks of Cuban brown sugar,

240 metric tons of “obsolete defensive weapons”: two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles “in parts and spares,” two Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.

Keep in mind that the U.N. sanctions ban all imports to and exports from North Korea of conventional weapons, as well as material related to the country’s nuclear- and ballistic-missile programs.

But that was only on the first search; now Panama finds [four] more containers of Cuban war materiel on North Korean ship

Port authorities said four new containers had been found, bringing the total to six, in two stacks of three. They were not declared in the ship’s manifest and were hidden under 220,000 sacks of Cuban brown sugar.

But wait! There’s more!

Panamanian police academy cadets offloading the sugar so far have opened only one of the freighter’s four cargo holds, and each hold has six separate sections, according to the port officials, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
…
Foreign technicians with specialized imaging equipment are expected to arrive soon to search every inch of the ship and not just its cargo holds, because the tip that led Panamanian authorities to search the freighter indicated that it was carrying illegal drugs.
…
[Panamanian] Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino, meanwhile, said the work of unloading the 220,000 sacks of sugar from the 450-foot Chong Chon Gang is an “odyssey” because the 100-pound bags were loaded in Cuba without using pallets.

“The technicians have told us that this cargo was loaded in a way that makes it difficult to unload,” Mulino told reporters, estimating that the work of unloading all the sugar will take another seven to 10 days.

One may take Cuba’s story at face value and believe them when they say that they were sending the armaments to Korea “to be repaired and returned to Cuba” – demonstrating that Cuba remains a threat. The line is that

the Cubans might have sent the equipment to North Korea to be repaired because Russia—an obvious choice to do the repair work—would have asked for cash, while North Korea may have well accepted a barter deal that included the 10,000 tons of sugar on the ship as payment for the repair of the weapons systems.

While all this is going on, former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe tweeted yesterday that he was told by a reliable source that the shipment was not headed to North Korea, but, instead, to Ecuador.

Which adds a new twist to the story.

Why would Ecuador’s government bother with such antiquated equipment, when it can buy new? For instance, five years ago, following the Uribe administration’s raid of a FARC encampment a mile into the Ecuadorian border, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa says Quito may buy weapons from Iran to enable the tightening of security on its border with Colombia.

During his stay in Tehran, Ecuadorian officials attended an exhibition organized by the Iranian Defense Ministry and were familiarized with the country’s defense equipment.

That may be accomplished through money transfers in the joint Ecuadorian-Iranian bank, and with the help of the direct flights between Iran and Venezuela.

Ecuador can also openly purchase armaments through other sources.

However, the FARC, involved as it currently is in “peace talks”, and considering the fact it is recognized as a terrorist organization, is not in a situation where it can openly purchase armaments. Cuba, its host on the peace talks, is strapped for cash; so is North Korea; the FARC has money from its drug trade and other criminal activity. The FARC doesn’t need state-of-the-art armaments, it only needs enough to destroy and disrupt Colombia into chaos.

And, while we’re at it, let’s remember that last year FARC Camps [were] Dismantled in Panama’s Darien Jungle as a result of a joint operation between units from Panama and Colombia.

Jaime Bayly talked about this last night (in Spanish),

So, the question remains,

Was the FARC the intended recipient of the Cuban weapons?

UPDATE,
Linked by Babalu. Thanks!

Linked by HACER. Thanks!


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Filed Under: Alvaro Uribe, Caribbean, Colombia, Communism, crime, Cuba, drugs, Ecuador, FARC, Fausta's blog, news, North Korea, Panama, terrorism, terrorism. Latin America Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Panama Canal

June 14, 2013 By Fausta

The Nicaragua canal: Don’t be the next Lord Crawley

Don’t be like him
For many years now we who watch Latin American news have been hearing about a Nicaraguan canal to rival the Panama canal.

Indeed, people who know Nicaraguan history have been hearing about it for centuries.

Back in 2010 the Iranians were in the picture,

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 the first step in a plan formulated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, with funding and assistance from Iran, to create a substitute for the strategically and economically important Panama Canal.

Well, Hugo died, his heir Nicolas Maduro’s still talking to the birds, the Panama Canal expansion is going on schedule, and the Iranian fervor has cooled off in the midst of its current current annual inflation rate of 105.8 percent.

Enter HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., known as HKND Group,

Nicaragua’s legislators gave their poverty-stricken country one more chance at a dream that has eluded it for nearly 200 years, granting a Hong Kong company the right to build a $40 billion interoceanic canal.

Supporters of the 50-year concession, approved Thursday, hope that it will propel Nicaragua out of its misery by boosting employment and economic growth. But there is also ample suspicion that the project will flounder, as so many others have done since the first government contract for a canal through Nicaragua was awarded in 1825.
…
The project envisions building a canal as long as 286 kilometers (178 miles), depending on which of four possible routes is used, as well as two deep-water ports, two free-trade zones, an oil pipeline, a railroad and an international airport.
…
The law granting the concession to HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., known as HKND Group, whose sole owner is Wang Jing, a 40-year-old Beijing-based entrepreneur, was introduced last week to Nicaragua’s congress, which is controlled by Mr. Ortega’s ruling Sandinista party.

Take a look at the map,

Look at the size of the existing Panama Canal, whose expansion is estimated to cost $5.25 billion dollars and take 8 years, and compare it to the projected Nicaraguan canal. Are we supposed to believe that a new canal, multiple times larger, when

work on some of the pre-feasibility studies has barely started and isn’t scheduled to be finished until next year

plus two deep-water ports, two free-trade zones, an oil pipeline, a railroad and an international airport, are supposed to cost only $40 billion?

If the Chinese government is not involved, who’s going to cough up that kind of money for that period of time?

Wang Jing’s experience appears to be only in the telecommunications industry. And he’s not even started the feasibility studies?

There’s Mr. Wang’s little deal with Daniel Ortega,

Mr. Wang registered his canal company in Hong Kong in August. A month later, on Sept. 5, he met President Ortega in Nicaragua. That day, Mr. Wang and the Nicaraguan government signed a memorandum of understanding—which wasn’t announced at the time—authorizing Mr. Wang to promote the financing and participate in the construction of a canal.

He and Mr. Ortega also discussed a telecommunications proposal, and Xinwei was awarded a $300 million telecommunications contract in Nicaragua, according to the company.

Nicaragua’s corruption frequently makes the news.

And then there’s the collapse of the Chinese stocks, which happens sporadically, since – guess what! – China doesn’t use GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).

Bernie Madoff is probably regretting he didn’t think of this first, but Werner Herzog may be casting a lead for a movie now that Klaus Kinski is gone.

Those of us who watched Downton Abbey may recall that Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham found that

the investment he made in the Canadian Railway has become worthless, he had lost his own and most of Cora’s money, enough to lose Downton.

Don’t be the next Lord Crawley.


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Filed Under: business, China, Daniel Ortega, Iran, Nicaragua, Panama Tagged With: Downton Abbey, HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., HKND Group, Nicaragua canal, Panama Canal, Wang Jing

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