EL JOBO, Panama: A long, wooden boat puttered down the Indio River’s chocolate waters carrying Ana María Antonio and a colleague from the Panama Canal Authority on a mission to hear directly from villagers who could be affected by plans to dam the river.
The canal forms the backbone of Panama’s economy, and the proposed dam would secure the water needed to ensure the canal’s uninterrupted operation at a time of increasingly erratic weather.
It also would flood villages, where about 2,000 people would need to be relocated and where there is opposition to the plan, and curb the flow of the river to other communities downstream.
Those living downstream know the mega-project will substantially alter the river, but they hope it will bring jobs, potable water, electricity and roads to their remote communities and not just leave them impoverished.
“We, as the Panama Canal, understand that many of these areas have been abandoned in terms of basic services,” Antonio said.
The canal
The Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and generates about a quarter of the government’s budget.
Last year, the canal authority reduced the number of ships that could cross daily by about 20 percent because rains hadn’t replenished the reservoirs used to operate the locks, which need about 50 million gallons of fresh water for each ship. It led to shipping delays and, in some cases, companies looking for alternatives. By the time restrictions were lifted this month, demand had fallen.
To avoid a repeat due to drought exacerbated by climate change, the plan to dam the Indio River was revived.
It received a boost this summer with a ruling from Panama’s Supreme Court. For years, Panama has wanted to build another reservoir to supplement the main supply of water from Lake Gatun — a large manmade lake and part of the canal’s route — but a 2006 regulation prohibited the canal from expansion outside its traditional watershed. The Supreme Court’s decision allowed a re-interpretation of the boundaries.
The Indio runs roughly parallel to the canal, through the isthmus. The new reservoir on the Indio would sit southwest of Lake Gatun and supplement the water from there and what comes from the much smaller AlHajjuela Lake to the east. The Indio reservoir would allow an estimated 12 to 13 additional canal crossings each day.
The reservoirs also provide water to the more than 2 million people — half the country’s population — living in the capital.
The river
Monkeys screeched in the thick jungle lining the Indio on an August morning. The boat weaved around submerged logs below concrete and rough timber houses high on the banks. Locals passed in other boats, the main means of transportation for the area.
At the town of El Jobo, Antonio and her colleague carefully climbed the muddy incline from the river to a room belonging to the local Catholic parish, decorated with flowers and bunches of green bananas.
Inside, residents from El Jobo and Guayabalito, two communities that won’t be flooded, took their seats. The canal authority has held dozens of such outreach meetings in the watershed.
The canal representatives hung posters with maps and photos showing the Indio’s watershed. They talked about the proposed project, the Supreme Court’s recent decision, a rough timeline.
Antonio said that canal officials are talking to affected residents to figure out their needs, especially if they are from the 37 tiny villages where residents would have to be relocated.
Canal authorities have said the Indio is not the only solution they’re considering, but just days earlier canal administrator Ricaurte Catin Vasquez said it would be the most efficient option, because it has been studied for at least 40 years.
That’s nearly as long as Jeronima Figueroa, 60, has lived along the Indio in El Jobo. Besides being the area’s critical transportation link, the Indio provides water for drinking, washing clothes and watering their crops, she said.
“That river is our highway and our everything,” she said.
The dam’s effect on the river’s flow was top of mind for the assembled residents, along with why the reservoir is needed, what would the water be used for, which communities would have to relocate, how property titles would be handled, would the construction pollute the river.
Puria Nunez of El Jobo summed up the fears: “Our river isn’t going to be the same Indio River.”
Progress
Kenny Alexander Macero, a 21-year-old father who raises livestock in Guayabalito, said it was clear to him that the reservoir would make the canal a lot of money, but he wanted to see it spur real change for his family and others in the area.
“I’m not against the project, it’s going to generate a lot of work for people who need it, but you should be sincere in saying that ‘we’re going to bring projects to the communities that live in that area,’” he said. “We want highways. Don’t try to fool us.”
One complication was that while the canal authorities would be in charge of the reservoir project, the federal government would have to carry out the region’s major development projects. And the feds weren’t in the room.
The project is not a guarantee of other benefits. There are communities along Lake Gatun that don’t have potable water.
