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While running for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, Ronald Reagan stumbled onto an issue that energized his upstart campaign. In stop after stop, he recalled, people expressed “utter disbelief” that an American president — the Republican incumbent, Gerald R. Ford — would even think of relinquishing control over the Panama Canal. Knowing next to nothing about its history, but quite a lot about the politics of flag-waving, Reagan quickly turned the canal into a symbol of American resolve in an increasingly dangerous and disrespectful world. “We bought it, we paid for it, it’s ours,” he told the cheering crowds,...

December 08, 2008, 4:00 a.m. A New Cold War?Western-hemispheric maneuvers. An NRO Symposium What does Russia docking in the Panama Canal this weekend mean? What should the Obama administration be thinking about it? National Review Online asked a group of Russian experts. David Satter The visits of Russian ships to Venezuela and the Panama Canal are part of a campaign of escalating Russian pressure — a campaign designed to prevent Ukraine and Georgia from being admitted into NATO. The inclusion of these two former Soviet republics in NATO does not threaten Russia militarily, but in the eyes of Russian...

A Russian warship was set Friday to sail through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II in a symbolic challenge to US influence in the region. The large anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko is scheduled to traverse the waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, the Russian embassy in Panama said. "The only time such an event took place was in 1944 during the Second World War, when four Russian submarines passed through" the canal, said the embassy in a statement. At that time, when the waterway was under...

<p>Fox news ran stories last night based on some of the things we were tracking right here in this post. Here is their on line story.</p> <p>As unfinished as my research is, I feel compelled to release what I've found so far as the story cannot wait any longer.  I am not looking for a scoop on anyone or anything, but at the same time I don't want anyone thinking I made this stuff up after the fact either.</p>

CONCORD – A federal judge dismissed Thursday a Nashua man's legal challenge that Republican presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was ineligible because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.

County commissioners reaffirmed their stance against the Trans-Texas Corridor, and they took another step toward keeping county government transparent when they met Tuesday. First up on the court's agenda, commissioners heard a presentation by Connie Fogle on behalf of the newly formed Pineywoods Sub-Regional Planning Commission. According to Fogle, the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 391, requires state agencies to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." "Critical in the code is the word 'coordinate,'" she said. "This does not mean the commission has to cooperate. The intent is to...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

KATHMANDU (AFP) — Former US president Jimmy Carter met the leaders of Nepal's former Maoist rebels Tuesday, even though the group remains classified by Washington as a foreign "terrorist" organisation. Carter, whose democracy and human rights organisation is monitoring this Thursday's landmark elections in the Himalayan nation, was given assurances by the Maoists that the polls would be peaceful. "President Carter wanted to know about the election situation and expressed his concern over whether it will be free and fair," Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists' second-in-command, told reporters after the meeting. "We assured him that the elections will be held in...

TEXAS CITY — A massive superhighway that Texans have protested at public hearings statewide drew heated opposition among Galveston County residents, who said they feared the toll road would cripple the local shipping industry and do nothing to improve insufficient hurricane evacuation routes. The Trans-Texas Corridor would wind from Laredo to Corpus Christi, wrap around the western edge of Greater Houston, parallel Interstate 59 through East Texas and leave the state in Texarkana. But residents at a public hearing Thursday night in Texas City questioned the real purpose for the road, which would also be part of a national Interstate...

Leaders with the Texas Department of Transportation sought to allay fears about the Trans-Texas Corridor Thursday night in Rosenberg with a “town hall” meeting. The meeting proceeded fairly smoothly, but hardly seemed to put a dent in the large crowd's seemingly uniform opposition to the proposal of a massive transportation corridor. Hank Gilbert, a regular speaker at TTC events and leader of an anti-TTC non-profit group, drew cheers for suggesting TxDOT officials have failed to make the case for a large, privately owned transportation cluster. “No good argument has been made for the TTC that would allow farmers to be...

Panama will take bids from four international consortiums seeking to build new, larger ship locks for the Panama Canal... The locks are a key part of the 5.25 billion-dollar canal expansion project begun in September, aimed at doubling the capacity of the 50-mile (80-kilometer) canal connecting two oceans. Panamanian officials hope the project will be finished by 2014. The four consortiums now have until August 2008 to present final proposals and price tags to compete for the contract... The largest ships that now use the canal carry up to 5,000 containers, but after the expansion supertankers and ships carrying as...

