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Panama published the Supreme Court ruling that annuls the concession granted to a Hong Kong-based company to operate two ports at the entrances to the Panama Canal. The decision, which appeared in the official gazette, makes the January 30 ruling final and not subject to appeal. Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings, has run the Balboa terminal on the Pacific side and the Cristobal terminal on the Atlantic side since 1997. The Supreme Court found the underlying laws, including the 1997 concession approved by Law 5 and its 2021 extension for another 25 years, unconstitutional. Judges ruled that the agreement gave disproportionate advantages to the company and harmed state interests, including through tax exemptions and the lack of a public tender for the renewal. The ruling takes effect immediately. The Panama Maritime Authority will now coordinate a transition to maintain uninterrupted operations at the facilities. President José Raúl Mulino directed the author...

Venezuela’s National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors.  But the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country — which could include opposition leaders like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been accused by the ruling party of calling for international intervention like the one that ousted former president Nicolas Maduro. The bill was signed by interim president Delcy Rodriguez, who pushed for the legislation under pressure from Washington, after she rose to power following Maduro’s capture during a US military raid on January 3. “One must know how to ask for forgiveness and one must also know how to receive forgiveness,” Rodriguez said at the Miraflores presidential palace in the capital Caracas, after signing the bill into law. In one of the first releases after the bill passed,...

More than 150 giant tortoises have been reintroduced to in Ecuador’s famed Galapagos archipelago where they disappeared more than a century ago, the environment ministry said Friday. Park rangers carried large crates containing the 158 tortoises on their backs, hiking seven kilometers (four miles) across volcanic terrain and hard-to-access areas before releasing them, the ministry said in a statement. “For the first time in over a century, Floreana is once again home to giant tortoises, a species that plays a strategic role as ecosystem engineers: seed dispersers, vegetation regulators, and promoters of natural habitat regeneration,” it said. The Galapagos Islands, a World Heritage Site, are situated some 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. They are famous for their unique flora and fauna and are where British scientist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution. An NGO, Island Conservation, said it was the first time that giant tortoises have walked on Floreana since t...

Postdoctoral and Research Positions at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in

Postdoctoral and Research Positions at McGill University in Canada. McGill University in Canada invites application for vacant Postdoctoral

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