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By Alex Lennane
The Panama Canal story rumbles on. The latest news is that one member of the consortium working on the expansion, Italian building company Salini Impregilo, has waded in with a proposal that will keep work going – but would cost more than earlier bids. The consortium had threatened to stop work on January 20 unless it was paid $1.6bn for cost overruns. It then proposed putting up $100m if the canal authority found $400m for the funding shortfall. But the Italian company now appears keen to wrest control from its partners after it offered alternative solutions – but which could cost the authority $1bn.