The Nicaraguan Canal

Nicaraguans are interested in taking advantage of shipping business that Panama can't handle:

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.

The Grand Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal would make use of the 60-mile-wide Lake Nicaragua and follow at least part of a route first proposed by American and European entrepreneurs in the 19th century, officials said.

"We will have a deeper draft than the Panama Canal and reach a different market than Panama," Monjarretz said in a telephone interview. "The construction of the canal … will be pushed forward by Nicaragua because it's necessary for global trade."

The official announcement will come Monday, when Nicaragua plays host to a summit of Western Hemisphere defense ministers, including U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Monjarretz said.

If they can afford it, it's a good idea. A lot of today's modern tanker and container ships, not to mention warships, are too big for the Panama canal and a new canal could cut weeks off the transportation of important goods.