(The Guardian) 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 … [Read more...]

(Skytruth) A man, a plan, a canal. Panama! It's not just a quaint anagram. In this age of relentlessly expanding global commerce, Panama has been planning ahead, and is investing billions of dollars in supersizing the canal (photo gallery here) to allow the passage of the new breed of supersized cargo ships.  Even more coal mined from Appalachian mountains and … [Read more...]

(Earthtechling.com) Panama usually doesn’t come to mind when listing which countries promote environmentally-friendly practices. But the Panama Canal Authority (PAC), which manages the world-renown canal system, recently added its first electric vehicle (EV) to its service fleet. The lucky EV is a Ford Focus Electric hatchback, and it’s the latest addition to PAC’s “green” … [Read more...]

(World Crunch) Throughout the history of the United States, the main divisions have traditionally been between the North and the South, an economic and political rivalry that we know also produced a civil war. But there is also an important rivalry between the West Coast and the East Coast, a battle for cultural, academic and scientific supremacy, an ongoing contest to … [Read more...]

(Daily Wildcat) The Panama Canal’s expansion is finally beginning to look like a channel that will float some of the biggest ships in the world by mid-2015. About 42 percent of the work on the new locks has been completed and it’s by far the most costly and complicated part of the $5.25 billion project to retrofit the nearly century-old canal with larger locks to lift and … [Read more...]