Gilberto Toro, a community development consultant not involved in the canal project, said that the canal administration is actually more trusted by people than Panama’s federal government, because it hasn’t been enmeshed in as many scandals.
“Everybody knows that the canal projects come with a seal of guarantee,” Toro said. “So a lot of people want to negotiate with the canal in some way because they know what they’re going to offer isn’t going to be trinkets.”
Figueroa expressed similar faith in the canal administrators, but said that residents would need to monitor them closely to avoid being overlooked. “We can’t keep living far behind like this,” she said. “We don’t have electricity, water, health care and education.”
Next steps
President Jose Raul Mulino has said a decision about the Indio River project would come next year. The canal administration ultimately will decide, but the project would require coordination with the federal government. No public vote is necessary, but the canal administrator has said they are looking to arrive at a public consensus.
Opposition has emerged, not surprisingly, in communities that would be flooded.
Among those is Limon, where the canal representatives parked their car and boarded a boat to El Jobo. It’s where the reservoir’s dam would be constructed. The highway only arrived there two years ago and the community still has many needs.
Olegario Hernandez has had a sign out in front of his home in Limon for the past year that says: “No to the reservoirs.”
The 86-year-old farmer was born there and raised his six children there. His children all left the area in search of opportunities, but Hernandez wants to stay.
“We don’t need to leave,” Hernandez said, but the canal administration “wants to kick us out.”
Villagers are wary of plans to dam a river to ensure Panama Canal’s water supply
https://arab.news/9dann
Villagers are wary of plans to dam a river to ensure Panama Canal’s water supply
- Proposed dam would secure the water needed to ensure the canal’s uninterrupted operation at a time of increasingly erratic weather
- But it also would flood villages, where about 2,000 people would need to be relocated, and curb the flow of the river to other communities downstream
’Better if he was dead’: Kenyan mother’s search for son year after protests
- Susan Wangari has lost count of the morgues, hospitals and police stations she has visited in search of her son, who went missing at the height of Kenya’s mass protests last June
She last saw Emmanuel Mukuria, 24, on the morning of June 25, 2024, the day that thousands of Kenyan youths thronged the streets of Nairobi and stormed parliament in protest at planned tax rises and corruption.
“It would be better if my son were dead; at least I could visit his grave,” she told AFP.
Rights groups say at least 60 people were killed during the protests in June and July, and more than 80 abducted by the security forces since then, with dozens still missing.
Mukuria’s friends say he was arrested during the protests in the city center, where he worked as a minibus tout.
“We do not have peace in this house,” his mother, 50, told AFP during a visit to her single-room home in the Kasarani slum area.
“I sleep lightly at night in case he comes knocking at my window like he always did,” she said.
“Every time we hear that bodies have been found somewhere, we are anxious to know whose they are.”
Two men told her they shared a cell with Mukuria, but they are too afraid to speak publicly about their ordeal.
One was only released in February, giving her hope that her son is still alive in captivity.
“They told me they were beaten and questioned about the protests. They were being asked who paid them to participate,” Wangari said.
Last month, President William Ruto, in a clear admission that security forces had engaged in kidnappings, said all those abducted during the protests had been “returned to their families.”
Rights groups say dozens are still missing and police have shown little progress in investigating the disappearances despite Ruto claiming an “accountability mechanism” was put in place.
Questioned by AFP, the president’s office said the police were “handling the brief,” while a police spokesman referred AFP back to the president’s office.
The police spokesman said they had no information on Mukuria’s case. An officer-in-charge at the station where Wangari reported him missing said the matter was still under investigation.
Many other families are still dealing with the aftermath of the violence.
Rex Masai, 29, was the first to die during the protests, shot and killed in the city center on June 20.
The inquest into his death is still dragging on.
“We are hoping for the best but we are not near the truth,” Masai’s mother Gillian Munyao told AFP at her home, where a photo of her dreadlocked son hangs on the wall.
She found her son lying lifeless in a pool of blood at a clinic where he was taken that day.
The state prosecutor has said a lack of witnesses has delayed progress in the case.
One potential witness was scared off for fear he might be “forcibly disappeared” by the police, Munyao said.
