Save the Cruces Trail and Panama Canal Watershed

The fiasco that is the Nicaragua Canal, explained Updated by  Brad Plumer  on February 26, 2015, 5:30 p.m. ET  @bradplumer   brad@vox.com TWEET   (319)   SHARE   + People protest burning tires against the inauguration of the works of an inter-oceanic canal in Rivas, Nicaragua on December 22, 2014. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) DON'T MISS STORIES.   FOLLOW VOX!   Back in December, one of the world’s largest — and possibly most flat-out insane — construction projects got underway. Nicaragua has enlisted a little-known Chinese billionaire  to dig a 161-mile canal  across the country and link the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. If built, the Nicaragua Canal would be longer, wider, and deeper than the 51-mile Panama Canal to the south. It could, in fact, be the largest excavation in human history: ( Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign ) Why a new canal? The idea, at least, is that a bigger Nicaragua canal  could ...

Who's behind the 'Nicaragua Grand Canal'—and why? Silvana Ordoñez |  @SilvanaCNBC 8 Hours Ago CNBC.com 194 SHARES 110 COMMENTS Join the Discussion Backers of the "Nicaragua Grand Canal" talk about a vibrant commercial waterway that will reshape commercial shipping, reap a windfall for investors and haul one of the hemisphere's poorest nations out of poverty. But the project's detractors—and they are many—are having a hard time understanding what, exactly, those pro-canal people are talking about. And they also question whether it's being driven by commercial interests, or Chinese geopolitics. About a year from the scheduled completion of a $5.2 billion  Panama Canal  extension that will let the existing waterway accommodate bigger ships, a Chinese consortium and the Managua government have said that they began work on a Nicaragua canal. Read More Chinese new year left...