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Comment by andreasklinger | Hacker News Reader

I am a bit confused by the article - because this is not mentioned at all - I am no history buff so happy to be corrected here:

But haven't there been wars to avoid that Nicaragua gets an own canal (afair even supported by the USA and later by the CIA. Eg their Civil War or before that the US occupation [1])

Back then mainly to avoid having such important routes in the hands of pro-communist states, later to keep their financial interest in Panama in check.

Wasn't the last state the the USA got the exclusive right to build such canal - basically just to allow nobody to do it.

How come that this isn't mentioned at all in the article?

(As said before all cited from vague history memory. Happy to get a correction/update on that.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ni...

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An amazing book covering the efforts to connect the two oceans is "The Path Between the Seas" by David McCullough.[0]

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Path_Between_the_Seas

They hint at US opposition in the article but they don't come out with all the history behind it...

"Some opponents of the canal worry that the financing will actually come from the Chinese government itself, which Richard Feinberg, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, describes as "the Chinese planting their flag right in the heart of the Western Hemisphere.""

NPR is a news outlet funded in part by the US government it isn't particularly surprising that they aren't going to delve into history that makes the US look bad.

Good to know. I always assumed that the NPR is one of the reputable media in the states.

I don't believe that's accurate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding

Perhaps you were thinking of Voice of America, or the way it used to be funded 30-40 years ago?

Yes, VOA is even worse. But I think the point stands that NPR has a history of close links to the US government.

Sure - and the Dutch have a "history" of slave-trading.

The question is the current reality, and is it affecting their content.

No. NPR derives about 5% of their funding from US, federal, state, and local governments. Source:

http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances

NPR certainly has its own biases in reporting, but it is not solely funded by the US government and it is not a US government mouthpiece.

Barely any of NPR's funding is from the US government:

"While NPR does not receive any direct federal funding, it does receive a small number of competitive grants from CPB and federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. This funding amounts to approximately 2% of NPR’s overall revenues."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR

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