After nearly a decade, Nicaragua’s congress finally canceled on Wednesday, May 8th, a controversial canal concession granted to a Chinese businessman that critics said endangered the environment and threatened to displace rural communities.
Despite a symbolic “groundbreaking” in 2014, no work was done on the canal that was to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. At one point, crews broke ground on access roads near the canal but digging the waterway never started.
Thousands of Nicaraguan farmers had protested against land seizures meant to create a route for the government-backed project.
Photo: Reuters
In 2019, a Nicaraguan judge sentenced three farmers’ leaders who participated in the protests to prison for 216 years, 210 years and 159 years. They were accused of promoting a “failed coup” against the government. Nicaraguan law caps prison time actually served at 30 years.
The proposed $50 billion, 172-mile (278-kilometer) canal across this Central American nation was long viewed as a joke that later turned deadly serious. The canal and its potential effect on the environment became a symbol of the odd and arbitrary nature of President Daniel Ortega’s increasingly repressive regime.
Ortega’s government claimed the canal would create tens of thousands of jobs and stimulate the poor Central American nation’s economy.
File photo: AFP
Detractors argued it posed serious environmental risks, would displace thousands of families in the countryside and was financially unfeasible.
The canal concession was granted to the Hong Kong-based company HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Limited, owned by Chinese businessman Wang Jing.
The canal was initially planned to have been built by 2019, but construction never began as Chinese entrepreneur Wang Jing, who headed the project, saw his net worth collapse when China’s stock market crashed.
Wang’s wealth peaked at $6.9 billion in 2015, but slid to $1.9 billion the following year, then fell under $1 billion in 2019, according to Forbes’ “Rich List.”
“It’s a shame that Ortega realizes his own failure a decade later, after making arrangements to confiscate land from peasant farmers,” said Medardo Mairena, the leader of a canal opposition group, who is in exile in the United States.
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS