Financing still a mystery as Nicaragua plans giant canal

Seattle Times ^ | 7-9-2014 | Lucy Westcott

[Citizen Zed]

The Chinese tycoon behind a plan to build a mammoth interoceanic waterway to compete with the Panama Canal whisked into Nicaragua last week and, in several appearances, including one with President Daniel Ortega, affirmed that “the biggest construction project in the history of mankind” has a green light.

In a lengthy appearance on state television Tuesday night, Ortega sat next to Wang Jing, the Chinese telecommunications magnate who has been pushing the plan, and pledged that the proposed canal “will permit the country to eradicate poverty and misery.”

[Citizen Zed]

I love Ortega's tacos.

[Veggie Todd]

Is it a shovel-ready job? If they need some workers, we can send them our illegal immigrants.

[Innovative]

Putin’s surprise visit to Nicaragua fuels canal rumors

http://nicaraguadispatch.com/2014/07/putins-surprise-visit-to-nicaragua-fuels-canal-rumors/

“Putin’s surprise arrival has fueled rumors that Russia is somehow acting as a silent partner in the canal concession Nicaragua granted to an unknown Chinese company. The owner of that concession, enigmatic Chinese businessman Wang Jing, was in Nicaragua this week to announce the route of the canal.”

[98ZJ USMC]

“will permit the country to eradicate poverty and misery.”

They always say that......

[aquila48]

$40 billion seems awfully cheap.

[doorgunner69]

They be speaking 1900’s dollars.............

[dalereed]

Maybe they will hand dig it with $2/day chinese labor!

[BobL]

““One hundred eighteen years ago, environmentalism wasn’t even a concern. When a road punched through the forest, it was a matter of joy,” Ortega said.”

I’m getting to like this Communist...

[SC_Pete]

Obama wants to fund it.

[Sherman Logan]

the proposed canal “will permit the country to eradicate poverty and misery.”

You know, the way it did in Panama.

[dljordan]

“Is it a shovel-ready job? If they need some workers, we can send them our illegal immigrants.”

They will be importing their own labor, several million of them.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Wang dang...

[DIRTYSECRET]

I’ll go there! If the women all look like Bianca Jagger.

[Arlis]

I’m not an environmentalist, but my daughter-in-law is Nica and I love the country and people - safest of all the Central American countries, and a very poor but loving people in general.

The canal will destroy Lake Nicaragua - one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world.

But it will give China more power and control over the world.....that’s why it will happen.

Ortega? He’s so evil, self-centered and power-hungry that even many Sandinista’s hate him.

[Captain Peter Blood]

$40 Billion is a incredible low ball figure for a project of this magnitude.
I remember as a kid in school back in the 1960’s talk of a canal there using nuclear bombs to make it. At a minimum you are talking $200 Billion Plus.
It could be the Boondoggle of all time cost wise and take years to do it.
Of course China could send it it's huge surplus of manual labor to build it.

[Jim Noble]

Let me guess…

China’s big deck carriers are three feet less in the beam than ours - and they just BARELY fit through this new canal...

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I’ve read that on one of the oceans, Atlantic or Pacific, the sea level is higher than the other. If a straight canal is punched through, won’t one ocean then pour into the other causing all sorts of disasters, floodings, environmentalists foaming at the mouth falling down and hurting themselves in public.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Must add, then there is that little problem of the volcanoes which made the USA give up the idea of the Nicaraguan canal in the first place.

[riri]

Hope they aren’t using Chinese concrete.

[martin_fierro]