Of Locks and Docks
NEED TO KNOW
Of Locks and Docks
PANAMA
Jorge Quijano sat on a hotel balcony overlooking Panama Bay recently, watching massive ships waiting to cross the locks that are part of the 51-mile journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic on the Panama Canal.
Quijano, who ran the Panama Canal from 2012 to 2019, says he takes US President Donald Trump’s threats to take the canal back seriously.
“That’s not going to happen,” Quijano told CNN. “I’ll be on the streets myself defending our sovereignty because the canal is (our) land.”
Like many Panamanians, Quijano is concerned and furious over Trump’s comments regarding the canal, a source of national pride.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, an ally of the US and one who quickly jumped to cooperate on migration issues after he took office in July, noted World Politics Review, immediately responded to the threats: “The canal is and will continue to be Panamanian,” he said. “Every square meter of the canal.”
More than a century after Americans completed the Panama Canal and 25 years after the United States turned it over to Panama, Trump says he wants it back because of Chinese encroachment and its “exorbitant” fees to cross.
“Panama’s promise to us has been broken,” Trump said recently. “China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
One of the world’s busiest shipping passageways – one that allows ships to avoid the longer and costlier trip around Cape Horn at the tip of South America – roughly 4 percent of the world’s maritime trade and more than 40 percent of US container traffic use the canal. The US is the canal’s biggest customer, with China coming in a distant second.
Since the handover in 1999, the canal has been run by the Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous government entity, and earns the country of 4.5 million people about $5 billion in annual revenue. In 2016, the Panamanian government completed an upgrade to the canal that tripled its capacity, the authority said, at a cost of $5.2 billion.
The canal authority sets the fees, which must be “just, reasonable, equitable, and consistent with international law,” according to the treaty with the US turning over the canal.
In recent years, the canal authority has increased fees because of a drought in 2023 that lowered the water levels in the canal and allowed for fewer ships to pass through. To bypass the wait, some companies compete in auctions for slots that significantly raise the fees.
The treaty also dictates that the canal must remain neutral. Panamanian officials say they rigorously maintain that neutrality, in pricing also.
Analysts say Trump is overstating Chinese influence, arguing that China doesn’t control or operate the canal. That doesn’t mean there isn’t cause for worry, they add.
China has become far closer to the country since Panama revoked diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2017, wrote the Associated Press, during Trump’s first term as president. Since then, Panama has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative and entered into numerous infrastructure contracts with the Chinese. Still, a Hong Kong consortium had already won contracts to build ports on either side of the canal, and a powerplant and a convention center on the canal – in 1997.
“China doesn’t have control of the canal,” Alonso Illueca of Santa María La Antigua Catholic University in Panama City, told the Economist. “But it has taken advantage of weak institutions and endemic corruption to increase its influence in national politics and business.”
Analysts say the only way for the US to take control of the canal back is by force, and that would be blundering into disaster, said Richard M. Sanders, a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest. Military analysts believe it would take 90,000 troops to maintain control over it.
Meanwhile, analysts say they believe Panama may try to appease the US by deepening its relationship with America and reducing its links with China. Last week, the country announced it would audit the Hong Kong company that operates the port to ensure Panama is receiving its fair share, Bloomberg reported.
Also, US reciprocity in deepening ties would help resolve the concerns over the canal, especially as the new Panamanian government that came into power last year is much more pro-US than its predecessors, says Jason Marczak of the Atlantic Council.
“One option is to ramp up US investment in the canal and in the many businesses that directly and indirectly support canal operations,” he wrote. “Recently, in Panama, I saw and heard concerns about a disproportionate uptick in Chinese investment and a yearning for more US companies to invest in Panama. The United States needs to really get in the game to win the game.”
The alternative is unthinkable, say Panamanians, who every Jan. 9 on Martyrs Day mark the anniversary of a 1964 protest of US control of the canal in which US forces killed 21 people.
Panamanian analyst Edwin Cabrera told the Wall Street Journal that the canal is too tied into the country’s national identity to let go: “To mess with the canal is to mess with all of Panama.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
The Grim Comeback
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The M23 rebel group captured Goma, a strategic city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following intense fighting Monday, marking a major setback for the Congolese army, and raising fears among regional and international leaders over the escalating humanitarian and security crisis in the region, Al Jazeera reported.
Goma, the capital of North Kivu province and a vital hub for humanitarian aid and regional security, fell to the rebels after weeks of advances through surrounding towns, including Sake and Minova. The United Nations confirmed the deaths of 13 peacekeepers over the weekend, including South African and Malawian soldiers, after M23 fighters overwhelmed Congolese army positions.
Hundreds of thousands of residents fled Goma, with some seeking refuge in Rwanda or nearby towns. The UN estimated that more than 237,000 people were already displaced in January alone, adding to the millions uprooted since the conflict reignited in 2022.
Humanitarian organizations have evacuated staff from Goma as aid efforts stall due to blocked roads and an M23-declared closure of airspace, the Voice of America noted.
Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner described the incursion by M23 as a “declaration of war” and accused neighboring Rwanda of supporting the rebels, calling for international sanctions against the country. Rwanda’s UN ambassador denied it.