China's influence in North America has reached the point that Canada, the United States and Mexico all are proposing new super-ports to accept mega-ships loaded with thousands of containers of goods from the exporting nation. Now it's reaching into Central and South America as well. The BBC is reporting that the Panamanian National Assembly has approved a plan to make teaching Mandarin obligatory, "in recognition of China's growing importance in the world economy." The report said the bill's supporters believe boosting the number of people who speak Chinese will help boost the economic competitiveness Panama offers the global economy. At...

...[The building of the Trans-Texas Corridor] is all too sinister for Jerome Corsi, the Vietnam War veteran who helped lead the Swift Boat charge against John Kerry. Corsi has knitted disparate strands of each of these separate road projects to help convince fellow xenophobes such as Pat Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafly, Lou Dobbs and the John Birch Society that the corridor is the first leg of a secret federal project called the NAFTA Superhighway, a four-football-field wide monstrosity that would run from Mexico's Yucatan to Canada's Yukon... Yet even Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican candidate for president, has fallen...

PANAMA CITY, Panama - Panama blasted away part of a hillside next to the canal on Monday, marking the start of the waterway's biggest expansion since it opened 93 years ago. In the presence of former President Carter, who signed the 1977 treaty that gave Panama control of the waterway, Panamanian President Martin Torrijos celebrated the start of construction on two wider sets of locks being added to both sides of the canal. "We are witnesses to an exceptional and unique act," Torrijos said moments after the explosion sent up a curtain of smoke and water. The $5.25 billion expansion...

MIAMI (AP) - Warships from Canada and more than a dozen other countries joined the U.S. navy for ongoing manoeuvres Sunday near the Panama Canal in an exercise being billed as one of the largest multinational military training events of the year. More than 30 ships began the exercises Wednesday in the waters near the canal, to practise defending the economically and strategically crucial waterway. The exercise is scheduled to continue through Friday in the Caribbean and Pacific approaches to the canal. Thousands of ships pass through the Panama Canal every year, shuttling more than 200 million tons of exports...

We are exactly one month away from the second annual Texas Transportation Forum to be held July 18–20 in Austin at the Hilton Austin located at 500 East 4th Street, one block north of the Austin Convention Center. Local, regional and state leaders will join national experts in exploring the solutions to "Keep Texas Moving." The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Associated General Contractors of Texas, the Texas Good Roads Transportation Association, and the Texas Transportation Institute are co-hosts for the event. The keynote speaker for the opening session on July 19 will be Alan E. Pisarski, author of...

A two-year ban on long-term toll road leases with private companies, pockmarked with exceptions and thus largely symbolic, cleared a Texas Senate committee Wednesday on a unanimous vote. However, the more meaningful action on toll roads should begin in the next two weeks, when a large bill addressing a wide range of concerns over tollways will be introduced in the Senate. The much-publicized moratorium bill by Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, Senate Bill 1267, has an excellent chance of passing the Senate, given that 29 of 31 senators have either signed on as co-sponsors or voted for it in committee. But despite...

(April 3, 2007)—Gov. Rick Perry spoke out Tuesday against proposed legislation that would put a two-year moratorium on private toll road projects including the Trans-Texas Corridor and urged lawmakers to “ensure vital transportation projects continue as planned.� Several bills are pending in Austin aimed at putting the brakes on the massive highway project. State Representative Lois W. Kolkhorst of Brenham has filed a bill that would kill the project altogether and a second measure that calls for a two-year moratorium on allowing private entities from buying the rights to build and operate toll roads. During a visit with US Transportation...

With a major interstate running right through our area traffic is a common topic for Central Texans. How do we solve the problem of more traffic on i-35? Is the Trans Texas Corridor a realistic solution and do we even need it? In part two of our Trans Texas Corridor series we look at the project from a needs angle. There are basically two sides to the Trans Texas Corridor project, those for it and those against. One thing both sides gree on is that something needs to be done. There are twenty one million Texas residents. 45 percent of...

As the Senate Finance Committee considers President Bush’s nomination of Henry Paulson to be the next secretary of the Treasury, the question is not whether he will be confirmed. That seems assured, as senators in both parties behave like star-struck groupies in the presence of a Wall Street “master of the universe,” whose net worth, from his time as a senior executive of Goldman Sachs, is estimated to be on the order of $600 million. Rather, the question is: Will any of his Senate interlocutors even bother to explore the nominee’s troubling fifteen-year ties to Communist China and the potential...