Hussein Khalid, head of rights group Vocal Africa, blamed a “lack of cooperation by the authorities.”
“When you get evidence, the unfortunate bit is you have to take it to the police themselves,” he said.
He lost count of the number of funerals he attended after the protests, estimating between 20 and 30.
“Was it necessary to unleash this kind of brute force against young, innocent Kenyans?” he said.
Politicians have shown little interest in accountability or learning from the unrest.
“People were killed, we sympathized, we moved on,” Bashir Abdullahi, a member of the ruling coalition, told parliament during a debate on the protests last month.
But for victim’s families, the search for justice “means a lot,” said Masai’s father, Chrispin Odawa.
“The wound will never heal,” he said.
As the UN Ocean Conference opens in France, a push to turn promises into protection
- A major focus of the summit is the push to ratify the High Seas Treaty, which would enable conservation in international waters
- France claims progress but has been criticized for weak enforcement in many protected areas. The conference will also address climate funding
NICE:The third UN Ocean Conference opens Monday as pressure mounts for nations to turn decades of promises into real protection for the sea.
The summit comes as just 2.7 percent of the ocean is effectively protected from destructive extractive activities, according to the nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute. That’s far below the target agreed under the “30x30” pledge to conserve 30 percent of land and sea by 2030.
Atop this year’s agenda is ratification of the High Seas Treaty. Adopted in 2023, the treaty would for the first time allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean and are largely ungoverned.
“It’s the Wild West out there with countries just fishing anywhere without any sort of regulation, and that needs to change,” said Mauro Randone, regional projects manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s Mediterranean Marine Initiative. “The high seas belong to everyone and no one practically at the same time, and countries are finally committing to establish some rules.”
The ocean is critical in stabilizing Earth’s climate and sustaining life. It generates 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs around 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and captures more than 90 percent of the excess heat caused by those emissions. Without a healthy ocean, experts warn, climate goals will remain out of reach.
The treaty will only come into force once 60 countries ratify it. As of Monday, just 32 countries had. Advocates hope UNOC can build enough momentum to cross the threshold, which would allow for the first official Oceans Conference of Parties.
“Two-thirds of the ocean is areas beyond national jurisdiction — that’s half our planet,” said Minna Epps, director of global ocean policy the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “We cannot possibly protect 30 percent of the ocean if it doesn’t include the high seas.”
South Korea, France and the European Union have championed the treaty, but most large ocean nations have yet to ratify it, including the rest of the G20. Thousands of attendees are expected in Nice — from delegates and heads of state to scientists and industry leaders. The United States has yet to confirm a formal delegation.
Moving from protections on paper to something real
Beyond new commitments, the conference highlights the growing gap between marine protection declarations and real-world conservation.
France, the conference co-host, claims to have surpassed the 30 percent target for marine protection. But environmental groups say only 3 percent of French waters are fully protected from harmful activities like bottom trawling and industrial fishing.
In 2024 alone, more than 100 bottom-trawling vessels were recorded spending over 17,000 hours fishing within France’s six marine nature parks, according to ocean advocacy group Oceana.
“The government declares these as protected areas, but this is a lie,” said Enric Sala, founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas marine reserve project. “Most of it is political box-ticking. It’s all paper parks.”
That criticism is echoed across the continent. A new World Wildlife Fund report found that although more than 11 percent of Europe’s marine area is designated for protection, just 2 percent of EU waters have management plans in place.
Fabien Boileau, director of marine protected areas at France’s Office for Biodiversity, acknowledged the presence of bottom trawling in French protected areas, but said it was part of a phased strategy.
“In France, we made the choice to designate large marine protected areas with relatively low levels of regulation at first, betting that stronger protections would be developed over time through local governance,” he said. “Today, we’re gradually increasing the number of zones with stricter protections within those areas.”
France’s Port-Cros: A model for conservation
While many marine protected areas struggle with enforcement, others show what real protection can achieve. Off the southern coast of France, Port-Cros National Park is one of the oldest marine reserves in the Mediterranean. There, strict anchoring bans have allowed vast seagrass meadows to grow undisturbed. Massive groupers patrol rocky outcrops, brightly colored nudibranchs munch on algae, and schools of large corbs glide through the shallows, undisturbed by fishing lines.