M23, largely composed of Tutsi fighters, resurfaced in 2022 after a decade of being mostly quiet. The group claims to protect the DRC’s Tutsi population but is accused of wanting to control Congo’s rich mineral resources and receiving support from Rwanda to do it.
The United States condemned the attack, warning Rwanda to stop its support for M23. Kenyan President William Ruto announced an emergency East African Community (EAC) summit to mediate, the Guardian added.
Rough Seas
SWEDEN
Swedish authorities seized a Bulgarian ship in the Baltic Sea Monday following an investigation into the suspected sabotage of an undersea data cable linking Sweden and Latvia a day earlier, the latest incident of damage to undersea communication networks in the region, Agence France-Presse reported.
The cable belongs to Latvia’s state radio and television organization, which reported disruptions in transmission services. However, Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said the broadcaster had not lost any data, the Washington Post reported.
Baltic states are on high alert after multiple incidents in the past year involving gas pipelines, electricity, and data cables. In December, Finland seized an oil tanker suspected of damaging an undersea power line between Finland and Estonia later identified as a tanker helping Russia to evade Western sanctions and sell oil on global markets.
The Bulgarian vessel, Vezhen, is currently detained while Swedish authorities investigate. The owner told AFP the ship was carrying fertilizer from Russia to South America.
He also denied any attempt at sabotage and instead blamed the damage on less-than-favorable weather conditions combined with problems with the ship. He added that one of the anchors was broken and had dropped into the sea, possibly dragging along the sea floor and damaging the cable.
Some have blamed these incidents on Russia but investigations in the past 18 months have not uncovered any evidence.
Recently, officials from the United States and the European Union told the Post that the probes indicated the incidents were due to inexperienced crew members and poorly maintained ships, instead of acts of sabotage.
However, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said there have been too many incidents in a short period to say they were simply accidental.
In January, NATO implemented a new surveillance system in the Baltic region aimed at deterring attacks on utility infrastructure.
Justice Derailed
GREECE
Tens of thousands of Greeks protested across the country on Sunday to demand justice for the 57 people who died in Greece’s worst rail disaster two years ago, the Associated Press reported.
The protests, breaking out in more than 100 cities in the southeast European country and abroad, were some of the largest Greece has seen in recent years, according to Reuters. Brief clashes broke out between the police and some protesters, with the officers using tear gas to break up the crowds.
Protesters held banners reading, “I have no oxygen,” which were a woman’s last words in a call to emergency services during the 2023 train collision. It was previously thought that all of the victims had died on impact. The chilling audio of her call was released by local media last week, sparking the current wave of protests.
The February 2023 crash happened on a line linking Athens with Greece’s second-largest city Thessaloniki, where a freight train and a passenger train packed with students crashed head-on just before midnight.
Soon afterward, thousands of Greeks took to the streets to demonstrate against alleged government neglect regarding the maintenance of the rail network, the country then still amid a decade-long financial crisis.
Following the release of the recording, many speculated that dozens of the victims might have died in a fire following the crash. A judicial investigation is still underway and the causes of the deaths of many of the victims have still not been determined, Euronews noted.
The families of the victims have accused the authorities of trying to cover up evidence and pinning the blame solely on the stationmaster, as deflecting their responsibility.
The government has denied those allegations.
DISCOVERIES
The Secret Life of Bubbles
Can million-year-old bubbles solve an Ice Age mystery?
Scientists recently have successfully drilled and retrieved a 9,186-foot-long (2,800 meters) ice core sample from Antarctica.
The piece, probably the world’s oldest ice at 1.2 million years old, extended so deep that it reached the bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, according to CNN.
The team of scientists, from the fourth campaign of the “Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice” project, worked in temperatures of -31°C to extract the ice core from Little Dome C, one of the most extreme locations on the planet, according to BBC News.
The Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy coordinated the project and is funded by the European Commission. It aims to resolve one of climate science’s most complex mysteries, the changing of ice cycles, according to the institute.
The ice core, discovered through bubbles found in the ice, is expected to offer insights into the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, a remarkable period between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles slowed down from 41,000-year intervals to 100,000 years, the researchers said.
Some say our ancestors almost went extinct during that period, known as the “ice age,” noted CNN.
“During that period of time, there was a bottleneck in the evolution of human beings, and about 1,300 individuals were left in the world planet,” said Carlo Barbante, professor at Italy’s Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and coordinator of Beyond EPICA, in an interview with NPR.
The team has sliced the core into 3.2-foot pieces stored in insulated boxes so that the ice and its bubbles may be studied, said Barbante. The samples will be transported to various European institutions such as the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge for analysis, via the icebreaker research vessel Lara Bassi, maintaining the -50°C cold chain.
“The air bubbles trapped within the ice core provide a direct snapshot of past atmospheric composition, including greenhouse gas concentrations like carbon dioxide and methane,” Barbante told CNN.
The discovery is the longest continuous record of our past climate from an ice core, and could reveal the connection between the carbon cycle and the temperature of the planet, researchers said.
Data from other ice cores have been vital to researchers in understanding how the current rise in temperatures is linked to greenhouse gas emissions. Now, scientists wanted to go Beyond Epica, even further back in time.
Scientists do not know if there is a link between the near-extinction of humans during the Ice Age and the climate, researchers said, but the climate data extrapolated from the bubbles could help solve this mystery.