Americans were rightly outraged over the possibility of an Arab nation with ties to terrorists taking control of six major American ports. Protests from across the nation helped to squelch the deal. However, the job’s not finished. The Communist Chinese still control ports at Long Beach. Congressman Charlie Norwood, (R-GA) made a strong case for getting the Chinese out of the port of Long Beach when he noted that while Dubai has been a reliable partner for America in the War on Terror, Red Chinese officials have threatened invasion of America’s ally on Taiwan and nuclear war against the United...

Panama Canal set for $7.5bn revamp By Jane Monahan in Panama City The Panama Canal was opened in 1914 For nearly 100 years the Panama Canal has been a key link in international shipping routes, handling an estimated 5% of world trade each year. The recent rapid growth of Asian economies like China and India has led to a surge in shipping worldwide and the canal is now operating at near full capacity. The body that runs it has now decided that it is about time the waterway had a major refit. It has approved plans for a $7.5bn...

2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is expanding her complaint about foreign companies owning U.S. ports - and now says a 1999 deal to let a Chinese company takeover the ports at each end of the Panama Canal was a mistake. Speaking at the 92nd Street YMCA in Manhattan yesterday, Clinton told the Jewish Community Relations Council: "There are those who say we can't [prevent foreign governments from operating U.S. ports] because look what happened in the last 20 years ... You know, we have the Chinese running the Panama Canal. We have other government-controlled entities controlling our ports." According to...

2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is expanding her complaint about foreign companies owning U.S. ports - and now says a 1999 deal to let a Chinese company takeover the ports at each end of the Panama Canal was a mistake. Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan yesterday, Clinton told the Jewish Community Relations Council: "There are those who say we can't [prevent foreign governments from operating U.S. ports] because look what happened in the last 20 years . . . You know, we have the Chinese running the Panama Canal. We have other government-controlled entities controlling our ports."...

When asked by the media for his thoughts on the Hamas triumph in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, former President Jimmy Carter replied that while they have a terrorist past, at least they're not corrupt. One of the complaints by many in the Middle East was the corruption within the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party. Arafat himself squirreled away millions of dollars from aid packages that were intended to help the Palestinian people. However, Carter's comment appears to dismiss the years of death and destruction perpetrated by Hamas on the Jewish State. One of the first statements made by...

When asked by the media for his thoughts on the Hamas triumph in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, former President Jimmy Carter replied that while they have a terrorist past, at least they're not corrupt. One of the complaints by many in the Middle East was the corruption within the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party. Arafat himself squirreled away millions of dollars from aid packages that were intended to help the Palestinian people. However, Carter's comment appears to dismiss the years of death and destruction perpetrated by Hamas on the Jewish State. And now the fundamental-Islamic group Hamas triumphed...

Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963 Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963   Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America. At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an...

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For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryNovember 7, 2005 President Bush Meets with President Torrijos of Panama Casa Amarilla Panama City, Panama      Trip to Latin America: Panama      9:25 A.M. (Local) PRESIDENT TORRIJOS: (As translated.) A very good morning, esteemed journalists. I'm pleased to welcome the President of the United States to Panama. On this rainy morning, we've had a work meeting with President Bush and we've had the opportunity to exchange viewpoints on various subjects of interest to Panama, as well as of interest to the United States. We've discussed the advantages and opportunities offered by free trade and...

PANAMA CITY, Panama - President Bush voiced his support on Monday for expanding the Panama Canal to allow bigger ships and more cargo to pass through the shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Bush said Panama must acknowledge that the 50-mile waterway "is to be used by everybody, that the canal is international, that there ought to be ... equal access." Panama is studying plans for widening and deepening the canal that could cost nearly $10 billion. The project must be approved in a national referendum, amid concerns about the environmental impact and the heavy debt involved. White House...

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Monday the United States and Panama were close to completing a free trade agreement as he ended a Latin American tour that fell short of his goal of reviving talks on a hemispheric-wide trade zone. Bush wrapped up his trip to Argentina, Brazil and Panama with a visit to the Miraflores lock of the Panama Canal, nearly 99 years after Theodore Roosevelt came in 1906 to see the canal construction in the first visit abroad by a U.S. president. In a Canal-related issue straining U.S.-Panama relations, Bush offered no hope...