“Thanks to the protections that have been in place since 1963, we can observe species that are much larger than elsewhere in the Mediterranean and at a much higher density than in other areas,” said Hubert Flavigny, manager of Mio Palmo dive center in Hyeres, France.
Still, such examples remain exceptions.
Advocates say industrial fishing lobbies continue to resist stricter protections, despite evidence that well-managed reserves boost long-term fisheries through the “spillover effect,” whereby marine life flourishes in nearby waters.
“Protection is not the problem — overfishing is the problem,” said Sala. “The worst enemy of the fishing industry is themselves.”
Frustrated by government inaction, environmental groups have taken enforcement into their own hands. In May, Greenpeace dropped 15 limestone boulders into France’s Golfe du Lion, aiming to physically block bottom trawling in a marine area that has long been designated for protection. The protected zone was established in 2008 to preserve deep-sea ecosystems, yet 12 trawlers continue to operate there, despite scientific warnings of ecological collapse, according to activist group MedReAct. The Golfe is now one of the most overfished areas in the Mediterranean.
What will UNOC deliver?
The conference will feature 10 panels on topics such as blue finance, sustainable fisheries and plastic pollution. Deep sea mining is expected to feature in broader discussions, while small island states are likely to use the platform to advocate for increased climate adaptation funding. The outcome of these discussions will form the basis of the Nice Ocean Action Plan — a declaration of voluntary commitments to be adopted by consensus and presented at the United Nations in New York this July.
“There cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean,” said Peter Thomson, UN special envoy for the ocean. “It’s urgent business for us all.”
Malaysia bus crash kills at least 15, mostly students
KUALA LUMPUR: A bus carrying university students back to their campus smashed into a minivan in northern Malaysia on Monday, killing at least 15 people, police and rescue services said.
Thirteen victims died at the scene near the town of Gerik, on the busy East-West Highway near the Thai border, while two died in hospital.
The accident is the deadliest in more than a decade on Malaysia’s hazardous roads.
“It looked like the bus had lost control and hit the (minivan) from behind,” Perak State Police Chief Hisam Nordin said.
Images from the scene taken by the fire and rescue department showed a green bus overturned on its right side with a smashed rear end cover, while the red minivan had slid into a ditch, with its windows blown out.
“Some victims managed to get out on their own, some victims were thrown out while others were still (trapped) in the bus,” the Perak state disaster management authority said in a statement.
Rescuers had to use a hydraulic cutter to free people from the bus.
The death toll included 14 students from the Sultan Idris Education University, while the last victim was a bus attendant, the emergency services said.
Thirty-three others were injured, with seven in critical condition taken to hospital, it added.
Most of the victims were aged between 21 and 23. They were traveling from the town of Jerteh in northeastern Malaysia when the accident happened shortly after 1:00 am (1700 GMT on Sunday).
Police Chief Hisam said officers were investigating whether the crash “involved human negligence or if it was a technical issue.”
A witness told the New Straits Times it “was a chaotic scene with students screaming and crying for help.”
“They were pinned between the wreckage,” the witness, identified as Razali, told the paper.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim ordered the Higher Education Ministry to help the victim’s families and said he and his wife Azizah were “deeply saddened” by the tragedy.
“Heartbreaking disasters like these that are repeated often should be a lesson to all to be careful and not to rush,” Anwar wrote on Facebook.
“Your lives are too precious and can’t be replaced,” he added.
Malaysia has a high rate of traffic accidents, with an average of 18 people killed on the roads each day, according to government figures.
The East-West Highway, which connects the two seaboards of the Malaysian peninsula, is plagued by accidents, with frequent collisions between animals and vehicles.
Malaysia worst bus disaster happened in 2013 when an express bus plunged down a ravine northeast of Kuala Lumpur, killing 37.
Climate change heightens risk of Indian farmer suicides
- On a small farm in India’s Maharashtra state, Mirabai Khindkar said the only thing her land grew was debt, after crops failed in drought and her husband killed himself
BEED: On a small farm in India’s Maharashtra state, Mirabai Khindkar said the only thing her land grew was debt, after crops failed in drought and her husband killed himself.
