Nicaragua, on Monday as Hurricane Iota — upgraded to Category 5 — moves over the Caribbean toward the Nicaragua-Honduras border. MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Hurricane Iota, the strongest storm ever recorded Continue Reading
Hurricane Iota slammed into Central America late Monday with ferocious winds and rain, threatening to cripple a region already reeling from a deadly storm two weeks ago. Iota, the most powerful Continue Reading
Hurricane Eta has strengthened into one of the Atlantic’s most powerful storms of the year, packing winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) an hour as it roars toward Central America. The Continue Reading
Doubts over a planned $50bn waterway across Nicaragua that aims to compete with the Panama Canal are set to intensify after the Chinese-led project was postponed by up to a Continue Reading
A man points out the towns that will be affected where the canal, red line, will be built across Nicaragua. Deep on the southeastern side of Lake Nicaragua, along a bumpy dirt road that climbs gently through lush-green forest, sits the tiny town of El Tule. It is quintessential rural Central America: Chickens roam outside tin-roofed homes while pigs stand tied to trees, awaiting slaughter; the sound of drunk locals singing along to ranchera music greeted visitors on a recent rain-soaked afternoon. The village, if you listen to Nicaraguan officials, is a key point in what will be the biggest infrastructure project the region has ever seen, the construction of a $50 billion canal slated to run 170 miles from the country’s east to west coast. Awarded two years ago by President Daniel Ortega to an obscure Chinese businessman named Wang Jing, the concession calls for El Tule to […]
MANAGUA (Reuters) – When one of the poorest countries in the Americas and a little-known Chinese businessman said they planned to undertake one of the biggest engineering projects in history, few people took them seriously. A year and a half after the $50 billion project to build a canal across Nicaragua was launched by President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, the doubts have only grown. Work officially began this week. But reporters hoping to see any evidence of how it would be done in a fraction of the time it took to build the much-shorter Panama Canal, or discover who would pay for it, were left with more questions than answers. At events marking the start of what is meant to be a five- year job, Nicaraguan officials and the Hong Kong-based company behind the canal dodged questions about its financial backers, mounting delays and whether Washington had […]