At the Panama Canal's only Pacific port a dozen huge construction cranes work massive new containerized-cargo facilities behind mounds of sand and concrete. Workmen clad in orange uniforms emblazoned with "Panama Ports Company" - the innocuous English-language name in a near century-old bastion of U.S. maritime might - operate the cranes and earthmovers alongside what once was the U.S. military's Southern Command headquarters known as SOUTHCOM. But the construction crews don't work for the Americans anymore. The Panama Ports Company is controlled by Communist China. As U.S. forces pull out of Panama under the Carter-Torrijos treaties of 1977, Beijing's agents...

Three die in Panama terror drill   Three Panamanian sailors have drowned while taking part in international anti-terror exercises to test the defences of the Panama Canal. The US and other navies were also involved in the exercises They became entangled in underwater vegetation in a lake linked to the canal, according to the country's Maritime Authority.Exercises involving some 3,500 sailors from countries across the Americas had been under way for 10 days.About 13,000 ships travel through the 80km (50-mile) waterway each year.Search parties were dispatched on Sunday after the three sailors went missing near Guacha Island.The aim of...

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that the al-Qaida terrorist group is active in Panama and may be making the Central American country a base of operations. Panamanian security chief Javier Martinez, speaking at a U.S.-organized seminar in his country earlier this month, said al-Qaida also is planning an attack on the Panama Canal. The paper did not cite additional specifics. The news of al-Qaida's Panama connection is not new to Insider Report subscribers. In January, NewsMax's Insider Report, quoting a source close to U.S. intelligence, reported that al-Qaida operatives have set up shop in Panama City. U.S. intelligence believes the...

In his FrontPage Magazine article Andrew Alexander’s Lies About the Cold War, Jamie Glazov speaks of the Soviet regime’s aggressive and expansionist designs against the West in the post-WWII period, and how de-classified Soviet sources prove that they had extensively infiltrated their agents into Western society. "...the Venona transcripts are thousands of Soviet intelligence messages that were intercepted and decoded over four decades by the FBI and the NSA (National Security Agency). Released over the past few years, these files prove that there was a large-scale Communist penetration of the U.S. government, and that Communist spies passed on valuable information...

<p>Former President Jimmy Carter has been linked with a key figure in the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal by the group leading the nationwide effort to evict the United Nations from American soil and halt U.S. funding of the U.N.</p>

Rumsfeld gives good report on Panama Canal BY PABLO BACHELET pbachelet@herald.com QUITO - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave the Panama Canal administration his vote of confidence Sunday, after touring the facility that keeps much of the Pacific rim connected with the U.S. Eastern seaboard. U.S. officials have been pushing Panamanian and Latin American security forces to coordinate their efforts to make the installation safer. Team America, a recent animation movie based on TV series South Park, depicted a terrorist attack on the canal. With Alberto Alemán, the canal's administrator looking on, Rumsfeld handled knobs that opened and closed locks, letting...

The ineptitude of the administration of President James Earl ("Jumma") Carter seemed to me for a long time simply to be what happens when you put a bumbling, indecisive naif in a position of serious power. Lately, however, I've come to see the dark side of Jimmy Carter, and let me tell you, it's not only ugly and disgusting, it's pathologically dangerous. Neither Jumma nor Bubba, the two surviving Democrat ex-Presidents, has the decency or the respect for the office he once held to keep his pie-hole shut and refrain from criticizing the current Commander-in-Chief. But of the two, although...

QUITO, Ecuador, Nov. 16 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the ability of terrorist organizations to move people, weapons and money across the many borders of Central and South America could be constrained only by increased cooperation among the governments and militaries in the region. At the start of meetings with defense ministers from the Western Hemisphere, Mr. Rumsfeld cited the skill of the groups Hamas and Hezbollah - which are on the United States government's list of terrorist organizations - in raising money in the region. And he warned that smugglers' routes now used to move...

...Russian news services are reporting that both U.S. and Colombian military sources have confirmed that Venezuela's defense ministry has purchased several advanced MiG-29 fighters and that that U.S. sources have detected them on training missions. ..."Venezuela plans to spend approximately $5 billion on acquisition of Russian fighters including purchase of armament, airdrome and airborne equipment." ...UPI: "letters addressed last year to the director general of Russian Aeronautic Corp., Nicolai F. Nikitin, the Venezuelan air force requested the 'latest version' of the MiG-29 SMT equipped with high-tech weaponry, including radar-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs." UPI: "The plane must have the capacity...

