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COSTA RICA-NICARAGUA BORDER DISPUTE REVIVED.

Article Excerpt
Disagreement about just where the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua lies has percolated to the top of the respective countries' international agendas again, and this time there is more at stake than the nationalities of a few landowners. The reignition of plans for a new interoceanic waterway that would dwarf the Panama Canal could make Nicaragua the richest country in the region, and Costa Rica could find itself shut out of the boon.

A canal of this type has been central to Nicaragua's emergence dreams for more than a century, surviving the actual bisection of the isthmus at Panama. In February 2004, Nicaraguans got ready for a new look at the project with the introduction of a law (Ley de Concesion del Canal Interoceanico de Nicaragua) whose purpose was to establish a commission to carefully consider who would build the enormous project, who could finance a project of this magnitude, and how to protect the country's sovereignty against a deal that could otherwise cede control of a "canal zone" to foreigners.

One of the protagonists of the legislative initiative, Deputy David Castillo,...

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