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Ricaurte Vásquez Morales is a man obsessed with water. An app on his phone displays the fluctuating level of Lake Gatún, the artificial reservoir that is the centerpiece of the Panama Canal system. Mr. Vásquez Morales is the administrator of the Panama Canal, which is both the economic heart of his isthmus nation and a central artery for global trade. Last year, a drought dropped the lake to critical levels, prompting canal authorities to limit traffic. At the worst point, in December, only 22 ships a day were allowed to pass through the canal, down from the usual 36 to 38.

Persons: Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, ”, Vásquez Morales Organizations: Atlantic Locations: Gatún, Panama, Asia, East Coast, United, Central American

☆ Colombia Faces a New Problem: Too Much Cocaine
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-13 | by ( Genevieve Glatsky | Federico Rios | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For decades, one industry has sustained the small, remote Colombian village of Caño Cabra: cocaine. Later, they mix the leaves with gasoline and other chemicals to make chalky white bricks of coca paste. But two years ago, the villagers said, something alarming happened: The drug traffickers who buy the coca paste and turn it into cocaine stopped showing up. The same pattern was repeated again and again in communities across the country where coca is the only source of income. Colombia, the global nexus of the cocaine industry, where Pablo Escobar became the world’s best known criminal, and which still produces more of the drug than any other nation, is facing tectonic shifts as a result of domestic and global forces that are reshaping the drug industry.

Persons: Pablo Escobar Organizations: Food Locations: Colombian, Caño, Colombia

☆ A Bird-watchers Paradise, Opened Up by Colombia’s Peace Deal
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-25 | by ( Federico Rios | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Roughly 1,970 bird species live in Colombia, the largest number of any country in the world — with at least six new species discovered in the last decade, according to the Colombian Committee of Ornithological Registry. The country is also home to some 80 native species of birds found nowhere else on earth. With remote corners of the country now accessible, birders are looking forward to what they may find in formerly forbidden places.

Organizations: Colombian, of Ornithological Registry Locations: Colombia

They came from all over the world to this remote stretch of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. They all wanted to be taught by Beto Gomez, a professional kite surfer, in the spot where he first learned the sport. La Guajira Peninsula is ideal for kite surfing. In Cabo de la Vela, Mr. Gomez’s hometown, with nearly 1,000 residents and desert terrain, the windy season lasts nine months and the waves are flat. So for five days this year, amateur kite surfers — drawn by Mr. Gomez’s social media and competitions broadcast online — traveled here for his classes.

Persons: Beto Gomez, la Vela, Gomez’s, — Locations: India, Switzerland, Netherlands, Seattle, Guajira, la

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Organizations: The

☆ Sexual Assault of Migrants in Panama Rises to Level Rarely Seen Outside War
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-04 | by ( Julie Turkewitz | Federico Rios | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The girl, 8, from Venezuela, had slept fitfully the night before, wailing in her dreams, her mother said, about the men trying to kill her. Days earlier, the family had entered the Darién Gap, the jungle straddling Colombia and Panama that in the last three years has become one of the world’s busiest migrant highways. After climbing mountains and crisscrossing rivers in their quest to reach the United States, their group was accosted by a half-dozen men in ski masks, holding long guns and issuing threats. “Women, take off your clothes!” the assailants shouted, the mother said, before they probed each woman’s intimate parts looking for cash. Then the men turned to the girl, her mother said, ordering her to undress for a search, too.

Locations: Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, United States

☆ The ‘Luxury Route’ to the U.S. for African Migrants
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Annie Correal | Federico Rios | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As record numbers of people cross into the United States, the southern border is not the only place where the migration crisis is playing out. Nearly three thousand miles to the south, inside Colombia’s main international airport, hundreds of African migrants have been pouring in every day, paying traffickers roughly $10,000 for flight packages they hope will help them reach the United States. The surge of African migrants in the Bogotá airport, which began last year, is a vivid example of the impact of one of the largest global movements of people in decades and how it is shifting migration patterns. With some African countries confronting economic crisis and political upheaval, and Europe cracking down on immigration, many more Africans are making the far longer journey to the U.S.

Locations: United States, Bogotá, Europe

☆ Terrorized by Gangs, Ecuador Embraces the Hard-Line ‘Noboa Way’
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Annie Correal | Federico Rios | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since Ecuador’s president declared war on gangs last month, soldiers with assault rifles have flooded the streets of Guayaquil, a sprawling Pacific Coast city that has been an epicenter of the nation’s yearslong descent into violence. They pull men from buses and cars looking for drugs, weapons and gang tattoos, and patrol roads enforcing a nighttime curfew. Yet when people see soldiers pass, many clap or give them a thumbs-up. “We applaud the iron fist, we celebrate it,” said Guayaquil’s mayor, Aquiles Álvarez. “It has helped bring peace.”In early January, Guayaquil was hit by a wave of violence that could prove to be a turning point in the country’s long-running security crisis: Gangs attacked the city after the authorities moved to take charge of Ecuador’s prisons, which gangs largely controlled.

Persons: “, ”, Aquiles Organizations: Guayaquil’s Locations: Guayaquil, Pacific Coast, Ecuador

Map locates the Darién Gap at the border with Colombia and Panama. Also shown are the towns of Capurganá and Acandí on the northwest Colombian coast, and Necolí , a town on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Urabá. Caribbean Sea Gulf of Urabá PANAMA Panama City Capurganá Acandí Necoclí DARIÉN GAP Colombia Pacific Ocean Medellín 50 miles UNITED States 800 miles Atlantic Ocean Mexico Detail area costa rica VENEZuela Pacific Ocean Ecuador BRAZIL

Organizations: Urabá PANAMA, Urabá PANAMA Panama City, GAP, UNITED Locations: Colombia, Panama, Capurganá, Colombian, Urabá ., Urabá, Urabá PANAMA Panama, GAP Colombia, Mexico, VENEZuela, Ocean Ecuador BRAZIL

Every step through the jungle, there is money to be made. A guide on the treacherous route once you start walking: $170. A porter to carry your backpack over the muddy mountains: $100. Special, all-inclusive packages to make the perilous slog faster and more bearable, with tents, boots and other necessities: $500, or more. They are politicians, prominent businessmen and elected leaders, now sending thousands of migrants toward the United States in plain sight each day — and charging millions of dollars a month for the privilege.

Persons: Biden Organizations: Colombian Locations: United States, South America

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The death threats came as the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban marched across her country, she said. In the chaos, cell doors were flung open, freeing the rapists and abusers she had helped send to prison. But after saving so many women’s lives, she was suddenly trying to save her own. “They left us behind,” she said of the Americans. “Sometimes I think maybe God left all Afghans behind.”

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

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