Martin Torrijos becomes president of Panama on a mission to modernize the aging Panama Canal, purge rampant corruption and investigate abuses committed by his father's authoritarian regime. AFP/File Photo Panama's new leader is the son of Omar Torrijos, a populist strongman who ruled the Central American nation from 1968-1981 after a military coup. Martin Torrijos, 41, took the presidency through the ballot box, crushing former president Guillermo Endara, who held office from 1989-1994, in a 47-31 percent electoral victory. He will be sworn in on Wednesday. The Social Democrat entered the political arena in 1994 as vice minister of justice...

VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA, Panama (NNS) -- Naval forces from eight countries begin PANAMAX 2004 in August, a maritime exercise in which the multinational forces plan and coordinate a coalition response to a security threat against the Panama Canal. PANAMAX is conducted under the direction of Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern command and involves personnel, aircraft and ships from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Peru, and the United States and observers from Ecuador. The participants organized into Task Force 138 will conduct the week-long exercise, which includes operations on the high seas, coast and land. “The great interest...

Warning: touched up Babelfish translation from the Spanish ________________________ -He planned attacks against the Panama Canal: State Security One of the terrorists tied to the Al Qaeda network much sought by United States authorities was in the national territory for several days after planning attacks on the Panama Canal, Minister of Security Oscar Alvarez revealed yesterday. The civil servant elaborated his statements, when referring that the possible presence of international terrorists is investigated, brought into the country by Mafias that deal with undocumented people. "We can verify the presence of Middle East terrorists in our country", asserted Alvarez, then criticized...

Report: Suspected al-Qaeda member planned to blow up Panama Canal... Developing...

<p>How many Chinese bras -- and televisions and Barbie dolls and VCRs -- can fit through the Panama Canal?</p> <p>It's a question bedeviling canal authorities and many huge U.S. retailers who are betting on the waterway to get goods from Asia to the East Coast. Booming Chinese exports, and the increasing popularity of the all-water route from Asia to the Atlantic seaboard, made 2003 the busiest and most profitable year in the canal's 90-year history.</p>

NORFOLK -- All eyes are on the Panama Canal. The authority that oversees that system of locks and channels must decide in coming years whether to expand the canal, so ever-larger container ships can squeeze through. And if the answer is yes, the cargo business will be in for some big changes. Large ships that now make runs between Asia and the deep-water West Coast ports like Los Angeles and Seattle would suddenly have an efficient route to the Eastern Seaboard. Going through Panama would be much quicker than going around South America's Cape Horn or going the other way...

Nicaraguan dream to rival Panama's trade route Price of Central American ambition: $25bn and 10 years' construction over 175 miles Rupert Widdicombe in Managua Monday October 20, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Multi-billion dollar plans to create a rival to the 90-year-old Panama canal by linking a network of rivers and cutting through the jungle of central America are being backed by the goverment of Nicaragua. The new waterway - being proposed by a public private partnership called the Grand Canal Foundation - will cost an estimated $25bn (£15bn) and take 10 years to build. Its proponents say it would turn...

Chinese control of the Panama canal has fuelled wild speculation in the US as to Beijing's plans for this strategic piece of real estate. Though I am not party to Beijing's military intentions I do know that they do not include submarine bases or sabotage, both of which would be obviously self-defeating. On the contrary, the Chinese will, as former President Clinton inadvertently blurted out, bend "over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner." What matters, however, is not how the canal is managed but how Beijing will use the Hutchison...

<p>SAN DIEGO - Southern California Edison will not be allowed to transport a defunct nuclear reactor through a South Carolina port.</p> <p>Citing heightened terrorism concerns, officials in Charleston said Friday it was too dangerous to move the reactor, which was scheduled to be shipped next month from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California to a nuclear waste site in Barnwell County, S.C.</p>

01/21/2003 -- New Horizons 2003 gets under way The equipment is rolling into Panama at the port of Cristobol, and NGB PA's Sr. Broadcast Photojournalist SFC Paul Mouilleseaux takes you there for port operations.   RealMedia (3.6MB)   QuickTime (4.5MB)   MP3 (1.6MB -- audio only)