Simon Gardner News

Hurricane Matthew's trail of destruction in Haiti stunned those emerging from the aftermath on Friday, with the number of dead soaring to 877, tens of thousands left homeless and outbreaks of cholera already claiming more lives. Information trickled in from remote areas that were cut off by the storm and it became clear that at least 175 people died in villages clustered among the hills and on the coast of Haiti's fertile western tip. Rural clinics overflowed with patients whose wounds including broken bones had not been treated since the storm hit on Tuesday. Food was scarce and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage. The storm razed homes to their foundations.

Hurricane Newton barreled up Mexico's Baja California peninsula tourist haven on Tuesday, dumping heavy rains as winds whipped, but there were no immediate reports of major damage. The category 1 hurricane hit the resort of Cabo San Lucas early on Tuesday morning, and then headed north, with the eye of the storm over the south of the peninsula. It is currently low season, and hotels popular with American tourists were not full, staff said. The storm lay around 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Cabo San Lucas, with maximum sustained winds blew at 90 mph (144 km), the U.S.

Mexico's Gulf port of Coatzacoalcos in the state of Veracruz was closed on Friday due to 82 kilometer-per-hour winds spurred by a cold front, port authorities said in a Tweet on Friday.   Almost all of Mexican oil giant Pemex's crude exports are shipped from the ports of Dos Bocas, Cayo Arcas and Coatzacoalcos, en route to Gulf coast refineries in the U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana.   A powerful storm barreled toward Washington, D.C., on Friday, threatening to bury parts of the Middle Atlantic region under as much as 30 inches (76 cm) of snow and bring the nation's capital to a virtual standstill.     (Reporting by Anahi Rama; Editing by Simon Gardner)

An accident on an offshore rig in the southern Gulf of Mexico has injured 10 people, local media reported on Tuesday, but state oil company Pemex had no immediate details on the incident, saying only that no platform had sunk.   Local newspaper Campeche Hoy reported that 10 workers have been injured on a platform with 101 workers aboard. It said one of the supports of the platform had collapsed and that it had partially sunk.     (Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Simon Gardner)

As it enters the final stretch of a massive expansion, the Panama Canal Authority is setting its sights on an even more ambitious project worth up to $17 billion that would allow it to handle the world's biggest ships. Workers are now installing giant, 22-story lock gates to accommodate larger "Post-Panamax" ships through the Canal, one of the world's busiest maritime routes. The project involves building a third set of locks on the Canal. It is being headed by Italy's Salini Impregilo  and Spain's Sacyr, and should open on April 1, 2016.

Mexico has approved the terms for five shallow water areas containing around 355 million barrels of oil equivalent as part of its Round One tender to open up the country's oil fields, the country's energy regulator said on Friday.   The whole of Round One covers areas including the Chicontepec basin and the Perdido area, as well as shallow and deep waters, and sees investment of up to $50.5 billion between 2015 and 2018, the energy regualtor said in November.     (Reporting by Adriana Barrera, Ana Isabel Martinez, Christine Murray and Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein; Editing by Simon Gardner)

Tropical storm Odile formed on Wednesday off Mexico's Pacific Coast and is due to strengthen overnight as it moves towards the famous beach resort of Acapulco, which was hit hard by storms and record flooding last year. On Wednesday morning, Odile was about 220 miles (350 km) south-south-west of the port of Lazaro Cardenas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The major cargo hub of Lazaro Cardenas remained open. Odile was moving at three miles per hour (5 km per hour) with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (65 kph), the NHC said. The storm is forecast to strengthen in the next 48 hours, though the center will remain offshore of Mexico's southwest cost through early Friday. (Reporting by Christine Murray; Editing by Simon Gardner and James Dalgleish)

The United States is set to slap anti-subsidy import duties on Mexican sugar after a preliminary decision expected to be formally annouced later on Tuesday, the president of Mexico's suger chamber said ahead of the ruling. The decision to slap duties on sugar imports from Mexico is backed by U.S. sugar industry complaints of unfair competition from subsidized sweeteners in the industry's first trade case in decades. But Juan Cortina, president of the Mexican chamber, gave no details on the size of the anti-subsidy duties. (Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Simon Gardner)

Mexico's Senate gave general approval on Monday to legislation laying out expanded powers for energy regulators, part of the fine print needed to implement a constitutional reform that overhauls the oil, gas and electricity sectors. Senators must still debate reservations to the regulatory legislation, which is likely to last into the night. The legislation forms part of the so-called secondary laws needed to flesh out the opening of the energy market, which is the centerpiece of the government's reform agenda. Once the reservations have been voted on in the Senate, the focus will move to the lower house of Congress, which is already debating the secondary laws passed by the upper chamber.

Panama's government will receive $2.4 billion less in revenue from its world famous canal over the next five years than it forecast nearly a decade ago, the country's finance minister said on Tuesday, citing changing cargo trends. Finance Minister Frank de Lima said less dynamic trade would also weigh on revenue, but played down the impact of delays to a multibillion expansion of the canal this year. The expansion work was interrupted earlier this year due to a disupte over cost overruns and later by a national strike. De Lima added that Panama's public sector fiscal deficit was around 1.2 percent of gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year, broadly in line with the same period last year.

Construction workers in Panama ended a nationwide strike on Thursday, allowing the expansion of its famous canal to resume after a delay of more than two weeks. "Work has partially resumed today ... it is estimated staff as a whole will gradually return in the coming days," Grupo Unidos por el Canal, the consortium expanding the waterway, said in a statement. The consortium, led by Spain's Sacyr and Italy's Salini Impreglio, declined to say whether the December 2015 target date for its completion would be pushed back.