Atlantic-Pacific canal proposed for Nicaragua

Atlantic-Pacific canal proposed for Nicaragua

Seeking to cash in on booming Asian exports, Nicaragua will announce a $20 billion proposal next week to build a canal between 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.

Opened in 1914, the Panama Canal cannot accommodate vessels that are more than 106 feet wide and 965 feet long. Panamanians will go to the polls on Oct. 22 on a referendum to expand their country's own facilities. The proposed $5.25 billion project would allow vessels with double the tonnage to use the 50-mile-long waterway.

Cairo, Egypt

Al-Qaida's No. 2< blasts Bush, pope

Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri called President Bush a failure and a liar in the war on terror in a video statement released Friday, and he compared Pope Benedict XVI to the 11th-century pontiff who launched the First Crusade.

"Can't you be honest at least once in your life and admit that you are a deceitful liar who intentionally deceived your nation when you drove them to war in Iraq?" Osama bin Laden's deputy said, appearing in front of a standing lamp and a small, decorative cannon.

Al-Zawahri also criticized Bush for continuing to imprison al-Qaida leaders, including al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

Quake kills man, disrupts air traffic

A strong earthquake and an aftershock rattled Trinidad and parts of Venezuela on Friday, killing one man, delaying flights and prompting the evacuation of some buildings.

A magnitude-6.0 earthquake swayed buildings in Trinidad's capital, Port-of-Spain, and a 5.5-magnitude aftershock came several hours later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Police in the southern Trinidad town of Gasparillo blamed the aftershock in the death of a house painter who was thrown from the ladder he was on. No other deaths or serious injuries were reported.

Some schools and businesses ordered evacuations after the quake struck around midmorning. And flight arrivals and departures were delayed for two hours at Trinidad's international airport, officials said.

Group takes girl from Arab father

Members of a Jewish group this week snatched a 6-year-old girl who was born to a Jewish mother but lived with her Palestinian father in the West Bank.

The members of Yad L'achim, an organization that describes its aim as rescuing "Jewish souls," snatched the girl during a nighttime raid on a house in Tulkarem, in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli newspaper Maariv said.

Maariv said the Yad L'achim unit, armed with assault rifles, had forced the father and daughter into a van and driven off. The father was released in an olive grove outside Tulkarem and the child was taken to a secret location to meet her mother.

Compiled from The Associated Press and Reuters