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The Darién Gap is a geographic region in the Isthmus of Darien or Isthmus of Panama connecting the North and South American continents within Central America, consisting of a large watershed, forest, and mountains in Panama’s Darién Province and the northern portion of Colombia’s Chocó Department. Wikipedia
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The Darién Gap is an imposing obstacle on one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes. The remote, roadless crossing on the border between Colombia and Panama consists of more than sixty miles of dense rain forest, steep mountains, and vast swamps.
https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-risk-death-journey-us
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By Laura Gottesdiener and Daina Beth Solomon
July 23, 20235:49 AM GMT+8 Updated 5 hours ago
MEXICO CITY, July 22 (Reuters) – Deep in the Panamanian jungle, Venezuelan migrant Franca Ramirez was scrambling to reach higher ground as a rushing river broke its banks, he said, when something caught his eye: a group of young men, snapping photos of the landscape.
The former police officer, who says he fled imprisonment and torture in Venezuela, was surprised.
They were more than a day’s journey into the Darien Gap. The notorious stretch of jungle in Panama has become a treacherous part of the journey for tens of thousands of people trekking across the Americas, hoping ultimately to reach the United States.
“I asked if they were migrants,” Ramirez said last month, after making it to Mexico. “They said no, that they were creating content and sightseeing in the jungle.”
The encounter was a rare moment of two different worlds colliding in one of the planet’s wildest places.
The jungle has long attracted hard-core adventurers. It is known as the ‘gap’ on Panama’s Darien isthmus because it is the only missing section, running about 60 miles, on the Pan-American highway that stretches from Alaska to Argentina.
For decades, only the most intrepid of travelers ventured into this once impenetrable forest – dodging guerrillas and bandits; hunting for rare orchids or the great green macaw; and seeking the thrill of being one of the few brave enough to enter the wilderness where the road ends.
As adventure tourism has gained popularity worldwide – from climbing Mount Everest to riding a submarine to view the Titanic – tour agencies have also organized group excursions to the remote jungle.
“Tourism has been on the slow burner for decades in the Darien,” said longtime Panamanian tour guide Rick Morales. “The jungle is special because it’s powerful and humbling.”
In recent years, parts of this jungle have become the site of humanitarian catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of migrants from across the world, including as far as Afghanistan, and parts of Africa, cross the perilous terrain en route to the U.S. border.
Blocked by visa restrictions from entering countries closer to the United States, a quarter of a million people traversed the lawless region last year.
At least 137 migrants died or went missing, including at least 13 minors, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
In addition to its lack of infrastructure, the Darien poses security challenges: the migrant routes in particular are controlled by criminal groups.
“The real number of migrants who have died and disappeared in the jungle is much, much higher,” the IOM said in a statement to Reuters.
Read the rest here:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/migrants-darien-gap-is-hell-adventure-tourists-its-magnet-2023-07-22/
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Give us our wages!
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Chimaman picked on gweilo and was not only given a beating but forced to leave the train. Kicked out.
Dead man can collect his money? Hmm.
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Road rage.
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Somewhere in China.
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What is the Stanford University president’s research misconduct?
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced Wednesday that he is resigning as head of the university after an independent panel determined that he failed on multiple occasions to correct errors in his published research and oversaw labs with a disquieting tendency to produce manipulated data and sloppy science.
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Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne OC FRS FRSC FMedSci is a Canadian-American neuroscientist who is the 11th president of Stanford University. Previously, he was a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and then president of Rockefeller University in New York City. Wikipedia
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Jul 20, 2023
The president of Stanford University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, said Wednesday he would resign, citing an independent review that cleared him of research misconduct but found ‘serious flaws’ in five scientific papers on subjects such as brain development in which he was the principal author.
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Jul 21, 2023
Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign next month over the questionable handling of flawed scientific research. The investigation began last year after the campus newspaper “The Stanford Daily” investigated claims of research misconduct in past academic papers. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Theo Baker, the student journalist who first published the allegations.
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Jul 20, 2023 #stanford#abc7news#investigation
An 18-year-old student journalist, Theo Baker first broke the story of Stanford president’s possible research misconduct. He joined ABC7 to talk about his findings, and what it means to hold the university and its president accountable.
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weehingthong 