The Panama Canal Board of Directors this week formally approved the development and construction of a transshipment port in Panama’s Corozal region. Upon completion, the port will have the capacity to handle more than five million TEUs within a 120-hectare area at the Canal’s entrance to the Pacific. The project is now awaiting the final step for approval from Panama’s National Assembly.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Panamanian president-elect Juan Carlos Varela have pledged to waste no time in normalizing relations and re-launching diplomatic, economic and trade ties cut off two months ago, Venezuela's foreign ministry announced. Varela takes office next July first.
Panama’s Electoral Committee declared opposition candidate Juan Carlos Varela as the winner of Sunday's election and the country's next president: he captured 39% of the vote with more than 80% of ballots counted. In Panama there is no run-off and no re-election so president Ricardo Martinelli nominated his successor and completed the ticket with his wife, Marta Linares de Martinelli.
The OAS Electoral Observation Mission has arrived in Panama, led by former Peruvian Congresswoman and presidential candidate Lourdes Flores Nano, for the final deployment of the 56 international experts and observers ahead of Sunday's general elections.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday his government was breaking diplomatic relations with Panama after the country called a special meeting of the Organization of American States, OAS, to address the current state of protests in Caracas.
A dispute over a 1.6 billion dollar cost overrun in the Panama Canal's expansion took a new twist Wednesday after a Spanish company leading the project denied it halted work over the spat.
The Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, said on Wednesday it would be impossible to meet the demands of Italian builder Impregilo, which has called on the government agency to make an additional payment of up to 1 billion dollars to cover cost overruns affecting a project to expand the international waterway.
Panama Canal officials offered Tuesday to share the burden in a 283 million dollars fund to end a spat with a consortium threatening to halt the waterway's expansion over huge cost overruns. The proposal came after two days of intense talks under mediation of a Spanish cabinet minister who flew to Panama City for emergency meetings aimed at preventing a shutdown of the major project.
Spain stepped in on Friday to try to resolve a cost dispute over the expansion of Panama's canal, which has triggered a sell-off in the shares of Sacyr SA, the Spanish builder leading the project. Spain's Public Works minister, Ana Pastor, and Sacyr Chairman Manuel Manrique are due to travel to Panama on the weekend, Panama's president, Ricardo Martinelli, said.
Panama Foreign minister Fernando Núñez Fábrega underlined his country's traditional and committed support for Argentina's sovereignty claims over the Malvinas and other South Atlantic Islands and their adjoining maritime spaces, an issue that was discussed during this week's visit to Buenos Aires, a special guest of his peer Hector Timerman.