Farmer suicides have a long history in India, where many are one crop failure away from disaster, but extreme weather caused by climate change is adding fresh pressure.
Dwindling yields due to water shortages, floods, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, coupled with crippling debt, have taken a heavy toll on a sector that employs 45 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people.
Mirabhai’s husband Amol was left with debts to loan sharks worth hundreds of times their farm’s annual income, after the three-acre (one-hectare) soybean, millet and cotton plot withered in scorching heat.
He swallowed poison last year.
“When he was in the hospital, I prayed to all the gods to save him,” said 30-year-old Mirabai, her voice breaking.
Amol died a week later, leaving behind Mirabai and three children. Her last conversation with him was about debt.
Their personal tragedy is replicated daily across Marathwada, a region in Maharashtra of 18 million, once known for fertile farmland.
Last year, extreme weather events across India affected 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of cropland — an area bigger than Belgium — according to the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment research group.
Over 60 percent of that was in Maharashtra.
“Summers are extreme, and even if we do what is necessary, the yield is not enough,” said Amol’s brother and fellow farmer Balaji Khindkar.
“There is not enough water to irrigate the fields. It doesn’t rain properly.”
Between 2022 and 2024, 3,090 farmers took their own lives in Marathwada, an average of nearly three a day, according to India’s Minister of Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Government statistics do not specify what drove the farmers to kill themselves, but analysts point to several likely factors.
“Farmer suicides in India are a consequence of the crisis of incomes, investment and productivity that you have in agriculture,” said R. Ramakumar, professor of development studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Farming across many Indian smallholdings is done largely as it has been for centuries, and is highly dependent on the right weather at the correct time.
“What climate change and its vulnerabilities and variabilities have done is to increase the risks in farming,” Ramakumar said.
This “is leading to crop failures, uncertainties... which is further weakening the economics of cultivation for small and marginal farmers.”
The government could support farmers with better insurance schemes to cope with extreme weather events, as well as investments in agricultural research, Ramakumar said.
“Agriculture should not be a gamble with the monsoon.”
Faced with uncertain weather, farmers often look to stem falling yields by investing in fertilizers or irrigation systems.
But banks can be reluctant to offer credit to such uncertain borrowers.
Some turn to loan sharks offering quick cash at exorbitant interest rates, and risking catastrophe if crops fail.
“It is difficult to make ends meet with just farming,” Mirabai said, standing outside her home, a tin-roofed hut with patch-cloth walls.
Her husband’s loans soared to over $8,000, a huge sum in India, where the average monthly income of a farming household is around $120.
Mirabai works on other farms as a laborer but could not pay back the debt.
“The loan instalments piled up,” she said, adding that she wants her children to find jobs outside of farming when they grow up.
“Nothing comes out of the farm.”
The agricultural industry has been in a persistent crisis for decades.
And while Maharashtra has some of the highest suicide rates, the problem is nationwide.
Thirty people in the farming sector killed themselves every day in 2022, according to national crime records bureau statistics.
At another farm in Marathwada, 32-year-old farmer Shaikh Imran took over the running of the family smallholding last year after his brother took his own life.
He is already more than $1,100 in debt after borrowing to plant soybean.
The crop failed.
Meanwhile, the pop of explosives echoes around as farmers blast wells, hoping to hit water.
“There’s no water to drink,” said family matriarch Khatijabi. “Where shall we get water to irrigate the farm?“
Explosion at a US air base in southern Japan injures at least 1 Japanese soldier
- An explosion occurred at a Japanese military facility inside a US air base in Okinawa, officials told AFP, with local media reporting non-life-threatening injuries
An explosion at or near a US military base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa injured at least one Japanese soldier but the injury is not life threatening, Japanese defense officials said Monday.
The Self Defense Force's joint staff said they are looking into reports of an explosion at Kadena Air Base that occurred while a team of Japanese soldiers that specializes in handling unexploded ordnance was working near or at the base.
The SDF said they are trying to confirm the cause of the accident and where it occurred.
