Panama Canal

The economic downturn has stalled big construction projects across the globe, but here in Panama, smoke-belching steam shovels and dredges work around the clock on what people here call simply la ampliacion, or the expansion. This month, officials will award the principal contract for the $5.25-billion expansion of the landmark Panama Canal, a project that will probably alter global shipping patterns and cement this Central American nation's place as a center of global logistics.

The explosions that shatter the early morning quiet here are perfect metaphors for another kind of boom, the economic one transforming Panama's capital. The blasts a few miles north of the city are part of the first phase of the $5.25-billion Panama Canal expansion project. They are clearing a path for new locks that will modernize the historic waterway and, in 2014, enable bigger ships to traverse the isthmus.

Lofty rhetoric, followed by explosions that blew off parts of a hillside, marked the beginning of a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal on Monday. The $5.25-billion expansion will accommodate a new class of huge ships capable of carrying more than twice the number of containers as the vessels that currently transit the waterway. Completion is set for 2014 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of the original canal.

The vessels that traverse the Panama Canal include big tugboats, large cruise liners and mega-containerships called Panamax because they can barely squeeze through the waterway. But the newest containerships have been super-sized, making them too big to transit the canal. On Monday, Panamanian President Martin Torrijos unveiled a $5.

Not many leaders have the political dexterity to bear-hug Fidel Castro and male-bond with former President H.W. Bush soon after. But it's a balancing act that Panamanian President Martin Torrijos seems to be carrying off with aplomb.

Support is building among voters for expansion of the Panama Canal, a five-year, $5.2-billion project that could ease overcrowding at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex. Recent polls show that support for the plan, which goes to a nationwide vote Oct. 22, is at nearly two-thirds of those intending to cast ballots.

Seeking to cash in on booming Asian exports, Nicaragua will announce a $20-billion proposal next week to build a canal linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans that would accommodate ships too large to use the Panama Canal, Nicaraguan officials said Friday. If approved by Nicaragua's Congress, the project would be a joint public-private venture financed by unnamed investors, said Lindolfo Monjarretz, a spokesman for Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos.

Voters are likely to approve a $5.2-billion project to expand the Panama Canal today, according to polls, despite warnings of an accumulation of debt, competition, technical miscalculations and possible environmental damage. Only scattered opposition has developed to the proposal to expand the 92-year-old canal to allow transit of a new generation of larger container ships.

Panamanian voters on Sunday overwhelmingly approved a $5.2-billion proposal to expand the country's national treasure, the Panama Canal. With 94% of the votes counted, ballots in favor of the project led those that were opposed, 78% to 22%, prompting Panama's electoral tribunal to declare the yes vote victorious. That gave the green light to the first major modification to the storied 50-mile waterway since it opened in 1914.

ANGELENOS DIDN'T GET to cast a vote in Panama's referendum Sunday, but it could have a major effect on what is arguably the region's most important industry. And no, we don't mean Hollywood; L.A.'s port complex is the largest in the nation, and world trade routes might be on the verge of a significant switch. Panamanians overwhelmingly supported a $5.